FIVE

As weddings go, Matthew and Gloria’s was a relatively small affair. A few family members came from as far away as Eastvale and Richmond, some of them distant uncles, aunts and cousins I hadn’t seen for years. Gloria had no family, of course, so the rest of the guests were made up of people from the village. Mr. and Mrs. Kilnsey from the farm were there, though Mr. Kilnsey looked terrified for his mortal soul to find himself in the Church of England, that hotbed of idolatry.

Gloria had also insisted on inviting Michael Stanhope, as they had become quite close friends, and he looked almost as uncomfortable as Mr. Kilnsey to find himself in such hallowed surroundings. He was sober, though, and at least he had made the effort to shave, comb his hair and wear a decent, if rather frayed and shiny, suit. He also remembered to remove his hat during the service.

I must say Gloria looked radiantly beautiful. With her angelic face and earthly figure, she had a natural advantage to start with. Wizard that she was at making things, she had decided it was more expedient to buy her wedding dress. She had found one on sale at Foster’s in Harkside for two pounds ten shillings. It was a simple white affair, neither voluminous nor trailing half a mile of material, both elegant and tasteful. She did, however, make her own veil out of lace, which wasn’t rationed. Whether she had set them with sugar and water or not, I don’t know, but her glistening blond sausage curls tumbled to her shoulders in an even more dazzling array than usual.

Gloria had bought her wedding dress almost as soon as Mother gave her blessing, so she was all right, but wouldn’t you know it, clothes rationing came into force the Sunday before the wedding. Luckily, we had all got used to mending and making do by then. Matthew dug out his only suit and we had it cleaned and pressed. It would have cost him almost an entire half year’s clothes ration to get newly kitted out. Mother put on her best flowered frock, adding a belt here and a little lace there, just to make it look new, and she bought a new hat for the occasion, hats being one of the few items of clothing, along with lace and ribbon, not rationed.

Cynthia Garmen and I were bridesmaids and we wore matching taffeta dresses made out of some old curtains. Just for an extra-special touch, I cut up some lace to trim our knickers. I don’t know about Cynthia – she certainly never said anything – but the things made my thighs itch through the entire service.

It was the seventh of June, 1941, and a lovely day, with clouds like trails of spilled milk spelling out Arabic characters in the sky.

The ceremony went smoothly. The Reverend Graham conducted the service with his usual oratorical skill and gravity. Barry Naylor, Matthew’s best man, didn’t forget the ring, and they all got their lines right. Nobody fainted, though it was exceedingly hot in the church. Mother shed a few tears. There was no confetti, of course, there being a paper shortage, and there was something else different that nagged away at the back of my mind, but I didn’t remember what it was until much later that night.

We stood outside for photographs. Film was expensive and hard to obtain, but we weren’t going to let Matthew’s wedding day go by without some sort of visual record, and one of his friends from the Home Guard, Jack Cheswick, fancied himself as a bit of an amateur photographer. Mr. Truewell, the chemist, was obliging, and the film cost us only twenty Passing Cloud cigarettes. Luckily for us, the pictures turned out all right, though the album got lost in one of the many moves that came later.

We held the reception in the church hall. Of course, I had done most of the catering myself, though I was able to leave the last-minute assembly to my helpers, Sue and Olive. We had to apply in Leeds for an allocation of rations, and Sue, who had got married herself just a couple of months earlier, had warned me it was advisable to double your estimate of the number of guests. Consequently, I said we were expecting a hundred people. Even so, we only got two ounces of tea, which we had to eke out with some of our own ration to make it even drinkable.

Luckily, our first American food on Lend-Lease had just arrived in the shop, so we had Spam for sandwiches, and tinned sausage meat, which was wonderful for making sausage rolls because you could also use the fat left in the tin to make the pastry. There wasn’t much to drink, but we did manage to get a keg of watery beer from the Shoulder of Mutton and there was some sweet sherry we had been keeping in our cupboard. Mr. Stanhope supplied a bottle of gin and some wine. The wedding cake was the biggest disappointment. Icing had been banned nearly a year earlier, so we had to make do with a cardboard-and-crepe fake. Still, it looked nice in the photographs.

The highlight of the reception was the band. Matthew’s friend, Richard Bright, played trumpet with the Victor Pearson Dance Band, so we got at least half the band to come and play for their supper.

Gloria and Matthew led off the dancing, of course, and a lump came to my throat as I watched them. After that, it was a free-for-all. The music was all right if you liked that sort of thing, but I found it all either too noisy and frenetic or too mushy and sentimental.

I talked to Michael Stanhope for a while and he remarked on how beautiful he thought Gloria looked and what a lucky man Matthew was. For once, he didn’t say anything nasty about the war. Betty Warden, who had managed to wangle an invitation somehow, sat with her nose in the air most of the night, disapproving of everything and everyone, but I must say that when she danced with William Goodall, she seemed like a different person. So did he, for that matter. Almost human, both of them.

Alice Hill was cheerful and talkative as ever, and I rather think she developed a fancy for Eric Poole that very night. They certainly danced closely together often enough.

Gloria came up to me at one point – she had changed now into a long flared skirt and pink blouse – with a little sweat beaded on her brow and upper lip from dancing too energetically. Her eyes were shining. I think she’d had a drink or two.

She rested her soft, delicate hand on my arm. “This is the happiest day of my life, Gwen,” she said. “Do you know, just six months ago I thought I would never laugh or dance again. But thanks to you, your mother and, of course, dear Matt… Thank you, Gwen, thank you so much.” Then she leaned forward quickly and clasped me to her bosom, giving me a little peck on the cheek. It was awkward, and with her being so small, I had to bend. I could smell the gin on her breath. I’m sure I blushed, but she didn’t remark on it.

“I haven’t seen you dancing,” she said.

I shook my head. “I don’t. I mean, I can’t.”

“I’ll teach you,” she said. “Not right now, of course… but I’ll teach you. Will you let me?”

I nodded stupidly. “Yes. If you want.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

Then she excused herself and went to talk to Mother and Cynthia, smiling on everyone she passed with those Hardy-heroine eyes of hers.

I did my bit, moving from table to table, being polite to my distant relations, removing Uncle Gerald’s hand from my knee without drawing attention to the fact that it was there.

The local people started to drift home around sunset to make sure they had all got their blackout curtains in place. Our relations were staying with friends in Harkside, so they began to leave, too, before it got too dark to see their way across the fields.

Matthew and Gloria went to Bridge Cottage for their first night together as man and wife. Whether this was their first time together, I have no idea. It may be hard to believe now, when everyone seems to be very sophisticated about sex, but I knew very little of such things back then. I had no idea, for example, what men and women actually did when they made babies.

The next day they were going to Scarborough for a three-day honeymoon. Matthew had already booked a room at a guest house in St. Mary’s near the castle. After that, it was back to university for Matthew – with his finals coming up soon – and back to Top Hill Farm for Gloria, though she would live at Bridge Cottage and walk or cycle to and from work.

Mother was talking to Sue and Olive at the door when I finally excused myself through tiredness and set off home alone. It had been a long, hard day.

Though it was late, a deep purple-and-vermilion glow still lit the sky in the west, behind the dark mill. The streets were quiet, though I could still hear music coming from the church hall behind me. Back home, I made sure the blackout curtains were drawn tightly, then, weary to the bone, I went to bed.

It was only when I was on the very edge of sleep and heard the thrumming and droning of the bombers taking off from Rowan Woods RAF Base that I remembered what had bothered me so much outside the church after the wedding.

Not only had there been no confetti, there had been no wedding bells, either. All the church bells had been silent since 1940 and were only supposed to ring if there was an invasion. The thing was, I hadn’t even noticed at first because I had got so used to the silence.

I thought that was very sad, and I cried myself to sleep that night.


Annie paused with the dusty file folder in her hands when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She hoped it would be PC Gould bringing her a cup of tea, so she was surprised when she saw, instead, DCI Banks.

“Inspector Harmond told me you were down here,” Banks said.

Annie turned her nose up and gestured around at the musty-smelling, ill-lit basement room. “Welcome to Central Records,” she said. “You can see how often we dip into our history around here.”

“Don’t worry. One day it’ll all be on the computer.”

“When I’m long since dead and buried.”

Banks smiled as he ducked under an overhead pipe and walked over to join her. “Anything yet?”

“Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. I’ve been on the phone most of the day, and I was just checking some missing-person files.”

“And?”

“It’s a bit of a confusing period for that sort of thing. Just after the war. There were so many changes, so many people coming and going. Anyway, most of the ones who went missing seemed to turn up eventually, either dead or alive, or in the colonies. There are a couple of young women who fit the general description still unaccounted for. I’ll follow up on them.”

“Fancy a pint? The Black Swan?”

Annie smiled. “You took the words right out of my mouth.” What a relief. If she had been hoping for a cup of tea, the prospect of a pint of Swan’s Down was even more appealing. She had been in the stifling basement for the best part of the afternoon, and her mouth was full of dust, her contact lenses beginning to dry out. And it was gone five on a Friday afternoon.

Comfortably ensconced on a padded bench just a few minutes later, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, pint already half finished, Annie smacked her lips. If she were a cat, she would have been purring.

“I checked the Voters Register first,” she said, “but the clerk in the council office told me it was frozen at the start of the war. The last person they’ve got listed for Bridge Cottage is a Miss Violet Croft. I had a bit more luck with the Land Registry. Violet Croft rented the cottage from the Clifford estate, and the manager kept impeccable records. She lived there between the fourteenth of September, 1919, and the third of July, 1940, so she must be the old lady Ruby Kettering remembered, the one the village kids thought was a witch. The cottage remained empty until June 1941, when a Mr. and Mrs. Shackleton took up residence there. It might have been requisitioned for the billeting of evacuees or military personnel in the interim period, but there was no record of that, and there’s no way of finding out.”

“I doubt that many places stayed empty for long during the war,” said Banks. “Maybe some soldiers got billeted there, killed a local tart in a drunken orgy and then decided to cover their tracks?”

“It’s possible.” Annie gave a slight shiver.

“We’re talking about wartime,” Banks went on. “Army camps and air force bases sprang up overnight, like mushrooms. Evacuees came and went. It was easy to disappear, change identity, slip through the cracks.”

“But people had identity cards and ration books. The council clerk told me. He said there was a National Registry at the beginning of the war, and everyone got identity cards.”

“I imagine those sort of things were open to a fiddle easily enough. Who knows, maybe we’re dealing with a Nazi spy done in by the secret service?”

Annie laughed. “Mata Hari?”

“Maybe. Anyway, what happened to Miss Violet Croft?”

Annie flipped over a page in her notebook. “I dropped by Saint Jude’s next and found the young curate very helpful. They’ve got all the old parish registry records and magazines from Saint Bart’s stored in the vestry there. Boxes of them. Violet Croft, spinster of the parish, died in July 1940 of pneumonia. She was seventy-seven.”

“That lets her out. What about the Shackletons?”

“Much more interesting. They were married at Saint Bart’s on the seventh of June, 1941. The husband’s name was Matthew Stephen Shackleton, the wife’s maiden name Gloria Kathleen Stringer. The witnesses were Gwynneth Shackleton and Cynthia Garmen.”

“Were they Hobb’s End residents?”

“Matthew Shackleton was. His parents lived at 38 High Street. They ran the newsagent’s shop. The bride’s listed as being from London, parents deceased.”

“Big place,” Banks muttered. “How old was she?”

“Nineteen. Born the seventeenth of September, 1921.”

“Interesting. That would put her within Dr. Williams’s age range by the end of the war.”

“Exactly.”

“Any mention of children?”

“No. I looked through the registry of baptisms, but there’s nothing there. Was he certain about that, do you think?”

“He seemed to be. You saw the pitting for yourself.”

“I wouldn’t know a parturition scar from a hole in the ground. It could have been a postmortem injury, couldn’t it? I mean, these things are often far from accurate.”

“It could have been. We’ll check with Dr. Glendenning after he’s done the postmortem. Do you know what? I’m beginning to get a vision of St. Catherine’s House looming large in your future.”

Annie groaned. Checking birth, marriage and death certificates was one of the most boring jobs a detective could get. The only positive aspect was that you got to go to London, but even that was offset by the department’s lack of willingness to grant expenses for an overnight stay. No time to check out the shops.

“Any luck with the education authorities?” Banks asked.

“No. They said they lost the Hobb’s End records, or misplaced them. Same with the doctors and the dentist. The ones who practiced in Hobb’s End are all dead, and their practices went with them. Records, too, I imagine. I think we can say good-bye to that line of inquiry.”

“Pity. What does your instinct tell you, Annie?”

Annie pointed her thumb toward her chest. “Moi?

“Yes, you. I want your feelings on the case so far.”

Annie was surprised. No senior officer had ever asked for her feelings before, for her feminine intuition. Banks was certainly different. “Well, sir,” she said, “for a start, I don’t think it’s a stranger killing.”

“Why not?”

“You asked for my feelings, not logic.”

“Okay.”

“It looks domestic. Like that bloke who killed his wife and sailed off to Canada.”

“Dr. Crippen?”

“That’s the one. I saw Donald Pleasence play him on telly. Creepy.”

“Crippen buried his wife under the cellar.”

“Cellar. Outbuilding. Same difference.”

“All right, I take your point. Conclusion?”

“Victim: Gloria Shackleton.”

“Killer?”

“Husband, or someone else who knew her.”

“Motive?”

“God knows. Jealousy, sex, money. Pick one. Does it matter?”

“Did you ask Mrs. Kettering if she kept in touch with anyone else who lived in Hobb’s End?”

“Sorry, sir. It slipped my mind.”

“Ask her. Maybe we can track down some people who actually knew the Shackletons. Who knows where the old residents live now? We might even get a weekend in Paris or New York out of this.”

Annie noticed Banks avert his eyes. Was he flirting? “That would be nice,” she said, sounding as neutral as possible. “Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think it’s more the kind of thing someone who lived there, or near there, would do. It was a good hiding place. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the reservoir, or the drought. Not that it would matter, really. I mean, if Adam Kelly hadn’t been playing truant and larking about on that roof, we’d never have found out. You can’t anticipate an accident of fate like that.”

Blackout curtains.” Banks slapped his palm on the table.

“Come again, sir?”

“Blackout curtains. It’s something John Webb told me. He said they found some heavy black material with the body. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but it makes sense now. The body was wrapped in blackout curtains, Annie. And Geoff Turner mentioned wartime dental work. When did the blackout end?”

“At dawn, I suppose.”

Banks smiled. “Idiot. I mean when was it no longer required?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can find out easily enough, I suppose. Either the blackout material was left over – which I’d guess was unlikely, because from what I remember my mother telling me, nothing was left over during the war – or it was no longer needed for its original purpose, which might help narrow down the time of the murder even more. But I certainly think we’re dealing with a wartime crime, and Gloria Shackleton fits the bill as victim.”

“Brilliant, Holmes.”

“Elementary. Anyway, before we go any further, let’s find out all we can about her. What was her maiden name again?”

“Stringer, sir. Gloria Stringer.”

“Right. We already know she’s about the right age, and we know she lived in Bridge Cottage during the war. She hasn’t shown up as missing?”

“Not in any records I’ve seen. And hers was the first name I looked for.”

“Okay. If you can find no trace of her existence in the local records after, say, 1946, then we could narrow things down a bit.” Banks looked at his watch. “How about something to eat? I’m getting hungry. I don’t want to eat here again. Are there any decent restaurants in Harkside?”

Annie paused for a moment, thinking of every restaurant where she had found nothing she could eat but a salad, or meat and two veg without the meat, then she gave in to the little surge of devil-may-care excitement that tingled through her and said, “Well, sir, there’s always my place.”


After the honeymoon, Gloria continued to report for work at the farm every day at eight o’clock and she wasn’t home until five or later. On weekends, she was at Bridge Cottage, looking fresh and beautiful, ready for Matthew’s arrival. Matthew passed his engineering degree, graduating with first-class honors, as I knew he would, and started his military training at Catterick, which wasn’t too far away.

Gloria had managed, I discovered one evening, to barter her needlework skills for an extra half day off work at the farm, which gave her the full weekend. Her local area supervisor would be none the wiser, so long as the Kilnseys didn’t tell. And while Gloria kept them in mended clothes they were hardly likely to do that.

Most days I was busy with the shop. In my spare time I was involved in the Harkside Amateur Players’ production of a new J. B. Priestley play, When We Are Married, so I spent a lot of time in rehearsal.

Despite all this, we managed to get to the pictures in Harkside together a few times. Gloria just loved films and sometimes she didn’t even have time to change out of her uniform before pedaling at breakneck speed to meet me outside the Lyceum or the Lyric. She always managed some little eccentricity in her appearance, like wearing a bright pink ribbon or a yellow blouse instead of the regulation green.

That summer, for the first time, we had double summer time, which meant it stayed light much later. In autumn and winter, though, it was always dark when we had to go home. Though it was only a mile or so from Harkside to Hobb’s End across the fields, there was no marked path or road, and on a cloudy, moonless night you could wander for hours in the pitch-darkness and miss the place entirely. Unless there was a bright moon, we had to walk the long way home: all the way up Long Hill and then along The Edge, careful not to fall into Harksmere Reservoir.

Because it was much bigger, Harkside was eerier than Hobb’s End in the blackout. For a start, they had street lamps, which we didn’t, and though they weren’t lit, of course, each one of them now had a white stripe painted up its length to help you see your way in the dark, the same way there were stripes of white paint along the curbsides. People had also put the little dabs of luminous paint on their doorbells, which glowed like fireflies all along the streets.

Sometimes we accepted a lift with some of the RAF boys from Rowan Woods, and we even became quite friendly with a couple of Canadian airmen attached to the RAF: Mark, from Toronto, and Stephen, from Winnipeg. Mark was the handsomest one, and I could have listened to his soft, smooth accent all night long. I could tell he liked Gloria by the way he looked at her. He even contrived to touch her in small ways, like taking her hand to help her step into the Jeep, and touching the spot between her shoulders if he opened a door for her and ushered her through. Gloria seemed amused by it all.

Stephen had a high, squeaky voice, ears that stuck out and hair that seemed glued on like handfuls of straw, but he was nice enough. Sometimes we let them take us to the pictures and they were both very well behaved.

For Gloria’s twentieth birthday, in September, I took her to Brunton’s Café on Long Hill, where we gorged ourselves on grilled sausage with mashed potatoes, braised butter beans, followed by jam roll and custard. Matthew couldn’t be with us because it was a weekday, but Gloria showed me the locket he had already given her as a birthday present. It was beautiful: dark gold with their names entwined on the heart and a photograph, cut out from one of the wedding pictures, of the two of them inside. After tea, holding our tummies, we went to the Lyceum to see Ziegfeld Girl, starring Jimmy Stewart and Lana Turner. It was so memorable that the next day I couldn’t remember a single melody.

It was Gloria’s choice, of course. Unfortunately, our tastes couldn’t have been more different. Gloria liked empty-headed Hollywood musicals and romantic comedies with beautiful stars and handsome leading men, whereas I preferred something with a bit of meat on its bones, an adaptation of the classics, say. More often than not, I preferred to stay home and listen to dramas on the Home Service, where I very much enjoyed Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, among others.

Anyway, it was Gloria’s birthday. She also liked the Lyceum best because of the red plush seats and the way the organ came rising up slowly and majestically through its trapdoor, with the famous Teddy Marston, usually playing “The White Cliffs of Dover,” “Shine On Victory Moon,” or some such patriotic tune. Gloria would have tears in her eyes when she listened to that sort of thing. Then the lights dimmed and the heavy red velvet curtains parted slowly.

Sometimes Alice, Cynthia and Betty came to the pictures with us, even Michael Stanhope on occasion. While he often delighted us with his wicked critical commentary on the way home, he disappointed me in leaning more toward Gloria’s sort of film than toward something with a bit more substance. After all, he was supposed to be a serious artist.

I often wondered what he and Gloria found to talk about when they went drinking together in the Shoulder of Mutton. I was too young to go with them, of course, not that they ever invited me. Anyway, I suppose they must have had long, intricate conversations about the deeper meaning of Hollywood musicals.

Matthew and Gloria tried to furnish Bridge Cottage as best they could. This was before the Government banned most furniture production, but even then the good stuff was either expensive or unavailable. You had to scrounge for the simplest of things, like curtain rods and coat hooks. They went to auctions some weekends, bought an old sideboard or a wardrobe here, a dresser there, and bit by bit they managed to furnish the house in a tasteful if not terribly elegant way. They made a home out of Bridge Cottage.

Gloria’s pride and joy was the radiogram they bought from the Coopers after their son, John, was killed when the Prince of Wales was sunk just before Christmas. It had been John’s pride and joy, and his mum and dad couldn’t bear to keep it around the house after he was gone.

Gloria honored her promise to give me dancing lessons and I spent an hour or so over at Bridge Cottage each weekend while Matthew read the newspaper after dinner. It felt strange having her put her arms around me. Her body felt soft and I could smell her perfume, Evening in Paris. She was a good teacher, but with her being so much shorter it was awkward at first, having her lead me. I soon got used to it. I was a good pupil, too. Over the next couple of weeks I learned the waltz, the quickstep and the fox-trot. I actually tried out my skills at a Bonfire Night dance in the Harkside Mechanics Institute. We might not have been able to have bonfires during the war, but we still managed to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. Anyway, I did very well at dancing, and that worked wonders for my confidence.

By Christmas, Matthew had almost finished his training, and there was talk of a posting. I asked him if he was going to be a commissioned officer and he said he didn’t think so. He had been for an interview and was upset at the way the board asked him about what his parents did for a living and how often he rode with the local hunt. He said there wasn’t much hope of a shopkeeper’s son getting a commission.

It was also that Christmas, at a party Gloria and Matthew held, when I got my first real inkling of Gloria’s problems with men.


Annie’s place turned out to be a squat, narrow terrace cottage at the center of a labyrinth. Banks left his car parked by the green and walked through so many twisting narrow streets and ginnels, by backyards where washing hung out on lines in the evening sun, where children played and dogs barked behind sturdy gates, that he was lost within seconds.

“Why do I keep thinking I should have left a piece of thread attached to the Black Swan?” he said as he followed her down a snicket narrow enough to pass through only in single file.

Annie cast a glance over her shoulder and smiled. “Like Theseus, you mean? I hope you don’t think I’m the Minotaur just because I live at the center of all this?”

Banks’s mythology was a bit rusty, but he remembered being impressed by an ancient vase he had seen on a school trip to the British Museum. It depicted Ariadne outside the Labyrinth holding one end of the thread and Theseus at its center killing the Minotaur.

He had even seen what was left of the Labyrinth at the Palace of Knossos on Crete, where a pedantic guide inflicted with a serious case of synonymitis had explained it all to Sandra and him as they tried to hold back their giggles. “And this is King Minos’s throne, his regal seat, his chair of office… And they carried her body to the hill, the rise, the tor, the mountain.” He remembered the olive trees with their silver-green oily leaves and the orange trees lining the road from Heraklion.

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Sandra.

He was about to say that he thought of Annie more as Ariadne, seeing as she was probably the only one who could get him out of there, but he bit his tongue. Considering what transpired between Theseus and Ariadne on Naxos, it didn’t seem like a very good idea.

He followed Annie deeper into the labyrinth.

Her keys were jingling in her hand now. “Almost there,” she said, glancing back at him, then she opened a high wooden gate in a stone wall, led him through a small flagged yard and in the back door.

“Where do you park?” Banks asked.

Annie dropped her keys on the kitchen table and laughed. “A long way away. Look, it’s tiny, there’s not much of a view and very little light. But guess what? It’s cheap, and it’s mine. Well, it will be when I’ve paid off the mortgage. You must have been a DS once?”

“A DC, too.” Banks remembered the early days, scraping and saving to make ends meet, especially when Tracy and Brian were little and Sandra had to take extended periods off work. There were no maternity benefits back then. Not for dental receptionists, anyway. Even now, as a DCI, it was difficult making payments on the cottage. He also had to furnish the place by driving around to local auctions and car-boot sales. There would be no Greek holiday this year. “At least you get overtime,” he said. “You probably make more than me.”

“In Harkside? You must be joking.” Annie led him through to the living room. It was small but cozy, and she had decorated much of it in whites, lemons and creams because of the lack of outside light. As a result, the room seemed airy and cheerful. There was just enough space for a small white three-piece suite, the settee of which would probably seat two very thin people, a TV, mini-stereo and a small bookcase under the window. Several miniature watercolors hung on the walls. Local scenes, mostly. Banks recognized Semerwater, Aysgarth Falls and Richmond Castle. There was also one oil portrait of a young woman with flowing pre-Raphaelite hair and laughing eyes.

“Who painted these?” he asked.

“I did. Most of them.”

“They’re very good.”

Annie seemed embarrassed. “I don’t think so. Not really. I mean, they’re competent, but…” She put her hand to her head and swept back her hair. “Anyway, look, I feel really grubby after being down in that basement. I’m going up for a quick shower first, then I’ll start dinner. It won’t take long. Make yourself at home. Open the window if you’re too warm. There’s plenty of beer in the fridge. Help yourself.” Then she turned and left the room. Banks heard stairs creak as she walked up.

This woman was an enigma, he thought. She had a DCI, her boss, as a guest in her house, yet nothing in her behavior toward him indicated a deferential relationship. She was the same always, with everyone, not adapting herself to the various roles people play in life. He imagined she would even be the same with Jimmy Riddle. Not that she’d invite that bastard into her home, Banks hoped. He heard the shower start. Though it was small, the cottage wasn’t particularly old – not like his own – and it had an upstairs bathroom and toilet. Even so, he guessed Annie must have had the shower installed herself, because it certainly wouldn’t have come with the original building.

First, he did what he always did when left alone in a new room; he nosed around. He couldn’t help it. Curiosity was part of his nature. He didn’t open drawers or read private mail, not unless he thought he was dealing with a criminal, but he liked to look at books, choice of music and the general lie of the land.

Annie’s living room was fairly Spartan. It wasn’t that she didn’t own books or CDs, but that she didn’t have many of either. He got the impression that she may have had to pare down her existence at one time and everything that remained was important to her. There seemed to be no chaff. Unlike his own collection, where the mistakes piled up alongside the hidden gems. Discs he never listened to shared shelf space with some that were almost worn out.

First, he crouched down and checked the CD titles in the cabinet under the stereo. It was an odd collection: Gregorian chants, Don Cherry’s Eternal Now and several “ambient” pieces by Brian Eno. There was also an extensive blues collection, from Mississippi John Hurt to John Mayall. Next to these stood a few pop and folk titles: Emmylou Harris’s The Wrecking Ball, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, some k.d. lang.

The books mainly centered around Eastern philosophy; it was a real sixties treasure trove, considering that Annie was a nineties woman. Banks remembered some of the titles. He had come across them first in Jem’s room, in the Notting Hill days, and he had even borrowed and read some of them: Baba Ram Dass’s Be Here Now; Gurd-jieff’s Meetings With Remarkable Men; Ouspensky, Carlos Castaneda, Thomas Merton, Alan Watts, and old blue-covered Pelican paperbacks about yoga, Zen and meditation.

Seeing them again took him right back to the dim, candlelit room with the melting-butter walls and the jasmine joss sticks, to the first time he smoked hash, with Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” on the stereo; earnest, all-night arguments about Marx and Marcuse, changing the system, love and revolution, with Banks, more often than not, playing the straight man, the devil’s advocate. Gentle, sweet-natured Jem, his gaunt face always in shadows, dark hair spilling over his narrow shoulders, his soft, husky voice and his unwillingness to kill even the mice that sometimes walked across the room right in front of them as they talked. His record collection: Rainbow Bridge, Bitches Brew, Live Dead, Joy of a Toy.

Strange days. Old days.

Back then, Banks had spent half his time studying industrial psychology and cost accounting and the other half listening to Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Roland Kirk and The Soft Machine. One way led to security and what his parents wanted; the other led to uncertainty and God only knew what else. Poverty and drug addiction, as like as not. Hard to believe now that there had been a time when it was all balanced on a razor’s edge, when he could have gone either way.

Then Jem died and Banks joined the police, a third option he hadn’t considered before, even in his wildest dreams.

The shower stopped, and a few seconds later Banks heard the roar of a hair dryer. Shaking off the memories that seemed to cling to his mind like cobwebs, he wandered into the kitchen. Like the living room, it was decorated in light colors, white tiles for the most part, with chocolate brown around the work area, just for contrast. In addition to the small oven, fridge, sink and countertops, there was a dining table. It could probably seat about four comfortably, he guessed.

Banks opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Black Sheep. He found an opener in one of the drawers and a pint glass in one of the cupboards. Carefully, he poured out the beer so it had just enough head on it, then he took a sip and went back into the living room. The hair dryer stopped, and he could hear Annie walking around upstairs. He took Eternal Now from its jewel case and put it in the CD player. He had heard of Don Cherry, a jazz trumpeter who used to play with Ornette Coleman, but didn’t actually know his work.

The music started with strummed chords on oddly tuned stringed instruments, then a deep, echoey flutelike instrument entered. Banks turned down the volume, picked up the CD liner notes and sat down to read while he waited for Annie, abandoning himself to the weird combinations of wooden saxophones, Indian harmoniums and Polynesian gamelans.

Before the first track had finished, Annie breezed into the room exuding freshly scrubbed warmth.

“I never took you for a Don Cherry fan,” she said, a wicked grin on her face.

“Life is full of surprises. I like it.”

“I thought you were an opera buff?”

“Been asking around?”

“Just station gossip. I’ll start dinner now, if you want.”

Banks smiled. “Fine with me.”

She disappeared into the kitchen. “You can keep me company,” she called out over her shoulder.

Banks put the CD case back on the shelf and carried his beer through. He sat down at the kitchen table. Annie was bending over pulling vegetables out of the fridge. The jeans looked good on her.

“Pasta okay?” she asked, half turning her head.

“Great. It’s a long time since I’ve had any home cooking. Mostly these days it’s been either pub grub or something quick and easy from Marks and Sparks.”

“Ah, the lonely eater’s friends.”

Banks laughed. It was funny, and rather sad, he had often noticed, how you saw so many young, single men and women wandering around the Marks food section just after five on a weeknight, reaching for the prawn vindaloo, then changing their minds, going instead for the single portion of chicken Kiev and the carton of mixed vegetables. He supposed it might be a good place to pick up a girl.

Annie filled a large pan with water, added a little salt and oil, then set it on the gas ring. She didn’t waste a gesture as she washed and chopped mushrooms, shallots, garlic and courgettes. There was a certain economic grace to her movements that Banks found quite hypnotic; she seemed to possess a natural, centered quality that put him at ease.

She went to the kitchen cupboard, took down a bottle of red wine and uncorked it.

“Want some?”

Banks held up his beer. “I’ll finish this first.”

Annie poured herself a generous glass. Soon the oil was hot in the frying pan and she was dropping the vegetables in a handful at a time. When they were done, she added a cup or two of tinned tomatoes and a handful of herbs. Banks decided to make cooking his next project, after he had fixed up the cottage. Something else to keep depression at bay. He liked food, so it made sense to learn how to cook it properly now that he was alone.

About the time Banks finished his beer, Annie announced that dinner was ready and delivered two steaming plates to the table. Don Cherry finished, and she put on Emmylou Harris, whose voice seemed to catch on sharp notches inside her throat before it came out, singing about loneliness, loss, pain. All things Banks could relate to. He ground pepper and grated Parmesan onto the pasta and tucked in. After a couple of bites, he complimented Annie.

“See,” she said. “It’s not all salads and tofu. You learn to be more inventive in the kitchen when you’re a vegetarian.”

“I can tell.”

“Wine?”

“Please.”

Annie brought over the bottle of Sainsbury’s Bulgarian Merlot, refilled her glass and poured one for Banks. “Plenty more where that came from,” she said. “You know, I’d really like to find out more about this Hobb’s End artist, Michael Stanhope.”

“Why? Because you think he’s connected to the case?”

“Well, he might be, mightn’t he? He was living in Hobb’s End during the war. Maybe he knew the Shackleton woman. There may be other paintings. They might tell us something.”

“They might,” Banks agreed. “Though I’m not sure how far art could be trusted as evidence, even if he painted the murder itself.”

Annie smiled. “Not technically, perhaps. But artists often distort reality to reveal the truth about it.”

“Do you believe that?”

Annie’s eyes, the color of milk chocolate, shone in the failing light. “Yes,” she said. “I do. Not about my own work. As I said, I’m technically competent, but I lack whatever it is that makes a great artist. Vision. Passion. Intensity. Insanity. I don’t know. Probably what most people call genius. But the true artist’s reality is every bit as valid as any other. Perhaps more so in some ways because an artist struggles to see more deeply, to illuminate.”

“A lot of art is far from illuminating.”

“Yes, but that’s often because the subject, the truth he’s trying to get at, is so elusive that only symbols or vague images will do to approach it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that artists are always trying to get some sort of deep message across. They’re not preachers. What I’m saying is that Stanhope obviously perceived something odd about Hobb’s End, something that went below the surface, beyond the superficial ideas of village life. He saw something evil there and maybe something redemptive in the children.”

“Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? Maybe it was just because there was a war coming?”

“I’m not trying to make out he was a visionary. Just that he saw something a lot of other people would either not see or would gloss over. He really looked and maybe he saw something that might be useful to us. Damn!”

“What?”

“Oh, I just spilled some pasta sauce on my T-shirt, that’s all.” She grinned and rubbed at the red mark over her breast. That only made it worse. “I always was a messy eater.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks. Where was I?”

“The artist’s vision.”

“Right. It’s got nothing to do with personality. In life, Stanhope might well have been a mean, lecherous, drunken slob. Believe me, I’ve known a lot of artists, and many of them have been exactly that. Talk about groups living up to their stereotypes.”

Banks sipped some wine. Emmylou Harris was singing about wearing something pretty and white. Banks thought he could detect Neil Young’s high-pitched warble in the background. “You seem to know a lot about the subject,” he said. “Any particular reason?”

Annie fell silent for a moment, looking down at her empty plate, moving the fork around in her hand. Finally, she said in a quiet voice, “My father’s an artist.”

“Is he well-known?”

“Not really. In some circles, perhaps.” She looked up and smiled crookedly. “He’ll never go down in history as one of the greats, if that’s what you mean.”

“He’s still living, I assume?”

“Ray? Oh, yes. He’s just turned fifty-two. He was only twenty when I was born.”

“Does he have what it takes to be a great artist?”

“To some extent. But you have to remember, there’s a big, big gap between someone like my dad and Van Gogh or Picasso. It’s all relative.”

“What about your mother?”

Again, Annie was silent a few moments. “She died,” she said at last. “When I was six. I don’t really remember her very well. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

“More wine?”

“Please.”

Annie poured.

“That oil portrait in the living room, is it your mother?”

Annie nodded.

“Your father painted it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s very good. She was a beautiful woman. You look a lot like her.”

It was almost dark outside now. Annie hadn’t put on any lights, so Banks couldn’t see her expression.

“Where did you grow up?” he asked.

“Saint Ives.”

“Nice place.”

“You know it?”

“I’ve been there on holiday a couple of times. Years ago, when I worked on the Met. It’s a bit far from here.”

“I don’t get down as often as I should. Maybe you remember it was a magnet for hippies in the sixties? It became something of an artist’s colony.”

“I remember.”

“My father lived there even before that. Over the years he’s done all kinds of odd jobs to support his art. He might have even rented you a deck chair on the beach. Now he paints local landscapes and sells them to tourists. Does some glass engraving too. He’s quite successful at it.”

“So he makes a decent living?”

“Yes. He doesn’t have to rent out the deck chairs anymore.”

“He brought you up alone?”

Annie pushed her hair back. “Well, not really. I mean, yes, in the sense that my mother was dead, but we lived in a sort of artists’ colony on an old farm just outside town, so there were always lots of other people around. My extended family, you might call them. Ray’s been living with Jasmine for nearly twenty years now.”

“It sounds like a strange setup.”

“Only to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It seemed perfectly normal to me. It was the other kids who seemed strange. The ones with mothers and fathers.”

“Did you get teased a lot at school?”

“Tormented. Some of the locals were very intolerant. Thought we were having orgies every night, doing drugs, worshiping the devil, the usual stuff. Actually, though there always seemed to be some pot around, they couldn’t have been further from the truth. There were a few wild ones – that kind of free, experimental way of life always attracts a few unstable types – but on the whole it was a pretty good environment to grow up in. Plus I got a great education in the arts – and not from school.”

“What made you join the police?”

“The village bobby took my virginity.”

“Seriously.”

Annie laughed and poured more wine. “It’s true. He did. His name was Rob. He came up to see us once, looking for someone who’d passed through, one of the occasional undesirables. He was good-looking. I was seventeen. He noticed me. It seemed a suitable act of rebellion.”

“Against your par – your father?”

“Against all of them. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate them or anything. It was just that I’d had enough of that lifestyle by then. There were too many people around all the time, nowhere to escape to. Too much talk and not enough done. You could never get any privacy. That’s why I value it so much now. And how many times can a grown person listen to ‘White Rabbit’?”

Banks laughed. “I feel the same way about ‘Nessun Dorma.’”

“Anyway, Rob seemed solid, dependable, more sure of himself and what he believed in.”

“Was he?”

“Yes. We went out until I went to university in Exeter. Then he turned up there a year or so later as a DC. He introduced me to some of his friends and we sort of started going out again. I suppose they found me a bit weird. After all, I didn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. I still had a lot of my father’s values, and I was into yoga and meditation even back then, when nobody else was. I didn’t really fit in anywhere. I don’t know why, but being a detective sounded exciting. Different. When you get right down to it, most jobs are so bloody boring. I’d thought of becoming a teacher, but I changed my mind and joined the force. It was a bit impulsive, I’ll admit.”

Banks wanted to ask her why she was in a dead-end place like Harkside, but he sensed that this wasn’t the moment. At least he could ask a leading question and see if she was willing to be led. “How has it worked out?”

“It’s tough for a woman. But things are what you make them. I’m a feminist, but I’m the sort who just likes to get on with it rather than whine about what’s wrong with the system. Maybe that comes from my dad. He goes his own way. Anyway, you know all about what it’s like, about how unexciting it is most of the time. And how bloody boring it can be.”

“True enough. What happened to Rob?”

“He got killed during an armed drugs bust three years later. Poor sod. His gun jammed.”

“I’m sorry.”

Annie put her hand to her forehead, then fanned it in front of her face. “Ooh, I’m hot. Listen to me go on. I haven’t talked to anyone like this in ages.”

“I wouldn’t mind a cigarette. Would you like to stand outside with me? Cool down a bit, if it’s possible?”

“Okay.”

They went out into the backyard. It was a warm night, though there were signs of a breeze beginning to stir. Annie stood beside him. He could smell her scent. He lit up, inhaled and blew out a plume of dark smoke.

“It was like drawing teeth,” he said, “getting you to talk about your personal life.”

“I’m not used to it. I’m like you in a lot of ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, how much have you told me about your past?”

“What do you want to know?”

“That’s not what I mean. You just wouldn’t think of telling people about yourself, of letting someone in, would you? It’s not in your nature. You’re a loner, like me. I don’t just mean now, because you’re…”

“Because my wife left me?”

“Right. Not just because you’re physically alone or because you’re living alone. I mean in your nature, deep inside. Even when you were married. I think you’ve got a lonely, isolated nature. It colors the way you see the world, the detachment you feel. I’m not explaining it very well, am I? I think I’m the same. I can be alone in a crowded room. I’ll bet you can be, too.”

Banks thought about what Annie had said as he smoked. It was what Sandra had said when they had their final argument, what he had refused to admit was the truth. There was something in him that always stood apart, that she couldn’t reach and he wouldn’t offer. It wasn’t just the Job and its demands, but something deeper: a central core of loneliness. He had been like that even as a child. An observer. Always on the outside, even when he played with others. As Annie said, it was a part of his nature, and he didn’t think he could change it if he tried.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Funny thing, though. I always thought I was a simple family man.”

“And now?”

“And now I’m not so sure I ever was.”

A cat meowed in a nearby yard. Down the street, a door opened and closed and someone turned a television on. Emmylou drifted through the open kitchen window singing about losing this sweet old world. Banks dropped his cigarette and trod on the red ember. Suddenly a chill gust of wind rustled the distant trees and passed through the yard. Annie shivered. Banks put his arm around her and moved her gently toward him. She let her head rest on his shoulder.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Why?”

Annie paused. Banks could feel her warm shoulder under the thin T-shirt, the ridge of her bra strap.

“Well, we’ve both probably had too much to drink.”

“If it’s the rank thing that’s bothering you-”

“No. No. It’s not that. I don’t give a damn about that, to be honest. As I said, the Job’s not my be-all-and-end-all. I still have a bit of the bohemian left in me. No, it’s just that… I’ve had some bad experiences with men. I’ve been… I mean I haven’t been… Oh, shit, why is this so difficult?” She rubbed her forehead. Banks kept silent. Annie sighed deeply. “I’ve been celibate,” she said. “By choice. For nearly two years now.”

“I don’t want to pressure you,” Banks said.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you. I make my own choices.”

“I’ll never find my way out of this labyrinth alone.”

“I’d lead you,” Annie said, facing him and smiling. “If I really wanted you to go. But somehow I doubt whether you’re in a fit state to drive. It’s probably my duty to arrest you. Crime intervention.” She paused and frowned, then rested her hand lightly on his chest. His heart beat more loudly. Surely she could hear it, feel it? “There are a lot of reasons for not taking this any further, you know,” she went on. “I’ve heard you’re a bad lot.”

“Not true.”

“A womanizer.”

“Not true.”

They looked at one another for a few moments. Annie bit her lip, shivered again and said, “Oh, hell.”

Banks wished he hadn’t just smoked a cigarette. He leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips yielded and her body molded itself to his. Then he forgot all about cigarettes.

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