do with Bernie’s murder?’ His accent was English, as was Ian’s, but Banks couldn’t place either of them exactly.
‘I don’t honestly know if she had anything to do with it,’ Banks said, ‘but she’s the only real lead we’ve got.’ He explained about her disappearance just after the Addison murder.
The drinks arrived just before Glen Tadworth, a dark-bearded, well padded young man with a pronounced academic stoop and a well developed beer belly, walked over to join them. His red shirt seemed glued to his skin, and there were wet patches under the arms and across the chest. He carried a battered black briefcase stuffed with papers, which he plonked on the floor as he sat down and sighed.
‘Bloody students,’ he said, running his hand through his greasy black hair. ‘“Dover Beach” - a simple enough poem, you’d say, wouldn’t you?’ He looked at Banks as he talked, even though they hadn’t been introduced. ‘One bright spark came up with the theory that it was about Matthew Arnold’s hangover. Quite elaborate, it was too. The “grating roar” was the poet being sick. And as for the “long line of spray”…
Well, I suppose one should be grateful for their inventiveness, but really…’ He threw his hands up, then reached over and took a long swig from Ian’s pint.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Barry said, managing to keep his eyes on Banks for a split second as he spoke. ‘He’s always like this. Always complaining.’ And he introduced them.
‘From Swainsdale, eh?’ Glen said. ‘A breath of fresh air from the old country. Lord, what I’d give to be able to live back there again. Not Swainsdale in particular, though it’d do. I’m from the West Country myself - Exeter. The accent’s flattened out a bit over the years here, I’m afraid.’
‘Why can’t you go back if you want to?’ Banks asked, reaching for another cigarette. ‘Surely you weren’t sent into permanent exile?’
‘Metaphorically, my dear Chief Inspector, metaphorically. You know, some people have got hold of the idea that we expatriates, scattered around the ex-colonies and various watering holes of Europe and Asia, are all pipe-puffing Tories enjoying life without income tax.’
‘And aren’t you?’
‘Far from it. Where is that waitress? Ah, Stella, my dear, a pint of Smithwick’s please. Where was I?
Exile. Yes. If the government really did seek our proxy votes in the next election, I think they’d bloody well regret it. Most of us feel like exiles. We have skills that no one back home seems to value any more.
It’s hard enough getting jobs here, but at least it’s possible. And they pay well. But I, for one, would be perfectly happy to do the same work back home for less money. There’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about going back.’
‘What about Bernie?’
‘He was as bad as Glen, if not worse,’ Barry said. ‘At least recently he was. Full of nostalgia. It’s time-travel they’re after really, you know, not just a flight across the Atlantic. All of us baby boomers are nostalgic when it comes down to it. That’s why we prefer the Beatles to Duran Duran.’
Banks also liked the Beatles better than Duran Duran, a group that his son, Brian, had inflicted on him once or twice before moving on to something new. He thought it was because of the quality of the music, but maybe Barry Clark was right and it was more a matter of nostalgia than anything else. His own father had been just the same, he remembered, going on about Glenn Miller, Nat Gonella and Harry Roy when Banks had wanted to listen to Elvis Presley, The Shadows and Billy Fury.
‘The longer you’re away, the more you idealize the image of home,’ Barry went on, eyes roving the room.
The place was packed and noisy now. People stood three deep at the bar. Jack, Banks noticed, had been joined by a small pretty woman with short dark hair laid flat against her skull. The Lancastrian and his friends had left. ‘Of course, what people don’t realize is that the country’s changed beyond all recognition,’ Barry continued. ‘We’d be foreigners there now, but to us home is still the Queen’s Christmas message, the last night of the Proms, Derby Day, a Test Match at Lords, the FA Cup Final -
without bloodshed! - leafy lanes, a green and pleasant land. Ordered and changeless. Bloody hell, even the dark Satanic mills have some sort of olde worlde charm for homesick expatriates.’
‘Damn right,’ Glen said. ‘I’d work in a bloody woollen mill in Bingley if it meant being back home. Well, maybe… It’s the wistfulness of the exile, you see, Chief Inspector. You get it a lot in poetry. Especially the Irish.’
Banks was beginning to see what Jack had meant.
‘Bernie was just the same,’ Ian said. ‘You should have heard him going on about Yorkshire. It was bloody Dales this and bloody Dales that. You’d think he was talking about paradise. You’ll never catch me going back to live over there. Canada’s a great place as far as I’m concerned.’
‘That’s because you’re in real estate,’ Glen said. ‘You’re making a bloody fortune. Is that all you care about - the material things? What about your soul, your roots?’
‘Oh, shut up, Glen. You’re getting tiresome.’
‘If he could have got a job over there,’ Banks asked, ‘do you think he would have gone back?’
‘Like a shot,’ Ian answered. The others agreed.
‘Did he ever mention anything about a job?’
‘He did say there was a chance of getting back to stay,’ Glen said. ‘Lucky bastard. But I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.’
‘What was this chance?’
‘He didn’t say. Very hush-hush, apparently.’
‘Why?’
Glen scratched his shoulder and tried to unstick the shirt from his armpit. ‘Dunno. It was just one of those nights when you’ve had a few too many, if you know what I mean. Bernie said something about a plan he had to get himself back home.’
‘But he gave you no details?’
‘No. Said he’d let us know after he got back.’
‘Was it a job he mentioned?’
‘Not specifically, no. Just a chance to get back. I assumed it must have been some possible job offer. How else would he be able to live?’
‘How attached was he to teaching?’
‘He liked it up to a point,’ Glen answered. ‘It was something he was good at. He should have been teaching at university. He was good enough, but there aren’t any jobs. Like most of us though, he hated the conditions he had to work in and he despised the students’ wilful ignorance. They don’t know anything and they don’t want to know - unless it’s in a ballpark or on video. They expect you to spoon-feed them knowledge, then ask them to regurgitate it in a test. For that they expect to be given an A-plus, no matter how bad their writing or how inaccurate their answers. I could go on-’
‘You usually do, Glen,’ Barry cut in, ‘but I don’t think Mr Banks wants to hear it.’
Banks smiled. ‘Actually, I am running out of time,’ he said. ‘I need to find Julie as quickly as possible. Do you know where she lives?’
‘No,’ said Ian. ‘She just comes in on a Friday after work for a couple of drinks.’
‘It’s somewhere near here, I think,’ Barry added. ‘She mentioned sunbathing in Kew Gardens once.’
‘Have you any idea what surname she’s using?’
‘It’s Culver, isn’t it?’ Barry said. ‘Or Cleaver, Carver, something like that.’
None of the others could improve on Barry’s contribution.
‘Do you know where she works?’
‘In one of those towers near King and Bay,’ Ian answered. ‘The TD Centre or First Canadian Place. She complained that the elevators made her ears go funny.’
‘That’s a lot of help,’ Glen said. ‘Do you know how many businesses operate from those places?’
Ian shrugged. ‘Well, that’s all I know. What about you?’
Glen and Barry both shook their heads.
‘She should be in here at about six tomorrow though,’ Barry said. ‘She hasn’t missed a week yet.’
‘Fine. Look, would you do me a favour? If she turns up early or if I’m late, please don’t tell her I want to see her. It might scare her off. You know how some people react to the police.’
‘Are you sure you’re not after her for something?’ Glen asked suspiciously.
‘Information. That’s all.’
‘All right,’ Glen agreed. ‘If it’s going to help catch Bernie’s killer, we’ll do whatever you want.’ He paused to pick up his pint glass and raise it for a toast. ‘There is one good thing in all this, you know. At least Bernie died in the place he wanted to live.’
‘Yes,’ Banks said. ‘There is that.’
And they all drank to dying where they wanted to live.
11
