Not Safe After Dark (51 page)

‘Kids?’

‘Three girls. All married. I’m a grandmother, Alan. Can you believe it? A bloody grandmother.’

‘It’s hard to believe, looking at you.’

She blushed and smiled again. ‘Why, thank you. I’ll tell you, though, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of investment in potions and salves these days. Remember when we were
kids? We thought we were immortal, that we’d be young for ever.’

‘True enough,’ Banks agreed. ‘I’m still waiting for the wisdom that’s supposed to come with age.’

‘Me, too.’

They paused to eat in comfortable silence. Banks watched Kay break off flakes of moist sole with the edge of her fork. His venison was good, tender and tasty. He decided he could risk one more
drink and asked the waitress to bring him a glass of red wine.

‘How are
your
parents?’ Kay asked.

‘Fine. Oh, that reminds me: Mum asked me to invite you to drop by tomorrow, if you want.’

Kay nodded slowly. ‘Yes. All right, that would be nice.’

‘About six, OK?’

‘Fine. Just for half an hour or so.’ Kay frowned. ‘You know, there is one thing that puzzles me a bit about Mum,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘It’s nothing, really, but I was going through her finances yesterday, and I noticed she’d withdrawn a hundred pounds from the cash machine the day she died, but I can’t
find it. There’s only about six or seven pounds in her purse, and she wasn’t the type to hide her money under the mattress.’

The little scar beside Banks’s right eye began to itch. ‘Maybe she had bills to pay, or she owed it to someone?’

‘Neither a lender nor a borrower be. That was Mum’s motto. And all her bills had been paid. No, it’s a mystery. What do you have to say, O great detective?’

‘I still think there’s probably a logical explanation.’

‘Probably. The other thing that puzzles me, though, is how did she get it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, she was bedridden for the last few days. There was a nurse on call twenty-four hours a day, of course, and Dr Grenville dropped by quite often, but . . . I just don’t see how
she could even have
got
to the cash machine.’

The itch got stronger. Banks scratched the side of his eye. ‘Have you ever heard of a fellow called Geoff Salisbury?’ he asked her.

Kay frowned. ‘The name sounds vaguely familiar. I think he introduced himself to me at the funeral. A neighbour. Why?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Banks. ‘Nothing important. Dessert?’

12

‘Would you like
some music on?’ Kay asked. They were back at her parents’ house, and Banks had accepted her invitation to come in for a nightcap
– a half-bottle of ‘medicinal’ brandy that Kay had found while tidying out the kitchen cupboards. They drank it out of cracked teacups that she had been about to put in the
dustbin.

‘Sure,’ said Banks.

Kay walked over to the old stereo system. ‘Let’s see,’ she said, flipping through a box of LPs. ‘I packed these last night but I didn’t really pay much attention.
There’s probably not a lot of choice. Dad only liked the stuff he used to listen to in the war, and Mum wasn’t much interested in music at all. As you can see, they don’t own a CD
player. I think the last LP they bought was in 1960.’

Banks went over and joined her, looking at the old-fashioned covers. At least he could read what was written on the backs of them, unlike the tiny print on CDs. ‘That’s after
1960,’ he said, pointing to
Beatles for Sale.

‘That must be one of mine,’ Kay said. ‘I didn’t even notice it.’

Banks flipped open the cover. Written inside, in tiny blue ballpoint over the photograph, were some words. They were hard to make out, but he thought they said, ‘Kay Summerville loves Alan
Banks.’ Banks passed it to Kay, who blushed and put it away. ‘I lent it to Susan Fish,’ she said. ‘The sneaky devil. I didn’t know she’d done that.’ She
pulled out another LP. ‘Ah, this will do fine.’

The needle crackled as it hit the groove, a sound that gave Banks an unexpected frisson of delight and nostalgia, and then Billie Holiday started singing ‘Solitude’.

‘Couldn’t do much better,’ he said.

‘Dance?’ Kay asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘Remember the vicar wouldn’t allow dancing at the youth club because he said it led to sex?’

Kay laughed. ‘Yes, I remember.’

Then she was in his arms, Billie was singing about solitude, and they were doing what passed for dancing.

13

‘A wise man,
that vicar,’ said Banks about an hour later, as he lay back on the sofa, Billie Holiday long finished, a naked Kay half on top of him, her
head resting on his chest, fingertips trailing languorously over his skin. It had been good – no doubt much better than their youthful fumblings, which he could scarcely remember now –
though there had been something a little melancholy and desperate about it, as if both had been straining to capture something that eluded them.

‘What happened to us?’ Kay asked. ‘All those years ago.’

‘We were just kids. What did we know?’

‘I suppose so. But have you ever wondered what would have happened? You know, if we hadn’t—’

‘Of course I have.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know. It’s hard for me to imagine a life without Sandra and the kids.’

‘I know that. I mean, even though it ended badly, me and Keith had some good times. And the kids are marvellous. It’s just a game. Imagining. You know, sometimes I’ve been
places or experienced things and thought I’d have liked you there to share it.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes. Haven’t you ever felt the same?’

‘I can’t say I have,’ said Banks, who had.

She nudged him in the ribs. ‘Bastard.’

‘There’s something I never told you before,’ Banks said, stroking her silky blonde hair and touching the soft skin on her neck, just below her ear.

‘And you want to tell me now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

‘The timing seems right.’

‘Why?’

‘No particular reason.’

Kay shifted position. ‘OK. Go ahead.’

‘You know that first time when my parents were out and you came over to the house? The day we’d decided we were finally going to do it?’

‘How could I forget? I was about to lose my virginity. I was scared silly.’

‘Me too. On both counts. Nervous as hell.’

Banks remembered that, as the months went on, he and Kay had graduated from kissing in the bus shelter to touching above the waist, first with clothing intact, then under her jumper, with only
the thin bra between his hands and her bare, swollen flesh. After a few weeks of that, and much trouble fumbling with the clasp that held the thing on, he got beyond the bra to the unimaginably
firm and tender mounds beneath.

They had been going out nearly a year before the subject of moving to below the waist came up, and both were understandably a bit nervous about it. This might have been the swinging sixties,
when kids were making love openly at Woodstock, but Banks and Kay were young, unsophisticated, provincial kids, and the antics of drug-taking pop stars and free-loving hippies seemed as fantastic
as Hollywood films.

But they had done it.

‘Well,’ Banks went on. ‘I had to go and get some . . . you know . . . Durex.’

‘Rubber Johnnies? Yes, I suppose you did. Do you know, I never really thought about that.’

‘Well, I couldn’t very well go to the local chemist’s or the barber’s, could I? They knew me there. Someone would have been bound to tell my parents.’

Kay propped herself on one elbow and leaned over him, her nipple hard against his chest. He could smell white wine and cheap brandy on her breath, see sparks of light dancing in her dark blue
eyes. ‘So what did you do? Where did you go?’ she asked.

‘I walked miles and miles to the other side of town and found a barber’s where I was certain no one would recognize me.’

Kay giggled. ‘Oh, how sweet.’

‘I’m not finished yet.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you know how the old barbers’ shops had a sort of hallway with a counter between the outer and inner door, nice and private, where you could buy shampoo and razor blades and
stuff?’

‘And rubber Johnnies?’

‘And rubber Johnnies.’

‘I remember. My dad used to take me to the barber’s with him sometimes when I was a little girl.’

‘Right,’ Banks went on. ‘Well, as I said, I’d walked halfway to Cambridge and there I was, bold as brass, outside a barber’s on a street where not a soul could
possibly know who I was.’

Kay smiled. ‘What happened?’ She moved her head and her hair tickled his chest.

‘Well, wouldn’t you know it, but this particular establishment didn’t have a discreet sales area. Oh no. I opened the front door and I found myself standing right by the
barber’s chair. He was giving a bloke a shave, I remember, and the place was full of grown men. I mean, every chair in the waiting area was taken, and I swear that the minute I walked in
there they all looked up from their newspapers and every eye was on me.’

‘My God! What did you do?’

‘What could I do? I’d gone too far to turn back. I stood my ground and I said, in as deep a voice as I could manage, “Packet of three, please.”’

Kay put her hand to her mouth to hold back the laughter. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘You’re joking?’

‘No word of a lie.’

‘What did he say? The barber.’

‘Not a word. He stopped mid-shave, straight-blade razor in his hand, and he went to his cabinet and got them for me. But you should have heard the other buggers laugh and cheer.
You’d think Peterborough United had won a game. I went red as a beet.’

Kay burst into a fit of laughter and couldn’t stop. Banks started laughing with her, holding her against his chest, and after a while laughter turned to lust.

14

It was after
two o’clock when Banks slipped the key into the door of his parents’ house and turned the lock as quietly as he could. He shut the door
slowly behind him, without making much noise, and made sure the chain and bolt were on. The stairs creaked a little as he tiptoed up to bed. He couldn’t very well go and brush his teeth as he
would have to put the bathroom light on and the tap would make a noise. He thought he could just about manage to undress and crawl into bed in the dark. The bed would creak too, but that
couldn’t be helped. Fortunately, he’d had the foresight to use the toilet before leaving Kay’s.

The minute he got to the landing he heard his mother muttering something to his father, who muttered something back. He couldn’t catch the words but knew they were about him, how late he
was. He felt himself blushing. Christ, it really didn’t matter how quiet he had tried to be; she’d been lying awake until he came home, just like she used to do when he was a
teenager.

15

Despite his late
night, Banks woke early on Sunday morning to the sound of rain blowing in sharp gusts against his bedroom window. The rest of the house was quiet,
and he didn’t think his parents were awake yet. His first thought on finding consciousness was to wonder what the hell he and Kay had thought they were up to last night, but the more he
remembered the less he regretted. Blame it on Billie Holiday, if you will, on dancing, the old estate and the romance of the past, but whatever it was, it was something special and he refused to
feel guilty.

He only hoped Kay felt the same way in the damp grey of dawn.

Two memories assailed him almost simultaneously as he got out of bed and went over to the wardrobe for his overnight bag: that he had forgotten to give Kay her old copy of
Lady
Chatterley’s Lover
and that he was certain he had seen a tiny, neatly folded square of silver paper in the bathroom waste bin. Perhaps Mrs Summerville had taken to chewing gum in her
final days, though he doubted it, or maybe Kay did, though he had seen no evidence of it last night, and he remembered that she had bought mints at the newsagent’s, not gum. Which left him
with the strongest suspicion that Geoff Salisbury had been there sometime over the past few weeks, leaving Banks little doubt as to where the hundred pounds had gone.

What to do about him, that was the question.

Banks stretched as he pulled out his bag and decided to start the day dressed simply, in jeans and a polo-neck sweater. He would change for the party later. Today was his parents’ big day,
and Roy was due to come up from London. Banks resolved to be nice to Roy for his parents’ sake.

As Banks put his bag back in the wardrobe, he noticed some cardboard boxes on the far side. On his previous visit he had found some old records and diaries, which were still there, but now it
looked as if there was more. Curious, he opened the other door and lifted a box out. The flaps were shut, but not sealed, and written across the top, in his mother’s inimitable scrawl, was
his name:
Alan
. More childhood stuff, then.

On top he found yet more old school reports, from the grammar school this time, most of them urging him to try harder and assuring him he could do better if he only put his shoulder to the wheel
etc. The reports were handwritten in black ink, and Banks occasionally had difficulty reading the comments. He remembered some of the teachers’ names – Mr Newman, Mr Phelps, Mr Hawtry
– but most of them were a blur.

Along with the reports was a class photograph dated 14 May 1967. There they all were, three rows of teenage boys in their school uniforms. Banks remembered several of the faces: Steve Hill, Paul
Major, Dave Grenfell, his best friends, then Tony Green, John McLeod, the school bully, and Ian Marston, who, so Banks’s mother had told him, committed suicide seven or eight years ago after
his courier business failed. The rest of them he hardly remembered except for the odd feature here and there, such as a long, freckled face, a big nose, or prominent ears, but he couldn’t put
a name to them. He had met up with Dave Grenfell and Paul Major on his previous visit, and he had found out then that Steve Hill had died of lung cancer, but what had become of everyone else he had
no idea. Others would be dead, some would be dying, some would be successful, some would be failures, some would be criminals, many would be divorced. There was one angry-looking kid glaring into
the camera with a cocky expression on his face, black hair just a little bit too long, tie slightly askew, top button undone against school regulations. Himself. Even more of a mystery than all the
rest.