In a Dry Season

by Peter Robinson

  Banks arrived at Thornfield Reservoir car park, put on his wellington boots and hurried through the short stretch of woods to the scene. Riddle hadn’t been far wrong when he compared it to a Hollywood production. It probably cost as much as Waterworld. Though the patrol cars, Armed Response Vehicles and Technical Support Unit vans couldn’t drive right to the rim of the reservoir because of the trees, some of them had forced their way through as far as they could, and long, thick wires and cables trailed the rest of the way. The local media people were there, too. The entire bowl of Hobb’s End was floodlit, and the occasional lightning flash gave everything a split-second blue cast. At the centre of it all, two small, pathetic figures were cruelly illuminated just beyond the fairy bridge.

  Riddle stood by the phalanx of TV cameras and microphones clustered well behind the police tape. Banks ignored him and went straight over to the hostage negotiator. He looked young. Banks guessed he had a psychology degree and this was his first real-life situation. Officially, the local superintendent was in charge of the scene, but as a rule the negotiator called the shots. Banks couldn’t see any police sharpshooters, but he knew they were around somewhere.

  “I’m DCI Banks,” he said.

  “Sergeant Whitkirk,” said the negotiator.

  Banks nodded towards the two figures. “Let me go and talk to him.”

  “You’re not going down there,” Whitkirk said. “That’s against the rules. Do your talking on this.” He held a loud hailer out. Banks didn’t take it. Instead, he lit a cigarette and gazed out over the eerie scene, a set from a horror film, perhaps the same film that began with the skeletal hand scratching at the edge of a tombstone. He turned to Sergeant Whitkirk. “How old are you, sonny?”

  “What’s that got—”

  “You’re clearly not old enough to realize that not all wisdom comes out of books. What’s it called, this rule-book of yours? The Handy Pocket Guide to Hostage Negotiation?”

  “Now, you listen to me—”

  “No. You listen to me.” Banks pointed to the two figures. “I don’t know how many scenes like this you’ve handled successfully, but I do know this situation. I know what it’s all about, and I think I’ve got a hell of a lot better chance than you or anyone else of making sure no one gets hurt.”

  Whitkirk thrust his chin out. There was an angry red spot in the cleft. “You can’t guarantee that. Leave it to the professionals. He’s obviously a fucking madman.”

  “He’s not a fucking madman. What do you professionals intend to do? Shoot him?”

  Whitkirk snorted. “We could’ve done that an hour ago, if that’s what we wanted. We’re containing the situation.”

  “Bully for you.”

  “How do you know he’s not a madman?”

  Banks sighed. “Because I know who he is and what he wants.”

  “How can you know that? He hasn’t communicated any demands yet.”

  “Except to talk to me.”

  “That’s right. And our first rule is that we don’t comply.”

  “He hasn’t done anything yet, has he?”

  “No.”

  “Why not, do you think?”

  “How would I know? All I know is he’s a fucking nutter and he’s unpredictable. We can’t give in to him, and you can’t just go walking into the situation. Look at it this way. He asked for you. Maybe you’re the one he really wants to kill.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m in charge of the scene here and you’re not going in.”

  “What do we do, then?”

  “We play for time.”

  Banks felt like laughing, but he held it back. “And in time, what’s your plan?”

  “First we do all we can to turn an imprecise situation into a precise one.”

  “Oh, stop quoting the fucking textbook at me,” Banks said. “How long have you been here already? An hour? Hour and a half? Have you turned your imprecise situation into a precise one yet?”

  “We’ve established communications.”

  Banks looked down at the loud hailer. “Yes. Great communicators, those.”

  Whitkirk glared at him. “We offered to send down a phone but he refused.”

  “Look,” said Banks, “he’s asked for me. We might not know what he wants, but he must have something to tell me, and you and I both know there’s only one way to find out. I think I can talk him out of doing any harm. Can’t you give me a bit of leeway?”

  Whitkirk chewed on his lip for a moment. “Securing the scene’s my responsibility,” he said.

  “Let me go in.” Banks pointed over to the chief constable. “Believe me, there’s a bloke over there will give you a medal if I get shot.”

  Whitkirk managed a thin smile. “One condition,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “You wear a bullet-proof vest.”

  “All right.”

  Whitkirk sent someone to pick up the vest from the Armed Response Vehicle, then he told the hostage taker over his loud hailer what he was planning.

  “Send him in,” the man shouted back.

  Whitkirk stood aside and Banks, kitted out with his bullet-proof vest, trod his cigarette in the mud and set out down the side of the reservoir. He heard Whitkirk whisper “Good luck” as he went. About halfway down, he slipped and went the rest of the distance on his backside. Not very dignified. Though it probably did more harm to his pride than to his clothing, it also reminded him that he had put on his best trousers for dinner with Jenny, a dinner he was very unlikely to be having now, especially as he had forgotten his mobile in all the excitement and hadn’t been able to phone her and cancel.

  When he got to the bottom of the embankment, he heard a curse behind him and turned to see Annie Cabbot come sliding down after him, also on her bum, feet in the air. At the bottom, she got to her feet and flashed him a grin. “Sorry. It was the only way I could give them the slip.”

  “I take it you don’t have a bullet-proof vest?”

  “No.”

  “I could be gallant and give you mine, but we’re a little too close to the scene now. Just stay back, behind me. We don’t want to scare him.”

  They approached the fairy bridge. Banks told the man who he was. He indicated that it was okay and told the two of them to stop at the far side. They faced one another over the bridge. Vivian Elmsley looked frightened but unhurt as far as Banks could see. The gun looked like a .32 automatic.

  “This is DS Cabbot,” Banks said. “She’s been working on the case with me. Is it okay for her to be here?”

  The man looked at Annie and nodded. “I know who she is,” he said. “I saw her on television the day you found the skeleton, then down here that night a week or so ago.”

  “So it was you,” Annie said. “What were you doing? Surely you weren’t looking for anything after all this time?”

  “Perhaps I was. Not the sort of thing you mean. But perhaps I was looking for something. I’ve been here a lot at night. Thinking.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “I recognized you from the television. You walked right past me and didn’t even see me. But I saw you. I couldn’t risk being caught, having to explain myself, before I’d finished what I had to do.”

  Banks decided it was time to take charge. He held his hands up and gestured for Annie to do the same. Rain dripped down the back of his neck. “We’re not armed, Francis,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to talk. Let Ms Elmsley go.”

  “So you know who I am?”

  “Francis Henderson.”

  “Clever. But my name’s Stringer now. Frank Stringer.”

  He licked his lips. So he had adopted his mother’s surname. Strange. That told Banks something about the situation they were dealing with. Frank looked twitchy, and Banks wondered if he had been drinking or if he were on drugs again. If it’s hard to make an imprecise situation precise, he thought, then it’s a bloody sight harder to make a halluci-natory situa
tion real.

  “Anyway,” Frank went on, “I’m not ready to let anyone go yet. I want to hear it all first. I want to hear her confess to you, then I’ll decide whether to kill her or not. It makes no odds to me.”

  “Okay, Frank. What do you want to hear?”

  “She killed my mother. I want to hear her say so, and I want to know why.”

  “She didn’t kill anyone, Frank.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re lying. You’re trying to protect her.”

  His grip tightened on Vivian. Banks caught her sudden intake of breath and saw the gun barrel pushed into the flesh under her ear.

  “Listen to me, Frank,” he said. “It’s important you listen to me. You asked for me to come here. You want the truth, don’t you?”

  “I already know the truth. I want to hear it from her mouth. I want to hear her confess in front of you. I want to hear what she did to my mother.”

  “It didn’t happen the way you think it did, Frank. It didn’t happen the way any of us thought it did. We were all wrong.”

  “My mother was murdered.”

  “Yes, she was murdered.”

  “And this . . . this bitch here lied to my father and me when we went and asked about her.”

  “No,” said Banks. “She didn’t lie. She thought she was telling you the truth.” He noticed the look of confusion in Vivian’s eyes.

  “All those years,” Frank went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “Do you know he worshipped her, my father? Even though she left us. He said she was a dreamer, a free spirit, a beautiful butterfly who just had to spread her wings and fly away. But I hated her for leaving us. For depriving us of all that beauty. Why couldn’t she share it with us? Why couldn’t we be part of her dreams? We were never good enough for her. I hated her and I loved her. All my life dominated and blighted by a mother I never even knew. What do you think Mr Freud would make of that? Don’t you think that’s funny?”

  Banks looked away. He didn’t want to tell Frank the truth, that his mother had turned her back on him at birth. All those years, George had fed him on illusions. Gloria certainly had been wrong about the father of her child; he hadn’t turned out so bad after all. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it’s funny at all, Frank.”

  “My father used to tell me how she always wanted to be one of those Hollywood actresses. Used to spend hours in front of the mirror practising her make-up and the way they talked. Even before I was born it was no-go for them. She was too young, he said. Made just the one mistake, that’s all. Me. It was enough.”

  “She was very young, Frank. When she got pregnant, she was frightened. She didn’t know what to do.”

  “So she had to run away and leave us?”

  “For some people it seems like the only solution. She obviously wanted the child, you, to live. She didn’t have an abortion. She must have told your father where she was going? Did she keep in touch?”

  He sniffed. “A postcard every now and then, telling him she was doing fine and not to worry. When my dad came home on leave once, he took me up to Hobb’s End to see her. It was the only time I . . . the only time I really remember seeing her, being with her, hearing her voice. She told me I was a fine-looking boy. I loved her then. She was a magical creature to me. Dazzling. Like someone from a dream. She seemed to move in a haze of light. So beautiful and so tender. But they argued. He couldn’t help asking her to come back when he saw her, but she wouldn’t. She told him she was married now and had a new life and we should leave her alone if we wanted her to be happy.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “What she asked. He was devastated. I think he’d always hoped that one day, perhaps, she would come back. We tried once more, when it was all over.” He turned so he was speaking into Vivian’s ear. “But this lying bitch here told us she had run away and she didn’t know where. All my life I believed that, believed my mother had run away and abandoned us forever. I tried to find her. I’m good at finding people, but I got nowhere. Now I find out she was dead all the time. Murdered and buried right here.”

  “Let her go, Frank!” Banks shouted over a peal of thunder. “She didn’t know.”

  “What do you mean, she didn’t know? She lied to us. She must have known.” Frank tore his attention away from Vivian and glared at Banks. His eyes were wild, his lank hair was plastered to his skull and rain dripped from his eyes like tears. “I want to hear it all. I want to hear her admit it to you. I want the truth.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Frank. Vivian didn’t kill Gloria. Listen to me.”

  “Even if she didn’t do the actual killing, she was involved. She covered for somebody. Who was it?”

  “Nobody.”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “Vivian had nothing to do with your mother’s death.”

  As he spoke, Banks noticed Vivian’s eyes fill with curiosity, despite the gun at her neck. Annie stood beside him now, and Frank didn’t seem to care about her presence. Banks was aware of the activity in the background, but he didn’t think anyone would make a move yet. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. His raincoat and trousers stuck to his skin and rain stung his eyes.

  “What do you mean she had nothing to do with it?” Frank said. “She told my father that my mother had gone away, when all the while she was buried up here. She lied. Why would she do that unless she’d killed her, or knew who had?”

  “As far as she was concerned,” Banks said, “your mother had gone away. She had spoken about running away often since Matthew got back from the war. He’d been badly hurt by the Japanese. He wasn’t the man she had married. Life was miserable for her. It seemed only natural to everyone who knew her that she’d go, just like she left you and your father in the first place.”

  “No!”

  Frank’s grip tightened on Vivian’s throat and she gasped. Banks felt his heart lurch. He held his hands out, palms towards Frank.

  “Okay, Frank,” he went on. “Calm down. Please. Calm down and listen to me.”

  They waited a moment, the four of them, all silent but for the pattering of the rain and the storm disappearing into the distance, the occasional crackle of a police radio from the rim.

  Then Banks felt things relax, the same way as when you undo a tight button. “Matthew drove her away,” he went on. “It was only natural for Gwen to assume that was what happened. Your mother’s suitcase was gone. Her things were gone.”

  Frank didn’t say anything for at least a minute. Banks could see him processing information, trying to shore up his defences. The storm passed into the distance now and the rain eased off, leaving the four of them soaked to the skin.

  “If it wasn’t her, who was it?” Frank said eventually. “I’ll bet you can’t tell me that, can you?”

  “I can, Frank.” Annie stepped forward and spoke. Frank turned to her and blinked the rain out of his eyes.

  “Who?” Frank asked. “And don’t you lie to me.”

  “His name was Edgar Konig,” Annie said. “He ran the PX at Rowan Woods USAAF base, about a mile from here.”

  “PX?” Vivian gasped.

  “I don’t believe you,” said Frank.

  “It’s true,” said Banks, picking up the thread. He realized that Annie didn’t have the full story yet. “Konig killed your mother. He also killed at least one other woman over here the same way, down in East Anglia. There were others, too, in Europe and America.”

  Frank shook his head slowly.

  “Listen to me, Frank. Edgar Konig knew your mother and her friends from the dances they went to. He was attracted to her from the start, but he had serious problems with women. He was always tongue-tied around them. He brought her presents, but even then she didn’t offer herself to him, she wouldn’t help him overcome his shyness. She went out with other men. He watched and waited. All the time the pressure was building up in him.”

  “You say he killed other women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ho
w do you know it was him?”

  “We found a collar button from an American airman’s uniform. We think your mother must have torn it off as they struggled. Then we looked into an unsolved murder in Suffolk and found he had been questioned in connection with that, too. Are you listening, Frank?”

  “I’m listening.”

  Frank’s grip around Vivian’s throat had loosened a little, and Banks could tell that he had relaxed the hand holding the gun. “Edgar Konig went to Bridge Cottage that night to collect what he thought your mother owed him, while her husband, Matthew, was at the pub as usual. The bomber group was due to move out in a couple of days and that had pushed him to the brink. He didn’t have much time. He’d been torturing himself for over a year. He’d been drinking that night, getting more and more lustful, and he thought he had plucked up the courage, thought he could overcome his inadequacies. Something short-circuited, though. She must have rejected him, maybe laughed at him, and the next thing he knew he’d killed her in a rage. Do you understand what I’m saying Frank? There was something wrong with him.”

  “A psycho?”

  “No. Not technically. Not at first, anyway. He became a sex murderer. The two things—sex and murder—became tangled up in his mind. The one demanded the other.”

  “If that’s how it happened, why did no one know about it?”

  Slowly, Banks reached for his cigarettes and offered Frank one. “Gave them up years back,” he said. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

  Banks lit up. Definite progress. Frank seemed less tightly wound, more willing to listen to reason. And he didn’t appear to be drunk or on drugs. Better not cock it up now.

  “No one knew about it,” Banks went on, “because Edgar Konig realized what he’d done. That sobered him up fast. He covered his tracks well.” Banks looked at Vivian Elmsley as he spoke. She averted her eyes. “He cleaned up the mess and he buried the body in the outbuilding. Then he packed a few of her clothes and belongings in a suitcase to make it look as though she had run off. He even faked a note. It was wartime. People went missing all the time. Everyone in the village knew Gloria wasn’t happy with Matthew, what a burden she had to bear. Why should they question that she’d just done a moonlight?”