Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

The music was what counted, and Banks was pleased to see that they had recorded their cover version of Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” a song he had been surprised to hear them play on the only occasion he had seen them perform live. The rest of the songs were all originals, with Brian and Jamisse sharing most of the writing credits, apart from an old Mississippi John Hurt number, “Avalon Blues.” They weren’t a blues band, but blues was an underlying influence on their music, sometimes overlaid with rock, folk and hip-hop elements: The Grateful Dead meet Snoop Doggy Dogg. Banks was also absurdly pleased to see that in the liner notes Brian had credited him with nurturing an interest in music. Hadn’t mentioned that his dad was a copper, though; that wouldn’t go down too well in the music business.

He didn’t have time to listen to the CD before heading to the office. If he expected his team to put in a full day on Emily’s murder, then he had to set an example. Thoughts of work soon led into thoughts of Annie, who had contributed toward yet another sleepless night. He couldn’t understand what she saw in Dalton, who seemed such a dull, unprepossessing type to Banks. Not particularly good-looking, either. But, as he well knew, there was neither rhyme nor reason in matters of sex and love.

He just wished he could get the images of them out of his mind. Last night he had tossed and turned, unable to stop himself from imagining them making love in all sorts of positions, Dalton pleasing her far more than he had ever done, making her cry out in ecstasy as she climaxed, riding him wildly. The morning, dark and wet as it was, brought a respite from the images, but not from the feelings that had generated them. Working with her was turning out to be far more difficult than he had imagined it would be. Maybe she was right, and he just couldn’t hack it.

As he turned toward the town center and slowed in the knot of traffic on North Market Street, which was just opening up for the day, he wondered if everyone suffered from jealousy as much as he did. It had always been that way for him; jealousy had wrecked his relationship with the first girl he had ever slept with.

Her name was Kay Summerville, and she lived on the same Peterborough estate as he did. For weeks he had lusted after her as he watched her walk by in her jeans and yellow jacket, long blond hair trailing halfway down her back. She seemed unobtainable, ethereal, like most of the women he lusted after, but he was surprised when one day, walking back from the newsagent’s over the road with her, he plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she said yes.

Everything went well until Kay left school and got an office job in town. She made new friends, started going for drinks with the crowd regularly after work on a Friday. Banks was still at school, having stayed on for his A-Levels, and a schoolboy had far less appeal than these slightly older, better dressed, more sophisticated men of the world at the office. They had more money to flash around and, even more important, some of them had cars. Kay insisted there was no hanky-panky going on, but Banks became tortured with jealousy, racked by imagined infidelities, and in the end, Kay walked away. She couldn’t stand his constant harping on whom she was seeing and what she was doing, she said, and the way he got stroppy if she ever so much as looked at another man.

Shortly after, Banks moved to London and went to college there. A year or two after that, and several casual relationships later, he met Sandra. After a rocky few months at the start, when he realized he wanted her so much he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else being with her, he saw that if he played his cards right, nobody else but him was going to be, and for the next twenty years or so he had very few problems with jealousy. Then she left him and Sean came on the scene, or vice versa. Now this with Annie. He was beginning to feel like a sex-obsessed, acne-plagued teenager again, and he didn’t like it at all.

Though he couldn’t play it, Banks had Brian’s CD on the passenger seat beside him, feeling pride every time he managed to break off his miserable thoughts and look down to see his son’s face on the cover. The marriage might have ended badly, but at least it had produced Brian and Tracy, Banks told himself, and the world was a better place for having them in it. He picked up the CD and dashed through the rain with it into the station. Once in his office, he set it on his desk, hoping that anyone who dropped by would ask about it.

Because Tuesday had been a day of paperwork, phonework and legwork, Banks was hoping some of it would pay off today. Teams of uniformed and plainclothes officers had been sent out with photos of Gregory Manners, Andrew Handley, Jamie Gilbert and Barry Clough. If any of those four had been up to no good in the Eastvale area over the past month or so, then someone would recognize them. Also, as he had looked at the cover of the Jimson Weed CD and thought about some of the things he had discovered lately, a number of disparate strands had started to come together, and he made an appointment to have lunch at half past one in the Queen’s Arms with Granville Baird, of North Yorkshire Trading Standards.

Annie was surprised to find herself feeling so good on Wednesday morning, the best she’d felt in a long time. She had awakened after a long, deep and dreamless sleep feeling that old calm, had done her meditation and yoga and seemed to be getting back in the groove. Agitated voices still muttered in the distance of her mind and talons raked at the raw edges of her emotions, but even so, she felt much better. All would be well.

She wondered if it was anything to do with Dalton’s having gone back to Newcastle and decided that was only partly it. Certainly it was a blessing not to have him around the place, constantly reminding her, whether he intended to or not, of that terrible night two years ago. In a way, though, she had exorcised all that by confronting him by the swing bridge. Anyway, she didn’t intend to dwell on why she was feeling so good. One thing she had learned from her meditation was that sometimes it’s best to let go, simply to accept the feelings you have and ride with them.

Banks had been cool and distant toward her since their blowup on Monday afternoon, and, while a little warmth wouldn’t go amiss, that suited her perfectly well at the moment, because all she wanted to do was get on with the job.

And early that Wednesday afternoon, she was doing exactly that, heading for Scarlea House. The desk clerk there had said he recognized Barry Clough’s photograph when one of the DCs turned up on the doorstep showing it around.

It was a dull afternoon, and Annie needed to turn her headlights on. The heavy gray cloud was so low it seemed to rest on top of Fremlington Hill, a high limestone scar, or “edge,” which curved like bared teeth around the junction of Swainsdale and the smaller Arkbeckdale, which ran northwest.

She drove through sleepy Lyndgarth, with its village green like a handkerchief flapping in the wind, its chapel, church and three pubs. Smoke drifted from the chimneys and lost itself in the clouds like her thoughts when she meditated. She passed through the remote hamlet of Longbridge, a name most found funny as it had the smallest, shortest bridge in the dale. She remembered it was supposed to be famous because someone drove over it in the opening credits of a television program, but that had been before her time up north. Not a soul stirred; the hamlet looked deserted, its shop closed, rough stone cottages shut up. Only a glimmer of light from the pub showed that anyone lived there at all. It was an eerie feeling, especially in the half-light. Annie felt that if she got out of her car and walked around she would find everything in order – meals on the table, today’s newspapers lying open, kettles boiling on the cookers – and nobody there, like on the Marie Celeste .