Author: Peter Robinson
Category: Other
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‘No,’ said Sean. ‘We just walked in the room, like. It was dark and it smelled funny. Then I saw the scooter. It wasn’t until I got around the side that I saw the man sitting in it. I saw his hair and his beard first, then his eyes, but that was enough. We ran out of the front door.’
‘Was the door open?’
‘No. I had to open it.’
‘I mean was it locked?’
‘Oh. No. It opened when I turned the handle. Why? Do you think someone went in and killed that man? But they could have gone in the back like we did. The back door was unlocked too, and even open a bit.’
Gerry smiled. ‘No, we don’t think that. It seems like an accidental death. I’m just trying to get all the details straight, that’s all.’ She set her mug down on the coffee table, put away her notebook and pen and stood up to leave.
‘Ooh, look at the time,’ said Mrs Bancroft, also standing. ‘We’d better be taking Sean home now, too.’ She patted her boy’s head. ‘It’s school tomorrow.’ Sean scowled and edged away, embarrassed. Gerry winked at him. He blushed.
It was going on for half past eleven when Banks got home from Gateshead, where he had taken his daughter Tracy and her fiancé Mark to The Sage for a Richard Thompson concert: over two hours of mostly powerhouse electric guitar, bass and drums, along with haunting acoustic versions of ‘Beeswing’, ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’ and ‘From Galway to Graceland’. RT could certainly tell a long story in few words. There were a lot of songs from the new album, of course, but he had also played some old Fairport Convention numbers, such as ‘Tale in Hard Times’ and ‘Meet on the Ledge’, along with ‘Wall of Death’, which he had first recorded years ago with his ex-wife Linda. Banks’s ears were still ringing with the music on the drive home down the A1.
Tracy had been unimpressed in the way only a daughter can be with her father’s taste in music. It just wasn’t her ‘cup of tea’ she had said. But Mark had loved every minute of it and talked enthusiastically about the concert all the way back to Tracy’s flat, where Banks had dropped them off. Banks already approved of Mark as a prospective husband for Tracy, and this display of good taste cemented his approval. It would be nice if Mark had chosen a more interesting career than accountancy, he thought, but you can’t have everything. Besides, he would never be short of work, and he had already introduced an element of stability into Tracy’s sometimes erratic life’s journey.
Now he was home, Banks felt too wired to go straight to bed, despite the lateness of the hour. He checked his landline phone messages and found only a brief call from Annie about a dead junkie two boys had found in a house on Hollyfield Lane. There was no reason for him to call her back, certainly not at this time of night. He could find out all about it at the meeting tomorrow morning. As there were no other messages, he assumed that the team had got no further with the case of the dead boy since he had briefed AC Gervaise before her lunchtime press conference.
The case had been all over the national news again that evening, mostly because knife crime loomed large in the media these days. Dr Karen Galway would be conducting the PM in the morning, Banks remembered with a sinking feeling, and he would have to attend. Hardly an occasion to look forward to, though he was interested in watching her work and knowing her findings.
He needed music, balm to soothe his soul, but nothing too busy or loud. With streaming services on Idagio and Apple Music, in addition to his own large collection of CDs, now ripped on to his computer, his choices were practically unlimited, which could be a nuisance from time to time. It was surprising how often he could find absolutely nothing he wanted to listen to at any particular moment.
Finally, he plumped for a collection of Takemitsu’s guitar music, spare and spacious, just what he needed. He hadn’t been drinking at all that evening and didn’t feel like opening a bottle of wine so late, so he poured himself a couple of fingers of the Macallan eighteen-year-old, a present from his old boss Superintendent Gristhorpe, which he usually reserved for special occasions. He settled down in his wicker chair in the dim orange-shaded light of the conservatory. He could hear the wind over the music, and several stars shone quite brightly in the clear sky above Tetchley Fell.
It was a sort of special occasion, he told himself, as his mind raced through the spaces between the notes to contemplate his forthcoming birthday with a mixture of awe and sheer terror. True, he was in good shape for a man of his age – especially a man of his tastes and habits. He had stopped smoking years ago, and though he didn’t go to a gym or jog, let alone have a personal trainer, he did enjoy long walks in the Dales as often as he could get out there. He would have been the first to admit that he probably drank too much and didn’t give a tinker’s toss about units and calories, but he also knew when to stop, most of the time. His only real ailments were slightly high blood pressure, which he took care of with pills from the doctor, and a nagging ache in his right hip after the longer walks. Statins had lowered his cholesterol to an acceptable level.
His mental health probably wasn’t so great. The ‘black dog’ of depression had been visiting more frequently and biting more viciously of late. Some days he just didn’t want to get out of bed. It wasn’t the old teenage laziness coming back, but rather that he didn’t want to face the world and felt no interest in the things he usually cared about, even music or work. Sometimes, too, he felt on the verge of tears for no reason at all and suffered from guilt-inducing bouts of self-pity. At work he often felt like Sisyphus pushing that bloody rock up the hill only to have it roll back down again.
He was also alone. There was no one special in his life, as they say, no significant other. He had family, of course – a distant ex-wife and two grown-up children very much preoccupied with their own lives and concerns: Brian with his band the Blue Lamps, and Tracy, his beloved daughter Tracy, about to get married at last, in her thirties. And he had friends. Not only work colleagues like Annie, Winsome, Gerry, Ken Blackstone and ‘Dirty Dick’ Burgess, but outsiders, like Linda Palmer, the poet; folk singer Penny Cartwright; Annie’s father, the artist Ray Cabbot; along with his partner Zelda, too, now, and psychologist Jenny Fuller. Even Joanna MacDonald. But he had no lover. No companion. No one with whom to share his highs and lows, his successes and failures.
The spaces between the notes seemed to grow longer. Banks sighed and refilled his glass. He wasn’t depressed – there was no black dog in sight – but if he went on thinking about his forthcoming birthday he might well end up that way.
He turned his mind to the case, the murdered boy. No money, no identification, nothing but a small wrap of cocaine in his pocket. Had someone emptied his pockets? Or was it the opposite? Had someone planted the coke there to misdirect the police? Was the killing nothing to do with drugs, after all? Both Annie and Gerry had suggested other possible reasons at the meeting this morning. The thing was, none of them really grabbed him. He could accept that there might have been another motive, but he could not, at the moment, imagine what it might be.
It had seemed apparent at first that the killer had wanted to delay the discovery of the victim’s identity for as long as possible. But perhaps that wasn’t the case at all. In Banks’s experience, most teenagers didn’t carry any identification; they didn’t usually have wallets on them. Why did it matter who the boy was? Maybe his killer had simply needed long enough to cover his tracks, escape, fix up an alibi, hide the evidence. Connor Clive Blaydon? Perhaps. But Banks very much doubted he would have carried out the task himself. As Joanna MacDonald had said, men like him used minions for jobs like that. Roberts, the butler? Frankie Wallace, the chauffeur? At least tomorrow he could check Blaydon’s alibi at Le Coq d’Or, and perhaps with a bit of luck find out what he was doing in Eastvale on the night the boy died.
Banks sipped his Macallan and let the music flow over him. All of a sudden, he knew what he wanted for his birthday: a guitar. Even if he had to buy one himself, having no one in his life likely to buy him an expensive present. It had been
years since he’d played rhythm in a fledgling band called Jimson Weed, who hadn’t even managed to survive their first three gigs before splitting up. The lead singer had thought he was a cross between Roger Daltrey and Robert Plant, which also made him God’s gift to women.
Banks didn’t fool himself that he would ever be able to play the Takemitsu compositions he was listening to now, or any other classical works for guitar, but he could at least learn a few basic chords and belt out the occasional folk song, or strum an old Beatles tune or a bit of Dylan. His cottage was isolated enough that nobody would hear him. Besides, he had heard that learning a musical instrument was a healthy thing to do for the mind, that it helped keep dementia at bay, like learning a foreign language.
The phone started to ring.
Annoyed, Banks glanced at his watch. It was after midnight. Who would be calling at this hour? He didn’t recognise the number. Fearing some sort of emergency, he answered as quickly as he could.
‘Dad?’ came the disembodied voice on the other end.
‘Brian? Is that you? Something wrong?’
‘No. I’m fine. I’m sorry it’s so late, but I thought you’d still be up.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Adelaide. It’s going on half eight in the morning here. I’m at the hotel.’
‘What day is it?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘Tomorrow, then.’
‘It’s today here.’
‘Smart arse. You know what I mean. Sure you’re OK?’
‘Never better.’
‘Then why the late-night phone call?’
‘I’ve got something to tell you and I didn’t want you to find out from the newspapers.’
‘You’re leaving the band?’
‘Something like that. Actually, the band’s packing it in. We had a meeting last night and decided. It’s been on the cards for a while.’
‘But why? You’re doing so well.’
‘We’ve been on autopilot for ages, Dad. Just coasting. Pulling in different directions. And it’s getting harder to make a living unless you’re Ed Sheeran or Beyoncé. The music business has changed so much. It’s all streaming now, and the musicians only get a pitiful amount. Even you don’t buy records any more.’
‘Fair enough. But I would if there were any record shops left.’
‘That’s what I mean. We’re all sick to death of endless touring, just to make ends meet or promote a new single. There seems to be no time left to write songs or have fun any more. It’s just constant hard slog, and that’s not what any of us want. I mean, I’m not saying we’re lazy or anything like that, but I am pushing forty.’
‘Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney are over seventy. Even Keith—’
‘But that’s the point, Dad. I don’t want to end up like them. And we don’t want to end up breaking apart and hating each other, each blaming the other for the mess we’re in. We don’t want to end up like the Beatles or Pink Floyd.’
‘Or even worse,’ Banks said, ‘the Gallaghers. So you’re going solo?’
‘No. I won’t say I’ll never make a solo album, because I might – I’ve got enough songs in the works – but no. I’m going into the production side.’
‘That’s quite a leap.’
‘Not really. I haven’t been wasting my time with drugs and groupies all these years, you know. I was interested in the studio stuff right from the start, how it all worked, and I’ve spent time with people who really know what they’re doing. I’ve learned a lot. You might not have noticed, but I produced our last album.’
Banks hadn’t noticed. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘That’s OK. Most people don’t notice things like that. Anyway, I’m no George Martin, but I know my way around a studio. I understand the equipment, and I have a good idea of the sort of sound I want from a band. It’s hard producing your own music. But with other bands and artists I can see a clearer path. Hear it, more like. It’s a real job at last. I thought you’d be pleased.’
Banks laughed. ‘I am, I am. But I’m a fan of the band. And you know damn well I’ve always been proud of you and what you’ve achieved.’
‘I know, Dad. I was teasing. Anyway, I wanted to tell you before you heard it on the news. And don’t believe everything you read in the papers.’
‘Don’t try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs. I don’t believe anything I read in the papers. Have you told your mother yet?’
‘Next. I thought I’d let you know first.’
Banks felt inordinately proud to hear that he was the first family member Brian had told. ‘And Tracy?’
‘You or Mum can tell her if either of you is likely to be talking to her soon. Or I can ring her, too, it’s—’
‘I’ll let her know. Don’t worry. Not that she doesn’t have enough on her mind at the moment, what with the wedding and all that. We went to see Richard Thompson tonight.’
‘Fantastic.’
‘Tracy didn’t think so.’
‘She’s got no taste. Remember when we were growing up, she used to like the Spice Girls? I’ll bet she doesn’t even listen to our albums.’
‘I’m sure she does. When are you making the announcement?’
‘Tomorrow. That’s Thursday here. We’ve got a press conference.’
‘In Adelaide?’
‘Why not? We’ve always been big in Australia.’
‘No farewell tour?’
‘Tonight’s our last gig here. We’re playing the Thebarton Theatre. The “Thebby”, they call it here. It’s a great venue. We’ve got a few dates back home and we’ll honour those. I suppose you could call that a farewell tour, though it wasn’t planned that way. Maybe you can come and see us in Leeds or Gateshead. But after that . . .’
‘Of course I’ll come and see you. Then what are your plans? Do you already have a production job to go to?’
‘Not yet. But don’t worry about me. I’ve got enough to get by for a while. I’m going to drift around the studios for a month or so. Talk to a few people. See what’s available and what’ll work best for me.’
‘Any idea where?’
‘Not yet. Maybe LA. Maybe London. It just depends.’
‘Any plans to come home for a while, other than for your final shows?’
‘I’ll be over for Tracy’s wedding next month.’
‘Excellent. Come down and stay for a few days. We’ll go walking up on Tetchley Fell. Pub lunches in Helmthorpe and Lyndgarth. And maybe in exchange, you can teach me a few guitar licks.’
‘You’ve got a guitar?’
‘Not yet. But I’ve decided I’m buying myself one for my birthday.’
‘Good for you, Dad. And happy birthday.’
‘Thanks. But I’ve still got a while left before I get my bus pass.’
Brian laughed. ‘OK. Well, I’d be happy to teach you a few chord progressions. And maybe even that odd folk tuning I learned from Martin Carthy.’
‘Martin Carthy? When was that?’
‘A while back. At your folk singer friend’s house. Penny Cartwright.’
‘I remember,’ said Banks. ‘But I didn’t know you’d been discussing guitar tunings.’
‘Us professionals. What can I say?’
Banks laughed. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said, then paused. ‘Are you sure everything’s OK?’
‘I told you. Never better. We’ve got the day off tomorrow, after the press conference, and I’m off up to the Barossa Valley with Dennis, our bass player, to do a bit of wine tasting. He’s quite the expert. And before you start worrying, it’s all right. We’ve got a driver. I’ll bring you a bottle of Peter Lehmann’s. I know you like that.’
‘Much appreciated. Well, as long as you’re sure.’
‘It was time for a change, Dad. I’m happy the decision is made.’
‘Well, good. Thanks for telling me. And the best of luck. See you soon.’
‘Bye. See you soon.’
Banks hung up and felt the emptine
ss he always experienced after a long-distance phone call. They seemed to magnify the distance rather than shorten it. But he was glad Brian had phoned him with the news. That was a turn-up for the book. There’d be a lot of disappointed fans out there. But Brian seemed genuinely happy with the decision. Relieved. Which made Banks wonder about what big changes might be coming his own way in the near future.
The original guitar works ended, and next came Takemitsu’s arrangements of popular western songs, starting with ‘Londonderry Air’, which was odd to hear after the Japanese style of the other pieces, but no less enjoyable.
‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ came next, and Banks started to feel buoyed by the whisky, Brian’s phone call and the music, happy to leave his cares behind for a while. Then ‘Summertime’ came on, and he knew it would be a while before he dragged himself upstairs to bed. He would have to dig out Billie Holiday’s version first.
Chapter 5
‘Good morning, Superintendent.’
‘Good morning, Dr Galway. You seem quite chipper this morning.’
‘You know what they say. A healthy mind and a healthy body.’
Banks grunted. He still felt tired. It had been a late night. The Takemitsu guitar arrangement of ‘Summertime’ had indeed led inevitably to Billie Holiday, which led to a drop more Macallan, and so on. He went to bed well after one o’clock, and despite Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony, which usually transported him most pleasurably to the Land of Nod – no insult to the composer intended – he hadn’t been able to get to sleep for ages thinking about Brian and the Blue Lamps, and the old days he himself had spent as a wannabe rock star with the short-lived Jimson Weed.
‘Been for your morning run already, have you?’ he asked.
‘Uh-huh. Ten-k.’
‘No wonder you’re so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
Dr Galway laughed and said in her melodic Irish accent, ‘That’s all right. Never apologise, never explain. That only gets you into more trouble. And once you open the linguistic can of worms . . . well . . . what can I say?’