Peter Robinson - In A Dry Season

“Sir?”

“You heard me.”

“Sir, it’s after six on a Fri -”

“I don’t give a monkey’s toss what bloody time it is, or what day it is. I give you a perfectly simple case to work on. Nothing too urgent. Nothing too exacting. Out of the goodness of my heart. And what happens? All my good intentions blow up in our faces, that’s what happens.”

“Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You might not, but the rest of the bloody country does. Don’t you watch the news?”

“No, sir. I’ve been getting ready to go out.”

“Then you’d better cancel. I’m sure she’ll forgive you. Not that I care about your sex life. Do you know where I’m calling from?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m calling from Thornfield Reservoir. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the rain. And the thunder. Let me fill you in. Shortly over an hour ago, a woman was taken hostage. She had taken a taxi out here and told the driver to wait while she went to look at something. When he thought he’d waited long enough, he went to look for her and saw her standing with a man who appeared to be holding a gun to her head. The man fired a shot in the air and shouted his demand, and the taxi driver ran back to his car and phoned the police. The woman’s name is Vivian Elmsley. Ring any bells?”

Banks’s heart lurched. “Vivian Elmsley? Yes, she’s-”

“I know damn well who she is, Banks. What I don’t know is why some maniac is holding a gun to her head and demanding to talk to the detective in charge of the Gloria Shackleton investigation. Because that’s what he demanded the taxi driver report. Can you fill me in on that?”

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir.’ Is that all you can say?”

Banks fought back the urge to say, “Yes, sir.” Instead he asked, “What’s his name?”

“He hasn’t said. We, however, have gone into full bloody Hollywood production mode out here, with a big enough budget to bankrupt us well into the millennium. Are you still listening to me, Banks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A hostage negotiator has spoken with him briefly from a distance, and all he says is that he wants to see justice done. He won’t say any more until we get you to the scene. There’s an Armed Response Unit here already, and they’re getting itchy fingers. Apparently one of their marksmen said he can get a clear shot.”

“For crying out loud-”

“Get yourself down here, man. Now! And this time you really will need your wellies. It’s pissing down cats and dogs.”

When Riddle hung up, Banks reached for his raincoat and shot out the door. He had a damn good idea who Vivian Elmsley’s captor might be, and why he was holding her. Behind him, Miles’s mournful trumpet echoed in the empty cottage.

Annie had managed to get away from the station early, before the shit hit the fan, and by six o’clock she was approaching Blackburn on the M65, shuttling from lane to lane to pass the convoys of enormous lorries that seemed to cluster together at regular intervals. It was Friday rush hour, the sky dark with storm clouds that gushed torrential rain over the whole of the North. Lightning forked and flickered over the humped Pennines, and thunder rumbled and crashed like a mad percussionist in the distance. Annie counted the gaps between the lightning and thunder, wondering if that really did tell you how far away the storm was.

What was the gap between her and Banks now? Could it be counted, like that between the thunder and the lightning? She knew she was being a coward, running away, but a little time and distance would give her a clearer perspective and a chance to sort out her feelings.

It was all getting to be too much: First, there was the annoyance she had felt when he went out boozing with his mate in Leeds instead of going to dinner with her; then the time in London he had gone to Bethnal Green to meet his son and made it clear she wasn’t welcome; and then the last straw, Sandra’s appearance at the cottage on Sunday morning. She had made Annie feel about an inch high. And Banks still loved her, that was obvious enough to anyone.

It wasn’t Banks’s fault; it wasn’t because of him she was running, but because of herself. If every little thing like that was going to rub up against her raw nerve ends, then where would she find any peace? She couldn’t blame Banks for making time for friends and family, but nor could she allow herself to be drawn so deeply into his life, tangled up in his past. All she wanted was a simple, no-strings relationship, but there were already too many complications.

If she stayed with him, she would have to meet his son eventually and audition for the Dad’s-new-girlfriend test. There was a daughter, too, and she would probably be even harder to win over. She would no doubt also meet the redoubtable Sandra again. Even though no one needed a co-respondent in divorce cases these days, Annie was beginning to feel like one. And there would be the divorce, something else they’d have to go through.

She didn’t think she could face all the emotional detritus of someone else’s life impinging on her own. She had enough to deal with as it was. No, she should cut her losses and get out now; it was time to go back home, regroup, recuperate, then return to her labyrinth, her meditation and yoga. With any luck, in a couple of weeks Banks would have let her go from his thoughts and found someone else.

Annie had the electronic gizmo in the car stereo set so that no matter what program she was listening to, the nearest local station would cut in with its weather and travel updates. She hadn’t a clue how this worked – some sort of electronic signal, she assumed – but sometimes the interruption continued beyond the traffic and weather into the local news bulletin. Just as she was overtaking a convoy of lorries churning up so much water she could hardly see, the weather cut in, and she also caught the beginning of a news bulletin about a hostage situation at Thornfield Reservoir.

Unfortunately, the same gizmo that caused the bulletins to cut in also cut them off at the most inappropriate times, and this happened halfway through the item. All she had discovered was that the detective writer Vivian Elmsley was being held by an armed man at Thornfield Reservoir.

Annie turned off the tape and jabbed at the search buttons, sending the LCD lights into a digital frenzy. She got country and western, a gardening program and a classical concert, but the scanner couldn’t find the damn newsbreak. She swore and thumped the wheel, swerving dangerously, then tried again, searching manually this time. When she finally did get the right frequency, all she heard were the final words, “…bizarre twist in the affair, it seems the hostage-taker has asked to talk to the detective in charge of the so-called Hobb’s End skeleton case, believed to be Detective Chief Inspector Banks of the Eastvale CID. We’ll give you more details as they come in.”

Well, Annie thought on the outskirts of Blackburn, there was nothing else for it; she would have to go back. She negotiated her way carefully across the lanes of traffic, took the next exit, crossed the overpass, then followed the signs heading east. In this weather, it would take her about an hour, she calculated, and these were no conditions for impatient driving. She hoped she wouldn’t be too late to find out what the hell was going on.

Banks arrived at Thornfield car park, put on his Wellington boots and hurried through the short stretch of woods to the scene. Riddle hadn’t been far wrong when he compared it to a Hollywood production. It probably cost as much as Waterworld . Though the patrol cars, Armed Response Vehicles and Technical Support Unit vans couldn’t drive right to the rim of the reservoir because of the trees, some of them had forced their way through as far as they could, and long, thick wires and cables trailed the rest of the way. The local media people were there, too. The entire bowl of Hobb’s End was floodlit, and the occasional lightning flash gave everything a split-second blue cast. At the center of it all, two small, pathetic figures were cruelly illuminated just beyond the fairy bridge.