The Hanging Valley (28 page)

“On a Sunday morning? What about?”

“He said he wants to see you as soon as you get back. I told him what state you’d be in. Oh, he apologized and all that, but you’ve still got to go in.”

“What is it?” Banks lit cigarettes for both Sandra and himself as she drove down the spiral ramp from the fourth floor of the multistorey car-park out into the sunlit day.

“Bad news,” she said. “There’s been another death in Swainshead.”

PART THREE:

THE

DREAMING SPIRES

TWELVE

I

“Accidental death! Don’t you think that’s just a bit too bloody convenient?”

Sergeant Hatchley shrugged as if to imply that perhaps if Banks didn’t go gallivanting off to the New World such things might not happen. “Doc says it could have been suicide,” he said.

Banks ran his hand through his close-cropped black hair. It was twelve-thirty. He was back in his office only an hour after arriving home, jet-lagged and disoriented. So far, he hadn’t even had a chance to admire his favourite view of the cobbled market square. The office was smoky and a cup of black coffee steamed on the desk. Superintendent Gristhorpe was keeping an appointment with the deputy chief constable, whose personal interest in events was a measure of the Colliers’ influence in the dale.

“And where the hell was Richmond?” Banks went on. “Wasn’t he supposed to be baby-sitting the lot of them while I was away?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where was he then?”

“Asleep at the Greenocks’, I suppose. He could hardly invite himself to spend the night with the Colliers, could he?”

“That’s not the point. He should have known something was wrong. Send him in.”

“He’s just gone off duty, sir.”

“Well bloody well bring him back again!”

“Yes, sir.”

Hatchley stalked out of the office. Banks sighed, stubbed out his cigarette and walked over to the window. The cobbled market
square was still there, a bit rain drenched, but still there. Tourists posed for photographs on the worn plinth of the ancient market cross. The church door stood open and Banks could hear the distant sound of the congregation singing “Jerusalem.”

So he was home. He’d just had time to say hello to Brian and Tracy, then he’d had to hurry down to the station. He hadn’t even given them their presents yet: a Blue Jays sweatshirt for Brian, the
Illustrated History of Canada
for his budding historian daughter, Tracy, and a study of the Group of Seven, with plenty of fine reproductions, for Sandra. They were still packed in his suitcase, which stood next to the duty-free cigarettes and Scotch in the hall.

Already Toronto was a memory with the quality of a dream— baseball, the community college, Kleinburg, Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, and the tall downtown buildings in black and white and gold. But Staff Sergeant Gregson, the Feathers crowd and Anne Ralston/Julie Culver weren’t a dream. They were what he had gone for. And now he’d come back to find Stephen Collier dead.

There was no suicide note; at least nobody had found one so far. According to Nicholas Collier, John Fletcher and Sam Greenock, who had all been with Stephen on his last night at the White Rose, Stephen, always highly strung and restless, had seemed excessively nervous. He had got much more drunk than usual. Finally, long beyond closing time, they had had to help him home. They had deposited Stephen fully clothed on his bed, then adjourned to Nicholas’s half of the house, where they had a nightcap. John and Sam then left, and Nicholas went to bed.

In the morning when he went to see how his brother was, Nicholas had discovered him dead. The initial findings of Dr Glendenning indicated that he had died of suffocation. It appeared that Stephen Collier had vomited while under the influence of barbiturates and been unable to wake up. Such things often happened when pills and booze were mixed, Glendenning had said. All that had to be determined now was the amount of barbiturate in Stephen’s system, and that would have to wait until the postmortem. He had suffered from insomnia for a long time and had a prescription for Nembutal.

So what had happened? According to Hatchley, Stephen must
have got up after the others left and taken his sleeping pills as usual, then gone downstairs and played a record—Mozart’s
Jupiter
symphony was still spinning on the turntable—had another drink or two of Scotch from a tumbler, which was still half full, gone back upstairs, taken some more sleeping pills and passed out. By that time, given how much he’d had to drink, he probably wouldn’t have remembered taking the first lot of pills. The only question was, did he do it deliberately or not and the only person who could answer that was Stephen himself.

It was damned unsatisfactory, Banks thought, but it looked like an end to both the Addison and Allen cases. Stephen Collier had certainly confessed to Anne Ralston. He knew that Banks would find her and that when she heard Bernie had been killed, she would pass on the information. He must have gone through a week of torment trying to decide what to do—make a run for it or stay and brazen it out. After all, it was only her word against his. The strain had finally proved too much for him, and either accidentally or on purpose—or accidentally on purpose—he had put an end to things, perhaps to save himself and the family name the ignominy of a trial and all the publicity it would bring down on them.

Feeling calmer, Banks lit another cigarette. He finished his coffee and determined not to haul Richmond over the coals. After all, as Hatchley had said, the constable couldn’t be everywhere at once. He still felt restless, though; his nerves were jangling and his eyes ached. He had that strange and disturbing sensation of wanting to sleep but knowing he couldn’t even if he tried. When he rubbed his chin, he could feel the bristles. He hadn’t even had time for a shave.

When Richmond arrived, they walked over to the Queen’s Arms. After the morning sunshine, it had turned cool and rainy: a wonderful relief after the hellish steam-bath of Toronto, Banks thought as he looked up and let the rain fall on his face. Cyril, the landlord, rustled them up a couple of ham-and-tomato sandwiches. They found an empty table in a corner, and Banks got the drinks in.

“Look, I’m sorry for dragging you back, Phil,” he said, “but I want to hear your version of what happened.”

“In the White Rose, sir?”

“The whole week. Just tell me what you saw and thought.”

 “There’s not very much to tell, really,” Richmond said, and gave Banks his version of the week’s events in as much detail as he could.

“Katie Greenock went off with Stephen Collier on Friday afternoon, is that right?”

“Yes, sir. They went for a walk up Swainshead Fell. I took a walk up Adam’s Fell and I could see them across the dale.”

“Did they go towards the hanging valley?”

“No, sir, they didn’t go over the top—just diagonal, as far as the river’s source. It’s about half-way up and a bit to the north.”

Banks wondered if anything had gone on between Katie and Stephen Collier. It seemed unlikely, given the kind of woman she seemed, but he was sure that she had surrendered to Bernard Allen. And in her case, the old-fashioned term “surrendered” was the right word to use. Banks recalled the image of Katie standing in the market square, soaked to the skin, just before he’d left, and he remembered the eerie feeling he’d had that she was coming apart at the seams. It would certainly be worth talking to her again; at the very least she would be able to tell him something more about Collier’s state of mind on the day before he died.

“What about Saturday night in the White Rose? How long were you there?”

“From about nine till closing time, sir. I tried to pace myself, not drink too much.”

Banks grinned, remembering his own nights in the Toronto pubs. “A tough job, eh? Never mind. Notice anything?”

“Like I told the super and Sergeant Hatchley, sir, it seemed pretty much of a normal night to me.”

“You didn’t think Stephen Collier was drinking more than usual?”

“I don’t know how much he usually drank, sir. I’d say from the other three nights I saw him in the White Rose during my stay, he did drink more on Saturday. But it was Saturday night. People do overdo it a bit then, don’t they? No work in the morning.”

“Unless you’re a copper.”

Cyril called last orders and Banks hurried to the bar for another two pints.

“What was the mood like at the table?” he asked when he got back.

“A bit festive, really.”

“No arguments, no sullen silences?”

“No. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was one thing . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, I couldn’t hear anything because Sam and Stephen were talking quite loudly, but I got the impression that at one point John Fletcher and Nicholas Collier were having a bit of a barney.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just going by the expressions on their faces, sir. It looked like Nicholas was mad at Fletcher for some reason and Fletcher just brushed him aside.”

“Did the others appear to notice?”

“No. Like I said, sir, they were talking, arguing about politics or something.”

“And this was Nicholas Collier and John Fletcher, not Stephen?”

 “Yes, sir.”

“Odd. How did Stephen seem?”

“I’d say he was a fairly happy drunk. Happier than he ever seemed sober.”

“What was he drinking?”

“They were all drinking beer.”

“How many pints would you say Stephen had?” Richmond flushed and fiddled with his moustache. “I wasn’t really counting, sir. Perhaps I should have been . . . but . . .”

“You weren’t to know he’d be dead in the morning. Don’t worry. It’s the bane of our lives. If we all had twenty-twenty hindsight our job’d be a lot easier. Just try and remember. Picture it as clearly as you can.”

Richmond closed his eyes. “At a guess, I’d say about five or six, sir.”

“Five or six. Not a lot, really, is it? Not for a Yorkshireman, anyway. And he was practically legless?”

“Yes, sir. Maybe he was drinking the vodka as well.”

 “What vodka?”

“I’m not clear on it, but I remember Freddie Metcalfe, the landlord, muttering something about having to change the bottle after one of them had been up and bought a round. It was busy and he said he needed eight hands to do his job.”

“But you never saw Stephen put a shorts glass to his lips?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anyone?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Odd, that, isn’t it? What happened to the vodka, then?”

 “Perhaps whoever bought it just drank it down at the bar.”

 “Hmm. It’s possible. But why? Let’s leave it for the moment, anyway. Did you hear any mention at all of Oxford during the week?”

“You mean the university, sir?”

“Any mention at all. The name: Oxford.”

Richmond shook his head.

“All right, that’ll do for now.” Banks rubbed his eyes.

They drifted out into the street with the others as Cyril prepared to lock up for the afternoon. There was a lot more to think about now. Nothing that Banks had heard since he got back had been at all convincing. Something was wrong, he felt, and the case was far from over. Sending Richmond back home, he decided on a short walk in the rain to freshen himself up before returning to the station.

II

Katie watched the rain swell the becks that rushed down Swainshead Fell as it got dark that night. The rhythmic gurgle of water through the half-open window calmed her. All day she had been agitated. Now it was after ten; Sam was still at the pub, and Katie was brooding over the day’s events.

If only she had told Sam that their guest was a policeman, probably sent to spy on them. Then he’d have informed all and sundry, and maybe things would have been different. But now Stephen had to die, too: another escape route cut off. Had the policeman
noticed anything? Katie didn’t think so. There had been nothing really to notice.

Ever since morning, when Stephen’s body had been discovered, Upper Head had been stunned. Women gathered in the street after church and lowered their voices, looking over at the Gothic house and shaking their heads. The Colliers were, when all was said and done, still regarded as lords of the manor.

All the curtains of their spooky Victorian mansion across the river had been drawn since morning, when the police and doctors had finished and taken Stephen’s body away. One or two people had dropped by to offer condolences, including John Fletcher, who’d have got a rude reception from Nicholas, Katie thought, under any other circumstances. Sam, of course, had been one of the first, keen to establish himself with the new squire now that the more approachable Stephen was gone. Now Sam and John were no doubt getting maudlin drunk in the White Rose. Katie hadn’t gone across to the house; she couldn’t face Nicholas Collier alone again after the incident at the party.

Rain spilled in over the window-sill. Katie dipped a finger in it and made patterns on the white paintwork. The water beaded on the paint no matter what she tried to make it do. A breeze had sprung up and it brought the scent of summer rain indoors; shivering, she pulled her grey lamb’s-wool cardigan around her shoulders.

“Be sure your sins will find you out,” another of her grandmother’s favourite maxims, sprang into her mind. With it came the dim and painful memory of a tell-tale boy’s hair on her collar when she had come home from her one and only visit to the church-run youth club. It must have got there in the cloakroom, somehow, but her grandmother had thrust it forward as irrefutable evidence of Katie’s lewd and lascivious nature before making her stand “naked in her shame” in the corner of the cold, stone-flagged kitchen all evening. She had been supposed to repeat “Be sure your sins will find you out” under her breath all the time she stood there, but she hadn’t. That was another sin: disobedience. The vicar had got an earful, too, about running a house of ill-repute and corrupting local youth. That had pleased Katie; she didn’t like him anyway because his breath smelled like the toilet when he came close, which he
always did. Taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others was another sin she had been guilty of that day.