Authors: Peter Robinson
‘Didn’t you have a crush on Harry?’ he asked. ‘Surely it would have been perfectly natural?’
‘Perhaps. But the main thing – the thing you don’t seem able to understand – is that Harry really wasn’t like that. He wasn’t sexy, I suppose. More like an
uncle. I know it must be hard for you to believe, but it’s true.’
If I don’t believe it, Banks thought, it’s not for want of people trying to convince me. ‘Don’t you think Michael might have seen the relationship differently?’ he
suggested. ‘A threat, perhaps. An older, more experienced man. Might that not have been why he seemed strange?’
‘I can’t say I ever thought of it that way,’ Penny answered.
Banks wasn’t sure whether he believed her or not; she lied and evaded issues so often he was becoming more and more convinced that she was an actress as well as a singer.
‘It’s possible though, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘I guess so. But he never said anything to me. You’d think he would have, wouldn’t you?’
‘You didn’t argue? Michael never said anything about you going off with Harry? He didn’t always insist on accompanying you?’
Penny shook her head at each question.
‘He was very shy and awkward,’ she said. ‘It was very difficult for him to express himself emotionally. If he did think anything, he kept it to himself and suffered in
silence.’
Banks sipped his pint of Theakston’s, brooding on how best to put his next question. Penny offered him another Silk Cut.
‘If I read you right, Inspector,’ she said, ‘you seem to be implying that Michael Ramsden might have killed Harry.’
‘Am I?’
‘Come on! Why all the questions about him being jealous?’
Banks said nothing.
‘They became great friends, you know,’ Penny went on. ‘When Michael graduated and got interested in local history, he helped Harry a lot. He even persuaded his firm to publish
Harry’s books. It was more than just a publisher-author relationship.’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ Banks cut in, seizing his opportunity. ‘Is there any possibility of a homosexual relationship between them? I know it sounds odd, but think
about it.’
Unlike Barker, Penny took the question seriously before concluding that she doubted it very much. ‘This had better not be a trick,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not trying to
trap me into admitting intimate knowledge of Harry’s sexual preferences.’
Banks laughed. ‘I’m not half as devious as you make out.’
Her eyes narrowed sharply. ‘I’ll bet. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I really can’t help you. You’d think you’d know all about a friend you’ve known for
years, but it’s just not so. Harry could have been gay, for all I know. Michael, on the other hand, seemed very much like a normal adolescent, but there’s no reason why he
couldn’t have been bi. Who can tell these days?’
And she was right. Banks had known a sergeant on the Metropolitan force for six years – a married man with two children – before finding out at the inquest into his suicide that he
had been homosexual.
‘You still seem to be saying Michael did it,’ she said. ‘In fact, you’re hounding all of us – his friends. Why? Why pick on us? What about his enemies?
Couldn’t it have been somebody just passing through who killed Harry?’
Banks shook his head. ‘Contrary to popular belief,’ he said, ‘very few murders happen that way. I think the myth of the wandering vagrant killer was invented by the aristocracy
to keep suspicion away from their own doorsteps. Most often people are killed by family or friends, and motives are usually money, sex, revenge or the need to cover up damaging facts. In Harold
Steadman’s case, we found no evidence of robbery and we’ve had no luck so far in digging up an enemy from his past. Believe me, Ms Cartwright, we dig deep. We’ve been checking the
alibis of anyone outside his immediate circle who might have had even the remotest reason for killing him. Really, not many people walk around the country bashing others on the head for no reason.
So far, statistics and evidence point to someone closer to home. According to his friends, though, he was too damn perfect to have an enemy, so where am I supposed to look? Obviously Mr Steadman
was a far more complicated man than most people have admitted, and his network of relationships wasn’t a simple one either. His murder wasn’t a spur of the moment job, or at least the
killer was frightened or coldblooded enough to throw us off the scent by moving the body.’
‘And you’re not going to stop pestering us until you know who it is?’
‘No.’
‘Are you close?’
‘I can’t see it if I am, but detection doesn’t work like that, anyway. It’s not a matter of getting closer like a zoom lens, but of getting enough bits and pieces to
transform chaos into a recognizable pattern.’
‘And you never know when you have enough?’
‘Yes. But you can’t predict when that moment will come. It could be in the next ten seconds or the next ten years. You don’t know what the pattern will look like when
it’s there, so you might not even recognize it at first. But, soon enough, you’ll know you’ve got a design and not just a filing cabinet full of odds and sods.’
‘What about money as a motive?’ Penny asked. ‘Harry was very well off.’
‘He didn’t leave a will, which was foolish of him. Naturally, it all goes to Mrs Steadman. It would have been more convenient for us if he’d left it all to the National Trust
and we could have pulled in the first nutty conservationist we could find, but life isn’t as easy as fiction. Motive and opportunity just don’t seem to go together in this
case.’
‘Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Have I explained why I’m pestering you so much now?’
‘Very clearly, thank you,’ Penny said, giving him a mock bow.
‘You don’t see Michael much these days?’
‘No, not often. Occasionally in the Bridge. He was always especially awkward with me after we split up, though. You’re not suggesting that Michael is still in love with me, are you?
Let me get this right. He thought Harry and I were having an affair all those years ago and backed off. But all the time he’s been holding a grudge. He worked his way into Harry’s
confidence over the years just looking for an opportunity to do away with him, and finally took his revenge. Am I right?’
Banks laughed, but it sounded hollow. Perhaps Ramsden did have sufficient motive, but he would have been hard-pushed to make an opportunity. First of all, he could hardly come to Helmthorpe and
hang around in the car park all evening waiting, even if he was certain Steadman would be going there. And if Steadman had gone to York, how did his car get back to Helmthorpe? Ramsden could hardly
have driven two cars, and he would have needed his own to get home. There were certainly no buses at that time of night, and he would not have risked arranging for a taxi.
‘It’s ludicrous,’ Penny said, as if she had been listening in on Banks’s thoughts. ‘I see what you mean when you say you’re stuck.’ She finished her
drink, put down the glass, and stood up to leave.
Banks stayed on, drinking rather gloomily and craving another cigarette. Then Hatchley walked in. The sergeant brought two pints over and wedged himself into the chair Penny had just left.
‘Any developments?’ Banks asked.
‘Weaver’s men have talked to someone who saw Sally Lumb in the public call box on Hill Road at four o’clock Friday afternoon,’ Hatchley reported. ‘And someone else
thinks he saw her walking along Helmthorpe High Street at about nine o’clock.’
‘What direction?’
‘East.’
‘She could have been going anywhere.’
‘Except west,’ Hatchley said. ‘By the way, I’ve been in touch with a mate of mine in York. Keeps tabs on all the queers and perverts down there, and there’s nothing
on Ramsden at all. Not a dicky bird.’
‘I didn’t think there would be,’ Banks said glumly. ‘We’re barking up the wrong tree, Sergeant.’
‘That’s as maybe, but who’s going to lead us to the right ’un?’
Banks watched the rain stream down the dirty window-pane and sighed. ‘Do you think the two are linked?’ he asked. ‘Steadman and the Lumb girl?’
Hatchley wiped his lips with the back of his hand and burped. ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? The girl has the only piece of real information we get about the dumping of
Steadman’s body, and she goes missing.’
‘But she’d already told us what she knew.’
‘Did the killer know that?’ Hatchley asked.
‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He didn’t even know anybody had heard him burying Steadman below Crow Scar, unless . . .’
‘Unless the girl let him know.’
‘Right. Either intentionally or otherwise. But that still assumes she knew more than she told us, that she knew who it was.’
‘Not if it was unintentional,’ Hatchley pointed out. ‘A girl like that tells all her friends, maybe hints that she knows more than she does. This is a small place, remember.
It’s not like London. It’s easy to be overheard here, and word travels quickly.’
‘The coffee bar,’ Banks muttered.
‘Come again?’
‘The coffee bar. The place she hung around with her friends. Come on, we’d better question those girls again. If they know what Sally knew, they could be in danger as well. I
didn’t want them to think that Sally had been killed, or that her disappearance had anything to do with Steadman, but there’s no time for softly-softly any more.’
Hatchley gulped down the rest of his pint, then dragged himself to his feet and plodded along behind.
Anne Downes
was both nervous and excited to find herself in the police station. Not that it was much of a place, but it was alive with important activity: people coming
and going, phones ringing, the ancient telex machine clattering. The two other girls paid less attention to their surroundings and seemed more preoccupied with their internal sense of unease. Hazel
was the worst, biting her nails and shifting position as if she had St Vitus’s dance; Kathy pretended to lounge coolly, casually uninterested in the whole affair, but she was biting her lower
lip so hard it turned red.
The policewoman had been friendly enough when she’d picked them up at the coffee bar and driven them the short distance to the station, and the small attractive chief inspector had smiled
and said he wouldn’t keep them long. But they all knew there was something going on.
Anne was the first to be called into the tiny interview room. Its walls were bare and the mere two chairs and a table made the place seem over-furnished. It was the kind of room that made you
claustrophobic.
Banks sat opposite Anne, and a policewoman with a notebook in her hand stood in the corner by a narrow barred window.
‘I’d just like to ask you a few questions, Anne,’ Banks began.
She looked at him quizzically from behind the thick lenses and nodded.
‘First of all, I suppose you know why I want to see you again?’
‘Yes,’ Anne replied. ‘You think Sally’s been murdered because of something she knew.’
Banks, taken aback by her directness, asked what her opinion was.
‘I’d say it’s possible, yes,’ Anne answered, her young brow furrowed in thought. ‘I’ve already told you that I don’t believe she’s run away or got
lost, and that doesn’t leave much more to choose from, does it, especially with this other business going on?’
She’d make a good detective, Banks thought – quick, perceptive, logical. ‘Have you got any other ideas?’ he asked.
‘Maybe I was wrong,’ Anne said, her voice beginning to shake.
‘Wrong about what?’
‘When I said Sally was all talk, all big ideas. Maybe she really did know something. Maybe she thought she’d make a name for herself by following it up.’
‘Why should she do that?’
Anne adjusted her glasses and shook her head. The thick lenses magnified the tears forming in her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered.
‘Did she tell you anything at all that indicated she knew who the person was? Think about it. Anything.’
Anne thought, and the tears held off. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘She just hinted that she knew things, that she’d solved some kind of mystery. I mean, yes, she did sort of
say that she knew who it was, but she didn’t give us any names or anything. She said she had to make sure; she didn’t want to cause any trouble.’
‘Do Sally’s parents have a telephone?’
‘Yes. They’ve had one for ages. Why?’
‘Can you think of any reason why Sally would use a public phone box on Friday afternoon?’
‘No.’
‘Not even if she wanted to call Kevin or some other boyfriend? I know that parents aren’t always understanding.’
‘There was only Kevin, and Sally’s mum and dad knew about him. They weren’t a hundred per cent keen, but he’s a nice enough boy, so they didn’t make a fuss about
it.’
‘Did Sally say where she was going on Friday evening?’
‘No. I’d no idea she was going anywhere.’
‘Thank you very much, Anne,’ Banks said.
The policewoman showed her out and brought Kathy Chalmers in next. Kathy was upset by then, but there were no tears, and although she seemed to realize dimly what it was all about, she had
nothing to add.
The last girl, Hazel Kirk, was another matter. She knew as well as the others what was going on, but she pretended ignorance. She said she couldn’t even remember whether Sally had said
anything about knowing who the killer was. The more Banks questioned her, the more fidgety and edgy she became. Finally she burst into tears and told Banks to leave her alone. He nodded to the
policewoman, who moved forward to speak to her, and left the room.
Sergeant Hatchley was sitting on the edge of Weaver’s desk looking over reports from provincial police and railway authorities. He glanced up as Banks approached. ‘Any
luck?’
Banks shook his head. ‘The first one’s the most intelligent, but even she couldn’t tell us much. What she did say confirms our suspicions though. If Sally thought she knew who
the killer was and arranged for a meeting, then we can be pretty sure what’s happened to her. It must have been someone she knew, someone she wasn’t afraid of. There’s got to be a
motive, dammit, and it’s got to be right before our eyes.’ He banged his fist on the desk, surprising Hatchley with the sudden violence. It reminded the sergeant that his boss came from
a tough patch. He wasn’t a plodder; he was used to action.