Lee seemed to drift off again, letting his pipe go out. Banks couldn’t think of any more questions, so he stood up to leave. Lee noticed and snapped out of his daze.
“Off, are you?” he said. “Sure you won’t stay for a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you, Mr Lee. You’ve been very helpful. I’m sorry I had to put you through it all again.”
“There’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t think on it,” Lee said.
“You shouldn’t keep torturing yourself that way,” Banks told him. “Whichever way you look at it, no blame can possibly attach itself to you.”
“Aye, no blame,” Lee repeated. And his piercing inward gaze put Banks in mind of the actor Trevor Howard at his conscience-stricken best. There was nothing more to say. Feeling depressed, Banks walked back out to the street in the chilly spring sunshine. The children paused and stared as he passed by.
It was after five o’clock and the people down in the town were hurrying home from work. All Banks had to look forward to was a tin of ravioli on toast-which he would no doubt burn-and another evening alone.
214
Looking up the hillside to the west, he thought of Heptonstall, a village at the summit. He’d heard that the pub there served Timothy Taylor’s beer, something he’d never tried. It had been a wasted and depressing afternoon as far as information was concerned, so he might as well salvage it somehow.
Alison Cotton’s death had obviously been a tragic accident, and that was all there was to it. She had either rubbed against the kerb and lost her balance, or she had fainted, perhaps due to the effects of her pregnancy. Banks could hardly blame Seth for not wanting to talk about it.
He got in his car and drove up the steep hill to Heptonstall. It was a quiet village at that time of day: narrow winding terraces of small dark cottages, many with the tell-tale rows of upper windows where weavers had once worked.
He lingered over his food and beer in the window seat of the Cross Inn, planning what to do next. The Timothy Taylor’s bitter was good, smooth as liquid gold.
Shadows lengthened and the fronts of the gritstone houses over the narrow street turned even darker.
It was late when he got home-almost ten-and he’d hardly had time to put his slippers on and sit down before the phone rang.
“Alan, thank God you’re back. I’ve been trying to call you all evening.” It was Jenny.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Dennis. His flat has been broken into.”
“Has he reported it?”
“No. He wants to see you.”
“He should report it.”
“I know, but he won’t. Will you go and see him? Please?”
“Was he hurt?”
“No, he was out when it happened. It must have been sometime earlier this evening.”
“Was anything taken?”
“He’s not clear about that. Nothing important, I don’t think. Will you see him?
Please?”
Banks could hardly refuse. In the first place, Jenny was 215
clearly distraught on Osmond’s behalf, and in the second, it might have a bearing on the case. If Osmond refused to come to him, then he would have to go to Osmond. Sighing, he said, “Tell him I’ll be right over.”
II
“You don’t like me very much, do you, Chief Inspector?” said Osmond as soon as Banks had made himself comfortable.
“I’m not bowled over, no.”
Osmond leaned back in his armchair and smiled. “You’re not jealous, are you?
Jenny told me how close you two got during that Peeping Tom business.”
She did, did she? Banks thought angrily. Just how much had she told him? “Could you just get on with it, please?” he said. “I’m here, at Jenny’s request, to investigate a breakin you haven’t reported officially. The least you can do is stop trying to be so fucking clever.”
The smile disappeared. “Yes, all right. For what good it’ll do me.”
“First off, why didn’t you report it?”
“I don’t trust the police, certainly not the way I’ve been treated since the demonstration. Burgess was around here again this afternoon tossing insults and accusations about. And I don’t want my apartment done over by a bunch of coppers, either.”
“Why not? What have you got to hide?”
“Nothing to hide, not in the way you mean it. But I value my privacy.”
“So why am I here?”
