shillings and eleven coupons. She persuaded me into buying a Utility design by Norman Hartnell in a shop nearby for only three pounds and nine coupons.
After fish and chips at a British Restaurant, we went to the Carlton on Haymarket to see Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in
It was getting dark when we walked out onto Haymarket, and Gloria suggested we catch the underground back to King’s Cross.
It is hard to describe the London blackout, especially on a broad, busy street like Haymarket. As it is never fully silent anywhere, so it is never fully dark, either. You can see the sharp edges and cornices of the buildings etched against the night sky in varying shades of darkness. If the half-moon slips out from behind the clouds, everything shimmers in its pale light for a few moments and then disappears again.
What I noticed most of all was the noise, the way blind people develop a more acute sense of hearing. Distant shouts and whistles, engines, laughter and singing from a public house, perhaps a dog howling in the distance or a cat meowing down a ginnel – all these sounds seem to carry farther and echo longer in the darkness of the blackout. They all sound more sinister, too.
“Unnatural” is the word that comes to mind. But what could be more natural than darkness? Perhaps it is a matter of context. In the city, especially such a sprawling, busy city as London, darkness is unnatural.
In Piccadilly Circus, I could just make out the statue of Eros buttressed by sandbags. There was music coming from somewhere, too, a tune I later learned was Glenn Miller’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.” There were soldiers all over the place, many of them drunk, and on more than one occasion men approached us and grabbed us or offered us money for sexual favors.
At one point, I heard some sounds down an alley and could just make out the silhouettes of a man grunting as he thrust himself toward a woman, her back against a wall. It made me think of that icy Christmas of 1941, when I had seen Gloria and the Canadian airman, Mark, in exactly the same position.
The underground platforms, where people came to shelter during the air raids, were crowded, and I fancied I could smell sweat, unwashed clothes and urine mixed in with the sooty smell the trains made. Everything was grimy and run-down. The train soon came and we had to stand all the way. No one stood up to offer us seats.
I was glad our train for home left on time, and though I knew I would dream about the trip for weeks to come, I can’t say I was sorry when, after a boring and uneventful journey of some seven hours, we caught the morning train from Leeds to Harrogate, thence to hook up with our little branch line back to Hobb’s End.
It was after seven o’clock by the time Banks and Annie met up that evening. On his way back from Edinburgh, Banks got stuck in the mid-afternoon traffic around Newcastle, then he had to call in at the station to see if there had been any developments during his absence.
He had found about twenty telephone messages waiting for him in response to Monday evening’s television news appearance. He spent an hour or so returning calls, but all he found out was that someone thought the Shackletons had moved to Leeds after VE day, and someone else remembered drinking with Matthew Shackleton in Hobb’s End near the end of the war. Most people, though, simply wanted to relive wartime memories and had no useful information whatsoever.
There was also a message from John Webb, who said he had cleaned up the button Adam Kelly had taken from the skeleton. It was made of brass, probably, about half an inch in diameter, and had a raised pattern on the front, possibly reminiscent of wings. The expert who had examined it suggested it might be some sort of bird. Clearly, he added, given the time period under consideration, the armed forces came to mind, perhaps the RAF.
When Banks had finished at the station, he phoned Annie and asked if she would mind coming up to Gratly, as he had been on the road most of the day. She said she didn’t mind at all. Then he went home, took a long shower and tidied the place up. It didn’t take long. Next he tried phoning Brian in Wimbledon again. Still no luck. What the hell was he supposed to do? It was nearly a week since their argument. He could go down there, he supposed, but not until the case was over. Anyway, he decided to try again the next day.
He thought of cooking something for Annie, then decided against it. Learning to cook might be his next project after fixing up the cottage, but he still had a long way to go. Besides, there was nothing in the fridge except a couple of cans of lager, half a tomato and a piece of moldy Cheddar. He would take her out to the Dog and Gun in Helmthorpe for dinner and hope to God there was something vegetarian on the menu.
When Annie arrived, she first showed him the photograph of Gloria and her friends with the American airmen. Then, after a lightning tour of the house, which she described as “very bijou,” she agreed it was a perfect evening for a stroll. They left their cars parked in Banks’s gravel laneway and headed for Helmthorpe in the hazy evening light, sharing the information each had learned that day as they walked.
Sheep grazed on the lynchets that descended toward the dried-up beck. Some of them had even managed to get through the gate at the back of the churchyard, where they grazed among the lichen-dappled tombstones.
“Have time for a walk on the prom in Scarborough?” Banks asked.
“Of course. Had to eat, didn’t I? I can tell you, though, there’s not much choice for a vegetarian in Scarborough. I ended up buying some chips – cooked in vegetable oil, or so the woman said – and sat on a bench by the harbor to eat them, watching a man painting his fishing boat. He tried to chat me up.”
“Oh?”
“He didn’t get very far. I’m used to being chatted up by fishermen. It takes more than heroic tales of landing haddock or halibut to get into
Banks laughed. “Saint Ives?”
“Right. Heard it all before. Got the T-shirt. Anyway, after that I went for a quick look at Anne Bronte’s grave, then I came back to the station to write up the interview.”
“Do you like Anne Bronte’s books?”
“I haven’t read any. It’s just the sort of thing you do, isn’t it, when you’re nearby. Go and see where famous people are buried. I saw
“What sort of thing?”
“Governesses, bodices, tight corsets, all that repressed Victorian sexuality.”
“And you don’t?”
Annie cocked her head. “I didn’t say that.”
It was early September now, and the nights were drawing in fast. When they got to the High Street, the sun was already low in the west, a red ball glowing like an ember through the gathering haze, and the shadows were lengthening. Sounds of laughter and music came from the open pub doors. Tourists, tired after the day out and a big meal, were getting in their cars and driving back to their cities.
Annie and Banks walked through the crowded bar and managed to find a table in the beer garden out back. Between the trees, the dying sunlight streaked the river shallows blood-orange and crimson. Annie sat down while Banks went to buy a couple of pints and order their food. Luckily, Annie said she wasn’t very hungry and a cheese- and-pickle sandwich would do her fine. He was just in time; they were about to stop serving.
“It’s nice out here,” Annie said when he came back with the drinks. “Thanks.”
“Cheers.” Banks took a sip. Though there were a few other people sitting outside, conversations seemed hushed. “So who have we got now, then?” he asked. “Now we’ve discovered that Matthew was killed before Gloria was?”
Annie leaned back, stretched out her long legs and set them on the third white plastic chair at the table. “What about the boyfriend?” she suggested. “The American.”
“Brad? As her killer? Why?”
“Why not? Or one of his pals. She could have stirred them up, set them against one another. I get the impression that Gloria was the kind of woman who exerted an enormous power over men. Brad could have been hoping for more than he got. Alice said she thought he was more keen on Gloria than she was on him. Maybe she tried to shake him loose and he wouldn’t go. Rowan Woods wasn’t far away. It would have been easy for him to sneak in and out the back way, I should think.”
“We definitely need to find out more about the Americans in Hobb’s End,” said Banks.
“How do we go about that?”
