In A Dry Season

sort of deep message across. They’re not preachers. What I’m saying is that Stanhope obviously perceived something odd about Hobb’s End, something that went below the surface, beyond the superficial ideas of village life. He saw something evil there and maybe something redemptive in the children.”

“Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? Maybe it was just because there was a war coming?”

“I’m not trying to make out he was a visionary. Just that he saw something a lot of other people would either not see or would gloss over. He really looked and maybe he saw something that might be useful to us. Damn!”

“What?”

“Oh, I just spilled some pasta sauce on my T-shirt, that’s all.” She grinned and rubbed at the red mark over her breast. That only made it worse. “I always was a messy eater.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks. Where was I?”

“The artist’s vision.”

“Right. It’s got nothing to do with personality. In life, Stanhope might well have been a mean, lecherous, drunken slob. Believe me, I’ve known a lot of artists, and many of them have been exactly that. Talk about groups living up to their stereotypes.”

Banks sipped some wine. Emmylou Harris was singing about wearing something pretty and white. Banks thought he could detect Neil Young’s high-pitched warble in the background. “You seem to know a lot about the subject,” he said. “Any particular reason?”

Annie fell silent for a moment, looking down at her empty plate, moving the fork around in her hand. Finally, she said in a quiet voice, “My father’s an artist.”

“Is he well-known?”

“Not really. In some circles, perhaps.” She looked up and smiled crookedly. “He’ll never go down in history as one of the greats, if that’s what you mean.”

“He’s still living, I assume?”

“Ray? Oh, yes. He’s just turned fifty-two. He was only twenty when I was born.”

“Does he have what it takes to be a great artist?”

“To some extent. But you have to remember, there’s a big, big gap between someone like my dad and Van Gogh or Picasso. It’s all relative.”

“What about your mother?”

Again, Annie was silent a few moments. “She died,” she said at last. “When I was six. I don’t really remember her very well. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

“More wine?”

“Please.”

Annie poured.

“That oil portrait in the living room, is it your mother?”

Annie nodded.

“Your father painted it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s very good. She was a beautiful woman. You look a lot like her.”

It was almost dark outside now. Annie hadn’t put on any lights, so Banks couldn’t see her expression.

“Where did you grow up?” he asked.

“Saint Ives.”

“Nice place.”

“You know it?”

“I’ve been there on holiday a couple of times. Years ago, when I worked on the Met. It’s a bit far from here.”

“I don’t get down as often as I should. Maybe you remember it was a magnet for hippies in the sixties? It became something of an artist’s colony.”

“I remember.”

“My father lived there even before that. Over the years he’s done all kinds of odd jobs to support his art. He might have even rented you a deck chair on the beach. Now he paints local landscapes and sells them to tourists. Does some glass engraving too. He’s quite successful at it.”

“So he makes a decent living?”

“Yes. He doesn’t have to rent out the deck chairs anymore.”

“He brought you up alone?”

Annie pushed her hair back. “Well, not really. I mean, yes, in the sense that my mother was dead, but we lived in a sort of artists’ colony on an old farm just outside town, so there were always lots of other people around. My extended family, you might call them. Ray’s been living with Jasmine for nearly twenty years now.”

“It sounds like a strange setup.”

“Only to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It seemed perfectly normal to me. It was the other kids who seemed strange. The ones with mothers and fathers.”

“Did you get teased a lot at school?”

“Tormented. Some of the locals were very intolerant. Thought we were having orgies every night, doing drugs, worshiping the devil, the usual stuff. Actually, though there always seemed to be some pot around, they couldn’t have been further from the truth. There were a few wild ones – that kind of free, experimental way of life always attracts a few unstable types – but on the whole it was a pretty good environment to grow up in. Plus I got a great education in the arts – and not from school.”

“What made you join the police?”

“The village bobby took my virginity.”

“Seriously.”

Annie laughed and poured more wine. “It’s true. He did. His name was Rob. He came up to see us once, looking for someone who’d passed through, one of the occasional undesirables. He was good-looking. I was seventeen. He noticed me. It seemed a suitable act of rebellion.”

“Against your par – your father?”

“Against all of them. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate them or anything. It was just that I’d had enough of that lifestyle by then. There were too many people around all the time, nowhere to escape to. Too much talk and not enough done. You could never get any privacy. That’s why I value it so much now. And how many times can a grown person listen to ‘White Rabbit’?”

Banks laughed. “I feel the same way about ‘Nessun Dorma.’”

“Anyway, Rob seemed solid, dependable, more sure of himself and what he believed in.”

“Was he?”

“Yes. We went out until I went to university in Exeter. Then he turned up there a year or so later as a DC. He introduced me to some of his friends and we sort of started going out again. I suppose they found me a bit weird. After all, I didn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. I still had a lot of my father’s values, and I was into yoga and meditation even back then, when nobody else was. I didn’t really fit in anywhere. I don’t know why, but being a detective sounded exciting. Different. When you get right down to it, most jobs are so bloody boring. I’d thought of becoming a teacher, but I changed my mind and joined the force. It was a bit impulsive, I’ll admit.”

Banks wanted to ask her why she was in a dead-end place like Harkside, but he sensed that this wasn’t the moment. At least he could ask a leading question and see if she was willing to be led. “How has it worked out?”

“It’s tough for a woman. But things are what you make them. I’m a feminist, but I’m the sort who just likes to get on with it rather than whine about what’s wrong with the system. Maybe that comes from my dad. He goes his own way. Anyway, you know all about what it’s like, about how unexciting it is most of the time. And how bloody boring it can be.”

“True enough. What happened to Rob?”

“He got killed during an armed drugs bust three years later. Poor sod. His gun jammed.”