Sleeping in the Ground: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks Novels)

by Peter Robinson

  “It’s not so bad here during the day,” said Charlton, “but it gets a bit edgier by night. It’s almost all Eastern Europeans these days, as you could see from the shops. First the Poles, now it’s Romanians and Bulgarians.” Banks had been in the area before on more than one case over the past couple of decades, and he was aware that now the once Northern English working-class neighborhood was very much dominated by Eastern European immigrants. There was even a new mosque not far away, on Brooklyn Terrace.

  When they were settled in the corner, Charlton seemed nervous. “You must think it’s odd, me asking if you wanted to go somewhere more private after I said I’d nothing to hide?”

  Banks gave a noncommittal shrug.

  “I mean, it’s true. I don’t have anything to hide. Nothing at all. But some things . . . well, you know, office gossip and the like. After all, I am the boss. I do have a reputation to live up to, a standard to set. I don’t want all my employees knowing about my misspent youth.”

  “What is it that you don’t have to hide, then?” Banks asked.

  Charlton took a long pull on his pint of Guinness and licked the foam from his lips. “Mm, nectar,” he said. “I don’t mean misspent in a criminal way, you understand. Just that I suppose I could have spent more time on my books, more time at school listening to teachers. The usual. I failed my eleven plus.”

  “You don’t seem to have done badly for yourself.”

  “Not at all. I’ve nothing to complain about. If you show a bit of application you don’t have to worry too much about the education. The world will always need plumbers and electricians. That’s what I say. Elbow grease and a bit of savvy.” He touched the side of his nose. “That’s what it takes, Superintendent. Hard graft never did anyone any harm.”

  It was variation on the Samuel Smiles self-help philosophy that was engraved in pithy sayings inside the Victorian town-hall dome, and Banks had heard it many times before, almost as often as “where there’s muck there’s brass.”

  The coffee was bland. Banks added milk and sweetener. They didn’t help much. “Frank Dowson,” he said. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Not much more than I have done,” said Charlton. “I meant what I said. None of us really knew him. Maybe Billy, I suppose, being his brother, but he wasn’t a topic of conversation. We were all a bit scared of him, like we were of Billy’s dad. Frank was definitely strange. Retarded, I think. Or whatever they call it these days.”

  “But there’s something else, isn’t there, or you wouldn’t have wanted us to leave the office?”

  Charlton started playing with an extra beer mat, first manipulating it between his fingers, then picking it to bits. “The day it happened,” he said finally. “You know, the day Wendy . . . the murder.”

  “Yes?”

  “We had a gang meeting. All the members were there.”

  “But not Frank Dowson?”

  “I told you. Frank wasn’t a member. Not that we did anything serious. A bit of mischief, you know. Boys will be boys. The occasional scuffle with the Sandford gang. But nobody ever got seriously hurt. No knives or bicycle chains involved. A bloody nose or a black eye at worst.”

  “And Frank?”

  “Right. I was getting to that. He was supposed to drop by that afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “As a guest, like. You know. Billy had asked him.”

  “Again, why? Did he have something to say, something to tell you, or show you?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Are you saying that?”

  “Well, er, yes, I suppose I am.”

  “Go on, then. I’m listening.”

  “You’re not making this easy.”

  Banks leaned forward. “Then let me simplify things, Mr. Charlton. If you don’t tell me what it is you have to say, we’ll go up to Eastvale HQ, find an empty interview room and talk there until I’m satisfied. Is that easy enough for you?”

  “You don’t have to be like that.”

  “What do I have to be like to get you to tell me what it is you have to say? I’m being as patient as I can.”

  “All right, all right. Billy told us his brother was going to drop by the garage during our meeting that afternoon, like, to show us something he’d got off a darkie in Marseille.”

  “What was this something?”

  Charlton swallowed. “A knife. A flick knife. But don’t go taking it the wrong way. He was just going to show it to us, that’s all. We were kids, superintendent, fascinated by exotic things like that. A hint of danger, the forbidden.”

  “And what was it like, this knife? Did it live up to your expectations?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Frank didn’t turn up.”

  “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

  “I said he didn’t turn up. Frank Dowson.”

  “But he was in the area?”

  Charlton seem to panic a little at that. “I don’t know, I tell you. How would I know? I didn’t see him. I hadn’t seen him for ages. I assumed he probably got leave from the merchant navy, like, and hadn’t been able to come to the meeting for some reason. Maybe he’d been called back to his ship? Maybe his leave got canceled.”

  “So let me get this straight. Frank Dowson was supposed to drop by the garage and show you this exotic knife he’d picked up in Marseille, but he didn’t turn up, and around the same time Wendy Vincent gets raped and stabbed in the nearby woods. Stabbed, mind you, with a flick knife, perhaps, and none of you thinks it’s worth telling the police about it. You don’t even think he was in the area. Am I right?”

  “You didn’t know Billy’s dad. He was a holy terror was Mr. Dowson. Like one of them Krays, he was, or that crazy Mafia bloke in Goodfellas. You didn’t want to get on his bad side. And Frank was family, after all.”

  “Are you telling me that Billy Dowson’s father told the gang members not to mention that Frank Dowson was supposed to show up with a knife that afternoon but didn’t? That you were all protecting him? Protecting a possible killer?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. He told Billy that Frank couldn’t get leave. Simple as that. He didn’t talk to us. He didn’t even know about our gang. Billy was scared shitless, and he just asked us, like, not to say anything, or his dad would kill him. After all, Frank hadn’t turned up with the knife. Nobody had seen him. For all we knew, he might have been having us on, or he could have been still at sea. There might not have been any knife at all.”

  “Did Billy believe his father?”

  “I don’t know. He was just scared. He told us what he’d said.”

  “Did you ever think the father could have done it, raped and killed Wendy, not Frank?”

  “I was only eleven. I didn’t think about things like that at all.”

  “But there must have been conversations. At school, perhaps. I know what kids that age like. I was one myself, too, don’t forget.”

  “It honestly never crossed my mind.”

  “And did you believe Billy?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t seen Frank, had I? He could have been anywhere, for all I knew.”

  “Like in the woods?”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “But Frank must have been at the house with the knife sometime recently, mustn’t he, if Billy knew about it, had persuaded him to come and show it to the gang, and if their father was worried about the police finding out? He must have known something. Frank must have been in the neighborhood the day Wendy Vincent was murdered.”

  “I don’t know. I never saw him. Honest I didn’t.”

  Christ, give me strength, Banks thought, gritting his teeth. “So tell me, how did you feel when they finally convicted Frank Dowson of Wendy Vincent’s murder fifty years after the fact, along with several violent rapes he committed after he killed her?”

  Charlton swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come on, Mr. Charlton. It
’s not that tough a question.”

  “Well, I suppose I thought about that flick knife and that it really might have been him. But I didn’t know at the time. How could I? I hadn’t seen him anywhere around. We didn’t even know what had happened to Wendy Vincent until well after the meeting. The next day. Later, even. And even then you lot didn’t tell us all the details, like exactly when or how it had happened, or what weapon was used.”

  “But Billy Dowson had warned you not to mention Frank and the knife?”

  “Yes. Because of his dad.”

  “So why didn’t you manage to put two and two together? Or suspect the dad?”

  “We were only kids, eleven years old, for Christ’s sake, and Frank was always getting into trouble with the police. He was the kind of person you lot pick on, on account of he wasn’t too bright, and he’d probably confess to things he didn’t do, you know, clear unsolved crimes off your books, thinking he was being clever, like.”

  “So you didn’t think that Frank Dowson might have actually murdered Wendy Vincent?”

  “I’m not saying it never crossed my mind. But no. Not seriously. I mean, it’s not as black and white as you’re making out.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, just shut the fuck up and let me think. Will you do that for me?”

  Charlton’s jaw hung open, but he did shut up. Drinking some Guinness helped him with that.

  “You should have told the police at the time,” said Banks after a brief pause. “But you know that, don’t you? Because of you, more innocent girls had to suffer at Frank Dowson’s hands. None of them were stabbed, the way Wendy was, but that’s probably because they couldn’t identify him. Some of them might have wished since that they had been killed. Either way, you’ve got blood on your hands, Mick.”

  “That’s not down to me! You can’t blame me for you lot not doing your jobs properly.”

  Banks took several deep breaths. He was beginning to wish he’d ordered a real drink, driving or not. “Just a couple more points before I go,” he said, as calmly as he could.

  “Anything.”

  “Where’s Billy Dowson these days?”

  “He’s dead,” said Charlton. “Ten years or more. Drug overdose.”

  So Billy Dowson could hardly be involved in the wedding shootings, Banks thought, mentally scratching his name off the list. But could one of them—Dicky, Mark, Tommy, even Charlton himself—for some reason he didn’t yet know? “And his sister, Cilla?”

  “Who knows. Probably dead, too, the state she was in back then. Went off to London, didn’t she? And before you ask, Billy’s father’s dead, too.”

  “Shot? Stabbed?”

  “Natural causes. He had a massive stroke.”

  “Hallelujah. So there is divine justice, after all. How about Wendy’s brother, Mark Vincent?”

  “I’ve bumped into him once or twice over the years. He joined the army. Paras, I think.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Charlton broke eye contact.

  “You’d better tell me the truth, Mick.”

  “It was a while ago. We didn’t keep in touch.”

  “How long ago?”

  “March last year.”

  “Around the time Frank Dowson died in prison?”

  “Just after.”

  “Why did you meet him then?”

  “He just happened to be in town. Passing through. He dropped by the office, asked about the others, suggested we could all maybe get together one evening for a few bevvies, like.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it sounded like a good idea to me. I was in touch with Ricky Bramble and Tommy Jackson, so I suggested to them and they were both keen, too.”

  “Where did this get-together of yours take place?”

  “Pub in town. Whitelock’s. In the—”

  “I know where it is, How did the evening turn out?”

  “Fine. Mostly.”

  “You all still got along?”

  “Well, people change, you know. Mark was sort of different. He’d seen action overseas. It changes you, that sort of thing.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s hard to explain. You get harder, maybe, less caring. The way he talked about the people in those countries he fought in, as if they were subhuman. To be quite honest he looked as if he’d just come out of prison.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Pale, scruffy, down on his luck. It’s kind of an aura. I’ve had plenty of ex-cons applying for jobs, and I’ve even employed some of them. You get to know the signs.”

  “Did Mark Vincent want a job?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did, but I didn’t have any openings. And he didn’t have the qualifications. He hadn’t learned a trade in the army, either, certainly no electrical stuff.”

  “So you turned him down?”

  “Gently.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “A shrug and a sneer, like he was letting me know he knew I was saying no because he was down on his luck, because he seemed like a desperate bum.”

  “What did you talk about that night?”

  “The past, mostly. See, Mark was always devoted to his big sister. To Wendy. He came from a tough family, his parents were always at each other’s throats, and his, and she was like some sort of guardian angel to him. Protected him when his father got pissed and violent. Fed him when their mother spent the grocery money on ciggies and gin. That sort of thing. Stood up for him against bullies. She was a fairly strong lass, fine hockey player. He was devastated when it happened, young as he was. Never really got over it, if you ask me.”

  “That why he joined the Paras?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. We weren’t in touch a lot by then. His parents split up not long after Wendy’s death and farmed him out to some aunt and uncle or other out Castleford way. What I heard was he kept on getting in trouble with the police and it was either jail or the army. He was sixteen when he joined up.”

  “Anything interesting happen that night?”

  “As a matter of fact, it did. Mostly we were talking about old times. Mark was asking about people we’d all known back then, what they were doing now. We mentioned Maureen, and Ricky happened to know she’d got married to some banker and changed her name to Tindall. And that her daughter was Laura Tindall, the model. Ricky’s sister Susan still keeps in touch with Maureen on and off.”

  “You told Mark Vincent this?”

  “It came up in conversation, that’s all.”

  “Did you talk about Laura’s forthcoming wedding?”

  “No. We didn’t know about it then. At least, it hadn’t been announced, and Susan hadn’t mentioned anything.”

  “Go on.”

  “Anyway, we got on to talking about Wendy taking the shortcut through the woods and all, and Ricky Bramble said Susan told him she saw Wendy waiting at a bus stop. She asked her where she was going, and Wendy said she was supposed to be going in town shopping with Maureen Grainger, but Maureen hadn’t shown up. She said not to tell anyone because she wasn’t supposed to hang out with Wendy, but this was years later, like, so Susan didn’t think secrecy mattered anymore. Anyway, Susan just walked on, heard the bus come and go, turned and saw Wendy hadn’t got on it. Instead, she was crossing the road to the lane that led to the woods. That was all.”

  “Was this the first time you’d heard that story?”

  “Yes,” said Charlton. “Ricky said his sister had thought it was best not to tell the police. You know how kids can be about keeping secrets. It all seems so important. The cops talked to all of us, like. Susan didn’t want to tell them she was probably the last person to see Wendy alive, did she? You didn’t get involved with the law. It was that kind of estate. We took care of our own.”

  “You didn’t do a very good job with Frank Dowson, did you?”

  Charlton stared into his glass.

  “How did Mark Vincent react?”

  “He left. Just like that. Turned ver
y pale, even paler than before, drained his pint, plonked his glass down on the table almost hard enough to break it, and left without so much as a good-bye, lads, nice to see you again.”

  “And did you have any idea why he did that?”

  “’Course. I might be a bit thick, but I’m not stupid. It must have been a hell of a shock to his system, like, finding out that maybe if Maureen Grainger had turned up to meet Wendy like she said she would, they’d have gone into town to shop, and none of the rest would have happened. Wendy would have still been alive and his life wouldn’t have been ruined.”

  Banks could do nothing but shake his head slowly at what he was hearing. “‘A hell of a shock,’” he repeated. “Yes, I suppose it must have been. Do you know where Mark Vincent lives now?”

  “No idea. Probably living rough somewhere.”

  Banks took a copy of the sketch Ray had done out of his briefcase. “Could this be him?”

  Charlton studied it then handed it back. “Could be, I suppose. The hair’s right. Short and curly. Nose and eyes, too. Yeah, it could be Mark, all right.”

  “Do you know if Mark Vincent had a tattoo?”

  “Yeah. On his chest. He had it done in the army. He showed us it in Whitelock’s. Wings with a parachute superimposed. Really cool.”

  In itself, Banks thought, the story was nothing much. A young girl went off snogging with her boyfriend instead of turning up to meet her friend. But that friend got killed, and her brother, who had seen Maureen with a boy, was devoted to his sister. What happened brought his whole life crashing down. His parents split up, he was sent to live with relatives and he became a troubled young man before joining the army at an early age. If Mark Vincent had enough psychological damage to begin with, he could have had a motive for the shooting. The triggers were all there: the new attention given to his sister’s murder in the media, the conviction and death of Frank Dowson, the revelation that Maureen had been supposed to meet Wendy, and the publicity surrounding the forthcoming Tindall–Kemp wedding. He already knew Maureen’s married name, and the odds were pretty good that if he saw a photo of her in the paper, it wouldn’t take him long to put two and two together. There were also ways of checking.

  Was it enough? Banks was beginning to think they had a possible suspect in Mark Vincent and needed to find out as much about him as possible. They also needed to find him. They had Ray’s sketch, which was a start, but a real photograph would be even better.