“Good Lord,” she said, smiling, “I feel like we’re sneaking away for a dirty weekend.”
Banks laughed. “If you play your cards right . . . ”
The station smelled of diesel oil and ancient soot from the days of steam. Gouts of compressed air rushed out from under the trains with a deafening hiss, and pigeons flapped around the high ceiling. Announcements about late arrivals and departures echoed from the public-address system.
The London train pulled out of the station only eleven minutes after the advertised departure time. Banks and Annie chatted for a while, lulled by the rattling and rocking rhythm, and Banks ascertained that whatever had been bothering Annie on the phone yesterday was no longer a problem. He had been forgiven.
Annie started reading the Guardian she had bought at the station newsstand and Banks went back to Guilty Secrets. In bed the previous evening, he had given up on The Shadow of Death when the erstwhile DI Niven arrested his first suspect, saying, “You have the right to remain silent. If you don’t have a lawyer, one will be provided for you.” So much for the realistic depiction of police procedures. Allowing that it was one of her early DI Niven books and feeling that she deserved a second chance, he started Guilty Secrets, her most recent non-series book, and had trouble putting it down to get to sleep. Clearly, Vivian Elmsley was better at psychological suspense than police procedurals.
Banks finished the book just before Peterborough. Annie had closed her eyes by then and was either napping or meditating. He gazed out of the window at the uninspiring landscape of his childhood: a brick factory, a redbrick school, stretches of waste ground littered with weeds and rubbish. Even the spire of the beautiful Norman cathedral behind the shopping centre failed to inspire him. The train squealed to a halt.
Of course, it hadn’t been so uninspiring back then; his imagination had imbued every miserable inch of the place with magical significance. The waste grounds were battlefields where the local lads re-enacted the great battles of two world wars, using tree branches or sticks of wood for rifles, bayoneting opponents with great relish. Even when Banks was playing alone or fishing in the River Nene, it was easy enough for him to believe he was an Arthurian knight on a quest. Adam Kelly had been doing the same thing in Hobb’s End when the world of his imagination had suddenly become real.
As the train left Peterborough station, Banks thought of his parents, not more than a mile away. He looked at his watch. About now, he guessed, his mother would be drinking milky instant coffee and reading her latest women’s magazine, and his father would be having his morning nap, snoring gently, feet up on the green velour pouffe, newspaper spread over his lap. Unchanging routine. It had been the same since his father was made redundant from his job as a steelworker in 1982, and his mother grew too old and tired to clean other people’s houses any more. Banks thought of the disappointment and bitterness that had twisted their lives, problems that he had certainly contributed to, as well as Margaret Thatcher. But their disappointments had been visited on him, too, in turn. No matter how well he did, it was never good enough.
Even though Banks had “bettered” himself—he had a secure job with a steady source of income and good opportunities for advancement—his parents didn’t approve of his joining the police. His father never tired of pointing out the traditional opposition between the working classes and the police force. When the riot police on overtime taunted striking miners by waving rolls of five-pound notes at them in the ’84 strike, he accused Banks of being “the enemy” and tried to persuade him to resign. It didn’t matter that Banks was working the drugs squad on the Met at the time and had nothing to do with the troubles up north. As far as his father was concerned, the police were merely Maggie’s bully-boys, the enforcers of unpopular government policies, oppressors of the working man.
Banks’s mother, for her part, took a more domestic view and relayed tales of police divorces she heard about over the grapevine. Being a policeman wasn’t a good career choice for a family man, she never ceased to tell him.
Never mind that it was more than twenty years later before he and Sandra split up—most of that time relatively successful, as modern marriages go—his mother took great satisfaction that she had finally been vindicated.
And there lay the main problem, Banks thought as he watched the city disappear behind him. He had never been able to do anything right. When bad things happened to other kids, parents usually took their side, but when bad things happened to Banks, it was his own fault. It had always been that way, ever since he started getting cuts and bruises in schoolyard fights, always him who must have started it, whether he did or not. As far as his parents were concerned, Banks thought, if he got killed on the job, that would probably be his own fault, too. When it came to blame, they offered no quarter for family.
Still, he thought, in a way that was what made him good at his job. When he had been junior in rank, he had never blamed his bosses when things went wrong, and now he was DCI, he took the responsibility for his team, whether it consisted of Hatchley and Susan Gay or just Annie Cabbot. If the team failed, it was his failure. A burden, yes, but also a strength.
King’s Cross was the usual madness. Banks and Annie negotiated their way through the crowds and the maze of tiled, echoing tunnels to the Northern Line and managed to cram into the first Edgeware-bound train that came along.
A few minutes later, they came out of Belsize Park tube station, walked up Rosslyn Hill and turned into the side-street where Vivian Elmsley lived. Banks knew the area vaguely from his years in London, though after Notting Hill, he and Sandra had mostly lived south of the river, in Kennington. Keats used to live near here, Banks remembered; it was in one of these streets that the poor sod fell in love with his next-door neighbour, Fanny Brawne.
A woman’s voice answered the intercom.
There was a long pause after Banks had stated his rank and his business, then a more resigned voice said, “You’d better come up.” The lock buzzed and Banks pushed open the front door.
They walked up three flights of thickly carpeted stairs to the second-floor landing. That this was a well-maintained building was clear from the fresh lemon scent, the gleaming woodwork and freshly painted walls, decorated here and there with a still-life print or a seascape. Probably cost an arm and a leg, but then Vivian Elmsley could no doubt afford an arm and a leg.
The woman who opened the door was tall and slim, standing ramrod straight, her grey hair fastened in a bun. She had high cheekbones, a straight, slightly hooked nose and a small, thin mouth. Crow’s-feet spread around her remarkable deep blue eyes, slanted at an almost Oriental angle. Banks could see what Elsie Patterson meant: if you were at all observant, there was no mistaking those eyes. She was dressed like a jogger, in baggy black exercise trousers and a white sweatshirt. Still, he supposed, it didn’t matter what you wore if all you had to do was sit around and write all day. Some people have all the luck.
She looked tired. Bags puffed under her eyes, and broken blood-vessels criss-crossed the whites. She also looked strained and edgy, as if she were running on reserves.
The flat was Spartan and modern in its furnishings, chrome and glass giving the small living-room a generous sense of space. Banks’s eyes were drawn to a framed print of one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s huge yellow flowers hung on the wall over the mantelpiece.
“Please, sit down.” She gestured Banks and Annie towards two matching chrome and black leather chairs, then sat down herself, clasping her hands on her lap. They looked older than her face, skeletal and liver-spotted. They were also unusually large for a woman’s hands.
“I must admit, I’m quite used to talking to the police,” she said, “but usually I’m the one questioning them. How can I help you?”
Banks remembered the police procedure in The Shadow of Death and bit his tongue. Maybe she hadn’t known any police officers when she wrote that book. “First of all,” he asked, “are you Gwynneth Shackleton?”
“I was, though
most people called me Gwen. Vivian is my middle name. Elmsley is a pseudonym. Actually, it’s my mother’s maiden name. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“I’m sure it is. You grew up in Hobb’s End?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill Gloria Shackleton?”
Her hand went to her chest. “Kill Gloria? Me? What a suggestion. I most certainly did not.”
“Could Matthew, your brother, have killed her?”
“No. Matthew loved her. She looked after him. He needed her. I’m afraid this is all rather overwhelming, Chief Inspector.”
“No doubt.” Banks glanced at Annie, who remained expressionless, notebook on her lap. “May I ask why you haven’t come forward in response to our requests for information?” he asked.
Vivian Elmsley paused before answering, as if composing her thoughts carefully, the way she might revise a page of manuscript. “Chief Inspector,” she said, “I admit that I have been following developments both in the newspapers and on television, but I honestly don’t believe I can tell you anything of any value. I have also found it all very distressing. That’s why I haven’t come forward.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Banks. “Not only did you live in Hobb’s End throughout the war, and not only did you know the victim well, you were also her sister-in-law. You can’t expect me to believe that you know nothing at all about what happened to her.”
“Believe what you will.”
“Were the two of you close?”
“I wouldn’t say we were close, no.”
“Did you like her?”
“I can’t honestly say I knew her very well.”
“You were about the same age. You must have had things in common as well as your brother.”
“She was older than I. It does make a difference when you’re young. I wouldn’t say we had much in common. I was always a bookish sort of girl, whereas Gloria was the more flamboyant type. As with many extroverts, she was also a secretive person, very difficult to get to know.”
“Did you see a lot of her?”
“Quite a bit. We were in and out of one another’s houses. Bridge Cottage wasn’t far from the shop.”
“Yet you claim you didn’t know her well?”
“I didn’t. You probably have cousins or in-laws you hardly know at all, Chief Inspector.”
“Didn’t you ever do things together?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Girl things.” Annie shot him a glance that he felt even before he noticed it out of the corner of his eye. The hell with it, he thought, they were girls back then. He had been a boy once, too; he did boy things, and he didn’t object to anyone saying so.
Vivian pursed her lips. “Girl things? I suppose we did. The same sorts of things other people did during the war. We went to the pictures, to dances.”
“Dances with American airmen?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Was there anyone in particular?”
“I suppose we were quite friendly with several of them over the last year of the war.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“I think so. Why?”
“What about Brad? Ring a bell?
“Brad? Yes, I think he was one of them.”
“What was his second name?”
“Sikorski. Brad Sikorski.”
Banks checked the list of Rowan Woods he had brought with him. Bradford J. Sikorski, Jr. That had to be the one.
“And PX? Billy Joe?”
“Edgar Konig and Billy Joe Farrell.”
They were on the list, too.
“What about Charlie.”
Vivian Elmsley turned pale; a muscle by the side of her jaw began to twitch. “Markleson,” she whispered. “Charlie Markleson.”
Banks checked the sheet. “Charles Christopher Markelson? That the one?”
“Charlie, he was always called Charlie.”
“Whatever.”
“How did you find out their names? I haven’t heard them in so long.”
“It doesn’t matter how we found out. We also discovered that Gloria was having an affair with Brad Sikorski. Was she still seeing him when Matthew came back? Is that what happened?”
“Not that I knew of. I don’t know what you’re getting at. You’ve been misinformed, Chief Inspector. Gloria was married to Matthew, whether he was there or not. Yes, we went to the pictures with those boys on occasion, perhaps to dances, but that’s all there was to it. There was no question of romantic involvement.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.”
“How did Gloria behave during her husband’s absence?”
“What do you mean?”
“When she thought he was dead. Obviously things would be different then, wouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if she were waiting for him any more. As far as she was concerned, she would never see him again. After a reasonable period of mourning, she could enter back into the spirit of the times, couldn’t she? Surely an attractive woman like her must have had boyfriends?”
Vivian paused again. “Gloria had a very gregarious side to her nature. She liked parties, group excursions, that sort of thing. She liked to keep things superficial. At a distance. Besides, we never gave Matthew up for dead completely. You must understand that, Chief Inspector; we never gave up hope. There was always hope, hope that he would return. And it proved well-founded.”
“You haven’t answered my question. Did Gloria have a romantic affair with Brad Sikorski, or with anyone else?”
She looked away. “Not that I knew about.”
“So she lived like a nun, even though she believed her husband was dead?”
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t spy on her. Whatever she got up to behind locked doors was none of my business.”
“So she did get up to something?”
“I told you: I didn’t spy on her. You’re twisting my words.”
“How did Brad take it when Matthew came back alive?”
“How should I know? Why would it matter to him?”
“It might have. If he fell in love with Gloria, and if she rejected him in favour of her husband. He might have been angry.”
“Are you suggesting that Brad killed Gloria?” Vivian sniffed. “You’re really clutching at straws now.”
Banks leaned forward. “Somebody did, Ms Elmsley, and the most immediate suspects that come to mind are Matthew, one of the Americans, Michael Stanhope or you.”
“Ridiculous. It must have been a stranger. We got plenty of them in the village, you know.”
“What about Michael Stanhope?”
“It’s been years since I’ve heard his name. They were friends. That’s all.”
“Would it surprise you to hear that Gloria posed nude for a painting by Stanhope in 1944?”
“Yes, it would. Very much. I know that Gloria wasn’t as fastidious about her body as some would have wished her to be, but I never saw any evidence of anything like that.”
“Next time you’re in Leeds,” Banks said, “drop by the art gallery and have a look. You’re sure she never told you?”
“I would have remembered.”
“Was Gloria having an affair with Michael Stanhope?”
“I shouldn’t think so. He was too old for her.”
“And homosexual?”
“I wouldn’t know about that. As I said, I was very young. It certainly wasn’t something people went around boasting about back then.”
“Did she ever tell you about her family in London? About her son, Francis?”
“She did mention him to me once, yes. But she said she’d cut off all relations with him and his father.”
“Even so, they could have come to drag her back. Maybe they fought and he killed her?”
Vivian shook her head. “I’m sure I would have known.”
“Was Matthew ever violent towards her?”
“Never. Matthew had always been a gentle person, and even his war experiences didn’
t change that.” Her voice had taken on a strained, wavering quality.
Banks paused and softened his tone. “There is one thing that really puzzles me,” he said, “and that’s what did you think had happened to Gloria? Surely you can’t have thought she had simply disappeared from the face of the earth?”
“It wasn’t a mystery at the time. Not really. She left. That’s what I had always thought until you found the remains. You are certain it’s Gloria, aren’t you?”
Banks felt a twinge of doubt, but he tried not to let it show. They still had no definite proof of the skeleton’s identity. For that, they would need Francis Henderson so they could run DNA checks. “We’re sure,” he said. “Why would she leave?”
“Because she couldn’t stand it any more, taking care of Matthew, the way he was. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done that. She had clearly broken off all contact with whatever life she had had in London before coming to Hobb’s End. I don’t think Gloria was particularly strong when it came to emotional fortitude.”
True enough, Banks thought. If a person has bid one life goodbye, then it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to do it again. But Gloria Shackleton hadn’t bid Hobb’s End goodbye, he reminded himself; she had been killed and buried there.
“When did she disappear?” he asked.
“Shortly after VE day. A week or so.”
“You must see how the discovery casts suspicion on your brother, most of all. Gloria was buried in an outbuilding adjoining Bridge Cottage. Matthew was living with her there at the time.”
“But he was never violent. I had never known him be violent. Never.”
“War can change a man.”
“Even so.”
“Did he go out much?”
“What do you mean?”
“After his return. Did he go out much? Was Gloria often alone in the house?”
“He went to the pub of an evening. The Shoulder of Mutton. Yes, she was alone there sometimes.”
“Did Gloria ever say anything to you about leaving?”
In a Dry Season Page 33
