In a Dry Season

by Peter Robinson

  First, Vivian opened the windows to let in some air, then she poured a stiff gin and tonic and made her way to her favourite armchair. Supported by chrome tubes, upholstered in black leather, it leaned back at just the right angle to make reading, drinking or watching television sinfully comfortable.

  Vivian glanced at the clock, all its polished brass and silver inner workings exposed by the glass dome. Almost nine. She would watch the news first. After that, she would have her bath and read Flaubert.

  She reached for the remote control. After the best part of a lifetime’s writing in longhand, with only an old walnut-cabinet wireless to provide entertainment, she had given in to technology five years ago. In one glorious shopping spree the day after she received a large advance from her new American publisher, she went out and bought herself a television, a video, a stereo system and the computer she now used to write her books.

  She put her feet up and clicked on the remote control. The news was the usual rubbish. Politics, for the most part, a little murder, famine in Africa, a botched assassination attempt in the Middle East. She didn’t know why she bothered watching it. Then, towards the end, came one of those little human-interest bites they use to fill up the time.

  This one made Vivian sit up and take notice.

  The camera panned a cluster of familiar ruins as the voice-over explained that the drought had brought this lost Dales village of Hobb’s End to light for the first time since it had been officially flooded in 1953. She already knew that—this was the same film footage they had used when the story first made it to television about a month ago—but suddenly the angle changed, and she could see a group of people standing by the bridge, one of them a uniformed policeman.

  “Today,” the voice-over went on, “a young boy exploring the scene discovered something he hadn’t bargained for.”

  The narrator’s tone was light, fluffy, the way so many of the cosy mysteries Vivian detested made light of the real world of murder. It was a mystery worthy of Miss Marple, he went on, a skeleton discovered, not in a cupboard, folks, but under the muddy floor of an old outbuilding. How could it have got there? Was foul play suspected?

  Vivian clutched the cool chrome tubes at the sides of her armchair as she watched, gin and tonic forgotten on the glass table beside her.

  The camera focused on the outbuilding, and Vivian saw the man and woman standing on the threshold. The narrator went on about the police arriving at the scene and refusing to comment at this early stage, then he brought the piece to a close by saying they’d be keeping an eye on the situation.

  The programme was well into the weather by the time Vivian had recovered from the shock. Even then, she found that her hands were still gripping the chrome so tightly even her liver spots had turned white.

  She let go, let her body sag in the chair, and took a deep breath. Then she reached for her gin and tonic, hands shaking now, and managed to take a gulp without spilling it. That helped.

  When she felt a little calmer, she went into the study and dug through her filing cabinet for the manuscript she had written in the early 1970s, three years after her last visit to Thornfield Reservoir. She found the sheaf of papers and carried it back through to the living-room.

  It had never been intended for publication. In many ways, it had been a practice piece, one she had written when she became interested in writing after her husband’s death. She had written it when she thought the old adage “write about what you know” meant “write about your own life, your own experiences.” It had taken her a few years to work out that that was not the case. She still wrote about what she knew—guilt, grief, pain, madness—only now she put it into the lives of her characters.

  As she started to read, she realized she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A memoir? A novella? Certainly there was some truth in it; at least she had tried to stick to the facts, had even consulted her old diaries for accuracy. But because she had written it at a time in her life when she had been unclear about the blurred line between autobiography and fiction, she couldn’t be sure which was which. Would she see it any more clearly now? There was only one way to find out.

  Banks had never been to Harkside before. DS Cabbot led the way in her metallic purple Astra, and he followed her along the winding one-way streets lined with limestone and gritstone Dales cottages with small, colourful gardens behind low walls. Many of the houses that opened directly onto the street had window-boxes or baskets of red and gold flowers hanging outside.

  They parked beside the village green, where a few scattered trees provided shade for the benches. Old people sat in the late summer dusk as the shadows grew long, their wrinkled hands resting on knobbly walking-sticks, talking to other old people or just watching the world go by. At the centre of the green stood a small, obelisk-style war memorial listing the names of Harkside’s dead over the two world wars.

  The essentials were arrayed around the green: a Kwik-Save mini-mart, which from its oddly ornate façade looked as if it had once been a cinema, a Barclays Bank, newsagent’s, butcher’s, grocer’s, betting shop, Oddbins Wines, a fifteenth-century church and three pubs, one of them the Black Swan. Though Harkside had a population of only between two and three thousand, it was the largest place for some miles, and people from the more remote farms and hamlets still viewed it as the closest thing to the big city, full of sin and temptation. It was a simply a large village, but most local people referred to it as “town.”

  “Where’s the section station?” Banks asked.

  DS Cabbot pointed down a side-street.

  “The place that looks like a brick garage? The one with the flat roof?”

  “That’s the one. Ugliest building in town.”

  “Do you live here?”

  “For my sins, yes, sir.”

  It was just a saying, Banks knew, but he couldn’t help wondering what those sins were. Just imagining them gave him a little thrill of delight.

  They walked over to the Black Swan, a whitewash and timber façade with gables and a sagging slate roof. It was dim inside, but still too warm, despite the open door and windows. Though a few tourists and ramblers lingered over after-dinner drinks at the rickety wooden tables, it was long past their bedtime. Banks walked to the bar with DS Cabbot, who asked the bartender if they could still get food.

  “Depends what you want, love,” she said, and pointed to a list on the blackboard.

  Banks sighed. The guessing game. He had played it often enough before. You walk in about ten minutes after opening time and ask for something on the menu, only to be told that it’s “off.” After about four or five alternatives, also declared “off,” you finally find something that they just might have. If you’re lucky.

  This time Banks went through tandoori chicken and chips, venison medallions in a red-wine sauce and chips, and fettuccine alfredo and chips before striking gold: beef and Stilton pie. And chips. He hadn’t been eating much beef for the past few years, but he had stopped worrying about mad cow disease lately. If his brain were going to turn to sludge, there wasn’t much he could do to stop it at this stage. Sometimes it felt like sludge already.

  DS Cabbot ordered a salad sandwich, no chips. “Diet?” Banks asked, remembering the way Susan Gay used to nibble on rabbit food most of the time.

  “No, sir. I don’t eat meat. And the chips are cooked in animal fat. There’s not a lot of choice.”

  “I see. Drink?”

  “Like a fish.” She laughed. “Actually, I’ll have a pint of Swan’s Down Bitter. I’d recommend it very highly. It’s brewed on the premises.”

  Banks took her advice and was glad that he did. He had never met a vegetarian beer aficionado before.

  “I’ll bring your food over when it’s ready, dearies,” the woman said. Banks and DS Cabbot took their pints over to a table by the open window. It looked out on the twilit green. The scene had changed; a group of teenagers had supplanted the old men. They leaned against tree trunks smoking, drinking from cans, pushi
ng and shoving, telling jokes, laughing, trying to look tough. Again, Banks thought of Brian. It wasn’t such a bad thing, was it, neglecting his architectural studies to pursue a career in music? It didn’t mean he’d end up a deadbeat. And if it were a matter of drugs, Brian had probably had enough opportunities to try them already. Banks certainly had by his age.

  What really bothered him was his realization that he didn’t really know his son very well any more. Brian had grown up over the past few years away from home, and Banks hadn’t seen much of him. Truth be told, he had spent far more time and energy on Tracy. He had also had his own preoccupations and problems, both at work and at home. Maybe they were on the wane, but they certainly hadn’t gone away yet.

  If DS Cabbot felt uncomfortable with Banks’s brooding silence, she didn’t show it. He fished out his cigarettes. Still not bad; he had smoked only five so far that day, despite his row with Brian and Jimmy Riddle’s phone call. Cutting out the ones he usually had in the car was a good idea. “Do you mind?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Sure?”

  “If you’re asking whether it’ll make me suffer, it will, but I usually manage to control my cravings.”

  “Reformed?”

  “A year.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You needn’t be. I’m not.”

  Banks lit up. “I’m thinking of stopping soon, myself.

  I’ve cut down.”

  “Best of luck.” DS Cabbot raised her glass, took a sip of beer and smacked her lips. “Ah, that’s good. Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “No.”

  She leaned forward and touched the hair at his right temple. “What’s that?”

  “What? The scar?”

  “No. The blue bit. I didn’t think DCIs went in for dye jobs.”

  Banks felt himself blush. He touched the spot she had indicated. “It must be paint. I was painting my living-room when Jimmy Riddle phoned. I thought I’d washed it all off.”

  She smiled. “Never mind. Looks quite nice, actually.” “Maybe I should get an earring to go with it?” “Better not go too far.”

  Banks gestured out of the window. “Get much trouble?” he asked.

  “The kids? Nah, not a lot. Bit of glue-sniffing, some vandalism. Mostly they’re bored. It’s just adolescent high spirits.”

  Banks nodded. At least Brian wasn’t bored and shiftless. He had a direction he passionately wanted to head in. Whether it was the right one or not was another matter. Banks tried to concentrate on the job at hand. “I called my sergeant on the way here,” he said. “He’ll organize a SOCO team to dig out the bones tomorrow morning. A bloke called John Webb will be in charge. He’s studied archaeology. Goes on digs for his holidays, so he ought to know what he’s doing. I’ve also phoned our odontologist, Geoff Turner, and asked him to have a look at the teeth as soon as it can be arranged. You can phone around the universities in the morning, see if you can come up with a friendly forensic anthropologist. These people are pretty keen, as a rule, so I don’t think that’ll be a problem. In the meantime,” he said as his smoke curled and twisted out of the window, “tell me all about Thornfield Reservoir.”

  DS Cabbot leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs at the ankles, resting the beer glass against her flat stomach. She had swapped her red wellies for a pair of white sandals, and her jeans rode up to reveal tapered ankles, bare except for a thin gold chain around the left one. Banks had never seen anyone manage to look quite so comfortable in a hard pub chair. He wondered again what she could possibly have done to end up in such a Godforsaken outpost as Harkside. Was she another of Jimmy Riddle’s pariahs?

  “It’s the most recent of the three reservoirs built along the River Rowan,” she began. “Linwood and Harksmere were both created in the late nineteenth century to supply Leeds with extra water. It’s piped from the reservoirs to the big waterworks just outside the city, then it’s purified and pumped into people’s homes.”

  “But Harksmere and Thornfield are in North Yorkshire, not West Yorkshire. West Riding, I suppose it was back then. Even so, why should they be supplying water to Leeds?”

  “I don’t know how it came about, but some sort of deal was struck between North Yorkshire and the Leeds City Council for the land use. That’s why we’re not part of the park.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Rowandale. Nidderdale, too. We’re not part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, though we should be if you go by geography and natural beauty. It’s because of the water. Nobody wanted to have to deal with National Parks Commission’s rules and regulations, so it was easier just to exclude us.”

  Like Eastvale, Banks thought. Because it was just beyond the park’s border, the severe building restrictions that operated inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park didn’t apply. Consequently, you ended up with monstrosities like the East Side Estate, with its ugly tower blocks and maisonettes, and the new council estate just completed down by Gallows View: “Gibbet Acres,” as everyone was calling it at the station.

  Their meals arrived. Banks stubbed out his cigarette. “What about Thornfield?” he asked after he had swallowed his first bite. The pie was good, tender beef and just enough Stilton to complement it. “How long has it been there? What happened to the village?”

  “Thornfield Reservoir was created in the early fifties, around the time the national parks system was established, but the village had already been empty a few years by then. Since the end of the war, I think. Used to have a population of around three or four hundred. It wasn’t called Thornfield; it was called Hobb’s End.”

  “Why?”

  “Beats me. There’s no Hobb in its history, as far as anyone knows, and it wasn’t the end of anything—except maybe civilization as we know it.”

  “How long was the village there?”

  “No idea. Since medieval times, probably. Most of them have been.”

  “Why was it empty? What drove people away?” “Nothing drove them away. It just died. Places do, like people. Did you notice that big building at the far west end?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was the flax mill. It was the village’s raison d’être in the nineteenth century. The mill owner, Lord Clifford, also owned the land and the cottages. Very feudal.”

  “You seem to be an expert, but you don’t sound as if you come from these parts.”

  “I don’t. I read up on the area when I came here. It’s got quite an interesting history. Anyway, the flax mill started to lose business—too much competition from bigger operations and from abroad—then old Lord Clifford died and his son wanted nothing to do with the place. This was just after the Second World War. Tourism wasn’t such big business in the Dales back then, and you didn’t get absentees buying up all the cottages for holiday rentals. When someone moved out, if nobody else wanted to move in, the cottage was usually left empty and soon fell to rack and ruin. People moved away to the cities or to the other dales. Finally, the new Lord Clifford sold the land to Leeds Corporation Waterworks. They rehoused the remaining tenants, and that was that. Over the next few years, the engineers moved in and prepared the site, then they created the reservoir.”

  “Why that site in particular? There must be plenty of places to build reservoirs.”

  “Not really. It’s partly because the other two were nearby and it was easier for the engineers to add one to the string. That way they could control the levels better. But mostly I imagine it’s to do with water tables and bedrock and such. There’s a lot of limestone in the Dales, and apparently you can’t build reservoirs on that sort of limestone. It’s permeable. The Rowan valley bottom’s made of something else, something hard. It’s all to do with faults and extrusions. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of my school geology.”

  “Me, too. When did you say all this happened?” “Between the end of the Second World War and the early fifties. I can check the exact dates back at the station.”

  “Please
.” Banks paused and tasted some beer. “So our body, if indeed there is one, and if it’s human, has to have been down there since before the early fifties?”

  “Unless someone put it there this summer.”

  “I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks older than that.”

  “It could have been moved from somewhere else. Maybe when the reservoir dried up someone found a better hiding place for a body they already had.”

  “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Whatever happened, I doubt that whoever buried it there would have put on a frogman’s outfit and swum down.”

  “Whoever buried it?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I’d say it was buried, wouldn’t you?” Banks finished his pie and pushed the rest of the chips aside. “Go on.”

  “The stone slabs. Maybe the body could have got covered by two or three feet of earth without much help. Maybe. I mean, we don’t know how much things shifted and silted down there over the last forty years or more. We also don’t know yet whether the victim was wearing concrete wellies. But it beats me how a body could have got under those stone slabs on the outbuilding floor without a little human intervention, don’t you think, sir?”

  It was a blustery afternoon in April 1941 when she appeared in our shop for the first time. Even in her land-girl uniform, the green V-neck pullover, biscuit-coloured blouse, green tie and brown corduroy knee-breeches, she looked like a film star.

  She wasn’t very tall, perhaps about five foot two or three, and the drab uniform couldn’t hide the kind of figure I’ve heard men whistle at in the street. She had a pale, heart-shaped face, perfectly proportioned nose and mouth, and the biggest, deepest, bluest eyes I had ever seen. Her blonde hair cascaded from her brown felt hat, which she wore at a jaunty angle and held on with one hand as she walked in from the street.