In A Dry Season

NINE

Annie parked in one of the hilly streets around St. Mary’s, at the back of the castle, and went looking for Alice Poole’s cottage. The sky was bright blue, with only a few wisps of white cloud borne on the sea breeze. Pity she had to work. She could have brought her bucket and spade. As a child she had spent hours amusing herself on the beach. Some of her only memories of her mother took place on the beach in St. Ives: building sand castles together, burying one another in the sand so that only a head showed, or maybe a head and feet, running into the big waves and getting knocked over. In Annie’s memory, her mother was a bright, mercurial figure, mischievous, devil-may-care, always laughing. Though her father, on the surface, was easygoing, bright, funny and caring, there was a darkness in his art that Annie felt excluded her; she didn’t know where it came from or how he reconciled it with the rest of his life. Did he suffer terribly in private and simply put on a public face, even for his own daughter? She hardly knew him at all.

She found the cottage easily enough, according to directions she had received over the telephone. It was in a high, quiet part of town, away from the pubs and shopping centers crowded with holidaymakers from Leeds and Bradford. From the garden she could see a wedge of the North Sea far below, beyond Marine Drive, steely gray-blue today, dotted with small boats. Flocks of gulls gathered, squealing, above a shoal of fish.

The woman who answered the door was tall, with thin, wispy hair like candy floss. She was wearing a long, loose purple dress with gold embroidery around the neck, hem and sleeves, and gold earrings of linked hoops that dangled almost as far as her shoulders. It reminded Annie of the sort of thing hippies used to wear. A pair of black horn-rimmed glasses hung on a chain around her neck.

“Come in, love.” She led the way into a bright, cluttered room. Dust motes spun in the rays of sunlight that lanced through the panes of the mullioned window. “Can I offer you anything?” she asked, having settled Annie in an armchair so soft and deep she wondered how she’d ever get out of it. “Only, I usually have elevenses around this time. Coffee and a Kit Kat. Instant coffee, mind you.”

Annie smiled. “That’ll be fine; thanks, Mrs. Poole.”

“Alice. Call me Alice. And why don’t you have a look through this while I see to things in the kitchen. Your call got me thinking about the old days and I realized I hadn’t had it out in years.”

She handed Annie a thick leather-bound photograph album and headed for the kitchen. Most of the deckle-edged black-and-white photographs were family groups, what Annie took to be Alice and her parents, aunts, brothers and sisters, but several were village scenes: women stopping to chat in the street, baskets over their arms, scarves knotted on their heads; children fishing from the riverbanks. There were also a couple of pictures of the church, which was smaller and prettier than she had imagined from Stanhope’s painting, with a squat, square tower, and of the dark, brooding flax mill, like a skull perched on its promontory.

Alice Poole came back holding a mug of coffee in each hand and a Kit Kat, still in its wrapper, between her teeth. When she had freed her hands, she took the chocolate bar from her mouth and put it on a small coffee table beside her chair. “A little indulgence of mine,” she said. “Would you like one? I should have asked.”

“No,” said Annie. “No, that’s fine.” She accepted her coffee. It was milky and sweet, just the way she liked it.

“What do you think of the photos?”

“Very interesting.”

“You’ve come about poor Gloria, then?”

“You’ve heard?”

“Oh, yes. Your boss was on telly last night. I don’t see very well, but there’s nothing wrong with my ears. I don’t watch a lot of television, but not much local news slips by me. Especially something like that. How horrible. Have you got any suspects yet?”

“Not really,” said Annie. “We’re still trying to find out as much as we can about Gloria. It’s very difficult, what with it all being so long ago.”

“You don’t say. I was seventy-five last birthday. Can you believe it?”

“Quite honestly, Mrs. – sorry, Alice – I can’t.” She really did seem remarkably spry for a woman of that age. Apart from a few liver spots on her hands and wrinkles on her face, the only real indication of the ravages of age was her sparse and lifeless hair, which Annie was now coming to believe had probably fallen victim to chemotherapy and not yet grown back properly.

“Look,” Alice pointed out, “this is Gloria.” She turned to a photograph of four girls standing in front of a Jeep and pointed to the petite blonde with the long curls, the narrow waist and the provocative smile. Without a doubt it was the same girl from Stanhope’s painting. Underneath, in tiny white letters, was written “July 1944.” “This one’s Gwen, her sister-in-law.” Gwen was the tallest of them all. She wasn’t smiling and had half turned away from the camera, as if shy about her looks. “And this one here is Cynthia Garmen. The Four Musketeers, we were. Oh, that one’s me.” Alice had been a svelte blonde, by the look of her. Also in the photograph, standing in the Jeep behind the girls, were four young men in uniform.

“Who are they?” Annie asked.

“Americans. That one’s Charlie, and that’s Brad. We saw quite a lot of them. I don’t remember names of the other two. They just happened to be there.”

“I’d like to make a copy of that photo, if you don’t mind. We’ll send it back to you.”

“Not at all.” Alice detached the photograph from its corners. “Please take care of it, though.”

“I promise.” Annie slipped it in her briefcase. “You knew Gloria well?” she went on.

“Quite well. She married Matthew Shackleton, as you probably know, and while he was away at war, Gloria and Gwen, Matthew’s sister, became inseparable. But quite often the gang of us would do something together. Anyway, I wouldn’t say we were the best of friends, but I did know her. And I liked her.”

“What was she like?”

“Gloria?” Alice unwrapped her Kit Kat and took a bite. When she had swallowed it, she said, “Well, I’d say she was a good sort. Cheerful. Fun to be with. Kind. Generous. She’d give you the shirt off her back. Or make one for you.”

“Pardon?”

“Magic fingers. Gloria was such an expert sewer you could give her rags and she’d turn out a ball gown. Well, I might be exaggerating a little, but I’m sure you get my point. It was a skill in much demand back then, I can tell you. There wasn’t a heck of a lot in the shops, and your clothing coupons didn’t go very far.”

“She worked at Top Hill Farm, didn’t she?”

“Yes. For Kilnsey. The lecherous old sod.”

“Do you think there was anything funny going on up there between him and Gloria?”

Alice laughed. “Kilnsey and Gloria? In his wildest fantasies, maybe. Nellie, his wife, would have had his guts for garters if he’d so much as looked twice at another woman. And Gloria… well, she might have been generous in some ways, but she wasn’t that generous. Old Kilnsey? No. You’re barking up the wrong tree there, love. He was one of them serious religious types that always look like perverts to me. Probably need more religion than the rest of us just to keep their unnatural urges down.”

Annie made a note of the name. In her experience, that repressed type was more likely to lose control and kill than most. “What kind of things did you do together?”

“The usual. Gloria was impulsive. She’d suggest a spur-of-the-moment picnic on Harksmere bank. Or a film at the Lyceum in Harkside. It’s been converted to the KwikSave last time I saw it, but back then it was a popular place for lads and lasses to meet. Or walking in the fields at night during the blackout. And swimming.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Believe it or not, dearie, we once went swimming without costumes in Harksmere after dark. What a time we had of it! That was Gloria’s idea, too. Spontaneous. She didn’t like everything all planned out for her, but she always liked to have something to do or to look forward to doing.”

“Did she tell you anything about her past?”

“She never spoke much about that at all. From what little I could gather, it must have been very painful for her, so I just thought if she doesn’t want to talk about it, then that’s all right with me. All she said was that she lost her family in the Blitz. She did sometimes seem very distracted. She had deep, quiet, sad moods that would just come on her out of nowhere, in the middle of a picnic, at a dance, whatever. But not often.”

“How did she fit into village life?”

“Well,” said Alice, “I suppose that depends on your point of view. At first she wasn’t around very much. Land girls worked very long hours. After she’d married Matthew and moved to Bridge Cottage we saw a bit more of her.”

“Did she have any enemies? Anyone who had reason to dislike her?”

“Quite a few people disapproved of her. Jealous, if you ask me. Gloria didn’t care what people thought of her. She went in the pubs by herself, and she smoked in the street. I know that’s nothing now, love, the street’s the only place you can smoke in some places, but back then it was… well, to some people it meant you were nigh on being a prostitute. People had some funny ideas back then.” She shook her head slowly. “They call them the good old days, but I’m not so sure. There was a lot of hypocrisy and intolerance. Snobbery, too. And Gloria was far too cheeky and flighty for some people.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Betty Goodall could never take to her. Betty always was a bit of a snob, and a bit too High Church, too, if you ask me, but she’s a good soul underneath it all, don’t get me wrong. She has a good heart. She was always just a bit too quick with her moral judgments. I think she fancied Matthew Shackleton for herself, and I think it rather put her nose out of joint, Matthew marrying Gloria. Like I said, Gloria was free and easy in her nature, besides being a real ‘stunna,’ as they say in the papers these days. I think a lot of women were just plain jealous of her.”

Annie smiled. From this description of Alice’s, she could imagine what a time Banks would be having up in Edinburgh. “Betty Goodall wasn’t in the photograph,” she remarked.

“No. Betty and William had gone by then. He was some sort of dogsbody with the Home Guard, and they kept sending him from council to council. Not fit for real war work, apparently, and no one could quite figure out what to do with him.”

“Do you know if Gloria actually did anything to merit such disapproval, or was it simply because of her nature, her personality?”

“Oh dear. You want me to tell tales out of school?”

Annie laughed. “Not if you don’t want to. But it is a long time ago, and it might help us find her killer.”

“Oh, I know, love. I know.” Alice waved her hand. “Just let me get my cigarettes. I usually have one after my elevenses, one after lunch and one after tea. And perhaps one with a nightcap before bed. But never more than five a day.” She got up and brought her purse over, fiddled for a packet of Dunhill and lit one with a slim gold lighter. “Now then, dearie, where was I?”

“I wanted to know if Gloria had affairs, slept around.”

“Certainly no more than a lot of others did then, ones you’d generally consider ‘nice’ girls. But people made a lot of assumptions about Gloria just because she was a free-thinking woman and spoke her mind. She definitely was a bit of a flirt, there’s no denying that. But that doesn’t mean anything, does it? It’s just a bit of fun.”

“Depends on who you flirt with.”

“I suppose so. Anyway, I may have been naive, but I think there was more smoke than fire. Most of the time.”

“What did you think of Matthew?”

“Not very much, to tell you the truth. There was always something just a bit too smarmy and cocky about him for my taste. Oh, he was nice enough on the outside, handsome and charming, and one had to feel sorry for what happened to him later.”

“What happened?”

“Killed by the Japanese. Over in Burma. Anyway, Matthew was a big talker. I also heard he got more than one lass in the family way before Gloria came on the scene, while he was a student in Leeds. So he was no saint, wasn’t Matthew Shackleton, though to hear some speak you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Some folk said she only married him because he was a bright, handsome lad with a great future ahead of him – which seems to me like a very good reason to marry someone. I’m sure he made her all kinds of promises about how wonderful their future would be. He filled her head full of dreams of all the things he would build and all the far-off exotic lands they’d visit and all that rubbish. Underneath it all, Gloria was a romantic. I think she fell in love with this new world Matthew painted for her. All the bridges and cathedrals he was going to build, and her by his side. She was impatient for it all.”

“How did Gloria take his death?”

“She was heartbroken. Devastated. I was worried about her and I mentioned it to Gwen once or twice. Gwen said she’d be okay in a while, but then Gwen didn’t look too good herself, either. Very close, they were, her and Matthew. Anyway, when Gloria started to go out again, she was more devil-may-care, you know, the way some people get when they feel they’ve nothing left to lose. A lot of people were like that then.” She paused and took another drag on her cigarette, then fiddled with the chain around her neck.

“So Gloria started going out again, to dances and things?”

“Yes, a few months later.”

“When did she form her relationship with Michael Stanhope, the artist?”

“Oh, he’d always been around. He was at their wedding. Gloria spent a lot of time with him. Used to drink with him in the Shoulder of Mutton. That’s another reason those religious types disapproved of her.”

“Did you know Stanhope?”

“Just to say hello to. Michael Stanhope. I haven’t thought of him in years. He was an eccentric. Always wearing that floppy hat of his. And the cane. Very affected. There’s was no mistaking that he was an Artist, if you know what I mean. I can’t say I had much time for him, myself, but I think he was harmless enough. Anyway, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with Gloria. It was all just a show.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was a homosexual, dearie. Queer as a three-pound note, as we used to say. Anyway, as you probably know, it was illegal back then.”

“I see. Would it surprise you to know that a painting of Gloria by Michael Stanhope did show up?” Annie asked.

“It did?”

“Yes. A nude. It’s in Leeds Art Gallery.”

Alice put her hand to her mouth and laughed. “Well, bless my soul. It is really? A nude? Of Gloria? Still, I can’t say it really surprises me. Gloria was never really shy about her body. I told you about the swimming party, didn’t I? I’m not much of a one for art galleries, but I must go see it next time I’m in Leeds.”

“What was their relationship?”

“I think they genuinely liked one another. They were friends. Both of them were outsiders, free-thinkers. On some strange level, they understood one another. And I think she genuinely liked him and respected him as a painter. Not that she was an intellectual or anything, but she responded to his work. It touched her in some way.”

Annie could understand that. Over the years, her father had had many female friends who genuinely admired his art. No doubt he had also slept with some of them, but then Ray certainly wasn’t homosexual, and it didn’t mean the women hadn’t respected him as a painter, too. “Was she involved with anyone in particular after her husband’s death?” she asked.

“She had a bit of a fling with a Yank from Rowan Woods called Billy Joe something or other. I never did like him. Wouldn’t trust him and those bedroom eyes of his as far as I could throw him. She got a bit of a reputation for hanging around with American airmen, disappearing into the woods late at night, that sort of thing.” Alice winked. “Not that she was the only one.”

“Do you think there was anything in it?”

“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. I think she was lonely. And she was also lovely. We met a lot of them, Betty, Cynthia, Gloria, Gwen and me. We’d go to dances, mostly at the base or in Harkside. There were a few in Hobb’s End, at the church, but they were rather tame affairs. Betty Goodall tended to take charge, and I’m sure you can imagine there wasn’t much fun to be had. Betty was a keen dancer – oh, did she love to dance! – but it was all waltzes and fox-trots, old-fashioned stuff. No jitterbugging. She was good, though. Her and Billy went in for ballroom dancing in a serious way after the war. Won trophies and all. Where was I?”

“Dances. Americans.”

“Oh, yes. Well, let’s face it, most of the local lads were at war, except those unfit for service or in reserved occupations. And they just hung out in the Shoulder of Mutton and complained all the time. The Americans were different. They talked differently, spoke about places we’d only dreamed of or seen at the pictures. They were exotic. Exciting. They also had all sorts of things we hadn’t been able to get because of rationing. You know – nylons, cigarettes and that stuff. We were friendly with PX, which was the nickname of the chap who ran their stores, sort of quartermaster, I suppose, and he used to get us all sorts of stuff. Gloria in particular. She was definitely his favorite. But she was everyone’s favorite. Gloria was like a beautiful, exotic butterfly; she attracted every man who met her. There was something special about her. She sparkled and glowed. She radiated it.”

“This PX, what was his real name?”

“Sorry, love, I can’t remember. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I ever knew. We always just called him PX.”

“Was there anyone else in particular?”

“After Billy Joe, she developed a real soft spot for Brad, but after what happened to Matthew, she didn’t want anything serious.”

“What about this Brad? What did he want?”

“He was a nice lad. No doubt about it, he was head over heels.”

“Do you remember his second name?”

“Sorry, love.”

“That’s all right,” said Annie. “How long did they go out together?”

“There you’ve got me. The best part of 1944, I think. At least they were still seeing each other when I left at Christmas.”

“Christmas 1944?”

“Yes.” She beamed. “Best Christmas of my life. My Eric got wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, silly bugger. Nothing serious, but it got him an early discharge and he was home for Christmas. The doctor recommended a bit of sea air, so we came here, fell in love with the place and ended up staying. We left Hobb’s End on Boxing Day 1944.”

“Where’s Eric now?”

“Oh, he’s out and about. Likes to go for his constitutional along the prom every morning, then he stops by the pub and plays dominoes with his mates.”

“Did Gloria ever mention anything about having a baby?”

Alice looked puzzled. “No, not to me. And I never saw any evidence of children. I’m not even sure she liked them. Wait a minute, though…”

“What?”

“It was something I noticed when I was crossing the fairy bridge once. Something odd. A bloke turned up – a bloke in a soldier’s uniform – with a little lad in tow, couldn’t have been more than about six or seven, holding his hand. I’d never seen them before. They went in to see Gloria, talked for a while, then they left. I heard voices raised.”

“When was this?”

“Sorry, love, I can’t remember. It was after Matthew had gone, though. I do know that.”

“And that’s all that happened?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear what was said?”

“No.”

“Who was he, do you know?”

“Sorry, dearie, I’ve no idea.”

“Did you ever ask Gloria about him?”

“Yes. She went all quiet on me. She did that sometimes. All she would say was that it was relations from down south. I thought maybe it was her brother and nephew or something. You don’t think…?”

“I don’t know,” said Annie. “Did they ever come back, the man and the child?”

“Not that I ever heard of.”

“And what happened to Gwen and Gloria after you’d left?”

“I don’t know. I sent Gloria a postcard, must have been March or April of 1945, telling her that Eric was better now and we were going to stay in Scarborough, and that she should come and visit us.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. She never replied.”

“Didn’t you think that odd?”

“Yes, I did, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Life goes on. I wrote again a few months later and still got no reply. After that, I gave up. You lose touch with a lot of people over the course of your life, I’ve found. It was the same with Gwen. I wouldn’t say we were really close – she was a bit too quiet and bookish for that – but we did have some good times together. After we moved here, though, I never saw or heard of her again.”

“Did you ever go back to Hobb’s End?”

“No reason to. After the war, it was like a new life – except for the same old rationing. You just got on with it and tried not to dwell on the past. I’m sorry I never saw Gloria again – she was a breath of fresh air – but, as I said, when you get to my age you realize people lose touch all the time.”

Annie had found that true enough, even in her own short life. Schoolfriends, university colleagues, lovers, work partners, there were so many people she had completely lost touch with. They could be dead for all she knew. Like Rob.

She let the silence stretch for a few moments, then shifted in her armchair. “Well, Alice,” she said, “I think that’s all for now. I’ll make sure I get the photograph back to you within a couple of days. If I think of anything else, I’ll get in touch with you.” She managed to get herself out of the deep, comfortable chair by pushing her hands down hard on the arms.

“Please do.” Alice got to her feet. “It’s been a great pleasure to me, though I can’t see as it’s done you much good, me rabbiting on like this about the past.”

“You’ve been very helpful.”

“Well, it’s nice of you to say so, dearie. I must admit, I’ve enjoyed having a good chin-wag. It’s been years since I thought about all that stuff. Hobb’s End. Gloria. Gwen. Matthew. The war. I hope you find out who did this to her. Even if he’s dead, I’d like to know he died as slow and painful a death as he deserved.”

We left the café saddened and dazed, with hours to kill before our train home. To tell the truth, I don’t think either of us at that time had much hope that Matthew was still alive. I asked Gloria if she would take me to where she used to live, but she refused. That would have been simply too much for her to bear, she said, and I felt cruel for asking.

It stopped raining and the sun was trying to pierce its way through the ragged clouds. We walked through St. James’s Park, past the barrage-balloon station and the antiaircraft guns, toward Oxford Street. Though our hearts weren’t in it, we did some shopping. At least it took our minds off Matthew for a short while. On Charing Cross Road, I bought Graham Greene’s new “entertainment,” The Ministry of Fear, as well as the last two issues of Penguin New Writing, the latest Horizon and some secondhand World’s Classics copies of Trollope and Dickens for the lending library.

Gloria bought a black-red-and-white-checked Dorville dress at John Lewis’s. It cost her three pounds fifteen shillings and eleven coupons. She persuaded me into buying a Utility design by Norman Hartnell in a shop nearby for only three pounds and nine coupons.

After fish and chips at a British Restaurant, we went to the Carlton on Haymarket to see Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls. It was one of the first films I ever saw in Technicolor, color films not having made a real impact in Harkside by then. I hadn’t read the Hemingway novel, so I couldn’t judge how faithful the film version was.

It was getting dark when we walked out onto Haymarket, and Gloria suggested we catch the underground back to King’s Cross.

It is hard to describe the London blackout, especially on a broad, busy street like Haymarket. As it is never fully silent anywhere, so it is never fully dark, either. You can see the sharp edges and cornices of the buildings etched against the night sky in varying shades of darkness. If the half-moon slips out from behind the clouds, everything shimmers in its pale light for a few moments and then disappears again.

What I noticed most of all was the noise, the way blind people develop a more acute sense of hearing. Distant shouts and whistles, engines, laughter and singing from a public house, perhaps a dog howling in the distance or a cat meowing down a ginnel – all these sounds seem to carry farther and echo longer in the darkness of the blackout. They all sound more sinister, too.

“Unnatural” is the word that comes to mind. But what could be more natural than darkness? Perhaps it is a matter of context. In the city, especially such a sprawling, busy city as London, darkness is unnatural.

In Piccadilly Circus, I could just make out the statue of Eros buttressed by sandbags. There was music coming from somewhere, too, a tune I later learned was Glenn Miller’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.” There were soldiers all over the place, many of them drunk, and on more than one occasion men approached us and grabbed us or offered us money for sexual favors.

At one point, I heard some sounds down an alley and could just make out the silhouettes of a man grunting as he thrust himself toward a woman, her back against a wall. It made me think of that icy Christmas of 1941, when I had seen Gloria and the Canadian airman, Mark, in exactly the same position.

The underground platforms, where people came to shelter during the air raids, were crowded, and I fancied I could smell sweat, unwashed clothes and urine mixed in with the sooty smell the trains made. Everything was grimy and run-down. The train soon came and we had to stand all the way. No one stood up to offer us seats.

I was glad our train for home left on time, and though I knew I would dream about the trip for weeks to come, I can’t say I was sorry when, after a boring and uneventful journey of some seven hours, we caught the morning train from Leeds to Harrogate, thence to hook up with our little branch line back to Hobb’s End.

It was after seven o’clock by the time Banks and Annie met up that evening. On his way back from Edinburgh, Banks got stuck in the mid-afternoon traffic around Newcastle, then he had to call in at the station to see if there had been any developments during his absence.

He had found about twenty telephone messages waiting for him in response to Monday evening’s television news appearance. He spent an hour or so returning calls, but all he found out was that someone thought the Shackletons had moved to Leeds after VE day, and someone else remembered drinking with Matthew Shackleton in Hobb’s End near the end of the war. Most people, though, simply wanted to relive wartime memories and had no useful information whatsoever.

There was also a message from John Webb, who said he had cleaned up the button Adam Kelly had taken from the skeleton. It was made of brass, probably, about half an inch in diameter, and had a raised pattern on the front, possibly reminiscent of wings. The expert who had examined it suggested it might be some sort of bird. Clearly, he added, given the time period under consideration, the armed forces came to mind, perhaps the RAF.

When Banks had finished at the station, he phoned Annie and asked if she would mind coming up to Gratly, as he had been on the road most of the day. She said she didn’t mind at all. Then he went home, took a long shower and tidied the place up. It didn’t take long. Next he tried phoning Brian in Wimbledon again. Still no luck. What the hell was he supposed to do? It was nearly a week since their argument. He could go down there, he supposed, but not until the case was over. Anyway, he decided to try again the next day.

He thought of cooking something for Annie, then decided against it. Learning to cook might be his next project after fixing up the cottage, but he still had a long way to go. Besides, there was nothing in the fridge except a couple of cans of lager, half a tomato and a piece of moldy Cheddar. He would take her out to the Dog and Gun in Helmthorpe for dinner and hope to God there was something vegetarian on the menu.

When Annie arrived, she first showed him the photograph of Gloria and her friends with the American airmen. Then, after a lightning tour of the house, which she described as “very bijou,” she agreed it was a perfect evening for a stroll. They left their cars parked in Banks’s gravel laneway and headed for Helmthorpe in the hazy evening light, sharing the information each had learned that day as they walked.

Sheep grazed on the lynchets that descended toward the dried-up beck. Some of them had even managed to get through the gate at the back of the churchyard, where they grazed among the lichen-dappled tombstones.

“Have time for a walk on the prom in Scarborough?” Banks asked.

“Of course. Had to eat, didn’t I? I can tell you, though, there’s not much choice for a vegetarian in Scarborough. I ended up buying some chips – cooked in vegetable oil, or so the woman said – and sat on a bench by the harbor to eat them, watching a man painting his fishing boat. He tried to chat me up.”

“Oh?”

“He didn’t get very far. I’m used to being chatted up by fishermen. It takes more than heroic tales of landing haddock or halibut to get into my knickers, I can tell you.”

Banks laughed. “Saint Ives?”

“Right. Heard it all before. Got the T-shirt. Anyway, after that I went for a quick look at Anne Brontë’s grave, then I came back to the station to write up the interview.”

“Do you like Anne Brontë’s books?”

“I haven’t read any. It’s just the sort of thing you do, isn’t it, when you’re nearby. Go and see where famous people are buried. I saw The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on TV. It’s all right if you like that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Governesses, bodices, tight corsets, all that repressed Victorian sexuality.”

“And you don’t?”

Annie cocked her head. “I didn’t say that.”

It was early September now, and the nights were drawing in fast. When they got to the High Street, the sun was already low in the west, a red ball glowing like an ember through the gathering haze, and the shadows were lengthening. Sounds of laughter and music came from the open pub doors. Tourists, tired after the day out and a big meal, were getting in their cars and driving back to their cities.

Annie and Banks walked through the crowded bar and managed to find a table in the beer garden out back. Between the trees, the dying sunlight streaked the river shallows blood-orange and crimson. Annie sat down while Banks went to buy a couple of pints and order their food. Luckily, Annie said she wasn’t very hungry and a cheese-and-pickle sandwich would do her fine. He was just in time; they were about to stop serving.

“It’s nice out here,” Annie said when he came back with the drinks. “Thanks.”

“Cheers.” Banks took a sip. Though there were a few other people sitting outside, conversations seemed hushed. “So who have we got now, then?” he asked. “Now we’ve discovered that Matthew was killed before Gloria was?”

Annie leaned back, stretched out her long legs and set them on the third white plastic chair at the table. “What about the boyfriend?” she suggested. “The American.”

“Brad? As her killer? Why?”

“Why not? Or one of his pals. She could have stirred them up, set them against one another. I get the impression that Gloria was the kind of woman who exerted an enormous power over men. Brad could have been hoping for more than he got. Alice said she thought he was more keen on Gloria than she was on him. Maybe she tried to shake him loose and he wouldn’t go. Rowan Woods wasn’t far away. It would have been easy for him to sneak in and out the back way, I should think.”

“We definitely need to find out more about the Americans in Hobb’s End,” said Banks.

“How do we go about that?”

“You can start with the American Embassy. They might be able to point you in the right direction.”

“I notice the subtle pronoun usage there: ‘you.’ I don’t suppose you’re planning on spending a day on the phone?”

Banks laughed. “Rank has its privileges. Besides, you’re so good at it.”

Annie pulled a face and flicked some beer at him.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he added, “I’ll be trying to get more information on Matthew Shackleton from our own military authorities.”

Their food arrived, and they both ate in silence for a while. The river looked like an oil slick now. There were no clouds, but the air had turned more humid during the day, and the setting sun turned the western sky scarlet and purple. Clusters of small buzzing insects, gnats or midges, hovered over the still, shallow water.

“What about Michael Stanhope?” Banks suggested.

“What possible motive could he have? They were friends.”

“Inordinate desire? Drink. They can push a person beyond the normal limits, and it’s likely Stanhope was a bit beyond them anyway to start with. If he was powerfully attracted to Gloria, if she wouldn’t have anything to do with him sexually, then painting her in the nude might have inflamed him beyond all reason. Let’s admit it, a man like Stanhope can’t have been entirely dispassionate all the time he had a naked Gloria Shackleton in his studio.”

Annie raised her eyebrows. “Can’t he? Perhaps you mean you couldn’t be. You’d be surprised how dispassionate an artist can be. Anyway, Alice Poole said she was sure they weren’t lovers, and I believe her. The impression I get is that a lot of villagers – like the one you talked to – projected negative feelings onto Gloria. I think she was basically a decent woman and a devoted wife, but her good looks and her free and easy attitude gave her no end of problems, especially with men. Eventually someone went over the top.”

“You sound as if you know what you’re talking about.”

Annie turned away and stared at the dark river. It had only been a teasing, offhand remark, but Banks felt as if he had trespassed on some private reserve, set her hackles up. They still had to be careful with one another, he realized. A couple of nights of passionate abandon and a sense of having something in common as mutual outsiders weren’t enough to map the route through the emotional minefields that lay between them. Tread carefully, he warned himself.

After a pause, Annie went on, “I think Gloria was one of the few people in Hobb’s End who understood Michael Stanhope, who took him seriously. Besides, Alice also said he was gay.”

“She couldn’t know that for certain. Or he could have been bisexual.”

“I think you’re pushing it a bit, that’s all.”

“You’re probably right. Anyway, there’s one obvious flaw with the Stanhope theory.”

“There is?”

Banks shoved his empty plate aside. “Where do you think Gloria was killed?” he asked.

“In, or very close to, Bridge Cottage. I thought we’d already agreed on that because of where she was buried. By the way” – Annie consulted her notebook – “I forgot to tell you before, but the blackout ended officially on the seventeenth of September, 1944. Not that it matters now we know Gloria was still alive that Christmas.”

“Every little bit helps.”

“Anyway, what’s your point?”

“Most of the time Gloria visited Stanhope at his studio. That would certainly have been the case if he was painting her that autumn. If anything happened between them, it would be more likely to have happened there, that’s all. That’s where she was naked in front of him. If he killed her, I don’t think he would have risked carrying the body all the way back to Bridge Cottage. He would have found some other way of disposing of her, somewhere closer.”

“Unless they were having an affair, as you suggest. In which case he might well have visited her at her own home.”

“Would she risk that, with Gwen so close by?”

“Possibly. Gloria certainly sounds unconventional and unpredictable, from everything I’ve heard. Just going to his studio must have been scandalous enough, given his reputation in the village.”

“Good point. Elizabeth Goodall certainly seemed to think their relationship was a scandal. Another drink?”

“Better not,” Annie said, placing her hand over her glass. “One’s my limit when I’m driving.”

Banks paused a moment, his voice lost somewhere deep in his chest. “You don’t have to drive home,” he said finally, sure he was croaking.

Annie smiled and put her hand on his arm. Her touch set his pulse going faster. “No, but I think I should, with it being a weeknight and all. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Besides, we agreed, didn’t we?”

“Can’t blame a bloke for trying. Mind if I have one?”

She laughed. “Course not.”

Banks went inside. He hadn’t expected Annie to rise to his offer, but he was disappointed that she hadn’t. He knew they had agreed to stick to weekends, but surely there was room for a little spontaneity now and then? He wondered if he would ever be able to figure out this relationship business. It was easy when you were married; at least you didn’t usually have to make appointments to see one another. On the other hand, he and Sandra hadn’t seen all that much of each other, and they had been married over twenty years. Perhaps, if they had made more time for one another, they would still be together.

The dinner crowd had thinned out, leaving the lounge half empty, mostly locals playing dominoes and darts in the public bar. A group of kids sat in one corner, and one of them put “Concrete and Clay” on the jukebox. Christ Almighty, thought Banks. Unit 4 + 2. It had been recorded before they were born.

He bought himself another pint and went back outside. Annie wasn’t much more than a silhouette now – and a beautiful one to his eyes, with her graceful neck and strong profile – staring at the river in that peculiarly relaxed and centered way she had.

He sat down and broke the spell. Annie stirred languidly. She still had half her drink left, which she swirled in her glass a few times before sipping.

“What about her family?” Banks asked.

“Family? Whose family?”

“Gloria Shackleton’s.”

“Her family was killed in the Blitz.”

“All of them?”

“That’s what she told Alice.”

“What about this mysterious stranger and the child who turned up looking for her? You said she told Alice that it was relations.”

“I know.” Annie shook her head slowly. “That’s what I don’t understand. It does seem odd, doesn’t it?”

“If she ran off and left a husband or boyfriend stuck with her kid, that might be someone else with reason to be angry with her. He could have tracked her down and killed her.”

“Yes, but maybe whoever it was didn’t feel stuck with the kid. Maybe he loved the boy. Besides, men do that sort of thing all the time and women don’t kill them for it.”

Banks wasn’t going to jump at that one. “The point is,” he said, “did this particular man feel strongly enough to track down the wife or girlfriend who bore his child and deserted him? They did argue, according to what Alice Poole told you.”

“Gloria was still alive after he left.”

“He could have stewed for a while, gone back weeks, months later.”

“Possibly,” Annie admitted. “I’d also like to know what happened to the sister-in-law, Gwynneth. Even with your appeals on the telly, no one’s come forward with any useful leads.”

“Maybe she’s dead?”

“Maybe she is.”

“Do you see her as a suspect?”

Annie frowned. “She looked like a tall, strong woman in the photograph. Something could have happened between them.”

“Maybe DS Hatchley came up with something in London. We’ll find out tomorrow. It’s been a long day.”

A night bird called across the river in the silence. Then someone put an Oasis song on the jukebox. “The kind of crime it was ought to be telling us something,” Annie said after a slight pause.

“What does it tell you that we haven’t considered already?”

“Well, it was obviously violent, passionate. Somebody felt strongly enough about Gloria Shackleton to stab her so many times. After strangling her first.”

“You’ve said it yourself: Gloria was the kind of woman men felt passionately about, the sort to spark off strong feelings. But there are probably a lot of things we don’t know about what happened.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“It’s an old crime scene, Annie. All we’ve got is bones and a few odds and ends of corroded jewelry. We don’t know whether she was raped or sexually interfered with in any way first. Or after. For all we know, this might be a sex crime, pure and simple.”

“The SOCOs haven’t found any other victims buried in the area.”

“Not yet. Besides, sex crimes don’t always mean multiple victims.”

“Usually they do. You can’t tell me that someone raped and murdered Gloria Shackleton the way he did and never did it again before or after.”

“That’s the point,” said Banks. “Think about it. The body was buried in the outbuilding of Gloria and Matthew’s cottage. The fact that we haven’t found any other bodies in the vicinity doesn’t mean there aren’t any anywhere else. It doesn’t mean that whoever did it didn’t kill elsewhere, in exactly the same way.”

“A serial killer, then? A stranger to the area?”

“It’s possible. DS Hatchley’s already put out a request for information on crimes with similar MOs. It’ll take time, though, and that’s if anyone even bothers following it up. People can be pretty lazy, especially when what they want isn’t on the computer. Let’s face it, we’re not exactly high on anyone’s priority list with this one. Still, some curious or industrious PC might poke about and discover something. I’ll have Jim send out a reminder.”

Annie paused. “You realize we might never know who killed her, don’t you?”

Banks finished his drink and nodded. “If that’s what it comes down to, we make out a final report based on all the evidence we’ve collected and point at the most likely solution.”

“How do you think you’ll feel about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s become important to you, hasn’t it? Oh, I’m not saying I don’t care. I do. But for you it’s something else. It goes deeper. You have a sort of compulsion.”

Banks lit a cigarette. As he did so, he realized how often he hid behind the smoke of his cigarettes. “Somebody has to give a damn.”

“That sounds melodramatic. Besides, is it really as simple as that?”

“Nothing ever is, really, is it?”

“Meaning?”

Banks paused and tried to frame his nebulous thoughts. “Gloria Shackleton. I know what she looked like. I’ve got some idea of her character and her ambitions, who her friends were, the things she liked to do to amuse and entertain herself.” He tapped the side of his head. “She’s real enough for me in there, where it counts. Somebody took all that away from her. Somebody strangled her, then stabbed her fifteen or sixteen times, wrapped her body in blackout curtains and buried it in an outbuilding.”

“But it happened years ago. The war’s been over for ages now. Murders happen all the time. What’s so different about this one?”

Banks shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing, really. Partly, it’s the war itself. I’m older than you. I grew up in its shadow, and it cast a long one for a long time after it was over. I was born with a ration book and a National Identity Card.” He laughed. “It’s funny, you know, the way people resist being named and counted these days, but I was proud of that card when I was a kid. It actually gave me an identity, told me who I was. Maybe I was already in training for my warrant card. Anyway, there were ruins all over the place in my hometown. I used to play in them just like Adam Kelly. And my dad had a collection of mementos I used to sneak up to the attic and play with when he was out – an SS dagger, a Nazi armband. There were pictures I used to look at, photographs of the collaborators hanging from the balustrades in Brussels. It was another age, before my time, but in a way it wasn’t; it was much closer than that. We used to play at being commandos. We even used to dig tunnels and pretend to escape from prison camps. I bought every book about fighter and bomber planes I could get my hands on. My childhood and early adolescence were saturated with the war. Somehow the idea of a vicious murder like this one being committed while all that carnage was going on in the world makes it seem even more of a travesty, if you see what I mean.”

“I think so. What else bothers you?”

“That’s the simple part. As far as we can tell, nobody reported Gloria missing; there was no hue and cry. It looks as if nobody cared. I had a friend once… one day I’ll tell you about him. Anyway, nobody cared then. Somebody has to. I seem to be good at it, overburdened with compassion, a natural.” Banks smiled. “Am I still making sense?”

Annie brushed his sleeve with her fingers. “I care, too,” she said. “Maybe not for the same reasons or in the same way, but I do.”

Banks looked into her eyes. He could tell she meant what she was saying. He nodded. “I know you do. Home?”

Annie stood up.

They walked out into the street, much quieter now that night had fallen. The fish-and-chips shop was still serving, and two of the kids who had been in the pub were leaning against the wall eating from newspaper. A whiff of vinegar drifted by.

At the top of the ginnel that ran past the churchyard was a swing gate, and after that the narrow, flagged footpath curved around the steep banks of Gratly Beck about half a mile up the daleside to the village itself. Luckily, there was a moon, for there was no other illumination on the path. Sheep scampered out of the way and bleated. Again Banks thought of the blackout. His mother had told him a story of a friend of hers who made her way home from work at the munitions factory by touching 176 railings along the canalside before her left turn, then five lampposts down the street. It must have been in the early days, Banks thought, before the Lord Beaverbrook ordered the collection of all railings for the war effort. His mother had also told him about the enormous mountain of pots and pans on the cricket pitch that were supposed to be turned into aircraft.

Once through the narrow stile at the other end, Banks and Annie turned left past the new houses. The pavement was broader there, and Annie slipped her arm through his. The small act of intimacy felt good. They crossed the stone bridge, walked along the lane and stood at Banks’s front door.

“Coffee?” Banks asked.

Annie smiled. “No, but I’ll have a cold drink if you’ve got one. Nonalcoholic.”

He left her in the front room rummaging through his compact-disc collection while he went to the fridge. It was eerie how the kitchen always gave him that feeling of peace and belonging, even at night when the sun wasn’t shining. He wondered if he would ever be able to tell Annie about it without feeling like an idiot.

He took out a carton of orange juice and poured them each a glass. An old Etta James CD started playing in the living room. Funky and fiery. He hadn’t played it in years. Annie walked in, clearly pleased with her find.

“You’ve got a hell of a CD collection,” she said. “It’s a wonder you can ever decide what to play.”

“It is a problem sometimes. Depends on the mood.” He handed her the glass and they went through to the living room.

Soon Etta was belting out “Jump Into My Fire” and “Shakey Ground.”

“Sure you won’t have a nightcap?” Banks asked when Annie had finished her orange juice.

“No. I told you, I’ve got to drive back. I don’t want to get stopped by an overzealous country copper.”

“It’s a pity,” said Banks. “I was hoping you might change your mind.” His mouth felt dry.

“Come to Mama” was playing now, and the music’s rhythmic, slow-moving sensuality was getting to him. He had to keep telling himself that Annie was a detective sergeant, someone he was working with on a case, and he shouldn’t even be thinking like this. But the problem was that Annie Cabbot didn’t seem like any detective sergeant he had ever come across before. And she was the first woman, apart from his daughter Tracy, to visit his new home.

“Well,” said Annie, smiling. “I didn’t say I had to go just yet, did I? You don’t have to get me drunk to get me in bed, you know.” Then she stood up, crossed her arms in front of her and pulled her T-shirt slowly up over her head. She stood holding it in her hand, head tilted to one side, then smiled, held her hand out and said, “Come to Mama.”

There are giant redwood trees in California, they say, that can grow another layer around the dead and blackened wood if they ever burn in a forest fire. Matthew’s disappearance burned out my core like that and while, over time, I did grow another skin over it, a harder skin, there was part of me inside that was always black and dead. There still is, though over the years the new skin has grown so thick that most people take it for the real thing. I suppose, in a way, it is real, but it is not the original.

Of course, life went on. It always does. In time, we laughed and smiled again, stood on the fairy bridge and discussed the Italian campaign, lamented the shortages and complained about Lord Woolton Pie and the National Wholemeal Loaf.

Gloria threw herself into her work at the farm, making it clear that she was indispensable because the government was putting even more pressure on women to work in the aircraft and munitions factories, the idea of which terrified her. Rumor had it that there were spies from the Labour Exchange all over the place just looking for idle women. If there were, they left me alone, too, as I had enough work on my hands looking after an invalid mother and running the shop, as well as fire-watching and helping with the WVS, taking out pies and snacks to the field workers in the area.

In October, Gloria had her hair done like Veronica Lake, with a side parting, curling inward over her shoulders. I had the new, short Liberty Cut because it was easy to manage and my hair just wouldn’t do the things Gloria’s did, even if I put sugar water on it.

That month also, Gone With the Wind finally came to Harkside, and Gloria and Mr. Stanhope practically dragged me to see it. As it turned out, I enjoyed the film, and found it was made even more poignant by the death of Leslie Howard, whose airplane had been shot down by Nazi fighters in June. Mr. Stanhope, battered hat on his head, tapping with his snake-head handled cane as we walked back, was enthusiastic about the use of color and Gloria, needless to say, was potty about Clark Gable.

Autumn mists came to our shallow valley, often making it impossible for the airplanes to land or take off for days. In September we heard that the Rowan Woods Aerodrome had been closed and the RAF had gone somewhere else. It was hard to get a clear answer to any questions in those days, but one of the ground crew told me that the two-engined bombers they had been flying were old and were being phased out of operation. The runways at Rowan Woods had to be converted to be able to handle four-engined bombers. He didn’t know whether his squadron would be back or not; things were so uncertain, people coming and going at a moment’s notice.

Whatever the reason, the RAF moved out and a crew of laborers, mostly Irish, came in. Over the next couple of months, they brought in tons of cement, gravel and Tarmac to bring the runways up to standard. They also put up more Nissen huts.

Of course, the character of village life changed a little during this period: we had a few fights between the Irish and the soldiers at the Shoulder of Mutton, and we got used to the whiff of tar that would drift through the woods when the wind was blowing the right way.

Early in December the laborers finished their work and shortly before Christmas, Rowan Woods became the new home to the United States Eighth Air Force’s 448th Bomber Group.

Just like that.

The Yanks had arrived.

Alone after Annie had left, Banks couldn’t sleep, despite the lovemaking and the long day’s drive. He lay in the dark for a while, his mind racing, images of the old days in Edinburgh, of Alison and Jo, keeping him awake. And Jem. And Annie. And Sandra. And Brian. The first night Banks had spent in the cottage, a bat flew in the open window and it took him half an hour to coax it out again. That was how his mind felt now, like a misshapen black rag flapping about wildly inside him. He felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety, not about anything specific, to such an extent that he began to sweat and his heart beat fast.

He put on his jeans and went downstairs to pour himself a small whiskey. Ever since he had become worried about his drinking in the dark months after Sandra’s departure, he had got into the habit of totting up his daily intake, as he did with cigarettes. A pint at lunchtime in Edinburgh, two pints with Annie at the Dog and Gun, and now one finger of Laphroaig close to midnight. Not bad. He had only smoked seven cigarettes, too, and he was especially proud of that.

He took the drink out to the wall and sat with his legs dangling over the dried-up falls. It was a warm night, but a slight breeze rustled through the leaves and cooled the sweat on his forehead a little. A small animal rustled through the undergrowth, probably a squirrel or a rabbit. Banks looked into the dark woods and remembered Robert Frost’s words, which he had read recently in his anthology. “And miles to go before I sleep.” It was the repetition of that line that made it so memorable, he thought, that sent that tingle up your spine. He didn’t profess to understand it – at least he couldn’t have stood up in class and described what it was about – but he got something from it.

He remembered what he had said to Annie earlier about caring and how he couldn’t tell her it was partly because of Jem. Banks had found Jem’s body himself on the bare dusty floor of the bed-sit, the needle still in his arm, which was oddly discolored here and there where the mice had nibbled.

He was sick, the same way he had been when Phil Simpkins spiraled slowly and inevitably down onto the spiked railings. But people had cared about Phil’s accident; they even had a minute’s silence in assembly and a morning off school for the funeral. Nobody had cared about Jem, though, the way no one seemed to have cared about Gloria’s disappearance.

Over the years, Banks became inured to seeing corpses, like any other detective who investigates a fair number of murders. He developed a protective shell; he could crack jokes at the scene with someone’s entrails spilling over his feet or brain matter sticking to the soles of his shoes. But no matter how hard his carapace, Banks had always felt something, no matter how low on the food chain the victim was. He always felt some connection with what had once been a living person.

After Jem’s death, Banks had felt driven to find out more about him: who he was, where he came from, why no one seemed to care. He realized how little he knew, even though Jem had been his first and closest friend in a new and overpowering city. He was so innocent, he hadn’t even suspected that Jem was a heroin addict. They had smoked hash and grass together on occasion, but that was all.

The police themselves hadn’t been impressive, hardly an advertisement for recruitment. They interviewed Banks, who described the man he had seen entering Jem’s flat the previous evening, but they didn’t seem interested. One of them, DC Carter, Banks remembered, played the concerned-parent role, feigning sadness at Jem’s death, lecturing Banks on the drug subculture, while the other, DS Fallon, pockmarked face, a cynical smile on his thin, cruel lips, rifled through Banks’s drawers and cupboards, looking for drugs.

Later, Banks found out that three junkies had died in Nothing Hill that week because a shipment of unusually pure heroin hadn’t been adequately cut. No arrests were made.

Disenchanted with both business and sixties navel-gazing, Banks joined the police force to change the system from within, despite Jem’s advice, and when he found he couldn’t do that, he settled for the adrenaline buzz of the investigation, the chase, the revelation, the strange bond with the murder victim, who couldn’t speak for herself. And this bond was true no less in the case of Gloria Shackleton’s cracked and filthy bones than it was with a corpse so fresh you could still see the flush on its cheek.

Finally, tired with remembering, Banks put out his cigarette, finished the whisky and went back inside. His bed still smelled of Annie, and he was grateful for that much, at least, as he tossed and turned and tried to get to sleep.

Ever since she had seen Gloria’s image and heard her name on television, Vivian Elmsley had been expecting the police to come knocking at her door. It wasn’t as if she had taken any great steps to cover her tracks. She had never consciously sought to hide her past and her identity, although she had certainly glossed over it. Perhaps, also, the life she had lived hinted at a certain amount of conscious escape. At every stage, she had had to reinvent herself: the selfless carer; the diplomat’s wife; the ever-so-slightly “with-it” young widow with the red sports car; the struggling writer; the public figure with the splinter of ice in her heart. Would that be the last? Which was the real one? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know if there was a real one.

Though the worry and fear gnawed away at her since the TV broadcast, Vivian tried to live a normal life: wandering up to Hampstead in the morning; reading the newspaper; sitting down in her study for the day, whether she wrote anything worth keeping or not; talking to her agent and publisher; answering correspondence. All the while waiting for that knock on the door, wondering what she would say, how she could convince them she knew nothing; or thinking that perhaps she should just tell them what she knew and let the chips fall where they would. Would it really make a difference, after all this time?

Yes, she decided; it would.

When it came, though, the shock came in a form she hadn’t in the least expected.

That Tuesday night, the phone rang just as she was dropping off. When she picked up the receiver, all she heard was silence, or as much silence as you ever get on a telephone line.

“Who is it?” she asked, gripping the receiver more tightly. “Please speak up.”

More silence.

She was just about to hang up when she heard what she thought was a sharp intake of breath. Then a voice she didn’t recognize whispered, “Gwen? Gwen Shackleton?”

“My name’s Vivian Elmsley. There must be some mistake.”

“There’s no mistake. I know who you are. Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You will. Soon.”

Then the caller hung up.