Not Safe After Dark (49 page)

The wind had picked up even more, Banks noticed, bringing a few fast-flying clouds and a chill with it, and there was a smell of rain in the air. Banks zipped his leather jacket all the way up
and walked the short distance to the close, where Mrs Green lived. She answered Banks’s knock and expressed delight at seeing him again. She had certainly aged – thickened at the waist,
drooped at the bosom – but she had lost none of her sprightliness, and she fussed around making tea and bringing out a plate of scones. Her living room was sparsely decorated – plain
cream wallpaper, no prints or paintings – and a few framed family photographs stood on the mantelpiece.

‘How’s Tony doing?’ Banks asked. ‘I’ve always regretted we didn’t manage to stay in touch.’

‘These things happen,’ said Mrs Green. ‘People drift apart over the years. It’s only natural. It doesn’t mean they don’t share good memories,
though.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Anyway, Tony’s doing fine. He lives in Vancouver now, you know. He’s a tax lawyer. This is him about two years ago.’ She picked up one of the photographs and handed it
to Banks. It showed the smile he remembered, the mischief in the eyes, surrounded by a bald head on a pudgy body in brightly coloured shorts and a red T-shirt. Tony stood with a relaxed, smiling
woman Banks took to be his wife, and two bored and /or cool-looking teenage children. They were on a beach and there were cloud-topped mountains in the background. ‘I’ll let him know
you were asking about him,’ Mrs Green said.

‘Please do.’ Banks replaced the photo on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ve been to Toronto, but never Vancouver.’

‘You should go if you get a chance. Bill and I visited him there five years ago. It’s a lovely city. I’m sure Tony and Carol would be happy to have you stop with them.
They’ve got a big house.’

‘Maybe I will,’ said Banks.

‘We don’t see you down here very often, do we?’

‘Well,’ said Banks, feeling guilty he hadn’t made time for Mrs Green on his previous visit, ‘I keep pretty busy up north. You know how it is.’ He sipped some
tea.

‘Your parents are really very proud of you, you know.’

Banks almost choked on his tea. Where had that come from?

Mrs Green considered him through her tortoiseshell glasses. ‘You might not think so,’ she said, ‘and they might not admit it, but they are. Especially since that business last
summer.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Oh, don’t think I don’t know about your differences. They never did approve of what you chose to do with your life, did they? Your dad thought you’d joined the enemy and
your mother thought you’d let her down. That was clear enough to anyone who knew them.’

‘Was it?’

‘Oh, yes. And I knew where they were coming from, of course.’

‘What do you mean?’

She smiled. ‘Oh, don’t be so obtuse, Alan. You always did have that infuriating habit of pretending not to see the obvious. You wouldn’t have got far in your chosen career if
you couldn’t even add together the basics. You had all the opportunities; they had none. They had to settle for their lot in life. And the Thatcher years were pretty tough around here. How do
you think your dad felt when he saw coppers laying into workers on the news? Miners, whatever they were, they were still working men, like himself. How do you think he felt when he saw the police
in riot gear waving their overtime pay in the faces of men who’d lost everything? Do you think he actually enjoyed working at that factory every day of his life? I’d say it was a cause
for celebration when they made him redundant, but for him it was a blow to his pride. And your mother, cleaning up other folk’s messes? They made a lot of sacrifices for you, so you could do
better than they had. And what did you do? You joined the police force. You must have known how people around here felt about the police.’

‘I’d say they expect us to make sure their cars are safe and keep the muggings and gang fights to a minimum.’

‘You always were a cheeky young beggar, Alan Banks. Perhaps now they do. But not back then.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Banks.

‘But what I’m telling you is they know you’ve done well for yourself now. Every time you got a promotion they told me, and you should have heard the pride in their voices.
“Our Alan’s a detective
sergeant
now,” they’d say. Or “They’ve made Alan detective
chief
inspector now!” I got sick of hearing about you. It
just took them a long time to work it out, and they don’t find it easy to express. It also helped that you came down on the right side last time you were here. Of course, they always did dote
on that useless brother of yours.’

‘Roy.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry, but you know I’ve always spoken my mind, and I can’t say I ever took to him. Sly, he seemed to me, two-faced, always up to something behind your back.
You were no angel, mind, but you weren’t sly.’

Banks smiled as he buttered his scone, thinking about the time he had orchestrated going to bed with Kay while his parents were visiting his granny, and the time he and Tony Green had drunk some
of Mr Green’s whisky and topped the bottle up with water. Whether he spotted it or not they never knew. Sly? All kids are sly, Banks thought; they have to be in their constant struggle with
the inexplicable and unreasonable rules and regulations imposed on them by adults. But Banks knew how to take a compliment when he was offered one, even at the expense of his brother.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Roy could be a bit of a handful.’

‘To say the least. Anyway, I don’t see much of your mum and dad any more, except when I bump into Ida on the street,’ Mrs Green went on. ‘That’s how I knew about
the golden wedding. She invited me. It’s sad, though. People seem to isolate themselves when they get old. They don’t get out as much, and I don’t go to the Coach and Horses. How
are they?’

‘Same as ever,’ said Banks. ‘Mum’s complaining about varicose veins and her bunions, but she doesn’t seem to do too badly. Dad’s still got his angina, but it
doesn’t seem any worse. There’s a neighbour helps out. Bloke called Geoff Salisbury. Know him?’

Banks couldn’t swear to it, but he thought Mrs Green’s expression darkened for a moment. Her lips certainly tightened.

‘I know him,’ she said.

Banks leaned forward in his armchair. ‘You don’t sound so thrilled about it.’

‘Can’t say as I am. Oh, he’s a charmer all right is Geoff Salisbury. Bit too much of one for my liking.’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘He seems to have some sort of radar for all the old folks in trouble on the estate. He turns up everywhere at one time or another. Usually when you need help.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘More tea?’

‘Please.’ Banks held out his cup.

‘You know, you can smoke if you like.’ She smiled. ‘If I let you do it when you were fifteen, I can hardly stop you now you’re . . . what would it be?’

‘A lot older.’ Banks put his hand to his left temple. ‘Can’t you tell by the grey?’

Mrs Green laughed and touched her own head. ‘You call
that
grey?’ It was true, she had an entire head of fluffy grey hair.

‘Anyway,’ Banks said, remembering what Mr Green had died of, ‘thanks, but I’ve stopped.’

‘I won’t say that’s not good news. If only we’d all known all along what it was doing to us.’

‘You were saying? About Geoff Salisbury.’

‘I was, wasn’t I?’ She sat back in her chair, tea and saucer resting on her lap. ‘Oh, you know me. I tend to go off half-cocked on things.’

‘I’d still be interested to hear your thoughts,’ said Banks. ‘To be honest, I haven’t really taken to him myself, and he seems to be spending an awful lot of time
around Mum and Dad.’

She waved a hand. ‘It’s nothing, really. He started coming around when Bill was sick. It was near the end and Bill was in a wheelchair, breathing from that horrible oxygen
tank.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Want? Nothing. He never asked for a thing. Only to help. Give him his due, he’s a hard and willing worker, and he was certainly useful at the time. He fixed a few things around the
house, ran errands.’

‘So what was the problem?’

‘You’ll think I was imagining things.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Well, it wasn’t any one thing, really. Just little things. The wrong change, or one of Bill’s tools would go missing. Nothing you could really put your finger on.’

Banks remembered the short change Geoff Salisbury had handed his mother yesterday evening. ‘Anything else?’

‘Ooh, just listen to us,’ said Mrs Green, refilling her teacup. ‘I’m being questioned by a policeman.’

Banks smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to seem like that. Comes with the territory, I suppose.’

She laughed. ‘It’s all right, Alan. I was only teasing. But it’s hard to talk about. It was only a feeling.’

‘What feeling?’

She clasped the collar of her frock. ‘That he was . . . hovering . . . like the Angel of Death or something. Listen to me now. What a fool I sound.’

‘You don’t think Geoff Salisbury had anything to do with your husband’s death, do you?’

‘Of course not. No, it’s nothing like that. It was a faulty valve, they said, on the oxygen tank.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Someone told me if we’d been living in
America I’d have got millions of dollars in compensation.’

‘That’s probably true.’

‘Yes, well, if we’d been living in America we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford the medical treatment in the first place, and Bill would have died a lot
sooner.’

‘Also true,’ said Banks. ‘Can you explain a bit more clearly? About this feeling you had.’

‘I’m not sure. I felt as if he were, you know, waiting, waiting in the wings until Bill died.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know. So he could take over more, maybe, manipulate me more.’

Banks smiled at her. ‘He obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.’

She didn’t smile back. ‘You’d be surprised how easy it is to take advantage when people are vulnerable.’ She looked at him. ‘Or maybe you wouldn’t. You
probably see a lot of it in your job. Anyway, I felt as if he was hovering, waiting for Bill to die so that he could be more in control.’

‘But what could possibly have been in it for him?’

‘I don’t know. Like I said, I was probably imagining things anyway.’

‘I don’t suppose you won the lottery recently?’

‘Never bought a ticket.’

‘And you don’t have a million pounds hidden in the mattress or anything?’

She laughed. ‘Wish I had. No, there’s nothing, really. Bill’s insurance policy. Old-age pension. I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s enough to get by on.’

‘What happened?’

‘After Bill died, I gave Geoff Salisbury his marching orders. I was nice about it. I thanked him for his help, but said I was perfectly capable of managing by myself and I’d prefer
it if he didn’t come around any more. It wasn’t that I couldn’t still have used the sort of help he had to offer, but I just didn’t feel comfortable having him around. Maybe
I was being oversensitive as well as ungrateful.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘As I said, I haven’t taken to him myself and I’m not sure why.’

‘You’ll be feeling guilty because he’s looking after your parents while you’re not there to do it.’

‘Perhaps. Partly, yes. But there’s more. I don’t trust him. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I don’t trust him. Maybe it’s copper’s
instinct.’

‘Well, I can tell you one thing for a start: you’ll get no thanks around these parts for going after Geoff Salisbury.’

‘Popular, is he?’

‘To hear some talk, you’d think the sun shone out of his . . . well, you know what.’

Banks smiled. ‘I think I can guess. How did he take your rejection?’

Mrs Green shrugged. ‘Well enough, I suppose. At least he didn’t bother me after that. Oh, I see him around now and then, and he always smiles and says hello as if nothing ever
happened. It’s just that—’

‘What?’

‘Oh, probably me being silly again. But it feels just skin deep, as if underneath it all, if you were just to strip off the surface that, well, you’d find something else entirely
under there. Something very nasty indeed.’

9

Banks decided to
pay a quick visit to the city centre that afternoon. He needed to pick up a couple of things from the shops for tomorrow, such as a nice
anniversary card and some candles. He asked his parents if they needed anything, but they said no (implying, Banks thought, that Geoff Salisbury was taking care of everything), so off he went.
Rather than search the side streets for a vacant parking space, he parked in the short stay behind the town hall and walked through to Bridge Street.

Of course, the city centre had changed quite a lot since his schooldays. Most cities
had
changed a lot in the past thirty years, but Peterborough more so than many others. Gone were the
small record shop in the back alley, where he used to buy a new single nearly every week and LPs whenever he could afford them – usually only Christmas and birthdays – and the musty
used book shop, where he used to browse for hours among the dog-eared paperbacks, the one where the sour-faced woman behind the counter used to watch him like a hawk the entire time he was in
there. The open-air market had closed; some of the pubs he used to drink in when he was sixteen and seventeen had disappeared and new ones had sprung up; an old cinema, after several years as a
bingo hall, was now a nightclub; department stores had disappeared, moved or been given facelifts; Cathedral Square was now a pedestrian precinct.

Only yards from the Queensgate Centre stood the ancient cathedral itself. Throughout Banks’s childhood, the majestic structure had simply
been there
. It didn’t dominate the
city the way York Minster did, and like most of the other local kids he had paid it scant attention unless school projects and organized visits demanded otherwise. After all, what kid was
interested in a boring old cathedral where boring old farts had gone to pray and where even more boring ones were buried? But now he found himself admiring the west front, with its three soaring
Gothic arches flanked by twin-pinnacled towers, the stone cream-coloured in the autumn sunshine.