Peter Robinson - The Hanging Valley

‘Yes. It’s just a damn shame he wasn’t more efficient.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If he’d gone back and told the Duggans what he’d found out before rushing off to Yorkshire. If he’d just filed some kind of report…’

‘He must have been keen,’ Folley said. ‘Some of them are, you know.’

At that moment, Sergeant Hatchley came in from Woodstock. ‘Bloody waste of time,’ he grumbled, slouching in a chair and fumbling for a cigarette.

‘Nothing?’ Banks asked.

‘Nowt. But judging by the expression on your face, you’re that cat that got the cream. Am I right?’

‘You are.’ He told Hatchley about his interview with the Duggans.

‘So that’s it, then?’

‘Looks like it. Stephen Collier must’ve met up with this young girl, Cheryl Duggan, gone drinking with her then taken her to the meadows by the river for sex. It was unusually warm for that time of year. He got a bit rough, they fought, and he drowned her. Or she fell in and he tried to save her. It could have been an accident, but it was a situation he couldn’t afford to be associated with. Maybe he was on drugs; we’ll never know. He might not even have been responsible for the bruising and the rough sexual treatment she’d received; that could have been a previous customer. Collier might even have been comforting her, trying to persuade her back on to the straight and narrow. I suppose the version will vary according to what kind of person you think Stephen was. One mistake — one terrible mistake — and three deaths have to follow. Christ, it could even have been some silly student prank.’

‘Do you think he killed himself?’

Banks shook his head. ‘I don’t know. In his state of mind, if he’d been carrying the guilt all this time and feeling the pressure build, suicide and accidental death might have been much the same thing. It didn’t matter any more, so he just got careless. Katie Greenock said he was planning to leave Swainshead, and I suppose he didn’t much mind how he went.’

‘What do we do now?’ Hatchley asked.

Banks looked at his watch. ‘It’s three thirty,’ he said. ‘I suggest we pay Stephen’s old tutor a visit and see if we can find out whether he was in the habit of taking up with young prostitutes. We might find some clue as to what really happened, who was responsible for what. Then we’ll head back home. We should be able to make it before nine if we’re on the road soon.’ He turned to Folley and held out his hand. ‘Thanks again, Ted. We appreciate all you’ve done. If I can ever return the favour…’

Folley laughed. ‘In Swainsdale? You must be joking. But you’re welcome. And do pay us a social call sometime. A few days boating in the Thames Valley would be just the ticket for the wife and kids.’

‘I will,’ Banks said. ‘Come on, Jim lad, time to hit the road again.’

Hatchley dragged himself to his feet, said goodbye to Folley and followed Banks out on to St Aldates.

‘There you are,’ Banks said, near Blackwell’s on Broad Street. ‘Caps and gowns.’

True enough, students were all over the place: walking, cycling, standing to chat outside the bookshops.

‘Bloody poofters,’ Hatchley said.

They got past the porter, crossed the quadrangle, and found Dr Barber in his office at Stephen’s old college.

‘Sherry, gentlemen?’ he asked, after they had introduced themselves.

Banks accepted because he liked dry sherry; Hatchley took one because he had never been known to refuse a free drink.

Barber’s study was cluttered with books, journals and papers. A student essay entitled ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Evidence of Contemporary Accounts’ lay on the desk but didn’t quite obscure an old green-covered Penguin crime paperback. Banks tilted his head and glanced sideways at the title: The Moving Toyshop, by Edmund Crispin. He had never heard of it, but it wasn’t quite the reading material he’d have expected to find in the office of an Oxford don.

While Dr Barber poured, Banks stood by the window and looked over the neat clipped quadrangle at the light stone façades of the college.

Barber passed them their drinks and lit his pipe. Its smoke sweetened the air. In deference to his guests, he opened the window a little, and a draught of fresh air sucked the smoke out. In appearance, Barber had the air of an aged cleric, and he smelled of Pears soap. He reminded Banks of the actor Wilfrid Hyde-White.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Barber said, when Banks had asked him about Collier. ‘Let me check my files. I’ve got records going back over twenty years, you know. It pays to know whom one has had pass through these hallowed halls. As a historian myself, I place great value on documentation. Now, let me see… Stephen Collier, yes. Braughtmore School, Yorkshire. Is that the one? Yes? I remember him. Not terribly distinguished academically, but a pleasant enough fellow. What’s he been up to?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Banks said. ‘He died a few days ago and we want to know why.’

Barber sat down and picked up his sherry. ‘Good Lord! He wasn’t murdered, was he?’

‘Why would you think that?’

Barber shrugged. ‘One doesn’t usually get a visit from the Yorkshire police over nothing. One doesn’t usually get visits from the police at all.’

‘We don’t know,’ Banks said. ‘It could have been accidental, or it could have been suicide.’

‘Suicide? Oh dear. Collier was a rather serious young man — a bit too much so, if I remember him clearly. But suicide?’

‘Possibly.’

‘A lot can change in a few years,’ Barber said. He frowned and relit his pipe. Banks remembered his own struggles with the infernal engines, and the broken pipe that now hung on his wall in Eastvale Police Headquarters. ‘As I said,’ Barber went on, ‘Collier seemed a sober sensible kind of fellow. Still, who can fathom the mysteries of the human heart? Fronti nulla fides.’

‘There’s no real type for suicide,’ Banks said. ‘Anyone, pushed far enough—’

‘I suppose you’re the kind of policeman who thinks anyone can become a murderer too, given the circumstances.’

Banks nodded.

‘I’m afraid I can’t go along with that,’ Barber said. ‘I’m no psychologist, but I’d say it takes a special type. Take me, for example, I could never conceive of doing such a thing. The thought of jail, for a start, would deter me. And I should think that everyone would notice my guilt. As a child, I once stole a lemon tart from the school tuck shop while Mrs Wiggins was in the back, and I felt myself turn red from head to toe. No, Chief Inspector, I’d never make a murderer.’

‘I’m thankful for that,’ Banks said. ‘I don’t need to ask you for an alibi now, I suppose.’

Barber looked at him for a moment, unsure what to do, then laughed.

‘Stephen Collier,’ Banks said.

‘Yes, yes. Forgive me. I’m getting old; I tend to ramble. But it’s coming back. He was the kind who really did have to work hard to do well. So many others have a natural ability — they can dash off a good essay the night before — but you’d always find Collier in the library all week before a major piece of work was due. Conscientious.’

‘How did he get on with the other students?’

‘Well enough, as far as I know. Collier was a bit of a loner though. Kept himself to himself. I hardly need to tell you, Chief Inspector, that quite a number of young lads around these parts go in for high jinks. It’s always been like that, ever since students started coming here in the thirteenth century. And there’s always been a bit of a running battle between the university authorities and the people of the city: town and gown, as we say. The students aren’t vindictive, you realize, just high-spirited. Sometimes they cause more damage than they intend.’