Peter Robinson: Children of the Revolution

ACC McLaughlin set off in thinly disguised pursuit, leaving Banks only with a pointed frown that lingered like the Cheshire Cat’s smile.

‘Coffee, Alan?’ asked Gervaise.

‘Please, ma’am.’

Gervaise poured excellent, strong coffee from her machine. Banks popped another couple of painkillers. Of course, he’d given them all the pack of lies they had wanted, but it was a plausible pack of lies. And why not? he told himself.

Gervaise fixed him with a penetrating gaze as she handed him the coffee. ‘Do you know the truth about what happened, Alan?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

‘Is there anything more that needs to be done?’

As far as Banks was concerned, Anthony Litton had murdered Gavin Miller to ensure his continuing silence over Oliver’s true parentage. But it could have been manslaughter. Anthony Litton, Banks also suspected very strongly, had committed suicide. But it could have been an accident. Banks had no proof of any of his suspicions, except what people had said to him in private, and he certainly wasn’t going to attempt to force a DNA test on Lady Chalmers, Joe Jarvis and Oliver Litton. Anthony Litton was dead, and Lady Chalmers was free of her blackmailer. It was true that she had known what was going on, but she couldn’t believe that her brother-in-law was a cold-blooded killer until he tried to murder her. Why should Oliver Litton’s career suffer because of it all? He was the only true innocent in the whole business, insofar as any politician could be called innocent, except for Lady Chalmers’ immediate family, Sir Jeremy, Angelina, Samantha, the daughter he hadn’t met, and Oriana, of course.

There was the remote possibility that Veronica Chalmers was a great actress and that she had masterminded the whole thing, manipulated Anthony Litton into getting rid of Miller for her, even that the whole lot of them were in it together, that she had deliberately bumped Litton’s car on her way out of his gates and run herself through the fence to the edge of the river, but Banks considered that highly unlikely, not being drawn to wide-ranging conspiracy theories. The more links in the chain of a conspiracy, the more likely one is to break. Anthony Litton had, after all, confessed to him that he had killed Miller, though he maintained it was an accident. There had been no sense that he had done so under instruction, and he didn’t seem the kind of man to be easily manipulated. Banks could live with that.

‘No,’ he said, and finished his coffee. Gervaise opened her laptop computer and prepared to start typing. First, she glanced up at Banks and almost smiled at him. ‘Now for Christ’s sake, Alan, go and get your head seen to.’

It was folk night at the Dog and Gun. Banks had a brief chat with Penny Cartwright, who was the main attraction tonight, then took his pint down to the garden wall, rested it on the stone and looked out over the meandering river and water meadows, still saturated here and there, the water right at the upper level of its banks. Back in the pub someone was singing ‘The Water is Wide’. A three-quarter moon shone down on it all, dripping silver on the swirling currents and casting shadows in the overhanging trees. It was one of those magical nights in late November, Indian summer perhaps, when for a short while you can forget the chills, the rain, the fogs, and forget that winter with its snow and freezing rain is so close. His head also felt much better, though the spot where Litton had clobbered him was still tender.

Keeping what transpired in Gervaise’s office from his team, especially those closest to him — Annie, Winsome, Gerry Masterson — had caused an even bigger headache. Fortunately, they were running out of leads. Nothing new had come up and, apart from a few further visits to the college, a chat with Miller’s post-Veronica girlfriend Nancy Winterson, and a little alibi checking, there was nothing left to be done. It wasn’t as if this had never happened before. Not all cases were solved quickly, and this was one that looked like drifting naturally towards the cold case files. Perhaps, Banks thought, at some time in the distant future, a retired detective would pick up the file and put the pieces together. By then, most likely, Oliver Litton would be long gone, and Banks and Lady Chalmers would be in their graves.

Of course, Annie, Winsome and Gerry weren’t stupid, and Banks could tell they had formed their own theories about what might have happened. Gerry, in particular, having done so much research — including discovering that Lady Chalmers had been two months late back for her second year — was in a strong position to work things out, and Banks was convinced that she had perhaps guessed at least part of the truth. But whether out of caution or lack of interest, nobody had said anything about it, and the matter of Gavin Miller’s death had drifted away from them, obscured by a haze of crime statistics, post office robberies and sexual assaults.

But Banks was still feeling a little sad. Though he had been able to rationalise and compartmentalise almost everything else that had happened over the past week or so, one thing that stuck in his mind was how much he had enjoyed his afternoon at the allotment with Joe Jarvis. Far from being a left-wing firebrand, the bagman, rumoured to be in league with the Russians, Jarvis had been a sick man with a headful of memories and, perhaps, still some traces of revolutionary zeal, and of passion for a girl from another world he had known centuries ago. The image of the frail man, not much older than Banks himself, shrunken in on himself, lined and pinched, skin pale and dry as parchment, had haunted him for days. Their discussion about Shostakovich had ranged far and wide, and Banks had come away feeling he had learned far more than he had imparted. He had also felt a strong connection with Jarvis because their working-class roots were similar, though both were educated, or employed, out of their class.

He was also aware that there was something to be resolved that actually could be resolved, though he couldn’t predict the outcome. He had a good idea how it would go, but no absolute certainty, and that was why he had postponed taking any action. Because if he was wrong, the resulting furore could destroy the very lives he wanted to protect.

Quite simply, he had wanted to tell Joe Jarvis that Ronnie Bellamy had borne him a son, and that this son was quite likely to be appointed the next Home Secretary. He could hardly imagine the expression on the dying miner’s face when he told him, but he knew that the irony wouldn’t be lost on him. There he was, a South Yorkshire miner, thorn in the side of government all his life, commie filth to many, and his son was going to be Home Secretary. Of course, it would have validated so many of Jarvis’s — and Banks’s — ideas, about class, about opportunities, the right schools and colleges, knowing the right people and all the rest, as being the only way to the top. Would Oliver Jarvis, son of a Mexborough miner, have had the same opportunities as Oliver Litton, son of a Harley Street specialist, gynaecologist to the gentry, to become Home Secretary? Of course he wouldn’t. No more than Banks had himself. His parents had known nobody of influence, had not had the money to send him to the best schools. Besides, even if they had, he wouldn’t have spoken with the right accent to be accepted there.

In protecting the wealthy and privileged, in this case Lady Chalmers and her family, Banks had denied Joe Jarvis the knowledge of his son and his achievements. For, in the end, he hadn’t told him. There wasn’t a day had gone by since that morning in Gervaise’s office, when Banks hadn’t been on the verge of getting into his car and driving down to Mexborough. In the end, it was only the news that Joe Jarvis had been taken into hospital in a coma from which he was not expected to recover that stopped him. Even then, he had fantasised about turning up at his beside and whispering the revelation to Jarvis, imagining a slight twitch at the corner of the miner’s lips that might be an unconscious tic or the image of a smile.