when I took her, she didn’t… She told me I was too rough and she tried to make me stop. Me! Nicholas Collier. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I knew that was the way she really wanted it. A common tart like her. Like you.’
‘No!’ Katie said. ‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. I’ve had my eye on you. You do it with everyone. Do they pay you, Katie, or do you do it for nothing? I know you like to struggle. I’ll pay you if you want.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I want you to say it for me. Say you’re a filthy whore.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What’s wrong? Why won’t you say it? I bet you even let that policeman do it. I’m better than the lot of them, Katie. Say it.’
‘No! I won’t.’
He spoke very softly, so quiet she could hardly hear. ‘I want you to go down on your knees, Katie, and tell me you’re a filthy whore and you want me to do it to you like an animal. Like a dog. I want you to lift your dress up and crawl, Katie.’
He was moving towards her now, and his eyes held hers with a power that seemed to sap what little strength she had. She felt her shoulders hit the wall by the mantelpiece. There was nowhere else to go. But Nicholas kept coming closer, and when he was near enough he reached out and grabbed the front of her dress.
FOUR
Banks drove fast along the dark dale by the River Swain, passed through Helmthorpe and into the darker fell-shadowed landscape beyond. He turned sharp right at Swainshead, tyres squealing, and carried on up the valley to Upper Head. He slowed down as they passed the Collier house, but the lights were out.
‘I hope the bastard hasn’t done a bunk,’ Hatchley said.
‘No, he’s too cool for that. We’ll get him, don’t worry.’
The glimmer of light high on the fell side about two miles north of the village came from Fletcher’s isolated cottage. It was a difficult track to manage in the dark, but they finally pulled up outside the squat solid house with its three- foot-thick walls. Fletcher had heard them coming and stood in the doorway.
Again they were ushered into the plain whitewashed room with its oak table and the photograph of Fletcher’s glamorous ex-wife.
Fletcher was ill at ease. He avoided looking at them directly and fussed around with glasses of beer.
Hatchley stood by the window looking into the darkness. Banks sat at the table.
‘What is it?’ he asked, when Fletcher had sat down opposite him.
‘It’s about Stephen’s death,’ Fletcher began hesitantly. ‘He was my friend. It’s gone too far now. Too far.’
Banks nodded. ‘I know. I understood there was no love lost between you and Nicholas.’
‘You’ve heard about that? Well, it’s true enough. I never had much time for him. But old Mr Walter was like a father to me, and I always felt like an older brother to Stephen.’
Banks passed around the cigarettes.
‘Saturday night,’ Fletcher burst out suddenly. ‘I thought nothing of it at the time - it was just the kind of silly trick Nicholas would play - but when he went to buy a round I saw him pour a glass of clear spirits into Stephen’s drink. As I said, I thought nothing of it. I knew Stephen was upset about something - what it was, I don’t know - and he seemed to want to get drunk and forget his problems anyway. No point causing trouble, I thought, so I kept quiet.
‘That family has a secret, Mr Banks, a dark secret. Stephen’s hinted at it more than once, and I reckon it’s something to do with Nicholas and the ladies, though ladies is too dignified a term. Did you know he once forced himself on Molly Stark from over Relton way?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Aye. Well, it was hushed up, like most things Nicholas got up to. All neat and businesslike.’
‘Wasn’t there also some trouble with a girl when his father was alive?’ Banks asked.
‘Aye,’ said Fletcher. ‘Got her in the family way. But money changed hands and shut mouths. It was all arranged, no expense spared, and she did away with it. He had a lust for lasses below his station, as they used to say. Working-class girls, servants, factory girls, milkmaids… I even caught him mauling Katie Greenock at Stephen’s party last week.’
At last it made sense to Banks. Nicholas Collier couldn’t keep away from women of a lower social class: Cheryl Duggan, Esther Haines, Katie Greenock, Anne Ralston, the servant girl, Molly Stark - they were all beneath him socially. Although the term had lost a lot of its meaning over the past few years, they might still be called working-class women. Obviously it didn’t matter who they were as individuals; that didn’t interest Collier. He probably had some Victorian image of the working class as a seething, gin-drinking, fornicating, procreating mass. He thrust himself on them and became violent when they objected. No doubt like most perverse sexual practices, his compulsion had a lot to do with power and humiliation.
‘I knew something serious was up when we had those two murders here,’ Fletcher went on, refilling their beer glasses. ‘That detective and young Bernard Allen. I knew it, but I didn’t know what. Whenever I asked, Stephen clammed up, told me to leave it be and I’d be better off not knowing.’ He took a sip of beer. ‘Maybe I should’ve pushed a bit harder. Maybe Stephen would still be alive… But I don’t think he killed himself. That’s what I wanted to tell you. As I said, I saw Nicholas putting something into his drink, and he was in a hell of a state at closing time, worse than if he’d just had a few jars. And the next thing I hear, he’s dead. An overdose, they said. I knew he took sleeping tablets, but an overdose…?’
‘Yes, barbiturates,’ Banks said. ‘Usually fatal, mixed with as much alcohol as Stephen Collier had in his system.’
‘So it’s murder, isn’t it? That bastard brother of his murdered him.’
‘It looks like it, Mr Fletcher, but we’ve got to tread carefully. We’ve got no evidence, no proof.’
‘I’ll testify to what I saw. I’ll help put him away, as God’s my witness.’
Banks shook his head. ‘It’ll help, but it’s not enough. What if Nicholas was putting vodka in his brother’s beer? As you said, it could have been a simple prank, and that’s exactly what he’ll say. It’s all circumstantial and theoretical. We need more solid evidence or a confession.’
‘Then I’ll bloody well beat it out of him,’ Fletcher said, grasping the table and rising to his feet.
‘Sit down,’ said Banks. ‘That’s not going to help at all.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘I honestly don’t know yet,’ Banks said. ‘We might just be able to put together a case, especially if we bring in Anne Ralston, but I don’t want to risk it. Even if we could convince the court it’s worth a risk, I don’t want to take the chance of him getting off, which he might well do on what we’ve got so far.’
‘I know I should’ve spoken up earlier,’ Fletcher said. ‘I knew there was something wrong. If I’d told you before you went to Toronto, you might have had something to push at Stephen with, and he just might have told you the truth. He was on the edge, Mr Banks. That’s why Nicholas had to get rid of him, I suppose.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Banks said. ‘But we still can’t prove it. You shouldn’t blame yourself though. You might have thought you were going to get Stephen in trouble. I imagine you were protecting him?’
Fletcher nodded. ‘I suppose I was. Him and his father’s memory.’
‘To get Nicholas, you’d have had to betray Stephen. He was protecting his brother, or his father, like you were.’
‘What’ll happen to me? Will you prosecute?’
‘For what?’
‘Withholding evidence? Accessory after the fact?’
Banks laughed. ‘You have a very thin grasp of the law, Mr Fletcher. Sure, you could have spoken earlier, as could a number of other people around Stephen Collier. But he kept everyone just enough in the dark so there was nothing, really, to say - nothing but vague fears and suspicions. Believe me, few people come to us with those; they don’t want to look silly.’
‘So nothing’s going to happen to me?’
Banks stood up and gestured to Hatchley that it was time to leave. ‘No. You’ve helped us. It’s up to us now to put a case together, or set a trap.’
‘I’ll do anything to help,’ Fletcher said. ‘Tell the bastard I know something and let him come and try to bump me off.’
‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Banks said, ‘but thanks for the offer.’
They sat in the car for a few minutes and lit cigarettes. It was pitch- black, and far down in the valley below the lights of Swainshead glittered like an alley of stars.
‘How hard should we push Collier?’ Hatchley asked.
‘We don’t push,’ Banks said. ‘At least not the first time. I told you, he’s clever. He’ll see we’re desperate.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We confront him with what we’ve got and try to trip him up. If he’s too clever to fall for that, and I suspect he is, then we try again and keep trying.’ He started the engine and broke the silence.
‘You can’t help admiring the bastard’s nerve though, can you,’ Hatchley said. ‘What if Freddie Metcalfe and Richmond had remembered seeing him order vodka and pour it in Stephen’s pints?’
‘Then all he’d have had to say was that he played a practical joke, like Fletcher said. There’s nothing illegal about chasers. As things stand, it’s only Fletcher’s word against his, and a good defence lawyer would soon prove that John Fletcher had more than just cause to want to incriminate Collier. They’d bring up the incident at the party, for a start. Could you imagine Katie Greenock on the stand?’
Hatchley shook his head. ‘That lass never seems to know whether she’s coming or going.’
