“You said Luke rang you last night.”
“Yes. And immediately afterwards my wife rang you.”
Annie glanced at Robin, then back at Martin. “Yes, I appreciate that,” she said. “But I’m wondering why Luke’s
call wasn’t intercepted. After all, the technician had set everything up, and we picked up your wife’s call to me.”
“That’s easy,” said Martin. “He called me on my mobile.”
“Does he usually do that?”
“We were supposed to be going out for dinner,” Martin explained. “As it was, we ended up cancelling, but Luke wasn’t to know that.”
“Ah, I see,” said Annie. “Problem solved. Goodbye, then.”
They both bade her a perfunctory goodbye and she left. At the end of the drive, she turned right, towards Relton, and parked in a lay-by just around the corner from the Armitages’ drive, where she took out her mobile and discovered that there was, indeed, a signal in the area. So Martin Armitage hadn’t been lying about that. What was it, then, that had given her the unmistakable feeling that something was wrong?
Annie sat for a moment in her car trying to figure out the meaning of the tension she had sensed in the room, not just between her and Robin, but between Robin and Martin. Something was going on; Annie only wished she knew what. Neither Robin nor Martin had behaved like a couple who had just heard that the son whose life they feared for was now safe and would soon be home.
When Martin Armitage’s Beemer shot out of the driveway, spraying gravel, a minute or two later, Annie had an idea. It was rare that she got to think or act spontaneously, as so much police work was governed by procedure, rules and regulations, but Annie was feeling reckless this morning, and the situation called for some initiative on her part.
As far as she knew, Martin Armitage had no idea what make or colour car she drove, so he would hardly be suspicious that a purple Astra was following him at a respectable distance.
As Banks drove down the A1 and entered the landscape of bright new shopping centres, electronics warehouses and housing estates that replaced the old coal mines, pit-wheels
and slag heaps of West Yorkshire, he thought about the way the country had changed since Graham’s disappearance.
Nineteen sixty-five. Winston Churchill’s funeral. The Wilson Era. The end of capital punishment. The Kray trial. Carnaby Street. The Moors Murders. The first U. S. space walk.
Help!
Mods and Rockers. It was a time of possibility, of hope for the future, the fulcrum of the sixties. Only weeks after Graham disappeared, the sexy, leather-clad Emma Peel debuted in
The Avengers
; Jeremy Sandford’s documentary-style TV play about a homeless mother and her children,
Cathy Come Home
, caused a major stir; and the Who were singing about “My Generation.” Soon, young people were taking to the streets to protest against war, famine and anything else they could think of, shouting “Make love, not war,” smoking dope and dropping acid. Everything seemed on the verge of blossoming into some new sort of order, and Graham, who had seemed so forward-looking, so
cool
in so many ways, should have been there to see it, but he wasn’t.
And what came between then and Blair’s Britain? Mostly Margaret Thatcher, who dismantled the country’s manufacturing base, emasculated the trade unions and demoralized the working man, leaving the North, especially, a ghost-land of empty factories, thrift shops and decaying council estates, where those growing up had no hope of a job. In their idleness and hopelessness, many turned to crime and vandalism; car theft became commonplace; and the police became the enemy of the people. Today, without doubt, it was a softer, easier, more middle-of-the-road Britain, and a much more American one, with McDonald’s, Pizza Huts and shopping malls springing up all over the place. Most people seemed to have what they wanted, but what they wanted was mostly of a material nature–a new car, a DVD player, a pair of Nike trainers–and people were being mugged, even murdered, for their mobile phones.
But were things so much different back in the mid-sixties? Banks asked himself. Wasn’t consumerism just as rife back then? That Monday evening in August 1965, when the knock came at their door, the Banks family was settling down to watch
Coronation Street
on their brand new television set, bought on hire purchase just the previous week. Banks’s father was in work then, at the sheet-metal factory, and if anyone had predicted that he would be made redundant within seventeen years, he’d have laughed in their face.
Coronation Street
was one of those rituals every Monday and Wednesday when, tea over, dishes washed and put away, homework and odd jobs done, the family sat down to watch television together. So it was an unexpected disruption when someone knocked at the door. No one
ever
did that. As far as the Bankses were concerned,
everyone
on the street–everyone they knew, at any rate–watched
Coronation Street
and would no more think of interrupting than…well, Ida Banks was at a loss for words. Arthur Banks answered the door, prepared to send the commercial traveller and his suitcase of goods packing.
The one thing that entered nobody’s mind when he did this, because it was such a disturbance of the normal routine, was that Joey, Banks’s pet budgie, was out of his cage, having his evening constitutional, and when Arthur Banks opened the front door to admit the two detectives, he left the living-room door open, too. Joey seized the moment and flew away. No doubt he thought he was flying to the freedom of the open sky, but Banks knew, even at his young age, that such a pretty coloured thing wouldn’t survive a day among the winged predators out there. When they realized what had happened, everyone dashed out in the garden looking to see where he had gone, but there wasn’t a trace. Joey had vanished, never to return.
More of a fuss might have been made over Joey’s escape had the new visitors not become the centre of everyone’s awed attention. They were the first plainclothes policemen
ever to enter the Banks household, and even young Banks himself forgot about Joey for the time being. Looking back now, it seemed like some sort of ill omen to him, but at the time he hadn’t seen any significance beyond the simple loss of a pet.
Both men wore suits and ties, Banks remembered, but no hats. One of them, the one who did most of the talking, was about the same age as his father, with slicked-back dark hair, a long nose, a general air of benevolence and a twinkle in his eye, the sort of kindly uncle who might slip you half a crown to go to the pictures and wink as he gave it to you. The other one was younger and more nondescript. Banks couldn’t remember much about him at all except that he had ginger hair, freckles and sticking-out ears. Banks couldn’t remember their names, if he had ever known them.
Banks’s father turned off the television set. Nine-year-old Roy just sat and gawped at the men. Neither detective apologized for disturbing the family. They sat, but didn’t relax, remained perched at the edges of their chairs as the kindly uncle asked his questions and the other took notes. Banks couldn’t remember the exact wording after so many years, but imagined it went along the following lines:
“You know why we’re here, don’t you?”
“It’s about Graham, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You were a friend of his, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“No.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Saturday afternoon.”
“Did he say or do anything unusual?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“Went shopping in town.”
“What’d you buy?”
“Just some records.”
“What sort of a mood was Graham in?”
“Just ordinary.”
“Was anything bothering him?”
“He was just like normal.”
“Did he ever talk about running away from home?”
“No.”
“Any idea where he might go if he did run away? Did he talk about any particular places?”
“No. But he was from London. I mean, his parents brought him up from London last year.”
“We know that. We were just wondering if there was anywhere else he talked about.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about secret hiding places?” The detective winked. “I know all lads have secret places.”
“No.” Banks was unwilling to tell about the big tree in the park–holly, he thought it was–with prickly leaves and branches right down to the ground. If you made your way through them, you ended up hidden inside, between the thick leaves and the trunk, like being in a teepee. He knew Graham was missing and it was important, but he wasn’t going to give away the gang’s secrets. He would look in the tree himself later and make sure Graham wasn’t there.
“Did Graham have any problems you were aware of? Was he upset about anything?”
“No.”
“School?”
“We’re on holiday.”
“I know that, but I mean in general. It was a new school for him, wasn’t it? He’d only been there one year. Did he have any problems with the other boys?”
“No, not really. He had a fight with Mick Slack, but he’s just a bully. He picks fights with all the new kids.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen any strange men hanging around the area lately?”
“No.” Banks probably blushed as he lied. He certainly felt his cheeks burning.
“Nobody?”
“No.”
“Did Graham ever mention anyone bothering him?”
“No.”
“All right, then, son, that’s it for now. But if you can think of anything at all, you know where the police station is, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m sorry about your budgie, really I am.”
“Thank you.”
They seemed all set to go then and got to their feet. Just before they left, they asked Roy and Banks’s parents a few general questions, and that was it. When they shut the door everyone was quiet. There were still ten minutes of
Coronation Street
left, but nobody thought of switching on the television set again. Banks remembered turning to Joey’s empty cage and feeling the tears gather in his eyes.
Annie waited until Martin Armitage’s Beemer had got a respectable distance ahead, then let a local delivery van get between them before she started to follow. The roads were quiet at that time in the morning–they were quiet most of the time, if truth be told–so she couldn’t appear
too
conspicuous. At the village of Relton, he turned right and followed the B-road that ran about halfway up the valley side.
They passed through tiny Mortsett, which didn’t even have a pub or a general store, and Annie got stuck when the delivery van stopped to make a call at one of the cottages. The road wasn’t wide enough for her to pass.
She got out and prepared to show her warrant card and ask the driver to get out of the way–there was a passing area about twenty yards further along–when she noticed
Armitage pull over to a halt about half a mile beyond the village. She had a clear view of the open road, so she brought out the binoculars she kept in her glove compartment and watched him.
Armitage got out of the car with his briefcase, looked around and started walking over the grass towards a squat stone shepherd’s shelter about eighty yards off the road, up the daleside, and she didn’t think he was nervous because he was breaking the government foot-and-mouth regulations.
When he got there, he ducked inside the shelter, and when he came out, he wasn’t carrying his briefcase. Annie watched him walk back to his car. He stumbled once over the uneven ground, then glanced around again and drove off in the direction of Gratly.
“Birds, is it?” a voice asked, disturbing Annie’s concentration,
“What?” She turned to face the delivery-man, a brash gel-haired youngster with bad teeth.
“The binoculars,” he said. “Bird-watching. Can’t understand it, myself. Boring. Now, when it comes the other sort of birds–”
Annie flipped him her warrant card and said, “Move your van out of the way and let me pass.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “No need to get shirty. There’s no one home, anyway. Never is in this bloody godforsaken hole.”
He drove off and Annie got back in her car. Armitage was long gone by the time she reached the spot where he had stopped, and there were no other cars in sight, save the delivery van, fast disappearing ahead.
Annie was the one who felt nervous now. Was someone watching her with binoculars the way she had watched Armitage? She hoped not. If this was what she thought it was, it wouldn’t do to reveal police interest. The air was still and mild, and Annie could smell warm grass after rain. Somewhere in the distance, a tractor chugged across
a field, and sheep baaed from the daleside as she ignored the posted warnings and made her way to the shelter. The place smelled musty and acrid inside. Enough light spilled through the gaps in the drystone for her to see the used condom on the dirt, empty cigarette packet and crushed lager cans. A local lad’s idea of showing his girlfriend a good time, no doubt. She could also see the briefcase, the inexpensive, nylon kind.
Annie picked it up. It felt heavy. She opened the Velcro strips and inside, as she had expected, found stacks of money, mostly £10 and £20 notes. She had no idea exactly how much there was, but guessed it must be somewhere in the region of £10,000 or £15,000.
She put the briefcase back where it was and returned to her car. She couldn’t just sit there by the roadside waiting for something to happen, but she couldn’t very well leave the scene, either. In the end, she drove back to Mortsett and parked. There was no police station in the tiny hamlet, and she knew it would be no use trying to use her UHF hand radio behind so many hills, at such a distance. Besides, it only had a range of a couple of miles. She was driving her own car, as she often did, and she hadn’t got around to having the more powerful VHF radio installed. It hardly seemed necessary, as she wasn’t a patrol officer, and, more often than not, she simply used the car to drive to work and back, and perhaps to interview witnesses, as she had done that morning. Before she headed out on foot to find a good spot from which to watch the shelter without being seen, Annie picked up her mobile to ring the station and let Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe know what was going on.