The Hanging Valley (12 page)

She’d given a bad impression to the police, she knew that, but at the time she had been unable to help herself. The lean, dark one, the one who seemed too short to be a policeman, would want to talk to her again, that was for sure. How could she keep her secret? She pictured her grandmother standing over her, lined face stern and hard, eyes like black pinheads boring into her: “Secrets, girl, secrets are the devil’s doing. God loves a pure and open heart.” But she had to keep this secret.

There were so many things, it seemed, one had to do in life that went against God’s commandments. How could a person live
without sinning? She was no longer even sure that she knew what was right or wrong. Sometimes she thought it was a sin to breathe, to be alive. It seemed you had to sin to survive in today’s world. It was wrong to keep secrets and tell lies; but was it wrong to keep your word, your promise? And if you had broken it once for a special reason, was it all right to break it again?

Wearily, Katie got up and prepared to go to the shops down in Lower Head. Work and duty: they were the only constants in life. Everything else was a trap, a trick, a temptation to betrayal. The only way to survive was to shun pleasure. She picked up her purse and shopping basket and pulled a face at the nasty, soapy taste in her mouth as she left the house.

III

After Banks and Hatchley had carried their bags to their rooms, they walked over to the White Rose for lunch. The place was busy with Saturday tourists who had let their curiosity lead them to the northern part of Swainshead, but none of the regulars was present. Luckily, Freddie Metcalfe was too busy to chat. They both ordered gammon and chips and carried their pints over to a corner table.

“I want you to get onto Richmond after lunch,” Banks said, “and have him check to see if anyone in Swainshead has connections with Canada, specifically with Toronto. I know it sounds like a big job, but tell him to start with the people we already know: the Greenocks, Fletcher, the Colliers. You might also add,” he said, lowering his voice, “Freddie Metcalfe over there, and Neil Fellowes, too.”

“The bloke who found the body? But he’s from Pontefract.”

“No matter. Remember, we thought Allen was from Canada at first, then from Leeds. And while we’re on the subject, have him check on the brother-in-law, Les Haines. I want to know if he’s made any trips to this area in the past few weeks. Ask him to get as much background as he can on all of them. I’m sure the superintendent will be able to get him some help from downstairs. And get someone to go to Carter’s and that newsagent’s to check Greenock’s
alibi. Tell them to make sure they get the times as exact as possible.”

“Don’t you believe him?”

Banks shrugged. “He could be telling the truth. He could also have driven to a convenient spot along the main road and approached the valley from the other side.”

The little waitress brought over their food and they ate in silence. At the bar, they could hear Freddie Metcalfe enthralling visitors with examples of Yorkshire humour filched from
The Dalesman,
and at the next table, two middle-aged women from Lancashire were talking about lager louts: “They get right confident after a few drinks, young ’uns do.”

When they had finished eating, Banks sent Hatchley to radio in to Richmond, then he stood outside the pub for a moment and took a deep breath of fresh air. It was June 1, another fine day. Nobody knew what the Dales had done to deserve such a long stretch of good weather, but according to a transistor radio Banks overheard, it certainly wasn’t any thanks to Yorkshire Cricket Club, currently 74 for 6 at Somerset.

Banks wanted to talk to the Colliers, but first he returned to his room to change his shirt. On his way back down, he spotted Mrs Greenock in the hall, but she seemed to see or hear him coming and scuttled off into the back before he could catch her. Smiling, he walked back out into the street. He knew he could have followed her and confronted her with his suspicions there and then, but decided instead to let her play mouse to his cat until she tired of it.

There were plenty of people on the grassy banks of the River Swain that afternoon. Three children fished for tiddlers with nets at the end of cane rods while their parents sat and watched from lawn chairs, dad with a knotted handkerchief over his head reading the
Daily Mail
and mum knitting, glancing up occasionally to make sure the offspring were still in sight.

The Dales were getting as crowded and noisy as the coast, Banks thought as he crossed the bridge. There was even a small group of teenagers farther down, towards Lower Head, wearing cut-off denim jackets with the names of rock bands inked on the back. Two of them, a boy and a girl, Banks assumed, were rolling on
the grass in an overtly sexual embrace while tinny music rattled out of a portable stereo placed close to one prostrate youth’s ear.

Many of his colleagues, Banks knew, would have gone over and told them to move on, accused them of disturbing the peace and searched them for drugs. But despite his personal distaste for some gangs of youngsters and their music, Banks made it a rule never to use his power as a policeman to force his own will on the general public. After all, they were young, they were enjoying life, and apart from the noise, they were really doing no-one any harm.

Banks passed the old men on the bridge and made a mental note to have a chat with them at some point. They seemed to be permanent fixtures; maybe they had seen something.

He met Sergeant Hatchley at the car and they headed for the Collier house.

“Have you noticed,” Banks said, “how Allen seemed to have a different story for everyone he talked to? He was upset; he was cheerful. He was coming home; he wasn’t.”

“Maybe,” said Hatchley, “it’s just that all the people he talked to have a different story for us.”

Banks gave the sergeant an appreciative glance. Thinking things out wasn’t Hatchley’s strong point, but there were times when he could be quite surprising.

“Good point,” Banks said. “Let’s see what the Colliers have to add.”

Gristhorpe was right; the Collier house was a Victorian monstrosity. But it had its own grotesque charm, Banks thought as he walked up the crazy paving with Hatchley. Most Dales architecture was practical in nature and plain in style, but this place was for show. It must have been the great-grandfather who had it built, and he must have thought highly indeed of the Collier status.

Banks rang the bell on the panelled door and Stephen Collier answered, a frown on his face. He led them through a high-ceilinged hallway into a sitting-room at the back of the house. French windows opened onto the patio. In the centre of the large lawn stood an elaborate stone fountain. White dolphins and cherubim curled about the lip of the bowl.

The room itself contrasted sharply with the exterior of the
house. Off-white walls created a sense of light and space on which the ultra-modern Swedish pine and chrome and glass furnishing made hardly any encroachment at all. Abstract paintings hung over a blue-tiled mantelpiece: bold and violent splashes of colour reminiscent, in their effect on Banks’s eyes, of the Jackson Pollocks Sandra had insisted he look at in a London gallery years ago.

The three of them sat in white wicker chairs around a table on the patio. Banks half-expected a servant to arrive with a tray of Margaritas or mint juleps, but Collier himself offered them drinks. It was warm, so both men eagerly accepted a cold bottle of Beck’s lager.

Before he went to fetch the drinks, Stephen Collier rapped on the French windows of the next room and beckoned to Nicholas. Banks had wanted to talk to them separately, but it wasn’t important at this point. Stretching, he got up and walked over as Nicholas emerged onto his half of the patio. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of a much darker room, all oak panelling, leather-bound books and oil-paintings of ancestors gleaming on the walls.

Nicholas smiled his horsy yellow smile and held out his hand. “It’s an interesting set-up you’ve got here,” Banks said.

“Yes. We couldn’t bear to get rid of the house, however ugly it might seem from the outside. It’s been in the family for years. Lord knows what prompted my great-great-grandfather to build such a folly—ostentatious display of wealth and position, I suppose. And it’s so inappropriate for the area.” Despite the deprecating tone, Banks could tell that Nicholas was proud of the house and the status of his family.

“Do you share the place?” Banks asked Nicholas after they had sat down at the table.

“Sort of. It’s divided into two halves. We thought at first that one of us could take the upstairs and the other the downstairs, but it’s better like this. We’ve got the equivalent of two completely separate houses. Stephen and I have very different tastes, so the two halves make quite a contrast. You must let me show you around my half one day.”

Stephen returned with the drinks. Dressed all in white, he looked like a cricketer breaking for tea. Nicholas, however, with his slight stoop, pale complexion, and comma of black hair over his forehead,
looked more like an ageing umpire. It was hard to believe these two were brothers; even harder to accept that Stephen was the eldest.

After giving both of them time to register surprise and shock at the news of Bernard Allen’s death, of which he was certain they knew already, Banks lit a cigarette and asked, “Did you see much of him while he was here?”

“Not a lot,” Stephen answered. “He was in the pub a couple of times with Sam, so naturally we talked, but that’s about all.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, just small talk, really. This and that. About Canada, places we’d both been to.”

“You’ve visited Canada?”

“I travel quite a bit,” Stephen said. “You might think a small food-freezing plant in the Dales isn’t much, but there are other businesses, connected. Import, export, that kind of thing. Yes, I’ve been to Canada a few times.”

“Toronto?”

“No. Montreal, as a matter of fact.”

“Did you ever see Bernard Allen over there?”

“It’s a big country, Chief Inspector.”

“Did you get the impression that anything was bothering Allen while he was over here?”

“No.”

“What about you?” he asked Nicholas.

“No, I can’t say I did. I’ve always found it a bit awkward talking to Bernard, to tell you the truth. One always feels he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Nicholas said, grinning. “Surely you know what I mean. His father spent his life working on land rented from my father. They were poor. From where they lived they had a fine enough view of this place, and you can’t tell me that Bernard never thought it unfair that we had so much and he had so little. Especially when his father failed.”

“I didn’t know Bernard Allen or his father,” Banks said, peeling the foil from the neck of the Beck’s, which he preferred to drink straight from the bottle. “Tell me about him.”

“I’m not saying I knew him well, myself, only that he became a bit of a lefty, a socialist. Up the workers and all that.” Nicholas grinned again, showing his stained teeth. His eyes were especially bright.

“Are you saying that Bernard Allen was a Communist?”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t know if he was a party member.

All I know is he used to spout his leftist rot in the pub.”

“Is this true?” Banks asked Stephen.

“Partly. My brother exaggerates a bit, Chief Inspector. It’s a tendency he has. We sometimes had arguments about politics, yes, and Bernard Allen had left-wing views. But that’s as far as it goes. I’d hardly say he was a proselytizer or that he toed some party line.”

“His political opinions weren’t particularly strong, then?”

“I wouldn’t say so, no. He said he left the country partly because Margaret Thatcher came into office. Well, we all know about unemployment, don’t we? Bernard couldn’t find work in England, so he left. You could hardly say he was running from country to country to escape political tyranny, could you?”

“He just used to whine about it, that’s all,” Nicholas cut in. “Expected the government to do everything for him without him having to lift a finger. Typical socialist.”

“As you can gather, Chief Inspector,” Stephen said with a strained smile, “my brother’s something of a young fogey. That hardly gave either of us reason to do away with Bernard, though.”

“Of course not,” Banks said. “And I was never suggesting it did. I just want to know as much about the victim as possible. Would you say that there was any real animosity between you—political arguments aside—over the farm?”

“Do you mean did he blame us?” Stephen asked.

“Yes.”

“He blamed everyone but himself,” Nicholas cut in.

Stephen turned on him. “Oh, shut up Nicky. You’re being bloody awkward, you know.”

“Did he?” Banks asked Stephen again.

“Not that I ever knew of. It was nothing to do with us, really. As you know, Father was preparing to give up farming anyway, and he certainly hadn’t groomed us to take over. Nobody kicked Archie
Allen off the land. He could have stayed there as long as he wanted to. It just wasn’t financially viable any more. Ask any farmer, they’ll tell you how things have changed over the past twenty years or so. If Bernard was holding a grudge, then it was a very unreasonable one. He didn’t strike me as an unreasonable person. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes, thank you,” Banks said. He turned to Nicholas again. “I understand you knew Mr Allen’s sister, Esther.”

Nicholas reddened with anger. “Who said that?”

“Never mind who said it. Is it true?”

“We all knew her,” Stephen said. “I mean, we knew who she was.”

“More than that,” Banks said, looking at Nicholas, whose eyes were flashing. “Nicholas knows what I mean, don’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nicholas said. “Are you trying to suggest that there was anything more to it than a landlord-tenant relationship?”

“Was there?”

“Of course not.”

“Didn’t you find her attractive?”

“She was hardly my type.”

“Do you mean she was of a lower class?”