Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery (Inspector Banks 22)

by Peter Robinson

  ‘When was the last time you checked on the place?’

  ‘Saturday. Day before they got back.’

  ‘You didn’t go over on Sunday?’

  ‘No. They were supposed to be back by early morning. How was I to know they’d have problems with their flights? Nobody phoned me or anything.’

  ‘And everything was in order on Saturday?’

  ‘It was. Or I’d have said something then, wouldn’t I?’

  Annie sighed internally. Here we go again. She was used to this type of cantankerous and patronising Yorkshireman, but she still didn’t have to like it. ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Late afternoon. Around five.’

  ‘So the tractor was probably stolen sometime after dark on Saturday night?’

  ‘It were still locked up at five when I left. Make sense to steal it after dark, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Were you at home on Saturday night?’

  ‘I’m always at home, unless I’m out in the fields. You might not have noticed, young lady, but it’s lambing season, and with no help that means long days and even longer nights. Those young ’uns don’t always know the most convenient time to be born.’

  ‘Did you notice anything wrong at all while you were over at the Beddoes’ place during the week? Hear anything? See anything?’

  ‘No. But that’s not surprising. If you’ve been up there, you’ll know there’s a fair bit of distance between us. Two miles at least, as the crow flies.’

  ‘Yes, but I think you’d probably hear a tractor starting up, for example, wouldn’t you?’

  Lane’s face cracked into a mocking smile. ‘You don’t think they just got on it and drove it out of there, do you? They’d have needed summat to take it away, a flatbed lorry or summat.’

  ‘There would have been some noise,’ said Annie, blushing at her mistake. ‘A lorry, van, flatbed, whatever.’

  ‘Aye, but you hear lorries and cars from time to time. Even tractors. Nothing unusual about that in the countryside.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘When your days are as busy as mine, you sleep like a log. I wouldn’t have heard the bloody Angel of Doom blowing his trumpet. I said I didn’t hear owt unusual, and I didn’t. I’d have reported it if I had, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘What were you doing here on Saturday night?’

  ‘Watching telly, when I finally got the chance. Not that it’s any of your business. Then sleeping.’

  ‘Might Mrs Lane have heard something?’

  Lane snorted. ‘Not unless she’s developed superhuman powers. She’s stopping with her mother out Whitby way.’

  ‘Oh. Is her mother ill?’

  ‘No. More’s the pity. Old bag’s as fit as a fiddle and twice as squeaky.’

  ‘So your wife’s on holiday?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that.’ Lane snorted. ‘Extended leave.’

  Annie sighed. ‘Mr Lane,’ she said, ‘I’m just trying to get some basic information here.’

  ‘Well, the basic information, if it’s any of your business, which it isn’t, is that’s she gone. Left. Bolted. Buggered off. And good riddance. Been gone two years now, and she still hasn’t got out of the old bag’s clutches. Serves her bloody well right, is what I say.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Lane.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Lane snapped, his face darkening. ‘I’m not. Though what it’s got to do with Beddoes’ tractor I don’t know.’

  ‘We just try to gather as much background information as we can, sir,’ Doug Wilson chimed in. ‘It’s perfectly routine.’

  Lane gave Wilson a withering glance. ‘Has anyone ever told you you look just like that bloke who plays Harry Potter?’

  Wilson reddened.

  ‘Watch them with your son, did you, Mr Lane?’ Annie said. ‘The Harry Potter films?’

  ‘Leave my son out of it.’

  ‘Is he here? Can we have a word with him? Maybe he heard something.’

  Lane stubbed his cigarette out viciously in the ashtray. Sparks flew on to the upholstery. It was a wonder he hadn’t burned the place down years ago, Annie thought.

  ‘He doesn’t live here any more. He says there’s nowt for a young lad in this life, around this place. Nowt to do, nowt worth doing. Nowt but hard graft. I just about reckon he might be right.’

  ‘So what does he do?’ Annie persisted.

  ‘Don’t ask me. He lives in town. Wanted his own “space”. I can’t help it if he’s drinking himself silly, like they do, or smoking Ecstasy.’

  Annie stopped herself from telling him that people don’t usually smoke Ecstasy. It would only antagonise him further. ‘Is your son involved with drugs, Mr Lane?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He doesn’t confide in me.’

  ‘But you brought it up.’

  ‘It was just something you say. I didn’t mean owt by it. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Can’t say as I care one way or another.’

  Annie didn’t believe that. She sensed that under Lane’s brittle anger and truculence were sadness, regret and guilt. Perhaps even love. But the anger and self-pity went deep, she felt. She knew from experience that people don’t always have the patience, or the skill, to cut through someone’s layers of aggression and unpleasantness to whatever kindness and vulnerability might lie below. Sometimes they might try for a while, then they realise life is too short, so they cut their losses and leave, move on to someone else, maybe, someone more open, someone easier to be with. Perhaps that was what both his wife and his son had done.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Annie asked.

  ‘We christened him Michael, but he goes by Mick. Why?’

  ‘I understand he was in a bit of trouble some time ago. Something to do with a stolen car?’

  ‘Silly bugger. It were nowt, really. Storm in a teacup.’

  ‘Even so, he got probation.’

  ‘They give kids probation as soon as look at them these days. It doesn’t mean owt. Used to be ASBOs. Now it’s something else. And community service.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Where is he living in Eastvale?’

  ‘I don’t know the number, but it’s one of them tower blocks. That rough estate. As if he didn’t have a good home of his own. He’s living with some tart, apparently.’

  Annie knew where Lane meant. The East Side Estate was the oldest and roughest housing estate in town. She ought to be able to find Mick Lane there easily enough. ‘He’s living with a woman?’

  ‘So he said.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dunno. He hasn’t exactly brought her home for tea. But if she’s living in a council flat, it stands to reason she’s a slapper, doesn’t it?’

  Annie knew the East Side Estate and some of its denizens, but that didn’t mean she agreed with Lane’s opinion. ‘Do you still see Mick at all?’

  ‘He drops by from time to time.’

  ‘Does he own a car?’

  ‘A used Peugeot. Falling to bits.’

  ‘When was the last time he came here?’

  ‘About two weeks ago.’

  ‘Does he have a job?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Hasn’t mentioned one.’

  ‘Any particular skills?’

  ‘Well, he weren’t much use around the farm, that’s for sure. Oh, he was all right with the manual labour, and he was good with the sheep, shearing and all. But he hasn’t it in him to be a real farmer. Too lazy. He can draw and paint, I’ll give him that, for all the use it is.’

  Annie was just about getting to the end of her tether with Frank Lane. Her father Ray was an artist, and drawing and painting had been a lot of use to him. Annie sketched and painted herself, though only as a hobby, like Beddoes farmed. ‘How do you manage without your wife and son, up here all alone?’

  ‘I get by. I don’t mind being alone. I get plenty of peace and quiet. But I have to pay for help when I need it, don’t I? Cuts into the savings, what’s left o
f them. This isn’t a one-man job, you know, especially when you get to harvest time, or planting, or sheep shearing. Or lambing.’

  ‘It sounds like a hard life.’

  Lane grunted and lit another cigarette.

  Annie coughed. He didn’t react. ‘How do you get on with John Beddoes?’ she asked.

  For the first time, Lane seemed to think for some time before answering. ‘Beddoes is all right, I suppose,’ he said grudgingly. ‘For an amateur, that is. He’s a bit full of himself, but there’s nowt I can really fault him on. Or that wife of his. Patricia. Been good to me, they have, since Katie left. Not their fault they had more advantages in life.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Incomers, aren’t they? City folk. Only been here seven years.’ He rubbed his thumb and index finger together. ‘Gentleman farmer. Hobbyist. Got a chip on his shoulder about it, too. Thinks we look down on him. Mebbe we do. I were raised to it. This farm was my father’s, and his father’s before him. Go back as long as you like. John Beddoes bought his farm off Ned Fairbairn when it got too much for him to manage by himsen. Nowt wrong in that. Things change. And it meant a bit of extra land for me at a good price when I needed it. But it helps when you’ve got money behind you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Beddoes were something big in t’City. Banking or stockbroking or whatever they do down there. Big finance. All a bunch of thieves, if you ask me. He paid me well enough for taking care of his farm, and I can use the money. I’m sorry about his tractor, but there really was nowt I could do short of stand guard over his yard all week. A fancy Kraut tractor and all. Asking for trouble around here, that is. God knows what he thinks he needs it for.’ He pointed a fat finger at Annie. ‘It’s you lot should be paying more attention to crime around these parts. How often do we get a patrol car up here?’

  ‘We do our best, Mr Lane,’ said Annie. ‘But it’s a bit like farming – good help’s thin on the ground these days, and there’s a lot of territory to cover.’

  ‘Aye, well . . . summat ought to be done.’

  ‘Do the Beddoes have any children?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Not as they’ve ever mentioned.’

  There didn’t seem much more to say. Wilson put away his notebook and they walked to the door. Lane remained motionless in his armchair, smoking and staring into space. He didn’t say goodbye.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ said Annie as the car lurched back down the track to the road. Then she noticed something she hadn’t seen on the way in: what looked like several rows of dead mice nailed to the wooden fence. At second glance, they seemed too large to be mice, she thought, and she gave a little shudder. Rats, perhaps?

  ‘What the hell are those?’ she asked Wilson, a well-known expert on all things Yorkshire.

  ‘Moles,’ he said, turning to grin at her. ‘The mole-catcher nails them there.’

  ‘Good Lord. Why?’

  ‘To show he’s doing his job,’ said Wilson. ‘And as a warning, of course.’

  ‘A warning to who?’

  ‘Other moles.’

  Terry Gilchrist lived in an old farm labourer’s cottage about a hundred yards west of the village of Drewick, from which he was separated by a patchwork field of allotments dotted with greenhouses and potting sheds. Gilchrist had his own garden, which Winsome could see through the window was well tended, even though everything was drooping under the weight of the rain, or bent by the wind. Beyond the allotments, apart from the square-towered Norman church and a couple of limestone and millstone manor houses, Drewick was almost entirely a post-war village with a few shops, a community hall and a pub, about halfway between Northallerton and Thirsk. Most of the houses were red brick, with red pantile roofs, and consisted mostly of bungalows and semis, with a few short terraces running off at right angles from the high street. The house was only a mile or so from the hangar, and she had thought it best to take him back home for a quick chat rather than stand out in the wind and rain. She had detailed the patrol car officers to guard the scene until Gerry and Jasminder arrived.

  Gilchrist took her coat and offered her a cup of tea, which Winsome gratefully accepted. She could see him grimace with pain as he stood, and she offered to help. ‘Can I do it?’

  ‘No. I’m used to it, thank you. Back in a jiffy.’

  Winsome took out her notebook and prepared some questions while he was away. He soon came back with the teapot and mugs, and as he poured Winsome studied him more closely. She realised that he was much younger than his injury made him seem. War had aged him. The Blair Folly started in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq, and the Afghanistan fiasco had been going on even longer. If Gilchrist had been a young lad when he started out in, say, 2000, he could easily be somewhere between thirty and forty now. It was impossible to tell. He had a fine head of fair hair, a strong jaw and clear blue eyes. He was even taller than Winsome, and he had a soldier’s bearing, but he also had a slight stoop, and the limp, of course. Though he seemed a little shy, there was something solid and dependable about his presence and Winsome felt safe in his company. Not that she normally felt unsafe, but it was a definite feeling, and one she wasn’t used to. She found herself wondering whether the wound embarrassed him, if that was what made him appear awkward and shy. After a sip of Earl Grey, she got down to business. ‘Have you ever noticed anything odd about the hangar before?

  Gilchrist patted his dog. ‘I didn’t even notice anything this time. Peaches was off the leash and wouldn’t come back. That seemed unusual, so I went to get her.’

  ‘That’s never happened before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  Gilchrist gazed around the room. ‘I grew up here. This house belonged to my parents. They died while I was overseas. Car crash. Ironic, isn’t it? There am I dodging bullets and they get killed by a drunk driver who walks away without a scratch.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I’m an only child. The mortgage was paid off. I inherited.’

  There seemed both anger and resignation in Gilchrist’s sense of irony. Winsome had known one or two soldiers whose experience of combat had isolated them from their fellow man, but Gilchrist didn’t seem like that – just wounded and angry. She picked up the threads of the conversation. ‘How long have you been back from . . .’

  ‘Afghanistan. Helmand Province. It’s OK to say it. Little over a year.’

  ‘How often do you take Peaches walking there, by the airfield?’

  ‘Every now and then, maybe once a week or so.’

  ‘You knew about the hole in the wire, then?’

  ‘Yes. I think it’s always been there. I used to play there myself, and I’ve seen the local kids crawling in and out. But kids can usually find a way to get in anywhere, can’t they? They’re all right. They don’t do any harm. The younger ones play cricket and footie, and the older ones maybe down a few cans of cheap lager, kiss and cuddle with their girlfriends. They’ve nowhere else to go, poor sods. Where’s the harm?’

  ‘Was there anything else going on out there that you know of? I mean kids might get into fights, might even organise them. What about cockfighting, that sort of thing?’

  Gilchrist shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything or heard any rumours of anything like that. I’ve seen lorries coming and going once or twice. Other than that, nothing.’

  ‘Lorries? Since when?’

  ‘Just the past year or so. Since I’ve been here alone.’

  ‘How often?’

  Gilchrist thought for a moment. ‘Maybe three or four times over the year. It’s not a regular thing.’

  Gerry Masterson could always check on what companies had the use of the place, if any, Winsome thought. If it came to that. ‘You said you think the government owns the land.’

  ‘Just a wild guess. I’ve no idea, really. It’s been like that as long as I can remember. All I know is it was used as an air-force base in the last war. Nice and flat around here, see, edge of the Vale of Mowbra
y, and most of the trees weren’t here back then. They were planted when Drewick was built in the fifties, to shelter it from the railway, I suppose. There was talk of building more houses on the airfield land a few years ago, but nothing ever came of that, and now it’s supposed to become a shopping centre. You ask me, people don’t want to live that close to the train tracks. It’s a busy line these days. London or the West Country to Scotland. And you can’t go wrong with a shopping centre, can you?’

  Winsome had used the East Coast train line often enough. Plenty of people lived close to the railway lines, she thought, remembering gazing dreamily over backyards with their rabbit hutches, dilapidated brick outhouses, washing hanging on lines and old tyres hanging from tree branches on train rides she had taken over the past few years. But perhaps Gilchrist was right, and such sites were becoming less popular for housing estates these days. A shopping centre would make more sense. Out of the way, background noise no problem.

  She couldn’t think of anything else to ask Gilchrist for the moment, not until she had a better idea about what might have happened in the hangar. She stayed and chatted for a while longer, finishing her tea, then said she had better get back to the airfield to meet her colleagues. Gilchrist helped her on with her coat, and as she slipped her arms easily in the sleeves, she thought how pleasant it was to have someone do that for her.

  Chapter 2

  Banks wasn’t due back at work until Tuesday, but he felt restless and took a taxi to Eastvale police headquarters straight from Durham Tees Valley airport on Monday morning, dropping Oriana off at home on the way. He had enjoyed a wonderful weekend in a village on Lake Trasimeno, looking out over the Isola Polvese, with Oriana and her extended Italian family. Her parents lived in Yorkshire, as did Oriana herself, but there seemed to be a whole village full of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins in Umbria. Most of the time Banks and Oriana spent eating fresh fish from the lake, talking and drinking the local Montefalco wines, and going for long walks by the lake, or in the nearby countryside, by olive groves, vineyards and winding brooks.

  And now they were back in wet and windy Yorkshire.