Peter Robinson: Careless Love

When he switched on the shaded lamp by his wicker chair, its reflection swallowed the view. Banks turned on the small fan heater, as it got especially cold in the conservatory on winter nights.

No matter what, he knew he was lucky to live where he did and vowed they’d have to carry him out feet first. Though he could do without the terrible winter storms that brought the county to a standstill, nowhere else could he imagine enjoying all the seasons as much as he did, from the turning leaves of autumn to the first fogs of November, the December frost, then the snowdrops and bluebells of early spring and the hot still days of summer when bees droned among the fuchsias, and tits and finches flitted around the garden all day, then the swallows and swifts took to the skies in early evening. Most of the birds remained throughout the winter, except the swallows and swifts, which flew off to South Africa. But there were plenty of robins, blackbirds and great tits. He had even seen a tawny owl sitting on the fence at the bottom of his garden early one morning the previous week, just as the light was growing. It was probably the closest he had ever seen an owl and the experience had made him feel strangely light-hearted all day.

Banks wasn’t even lonely most of the time — it had been over twenty years since he had split up with Sandra — but there were days when he ached for a companion, a lover, someone to share it all with. Time was running out for such things, he realised, and there was nothing more pathetic than an old man in a desperate search for young love. Better remain by himself than become a figure of fun or vilification.

He had come close to relationships a few times, most recently with Jenny Fuller, an old friend, almost lover, returned from overseas. But time and distance had changed them both, and it wasn’t to be. Jenny had made it clear that while she still wanted to remain friends, she had no interest in picking up from where they had left off so many years ago.

Linda Palmer, a poet he had met through one of his cases, had intrigued and attracted him enough to make him think that something more might develop between them, but there was distance about her, a strong aura of noli me tangere , which he attributed mostly to the circumstances that had brought them together in the first place — an investigation into her historical rape at the age of fourteen by a high-profile celebrity. Maybe she just didn’t fancy him, and that was all there was to it.

Penny Cartwright, the folk singer, clearly wasn’t interested, either, and she would never let him forget that he had treated her as a murder suspect in one of his first cases in Eastvale. They got along well enough. Banks admired her talent, went to listen to her sing in the Dog and Gun whenever he could, but he had given up any hope of more.

And then there was Annie Cabbot.

Banks and Annie had both been lonely of late, Annie since she had split up with her last boyfriend Nick Fleming. And it had been a few years, Banks realised, since he and his last lover Oriana had parted company. There were moments when he and Annie had almost consoled one another, but something always held them back. Whether it was fear of rejection or fear of success, neither seemed quite sure. Maybe it was the way times had changed, the way the rules that forbade abuse of power in the workplace sometimes also destroyed the possibility of love. Any relationship Banks and Annie had had in the past, they had entered into of their own free will. Mutual. Consensual. But that seemed irrelevant these days. In certain moments, Banks wondered if all this would hold them back for ever. They still flirted occasionally, and he sometimes wished it was more than that. God knew, he still had feelings for her.

But tonight he was happy with his wine and cheese and Chet Baker playing his trumpet. He settled back in the cushion of his wicker chair and mulled over the day.

He was still troubled about the dead girl, Adrienne Munro. It never went away, even after all these years, that feeling that grabbed and twisted his gut every time the victim was a young girl. He felt it every time he saw Linda Palmer, even though she was close to his own age now. He had to admit that he had no idea exactly what Adrienne was a victim of yet, but she was certainly dead, and that was upsetting enough.

As he did so often in these cases, Banks thought of his own daughter Tracy when she was Adrienne’s age, so full of hope and a sense of immortality. She had gone through a difficult period later, including an almost fatal relationship with a serious bad boy, but she had come out at the other end a stronger person with a clearer sense of where she wanted to go and how to get there. Now she was working on her doctorate in history not far away in Newcastle, teaching part time. She had a flat, a steady boyfriend, of whom Banks almost approved, and all was well for the moment. He thought of phoning her but decided it was too late. He would call her tomorrow.

Brian, his son, was away on tour with his band The Blue Lamps most of the time, endlessly on the road or in the recording studio. Fame didn’t seem to have changed him much, from what Banks had seen, though it hadn’t given him much of a chance to meet someone special and put down roots anywhere. He had once confessed to Banks, after a glass of wine too many, that he was often lonely on the road, that groupies weren’t really his scene and the rock-and-roll life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially when you were in your early thirties.

Adrienne Munro, sitting in that car, staring straight ahead with her dead eyes, had got to Banks even more than some of the more obvious victims of violence he came across in his job. So far, he had nothing but questions.

A lot depended on Dr Glendenning’s post-mortem results, but as far as Banks was concerned, no matter what conclusion the doctor came to, there was a villain out there who needed catching and putting away. Even if Adrienne Munro had died from a self-administered overdose of drugs, then someone had supplied her with those drugs, and someone or something had pushed her towards the edge, and over. Even if she had died of a heart attack or a cerebral haemorrhage, someone had moved her body to the abandoned Focus, perhaps without first checking to make sure that she was dead. Why anyone had done that remained a mystery. It could have been a tasteless joke, putting her in a car marked POLICE AWARE. Or perhaps a well-wisher had wanted her to be found quickly, but hadn’t wanted to become entangled in an investigation into her death? Well, he would see about that. The unwritten rule on dealing with suspicious deaths was that it was better to err on the side of suspicion and put in place scene preservation and crime management procedures unnecessarily than fail to do so, only to discover later that the original suspicions were correct.

The Chet Baker CD had finished, and Banks’s glass was empty. He wandered into the kitchen and refilled it, then went into the entertainment room again, where he programmed the system to play ‘Après un rêve’ from the hoard of music on his computer. He had a vocal version by Véronique Gens, but he chose the violin version by Nicola Benedetti, whose poster Adrienne had on her wall. He added her Thaïs ‘Meditation’ to the mini playlist, too, and stuck on Vaughan William’s ‘The Lark Ascending’ and Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ just because he liked them so much. Those four pieces, along with another glass of claret, should see him to bed, he thought, though he doubted he would enjoy a deep and dreamless sleep. They were few and far between these days.

While Banks was attending the post-mortem of Adrienne Munro and Winsome was following up on the forensic results from the Belderfell Pass crime scene the following morning, DI Annie Cabot and DC Geraldine Masterson were at the scene of another suspicious death.