In a Dry Season

by Peter Robinson

  She called the concierge and asked him to arrange for a taxi, then she put on her raincoat and waterproof boots.

  The car was waiting downstairs, and she ducked in the back with her umbrella and gave the driver directions. The rain had started spotting now, making huge dark blobs on the pavement. The driver, a young Pakistani, tried to practise his English by making conversation about the weather, but he soon gave up and settled in to concentrate on his driving.

  Woodhouse Road was busy with people leaving work early for the weekend, and the worsening weather made it a matter of stop and start. Beyond the city limits, though, things eased up.

  As Vivian gazed out of the rain-streaked window, hypnotized by the slapping of the windscreen wipers, she thought about her visit to Leeds City Art Gallery yesterday. Seeing the nude painting of Gloria had evoked such a complex response in her that she still hadn’t been able to sort out all the strands.

  She had never seen Gloria naked before, had never accompanied her and Alice and the others on their skinny-dipping expeditions, out of shyness and out of shame at her body, so to see the smooth skin and the alluring curves as interpreted by Michael Stanhope’s expert eye and hand came as a revelation.

  What disturbed Vivian most of all was the pang of desire the painting engendered in her. She had thought herself long past such feelings, if she had ever, indeed, experienced them at all. True, she had loved Gloria, but she had never admitted to herself, had never even realized, that she might have loved her in that way. Now, as she remembered the innocent physical intimacies they had shared—painting one another’s legs; the dancing lessons, when she had felt Gloria’s body close to hers and breathed her perfume; the little kiss on her cheek after the wedding—she wasn’t sure how innocent it had all been. The feelings, the urges, had been there, but Vivian had been ignorant of such things and had suppressed them. In the art gallery, she had felt like a pervert looking at pornography; not because there was anything pornographic about Stanhope’s painting, but because of her own thoughts and feelings attached to it.

  She thought of that moment when she had kissed Gloria’s still-warm forehead before covering her with the blackout cloth. “Goodbye, sweet Gloria. Goodbye, my love.”

  “Pardon me?” said the driver, turning his head. “What? Oh, nothing. Nothing.”

  Vivian shrank into her seat. Beyond Otley there was very little traffic. The roads were narrow, and they got stuck behind a lorry doing only about thirty for a while. It was after five o’clock when the driver pulled up in the car park near Thornfield Reservoir. The rain was coming down hard now, pattering against the leaves. At least, Vivian thought, in this weather she could be sure of having the place to herself. She told the driver she would only be about fifteen minutes and asked him to wait. He picked up a newspaper from the seat beside him.

  A second car pulled up in the other car park, behind the high hedge, but Vivian was already walking through the woods, and she failed to notice it. The path was treacherous, as if the parched earth had been yearning for the chance to suck up every drop of rain that fell, and Vivian had to be really careful not to slip as she made her way slowly down the embankment, poking her umbrella in the ground ahead and using it as a sort of brake. God only knew how she would get back up again.

  The ruined village lay spread out before her under the dark sky. Rain lashed the crumbled stones and every few seconds a flash of lightning lit the scene like a Stanhope painting.

  Vivian paused to get her breath by the fairy bridge, unfurled her umbrella, then walked forward and stood at the humped centre. She rested her free hand on the wet stone, hardly able to believe that this was the same bridge where she had stood and chatted with Gloria, Matthew, Alice, Cynthia, Betty and the others all those years ago. The last time she had been there, it had been under water.

  The rain was already finding the old river’s channel by the High Street, and a small stream had formed, heading towards Harksmere. Thunder hammered across the sky, and Vivian shuddered as she moved towards Bridge Cottage. There was nothing left of the place except the foundations, a dark stone outline two or three feet high, but she remembered where every room and cupboard had been, especially the kitchen at the back, where she had found Gloria’s body.

  The area around and inside the cottage had been dug up and was still surrounded by police signs warning that it might be dangerous. They had been looking for more bodies, Vivian supposed. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Inspector Niven would have done exactly the same thing.

  Now that she was standing there in the driving rain, which dripped off her umbrella and ran down inside her boots, she was beginning to wonder why she had come. There was nothing here for her. At least when Hobb’s End was under water she could imagine it, as she had done, as a place preserved in water-glass. Now it was nothing but a heap of rubble.

  She ambled through the mud up what had been the High Street, past the Shoulder of Mutton, where Billy Joe had his fight with Seth and Matthew spent his evenings after his return from Luzon; past Halliwell the butcher’s, where she had swapped Capstans for suet and pleaded for an extra piece of scrag-end; and past the newsagent’s shop, where she had lived with Mother and sold her bits and pieces, built up her private lending-library, met Gloria for the first time that blustery April day she came by in her new land-girl uniform asking for cigarettes.

  It was no good; there was nothing of the place left but memories, and her memories were mostly painful. She hadn’t known what to expect, had in mind only a simple sort of pilgrimage, an acknowledgement of some sort. Well, she had done that. Time to head back to the hotel for a hot bath and a change of clothes, or she would catch her death.

  Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the gaunt, stringy-haired man who had followed her taxi all the way from Leeds. When she passed Bridge Cottage on her way back and turned towards the fairy bridge, he stepped from behind the outbuilding and held out a gun, then he moved forward quickly, grabbed her around the throat, and she felt the hard metal pushing at the side of her neck. Her umbrella went flying and landed upside down on High Street like a large black teacup.

  Then his hand appeared in front of her, holding a dog-eared photograph, creased with age. It took her a few moments to realize that it was Gloria. Her hair was darker and straighter, and it looked as if it had been taken perhaps a year or two before she had come to Hobb’s End. Rain spattered the photograph and the hand that held it. Such a small hand. Gloria’s hand, she thought, remembering that first meeting, when they had shaken hands and Vivian had felt heavy and awkward holding that tiny, moist leaf.

  What was he doing with hands just like Gloria’s?

  By six o’clock on Friday evening, Banks was starting to get nervous about his dinner date with Jenny. The thunder and lightning and driving rain that buffeted his tiny cottage didn’t help. He had already showered and shaved, agonizing over whether to put on any aftershave and finally deciding against it, not wanting to smell like a tart’s window-box. Now he was surveying his wardrobe, what little there was of it, trying to decide which version of casual he should put on tonight, as the echoing trumpet of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew drifted up from downstairs. His decision was made a lot easier by the overflowing laundry basket: the Marks and Sparks chinos and the light-blue denim shirt.

  Ready at last, Banks stood in front of the mirror and ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. Nothing to write home about, he thought, but it was the best he could do with what nature had given him. He wasn’t a vain man, but today he seemed to take longer than a woman getting ready to go out. He remembered how he had always had to wait for Sandra, no matter how much time he gave her. It had got so bad that when they had to be somewhere for seven-thirty, he told her seven o’clock, just to get an edge.

  He thought of Annie. Did he owe her fidelity, or were all bets off after the way she cut him? He didn’t know. At the very least, he owed her an explanation of the case, given all the hard work she had put in.

  First,
DS Hatchley had determined that Konig had been questioned in connection with the Brenda Hamilton murder near Hadleigh in 1952. He wasn’t a serious suspect, but the two had been friendly. Rationing was in force until 1954, so PX still had his uses among the locals as late as 1952. Then, later that afternoon, Bill Gilchrist of the FBI had sent Banks a six-page fax on Edgar “PX” Konig.

  Suspected in a number of sex killings, Konig had first been caught in California in the late sixties, when he was about forty-five, while attacking a young female hitchhiker. Fortunately for her, another motorist had happened along. Even more fortunate, this man wasn’t the kind who scared easily or who didn’t want to get involved. He was an ex-serviceman, and he was armed. When he saw a woman in trouble, he stopped and managed to disarm and disable Konig before calling the police. Already the girl was unconscious from strangulation. She also had five stab wounds, but she survived.

  Konig served nine years of a fourteen-year sentence. He was released early because of good behaviour and prison over-crowding. A lot of people in the know opposed his release, regarding him as extremely dangerous. The prison officials said there wasn’t much else they could do at the time but let him go.

  After his release in the late seventies, for years Konig was driven from one community to another, as people found out what he was, trying to get work as a store clerk, more often than not failing and going on welfare. He settled in Florida, where his neighbours immediately protested, and one local business even offered him money to move elsewhere. But Konig stayed on. Then, one day, a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to call and saw, through the screen door, Konig with a knife in his hand standing over the body of a woman, who turned out to be a local prostitute. They called the police on their mobile phone. Konig was drunk; he offered no resistance. And so it went . . . a sorry story of human aberration and failed institutions.

  Annie wasn’t at the section station when Banks phoned. He had tried her at home, too, but either she had already left for St Ives, or she wasn’t answering her phone. Next he dialled her mobile number but still got no answer. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to him.

  Banks was just heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth when the telephone rang. The sound startled him. He hoped it wasn’t Jenny phoning to cancel. With Annie going all cold on him, he had been entertaining some pleasant fantasies about the forthcoming dinner. As soon as he heard the voice, though, he realized there could be much worse things in the world than Jenny phoning to cancel dinner.

  “Why is it, Banks,” growled Chief Constable Riddle, “that you manage to make a pig’s arse out of everything you do?”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Sir, it’s after six on a Fri—”

  “I don’t give a monkey’s toss what bloody time it is, or what day it is. I give you a perfectly simple case to work on. Nothing too urgent. Nothing too exacting. Out of the goodness of my heart. And what happens? All my good intentions blow up in our faces, that’s what happens.”

  “Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You might not, but the rest of the bloody country does. Don’t you watch the news?”

  “No, sir. I’ve been getting ready to go out.”

  “Then you’d better cancel. I’m sure she’ll forgive you.

  Not that I care about your sex life. Do you know where I’m calling from?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m calling from Thornfield Reservoir. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the rain. And the thunder. Let me fill you in. Shortly over an hour ago, a woman was taken hostage. She had taken a taxi out here and told the driver to wait while she went to look at something. When he thought he’d waited long enough, he went to look for her and saw her standing with a man who appeared to be holding a gun to her head. The man fired a shot in the air and shouted his demand, and the taxi driver ran back to his car and phoned the police. The woman’s name is Vivian Elmsley. Ring any bells?”

  Banks’s heart lurched. “Vivian Elmsley? Yes, she’s—”

  “I know damn well who she is, Banks. What I don’t know is why some maniac is holding a gun to her head and demanding to talk to the detective in charge of the Gloria Shackleton investigation. Because that’s what he demanded the taxi driver report. Can you fill me in on that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “ ‘No, sir.’ Is that all you can say?”

  Banks fought back the urge to say, “Yes, sir.” Instead he asked, “What’s his name?”

  “He hasn’t said. We, however, have gone into full bloody Hollywood production mode out here, with a big enough budget to bankrupt us well into the millennium. Are you still listening to me, Banks?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A hostage negotiator has spoken with him briefly from a distance, and all he says is that he wants to see justice done. He won’t say any more until we get you to the scene. There’s an Armed Response Unit here already, and they’re getting itchy fingers. Apparently one of their marksmen said he can get a clear shot.”

  “For crying out loud—”

  “Get yourself down here, man. Now! And this time you really will need your wellies. It’s pissing down cats and dogs.”

  When Riddle hung up, Banks reached for his raincoat and shot out the door. He had a damn good idea who Vivian Elmsley’s captor might be, and why he was holding her. Behind him, Miles’s mournful trumpet echoed in the empty cottage.

  Annie had managed to get away from the station early, before the shit hit the fan, and by six o’clock she was approaching Blackburn on the M65, shuttling from lane to lane to pass the convoys of enormous lorries that seemed to cluster together at regular intervals. It was Friday rush hour, the sky dark with storm-clouds that gushed torrential rain over the whole of the north. Lightning forked and flickered over the humped Pennines, and thunder rumbled and crashed like a mad percussionist in the distance. Annie counted the gaps between the lighting and thunder, wondering if that really did tell you how far away the storm was.

  What was the gap between her and Banks now? Could it be counted, like that between the thunder and the lightning? She knew she was being a coward, running away, but a little time and distance would give her a clearer perspective and a chance to sort out her feelings.

  It was all getting to be too much: first, there was the annoyance she felt when he went out boozing with his mate in Leeds instead of going to dinner with her; then the time in London he had gone to Bethnal Green to meet his son and made it clear she wasn’t welcome; and then the last straw, Sandra’s appearance at the cottage on Sunday morning. She had made Annie feel about an inch high. And Banks still loved her, that was obvious enough to anyone.

  It wasn’t Banks’s fault; it wasn’t because of him she was running, but because of herself. If every little thing like that was going to rub up against her raw nerve-ends, then where would she find any peace? She couldn’t blame Banks for making time for friends and family, but nor could she allow herself to be drawn so deeply into his life, tangled up in his past. All she wanted was a simple, no-strings relationship, but there were already too many complications.

  If she stayed with him, she would have to meet his son eventually and audition for the dad’s-new-girlfriend test. There was a daughter, too, and she would probably be even harder to win over. She would no doubt also meet the redoubtable Sandra again. Even though no one needed a co-respondent in divorce cases these days, Annie was beginning to feel like one. And there would be the divorce, something else they’d have to go through.

  She didn’t think she could face all the emotional detritus of someone else’s life impinging on her own. She had enough to deal with as it was. No, she should cut her losses and get out now; it was time to go back home, regroup, recuperate, then return to her labyrinth, her meditation and yoga. With any luck, in a couple of weeks, Banks would have let her go from his thoughts and found someone else.

  Annie had the electronic gizmo in the car stereo set so that no matter wh
at programme she was listening to, the nearest local station would cut in with its weather and travel updates. She hadn’t a clue how this worked—some sort of electronic signal, she assumed—but sometimes the interruption continued beyond the traffic and weather into the local news bulletin. Just as she was overtaking a convoy of lorries churning up so much water she could hardly see, the weather cut in, and she also caught the beginning of a news bulletin about a hostage situation at Thornfield Reservoir.

  Unfortunately, the same gizmo that caused the bulletins to cut in also cut them off at the most inappropriate times, and this happened halfway through the item. All she had discovered was that the detective writer Vivian Elmsley was being held by an armed man at Thornfield Reservoir.

  Annie jabbed at the search buttons, sending the LCD lights into a digital frenzy. She got country and western, a gardening programme and a classical concert, but the scanner couldn’t find the damn newsbreak. She swore and thumped the wheel, swerving dangerously, then tried again, searching manually this time. When she finally did get the right frequency, all she heard were the final words, “ . . . bizarre twist in the affair, it seems the hostage taker has asked to talk to the detective in charge of the so-called Hobb’s End skeleton case, believed to be Detective Chief Inspector Banks of the Eastvale CID. We’ll give you more details as they come in.”

  Well, Annie thought on the outskirts of Blackburn, there was nothing else for it; she would have to go back.

  She negotiated her way carefully across the lanes of traffic, took the next exit, crossed the overpass, then followed the signs heading east. In this weather, it would take her about an hour, she calculated, and these were no conditions for impatient driving. She hoped she wouldn’t be too late to find out what the hell was going on.