A Necessary End

More Acclaim for
A Necessary End

“
A Necessary End
is proof that Robinson has his craft well in hand … The perfect weekend escape.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“Well-written, and with a rich and varied cast of believable characters,
A Necessary End
is Robinson's best novel to date.”

—
The London Free Press

“A good mystery and a contemporary variation … With the publishing of
A Necessary End
, I think we can now be assured that we have a series that is going to be with us for a long time to come.”

—
The Vancouver Sun

“Thoughtful ... vivid ... challenging ... Like the region that breeds them, the people in Robinson's mystery flaunt their colors but keep their secrets.”

—New York Times Book Review

Acclaim for
A Dedicated Man

“A perfect little portrait of a village in the Yorkshire dales … First-rate stuff for the detective story buff.”

—
The Province
(Vancouver)

“A first class story.”

—
Toronto Star

“
A Dedicated Man
is a satisfying sequel to Robinson's first published novel,
Gallows View
. The slow pace and delightful characterizations allow the narrator to expound on the lives and mores of rural Yorkshire without interrupting the flow of the story or the reader's absorption.”

—
Quill & Quire

Acclaim for
Gallows View

“The climax, choreographed to a furious pace, should fill the land with the sound of pages turning.”

—
Toronto Star

“This is a first novel that will knock you over with its maturity.”

—Howard Engel

“Alan Banks shows promise of developing into the kind of avuncular copper that fans of Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford love.”

—
The Globe and Mail

Acclaim for
The Hanging Valley

“A terrific book with a complex plot about murder and madness in the Yorkshire dales.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“[Peter Robinson] knows how to write an extremely good mystery and keep the reader hopping from page to page.”

—
The Hamilton Spectator

“Evocative ... Intriguing ... Emotionally rich.”

—New York Times Book Review

PENGUIN CANADA

A NECESSARY END

Other Inspector Banks mysteries

Gallows View

A Dedicated Man

The Hanging Valley

Past Reason Hated

Wednesday's Child

Final Account

Innocent Graves

Dead Right

In a Dry Season

Cold is the Grave

Aftermath

The Summer That Never Was

Playing with Fire

Strange Affair

Piece of My Heart

Inspector Banks collections

Meet Inspector Banks

(includes
Gallows View, A Dedicated Man
and
A Necessary End
)

Inspector Banks Investigates

(includes
The Hanging Valley, Past Reason Hated
and
Wednesday's Child
)

The Return of Inspector Banks

(includes
Innocent Graves, Final Account
and
Dead Right
)

Also by Peter Robinson

Caedmon's Song

No Cure for Love

Not Safe After Dark

A NECESSARY END

Peter Robinson

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1989

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1990

Published in this edition, 2006

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright © Peter Robinson, 1989

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Robinson, Peter, 1950–

A necessary end : an Inspector Banks mystery / Peter Robinson.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305102-2

ISBN-10: 0-14-305102-4

I. Title.

PS8585.O35176N43    2006      C813'.54      C2006-901658-5

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see

www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-399-6858, ext. 477 or 474

For Martin, Chris, Steve

and Paul—old friends

who all contributed.

Author's Note

ONE

I

The demonstrators huddled in the March drizzle outside Eastvale Community Centre. Some of them held home-made placards aloft, but the anti-nuclear slogans had run in the rain like the red lettering at the beginning of horror movies. It was hard to make out exactly what they said any more. By eight-thirty, everyone was thoroughly soaked and fed up. No television cameras recorded the scene, and not one reporter mingled with the crowd. Protests were
passé
, and the media were only interested in what was going on inside. Besides, it was cold, wet and dark out there.

Despite all the frustration, the demonstrators had been patient so far. Their wet hair lay plastered to their skulls and water dribbled down their necks, but still they had held up their illegible placards and shifted from foot to foot for over an hour. Now, however, many of them were beginning to feel claustrophobic. North Market Street was narrow and only dimly lit by old-fashioned gaslamps. The protestors were hemmed in on all sides by police, who had edged so close that there was nowhere left to spread out. An extra line of police stood guard at the top of the steps by the heavy oak doors, and opposite the hall more officers blocked the snickets that led to the winding back streets and the open fields beyond Cardigan Drive.

Finally, just to get breathing space, some people at the edges began pushing. The police shoved back hard. The agitation rippled its way to the solidly packed heart of the crowd, and suppressed tempers rose. When someone brought a placard down on a copper's head, the other demonstrators cheered. Someone else threw a bottle. It smashed
harmlessly, high against the wall. Then a few people began to wave their fists in the air and the crowd started chanting, “WE WANT IN! LET US IN!” Isolated scuffles broke out. They were still struggling for more ground, and the police pushed back to contain them. It was like sitting on the lid of a boiling pot; something had to give.

Later, nobody could say exactly how it happened, or who started it, but most of the protestors questioned claimed that a policeman yelled, “Let's clobber the buggers!” and that the line advanced down the steps, truncheons out. Then all hell broke loose.

II

It was too hot inside the Community Centre. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks fidgeted with his tie. He hated ties, and when he had to wear one he usually kept the top button of his shirt undone to alleviate the choking feeling. But this time he toyed with the loose knot out of boredom, as well as discomfort. He wished he was at home with his arm around Sandra and a tumbler of good single-malt Scotch in his hand.

But home had been a cold and lonely place these past two days because Sandra and the children were away. Her father had suffered a mild stroke, and she had taken off down to Croyden to help her mother cope. Banks wished she were back. They had married young, and he found that the single life, after almost twenty years of (mostly) happy marriage, had little to recommend it.

But the main cause of Banks's ill humour droned on and on, bringing to the crowded Eastvale Community Centre a particularly nasal brand of Home Counties monetarism. It was the Honourable Honoria Winstanley, MP, come to pour oil on the troubled waters of North-South relations. Eastvale had been blessed with her presence because, though not large, it was the biggest and most important town in that part of the country between York and Darlington. It was also enjoying a period of unprecedented and inexplicable growth, thus marking itself out as a shining example of popular capitalism at work. Banks was present as a gesture of courtesy, sandwiched between two taciturn Special Branch agents. Superintendent
Gristhorpe had no doubt assigned him, Banks thought, because he had no desire to listen to the Hon Honoria himself. If pushed, Banks described himself as a moderate socialist, but politics bored him and politicians usually made him angry.