In a Dry Season

by Peter Robinson

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I told him I’d think about it, but he’d have to wait until the war was over, until we could find out for certain about Matt.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “In a way. Not . . . Oh, I mean I don’t really think I could ever love anyone like I loved Matt, but Brad and I get on well enough, in and out of bed. I like his company. And he’s good to me. When the war’s over, he wants to take me back to Hollywood with him.”

  “It’ll be a new lease of life, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll have someone I can visit out there.”

  “You will.”

  “But?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I still sense a ‘but.’ You only told him you’d think about it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Gwen. You know I can’t even consider getting married again until the war’s over, for a start. But I will think about it. Oh, look what PX brought me when I was ill. Isn’t he sweet?”

  It was a box of chocolates. A bloody box of chocolates! I hadn’t even seen a single chocolate in years. Gloria held out the box. “Please, take one. Take them all, in fact. They’ll only make me fat.”

  “What about me?” I asked, picking out the caramel.

  “You could do with a bit of meat on your bones.”

  I threw the screwed-up wrapper at her. “Cheeky.”

  “Well, you could. What about Charlie?”

  “Oh, he’s still depressed about Glenn Miller disappearing.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Has he asked you yet?”

  I’m sure I blushed. “No,” I said. “We haven’t talked about marriage.”

  “Books, that’s all you two ever talk about.”

  “It’s not.”

  She smiled. “I’m teasing, Gwen. I’m glad you’re happy.

  Honest I am.”

  “We still haven’t talked about marriage.”

  “Well, there’s no hurry, I suppose. But you could do a lot worse. A lawyer! He’ll be rich, just you wait and see.”

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  “It certainly helps. Anyway, you can go to America, too, and be a rich lawyer’s wife. We can see each other all the time. Have lunch together.”

  “Gloria, Boston is miles away from Los Angeles.”

  “Is it? Well, at least we’ll be in the same country.”

  And so we chatted on about love and marriage and what the future might offer us. Gloria soon recovered her health, and the round of dances, films and pub nights started all over again. February brought the prospect of victory closer and I actually began to believe that we were entering the last spring of the war.

  Everything changed one grey afternoon in March, when a tall, gaunt stranger walked down the High Street towards me, struggling against the wind.

  Banks really must have had a night on the tiles, Annie thought, pursing her lips and tapping her pen against the side of her thigh. It was after nine, and he wasn’t in his office yet. Was he still in Leeds? Had he and his friend picked up some women?

  She fought back the acid-burn of jealousy that curdled in her stomach. Jealousy and suspicion had ruined relationships for her before. Just before Rob got killed she had suspected he was seeing someone else and had consequently treated him badly. She thought she had conquered her feelings by now, thought she had learned detachment, but perhaps she had only put her insecurity on mothballs, along with everything else, since she had transferred to North Yorkshire. It was a frightening thought. Until she had met Banks, she had imagined she was in control, doing just fine.

  Annie remembered she was supposed to check on the Gwen Shackleton/Vivian Elmsley link. First, she phoned Ruby Kettering, who said—as expected—that it was so long ago she couldn’t even remember what Gwen looked or sounded like. Besides, Gwen would have only been fifteen then. Elizabeth Goodall told Annie that she had no idea who Vivian Elmsley was, and Alice Poole said that with her poor eyesight she couldn’t be relied upon to tell Cilla Black from Emma Noble.

  Next, Annie phoned Millgarth and asked to speak to DI Blackstone. He told her Banks was on his way back to Eastvale. She could have sworn he was suppressing laughter as he said it. They had probably been talking about her; images of Banks telling all the steamy details to his pal after a few pints made her face burn and her throat constrict. All of a sudden, her pleasure in wanting to tell him about her success with USAFE evaporated.

  Men, Annie thought. Never anything but bloody big kids when you got right down to it. And that was the most charitable view.

  The fax machine hummed into action. Annie hurried over to see if it was the information from Mattie in St Louis. It was: a personnel breakdown of the 448th Bomber Group at Rowan Woods AAF base between 19 December 1943 and 17 May 1945, when they had left. There were a lot of names. Too many.

  As she glanced over the list, Annie thought again about the Hobb’s End incident last night. It had rattled her more than she realized at first, and she had had a difficult time getting to sleep. She didn’t know why it should have affected her that way, apart from the misshapen red moon, the eerie atmosphere and the way the ruins had seduced her into believing in ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. But ghosts and goblins don’t run away and drive off in cars. Now, in the light of day, what bothered her most of all was why someone should hide from her in the first place, and then why take off like a bat out of hell when she gave chase?

  There might be a simple explanation, of course. Whoever it was might have been more afraid of her than she was of him: a mischievous kid, perhaps. Given everything else that had happened since Adam Kelly discovered the Hobb’s End skeleton, however, Annie felt inclined to be more suspicious.

  The answer still eluded her. There was nothing left at the site; the SOCOS had been over it thoroughly. Perhaps someone might think there was something there, though. Even so, how could anything buried there incriminate anyone living now? From what Annie had seen briefly of the figure last night, whoever it was hadn’t been old enough to have murdered Gloria Shackleton more than fifty years ago. People in their seventies or eighties don’t usually move that fast.

  So it remained a mystery. She wanted to talk to Banks about it, but he’d been off behaving like a silly kid getting pissed with his mates and telling tales about her sexual appetite and his ability to satisfy it. She hoped he had a hangover the size of China.

  Debussy’s chamber music for harp and wind instruments got Banks back to Gratly safe and sane via the slow back roads. He had thought of stopping in at Harkside on his way to see how Annie was doing, but decided against it. He didn’t want her to see him until he had at least managed a change of clothes. The ones he was wearing still stank of smoke and stale beer.

  His head ached, despite the Paracetamol he had downed at Ken’s flat that morning, and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage. When he had awoken and looked around Ken’s living-room, he had groaned at the detritus of a wild and foolish night: an empty bottle of Glenmorangie on the coffee-table, alongside an empty bottle of claret and an overflowing ashtray. He didn’t think the whisky bottle had been full when they got into it, but even a fifteen-year-old would have had more sense than to mix beer, wine and whisky that way.

  Still, he had enjoyed what he remembered of their rambling talk about women, marriage, divorce, sex and loneliness. And there was wonderful music. Ken was an aficionado of female jazz singers—a vinyl freak, too—and the LP sleeves scattered over the floor attested to this: Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy, Helen Forrest, Anita O’Day, Keely Smith, Peggy Lee.

  The last thing Banks remembered was drifting off to late-period Billie Holiday singing “Ill Wind,” her smoked-honey voice beautifully mingled with Ben Webster’s tenor sax. Then came oblivion.

  He groaned and rubbed his stubbly face. All the hangover clichés ran through his mind, one after another: You’re getting too old for this sort of thing; Time you gr
ew up; and I’ll never touch another drop as long as I live. It was a familiar litany of guilt and self-disgust.

  As Banks emptied his pockets before dropping his jeans in the laundry basket—noticing how full it was getting—he found a slip of paper. On it was the name “Maria” followed by a Leeds telephone number.

  He racked his brains but he couldn’t remember which one of the two girls they’d talked to in the Adelphi was Maria. Was it the petite blonde or the slender redhead with the freckles and the wide gap between her front teeth? He thought the blonde had been more interested in Ken, and he vaguely remembered them talking about the Pre-Raphaelites. If Maria were the redhead, she had a sort of Pre-Raphaelite look about her. Maybe that was how the subject had come up. No good. He couldn’t remember. It had been that kind of night. He screwed up the slip of paper, aimed it at the waste-bin, then stopped, straightened it out and put it in the top drawer of his bedside table. You never know.

  After a shave, a shower and a change of clothes, Banks drove to Eastvale and arrived at his office just after ten o’clock. He hardly had time to turn on his computer when his door opened and in strode Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle himself, making one of his rare forays to Eastvale. Banks muttered a silent curse. Just what he needed, in his fragile state.

  Banks looked up. “Sir?”

  “Banks, you look bloody awful,” said Riddle. “What have you been doing, man? Drinking yourself silly?”

  “Touch of flu, sir.”

  “Flu, my arse. Anyway, that’s your problem, you want to go on poisoning your liver.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “It’s that skeleton case I gave you. Been all over the news lately. Attracting a lot of publicity. I hope you’re on top of things.”

  “Definitely, sir.”

  “Good. I want you to bring me up to date. I’ve got to go to London today to tape an interview for ‘Panorama.’ They’re putting together a special segment on the investigation of old cases, how DNA makes a difference, that sort of thing.” He brushed some imaginary fluff from the front of his uniform and glanced at his watch. “I need an angle. And you’d better make it quick. My train leaves in an hour and a half.”

  Well, be thankful for small mercies, Banks told himself. “Where do you want me to begin, sir?” he asked.

  “At the bloody beginning, man, where do you think?” Banks told him what he and Annie had discovered so far from the SOCOS, from talking to Elizabeth Goodall and Gladys Poole and from the visit to Leeds. When he had finished, Riddle ran his hand over his shiny bald scalp and said. “It’s not much to go on, is it? Memory of a couple of old biddies?”

  “We’re not likely to get much better,” said Banks. “Not at this point. Too much time’s gone by. I suppose you could make a point about how unreliable people’s memories become over the years.”

  Riddle nodded and made a note.

  “Anyway, there’s a lot we’re still waiting on. We’ve got a report on Dr Williams’s physical examination of the bones, but we’re still waiting for the results of further tests both from him and our forensic odontologist. These things take time.”

  “And cost money. It’d better be worth it, Banks. Don’t think I’m not keeping my eye on the bottom line on this one.”

  “We also found a button, possibly military, close to the body. She may have been holding it when she was killed. There’s a lot we don’t know yet.”

  Riddle rubbed his chin. “Still,” he said, “there’s a good angle in what you’ve already told me. Nude paintings. Village scandals. Women playing around with Yanks. Yes. That’s good stuff. That’ll play. And give me a copy of the forensic anthropologist’s report to read on my way. I want to sound as if I know what I’m talking about.”

  You’ve been trying to do that for years without much success, Banks wanted to say, but he held his tongue and phoned the input clerk for a photocopy. Riddle could pick it up on his way out, seeing as he was in such a hurry. “You mentioned DNA, sir,” he said. “You might mention that we think her son is still alive and it would be a great help if he could get in touch with us. That way we could verify the identity of the remains once and for all.”

  Riddle stood up. “If I’ve got time, Banks. If I’ve got time.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob and half turned. “By the way,” he said. “DS Cabbot. How’s she working out?”

  She. So he did know. “Fine,” said Banks. “She’s a good detective. Wasted in a place like Harkside.”

  A malicious smile flitted across Riddle’s face. “Ah, yes. Pity, really. I understand there was some trouble in her previous posting. Nice-looking girl, though, by all accounts?”

  “Trouble, sir?”

  “You should know all about that, Banks. Insubordination, failure to respect senior ranks.”

  “I respect the rank, sir,” said Banks. “But not always the person who fills it.”

  Riddle stiffened. “Well, I hope you’re enjoying yourself—for your sake, Banks—because this is about as good as it’s going to get for you around here.”

  With that he walked out and slammed the door. Banks thought about what he had just heard. So Jimmy Riddle knew who Annie Cabbot was and had assigned him to work with her anyway. Why? Riddle already thought Banks was a rampant cocksman, making trysts with exotic Asians in Leeds during police time and basically shagging everything in a skirt. Riddle had also mentioned some trouble. What could all that be about?

  Most of all, though, why would Riddle think that working with Annie Cabbot would be hell on earth for Banks? Because, if one thing was certain, hell on earth was all Riddle had in store for him.

  On his way to the coffee machine, Banks bumped into DS Hatchley and asked him to find out what he could about Francis Henderson, Gloria’s illegitimate child. It was probably a pointless exercise, but it was a loose end that nagged him.

  Banks was still getting the hang of the station’s new voice-mail system, and was more often than not likely to forget about it or delete everything waiting for him, but that morning he got Annie’s message loud and clear. The ice in her tone was enough to freeze his eardrum. There was also a message from a Major Gargrave, in military personnel. Banks phoned him first, building up the courage to call Annie later.

  “It’s about that query you made the other day,” said Major Gargrave. “Matthew Shackleton.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it’s all a bit embarrassing really.”

  “He came back, didn’t he? We found a death certificate dated 1950. I was going to ask you about it.”

  “Yes, well, these things happen sometimes, you know. When my assistant was returning the file, he found some papers wedged down between two folders. It was because of the irregularity of it all, you see.”

  “And a filing error.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he return?” Banks asked.

  “It was his sister who reported his return, actually.

  March 1945. Place called Hobb’s End. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes,” said Banks. “Go on.”

  “I’m afraid there’s not much more to tell, really. Sergeant Shackleton simply discharged himself from a London hospital and went home. The hospital said he’d been liberated from a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines and shipped home in pretty bad shape. No identification.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes. It would seem so. Very odd.”

  “Okay,” said Banks, “thanks very much for calling, Major.”

  “No problem.”

  After he hung up, Banks opened the window and let the sunshine in. He thought of lighting a cigarette but realized he didn’t really feel like one. Too many last night. His throat and lungs still felt raw. There was something that didn’t make sense in what the major had just told him; it was on the tip of his consciousness, but he couldn’t quite force it out. Too many dead brain cells in the way.

  Back at his desk, Banks steeled himself and picked up the ph
one. He was ready as he would ever be for Annie now. She answered on the third ring.

  “You’re back, then,” was all she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have a good time?”

  “Pretty good, thanks.”

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  “I’d rather forget this morning, though.”

  “You probably deserved it.”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ve got the info on the Rowan Woods personnel.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “It’s a long list, though. It’ll take a bit of whittling down. There was more than one person working in the PX, for a start.”

  Banks sensed that her tone was softening a little. Should he tell her he had missed her last night? Or ask her what was wrong? Better hold off a while. He ventured a tentative, “Is there anything else?”

  Annie told him about what happened at Hobb’s End. “What were you doing out there?” he asked.

  “What does it matter? Maybe I just wanted to see what it looks like in the dark.”

  “And?”

  “It looks spooky.”

  “It was probably just a kid.”

  “I thought about that. It didn’t look like a kid. And it drove away.”

  “I’ve known ten-year-olds do that. Still, I take your point. There’s not much we can do about it now, though, is there?”

  “I just thought I’d let you know. For the record. It was interesting, that’s all.”

  “Sounds like it. Anything else?”

  Annie told him about drawing a blank on trying to confirm Vivian Elmsley’s identity through Ruby, Betty and Alice.

  “We’d better track her down, anyway,” Banks said. “I’ve already done that.”

  “Now I’m really impressed.”

  “So you should be. While you’ve been recovering from your self-inflicted damage, I’ve been on the phone.” Was there a hint of forgiveness there, perhaps? Depended how he played it: he needed to strike the right balance of remorse and praise, guilt and compliments.