Close to Home

by Peter Robinson

  Banks got to his knees and felt sick, head hanging on his chest. Christ, he was getting too old for this kind of thing. He tried to stand, but his legs still felt too wobbly. Then a hand grasped his elbow and he managed to get to his feet.

  “Are you all right, mister?” Banks swayed and took a couple of deep breaths. That felt a little better. His head was still spinning, but his vision had cleared. A young man stood beside him, Jack Russell terrier on a leash. “Only I was just taking Pugwash here for a walk and I saw two blokes setting on you.”

  “Two? Are you certain?”

  “Yes. They ran off toward the city center.”

  “Thank you,” said Banks. “That was very brave of you. You saved my bacon.”

  “Is there anything else I can do? Call you a taxi or something?”

  Banks paused to get his thoughts in some sort of order, then he looked toward the flats. “No,” he said. “No, thanks. I’ve a friend lives just over there. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you’re certain.”

  “Yes. And thanks again. Not many people bother to get involved these days.”

  The young man shrugged. “No problem. Come on, Pug-wash.” And they wandered off, the man casting a couple of backward glances as he went.

  Still a bit wobbly, Banks made his way back to Michelle’s flat and pressed the intercom. A few moments later her voice crackled into the night air. “Yes? Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Alan,” said Banks.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve had a little accident. I wonder if…”

  But before he could finish, Michelle buzzed him in, and he made his way up to her door. She was already standing there, looking concerned, and she came forward to help him toward the sofa. Not that it was necessary, but he thought it was a nice gesture.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Someone jumped me. Thank God for dog walkers or I’d probably be in the river by now. Funny, isn’t it? I thought I was going to end up in the Nene all those years ago and I almost ended up there tonight.”

  “You’re rambling,” Michelle said. “Sit down.”

  Banks still felt a bit dizzy and nauseated when he sat down. “Just give me a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Michelle handed him a glass. “Drink,” she said.

  He drank. Cognac. A good one, too. As the fiery liquor spread through his limbs he started to feel even better. His mind came into sharper focus, and he was able to assess the damage. Not much, really. His ribs felt tender, but he didn’t feel as if anything was broken. He looked up and saw Michelle standing over him.

  “How do you feel now?”

  “Much better, thank you.” Banks sipped some more Cognac. “Look,” he said, “I’d better call a taxi. I don’t feel very much like driving in this condition, especially not after this.” He held up the glass. Michelle tipped in more from the Courvoisier VSOP bottle, and poured herself a generous measure, too.

  “Okay,” she said. “But you must let me see to your nose first.”

  “Nose?” Banks realized his nose and upper lip felt numb. He put his hand up, and it came away bloody.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” Michelle said, leading him toward the bathroom, “but I’d better clean you up and put something on it before you go. There’s a small cut on your lip, too. Whoever hit you must have been wearing a ring or something.”

  The bathroom was small, almost too small for two people to stand without touching. Banks stood with the backs of his legs against the toilet bowl as Michelle used a damp facecloth to wipe away the blood, then looked in the cabinet and came up with some TCP liquid antiseptic. She put a small swab of cotton wool over the top of the bottle and tipped it up, then carefully applied it to his lip. It stung, and the acrid smell made him gasp. Michelle took the cotton wool away.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  She dropped one bloodstained swab into the waste bin and prepared another. Banks watched her face close to his, the look of concentration as she applied the cotton wool, tip of her tongue nipped between her teeth. She caught his eye, blushed and looked away. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her body, smell the Cognac on her breath.

  “Go on,” she said. “You were going to say something.”

  “It’s just like Chinatown,” Banks said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The film, Chinatown. Haven’t you seen it?”

  “What happens?”

  “Jack Nicholson gets his nose cut by Roman Polanski, and Faye Dunaway, well…she does what you’re doing now.”

  “Puts TCP on it?”

  “Well, I don’t think it was TCP—I don’t think they have that in America—but the idea’s the same. Anyway, it’s a very sexy scene.”

  “Sexy?” Michelle paused. Banks could see her flushed skin, feel the heat from her cheeks. The bathroom seemed to be getting smaller.

  “Yes,” said Banks.

  She dabbed at him again. Her hand was trembling. “I don’t see how putting TCP on a cut could be sexy,” she said. “I mean, what happens?”

  She was so close to him now that he could feel her breast touching ever so lightly against his arm. He could have leaned the top half of his body farther back, bent at the knees, but he stood his ground. “First, they kiss,” he said.

  “But wouldn’t it hurt?”

  “It was just his nose that got cut. Remember?”

  “Of course. How silly of me.”

  “Michelle?”

  “What? What is it?”

  Banks took her trembling hand by the wrist and moved it away from his mouth, then he put his other hand under her chin and cupped it gently so she was looking at him, her brilliant green eyes questioning but holding his gaze, not looking away now. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest and his knees wobbling as he pulled her closer to him and felt her yield.

  Chapter 16

  You were late back last night,” Banks’s mother said, without turning from the kitchen sink. “Tea’s fresh.”

  Banks poured himself a cup of tea and added a splash of milk. He had expected this sort of reaction. His mother had probably lain awake until two in the morning listening for him the way she did when he was a teenager. He and Michelle had decided that, for many reasons, it was not a good idea for him to stay with her overnight, but even so Michelle had laughed at the idea of his having to go home to his mother.

  Ida Banks turned. “Alan! What have you done to your face?”

  “It’s nothing,” said Banks.

  “But it’s all bruised. And your lip’s cut. What have you been up to?”

  Banks turned away. “I told you, it’s nothing.”

  “Were you fighting? Was it some criminal you were arresting? Is that why you were so late? You could have rung.” She gave him a look that spoke volumes about what she thought of his chosen career.

  “Something like that,” Banks said. “I had a bit of business to take care of. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t ring, but it was so late. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  His mother gave him the reproving look she was so good at. “Son,” she said, “you ought to know by now that I can’t get to sleep until you’re home safe and sound.”

  “Well, you can’t have slept much these past thirty years or so,” Banks said, and immediately regretted it when he saw the other look she was so good at, the suffering martyr, lower lip trembling. He went over and gave her a hug. “Sorry, Mum,” he said, “but I’m all right. Really I am.”

  His mother sniffed and nodded. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you’ll be hungry. Bacon and eggs?”

  Banks knew from experience that feeding him would help his mother get over her bad night. He wasn’t all that hungry, but he couldn’t deal with the protests he knew he’d get if all he asked for was cereal. He was also in a hurry. Michelle had suggested he come down to headquarters to search through the mug shots for his attacker. He
wasn’t certain he could identify the man, though the piggy eyes and pug nose were distinctive enough. Still, Mother comes first; bacon and eggs it had to be. “If it’s no trouble,” he said.

  His mother walked over to the fridge. “It’s no trouble.”

  “Where’s Dad?” he asked, as his mother turned on the cooker.

  “Down at the allotment.”

  “I didn’t know he still went there.”

  “It’s more of a social thing. He doesn’t do much digging or anything these days. Mostly he sits and passes the time of day with his mates. And he has a cigarette or two. He thinks I don’t know but I can smell it on him when he comes home.”

  “Well, don’t be too hard on him, Mum.”

  “I’m not. But it’s not only his health, is it? What am I supposed to do if he goes and drops dead?”

  “He’s not going to drop dead.”

  “Doctor says he’s not supposed to smoke. And you should stop, too, while you’re still young.”

  Young? It was a long time since Banks had been called young. Or felt young, for that matter. Except perhaps last night, with Michelle. Once she had made her decision, dropped her defenses a little, she was a different person, Banks marveled. It had clearly been a long time since she had been with anyone, so their lovemaking was slow and tentative at first, but none the worse for that. And once she threw aside her inhibitions she proved to be a warm and generous lover. Michelle had also been gentle because of Banks’s cut lip and bruised ribs. He cursed his bad luck, that he had to be injured in combat the first night he got to sleep with her. He also thought it was ironic that such physical injuries were so rare in his line of work, yet both he and Annie had been hurt within hours of each other. Some malevolent force working against them, no doubt.

  Banks remembered Michelle’s sleepy late-night kiss at the door as he left, her warm body pressed against him. He sipped some tea. “Is the paper around?” he asked his mother.

  “Your dad took it with him.”

  “I’ll just nip over the road, then.” His father took the Daily Mail, anyway, and Banks preferred The Independent or The Guardian.

  “Your bacon and eggs will be ready.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be back before they’re done.”

  Banks’s mother sighed, and he headed out. It was warm but cloudy outside, and looking like rain again. That close, sticky muggy weather he hated. As he entered the newsagent’s shop, he remembered the way it used to be laid out, the counter in a different place, racks arranged differently. Different magazines and covers back then, too: Film Show, Fabulous, Jackie, Honey, Tit-Bits, Annabelle.

  Banks remembered his conversation with Michelle in the pub about Donald Bradford and his collection of porn, and wondered if he really had acted as a distributor. While Banks couldn’t imagine Graham slipping a magazine of French fellatio between the pages of The People and putting it through number 42’s letter box, he could imagine Bradford keeping his stock under the counter, or hidden in the back. And maybe Graham had stumbled upon it.

  He could remember quite clearly the first time he had ever seen a pornographic magazine. Not just the ones with naked women in them, like Playboy, Swank and Mayfair, but true porn, magazines that showed people doing things.

  It was in their den inside the tree, and, interestingly enough, the magazines were Graham’s. At least, he brought them. Had Banks never wondered at the time where Graham got them from? He didn’t know. And if Graham had mentioned it, Banks didn’t remember.

  It was a warm day, and there were only three of them there, but he wasn’t sure whether the third was Dave, Paul or Steve. The branches and leaves came right down to the ground, hard, shiny green leaves with thorns on them, Banks remembered now, and he could feel himself slipping through the concealed entrance, where the foliage wasn’t too dense, the thorns pricking his skin. Once you got inside, the space seemed bigger than it could possibly be, just the way the inside of Dr. Who’s TARDIS was bigger than the outside. They had plenty of space to sit around and smoke, and enough light got through for them to look at dirty magazines. The smell of the place came back, too, so real he could smell it as he stood waiting to cross the road. Pine needles. Or something similar. And there was a soft beige carpet of them on the ground.

  That day, Graham had the two magazines stuffed down the front of his shirt and he brought them out with a flourish. He probably said, “Feast your eyes on this, lads,” but Banks couldn’t remember the actual words, and he didn’t have time to settle down and try to reconstruct the memory in full. It wasn’t important anyway.

  What was important was that for the next hour or so the three teenagers looked in awe on some of the most amazing, exciting, unbelievable images they had ever seen in their lives, people doing things they had never even dreamed could or should be done.

  By today’s standards, Banks realized, it was pretty mild, but for a fourteen-year-old provincial kid in the summer of 1965 to see color photos of a woman sucking a man’s penis or a man sticking his penis up a woman’s arse was shocking in the extreme. There were no animals, Banks remembered, and certainly no children. Mostly he remembered images of impossibly large-breasted women, some of them with semen spurting all over their breasts and faces, and well-endowed men usually on top of them or being ridden by them. Graham wouldn’t lend the magazines out, Banks remembered, so the only time they had to look at them was then and there, inside the tree. The titles and text, or what he remembered of them, were in a foreign language. He knew it wasn’t German or French because he took those languages at school.

  While this didn’t become a regular occurrence, Banks did remember a couple of other occasions that summer when Graham brought magazines to the tree. Different ones each time. And then, of course, Graham disappeared and Banks didn’t see that kind of porn again until he became a policeman.

  So was it a clue or not? As Michelle had said last night, it hardly seemed something worth murdering over, even back then, but if it was a part of something bigger—the Kray empire, for example—and if Graham had got involved in it way beyond his depth, beyond borrowing a few magazines, then there might be a link to his murder. It was worth looking into, at any rate, if Banks could figure out where to start.

  Tapping the newspaper against his thigh, Banks crossed the busy road and hurried back home before his bacon and eggs turned cold. The last thing he needed was to upset his mother again this morning.

  Despite her late night, Michelle was at her desk long before Detective Superintendent Shaw was likely to see the light of day. If he bothered coming in at all. Maybe he would take another sick day. At any rate, the last thing she wanted was him breathing over her shoulder while Banks was in an interview room looking through the mug shots. There were people around the office, so she and Banks hadn’t had a chance to do much more than say a quick hello before they got down to business. She had given him a choice of the computer version or the plain, old-fashioned photo albums, and he had chosen the albums.

  She had felt a little shy when he walked in and could still hardly believe that she had gone ahead and slept with him like that, even though she knew she had wanted to. It wasn’t as if she had been saving herself or anything, or that she was afraid, or had lost interest in sex, only that she had been far too preoccupied by the aftermath of Melissa’s death and the end of her marriage to Ted. You don’t get over something like that overnight.

  Still, she was surprised at her newfound boldness and blushed even now as she thought about the way it had made her feel. She didn’t know what Banks’s personal situation was, except that he was going through a divorce. He hadn’t talked about his wife, or his children, if he had any. Michelle found herself curious. She hadn’t told him about Melissa and Ted either, and she didn’t know if she would. Not for a while, anyway. It was just too painful.

  The only real drawback was that he was on the Job. But where else was she likely to meet someone? People who form relationships often meet at their places of work. Be
sides, North Yorkshire was a fair distance from Cambridgeshire, and after they’d got the Graham Marshall case sorted, she doubted they would ever have to work together again. But would they even see each other? That was the question. It was a long way to travel. Or perhaps it was foolish of her even to imagine a relationship, or to want one. Maybe it had just been a one-night stand and Banks already had a lover up in Eastvale.

  Putting aside her thoughts, and her memories of the previous night, Michelle got down to work. She had a couple of things to do before Graham Marshall’s funeral service that afternoon, including tracking down Jet Harris’s wife and ringing Dr. Cooper. But before she could pick up the telephone, Dr. Cooper rang her.

  “Dr. Cooper. I was going to ring you this morning,” said Michelle. “Any news?”

  “Sorry it took me so long to get the information you wanted, but I told you Dr. Hilary Wendell’s a tough man to track down.”

  “You’ve got something?”

  “Hilary has. He won’t commit himself to this absolutely, so he’d be very unwilling to testify if it ever came to a court case.”

  “It probably won’t,” said Michelle, “but the information might be useful to me.”

  “Well, from careful measurement of the nick on the underside of the rib, he’s made a few projections and he’s pretty certain it’s a military knife of some kind. His money’s on a Fairbairn-Sykes.”

  “What’s that?”

  “British commando knife. Introduced in 1940. Seven-inch, double-edged blade. Stiletto point.”

  “A commando knife?”

  “Yes. Is that of any use?”

  “It might be,” said Michelle. “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And please thank Dr. Wendell from me.”

  “Will do.”

  A commando knife. In 1965, the war had only been over for twenty years, and plenty of men in their early forties would have fought in it, and had access to such a knife. What worried Michelle most of all, though, was that the only person she knew had served as a Royal Naval Commando was Jet Harris; she remembered it from the brief biography she had read when she first came to Thorpe Wood. He had also been awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal.