A Necessary End (20 page)

Downstairs, Banks and Richmond went back into the kitchen and got Mara to accompany them with the keys. They left by the back door and found themselves in a large rectangular garden with a low fence. Most of the place was given over to rows of vegetables—dark empty furrows at that time of year—but there was also a small square sand-box, on which a plastic lorry with big red wheels and a yellow bucket and spade lay abandoned. At the far end of the garden stood a brick building with an asphalt roof, just a little larger than a garage, and to their left was a gate that led to the barn.

“We'll have a look over there first,” Banks said to Mara, who fiddled with the key-ring as she followed them to the converted barn. It wasn't a big place, nowhere the size of many that had been converted into bunk barns for tourists, but it followed the traditional Dales design, on the outside at least, in that it was built of stone.

Mara opened the door to the downstairs unit first, Zoe's flat. Banks was surprised at the transformation from humble barn into comfortable living-quarters; Seth had done a really good job. The woodwork was mostly unpainted, and if it looked a little makeshift, it was certainly sturdy and attractive in its simplicity. Not only, he gathered, did each unit have its own entrance, but there were cooking and bathing facilities, too, as well as a large, sparsely furnished living-room, one master bedroom, and a smaller one for Luna. But there was no sign of Paul Boyd.

The places were perfectly self-contained, Banks noticed, and if Rick and Zoe hadn't become friendly with Seth and Mara, they could easily have led quite separate lives there. Noting Mara's reaction to Burgess's threat, and remembering what Jenny had said at dinner, Banks guessed that Mara's fondness for the children was one unifying factor—anyone would be glad of a built-in baby-sitter—and perhaps another was their shared politics.

Upstairs, the layout was different. Both bedrooms were quite small, and most of the space was taken up by Rick's studio, which was much less tidy than Zoe's large work-table downstairs, with books and charts spread out on its surface. Seth had added three skylights along the length of the roof to provide plenty of light, and canvases, palettes and odd tubes of paint littered the place. From what Banks could see, Rick Trelawney's paintings were, as Tim Fenton had said, unmarketable, being mostly haphazard splashes of colour, or collages of found objects. Sandra knew quite a bit about art, and Banks had learned from her that many paintings he wouldn't even store in the attic were regarded by experts as works of genius. But these were different, even he could tell; they made Jackson Pollock's angry explosions look as comprehensible as Constable's landscapes.

As he poked around among the stuff, though, Banks discovered a stack of small water-colour landscapes covered with an old sack. They resembled the one he'd noticed in the front room on his last visit, and he realized that they were, after all, Rick's work. So that was how he made his money! Selling pretty local scenes to tourists and little old ladies to support his revolutionary art.

Mara, who all the time had remained quiet, watching them with her arms folded, locked up as they left and led the way back to the house.

“You two go ahead,” Banks said when he had closed the gate behind them. “I'm off to take a peek in the shed. It's not locked, is it?”

Mara shook her head and went back into the house with Richmond.

Banks opened the door. The shed was dark inside and smelled of wood shavings, sawdust, oiled metal, linseed oil and varnish. He tugged the chain dangling in front of him, and a naked bulb lit up, revealing Seth's workshop. Planks, boards and pieces of furniture at
various stages of incompletion leaned against the walls. Spider webs hung in the dark corners. Seth had a lathe and a full set of well-kept tools—planes, saws, hammers, bevels—and boxes of nails and screws rested on makeshift wooden shelves around the walls. There was no room for anyone to hide.

At the far end of the workshop, an old Remington office typewriter sat on a desk beside an open filing cabinet. Inside, Banks found only correspondence connected with Seth's carpentry business: estimates, invoices, receipts, orders. Close by was a small bookcase. Most of the books were about antique furniture and cabinet-making techniques, but there were a couple of old paperback novels and two books on the human brain, one of which was called
The Tip of the Iceberg
. Maybe, Banks thought, Seth harboured a secret ambition to become a brain surgeon. Already a carpenter, he probably had a better start than most.

He walked back to the door and was about to turn off the light when he noticed a tattered notebook on a ledge by the door. It was full of measurements, addresses and phone numbers—obviously Seth's workbook. When he flipped through it, he noticed that one leaf had been torn out roughly. The following page still showed the faint impression of heavily scored numbers. Banks took a sheet from his own notebook, placed it on top and rubbed over it with a pencil. He could just make out the number in relief: 1139. It was hard to tell if it was in the same handwriting as the rest because the numbers were so much larger and more exaggerated.

Picking up the workbook, he turned to leave and almost bumped into Seth standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“This book,” Banks said. “What do you use it for?”

“Work notes. When I need to order new materials, make measurements, note customers' addresses. That kind of thing.”

“There's a page missing.” Banks showed him. “What does that mean—1139?”

“Surely you can't expect me to remember that,” Seth said. “It must have been a long time ago. It was probably some measurement or other.”

“Why did you tear it out?”

Seth looked at him, deep-set brown eyes wary and resentful. “I don't know. Maybe it wasn't important. Maybe I'd written something on the back that I had to take with me somewhere. It's just an old notebook.”

“But there's only one page missing. Doesn't that strike you as odd?”

“I've already said it doesn't.”

“Did you tear out the page to give to Paul Boyd? Is it a number for him to call? Part of an address?”

“No. I've told you, I don't remember why I tore it out. It obviously wasn't very important.”

“I'll have to take this notebook away with me.”

“Why?”

“There are names and addresses in it. We'll have to check and see if Boyd's gone to any of them. As I understand it, he did spend quite a bit of time working with you in here.”

“But it's
my
notebook. Why would he be at any of those places? They're just people who live in the dale, people I've done work for. I don't want the police bothering them. It could lose me business.”

“We still have to check.”

Seth swore under his breath. “Please yourself. You'd better give me a receipt, though.”

Banks wrote him one, then pulled the chain to turn off the light. They walked back to the house in silence.

Seth sat down again to finish his meal and Mara followed Banks towards the front of the room. They could hear Burgess and Richmond still poking about upstairs.

“Mr Banks?” Mara said quietly, standing close to him near the window.

Banks lit a cigarette. “Yes?”

“What he said about the children . . . It's not true, is it? Surely he can't . . .”

Banks sat in the rocking chair and Mara pulled up a small three-legged stool opposite him. One of Zoe's tarot decks, open at “The Moon,” lay on the table beside him. The moon seemed to be shedding drops of blood onto a path that led off into the distance, between two towers. In the foreground, a crab was crawling up onto land from a pool, and a dog and a wolf stood howling at the moon. It
was a disturbing and hypnotic design. Banks shivered, as if someone had just walked over his grave, and turned his attention to Mara.

“They're not your children, are they?” he said.

“You know they're not. But I love them as if they were. Jenny Fuller told me she knows you. She said you're not as bad as the rest. Tell me they can't make us give the children up.”

Banks smiled to himself. Not as bad as the rest, eh? He'd have to remember to tease Jenny about that backhanded compliment.

He turned to face Mara. “Superintendent Burgess will do whatever he has to to get to the bottom of things. I don't think it'll come to taking the children away, but bear in mind that he doesn't make idle threats. If you know anything, you should tell us.”

Mara sucked on her bottom lip. She looked close to tears. “I don't know where Paul is,” she said finally. “You can't really think he did it?”

“We've got some evidence that points that way. Have you ever seen him with a flick-knife?”

“No.”

Banks thought she was lying, but he knew it was no good pushing her. She might offer him a titbit of information in the hope that it would ease the pressure, but she wasn't going to tell the full truth.

“He's gone,” she said finally. “I know that. But I don't know where.”

“How do you know he's gone?”

Mara hesitated, and her voice sounded too casual to be telling the truth. Before starting, she tucked her long chestnut hair behind her ears. It made her face look thinner and more haggard. “He's been upset these past few days, especially after your Superintendent Burgess came and bullied him. He thought you'd end up framing him because he's been in jail and because he . . .he looks different. He didn't want to bring trouble down on the rest of us, so he left.”

Banks turned over the next tarot card: “The Star.” A beautiful naked woman was pouring water from two vases into a pool on the ground. Behind her, trees and shrubs were blossoming, and in the sky one large, bright central star was surrounded by seven smaller ones. For some reason, the woman reminded him of Sandra, which was odd because there was no strong physical resemblance.

“How do you know why he went?” Banks asked. “Did he leave a note?”

“No, he just told me. He said last night he was thinking of leaving. He didn't say when.”

“Or where?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything about PC Gill's murder?”

“No, nothing. He didn't say he was running away because he was guilty, if that's what you mean.”

“And you didn't think to let us know he was running off, even though there's a chance he might be a killer?”

“He's no killer.” Mara spoke too quickly. “I'd no reason to think so, anyway. If he wanted to go he was quite free as far as we were concerned.”

“What did he take with him?”

“What do you mean?”

Banks glanced towards the window. “It's brass-monkey weather out there; rains a lot, too. What was he wearing? Was he carrying a suitcase or a rucksack?”

Mara shook her head. “I don't know. I didn't see him go.”

“Did you see him this morning?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“About eleven or half-past. He always sleeps late.”

“What time did he leave? Approximately.”

“I don't know. I was out at lunch-time. I left at twenty to one and got back at about two. He'd gone by then.”

“Was anyone else in the house during that time?”

“No. Seth was out in the van. He took Zoe with him because she had to deliver some charts. And Rick took the children into Eastvale.”

“And you don't know what Boyd was wearing or what he took with him?”

“No. I told you, I didn't see him go.”

“Come upstairs.”

“What?”

Banks headed towards the staircase. “Come upstairs with me. Now.”

Mara followed him up to Paul's room. Banks opened the cupboard and the dresser drawers. “What's missing?”

Mara put her hand to her forehead. Burgess and Richmond looked in at the doorway and carried on downstairs.

“I . . . I don't know,” Mara said. “I don't know what clothes he had.”

“Who does the washing around here?”

“Well, I do. Mostly. Zoe does some, too.”

“So you must know what clothes Boyd had. What's missing?”

“He didn't have much.”

“He must have had another overcoat. He's left his parka.”

“No, he didn't. He had an anorak, though. A blue anorak.”

Banks wrote it down. “What else?”

“Jeans, I suppose. He never wore much else.”

“Footwear.”

Mara looked in the closet and saw the scuffed loafers. “Just a pair of old slip-ons. Hush Puppies, I think.”

“Colour?”

“Black.”

“And that's it?”

“As far as I know.”

Banks closed his notebook and smiled at Mara. “Look, try not to worry about the children too much. As soon as Superintendent Burgess catches Paul Boyd, he'll forget all about the threats he made. If we catch him soon, that is.”

“I really
don't
know where he's gone.”

“Okay. But if you come up with any ideas. . . . Think about it.”

“People like Burgess shouldn't be allowed to run free,” Mara said. She folded her arms tightly and stared at the floor.

“Oh? What do you suggest we should do with him? Lock him up?”

She looked at Banks. Her jaw was clenched tight and her eyes burned with tears.

“Or should we have him put down?”

Mara brushed past him and hurried down the stairs. Banks followed slowly. Burgess and Richmond stood in the front room ready to leave.

“Come on, let's go,” Burgess said. “There's nothing more here.” Then he turned to Seth, who stood in the kitchen doorway. “If I find out you've been helping Boyd in any way, believe me, I'll be back.
And you lot'll be in more trouble than you ever dared imagine. Give my love to the kids.”

II

Mara watched the car disappear down the track. She felt reassured by Banks, but wondered just how much he could do if Burgess had made his mind up about something. If the children were taken away, she thought, she could well be driven to murder the superintendent with her bare hands.