Not that he hadn’t enjoyed himself - it had been very much like a week’s holiday - but he longed to get back to his Eastvale mates. Tomorrow the rugby team was playing Skipton, a game he would have to miss. There was always a good booze-up and sing-song after the match, and it would be a shame to miss that too. Jim Hatchley was usually there for the booze, of course. An honorary member they called him now he wasn’t fit enough to play any more. But even the sergeant’s presence didn’t spoil Richmond’s fun: a few jars, a good sing-song, then, with a bit of luck, a kiss and a cuddle with Doreen on the way home. He prided himself on being a man of simple tastes, yet he also liked to think that nothing else about him was simple.
Finishing his sandwich, he unwrapped a Kit-Kat and picked up
Certainly there had been a bit of a fuss or flap, as Freddie Metcalfe had said, earlier in the week. But it had soon died down and everyone carried on as normal. Was it a false sense of security? The lull before the storm. Perhaps they knew who Richmond was and were being especially careful? He certainly couldn’t keep an eye on all of them.
He stroked his moustache and turned back to his book. Not ours to reason why… But still, he thought, an arrest would have helped his career. A thrilling car chase, perhaps, or a cross-country marathon. He pictured himself bringing in the killer, arm twisted up his back, and throwing him in Eastvale nick under Banks’ approving smile. Then he laughed at himself, brushed a persistent wasp away and went back to Philip K. Dick.
FOUR
That Saturday, the afternoon of his last day in Toronto, Banks went to his first baseball game. The retractable roof was open and a breeze from the lake relieved some of the humidity at the SkyDome, where the Toronto Blue Jays were playing the New York Yankees, but the temperature was still almost thirty degrees. In England, people would have been fainting from the heat.
Banks and Gregson sat in the stands, ate hot dogs and drank beer out of flimsy plastic cups.
‘Lucky to be drinking it at all,’ Gregson said when Banks complained. ‘It took a lot of doing, getting drinking allowed at ball games.’
A fat boy of about twelve sitting next to Banks stopped shovelling barbecue-flavoured potato crisps into his maw to stand up and hurl obscene death threats at the Yankees’ pitcher. His equally obese mother looked embarrassed but made no attempt to control him.
Banks wished his son, Brian, could be there. Unlike Banks, he had watched enough baseball on Channel 4
to be able to understand the game. When Banks first took his seat, the only baseball term he knew was home run, but by the end of the third innings, Gregson had explained all about RBIs, the tops and bottoms of the innings, designated hitters, knuckle balls, the bullpen, bunting, the balk rule, pinch hitters and at least three different kinds of pitches.
The game mounted to an exciting conclusion, and the boy next to him spilled his crisps all over the floor.
Finally, the home crowd went wild. Down five-four at the bottom of the ninth, with two out, the sixth Blue Jay up drove one home with all the bases loaded - a grand slam, Gregson called it. That made the score eight-five, and that was how the game ended.
They pushed their way out of the stadium, and Gregson negotiated the heavy traffic up Spadina to Bloor, where they stopped in at the Madison for a farewell drink.
‘Are you planning to do anything about the Culver woman?’ Gregson asked.
Banks sipped his pint of Conner bitter. They were out on the patio, and the late afternoon sun beat down on his shoulders.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘What did she do, after all?’
‘From the sound of it, she withheld evidence. She was a material witness. If she’d spoken up, this new homicide might never have happened.’
Banks shook his head. ‘She didn’t have much choice really. I know what you mean, but you’ve got to understand what things are like around Swainshead. It’s not like Toronto. She couldn’t tell what she knew.
There was loyalty, yes, but there was also fear. The Colliers are a powerful family. If she’d stayed we might have got something out of her, but on the other hand something might have happened to her first.’
‘So she left under threat?’
‘That’s the way I’d put it, yes.’
‘And you think this Collier guy killed Allen because he knew too much?’
‘I think it was more to do with what Allen intended to do with his knowledge. I can’t prove it, but I think he was going to blackmail Stephen Collier. Julie Culver disagrees, but from what one of Allen’s boozing buddies told me, he had some plan to get back home to England. I think he asked Collier for the money to come home and live in Swainshead again, or maybe to fix him up with a job. Collier’s brother teaches at a small public school, and Allen was a teacher. Maybe he suggested that Stephen tell Nicholas to get him a job there. Instead, Stephen decided to get rid of Allen the same way he did with Addison.’
‘Shit,’ said Gregson. ‘I’d no idea Toronto was so bad that people would stoop to blackmail to get out of here.’
Banks laughed. ‘Maybe it’s just that Swainsdale is so beautiful people would do anything to get there. I don’t know. Allen was seriously disturbed, I think. A number of things took their toll on him: the divorce, the distance from home, the disappointment of not getting the kind of job that would really challenge his mind. Someone told me that he had gone beyond the parochial barriers of most English teachers, but he found himself in a system that placed no value on the exceptional, a system that almost imposed such barriers. The teaching he was doing was dreary, the students were ignorant and uninterested, and I think he tended to blame it on the local educational system. He thought things would be better in England. He probably remembered his own grammar school days when even poor kids got to learn Latin, and he thought things were still like that. Perhaps he didn’t even think he was doing anything really bad when he approached Collier. Or maybe he did. He had plenty of cause to resent him.’
‘That old British class system again?’
‘Partly. It’s hard to figure Allen out. Mostly, he seems like a decent person gone wrong, but he also had a big chip on his shoulder all along. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know what really motivated him.’
‘But you do have your killer.’
‘Yes - if he hasn’t done a bunk. But we’ve no proof yet.’
‘He knows you’re here, on to the girl?’
‘The whole village knows. We’ve got a man there.’
‘Well, then… What time’s your flight?’
‘Nine o’clock.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Christ, it’s six now. I’d better get back and pick up my stuff.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ Gregson said. ‘I’m off duty all day, and it can be a real hassle getting to the airport.’
‘Would you? That’s great.’
At the house, Banks packed his meagre belongings and the presents he had bought for his family, then left a thank-you note with the bottle of Scotch for Gerry. In a way, he felt sad to leave the house and neighbourhood that had become familiar to him over the past week: the sound of streetcars rattling by; the valley with its expressway and green slopes; the downtown skyline; the busy overflowing Chinese shops at Broadview and Gerrard.
The traffic along Lakeshore Boulevard to the airport turn-off wasn’t too heavy, and they made it with plenty of time to spare. The two policemen swapped addresses and invitations outside the departures area, then Gregson drove straight off home. Banks didn’t blame him. He’d always hated hanging around airports himself if he didn’t have a plane to catch.
After the queue at the check-in desk, the trip to the duty-free shop and the passage through security and immigration, it was almost time to board the plane. As they took off, Banks looked out of the window and saw the city lit up in the twilight below him: grids and figure eights of light as far as he could see in every direction except south, where he could pick out the curve of the bay and the matt silver-grey of Lake Ontario.
Once in the air, it was on with the Walkman - Kiri te Kanawa’s soaring arias seemed most appropriate this time - down the hatch with the Johnnie Walker and away with the food. A seasoned traveller already. This time even the movie was tolerable. A suspense thriller without the car chases and special effects that so often marred that type of film for Banks, it concentrated on the psychology of policeman and victim.
He slept for a while, managed to choke down the coffee and roll that came for breakfast, and looked out of the window to see the sun shining over Ireland.
It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, local time, when he cleared customs and reclaimed his baggage.
Among the crowd of people waiting to welcome friends and relatives stood Sandra, who threw her arms around him and gave him a long kiss.
‘I told Brian and Tracy they should come, too,’ she said, breaking away and picking up the duty-free bag,
‘but you know what they’re like about sleeping in on Sunday mornings.’
‘So it’s not that they don’t love me any more?’
‘Don’t be silly. They’ve missed you as much as I have.
