The Hanging Valley (31 page)

“We walked up to the source. He said he was going away. I thought he would take me with him if I let him kiss me. That’s all.”

“What else did he say? You must have talked about things.”

“Oh, yes.” Katie’s voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance.

“Why was he going away?”

“He said he’d had enough, he couldn’t stand being here any longer. He said something about getting away from the past and from who he was.”

“What did he want to get away from?”

For the first time, Katie looked directly at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed with crying but still shone warm brown in the sunlight. Banks could feel her attraction. The desire to protect her merged with the impulse to touch her. She made him want to reach out and brush the blonde hairs away from her cheeks, then kiss her white throat and explore the gentle curves and mounds of her body. And he also knew that she was largely unaware of the effect she had; it was as if she couldn’t understand the natural sexual instinct that draws people to one another. She knew what men wanted, yes, but she didn’t know why or what it was all about. She was innocent, a unique and vulnerable wild flower growing here at the edge of the moorland.

“What did he want to get away from?” she echoed, shattering his illusion. “What we all want to get away from. The traps we make for ourselves. The traps God makes for us.”

“It’s not such a terrible thing to want to escape a bad marriage, Katie,” Banks said. But he felt he couldn’t get the tone right, couldn’t find the way to talk to this woman. What he said came out as patronizing when he didn’t intend it to.

“It’s a woman’s duty,” Katie answered. “Her cross to bear.”

“What was Stephen running away from? Was it me? Did he mention me?”

Katie seemed surprised. “No,” she said. “Not you. His past, the life he led.”

“Did he mention anything in particular?”

“He said he’d been bad.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. He just talked. I didn’t understand it all. I was thinking about something else. The river bubbling up from the grass, how green and shiny the grass was where the water always flowed over it and in it.”

“Can you remember anything? Anything at all?”

“He talked about Oxford. Something bad happened at Oxford.”

“Did he say what it was?”

“A girl. A girl died.”

“Is that all he said?”

“Yes. That’s how it started, he said. The nightmare.”

“With a girl dying at Oxford?”

“Yes.”

“How was he involved with this girl?”

“I don’t know. Just that she died and it was bad.”

“And now he’d had enough and he was going away to escape the past, the consequences?”

Katie nodded, then she stared at him sharply. “But you can’t escape consequences, can you? Bernie couldn’t. Stephen couldn’t. I can’t.”

“Was Stephen unhappy?”

“Unhappy? I don’t think so. He was worried, but not unhappy.”

“Do you think he would have harmed himself?”

“No. Stephen wouldn’t have done that. He had plans for the future. He was going to take me with him. But his future killed him.”

“I thought it was his past?”

“It was me,” she said calmly. “Whatever you say, I know it was me who killed him.”

“That’s not true, Katie. I wish I could get you to believe it.” Banks took out his cigarettes and offered her one. She said no and carried on plucking blades of grass and rubbing them between her fingers.

“Why didn’t he go away before?” Banks asked. “He had plenty of time, plenty of opportunity.”

“I don’t know. He said it was hard for him—the family name, the house, the business. He seemed to be trying to find the courage to make a break, like me. I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Didn’t tell him what?”

“About the policeman you sent to spy on everyone. I saw him with you one day in Eastvale, but I didn’t tell Stephen.”

“Did you tell Sam?”
Katie shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “Not this time.” So Stephen had been struggling with himself over whether to run or whether to stay and brazen it out. After all, he probably knew that the police could have no real proof of his guilt, just hearsay—Anne Ralston’s word against his.

“If he’d gone,” Katie said, as if she’d been reading his mind, “it would have been like admitting his guilt, wouldn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” Banks stood up and brushed the grass from his pants. “Come on.” He held out his hand and Katie took it. As soon as she’d stood up, though, she let go and followed him back to the car in silence.

II

“What else did she say?” Sergeant Hatchley asked, as the white Cortina, with Banks at the wheel, hurtled down the M1.

“Nothing,” Banks answered. “I told her to get in touch with us if she remembered anything else at all, then I drove her home. She went in without a word. To tell you the truth, I’m worried about her. She’s so bloody fragile and she’s close to breaking-point. The woman needs help.”

Hatchley shrugged. “If she doesn’t like her nest she can always change it.”

“It’s not as easy as that for some people. They get stuck, they don’t know where to turn, how to take care of themselves. Katie Greenock’s like that.”

They passed Sheffield’s cooling towers, shaped like giant whale-bone corsets by the motorway. Even with the windows and many of the factories closed, the sulphurous smells of steelworks seeped into the car.

“What exactly will we be doing in Oxford?” Hatchley asked. “We’ll be trying to track down an incident involving the death of a girl about nine years ago, maybe two or three years later. Undergraduate courses are usually three years long, so that’s a welcome limit.”

“Unless Collier wasn’t actually a student when it happened.”

“That’s bloody helpful,” Banks said. “We’ll deal with that if we draw a blank on the other.”

“What kind of incident?”

“It strikes me we’re looking for an unsolved crime, or a freak accident. Could have been hit and run, drug overdose, anything.”

“Then what? Whoever this lass was, she won’t be doing much talking now.”

“I don’t know,” Banks admitted. “We try and link her to Stephen Collier.”

“And what if we come up blank?”

Banks sighed and reached for a cigarette. He swerved quickly to avoid a Dutch juggernaut meandering on the centre lane. “You’re being bloody negative today, Sergeant,” he said. “What’s the matter, did you have something planned for tonight? A date with Carol, maybe?”

“No. Carol understands my job. And I like a nice ride out. I’m just trying to cover all the angles, that’s all. I find the whole damn thing confusing. I’m not even sure we’ve got a case. After all, Collier is dead, whether he died accidentally or offed himself.”

“It is confusing,” Banks agreed. “That’s why I don’t believe we’re at the bottom of it yet. That’s why we’re off to Oxford, to try and make it simpler.”

“Oh, I see.” Hatchley wound down his window a couple of inches. With the two of them smoking, the fug in the car was making his eyes water. “I suppose it’s full of silly-looking buggers in caps and gowns, Oxford?”

“Maybe so,” Banks said. “Never been there, myself. They say it’s a working town, though.”

“Aye. It might have been at one time. But there’s not many left making cars these days. Some nice buildings there, though. I saw those on telly as well. Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksworth.”

“Bloody hell, Jim, have you been watching BBC2 again? We’ll not have much time for sightseeing. Except for what you can take in on the job. Anyway, it’s Hawksmoor. Nicholas Hawksmoor.”

He realized with a shock that it was the first time he had called Sergeant Hatchley by his first name. It felt strange, but Hatchley said nothing.

Banks drove on in silence and concentrated on the road. It was after five o’clock and the stretches of motorway that passed close to urban areas were busy with rush-hour traffic. By the time they got to Oxford they wouldn’t have time to do much but check in at the police station, say hello to Ted Folley, and maybe discuss the case over a pint—which would certainly appeal to Hatchley—before bed. Banks had booked them in at a small hotel recommended by Ted on the phone. In the morning the real work would begin.

Holding the wheel with one hand, Banks sorted through the cassettes. “Do you like music?” he asked. It was odd; he knew Gristhorpe was tone deaf—he couldn’t tell Bach from the Beatles— but he had no idea what Hatchley’s tastes ran to. Not that it would affect his choice. He knew what he wanted to hear and soon found it—the Small Faces’ greatest hits.

“I like a good brass band,” Hatchley mused. “A bit of country-and-western now and then.”

Banks smiled. He hated country-and-western and brass bands. He lit another cigarette and edged up the volume. The swirling chords of “All or Nothing” filled the car as he turned off near Northampton onto the road for Oxford. The music took him right back to the summer of 1966, just before he started in the sixth form at school. Nostalgia. A sure sign he was pushing forty. He caught Hatchley looking at him as if he were mad.

III

There weren’t many caps and gowns in evidence on High Street in Oxford the following morning. Most of the people seemed to be ambling along in that lost but purposeful way tourists have. Banks and Hatchley were looking for somewhere to eat a quick breakfast before getting down to work at the station.

Hatchley pointed across the street. “There’s a McDonald’s. They do quite nice breakfasts. Maybe . . .” He looked at Banks apprehensively, as if worried that the chief inspector might turn out to be a gourmet as well as a southerner and a lover of sixties music. Despite all the times they’d enjoyed toasted teacakes and steak pies
together, maybe Banks would insist on frogs’ legs with anchovy sauce for breakfast.

Banks glanced at his watch and scowled. “At least they’re fast. Come on, then. Egg McMuffin it is.”

Astonished, Hatchley followed him through the golden arches. Most of the places Banks had eaten in on his trip to Toronto had provided quick, friendly service—so much so that it had been one of the things that had impressed him—but it seemed that even McDonald’s could do nothing to alter the innate sloth and surliness of the English catering industry. The look they got from the uniformed girl behind the counter immediately communicated that they were being a bloody nuisance in placing an order, and, of course, they had to wait. Even when she slung the food at them, she didn’t say, “Thank you, please come again.”

Finally, they sat by the window and watched people walk in and out of W.H. Smith’s for the morning papers. Hatchley ate heartily, but Banks picked at his food, then abandoned it and settled for black coffee and a cigarette.

“Nice bloke, that Ted Folley,” Hatchley said with his mouth half full of sausage. “Not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Oh, some toffee-nosed git, I suppose. He’s real down-to-earth, though. Dresses like a toff, mind you. They’d have a bit of a giggle over him in The Oak.”

“Probably in the Queen’s Arms, too,” Banks added.

“Aye.”

They had found time for a few drinks with Folley before returning to their hotel for a good night’s sleep, and Banks wondered whether it was Ted’s generosity that won Hatchley over, or his store of anecdotes. Either way, the sergeant had managed to down a copious amount of local ale (which he pronounced to be of “passable” quality) in a very short time.

They had stood at the bar of a noisy Broad Street pub, and Ted—a dapper man with Brylcreemed hair and a penchant for three-piece pin-stripe suits and garish bow-ties—had regaled them with stories of Oxford’s privileged student classes. Hatchley had been particularly amused by the description of a recent raid on an
end-of-term party: “And there she was,” Folley had said, “Deb of the Year with her knickers round her ankles and white powder all over her stiff upper lip.” The sergeant had laughed so much he had got hiccups, which kept returning to haunt him for the rest of the evening.

“Come on,” Banks said. “Hurry up. It can’t be so bloody delicious you need to savour every mouthful.”

Reluctantly, Hatchley ate up his food and slurped his coffee. Ten minutes later they were in Ted Folley’s office on St Aldates.

“I’ve got the files out already,” Ted said. “If you can’t find what you’re after there, come and see me. I think you will, though. They cover all unsolved crimes, including hit and runs, involving women during the three-year period you mentioned.”

“Thank God there aren’t many,” Banks said, picking up the slim pile.

“No,” Folley said. “We’re lucky. The students keep us busy enough but we don’t get all that many mysterious deaths. They’re usually drug related.”

“These?”

“Some of them. Use that office over there.” Folley pointed across to a small glass-partitioned area. “Doug’s on holiday, so you won’t be disturbed.”

Most of the cases were easily dealt with. Banks or Hatchley would phone friends or parents of the deceased, whenever phone numbers appeared in the files, and simply ask if the name Stephen Collier meant anything. On the off chance, they also asked if anyone had hired a private investigator named Raymond Addison to look into the unsolved crime. In the cases where no numbers were given, or where people had moved, they made notes to follow up on later. In some of those cases, the phone directory told them what they needed to know, and Ted also proved as helpful as ever.

By mid-afternoon, after a short lunch-break, they had only three possibilities left. Folley was able to rule one of those out—the girl’s parents had died tragically in a plane crash less than a year after their daughter’s death—which left one each for Banks and Hatchley. They tossed for it, and Banks drew the phoneless family in Jericho, Hatchley the paraplegic father in Woodstock.

Wedged between Walton Street and the canal, Jericho is a maze of small nineteenth-century terraced houses, originally built for the foundry workers and navvies of the city. Most of the streets are named after Victorian battles or military heroes. It is as far away in spirit and appearance from the magnificent architectural beauty of the old university city as is Eastvale’s East End Estate from its cobbled market square and Norman church.