Peter Robinson: Cold Is The Grave

“I’m sorry,” she said, without looking at him.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I’m glad.”

Annie slowed down and turned slowly to face him. “You’re what?”

They started walking again, and he tried to explain to her what he had felt in London, after he first heard the news. He wasn’t sure whether he did a good job or not, but Annie nodded here and there and seemed to contemplate what he’d said after he’d finished. Finally, she said, “That’s all right, then.”

“It is?”

“Time to let go.”

Second good sign. “I suppose so.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore. Oh, there are memories, always will be, and some residual feelings – anger, disappointment, whatever. But no, it doesn’t hurt. In fact, I feel better than I have in years.”

“Good.”

“Look, do you fancy coming over to the cottage for Christmas dinner? Tracy will be there. Just the three of us.”

“I can’t. Really, I’m sorry, Alan, but I always go home for Christmas. Ray would never forgive me if I missed it.”

“I understand.”

Annie gave his arm a little squeeze. “I mean it, Alan. It’s not an excuse. I’d love to meet Tracy. Maybe some other time?”

Banks knew she was telling the truth. Annie wasn’t a very good liar, as he had discovered. Lying made her all grumpy and withdrawn. “We’ll have a drink together sometime, then,” he said.

“Do you think she’ll hate me?”

“Why should she?”

Annie smiled. “Sometimes you can be pretty damn thick when it comes to women, Alan Banks.”

“I’m not being thick,” Banks said. “Mothers, daughters, fathers, it can all get pretty complicated. I know that. But Tracy’s not a hater. I know my daughter. I wouldn’t expect her to rush up to you and hug you – no doubt she’ll be a little hesitant, checking you out, as they say – but she’s not a hater, and she doesn’t see me as the villain in all this. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“Unlike Ruth Walker.”

“Indeed. Did you feel the atmosphere in that room?”

Annie nodded.

“I felt something like it before, the times I talked to her in London,” Banks said, “but it wasn’t as powerful. I think it’s because she senses she’s near the end. She’s given up. She’s unraveling.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. I think she wants us to know it all now, so we can see her point of view. So we can understand her. Forgive her.”

Annie shook her head. “I don’t think she wants forgiveness, Alan. At least, not the way I’m reading her. I don’t think she sees there’s anything to forgive.”

“Perhaps not. I should have known.”

“Should have known what?”

“That something was wrong there.”

“But you’ve only just found out Ruth was Emily’s half-sister. How could you have known that?”

“I don’t know. I should have dug deeper sooner.”

“Why do you have to take the burden on yourself like this? Why is everything your fault? Why do you think if you only acted differently you could prevent people being killed?”

Banks stopped and looked out over the swirling river; it was the color of a pint of bitter, an intruder in the black-and-white world. “Do I?”

“You know you do.”

Banks lit a cigarette. “It must be something to do with Graham Marshall.”

“Graham Marshall? Who’s he?”

“A boy at school. I won’t say a friend because I didn’t know him very well. He was a quiet kid, bright, shy.”

“What happened?”

“One day he simply disappeared.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody knows. He was never found. Dead or alive.”

“What did the police think?”

“The general consensus was that he’d been abducted by a child molester who’d murdered him after he’d had his way. This would probably have been around the time of the Moors Murders, though in a different part of the country, so people were especially sensitive to the disappearance of children.”

“That’s sad.” Annie rested her elbows on the wall beside Banks. “But I still don’t see what it’s got to do with you.”

“About three or four months before Graham Marshall’s disappearance I was playing with some friends down by the river. We were throwing stones in, just having a bit of harmless fun, the way kids do…”

As he spoke, Banks remembered the day vividly. It was spitting and the raindrops pitted the murky water. A man approached along the riverbank. All Banks could remember now was that he was tall – but then every adult was tall to him then – and thin, with greasy dark hair and a rough, pockmarked complexion. Banks smiled and politely paused before dropping in a large stone, one he had to hold in both hands, to let the stranger pass by without splashing him.

The next thing he knew, the man had grabbed him by the arms and was pushing him toward the river, the stone forgotten at their feet. He could smell beer on the man’s breath, the same smell he remembered from his father, and something else – sweat, a wet-dog smell, body odor, like the smell of his socks after a long rugby game, as he struggled for his life. He called out and looked around for his friends, but they were running down to the gap in the fence where they had got in.

The struggle seemed to go on forever. Banks managed to wedge his heels at the edge of the riverbank and push back with all his might, but the grass was wet, and the soil under it was fast turning to mud. He didn’t think he could keep his grip much longer.

His smallness and wiriness were his only advantages, he knew, and he wriggled as hard as an eel to slip out of the man’s strong grasp. He knew that if he didn’t escape he would drown. He tried to bite the man’s arm, but all he got was a mouthful of vile-tasting cloth, so he gave up.

The man was breathing hard now, as if the effort was becoming too much for him. Banks drew on his last reserves of energy and wriggled as hard and fast as he could. He managed to get one arm free. The man held him by the other arm and punched him at the side of his right eye. He felt something sharp, like a ring, cut his skin. He flinched with pain and pulled away, succeeding in freeing his other arm. He didn’t wait to see if he was being pursued, but ran like the clappers to the hole in the fence.

Only when he caught up with his friends at the edge of the park did he dare risk looking back. Nobody in sight. His friends seemed sheepish as they asked him how he was, but he toughed it out. No problem. Inside, though, he was terribly shaken. They made a pact not to say anything. None of them was supposed to be playing down by the river in the first place. Their parents said it was dangerous. Banks didn’t dare tell his parents what had happened, explaining the cut by his eye by saying he had fallen and cut it on a piece of glass, and he had never relied on anyone to help him out of trouble again in his life.

“I was wrong. I should have told my parents, Annie. They would have made me report it to the police, and they might have caught him before he did any more harm. There was a dangerous man out there, and my fear and shame left him free to do as he pleased.”

“You blamed yourself for what happened to Graham Marshall? For the acts of a child molester?”

Banks turned away from the beer-colored water to face Annie. “When he went missing, all I could think of was the tall man with the greasy dark hair and the body odor.” Banks shivered. Sometimes he still woke in the night gagging on the taste of the dirty cloth of the man’s sleeve, and in the dream, when he looked at the river, it was full of dead boys all floating in the same direction, in perfectly matched rows, and Graham Marshall was the only one he recognized. So much guilt.