Peter Robinson: Cold Is The Grave

But too much smoke seemed to be drifting from the fireplace into the room. Banks wondered if he needed a chimney sweep, as a fire probably hadn’t been lit in that grate for a long time. He had no idea how to find a sweep, nor did he even know if such an exotic creature still existed. He remembered being fascinated as a child when the chimney sweep came, and his mother covered everything in the room with old sheets. Banks was allowed to watch the strange, soot-faced man fit the extensions on his long thick brush as he pushed it up the tall chimney, but he had to leave the room before the real work began. Later, when he read about the Victorian practice of sending young boys naked up the chimneys, he always wondered about that chimney sweep, if he had ever done anything like that. In the end, he realized the man couldn’t have been old enough to have been alive so long ago, no matter how ancient he had seemed to the awestruck young boy.

He decided that the chimney was fine, and it was probably just the wind blowing some smoke back down. He could hear it howling around the thick walls, rattling the loose window in the spare bedroom upstairs, spattering the panes with rain. Since there had been so much rain lately, Banks could also hear the rushing of Gratly Falls outside his cottage. They were nothing grand, only a series of shallow terraces, none more than four or five feet high, that ran diagonally through the village where the beck ran down the daleside to join the river Swain in Helmthorpe. But the music changed constantly and proved a great delight to Banks, especially when he was lying in bed having trouble getting to sleep.

Glad he didn’t have to go out again that evening, Banks sat and sipped his single malt, listening to the familiar lyrical opening of “Waltz for Debby.” His mind drifted to the problem that had been looming larger and larger ever since his last case, which had been a one-off job, designed to make him fail and look like a fool.

He hadn’t failed, and consequently Chief Constable Riddle, who had hated Banks from the start, was even more pissed off at him than ever now. Banks found himself back in the career doldrums, chained to his desk and with no prospect of action in the foreseeable future. It was getting to be a bore.

And he could see only one way out.

Loath as Banks was to leave Yorkshire, especially after so recently buying the cottage, he was fast coming to admit that his days there seemed numbered. Last week, after thinking long and hard, he had put in his application to the National Crime Squad, which had been designed to target organized crime. As a DCI, Banks would hardly be involved in undercover work, but he would be in a position to run operations and enjoy the adrenaline high when a big catch finally landed. The job would also involve travel, tracking British criminals who operated from headquarters in Holland, the Dordogne and Spain.

Banks knew he didn’t have a good enough educational background for the job, lacking a degree, but he did have the experience, and he thought that might still count for something, despite Riddle. He knew he could do the “hard sums,” the language, number and management tests necessary for the job, and he thought he could count on excellent references from everyone else he had worked with in Yorkshire, including his immediate commanding officer, Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe, and the Director of Human Resources, Millicent Cummings. He only hoped that the negative report he was bound to get from Riddle would seem suspicious by its difference.

There was another reason for the change, too. Banks had thought a lot about his estranged wife Sandra over the past couple of months, and he had come to believe that their separation might be only temporary. A major change in his circumstances, such as a posting to the NCS, would certainly be of benefit. It would mean moving somewhere else, maybe back to London, and Sandra loved London. He felt there was a real chance to put things right now, put the silliness of the past year behind them. Banks had had his brief romance with Annie Cabbot, and Sandra hers with Sean. That Sandra was still living with Sean didn’t weigh unduly on his mind. People often drifted along in relationships, lacking the courage or the initiative to go it alone. He was certain that she would come to see things differently when he presented her with his plan for the future.

When the telephone rang at nine o’clock, startling him out of Bill Evans’s deft keyboard meanderings, he thought at first that it might be Tracy. He hoped she hadn’t changed her mind about the weekend; he needed to talk to her about the future, to enlist her help in getting Sandra back.

It wasn’t Tracy. It was Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle, the very reason Banks had gone so far as to contemplate selling his cottage and leaving the county.

“Banks?”

Banks gritted his teeth. “Sir?”

Riddle paused. “I’d like to ask you a favor.”

Banks’s jaw dropped. “A favor?”

“Yes. Do you think… I mean, would you mind dropping by the house? It’s very important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise. Not on such a wretched night as this.”

Banks’s mind reeled. Riddle had never spoken to him in such a polite manner before, with such a fragile edge to his voice. What on earth was going on? Another trick?

“It’s late, sir,” Banks said. “I’m tired, and I’m supposed to be-”

“Look, I’m asking you for a favor, man. My wife and I have had to cancel a very important dinner party at the last minute because of this. Can’t you just for once put aside your bloody-mindedness and oblige me?”

That sounded more like the Jimmy Riddle of old. Banks was on the verge of telling him to fuck off when the CC’s tone changed once again and threw him off balance. “Please, Banks,” Riddle said. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Something urgent. Don’t worry. This isn’t a trick. I’m not out to put one over on you. I give you my word. I honestly need your help.”

Surely even Riddle wouldn’t stoop to pulling a stunt like this solely to humiliate him? Now Banks was curious, and he knew he would go. If he were the kind of man who could ignore a call so full of mystery, he had no business being a copper in the first place. He didn’t want to go out into the foul night, didn’t want to leave his Laphroaig, Bill Evans and the crackling peat fire, but he knew he had to. He put his glass aside, glad that he had drunk only the one small whiskey all day.

“All right,” he said, reaching for the pencil and paper beside the telephone. “But you’d better tell me where you live and give me directions. I don’t believe I’ve ever been invited to your home before.”

Riddle lived about halfway between Eastvale and Northallerton, which meant an hour’s drive for Banks in good weather, but well over that tonight. The rain was coming down in buckets; his windscreen wipers worked overtime the whole way, and there were times when he could hardly see more than a few yards ahead. It was only two days before Bonfire Night, and the piles of wood and discarded furniture were getting soaked on the village greens.

The Riddle house was a listed building, called the Old Mill because it had been built originally as a mill by Cistercian monks from the nearby abbey. Made of limestone, with a flagstone roof, it stood beside the millrace, which came rushing down through the garden. The old stone barn on the other side of the house had been converted into a garage.

As Banks drove up the short gravel drive and pulled up, he noticed that there were lights showing in two of the downstairs windows, while the rest of the place was in darkness. Almost before he could knock, the door jerked open and he found himself ushered inside a dim hallway, where Riddle took his coat without ceremony and led him through to a living room bigger than Banks’s entire cottage. It was all exposed beams and whitewashed walls decked with polished hunting horns and the inevitable horse brasses. A gilt-framed mirror hung above the Adam fireplace, where a fire roared, and a baby grand piano stood by the mullioned bay window.