Past Reason Hated (9 page)

‘What do you want to see me about?’ he asked.

Banks repressed a childish urge to tell him he liked his music. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Caroline Hartley, your wife’s companion. She’s dead.’

Ivers lurched forward and gripped the sides of his chair. ‘Good God! What? How?’

‘She was murdered.’

‘But that’s absurd. Things like that don’t happen in real life.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s true.’

He shook his head. ‘Is Veronica all right?’

‘She’s very upset, obviously, but apart from that she’s okay. I take it you still care?’

‘Of course I do.’

Banks heard something crash down heavily in the kitchen.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr Ivers,’ he went on, ‘I find that very difficult to understand. If my wife—’

He waved Banks’s comparison aside. ‘Listen, I went through everything any normal man would go through. Everything. Not just anger and rage, but disbelief, disgust, loss of self-esteem, loss of self-confidence. I went through hell. Christ, it’s bad enough when your wife runs away with another man, but another woman . . .’

‘You forgave her?’

‘If that’s the right word. I could never entirely blame Veronica in the first place. Can you understand that? It was as if she’d been led astray, fallen under someone else’s influence.’

‘Caroline Hartley’s?’

He nodded.

‘Would you tell me what happened?’

For several moments there was silence but for the fire, the sea and muted sounds from the kitchen. Finally, Ivers stared at Banks, then cracked his fingers and stretched back in the chair.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’re a stranger. Somehow that makes it easier. And we don’t get many people to talk to around here. Sometimes I get a bit stir-crazy, as Patsy puts it. There’s not a lot to it, really. One day everything was tine. She was happy, we were happy. At least I thought so. Maybe she got a bit bored from time to time, got depressed now and then, but we had a good solid marriage, or so I thought. Then she started seeing a therapist, didn’t tell me why. I don’t think she knew herself, but I suspect it was a bit of a trend among bored, middle-class housewives. It didn’t seem to be doing her much harm at first so I didn’t object, but then, out of the blue, there’s this new friend. It’s all “Caroline says this” and “Caroline says that”. My wife starts to change in front of my eyes. Can you believe that? She even started using this other girl’s language, saying things she would never say herself. She started calling things she liked “neat”. “Really neat”, she’d say! That wasn’t Veronica. And she started dressing differently. She’d always been a bit on the formal side, but now she’d wear jeans and a sweatshirt. And there was all that interminable talk about Jung and self-actualization. I think she once told me I was too much the thinking type, or some such rot. Said my music was too intellectual and not emotional enough. And she got interested in stuff she’d never cared about when I’d tried to interest her – theatre, cinema, literature. She was never in, always around at Caroline’s. Then she even started suggesting that
I
should go to therapy too.’

‘But you didn’t?’

He stared into the fire and paused, as if he realized he had already given too much away, then he said quietly, ‘I have my demons, Mr Banks, but they also fire me. I’m afraid that if I subjected them to therapy I’d have no more fuel, no more creativity. Whatever Veronica might say, my music’s born from conflict and feeling, not just technical skill.’ He tapped his head. ‘I really hear those things. And I was afraid if I opened my head to some shrink all the music would escape and I would be condemned to silence I couldn’t live like that. No, I didn’t go.’

Patsy returned with the coffee. Ivers took it, smiled at her, and she sat on the floor beside him with her legs curled under her and her hand resting on his thigh.

‘Did you know at the start of the friendship that Caroline was a lesbian?’ Banks asked.

‘Yes. Veronica told me Caroline was living with a woman called Nancy Wood. Fair enough, I thought. Live and let live. I’m a musician, not the bohemian type, perhaps, but I’ve been around enough oddballs in my time not to worry about them too much. And I’m fairly broad-minded. So Caroline was a lesbian. I never for a moment thought that my wife . . .’

‘So if you blamed anyone it was Caroline?’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated, realizing what he’d said. ‘But I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘What did you do yesterday evening?’

He sipped his coffee and spoke, half into the mug. Stayed in. With Patsy. We don’t go out all that much.’

Patsy looked at Banks and nodded in agreement. He saw shadows behind her eyes. He wasn’t sure he believed her. ‘Do you own a car?’ he asked.

‘We both do.’

‘Where do you park?’

‘We’ve got spots reserved in the village, behind the pub. Obviously there’s no parking up here.’

‘When did you last see your wife?’

He thought for a moment. ‘About a month ago. I was in Eastvale on business and I dropped in to see how Veronica was doing. I called at the shop first. I usually do that to avoid meeting Caroline, but sometimes if it’s evening I just have to face it out.’

‘How did Caroline react to these visits?’

‘She’d leave the room.’

‘So you never spoke to her?’

‘Not much, no. And Veronica would be tense. I’d never end up staying long if Caroline was around.’

‘Are you sure that was the last time you visited the house, a month ago?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’

‘You didn’t go there yesterday evening?’

‘I told you. We stayed in.’

‘You’re a musician,’ Banks said. ‘You must know Vivaldi’s work.’

‘I – of course I do.’

‘Do you know the
Laudate pueri
?’

Ivers turned aside and reached for some bread and butter. ‘Which one? He wrote four, you know.’

‘Four what?’

‘Four settings for the same liturgical piece. I think it’s Psalm 112, but I can’t be sure. Why do you ask?’

‘Have you heard of a singer called Magda Kalmar?’

‘Yes. But I—’

‘Did you usually buy your wife a Christmas present?’

‘I did last year.’

‘And this year?’

He buttered his bread as he spoke. ‘I was going to. Am. I just haven’t got round to it yet.’

‘Better hurry up, then,’ Banks said with a smile. ‘Only one more shopping day to Christmas.’ He put his cup down on the hearth and stood up to leave. ‘Thank you very much for the tea and bread,’ he said to Patsy, ‘and it was an honour to meet you Mr Ivers. I’ve enjoyed your music for a long time.’

Ivers raised an eyebrow. Banks was thankful he just nodded and didn’t say anything about being surprised that policemen listened to music.

Banks walked over to the door and Ivers followed him. ‘About Veronica,’ he said. ‘She must be in a terrible state Do you think she needs me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Banks said. He honestly didn’t. Did a wife who lost her female lover turn back to her husband for comfort? ‘Maybe you should ask her.’

Ivers nodded, and the last thing Banks noticed before the door closed was the darkening expression in Patsy Janowski’s eyes, fixed on the pipe in Ivers’s hand.

He made his way against the wind back to the car and drove up the hill again. The Ivers household had left him with a strange feeling. However rustic and cosy it was, he couldn’t help but suspect that all was not well, and that nobody had told him the complete truth. He had little doubt that Ivers had bought the record for Veronica and had more than likely delivered it, too. But he couldn’t prove it. As soon as he could, he would go back to visit Claude Ivers again.

The Queen’s Arms was never very busy at five o’clock on a winter’s afternoon. It was too late for the lunchtime drinkers and too early for the after-work crowd. The only other customers, apart from Banks, Richmond and Susan Gay, were three or four people with shopping bags full of Christmas presents.

The three of them sat in the deep armchairs around the fire. Banks and Richmond were drinking pints and Susan had accepted a brandy and soda. They had pooled their notes and still had nothing concrete to go on. Richmond had discovered that Nancy Wood had left Eastvale for an extended trip to Australia. A phone call to immigration had established that she was indeed there. Richmond followed with a call to the Sydney police, who got back to him a couple of hours later with positive confirmation. That was one serious suspect eliminated.

Richmond had so far got nowhere with the photograph of Ruth, the mysterious woman. The record, too, remained unexplained. They would have to start canvassing classical record shops all over England, and that would take time. Veronica Shildon’s therapist had confirmed that Veronica had left her office at about seven o’clock the previous evening, as usual, and that she had mentioned going shopping.

‘You said that Caroline ran off to London when she was sixteen?’ Banks said to Susan.

‘That’s what her brother told me.’

‘And she was down there for about six years before she came up to Eastvale. A lot can happen in that time. Any idea where she was?’

‘Sorry, sir, they didn’t seem to know anything. Either that or they weren’t saying.’

‘Was that the feeling you got?’

‘There was certainly something weird about them. Susan shuddered as she spoke.

‘Never mind. We’ll find out when we talk to them again. Maybe you can get a printout from the PNC, Phil? Caroline Hartley might have a record down there. Runaways often get in trouble with the law.’

Richmond nodded.

‘Any other leads?’ Banks asked.

They shook their heads. He smiled. ‘Don’t look so bloody despondent, Susan. At least it means you’ll get Christmas Day at home.’

‘Sir?’

‘If we don’t solve a murder in twenty-four hours, the odds are we’ll be at it a long time. A day here or there isn’t going to make a lot of difference unless we come up with a hot lead tomorrow. And it
is
Christmas. Things slow down. You know as well as I do it’s impossible to get anything done for a couple of days. Nobody’s around, for a start. All we can do is get the statements sorted out and see if we can build up a clear picture of the victim. You find often enough that the seeds of the death are in the life, so to speak, and given the life Caroline Hartley led that may have been more apt in her case. We’ll do what we can with the photo, the record and the London connection, and in a day or two we’ll visit her family again and push a bit harder. Maybe you and I could have a bit of a chat with the amateur dramatic society again, too, Susan. There might be some connections there – jealousy, rivalry, something like that.’

Susan nodded.

‘And I don’t think Veronica Shildon’s coming clean with us, either,’ Banks went on. ‘But then she’s not likely to. She’ll be protecting Caroline’s memory, especially if there’s any shady business in the girl’s past. Her alibi checks out, but there are ten minutes unaccounted for between her return home and going to Christine Cooper’s. She could have nipped back earlier, too, say between seven and half past, if she’d wanted to, and only pretended to arrive later. Then there’s Cooper himself, and his wife for that matter. If there was anything odd going on between those two households, who knows what kind of can of worms it might have opened. All I’m saying is that we should keep an open mind while we let them all stew for a while. Let them enjoy Christmas. Maybe we’ll do the rounds again on Boxing Day when they’re all full and comfy. An old sparring partner of mine from the Met, Dirty Dick Burgess, always used to prefer Sundays for surprise raids. Boxing Day’s probably even better.’

Richmond raised his eyebrows at the mention of Burgess. Banks and Dirty Dick had locked horns over a politically sensitive case in Eastvale last spring, and they had hardly parted on the best of terms. Apart from Banks and Burgess, only Richmond knew the full story.

Banks looked at his watch and finished his pint. ‘Right. I’d better be off now. I want to see if that post-mortem report’s turned up yet.’ It was already dark outside and the snow had just started falling again.

The report had indeed turned up. Banks skipped the technical details for the layman’s synopsis that Dr Glendenning always courteously provided.

There was nothing new at first. She had been hit, probably punched, on the cheek, and the blow could have rendered her unconscious. After that, she had been viciously and repeatedly stabbed with her own kitchen knife. The only blood found at the scene was hers. Her dressing gown had no bloodstains on it, so it had been removed – or Caroline herself had removed it – before the stabbing. Glendenning had found no signs at all of sexual interference. He had, however, found crumbs of chocolate cake in several of the wounds, which led him to believe that the knife had been lying by the cake on the table. If so, Banks thought, they were probably dealing with a spur of the moment attack, a weapon at hand, grabbed and used in anger. There were no signs of skin or blood under her fingernails, which meant she hadn’t had a chance to fight off her attacker.

And that was it, apart from the general information Banks read idly through – health basically sound, appendix scar, gave birth to a child . . . He stopped and read that part over again. According to Glendenning, who had been as thorough as usual, the cervix showed a multiparous os, which meant the deceased had, at some point, had a baby.

That cast an interesting new light on things. Not only did it mean she had had at least one heterosexual relationship, it might also explain why she went to London, or what might have happened to her down there. All the more imperative, therefore, to find out exactly where she’d been and what she’d done. Banks felt that the photograph was a clue. Given that it was the only memento she’d kept, apart from a pressed flower, Ruth was obviously someone important from Caroline’s past.

Banks walked over to the window and looked out on the market square. It looked like one of Brueghel’s winter scenes. The tree was lit up and shoppers crossed the whitened cobbles to and fro with their packages. Banks was glad he’d done his Christmas shopping a week ago. The only thing that remained was the booze. He’d buy that tomorrow: a bottle of port, a nice dry sherry, perhaps some Ciardhu single malt, if he could afford it. Then his thoughts drifted back to Caroline Hartley. A baby. What a bloody turn up! And if there was a baby, somewhere there had to be a father. Maybe a father with a grudge.