Peter Robinson - In A Dry Season

A second car pulled up in the other car park, behind the high hedge, but Vivian was already walking through the woods, and she failed to notice it. The path was treacherous, as if the parched earth had been yearning for the chance to suck up every drop of rain that fell, and Vivian had to be really careful not to slip as she made her way slowly down the embankment, poking her umbrella in the ground ahead and using it as a sort of brake. God only knew how she would get back up again.

The ruined village lay spread out before her under the dark sky. Rain lashed the crumbled stones and every few seconds a flash of lightning lit the scene like a Stanhope painting.

Vivian paused to get her breath by the fairy bridge, unfurled her umbrella, then walked forward and stood at the humped center. She rested her free hand on the wet stone, hardly able to believe that this was the same bridge where she had stood and chatted with Gloria, Matthew, Alice, Cynthia, Betty and the others all those years ago. The last time she had been there, it had been under water.

The rain was already finding the old river’s channel by the High Street, and a small stream had formed, heading toward Harksmere. Thunder hammered across the sky, and Vivian shuddered as she moved toward Bridge Cottage. There was nothing left of the place except the foundations, a dark stone outline two or three feet high, but she remembered where every room and cupboard had been, especially the kitchen at the back, where she had found Gloria’s body.

The area around and inside the cottage had been dug up and was still surrounded by police signs warning that it might be dangerous. They had been looking for more bodies. Vivian supposed. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Inspector Niven would have done exactly the same thing.

Now she was standing there in the driving rain, which dripped off her umbrella and ran down inside her boots, she was beginning to wonder why she had come. There was nothing here for her now. At least when Hobb’s End was under water she could imagine it, as she had done, as a place preserved in water glass. Now it was nothing but a heap of rubble.

She ambled through the mud up what had been the High Street, past the Shoulder of Mutton, where Billy Joe had his fight with Seth, and where Matthew spent his evenings after his return from Luzon; past Halliwell the butcher’s, where she had swapped Capstans for suet and pleaded for an extra piece of scrag-end; and past the newsagent’s shop, where she had lived with Mother and sold her bits and pieces, built up her private lending library, met Gloria for the first time that blustery April day she came by in her new land-girl uniform asking for cigarettes.

It was no good; there was nothing of the place left but memories, and her memories were mostly painful. She hadn’t known what to expect, had in mind only a simple sort of pilgrimage, an acknowledgment of some sort. Well, she had done that. Time to head back to the hotel for a hot bath and a change of clothes, or she would catch her death.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the gaunt, stringy-haired man who had followed her taxi all the way from Leeds. When she passed Bridge Cottage on her way back and turned toward the fairy bridge, he stepped from behind the outbuilding and held out a gun, then he moved forward quickly, grabbed her around the throat, and she felt the hard metal pushing at the side of her neck. Her umbrella went flying and landed upside down on High Street like a large black teacup.

Then his hand appeared in front of her, holding a dog-eared photograph creased with age. It took her a few moments to realize that it was Gloria. Her hair was darker and straighter, and it looked as if it had been taken perhaps a year or two before she had come to Hobb’s End. Rain spattered the photograph and the hand that held it. Such a small hand. Gloria’s hand , she thought, remembering that first meeting, when she had shaken hands and Vivian had felt heavy and awkward holding that tiny, moist leaf.

What was he doing with hands like Gloria’s?

By six o’clock on Friday evening, Banks was starting to get nervous about his dinner date with Jenny. The thunder and lightning and driving rain that buffeted his tiny cottage didn’t help. He had already showered and shaved, agonizing over whether to put on any aftershave and finally deciding against it, not wanting to smell like a tart’s window box. Now he was surveying his wardrobe, what little there was of it, trying to decide which version of casual he should put on tonight. It was a decision made a lot easier by the overflowing laundry basket: the Marks amp; Sparks chinos and the light blue denim shirt.

Almost ready at last, Banks stood in front of the mirror and ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. Nothing to write home about, he thought, but it was the best he could do with what nature had given him. He wasn’t a vain man, but today he seemed to take longer than a woman getting ready to go out. He remembered how he had always had to wait for Sandra, no matter how much time he gave her. It had got so bad that when they had to be somewhere for seven-thirty, he told her seven o’clock, just to get an edge.

He thought of Annie. Did he owe her fidelity, or were all bets off after the way she had cut him? He didn’t know. At the very least, he owed her an explanation of the case, given all the hard work she had put in. Late that afternoon, Bill Gilchrist of the FBI had sent him, at Jenny’s request, a six-page fax on Edgar “PX” Konig, and Banks had been gob-smacked by its contents. DS Hatchley had also determined that Konig had been questioned in connection with the Brenda Hamilton murder. He wasn’t a serious suspect, but the two had been friendly. Rationing was in force until 1954, so PX still had his uses among the locals as late as 1952.

Annie wasn’t at the section station when he phoned her. He had tried her at home, too, but either she had already left for St. Ives, or she wasn’t answering her phone. Next he dialed her mobile number but still got no answer. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to him.

Banks went downstairs and lit a cigarette. Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew was playing on the stereo, bringing back more memories of Jem.

During one of those periods when the Met had brought in a new broom, and corruption charges were flying right, left and center, Banks again saw the man he had first seen walking up the stairs on the night of Jem’s death. A dealer. His name was Malcolm, and he had been brought in to give evidence against a certain DS Fallon, who was charged with extorting heroin from importers he busted instead of arresting them. Fallon then set up his own distribution network, which included Malcolm. In Banks’s eyes, that made Malcolm partly responsible for Jem’s death, and when he saw DS Fallon, he recognized immediately the pockmarked face and cynical smile of the cop who had rifled his bed-sit after he’d reported Jem’s death. No wonder no charges had ever been laid.

Fallon was arrested and sentenced. He hadn’t been more than eighteen months in Wormwood Scrubs before a lifer who recognized him stabbed him through the ear with a filed-down length of metal. Karma . After five years or more it was hardly instant, but it was karma nonetheless. Jem would have liked that sense of symmetry.

Banks stubbed out his cigarette and was just heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth when the telephone rang. The sound startled him. He hoped it wasn’t Jenny phoning to cancel. With Annie going all cold on him, he had been entertaining some pleasant fantasies about the forthcoming dinner. As soon as he heard the voice, though, he realized there could be much worse things in the world than Jenny phoning to cancel dinner.

“Why is it, Banks,” growled Chief Constable Riddle, “that you manage to make a pig’s arse out of everything you do?”