The Summer That Never Was (46 page)

“Did he tell you he’d been smoking cannabis earlier?”

“Cannabis? No. He never told me that. But that must be why he seemed so disoriented and excitable. I’d never seen him like that before. He scared me.”

“How did he react when you told him you wanted to finish the affair?” Annie asked, remembering that it hadn’t been too long ago when she had told Banks the same thing.

“He didn’t want to accept it. He said he couldn’t bear to lose me.” Lauren started crying. “He said he’d kill himself.”

“What happened next?”

She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “He stormed off to the bathroom. I gave him a couple of minutes, then I heard all the things falling out of the cupboard into the sink, glass breaking, so I went after him.”

“Was the bathroom door locked?”

“No.”

“He was after the Valium?”

“You know?”

“We know he took some Valium shortly before he died, yes.”

“I have a prescription. But I suppose you know that, too?”

Annie nodded. “I checked.”

“He had the bottle open, and he poured some tablets into his hand and swallowed them. I went to him and struggled with him over the bottle. We fought, pulling and pushing each other, and then he went down. Just like that. He was in his socks, and the floor tiles can be slippery. His feet just went from under him and he hit his head on the
side of the bath. I did what I could. I tried to revive him, mouth to mouth. I checked for a pulse and listened for his heartbeat, and then I even tried holding a mirror to his mouth. But it was no use. He was dead. So much blood.”

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I knew if any of it came out I’d be finished. I didn’t know where to turn, so I called Vernon. He said he’d come right away and not to do anything until he got here. The rest you know.”

“What happened to Luke’s mobile?”

“It fell out of his pocket in the car. Vernon took it.”

That explained the call to Armitage’s mobile. Vernon had looked up Martin Armitage’s number on Luke’s phone. He wasn’t to know that Luke would be unlikely to call his stepfather for anything. He could easily have driven to Eastvale to make the call, to avoid suspicion. It wasn’t far.

“
Did
you know about the ransom demand?”

Lauren shook her head. “No. I’d never agree to anything like that. And as I said, I was too upset to think about it. If anything, I thought it must be some sort of cruel practical joke. I’m so sorry for what happened.” She reached out and grasped Annie’s wrist. “You’ve got to believe me. I’d never have harmed Luke. I loved him. Maybe if I hadn’t been so insensitive, so selfish, and not tried to end it when he was so upset, or just held him the way he wanted, it might not have happened. I’ve relived that moment over and over again ever since it happened. I can’t sleep. I don’t know how I’m going to go back to work. Nothing seems to matter any more.”

Annie stood up.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to call in my partner from the car outside, and we’re going to make sure you know your rights before we take you to the police station to make a formal statement. We’ll also be sending a message to Harrogate police to pick up your brother.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know, Lauren,” Annie said. Again, she was feeling shitty about doing her job. Harden up, she told herself. Maybe Lauren Anderson didn’t deliberately kill Luke, but she was at least partly responsible for his death, along with Liz Palmer and Ryan Milne. All adults who should have known better than to tamper with the feelings of a confused and disturbed fifteen-year-old. All of whom were selfish and used Luke for their own ends. Even if that end, at least in Lauren’s case, was love. A romantic imagination and adolescent lust could be a dangerous combination.

But maybe, Annie thought, if she
didn’t
feel pity for a woman in Lauren’s position, then she would lose some of her humanity. One of the things working with Banks had taught her was how to do the job without becoming callous and cynical, the way she had been going before she met him. Lauren would probably get off quite lightly, Annie told herself. If Luke had died during a struggle, the object of which was to stop him taking an overdose of Valium, and if Lauren had not known of her brother’s botched ransom demand, then she wouldn’t get a very stiff sentence.

Lauren would lose her job, though, and like Norman Wells, she would become a pariah for some–the seductress and corrupter of youth. And the family would suffer–Robin and Martin–as it was all dragged into the open. Because this would be a high-profile trial, no doubt about it. Neil Byrd’s son, a famous model and a sports star. Not a chance of escaping the media circus. It was a damn shame they couldn’t prosecute Liz and Ryan, Annie thought as she walked Lauren, head hung low, out to the car. They were at least as much to blame for what happened as Lauren was, if not more so. But it wasn’t her judgement to make.

“Jet Harris
bent
? I can’t believe it,” said Arthur Banks in the Coach and Horses early that evening. Banks had
dragged him out there to tell him the full story, and they sat over their pints in the dreary, half-empty pub. Banks felt a craving for nicotine rush through his cells like a desperate need for air, but he pushed it aside. One day at a time. One craving at a time. It passed. People said the cravings got less and less powerful as time went on. But others said you were never rid of the habit. He knew people who had started again after they’d been off for ten years. One day at a time.

Arthur Banks stared at his son in disbelief. “Is this going to come out?” he asked.

“Probably,” said Banks. “We don’t actually hand our reports to the press, but they have their ways. Depends on the media interest.”

“Oh, there’ll be media interest around here, all right. Jet Harris, homo and bent copper.” He eyed Banks warily. “You sure you’re not going to hush it up, then?”

“Dad,” said Banks. “We don’t go in for cover-ups. At least
I
don’t, and nor does DI Hart. This investigation has cost her a lot. She’s only been at the division a couple of months and here she is, debunking the legend. Imagine how popular that’s going to make her around the place.” It had nearly cost Michelle her life, too, Banks thought. She would be safe from now on, he was certain, and not because of his melodramatic threat. Now Mandeville knew there were more people involved, he could hardly scare or kill off everyone. He would just have to take his chances that time had hidden his secrets.

“Why are you telling
me
?” Arthur Banks asked.

Banks sipped some beer. “Dad, you and mum have never really given me a chance, you know, ever since I joined the force. You’ve always pointed out the negative side of the job. I just wanted you to know that some of us aren’t crooked, that some of us take our work seriously. Even if it never comes out in public, at least
you’ll
know the truth, and you’ll know
I
told you.”

Arthur Banks paused for a moment, looking his son in the eye, then he said, “And did you also find out what happened to your friend Graham after all these years?”

“Yes. Well, DI Hart did most of the work. I just filled in the blanks.” Banks leaned forward. “But yes, Dad, I found out. It’s what I do. I don’t go around waving rolls of fivers at striking miners, I don’t beat up suspects in the cells, I don’t botch investigations into murdered black youths and I don’t steal confiscated drugs and sell them back on the street. Mostly, I push paper. Sometimes I catch murderers. Sometimes I fail, but I always do my damnedest.”

“So who did it?”

Banks told him.

“Donald Bradford! You’d have thought that would’ve been the first place they’d look.”

“That’s what made us suspect some sort of misdirection.”

“And Rupert Mandeville. That’ll make a nice headline.”

“If we can pin anything on him. Remember, it was a long time ago, and he’s hardly likely to confess.”

“Even so…Your pal Graham was up to no good, wasn’t he?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. He always seemed a bit shifty to me, that’s all. Like his father.”

“Well, Graham wasn’t exactly walking the straight and narrow, but that’s no excuse for killing him.”

“Course not.” Banks senior fell silent for a moment, contemplating his son through narrowed eyes. Then he let slip a thin smile. “You’ve stopped smoking, haven’t you?”

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

“There’s not much you can slip past your own father.”

“Dad, have you been listening to me? All I’ve been trying to demonstrate to you all these years,” Banks went on, “is that I’ve been doing a decent, honest day’s work, just like you did.”

“And Jet Harris, local legend, was a bent copper?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to expose him.”

“Something like that.”

“Well,” said Arthur Banks, rubbing his hands together. “That’s all right, then. You’ll be having another pint, I suppose? On me, this time.”

Banks looked at his watch. “Better make it a half,” he said. “I’ve got a date.”

Was it the age of my innocence,

Or was it the lost land of Oz?

Was it only a foolish illusion,

The summer that never was?

Did I walk through the fields with the child in my arms

And the golden wheat over my head?

Did I feel my heart breaking under the weight?

Was my sweet sleeping boychild a burden, like lead?

I remember him crying the day he was born

And his hand like a spider that wouldn’t let go

And he wouldn’t let go and he wouldn’t let go

And the pain tore my heart out and filled me with woe.

Can a dreamer take hold of reality

And become a responsible man?

Can a killer become a lover

Or is he forever damned?

You can’t follow me where I’m going now

And you can’t go the places I’ve been

Don’t listen to the demons I’ve listened to

Or look into the darkness I’ve seen

There’s a field and a boy and the tall golden wheat

And eternity held in a day

But it’s so hard to hold and it’s so hard to reach

And forever rushing away

Was it the age of my innocence,

Or was it the lost land of Oz?

Was it only a foolish illusion,

The summer that never was?

Banks lay in bed late that night listening to Neil Byrd’s CD on his Walkman after dinner with Michelle and a phone call from Annie. “The Summer That Never Was” was the first song on the CD, though the liner notes said it was the last song Byrd had recorded, just weeks before his suicide. As Banks listened to the subtle interplay of words and music, all set against acoustic guitar and stand-up bass, with flute and a violin weaving in and out, like Van Morrison’s
Astral Weeks
, he felt the despair and defeat of the singer. He didn’t understand the song, didn’t know what all the tortured phrases meant, only that they were tortured.

Here was a man at the end of his tether. And he was thinking of his child, or of his own childhood. Or both.

Banks couldn’t even begin to imagine what this had meant to Luke Armitage when, his mind disoriented with strong cannabis, he had heard it for the first time in Liz and Ryan’s flat. Annie was right. How callous could the bastards be? Or stupid. It no doubt never even entered their addled minds what damage they might be doing. All they could think of was opening up Luke’s mind to his father’s music to further their careers, and everyone knew that drugs opened the doors of perception.

Banks remembered the Rimbaud quote written in silver on Luke’s black wall: “Le Poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens.”

Well, had Luke become a seer? What had he seen? Was he trying to kill himself with the diazepam, or was he just trying to stop the pain?

In Banks’s mind, Luke Armitage and Graham Marshall became one. They might have died in different ways for different reasons–not to mention in different times–but
they were just two kids lost in a grown-up world where needs and emotions were bigger than theirs, stronger and more complex than they could comprehend. Graham had tried to play the big leagues at their own game and lost, while Luke had tried to find love and acceptance in all the wrong places. He had lost, too. Accident though his death was, according to Annie, it was a tragic accident made up of many acts, each one of which was like a door closing behind Luke as he moved towards his fate.

Banks put the CD player on the bedside table, turned over and tried to go to sleep. He didn’t think it would be easy. The song had left him with such a feeling of desolation and loneliness that he ached with need for someone to hold and found himself wishing he had stayed at Michelle’s after their love-making. He almost took out his mobile and rang her, but it was past two in the morning, way too late. Besides, how would she react if he showed such neediness so early in their relationship? She’d probably run a mile, like Annie. And quite rightly.

He could hear his father snoring in the next room. At least there had been a reconciliation of sorts between the two of them. Though Arthur Banks would never actually admit anything, his attitude had changed since their drink together that evening. Banks could tell that his father had been proud of him for his success in solving Graham’s murder–though he insisted Michelle had done most of the work–and for not trying to cover up Jet Harris’s role. Proud for perhaps the first time in his life.

How strange it was to be at home in his old bed. As he drifted towards sleep, he imagined his mother calling him for school in the morning: “Hurry up, Alan, or you’ll be late!” In his dream, he fastened his tie as he dashed downstairs for a quick bowl of cornflakes and a glass of milk before picking up his satchel and meeting the others out in the street. But when he walked out of the door, Dave and Paul and Steve and Graham all stood there waiting for him with the bat, the ball and the wickets.
The sun shone in a bright blue sky and the air was warm and fragrant. There was no school. They were on holiday. They were going to play cricket on the rec. “It’s summer, you fool,” Graham said, and they all laughed at him.
The summer that never was
.