“What complaint?”
“It was years ago. I made a complaint about a policeman for hitting people with his truncheon at a demonstration. I don’t know what became of it. I never heard a thing. I was different then; things seemed more worthwhile fighting for. Now I just let them go their way. They’ll blow it up, Mr Banks. Oh, there’s no doubt about it, they’ll blow us all up. Or is it drugs you want to talk about?”
“It’s partly about the complaint, yes. I wanted to talk to you about Seth Cotton. Seth and Alison.”
“Good old Seth. Poor old Seth. I don’t want to talk about Seth. I don’t have to talk to you, do I?”
“Why don’t you want to talk about him?”
“Because I don’t. Seth’s private. I won’t tell you anything he wouldn’t, so it’s no good asking.”
Banks leaned forward. “Elizabeth,” he said gently, “Seth’s dead. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
At first he thought she wasn’t going to react at all. A little sigh escaped her, nothing more than a gust of wind against a 302
dark window. “Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?” she said, her voice softer, weaker. “Peace at last.” Then she closed her eyes, and her face assumed such a distant, holy expression that Banks didn’t dare break the silence. It would have been blasphemy. When she opened her eyes again, they were clear. “My little prayer,” she said.
“What did you mean, poor Seth?”
“He was such a serious man, and he had to suffer so much pain. How did he die, Mr Banks? Was it peaceful?”
“Yes,” Banks lied.
Elizabeth nodded.
“The problem is,” Banks said, “that nobody knew very much about him, about his feelings or his past. You were quite close to Seth and Alison, weren’t you?”
“I was, yes.”
“Is there anything you can tell me about him, about his past, that might help me understand him better. I know he was upset about Alison’s accident-“
“Accident?”
“Yes. You must know, surely? The car-“
“Alison’s death wasn’t an accident, Mr Banks. She was murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Oh yes. It was murder all right. I told Seth. I made him believe me.”
“When?”
“I figured it out. I used to be a nurse, you know.”
“I know. What did you figure out?”
“Are you sure Seth’s dead?”
Banks nodded.
She eyed him suspiciously, then smiled. “I suppose I can tell you, then. Are you sitting comfortably? That’s what they say before the story on ‘Children’s Hour,’
you know. I used to listen to that when I was young. It’s funny how things stick in your memory, isn’t it? But so much doesn’t. Why is that, do you think? Isn’t the mind peculiar? Do you remember Uncle Mac and ‘Children’s Favourites’?
‘Sparky and the Magic Piano’? Petula Clark singing ‘Little Green Man’?”
303
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” Banks said. “But I’m sitting comfortably.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Good. Then I’ll begin.”
And she launched into one of the saddest and strangest stories that Banks had ever heard.
II
What Liz Dale told him confirmed what he had been beginning to suspect. His theories were no longer mutually exclusive, but he felt none of his usual elation on solving this case.
He drove back to Eastvale slowly, taking the longest, most meandering route west through the gritstone country away from the large towns and cities. There was no hurry. On the way, he listened to scratchy recordings of the old bluesmen: gamblers, murderers, ministers, alcoholics, drug addicts singing songs about poverty, sex, the devil and bad luck. And the signs flashed by: Mytholmroyd, Todmorden, Cornholme. In Lancashire now, he skirted the Burnley area on a series of minor roads that led by the Forest of Trawden, then he was soon back in Craven country around Skipton, where the grass was lush green with limestone-rich soils.
He stopped in Grassington and had a pub lunch, then cut across Greenhow Hill by Pateley Bridge and got back to Eastvale via Ripon.
Burgess was waiting in his office. “You owe me a fiver,” he said. “A couple of glasses of Mumm’s and she was all over me.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Banks said.
