Peter Robinson - When the Music's Over

‘Hidden depths,’ said Gerry, with an enigmatic smile. ‘Hidden depths.’

The bottom of the door slid easily over the few scattered bills and junk mail the postman had delivered after Banks left for work that morning. He didn’t even bother bending to pick them up. They could wait.

His front door led directly into a small study where he kept his computer, a comfortable armchair, table lamp and couple of bookcases. It used to be his main living room, but that had changed after the fire, when the insurance had allowed him not only to have the gutted cottage restored, but to enlarge the kitchen, add a conservatory at the back and an entertainment room along one side. That was where he usually watched TV or DVDs, kept his audio and video equipment and entertained visitors. He had speakers rigged up all over the house, so he could listen to music in just about every room. And now there was an extra en suite bedroom upstairs for when Brian or Tracy wanted to stay.

The problem was that Banks rarely saw his children these days. Brian was either on the road with his band, the Blue Lamps, or in the recording studio, and Tracy was studying for a master’s degree in Newcastle, working part-time as a research assistant to one of the profs. She also had a boyfriend, Geoff, who lived in St Andrews, and she spent most of her spare time up there with him. Still, they both phoned from time to time, and both were happy and doing fine as far as Banks knew. For a while, Banks’s last girlfriend Oriana had lived with him on and off, but they had split up, amicably enough, a month ago and all vestiges of her presence were gone. Definitely off. She was a beautiful, intelligent and desirable young woman, and he missed her. But he was used to living alone, and he soon settled back into his old routines.

Banks first went upstairs to his bedroom, took off his suit and shirt and put on jeans and a T-shirt. It was another sultry evening, and back downstairs he opened the windows in the conservatory before pouring himself a large glass of Barossa’s best Shiraz and raising a silent toast to Peter Lehmann, his favourite winemaker, who had died not so long ago. He felt like listening to something a bit different from the string quartets and trios he had been playing lately, so he flipped through his CDs in the entertainment room and put on Lana del Rey’s Ultraviolence. He hadn’t expected to like her after all the hype over her first album, but he’d seen a performance clip from Glastonbury and had enjoyed both the sound and the summer dress she was wearing. He took easily to the spaced-out music, the sound-wash of distant, distorted, swirling guitars and haunting background vocals of her second album, and her delivery, attitude and lyrics intrigued him. She seemed curiously disengaged yet full of disturbed and conflicting emotions and imagery, the voice both vulnerable and threatening. It was often uncomfortable listening. Anyone who dared quote the old Crystals song ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’ in this day and age had a lot of nerve. And if Del Rey’s version of Jessie Mae Robinson’s ‘The Other Woman’ wasn’t as powerful as Nina Simone’s, it was still pretty damn good.

Naturally, the title track ‘Ultraviolence’ got Banks thinking about the Caxton case, as well as the unidentified victim on Bradham Lane Annie had told him about. As detective superintendent, he was head of the Homicide and Major Crimes Unit, so in addition to the Caxton investigation, he also had to keep on top of any other cases the squad was handling. He knew he could trust Annie to do a thorough job, and he had no intention of dogging her every footstep. Yes, she herself had been raped — he remembered the shock he had felt when she had first recounted the experience to him in a cosy Soho bistro — but she would use her anger to fuel her search for who had beaten the poor girl to death. And if her foot slipped and happened to connect with his wedding tackle when she found him... well, these things happen to the best of us. Even in this day and age. Banks would probably be too busy to be of much use to her, but he would keep an eye on the case and try to be there if she needed him.

When Banks thought about his own assignment, he realised that he felt differently about Danny Caxton since he and Winsome had talked with Linda Palmer. It wasn’t simply that he believed her story — though he did — but that he had found her honesty, strength and intelligence in talking about it had inspired him. He wanted to get Caxton, however old and famous he was. Wanted to knock that ‘Big Smile’ right off his face. As easy as it was to be cynical about historical abuse claims — and Banks was as guilty of that as anyone — he didn’t doubt that bad things had happened back then, things that had not been investigated for a variety of reasons.

Banks wanted to find out why there had been no official investigation after Linda Palmer had reported the rape. That must have taken a lot of courage for a fourteen-year-old girl, even if her mother had pushed her into it and accompanied her to the police station. Why had nobody done anything? DCI Ken Blackstone, who worked out of the new Leeds District HQ on Elland Road, might be able to help him answer that question, and it would be good to see his old friend again. But he didn’t hold out a great deal of hope. Like memories, old police files become discoloured, crumble to dust and blow away in the wind. Or someone nicks them.

Banks was also interested in the other man Linda had mentioned. If someone else had been present, someone even younger than Caxton, there was always a chance that he was still alive. Tracking him down would not only result in the apprehension of another rapist, it could also help strengthen the case against Caxton, especially if the accomplice could be made to talk. From what Linda Palmer had said, he may have been a reluctant participant, which meant that he may have been plagued with conscience over the years, something that might make him keen to get things off his chest in the hope of making some sort of deal. But how to track him down? Even the scene of the crime no longer existed.

All in all, Banks knew that he had his work cut out. Everything his team came up with would be fed into the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System (HOLMES) along with information from all the other county force investigations into allegations against Danny Caxton. If something was there about the other man, it would turn up. The days when a rapist or killer could commit a crime in one county and no other counties would know about it were all but gone since the problems with the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. It still happened occasionally, mostly due to human error, which no number of computers could ever eliminate, but even before the NCA came along, the Ripper case had taught all the county forces a huge lesson.

Banks refilled his wine glass and replaced Lana del Rey with Mark Knopfler’s Tracker . There was a pleasant cross-breeze, but he still felt his T-shirt sticking to him. It was that time of day he loved, between sunset and dark — the gloaming, as the Anglo-Saxons called it — when the swifts had returned to their nests and the bats had yet to come out. The light seemed to possess an ethereal, ineffable quality, perhaps intensified by its transience, and Knopfler’s smooth vocals and flowing melodic guitar work provided a fitting accompaniment.

It never got truly dark for long in the northern summers, and Banks had found himself adapting his routine to the cycle of the day. It meant he didn’t get as much sleep, as he found it difficult to drop off while it was still light outside, so he tended to stop up later. But he rose early, and he usually stayed late at the office most evenings and ate a sandwich while he finished the day’s paperwork. Once home, he’d do exactly what he was doing now, if he didn’t nip down to the Dog and Gun for a quick pint and a chat with Penny Cartwright, or whoever happened to be there from the folk crowd.