Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

children. But you let your wife suffer all those years. You knew Graham was dead and you knew who killed him. Maybe you didn’t know where the body was, but I’ll bet you could have found out. Instead, you went up there and murdered Bradford and said nothing to your wife or your daughter. All these years they’ve lived not knowing what happened to Graham. That’s unforgivable, Bill.” Banks nodded toward the pad. “What do you have to say about that? Come on, tell me something.”

Marshall held his gaze for a while, then grasped the pencil, moved his hand with difficulty and scrawled on the pad. When he had done, he handed it to Banks. There were three words in capital letters: FUCK OFF COPPER.

“He came to me, like you said,” Lauren Anderson began. “He was in a terrible state. He was upset because… well, you know why. I tried to calm him down and we went to… We just lay down on the bed together and I held him. I’d already realized I had to end it. I just hadn’t been able to find the courage. But I knew that it couldn’t go on. Someone would find out eventually, and that would be it. My career, reputation… everything. A fifteen-year-old boy and a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Taboo. I thought I’d got him calm enough, so I started talking about it, you know, how we should probably cool things for a while.”

“Did he tell you he’d been smoking cannabis earlier?”

“Cannabis? No. He never told me that. But that must be why he seemed so disoriented and excitable. I’d never seen him like that before. He scared me.”

“How did he react when you told him you wanted to finish the affair?” Annie asked, remembering that it hadn’t been too long ago when she had told Banks the same thing.

“He didn’t want to accept it. He said he couldn’t bear to lose me.” Lauren started crying. “He said he’d kill himself.”

“What happened next?”

She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “He stormed off to the bathroom. I gave him a couple of minutes, then I heard all the things falling out of the cupboard into the sink, glass breaking, so I went after him.”

“Was the bathroom door locked?”

“No.”

“He was after the Valium?”

“You know?”

“We know he took some Valium shortly before he died, yes.”

“I have a prescription. But I suppose you know that, too?”

Annie nodded. “I checked.”

“He had the bottle open, and he poured some tablets into his hand and swallowed them. I went to him and struggled with him over the bottle. We fought, pulling and pushing each other, and then he went down. Just like that. He was in his socks, and the floor tiles can be slippery. His feet just went from under him and he hit his head on the side of the bath. I did what I could. I tried to revive him, mouth to mouth. I checked for a pulse and listened for his heartbeat, and then I even tried holding a mirror to his mouth. But it was no use. He was dead. So much blood.”

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I knew if any of it came out I’d be finished. I didn’t know where to turn, so I called Vernon. He said he’d come right away and not to do anything until he got here. The rest you know.”

“What happened to Luke’s mobile?”

“It fell out of his pocket in the car. Vernon took it.”

That explained the call to Armitage’s mobile. Vernon had looked up Martin Armitage’s number on Luke’s phone. He wasn’t to know that Luke would be unlikely to call his stepfather for anything. He could easily have driven to Eastvale to make the call and avoid suspicion. It wasn’t far.

“Did you know about the ransom demand?”

Lauren shook her head. “No. I’d never agree to anything like that. And as I said, I was too upset to think about it. If anything, I thought it must be some sort of cruel practical joke. I’m so sorry for what happened.” She reached out and grasped Annie’s wrist. “You’ve got to believe me. I’d never have harmed Luke. I loved him. Maybe if I hadn’t been so insensitive, so selfish, and not tried to end it when he was so upset, or just held him the way he wanted, it might not have happened. I’ve relived that moment over and over again. I can’t sleep. I don’t know how I’m going to go back to work. Nothing seems to matter anymore.”

Annie stood up.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to call in my partner from the car outside, and we’re going to make sure you know your rights before we take you to the police station to make a formal statement. We’ll also be sending a message to the Harrogate police to pick up your brother.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know, Lauren,” Annie said. Again, she was feeling shitty about doing her job. Harden up, she told herself. Maybe Lauren Anderson didn’t deliberately kill Luke, but she was at least partly responsible for his death, along with Liz Palmer and Ryan Milne. All adults who should have known better than to tamper with the feelings of a confused and disturbed fifteen-year-old. All of whom were selfish and used Luke for their own ends. Even if that end, at least in Lauren’s case, was love. A romantic imagination and adolescent lust could be a dangerous combination.

But maybe, Annie thought, if she didn’t feel pity for a woman in Lauren’s position, then she would lose some of her humanity. One of the things working with Banks had taught her was how to do the job without becoming callous and cynical, the way she had been going before she met him. Lauren would probably get off quite lightly, Annie told herself. If Luke had died during a struggle, the object of which was to stop him from taking an overdose of Valium, and if Lauren had not known of her brother’s botched ransom demand, then she wouldn’t get a very stiff sentence.

Lauren would lose her job, though, and, like Norman Wells, she would become a pariah for some – the seductress and corrupter of youth. And the family would suffer – Robin and Martin – as it was all dragged into the open. Because this would be a high-profile trial, no doubt about it. Neil Byrd’s son, a famous model and a sports star. Not a chance of escaping the media circus. It was a damn shame they couldn’t prosecute Liz and Ryan, Annie thought as she walked Lauren, head hung low, out to the car. They were at least as much to blame for what happened as Lauren was, if not more so. But it wasn’t her judgment to make.

“Jet Harris bent? I can’t believe it,” said Arthur Banks in The Coach and Horses early that evening. Banks had dragged him out there to tell him the full story, and they sat over their pints in the dreary, half-empty pub. Banks felt a craving for nicotine rush through his cells like a desperate need for air, but he pushed it aside. One day at a time. One craving at a time. It passed. People said the cravings got less and less powerful as time went on. But others said you were never rid of the habit. He knew people who had started again after they’d been off for ten years. One day at a time.

Arthur Banks stared at his son in disbelief. “Is this going to come out?” he asked.

“Probably,” said Banks. “We don’t actually hand our reports to the press, but they have their ways. Depends on the media interest.”

“Oh, there’ll be media interest around here, all right. Jet Harris, homo and bent copper.” He eyed Banks warily. “You sure you’re not going to hush it up, then?”

“Dad,” said Banks. “We don’t go in for cover-ups. At least I don’t, and nor does DI Hart. This investigation has cost her a lot. She’s only been at the division a couple of months and here she is, debunking the legend. Imagine how popular that’s going to make her around the place.” It had nearly cost Michelle her life, too, Banks thought. She would be safe from now on, he was certain, and not because of his melodramatic threat. Now Mandeville knew there were more people involved, he could hardly scare or kill off everyone. He would just have to take his chances that time had hidden his secrets.

“Why are you telling me?” Arthur Banks asked.

Banks sipped some beer. “Dad, you and mum have never really given me a chance, you know, ever since I joined the force. You’ve always pointed out the negative side of the job. I just wanted you to know that some of us aren’t crooked, that some of us take our work seriously. Even if it never comes out in public, at least you’ll know the truth, and you’ll know I told you.”