was, we did a bit more poking around the landscape but found no traces of another body.’
‘Do you think she might have murdered Addison and run off?’
‘It’s possible. But it didn’t look like a woman’s job to me. Too much muscle work involved, and Anne Ralston wasn’t one of those female bodybuilders. We questioned her boyfriend pretty closely. He’s Stephen Collier, managing director of the company she worked for. Comes from a very prominent local family.’
‘Yes,’ Banks said. ‘I’ve heard of the Colliers. Did he cause any problems?’
‘No. He was cooperative. Said they hadn’t been getting on all that well lately, but he’d no idea where she’d gone, or why. In the end we’d no reason to think anything had happened to her so we had to assume she’d just left. People do sometimes. And Anne Ralston seemed to be a particularly flighty lass, by all accounts.’
‘Still…’
‘Yes, I know.’ Gristhorpe sighed. ‘It’s not at all satisfactory, is it? We reached nothing but dead ends whichever direction we turned.’
Banks drove on in silence. Obviously failure was hard for Gristhorpe to swallow, as it was for most detectives. But this murder, if that’s what it really turned out to be, was a different case, five years old. He wasn’t going to let the past clutter up his thinking if he could help it. Still, it would be well to keep Raymond Addison and Anne Ralston in mind.
‘This is it,’ Gristhorpe said a few minutes later, pointing to the row of houses ahead. ‘This is Lower Head, as the locals call it.’
‘It hardly seems a big enough place to be split into two parts,’ Banks observed.
‘It’s not a matter of size, Alan. Lower Head is the newest part of the village, the part that’s grown since the road’s become more widely used. People just stop off here to admire the view over a quick cup of tea or a pint and a pub lunch. Upper Head’s older and quieter. A bit more genteel. It’s a little north-south dale in itself, wedged between two fells. There’s a road goes north up there too, but when it gets past the village and the school it gets pretty bad. You can get to the Lake District if you’re willing to ride it out, but most people go from the Lancashire side. Turn right here.’
Banks turned. The base of a triangular village green ran beside the main road, allowing easy access to Swainshead from both directions. The first buildings he passed were a small stone church and a village hall.
Following the minor road north beside the narrow River Swain, Banks could see what Gristhorpe meant.
There were two rows of cottages facing each other, set back quite a bit from the river and its grassy banks.
Most of them were either semis or terraced, and some had been converted into shops. They were plain sturdy houses built mostly of limestone, discoloured here and there with moss and lichen. Many had individualizing touches, such as mullions or white borders painted around doors and windows. Behind the houses on both sides, the commons sloped up, criss-crossed here and there by drystone walls, and gave way to steep moorland fells.
Banks parked the car outside the whitewashed pub and Gristhorpe pointed to a large house farther up the road.
‘That’s the Collier place,’ he said. ‘The old man was one of the richest farmers and landowners around these parts. He also had the sense to invest his money in a food-processing plant just west of here. He’s dead now, but young Stephen runs the factory and he shares the house with his brother. They’ve split it into two halves. Ugly pile of stone, isn’t it?’
Banks didn’t say so, but he rather admired the Victorian extravagance of the place, so at odds with the utilitarian austerity of most Dales architecture. Certainly it was ugly: oriels and turrets cluttered the upper half, making the whole building look top- heavy, and there was a stone porch at each front entrance. They probably had a gazebo and a folly in the back garden too, he thought.
‘And that’s where Raymond Addison stayed,’ Gristhorpe said, pointing across the beck. The house, made of two knocked-together semis, was separated from the smaller terraced houses on either side by only a few feet. A sign, GREENOCK GUEST HOUSE, hung in the colourful well- tended garden.
‘’Ey up, lads,’ Freddie Metcalfe said as they entered, ‘t’ Sweeney’s ’ere.’
‘Hello again, Freddie,’ Gristhorpe said, leading Banks over to the bar. ‘Still serving drinks after hours?’
‘Only to the select few, Mr Gristhorpe,’ Metcalfe replied proudly. ‘What’ll you gents be ’aving?’ He looked at Banks suspiciously. ‘Is ’e over eighteen?’
‘Just,’ Gristhorpe answered.
Freddie burst into a rasping smoker’s laugh.
‘What’s this about a body?’ Gristhorpe asked.
Metcalfe pursed his fleshy lips and nodded towards the only occupied table. ‘Bloke there says he found one on t’ fell. ’E’s not going anywhere, so I might as well pull you gents a pint before you get down to business.’
The superintendent asked for a pint of bitter and Banks, having noticed that the White Rose was a Marston’s house, asked for a pint of Pedigree.
‘’E’s got good taste, I’ll say that for ’im,’ Metcalfe said. ‘Is ’e ’ouse-trained an’ all?’
Banks observed a prudent silence throughout the exchange and took stock of his surroundings. The walls of the lounge bar were panelled in dark wood up to waist height and above that papered an inoffensive dun colour. Most of the tables were the old round kind with cast-iron knee-capper legs, but a few modern square ones stood in the corner near the dartboard and the silent jukebox.
Banks lit a Silk Cut and sipped his pint. He’d refrained from smoking in the car in deference to Gristhorpe’s feelings, but now that he was in a public place he was going to take advantage of it and puff away to his heart’s and lungs’ content.
Carrying their drinks, they walked over to the table.
‘Someone reported a death?’ Gristhorpe asked, his innocent baby-blue eyes ranging over the five men who sat there.
Fellowes hiccuped and put his hand in the air. ‘I did,’ he said, and slid off his chair on to the stone floor.
‘Christ, he’s pissed as a newt,’ Banks said, glaring at Sam Greenock. ‘Couldn’t you have kept him sober till we got here?’
‘Don’t blame me,’ Sam said. ‘He’s only had enough to put some colour back in his cheeks. It’s not my fault he can’t take his drink.’
Two of the others helped Fellowes back into his chair and Freddie Metcalfe rushed over with some smelling salts he kept behind the bar for this and similar exigencies.
Fellowes moaned and waved away the salts, then slumped back and squinted at Gristhorpe. He was clearly in no condition to guide them to the scene of the crime.
‘It’s all right, Inshpector,’ he said. ‘Bit of a shock to the syshtem, thass all.’
‘Can you tell us where you found this body?’ Gristhorpe spoke slowly, as if to a child.
‘Over Shwainshead Fell, there’s a beautiful valley. All autumn colours. Can’t mish it, just down from where the footpath reaches the top. Go shtraight down till you get to the beck, then cross it… Easy. Near the lady’s slipper.’
‘Lady’s slipper?’
‘Yes. The orchish, not the bird’s-foot trefoil. Very rare. Body’s near the lady’s shlipper.’
Then he half twisted in his chair and stretched his arm up his back.
‘I left my rucksack,’ he said. ‘Thought I did. Just over from my rucksack, then. Ruckshack marks the spot.’
Then he hiccuped again and his eyes closed.
‘Does anyone know where he’s staying?’ Banks asked the group.
‘He was staying at my guest house,’ Sam said. ‘But he left this morning.’
‘Better get him back there, if there’s room. He’s in no condition to go anywhere and we’ll want to talk to him again later.’
Sam nodded. ‘I think we’ve still got number five empty, unless someone’s arrived while I’ve been out.
Stephen?’ He looked over to the man next to him, who helped him get Fellowes to his feet.
‘It’s Stephen Collier, isn’t it?’ Gristhorpe asked, then turned to the person opposite Greenock. ‘And you’re Nicholas. Remember, I talked to you both a few years ago about Anne Ralston and that mysterious death?’
‘We remember,’ Nicholas answered. ‘You knew Father too, if I recall rightly?’
‘Not well, but yes, we bent elbows together once or twice. Quite a man.’
‘He was indeed,’ Nicholas said.
Outside, Banks and Gristhorpe watched Sam and Stephen help Neil Fellowes over the bridge. The old men stood by and stared in silence.
Gristhorpe looked up at the fell side. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a long climb up there. How the bloody hell are we going to get Glendenning and the scene-of-crime team up if we need them? Come to that, how am
Banks followed Gristhorpe’s gaze and scratched his head. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we could give it a try.’
Gristhorpe pulled a face. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’
2
