Peter Robinson: A Necessary End

"Don't know, sir."

"Find out. If he did, you know what to do."

"Yes, sir."

"And get Dr Glendenning down there. We need him to examine the body. We've got to move quickly on this, before things get cold."

"I understand, sir."

"Good. Off you go."

Banks hung up and turned to Richmond, who stood in the doorway nervously smoothing his moustache. "Go downstairs, would you, Phil, and tell whoever's in charge to get things quietened down and make sure no one sneaks out. Then call York and ask if they can spare a few more men for the night. If they can't, try Darlington. And you'd better get someone to rope off the street from the market square to the Town Hall, too."

"What's up?" Richmond asked.

Banks signed and ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. "It looks like we've got a murder on our hands and a hundred or more bloody suspects."

The wind chimes tinkled and rain hissed on the rough moorland grass. Mara Delacey had just put the children to bed and read them Beatrix Potter's Tale of Squirrel Nut kin. Now it was time for her to relax, to enjoy the stillness and isolation, the play of silence and natural sound. It reminded her of the old days when she used to meditate on her mantra.

As usual, it had been a tiring day: washing to do, meals to cook, children to take care of. But it had also been satisfying. She had managed to fit in a couple of hours throwing pots in the back of Elspeth's craft shop in Relton. If it was her lot in life to be an earth mother, she thought with a smile, better to be one here, away from the rigid rules and self-righteous spirituality of the ashram, where she hadn't even been able to sneak a cigarette after dinner. She was glad she'd left all that rubbish behind.

Now she could enjoy some time to herself without feeling she ought to be out chasing after converts or singing the praises of the guru — not that many did now he was serving his stretch in jail for fraud and tax evasion. The devotees had scattered: some, lost and lonely, had gone to look for new leaders; others, like Mara, had moved on to something else.

She had met Seth Cotton a year after he had bought the place near Relton, which he had christened Maggie's Farm.

As soon as he showed it to her, she knew it had to be her home. It was a typical eighteenth-century Dales farmhouse set in a couple of acres of land on the moors above the dale. The walls were built of limestone, with gritstone corners and a flagstone roof. Recessed windows looked north over the dale, and the heavy door-head, supported on stacked quoins, bore the initials T.J.H. - standing for the original owner — and the date 1765. The only addition apart from Seth's workshop, a shed at the far end of the back garden, was a limestone porch with a slate roof. Beyond the back-garden fence, about fifty yards east of the main house, stood an old barn, which Seth had been busy renovating when she met him.

He had split it into an upper studio-apartment, where Rick Trelawney, an artist, lived with his son, and a one-bedroom flat on the ground floor, occupied by Zoe Hardacre and her daughter. Paul, their most recent tenant, had a room in the main house.

Although the barn was more modern inside, Mara preferred the farmhouse. Its front door led directly into the spacious living-room, a clean and tidy place furnished with a collection of odds and sods: an imitation Persian carpet, a reupholstered fifties sofa, and a large table and four chairs made of white pine by Seth himself. Large beanbag cushions lay scattered against the walls for comfort.

On the wall opposite the stone fireplace hung a huge tapestry of a Chinese scene. It showed enormous mountains, their snow-streaked peaks sharp as needles above the pine forests. In the middle-distance, a straggling line of tiny human figures moved up a winding path. Mara looked at it a lot. There was no overhead light in the room. She kept the shaded lamps dim and supplemented them with fat red candles because she liked the shadows the flames cast on the tapestry and the whitewashed stone walls. Her favourite place to curl up was near the window in an old rocking chair Seth had restored. There, she could hear the wind chimes clearly as she sipped wine and read.

In her early days, she had devoured Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Carlos

Castaneda and the rest, but at thirty-eight she found their works embarrassingly adolescent, and her tastes had reverted to the classics she remembered from her university days. There was something about those long Victorian novels that suited a place as isolated and slow-moving as Maggie's Farm.

Now she decided to settle down and lose herself in The Mill on the Floss. A hand-rolled Old Holborn and a glass of Barsac would also go down nicely. And maybe some music. She walked to the stereo, selected Hoist's The Planets, the side with "Saturn", "Uranus" and "Neptune," then nestled in the chair to read by candlelight. The others were all at the demo, and they'd be sure to stop off for a pint or two at the Black Sheep in Relton on the way back. The kids were sleeping in the spare room upstairs, so she wouldn't have to keep nipping out to the barn to check on them. It was half-past nine now. She could probably count on at least a couple of hours to herself.

But she couldn't seem to concentrate. The hissing outside stopped. It was replaced by the steady dripping of rain from the eaves-troughs, the porch and the trees that protected Maggie's Farm from the harsh west winds. The chimes began to sound like warning bells. There was something in the air. If Zoe were home, she'd no doubt have plenty to say about psychic forces-probably the moon.

Shrugging off her feeling of unease, Mara returned to her reading: "And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon…." It was no good; she couldn't get into it. George Eliot's spell just wasn't working tonight. Mara put down the book and concentrated on the music.

As the ethereal choir entered towards the end of "Neptune," the front door rattled open and Paul rushed in. His combat jacket was dark with rain and his tight jeans stuck to his stick-insect legs.

Mara frowned. "You're back early," she said. "Where are the others?"

"I don't know." Paul was out of breath and his voice sounded shaky. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook at the back of the door. "I ran back by myself over the moors."

"But that's more than four miles. What's wrong, Paul? Why didn't you wait for Seth and the others? You could have come back in the van."

"There was some trouble," Paul said. "Things got nasty." He took a cigarette from his pack of Players and lit it, cupping it in his hands the way soldiers do in old war films. His hands were trembling. Mara noticed again how short and stubby his fingers were, nails bitten to the quick. She rolled another cigarette. Paul started to pace the room.

"What's that?" Mara asked, pointing in alarm to the fleshy spot at the base of his left thumb. "It looks like blood. You've hurt yourself."

"It's nothing."

Mara reached out, but he pulled his hand away.

"At least let me put something on it."

"I told you, it's nothing. I'll see to it later. Don't you want to hear what happened?"

Mara knew better than to persist. "Sit down, then," she said. "You're driving me crazy pacing around like that."

Paul flopped onto the cushions by the wall, taking care to keep his bloodied hand out of sight.

"Well?" Mara said.

"The police set on us, that's what. Fucking bastards."

"Why?"

"They just laid into us, that's all. Don't ask me why. I don't know how cops think. Can I have some wine?"

Mara poured him a glass of Barsac. He took a sip and pulled a face.