In A Dry Season

Vivian Elmsley got up at about one o’clock, turned on the bedside light and took a sleeping pill. She didn’t like them, didn’t like the way they made her feel woolly-minded the next morning, but this was getting ridiculous. They said old people didn’t need as much sleep, but lying tossing and turning all night imagining someone scratching at the window or tapping at the door was exhausting. It was probably the wind, she told herself as she turned off the light and settled back on the pillows.

But there was no wind.

Slowly, the chemical Morpheus insinuated its way into her system. She felt sluggish, her blood heavy as lead, pushing her down into the mattress. Soon she hovered on the threshold between sleep and waking, where thoughts take on the aspect of dreams, and an image you conjure up consciously is suddenly snatched away for unconscious improvisations, like variations on a musical theme.

At first, she pictured Gloria’s tilted head as she had appeared on the TV screen, the detail from Stanhope’s painting, looking like a cartoon-Gloria.

Then the cartoon-Gloria started talking about a night in Rio de Janeiro when Vivian had had too much to drink and – the only time – succumbed to sexual advances at a cocktail party in a big hotel, remembered a whispered room number, waited until Ronald was fast asleep and slipped out into the corridor.

The cartoon-Gloria’s monologue was cut with images of the night, which flicked past jerkily like the series of cards in an old “What the Butler Saw” machine.

Vivian had always wondered what it would be like. They only did it once. Her lover was a gentle and sensitive woman from the French Embassy, conscious it was Vivian’s first time, but ultimately frustrated at her lack of ability to respond. It wasn’t for want of trying, Vivian thought. She couldn’t lose herself in sex with a man, so she had hoped she could abandon herself to the caresses of another woman, enjoy the bliss that writers wrote about and people risked everything for.

But she couldn’t. It wouldn’t happen.

Finally, she put on her robe and hurried out, humiliated, back to her own room. Ronald was still snoring away. She lay on her own bed and stared at the dark ceiling, tears welling in her eyes, a dull ache in her loins.

As the cartoon-Gloria retold the story of Vivian’s failed attempt at sex and infidelity, it was as if the TV camera started to move away from her, and the rest of Gloria came into view, showing more of her figure, and before long Vivian realized that Gloria wasn’t wearing a red dress; she was covered in blood which oozed from cuts deep into the gristle of her flesh.

Yet she was still talking.

Talking about something that happened years after her death.

Vivian tried to stop it but she felt as if she were being held down by the weight of her own blood, an anchor hooked deep into the darkness and the horror. Too heavy.

She struggled to wake, and as she did, the telephone rang. Her bonds were suddenly cut, and she shot up, gasping for air as if she had been drowning.

Without thinking, she picked up the receiver. A lifeline.

After a short pause, the monotone voice whispered, “Gwen. Gwen Shackleton.”

“Go away,” she mumbled, her tongue thick and furred.

The voice laughed. “Soon, Gwen,” the man said. “Soon.”

ELEVEN

Banks and Annie drove out to the estate from Millgarth Police Headquarters. When Annie asked Banks why he always wanted to do the driving himself, he didn’t really know the answer. Being driven was one of the perks of his rank that he had never really capitalized on. Partly, he would always rather use his own car than sign one out because he didn’t want to have to put up with other coppers’ cigarette butts in the ashtrays, chocolate wrappers, used tissues and God knows what else all over the floor, not to mention the lingering germs and odors. Mostly, though, he needed to be in control, with his feet on the pedals, his hands on the steering wheel.

He also liked to control the music. It had always angered Sandra, the way he put on whatever CD he wanted to listen to, or turned on the television to a program he wanted to watch. She claimed he was selfish. He said he always knew what he wanted to listen to or watch and she didn’t; besides, why should he listen to music, or watch films he didn’t like? Another stand-off.

Banks parked in front of a strip of shops set back from the main road near Bramley Town End, and he and Annie strolled down the hill toward the street where Gwen and Matthew Shackleton had lived. Both were dressed casually; neither looked like a police officer. Sometimes, feelings against all forms of authority ran high on these estates. People spotted strangers quickly enough as it was, and they were naturally suspicious of anyone in a suit. Which was hardly surprising: On an estate like this, if you saw someone you knew wearing a suit, you assumed he had a court appearance coming up; and if you saw a stranger wearing one, it was either the cops or the social.

Banks had grown up on a similar estate in Peterborough. More modern than this one, but basically the same mix of grim and grimy terrace houses alongside the newer red brick maisonettes and tower blocks, all covered in graffiti. When he was a kid, the street was cobbled, and they would have bonfires there every Guy Fawkes Night. The whole estate would come out and share their fireworks and food. Potatoes baked in foil at the edges of the fire, and people passed around trays of homemade parkin and treacle-toffee. Neighbors would seize the opportunity to chuck their old furniture on the fire – a practice Banks’s mother said she thought was showing off. If Mrs. Green at number 16 threw her battered armchair on the bonfire, it was tantamount to telling everyone she could afford a new one.

Eventually, the council Tarmacked the street and put an end to the celebrations. Afterward, they had to have their bonfire on a large field half a mile away; strangers from other estates started muscling in, looking for trouble, and the older people began to stay home and lock their doors.

“How are we going to approach this?” Annie asked.

“We’ll play it by ear. I just want to get a look at the lie of the land.”

It was another hot day; people sat out on their doorsteps or had dragged striped deck chairs onto postage- stamp lawns, where the grass was parched pale brown for lack of rain. Banks couldn’t help but be aware of the suspicious eyes following their progress. From one garden, a couple of semi-naked teenage boys whistled at Annie and flexed the tattoos on their arms. Banks looked at her and saw her stick her hand behind her back and give them two fingers. They laughed.

They passed two girls, neither of whom looked older than fifteen. Each was pushing a pram with one hand and holding a cigarette with the other. One of them had short pink-and-white-dyed hair, green nail varnish, black lipstick and a nose-stud; the other had jet-black hair, a large butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and a red dot in the center of her forehead. Both wore high-heeled sandals, tight shorts and midriff-revealing tops; the one with the red dot also had a ring in her navel.

“Get her,” one of them sneered as Banks and Annie walked by. “Little Miss Hoity- Toity.”

“I’m beginning to think this wasn’t such a good idea, after all,” Annie said, when the girls had passed.

“Why not? What’s wrong?”

“Easy for you to ask. Nobody’s insulted you yet.”

“They’re only jealous.”

“What of? My good looks?”

“No. Your designer jeans. Ah, here it is.”

The address turned out to be on one of the narrower side streets. Most of the doors had scratched and weathered paintwork, and the whole street looked run-down. All the windows of the old Shackleton house were open, and loud music blasted from inside.

Next door, two men with huge beer bellies sat smoking and drinking Carlsberg Special Brew. An enormous woman sat on a tiny chair at an angle to them, hips and thighs flowing over the edge. She looked as if she might be