Peter Robinson - Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

The girls from down the street walked by at one point, as they always did, very Mod in their miniskirts and Mary Quant hairdos, all bobs, fringes and headbands, eye makeup laid on with a trowel, lips pale and pink, noses in the air. They were sixteen, far too old for Banks or his friends, and they all had eighteen-year-old boyfriends with Vespas or Lambrettas.

Dave left early, saying he had to go to his grandparents’ house in Ely for tea, though Banks thought it was because Dylan was getting up his nose. Steve headed off a few minutes later, taking his LP with him. Banks couldn’t remember the exact time, but he was certain that he and Paul were listening to “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” when they saw the Ford Zephyr cruising down the street. It couldn’t have been the first one, because Graham had been missing since morning, but it was the first one they saw. Paul pointed and started whistling the Z Cars theme music. Police cars weren’t a novelty on the estate, but they were still rare enough visitors in those days to be noticed. The car stopped at number 58, Graham’s house, and two uniformed officers got out and knocked on the door.

Banks remembered watching as Mrs. Marshall opened the door, thin cardie wrapped around her, despite the warmth of day, and the two policemen took off their hats and followed her into the house. After that, nothing was ever quite the same on the estate.

Back in the twenty-first century, Banks opened his eyes and rubbed them. The memory had made him even more tired. He’d had a devil of a time getting to Athens the other day, and when he had got there it was only to find that he couldn’t get a flight home until the following morning. He’d had to spend the night in a cheap hotel, and he hadn’t slept well, surrounded by the noise and bustle of a big city, after the peace and quiet of his island retreat.

Now the plane was flying up the Adriatic, between Italy and the former Yugoslavia. Banks was sitting on the left and the sky was so cloudless he fancied he could see all of Italy stretched out below him, greens and blues and earth colors, from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean: mountains, the crater of a volcano, vineyards, the cluster of a village and sprawl of a large city. Soon he would be landing back in Manchester, and soon the quest would begin in earnest. Graham Marshall’s bones had been found, and Banks damn well wanted to know how and why they had ended up where they did.

Annie turned off the B-road between Fortford and Relton onto the gravel drive of Swainsdale Hall. Elm, sycamore and ash dotted the landscape and obscured the view of the hall itself until the last curve, when it was revealed in all its splendor. Built of local limestone and millstone grit in the seventeenth century, the hall was a long, two-story symmetrical stone building with a central chimney stack and stone-mullioned windows. The Dale’s leading family, the Blackwoods, had lived there until they had died out in the way many old aristocratic families had died out: lack of money and no suitable heirs. Though Martin Armitage had bought the place for a song, so the stories went, the cost of upkeep was crippling, and Annie could see, as she approached, that parts of the flagstone roof were in a state of disrepair.

Annie parked in front of the hall and glanced through the slanting rain over the Dale. It was a magnificent view. Beyond the low hump of the earthworks in the lower field, an ancient Celtic defense against the invading Romans, she could see the entire green valley spread out before her, from the meandering river Swain all the way up the opposite side to the gray limestone scars, which seemed to grin like a skeleton’s teeth. The dark, stubby ruins of Devraulx Abbey were visible about halfway up the opposite daleside, as was the village of Lyndgarth with its square church tower and smoke rising from chimneys over roofs darkened by the rain.

A dog barked inside the house as Annie approached the door. More of a cat person herself, she hated the way dogs rushed up when visitors arrived and barked and jumped at you, slobbered and sniffed your crotch, created chaos in the hall while the apologetic owner tried to control the animal’s enthusiasm and explain how it really was just very friendly.

This time was no exception. However, the young woman who opened the door got a firm grip on the dog’s collar before it could drool on Annie’s skirt, and another woman appeared behind her. “Miata!” she called out. “Behave! Josie, would you take Miata to the scullery, please?”

“Yes, ma’m.” Josie disappeared, half-dragging the frustrated Dobermann along with her.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “She gets so excited when we have visitors. She’s only being friendly.”

“Miata. Nice name,” said Annie, and introduced herself.

“Thank you.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Robin Armitage. Please come in.”

Annie followed Robin down the hall and through a door on the right. The room was enormous, reminiscent of an old banquet hall, with antique furniture scattered around a beautiful central Persian rug, a grand piano, and a stone fireplace bigger than Annie’s entire cottage. On the wall over the mantelpiece hung what looked to Annie’s trained eye like a genuine Matisse.

The man who had been staring out of the back window over a lawn the size of a golf course turned when Annie entered. Like his wife, he looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. He introduced himself as Martin Armitage and shook her hand. His grip was firm and brief.

Martin Armitage was over six feet tall, handsome in a rugged, athletic sort of way, with his hair shaved almost to his skull, the way many footballers wore it. He was slim, long-legged and fit, as befitted an ex-sportsman, and even his casual clothes, jeans and a loose hand-knit sweater, looked as if they had cost more than Annie’s monthly salary. He glanced down at Annie’s boots, and she wished she’d gone for something more conservative that morning. But how was she to know?

“Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe told me about Luke,” Annie said.

“Yes.” Robin Armitage tried to smile, but it came out like the twentieth take of a commercial shoot. “Look, I’ll have Josie bring us some tea – or coffee, if you’d prefer it?”

“Tea would be fine, thanks,” said Annie, perching carefully on the edge of an antique armchair. One of the most civilized things about being a policewoman, she thought, especially working in plainclothes, was that the people you visited – witnesses, victims and villains alike – invariably offered you some sort of refreshment. Usually tea. It was as English as fish and chips. From what she had read, or seen on television, she couldn’t imagine anything like it happening anywhere else in the world. But for all she knew, perhaps the French offered wine when a gendarme came to call.

“I know how upsetting something like this can be,” Annie began, “but in ninety-nine percent of cases there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Robin raised a finely plucked eyebrow. “Do you mean that? You’re not just saying it to make us feel better?”

“It’s true. You’d be surprised how many mispers we get – sorry, that’s police talk for missing persons – and most of them turn up none the worse for wear.”

“ Most of them?” echoed Martin Armitage.

“I’m just telling you that statistically he’s likely-”

“ Statistically? What kind of-”

“Martin! Calm down. She’s only trying to help.” Robin turned to Annie. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but neither of us has had much sleep. Luke’s never done anything like this before, and we really are quite frantic with worry. Nothing short of seeing Luke back here safe and sound will change that. Please, tell us where you think he is.”