Dry Bones That Dream, page 20
By this time, the other was back wobbling on his feet, and Banks went for him. He aimed one sharp blow to the head after the other, splitting an eyebrow, a lip, jarring a tooth loose. The other stumbled away towards the exit. There was no fight left in either of them, but Banks couldn’t stop. He kept slugging away at the man in front of him, feeling the anger in him explode and pour out. When the man tried to protect his face with his hands, Banks pummelled his exposed stomach and ribs.
The man backed away, begging Banks to stop hitting him. His friend, swaying at the alley’s exit now, yelled, ‘Come on, Kev, run for it! He’s a fucking maniac! He’ll fucking kill us both!’ And they both staggered off towards Commercial Street.
Banks watched them go. There was no one else around, thank God. The whole debacle couldn’t have taken more than a couple of minutes. When they were out of sight, Banks fell back against the whitewashed wall, shaking, sweating, panting. He took several deep breaths, smoothed his clothes and headed back to the hotel.
11
ONE
The storm broke in the middle of the night. Banks lay in the dark in his strange hotel bed tossing and turning as lightning flashed and thunder first rumbled in the distance then cracked so loudly overhead that the windows rattled.
Once unbound, the shape of his rage was fluid; it could be as easily warped and twisted into fanciful images by sleep as it had been channelled into violence earlier. He kept waking from one nightmare and drifting back into another. Rain lashed against the windows, and in the background something hissed constantly, the way something always hisses in hotel rooms.
In the worst nightmare, the one he remembered the most clearly, he was talking on the telephone to a woman who had dialled his number by mistake. She sounded disoriented, and the longer she spoke the longer the spaces stretched between her words. Finally, silence took over completely. Banks called hello a few times, then hung up. As soon as he had done so, he was stricken by panic. The woman was committing suicide. He knew it. She had taken an overdose of pills and fallen into a coma while she was still on the line. He didn’t know her name or her telephone number. If he had kept the line open and not hung up, he would have been able to trace her and save her life.
He awoke feeling guilty and depressed. And it wasn’t only his soul that hurt. His head pounded from too much whisky and from the ‘Glasgow handshake’ he had given one of his attackers, his chest felt tight from smoking, his knuckles ached and his side felt sore where he had been slammed into the wall. His mouth tasted as dry as the bottom of a budgie’s cage and as sour as month-old milk. When he got up to go to the toilet, he felt a stabbing pain shoot through his kneecap and found himself limping. He felt about ninety. He took three extra-strength Panadols from his traveller’s survival kit and washed them down with two glasses of cold water.
It was four twenty-three a.m. by the red square numbers of the digital clock. Cars hissed by through the puddles in the road. Around the edges of the curtains, he could see the sickly amber glow of the street-lights and the occasional flash of distant lightning as the storm passed over to the north.
He didn’t want to be awake, but he couldn’t seem to get back to sleep. All he could do was lie there feeling sorry for himself, remembering what a bloody fool he had been. What had started as a simple bit of childish self-indulgence, drowning his sorrows in drink, had turned into a full-blown exhibition of idiocy, and both his skinned knuckles and the empty Scotch bottle on the bedside table were evidence enough of that.
After the fracas, he had dashed back to the hotel and hurried straight up to his room before anyone could notice his bloody knuckles or torn jacket. Once safe inside, he had poured himself a stiff drink to stop the shakes. Lying on the bed watching television until the programmes ended for the night, he had poured another, then another. Soon, the half-bottle was empty and he had fallen asleep. Now it was time to pay. He had heard once that guilt and shame contributed to the pain of hangovers, and at four thirty-two that morning, he certainly believed it.
Christ, it was so bloody easy to slide down one’s thoughts into the pit of misery and self-recrimination at four thirty-two a.m. At four thirty-two, if you feel ill, you just know you have cancer; at four thirty-two, if you feel depressed, suicide seems the only way out. Four thirty-two is the perfect time for fear and self-loathing, the time of the dark night of the soul.
But it wouldn’t do, he told himself. Feeling sorry for himself just wouldn’t bloody well do. So he wasn’t perfect. He had contemplated committing adultery. So what? He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last. He felt responsible for Pamela Jeffreys’s injuries. Maybe, just maybe, he should have acted differently when he knew he was being followed – put a guard on everyone he had talked to – but it was a big maybe. He wasn’t God almighty; he couldn’t anticipate everything.
Most detective work was pissing about in the dark, anyway, waiting for the light to grow slowly, as it was doing now outside. On rare occasions, the truth hit you quick as a lightning flash. But they were very rare occasions indeed. Even then, before the lightning hit you, you had spent months looking for the right place to stand.
So last night, in the alley, he had lost it. So what? Two yobbos had tried to mug him and he had gone wild on them, plastered them all over the walls. Most of it was a blur now, but he remembered enough to embarrass him.
They had just been kids, really, early twenties at most, out looking for aggro. But one had been black and one white, like the men who had put Pamela Jeffreys in hospital. Banks knew in his mind that they weren’t the same ones, but when the bubble of his anger burst and the fury unleashed itself, when the blood started to flow, they were the ones he was lashing out at. No wonder they ran away shitting bricks. There was nothing rational about it; blinded by rage, he had thought he was hurting the people he really wanted to hurt. He had taken out his anger on two unwary substitutes. They had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Still, he told himself, they bloody well deserved it, bleeding amateurs. At least he might have discouraged two apprentice muggers from their chosen career. And nobody would ever know what happened. They certainly wouldn’t say anything. After all, he hadn’t killed them; they had managed to run away and lick their wounds. They would survive to fight again another day, if they got back the bottle. It wasn’t the worst thing he had ever done. And soon, surely, that feeling of being a total fucking idiot would go away and he could get on with his life.
He dozed briefly and woke again at five forty-one. Not quite as bad as four thirty-two, he thought, at first glance. He got up and looked outside at the grey morning. The road and pavement were still awash with puddles. Green double-decker buses were already running people to work, splashing up the water where it had collected in the gutters. Banks was on the fifth floor, and he could see the grey sky streaked with blood and milk behind the majestic dome of the Town Hall. Already, dim shadows were shuffling out of the Salvation Army shelter opposite.
Banks made a cup of instant coffee with the electric kettle and sachet provided and took it back to bed with him. He turned on the bedside light and picked up the copy of Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy he had brought with him. Guy Crouchback’s misadventures should cheer him up a bit. At least he didn’t have that much misfortune.
He would put last night behind him, he decided, sipping the weak Nescafé. A man was allowed his mistakes; he had just better not cling to them or they would drag him down to the bottom of the abyss.
TWO
At nine o’clock that morning, Susan Gay sat alone on the second pew from the back of the small nondenominational chapel at Eastvale Crematorium. It was cool inside, thanks to a large fan below the western stained-glass window, and the lighting was suitably dimmed. The place smelled of shoe polish, not the usual musty hymn books she associated with chapels.
The service went briskly enough. The rent-a-vicar said a few words about Keith Rothwell’s devotion to his family and his dedication to hard work, then he read Psalm 51. Susan thought it particularly apt, all that guff about being cleansed of sin. ‘Bloodguiltiness’ was a word she hadn’t heard before, and it made her give a little shudder without knowing why. The mention of ‘burnt offering’ brought the unwelcome image of Rothwell’s corpse, the head a black mess, as if it had indeed been burned, but ‘Wash me; and I shall be whiter than snow’ almost made her laugh out loud. It brought to mind an old television advert for detergent, then Rothwell’s money-laundering.
After the vicar read a bit from Revelation about a new heaven and a new earth and all sorrow, pain and death disappearing, it was all over.
The Rothwells, all suitably dressed in shades of black for the occasion, sat in the front row. Throughout the ceremony, Mary sat stiffly, Alison kept glancing around her at the stained-glass and the font and Tom sat hunched over. As far as Susan could tell from behind, nobody reached for a handkerchief.
When she watched them walk out into the sunlight, she could tell she was right: dry eyes; not a tear in sight; Mary Rothwell doing her stiff-upper-lip routine, bearing her loss and grief with dignity.
Everyone ignored Susan except Tom, who approached her and said, ‘You’re the detective who was at our house when I got back from the States, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. DC Susan Gay, in case you’ve forgotten.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten. What are you doing here?’
‘I’d like a word with you, if you can spare a few minutes.’
Tom took a silver pocket-watch from his waistcoat and looked at it. Susan saw it was attached by a chain to one of his belt loops. Somehow, it seemed like a very affected gesture in one so young. Maybe it had impressed the Americans. He slipped it back in his pocket. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I can’t come just now. Everyone’s going back to Mr Pratt’s for coffee and cake. I’ll have to show up.’
‘Of course. How about an hour?’
‘Okay.’
‘Look, it’s a fine morning,’ Susan said. ‘How about that café by the river, the one near the pre-Roman site?’
‘I know it.’
Susan busied herself with paperwork back at the station for three quarters of an hour, then set off to keep her appointment.
The River Swain was flowing swiftly, still high after the spring thaw. On the grass by the bank, the owner of the small café had stuck a couple of rickety white tables and chairs. Susan bought a can of Coke for Tom and a pot of tea for herself and they sat by the water. Two weeping willows framed the rolling farmland beyond. Right across, in the centre of the view, was a field of bright yellow rape.
Flies buzzed around her head, and Susan kept fanning them away. ‘How was it?’ she asked.
Tom shrugged. ‘I hate those kinds of social gatherings,’ he said. ‘And Laurence Pratt gets on my nerves.’
Susan smiled. At least they had something in common. She let the silence stretch as she looked closely at the youth sitting opposite her. Wavy brown hair fell over his ears about halfway down his neck. He was tanned, slender, handsome and he looked as good now in his mourning suit as he had in torn jeans and a denim shirt. The more she let herself simply feel his presence, the more she was sure she was right about him.
He shifted in his chair. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about the other day. I was rude, I know. But I was tired, upset.’
‘I understand,’ Susan said. ‘It’s just that I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me.’
Tom looked away over the river. His face was scrunched up in a frown, or maybe the sun was in his eyes. ‘You know, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘You can tell.’
‘That you’re homosexual? I have a strong suspicion, yes.’
‘Am I that obvious?’
Susan laughed. ‘Maybe not to everyone. Remember, I’m a detective.’
Tom managed a weak smile. ‘Funny thing, that, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You’d think it would be men who’d guess.’
‘I don’t know. Women are used to responding to men in certain ways. They can tell when something’s . . .’
‘Wrong?’
‘I was going to say missing, but even that’s not right.’
‘Different, then?’
‘That’ll do. Look, I’m not judging you, Tom. You mustn’t think that. It’s really none of my business, unless your sexual preference connects somehow with your father’s murder.’
‘I can’t see how it does.’
‘You’re probably right. Tell me about this Aston, or Afton, then. When Chief Inspector Banks mentioned the name, you assumed it was a man. Why?’
‘Because I didn’t assume. I know damn well who he is. His name’s Ashton. Bloody Clive Ashton. How could I forget?’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s the son of one of my father’s clients – Lionel Ashton. We were at a party together once. I made a mistake.’
‘You made advances towards him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they weren’t welcome?’
Tom gave a dry laugh. ‘Obviously not. He told his father.’
‘And?’
‘And his father told my father. And my father told me I was disgusting, sick, queer, and that I should see about getting myself cured. That’s the exact word he used, cured. He said it would kill Mum if she ever found out.’
‘And he suggested you take off to America for a while, at his expense?’
‘Yes. But that came a bit later. First we let it lie while we figured out what was best.’
‘What did you do in the meantime?’
Tom looked at her, tilted his can back and finished his Coke. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Susan turned away and watched a family of ducks drift by on the Swain. Tom wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then said, ‘I followed him.’
She turned back towards him. ‘You followed your father? Why?’
‘Because I thought he was up to something. He was away so often. He was always so remote, like he wasn’t really with us even when he was at home. I thought he was doing damage to the family.’
‘He wasn’t always like that?’
Tom shook his head. ‘No. Believe it or not, Dad used to have a bit of life about him. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to make a bad joke.’
‘I know. How long had he been behaving this way?’
‘Hard to say. It was gradual, like. But this past couple of years it was getting worse. You could hardly talk to him.’ He shrugged.
‘Was that the only reason you followed him, because you thought he was up to something?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to get something on him. Revenge, I don’t know. Find out what his guilty secret was.’
‘And did you?’
Tom took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out loudly with a nervous laugh. ‘This is harder than I thought. Okay. Here goes. Yes. I saw my father with another woman.’ He said it fast, staccato-style. ‘There, that’s it. I said it.’
Susan paused a moment to take the information in, then asked, ‘When?’
‘Sometime in February.’
‘Where?’
‘Leeds. In a pub. They were sitting together at a table in the Guildford, on The Headrow. They were holding hands. Christ.’ His eyes were glassy with gathering tears. He rubbed the backs of his hands over them and collected himself. ‘Do you know what that feels like?’ he asked. ‘Seeing your old man with another woman. No, of course you don’t. It was like a kick in the balls. Sorry.’
‘That’s all right. Did your father see you?’
‘No. I kept myself well enough hidden. Not that they had eyes for anyone but each other.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Nothing. I left. I was so upset I just got in the van and drove around the countryside for a while. I remember stopping somewhere and walking by a river. It was very cold.’
‘Was the woman dark-skinned? Indian or Pakistani?’
Tom looked surprised. ‘No.’
Susan took her notepad and pen out. ‘What did she look like?’
Tom closed his eyes. ‘I can see her now,’ he said, ‘just as clearly as I could then. She was young, much younger than Dad. Probably in her mid-twenties, I’d guess. Not much older than me. She was sitting down, so I couldn’t really see her figure properly, but I’d say it was good. I mean, she didn’t look fat or anything. She looked nicely proportioned. She was wearing a blouse made of some shiny white material and a scarf sort of thing, more like a shawl, really, over her shoulders, all in blues, whites and reds. It looked like one of those Liberty patterns. She had long fingers. I noticed them for some reason. Am I going too fast?’
‘No,’ said Susan. ‘I’ve got my own kind of shorthand. Carry on.’
‘Long, tapered fingers. No nail varnish, but her nails looked well kept, not bitten or anything. She had blonde hair. No, that’s not quite accurate. It was a kind of reddish blonde. It was piled and twisted on top with some strands falling loose over her cheeks and shoulders. You know the kind of look? Sort of messy but ordered.’
Susan nodded. Hairstyles like that cost a fortune.
‘She was extraordinarily good-looking,’ Tom went on. ‘Very fine, pale skin. A flawless complexion, like marble, sort of translucent. The kind where you can just about see the blue veins underneath. And her features could have been cut by a fine sculptor. High cheekbones, small, straight nose. Her eyes were an unusual shade of blue. They may have been contact lenses, but they were sort of light but very bright blue. Cobalt, I guess. Is that it?’
‘It’ll do. Go on.’
‘That’s about all really. No beauty spots or anything. She was wearing long dangly earrings, too. Lapis lazuli. No rings, I don’t think.’
‘That’s a very good description, Tom. Do you think you could work with a police artist on this? I think we’d like to have a talk with this woman, and your description might help us find her.’
Tom nodded. ‘No problem. I could paint her myself from memory if I had the talent.’
