In A Dry Season

SEVENTEEN

Vivian’s manuscript haunted Banks long after he had read it. There were so many inconsistencies, so many branches in the road to Gloria’s murder. On Wednesday, when they still hadn’t found Gloria’s son, he started thinking about the trip George and Francis Henderson had made to try to find Gloria after the war. Gwen had denied her, in a way, and that set Banks thinking about his visit to Jem’s parents.

As vividly as if it were yesterday, he remembered the late-May afternoon when he drove his ailing VW beetle to Cambridgeshire in search of Jem’s parents. He didn’t even know why he was making the journey, and more than once he thought of turning back. What could he say? What right had he to intrude on their grief? After all, he had hardly known Jem, knew nothing about his life. On the other hand, they had been friends, and now his friend was dead. The least he could do was offer his condolences and tell them they had a son they should be proud of, no matter how ignominious his death.

Besides, he was curious to see what sort of background Jem came from.

It was a fine day and Banks drove with his window down through the North London suburbs and into open countryside, the wind blowing through his hair, which at that time was well over his collar. He turned off the main road just south of Cambridge. A number of images of the drive came back: Tim Buckley on the radio singing “Dolphins” just outside Saffron Walden; a whitewashed pub wall; a herd of cows blocking the road as they were moved, udders swinging, from field to field by a slow farmer, unconcerned about the minor traffic jam he was causing; the air smelling of warm straw and manure.

Banks stopped in the village newsagent’s and asked for directions to the Hylton house. The shopkeeper looked suspicious, as if she thought he was out to rob the place, but she told him. The house – mansion, rather – stood at the end of an unpaved drive about half a mile from the village center. It was originally Tudor, by the look of it, but was crusted with so many centuries of additions, like barnacles on the bottom of a boat – a conservatory here, a garage there, a dormer window – that it seemed on the verge of buckling under its own weight.

Banks sat in his car and stared for a moment, hardly able to take in that this was where Jem came from. He stubbed out his cigarette. The area was quiet, except for a few birds singing and the sound of someone talking on a radio deep inside the house. Surely they must have heard him arrive? Especially with the odd hiccuping sounds his beetle was making those days.

Banks got out of the car and looked around. Beyond a neatly trimmed croquet-size lawn the land dipped away, revealing a patchwork landscape of green and brown fields under a canopy of blue sky as far as the eye could see. A few small copses and a church steeple were all that broke the monotony. This was the old England, the place of order, of the laborer at work in the fields and the lord at ease in his manor. It was a far cry from Peterborough and Notting Hill. Banks had visited the countryside before, of course, but he had never been to a house so opulent, had never known anyone who came from such a house. The old class insecurities began to surface, and if he had been wearing one, he would probably have knocked on the door cap in hand. He felt self-conscious of his accent even before he opened his mouth.

A sweet-smelling honeysuckle bush stood beside the old oak door, and Banks could hear the bees droning around the blossoms. He banged the heavy knocker against the wood. The sound echoed through the countryside and sent a nearby flock of starlings flapping off into the sky.

It seemed forever before Banks became aware of someone approaching the door, a creak of a floorboard perhaps, or swish of a skirt. When it opened a crack, he found himself looking at a dark-haired woman with high cheekbones and sunken brown eyes. She seemed old to him back then, when he had hardly turned twenty, but he realized that she was probably only in her early forties, about the same age he was now.

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes? What is it?”

“Mrs. Hylton?”

“I’m Mrs. Hylton. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve come about Jem?”

She frowned. “Who?”

“Jem. Sorry: Jeremy. Your son.”

A man appeared behind her, and she opened the door all the way. He had white hair, a red face, and watery pale blue eyes. “What is it, darling?” he asked, putting his hand on the woman’s shoulder and frowning at Banks. “Who is he? What does he want?”

She turned to her husband with a puzzled expression on her face. “Someone come about Jeremy.”

Banks introduced himself. “I lived across the hall from Jeremy in Notting Hill,” he said. “We were friends. I just wanted to come and say I’m sorry about what happened.”

“I don’t understand,” said the man. “Our son died a long time ago. It’s a bit late to be coming round with condolences, don’t you think?”

“Jem? Jeremy Hylton? I am at the right house, aren’t I?”

“Oh, yes,” said the woman. “But the thing is, our Jeremy died five years ago.”

“But… but it was only about a month ago. I mean, I knew him. I found him. We are speaking about the same person, aren’t we? Did Jeremy have a brother, perhaps?”

“We had only one son,” the man said. “And he died five years ago. Now, if you don’t mind, I think my wife has been disturbed enough, don’t you? Good day.”

He started to close the door.

Banks made one last-ditch attempt. He stuck his foot in the door and said, “Please, you don’t understand. Jem died last month. I don’t mean to upset you, but-”

Mr. Hylton opened the door a fraction and Banks slipped his foot out. “If you don’t go away and get off our property immediately, I’m going to call the police,” he said. “Is that clear?” And this time he slammed the door shut before Banks could move.

For a few moments, Banks stared at the weathered oak, his mind spinning. He saw a curtain move and assumed they were watching, ready to phone the police, so he got in his beetle, turned and drove away.

At the end of the drive, an elderly man wearing a cloth cap waved him down. Banks stopped, and the man leaned down to the open window. He had about five days’ growth on his cheeks, and his breath smelled of beer. “What you been bothering them there for, then?” he asked.

“I wasn’t bothering them,” Banks said. “I just came to offer them my condolences on their son’s death.”

The man scratched his cheek. “And what did they say?”

Banks told him, all the time glancing in his mirror to see if the Hyltons had followed him down the drive.

“Well,” the man said, “see, as far as they’re concerned, their Jeremy died the day he dropped out of university and went off to London to be one of them drug-smoking hippies.” He scrutinized Banks for a moment, as if trying to make up his mind where he fit in the scheme of things. “I noticed they had the police around a while back and wondered what it were all about. Jeremy’s really dead now, then?”

“Yes,” said Banks after another quick glance in the mirror.

“Drugs, were it?”

“Looks that way.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. I’ve known him since he were a babe in arms. Nice young lad he were till he went bad. He were going to be a doctor, like his dad. At Cambridge he was you know. I don’t know what went wrong.” He pointed with his thumb back at the house. “They never recovered. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t have any visitors.” He shook his head slowly. “Poor little Jeremy. They never even gave him a funeral service.” Then he wandered away along the road shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Banks was left alone at the intersection of the drive and the road, with only the birdsongs and his own gloomy thoughts of estrangement and denial for company. He had a pretty good idea of what went wrong for Jem, having read Clara’s letter, but it seemed that nobody wanted to know.

Horns blaring on Market Street broke into his reminiscences. Now he had another denial on his mind. Jem’s parents had convinced themselves their son had died five years before he really did, just because he had disappointed their expectations. Gwen Shackleton told George and Francis Henderson that Gloria had run away when she was well aware that Gloria was actually dead and buried out back. Somehow, the two denials seemed like curious mirror images to Banks.

A knock at the door interrupted this train of thought. Sergeant Hatchley walked in. “Coffee break?”

Banks looked up and dragged himself back from a long distance. “What? Oh, yes.”

“You all right, sir? You look a bit pale.”

“Fine. Just thinking, that’s all.”

“Can be painful, thinking. That’s why I try to avoid it.”

They walked across Market Street to the Golden Grill for toasted tea cakes and coffee. Rain had finally come to the Dales, and the place was almost empty. Doris, the proprietor, claimed they were only the fourth and fifth customers to pass through her door that day.

“Does that put us in line for summat special, like?” Hatchley asked. “Maybe a free cuppa?”

She slapped his arm and laughed. “Get away with you.”

“Worth a try,” said Hatchley to Banks. “Never ask, never get. I used to know a bloke years back who claimed he asked every girl he met if she’d go to bed with him. Said he only got slapped in the face nine times out of ten.”

Banks laughed, then he asked, “Have you heard anything on that nationwide inquiry you put out yet?”

“Something came in this morning, as a matter of fact,” said Hatchley. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Lass called Brenda Hamilton. Bit of a tart, by all accounts. Not a prossie by trade, but she wasn’t averse to opening her legs for anyone who looked like he had a bob or two to spare. Anyway, she was found dead in a barn.”

“MO?”

“Strangled and stabbed. In that order.”

“It certainly sounds promising.”

Hatchley shook his head. “Don’t get your hopes up. There’s a couple of problems.”

“What problems?”

“Location and time frame. It happened near Hadleigh, Suffolk, in August 1952. I only mentioned it because it was the same MO.”

Banks chewed on his tea cake and thought it over. “Any suspects?”

“Naturally, the farmer who owned the barn came in for a close look, but he had a watertight alibi. I’d have sent for more details, but… well, it’s not likely to be connected with our business, is it?”

Banks shrugged. “Wouldn’t do any harm to ask a few more questions.”

“Maybe not. But that’s seven years after Gloria Shackleton was killed. It’s a long gap for the kind of killer we’re looking at. It also happened in another part of the country.”

“There could be reasons for that.”

“And I doubt there’d be any American Air Force personnel around by then, would there? I mean the war was long over. Most of them went off to the Pacific after VE-Day and the rest buggered off home as soon as they could.”

“You’re probably right, Jim, but let’s be thorough. Get onto East Anglia and ask them for more details. I’ll ask DS Cabbot to contact the USAFE people again and see if she can find out anything.”

“Will do.”

Back in his office, Banks put off phoning Annie at Harkside, smoking a cigarette instead and staring out of the window. A warm slow rain fell on the market square, darkening the cobbles and the ancient market cross. It wasn’t bringing much relief; the air was still sticky and humid. But slowly the clouds were gathering, the humidity increasing. One day soon it would break and the heavens would open. There were only a couple of cars parked in the square, and the few people in evidence ambled around under umbrellas looking gloomily at the shops. Radio Three was playing a program of British light music, and Banks recognized the signature theme of “Children’s Favourites.”

The reason he was avoiding talking to Annie was that Sunday had gone badly after Sandra’s visit. Both Banks and Annie had been on edge, conversation awkward, and she had eventually left just after lunch, forgoing the afternoon walk, claiming she had things to see to back in Harkside. They hadn’t spoken to each other since.

At the time, Banks had not been sorry to see her go. He was more upset than he had let on by Sandra’s visit, and it annoyed him that he felt that way. After all, she had a new boyfriend. Sean. Why did she have to turn up just then, when everything was going so well? What gave her the right to burst in and act so shocked that he was seeing someone, knocking everyone’s feelings out of kilter? How would she like it if he just dropped in on her and Sean, without even phoning first? And he had wanted to talk to her, especially after his little heart-to-heart with Brian. Now God only knew when he would get the chance again.

He also realized that Sandra had been upset by what she saw, too. The withering coolness and sarcastic tone were her way of reacting to her own discomfort. He still had feelings for her. You can’t just lose your feelings that quickly for someone you loved for so long. Love lost or rejected may first turn to hate, but only over time does it become indifference.

Finally, he plucked up the courage and picked up the phone. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“You sound distracted.”

“No, I’m not. Just a bit busy. Really. It’s fine.”

Banks took a deep breath. “Look, if it’s about Sunday, I’m sorry. I had no idea Sandra was going to turn up. I also didn’t think it would have so much of an effect on you.”

“Well, you don’t always know about these things till they happen, do you? As I said, I’m fine. Except I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. What’s on your mind?”

“Okay, if that’s how you want to play it. Get onto your military contacts again and see if you can find out anything about US Air Force presence in Suffolk in 1952.”

“What about it?”

“Find out if there were any bases left, for a start. And if there were, which was the nearest one to Hadleigh. If there was one, I’d also like a list of personnel.”

“Right.”

“Can you do it today?”

“I’ll try. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Annie?”

“What?”

“Can’t we get together and talk about things?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Really. Look, you know I’m off home on holiday in a couple of days. I’ve got a lot to do before I go. Maybe when I get back. Okay? In the meantime, I’ll get that information to you as soon as I can. Good-bye.”

Feeling more depressed than ever after that pointless conversation, Banks glanced at the pile of paper beside the computer on his desk: SOCO search results, postmortem, forensic odontology. None of it contradicted what they had previously estimated; nor did any of it tell him anything more.

What would have happened if Gwen had done as she should and reported finding Gloria’s body? A good copper might have asked around and not simply tried to pin the murder on Matthew. And maybe not. Too late for asking questions now; they were all dead except Vivian. Poor Gloria. She saw Matthew as her penance. Somehow that told Banks more about her than anything else.

And what if Vivian’s ending was the real lie? The ultimate irony. What if Gwen herself had committed the murder?

Vivian Elmsley put her book down as the train pulled out of Wakefield Westgate on Thursday. It would only be a few more minutes to Leeds now, and built up the whole way: a typical Northern industrial landscape of shabby red brick housing estates, low-rise office buildings, sparkling new shopping centers, factory yards full of stacked pallets wrapped in polythene, kids fishing in the canal, stripped to the waist. The only untypical thing was the sticky sunlight that seemed to encase everything like sugar water.

The publisher’s rep was supposed to meet Vivian at the station and accompany her to the Metropole Hotel, where she would be staying until Sunday. She had book-signings in Bradford, York and Harrogate, as well as in Leeds, but it made no sense to move everything lock, stock and barrel from one hotel to another every day. The cities were close enough together. The rep would drive her around.

Not that Vivian needed any help to find the hotel; the Metropole wasn’t more than a couple of hundred yards from City Square, and she knew exactly where it was. She had stayed there with Charlie the time they went to Michael Stanhope’s exhibition in 1944. What an evening they had made of it. After the show, they went to a classical concert and then to the 21 Club, where they had danced until late. That was why she had asked to stay there again this trip. For memory’s sake.

She was nervous. It wasn’t anything to do with this evening’s reading at Armley Library, or the Radio Leeds interview tomorrow afternoon, but with meeting Chief Inspector Banks and his female sidekick again. She knew they would want to interview her after studying the manuscript; there was no doubt she was guilty of something. But what could she do? She was too old and too tired to run. She was also too old to go to jail. The only way now was to face up to whatever charges might be brought and hope her lawyer would do a good job.

No one, she supposed, could stop the press finding out the details eventually, and there was no doubt that they would go to town on the scandal. She wasn’t sure she could face public humiliation. Perhaps, if they didn’t arrest her, she would leave the country again, the way she had done so many times with Ronald. Why not? She could work anywhere, and she had enough money to buy a little place somewhere warm: Bermuda, perhaps, or the British Virgin Islands.

Once again Vivian cast her mind back to the events of fifty years ago. Was there something she had missed? Had she got it all wrong? Had she been so ready to suspect Matthew that she had overlooked the possibility of anyone else being guilty? Banks’s questions about Michael Stanhope and about PX, Billy Joe, Charlie and Brad had shocked and surprised her at first. Now she was beginning to wonder. Could one of them have done it? Not Charlie, certainly – he was dead by then – but what about Brad? He and Gloria had been arguing a lot toward the end; she had even seen them arguing through the flames at the VE-Day party. Perhaps the night she died he had gone to put his case forward one last time, and when she turned him down he went berserk? Vivian tried to remember whether Brad had been the kind to go berserk or not, but all she could conclude was that we all are, given the right circumstances.

Then there was PX. He had certainly lavished a lot of gifts on Gloria in that shy way of his. Perhaps he had hoped for something in return? Something she hadn’t wanted to give? And while Billy Joe seemed to have moved on to other women quite happily, Vivian remembered his bitterness at being ditched for a pilot, the smoldering class resentment that came out as gibes and taunts.

People said they didn’t have a class system in America, but Billy Joe had definitely been working-class, like the farm laborers in Yorkshire; Charlie was from a well-established Ivy League background; and Brad had come from new West Coast oil money. Vivian didn’t think the Americans lacked class distinction so much as they lacked the tradition of inherited aristocratic titles and wealth – which was probably why they all went gaga over British royalty.

The train was nearing Leeds City Station now, wheels squealing as it negotiated the increasingly complicated system of signals and points. It had been a much faster and easier journey than the one Vivian had made to London and back with Gloria. She remembered the pinprick of blue light, the soldiers snoring, her first look at the desolation of war in the pale dawn light. She had slept most of the way back to Leeds, a six- or seven-hour journey then, and after she got back to Hobb’s End, London had grown more and more distant and magical in her imagination until it might easily have been Mars or ancient Rome.

Looking back, she began to wonder if perhaps it was all just a story. As the years race inexorably on, and as all the people we know and love die, does the past turn into fiction, an act of the imagination populated by ghosts, scenes and images suspended forever in water glass?

Wearily, Vivian stood up and reached for her overnight bag. There was something else she had steeled herself to do while she was in Leeds, and she had set aside Friday afternoon, after the interview, for it. Before that, though, she would make time to call at the art gallery and see Michael Stanhope’s painting.

When the phone rang on Thursday morning, Banks snatched the receiver from its cradle so hard he fumbled it and dropped it on the desk before getting a good grip.

“Alan, what’s going on? You almost deafened me.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s Jenny.”

“I know. I recognized your voice. How are you?”

“Well, don’t sound so excited to hear from me.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny, really. It’s just that I’m expecting an important call.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“The case I’m working on.”

“That one you told me about? The war thing?”

“It’s the only one I’ve got. Jimmy Riddle’s made sure my cases have been thin on the ground lately.”

“Well, I won’t take up much of your time. It just struck me that I was rather… well, emotional… on our last meeting. I want to apologize for dumping all over you, as they say in California.”

“What are friends for?”

“Anyway,” Jenny went on, “by way of an apology, I’d like to invite you to dinner. If you think you can tolerate my cooking, that is?”

“It’s bound to be better than mine.”

She laughed a little too quickly and a little too nervously. “Don’t count on it. I thought we could, you know, just talk about things over a meal and a bottle of wine. A lot’s happened to both of us this past year.”

“When?”

“How about tomorrow, sevenish?”

“Sounds fine.”

“Are you sure it won’t cause any problems?”

“Why should it?”

“I don’t know… I just…” Then her voice brightened. “That’s great. I’ll see you tomorrow about seven, then?”

“You’re on. I’ll pick up some wine.”

After he hung up, Banks sat back and thought about the invitation. Dinner with Jenny. At her place. That would be interesting. Then he thought about Annie, and that cast a shadow over him. She had basically cut him dead on the phone yesterday. After such quick and surprising intimacy, her coldness came as a shock. It was a long time since he had been given the cold shoulder by a girlfriend he had known for only a few days, and the whole thing brought back shades of adolescent gloom. Time to break out the sad songs again. Cry along with Leonard Cohen and learn how to get the best out of your suffering.

But he was anxious to hear from Annie about the East Anglia connection. She had said today at the latest, after all. He toyed with the idea of phoning her, but in the end decided against it. Whatever their personal problems, he knew she was a good enough copper to let him know the minute she got the information he’d asked for. Shortly before eleven, she did.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” she said. “What with time differences and faulty fax machines, well, I’m sure you know…”

“That’s all right. Just tell me what you’ve discovered.” Banks had already come to one or two conclusions of his own since his last talk with Annie, and he felt the tingling tremor of excitement that usually came as the pieces started to fall together; it was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in quite a while.

“First off,” Annie said, “there definitely was an American air base near Hadleigh in 1952.”

“What were they doing there?”

“Well, the US armed forces cleared out of England after the war, but a lot of them stayed on in Europe, especially Berlin and Vienna. The war hadn’t solved the Russian problem. Anyway, the Americans came back to operate from British air bases in 1948, during the Berlin blockade and airlift. The first thing they did was deploy long-range B-29 bombers from four air bases in East Anglia. All this is from my contact in Ramstein. Apparently, there were so many bases by 1951 that they had to change their organizational structure to deal with them.”

“Any familiar names?”

“Just one. Guess who ran the PX?”

“Edgar Konig.”

“The very same. You don’t sound so surprised.”

“Not really. What did you find out about him?”

“He left Rowan Woods in May 1945, with the rest of the Four Hundred Forty-Eighth and spent some time in Europe, then he returned to America. He was assigned to the base near Hadleigh in summer 1952.”

“He stayed in the air force all that time?”

“Seems that way. I suppose he had a pretty good job. Lots of perks. Tell me, why doesn’t it surprise you? Why not one of the other Americans?”

“The whiskey and the Luckies.”

“What?”

“In Vivian Elmsley’s manuscript. She said there was a bottle of whiskey smashed on the floor and an unopened carton of Lucky Strikes on the kitchen counter. It’s hardly concrete evidence of anything, but I don’t think a carton of Luckies would have stayed unopened for very long in wartime, do you?”

“Brad could have brought them.”

“Possible. But it was PX who had easiest access to the stores, PX who always supplied the goodies. The manuscript also mentioned a farewell party at Rowan Woods that night. PX must have got drunk and finally plucked up courage. He’d sneaked out of the base and brought the presents that night. One last-ditch attempt to buy what he yearned for. Gloria resisted and… Matthew only came in afterward, the poor sod. Any idea where PX was between 1945 and 1952?”

“No. I can ask Mattie to check if it’s important. You’re thinking there might have been others?”

“Possibly. Do we know anything more about him?”

“No. Mattie said she’d try to find out what she can – such as when and why he was discharged and if he’s still alive, but she doesn’t hold out a lot of hope. It’s not their official position to give out such information, but Mattie’s a mystery fan and it seems I’ve piqued her curiosity. She’s become quite an ally.”

“Good. See what you can do. Let’s see if we can link him to any other murders. How old will he be now if he’s still alive?”

“According to Mattie’s information, he’d be about seventy-five.”

“A possibility, then.”

“Could be. I’ll talk to you later.”

When Annie had hung up, Banks felt restless. Sometimes waiting was the most difficult part; that was when he smoked too much and paced up and down, bad habits from his Met days he hadn’t quite got rid of. There were a couple of things he could do in the meantime. First, he dialed Jenny Fuller’s number.

“Alan,” she said. “Don’t tell me you want to cancel?”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that. Actually, I need you to do a little favor for me.”

“Of course. If I can.”

“Didn’t you say at lunch the other day that you trained with the FBI profilers?”

“At Quantico. Yes. And you said you thought profiling was a load of bollocks.”

“Forget that for now. Do you have any contacts there? Anyone close enough to ask a personal favor?”

Jenny paused a moment. “Well, there is one fellow, yes. Why do you ask?”

Banks filled her in on the new developments, then said, “This Edgar Konig, I’d like you to ask your friend to check his record. If he’s the sort of man I think he is, the odds are that he’ll have one. DS Cabbot’s working with the military authorities, but any information they can supply us with is limited.”

“I’m sure Bill will be happy to oblige, if he can,” said Jenny. “Just let me get a pencil, then you can tell me what you want to know.”

When Banks had finished giving Jenny the details, he asked DS Hatchley to call East Anglia and find out if a US airman called Edgar Konig had ever been questioned or suspected in connection with the Brenda Hamilton murder. After that, he sat back and told himself there was no rush. Nobody was running anywhere. Even if Konig did turn out to be the killer, even if he was still alive, there was no way he could know the North Yorkshire Police were on to him after all this time.