Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

the rest of us.”

“Maybe he was shy.”

“Just because he had a famous father. Well, I think his father’s music sucks, and he can’t have been much of a father if he went and killed himself, could he? He was nothing but a drug addict.”

Nice line in compassion, Rose, Banks thought, but he didn’t bother voicing his opinion. “So you didn’t like Luke?”

“I told you. He was all right. Just a bit weird.”

“But he was pretty good-looking, wasn’t he?”

Rose made a face. “Ugh! I wouldn’t have gone out with him if he was the last boy on earth.”

“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, Rose, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know very well what I mean. You and Luke. Earlier this year.”

“Who told you that?”

“Never you mind. How far did it go?”

“Go? That’s a laugh. It didn’t go anywhere.”

“But you wanted it to, didn’t you?”

Rose twisted in her chair. “He thought he was better than the rest of us.”

“So why did you spend time talking to him?”

“I don’t know. Just… I mean, he was different. The other boys, they only want one thing.”

“And Luke didn’t?”

“I never got to find out, did I? We just talked.”

“What about?”

“Music and stuff.”

“You never actually went out together?”

“No. I mean, we went to McDonald’s a couple of times after school, but that’s all.”

“Rose, do you have any evidence at all to support your accusation that Luke and Lauren Anderson were having an affair?”

“If you mean was I watching at her window, then no. But it’s obvious, isn’t it? Why else would she spend her spare time with someone like him?”

“But you spent time with him.”

“Yeah. Well… that was different.”

“Didn’t you try to be nice to him, to befriend him, when you talked to him in the hallways and the playground, and when you went to McDonald’s with him?”

Rose looked away and continued twirling her hair around her fingers. “Of course I did.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing. He just sort of… like he got bored with me or something. Like I didn’t read all those stupid books he was always carrying around, and I didn’t listen to the same lousy music. I wasn’t good enough for him. He was a snob. Above the rest of us.”

“And because of this you assumed he was having sexual relations with a teacher. That’s a bit of a far stretch, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t see them together.”

“Did you see them kissing, touching, holding hands?”

“Of course not. They were too careful to do anything like that in public, weren’t they?”

“What then?”

“The way they looked at each other. The way she always left him alone in class. The way they talked. The way he made her laugh.”

“You were just jealous, weren’t you, Rose? That’s why you’re saying all this. Because you couldn’t get along with Luke, but Miss Anderson could.”

“I was not jealous! Certainly not of that ugly old bitch.”

For a moment, Banks wondered if there was anything in what Rose Barlow was telling him other than sour grapes. It may have been innocent, a true teacher-pupil relationship, but Banks had enough experience to know that anything involving two people of the opposite sex – or the same sex, for that matter – in close proximity could turn into something sexual, no matter what the difference in their ages. He had also read about such things in the newspapers. He would keep an open mind and have another talk with Lauren Anderson when he got back from Peterborough, push her a little harder and see if any cracks showed.

“What do you think of Miss Anderson?” he asked Rose.

“She’s all right, I suppose.”

“You just called her an ugly old bitch.”

“Well… I didn’t mean… I was angry… I mean, she’s okay as a teacher. All right?”

“Do you get on well with her in class?”

“Okay.”

“So if I ask any of the other pupils in the class, they’d tell me that you and Miss Anderson get along just fine?”

Rose reddened. “She picks on me sometimes. She put me in detention once.”

“What for?”

“Not reading some stupid Shakespeare play. So I was reading a magazine under the desk. So what? I can’t be bothered with all that boring English stuff.”

“So you had a few run-ins with her?”

“Yes. But that’s not why I’m here. That’s not why I’m telling you what I know.”

“I’m sure it’s not, Rose, but you have to admit it does give you a bit of a motive to cause trouble for Miss Anderson, especially if you also tried to get Luke to be your boyfriend.”

Rose jumped to her feet. “Why are you being so horrible to me? I come here to help you and give you important information and you treat me like a criminal. I’m going to tell my father about you.”

Banks couldn’t help smiling. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been reported to the head teacher,” he said.

Before Rose could respond, two things happened in quick succession. First, there came an urgent tap at his door and Annie Cabbot walked in, a handkerchief to her mouth covered with what looked like blood. But before Annie could speak, Kevin Templeton poked his head around the door behind her, his gaze resting on Rose for a few seconds too long for her comfort, and said to Banks, “Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but we think we’ve got a positive ID on you know who.”

Banks knew who he meant. The mystery girl. So she did exist.

“Better than that,” Templeton went on. “We’ve got an address.”

Michelle discovered from DC Collins that Shaw had gone home after lunch, complaining of a stomach upset. Collins’s tone was such as to suggest it might be more a matter of the number of whiskeys Shaw had downed at lunch. He had been taking quite a lot of time off lately. At least that left the coast clear for Michelle. She didn’t want to see Shaw, especially after what had happened in her flat on Saturday. Sometimes, when she let her guard down, it was him she saw in her imagination, going through her bedside drawers, cutting Melissa’s dress in half. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine him driving the beige van that bore down on her as she crossed the road earlier, either; he had been out of the station at the time. And the whiskeys? Dutch courage?

It was time to stop idle speculation and follow up on what she had discovered from Mrs. Walker. Michelle picked up the telephone and an hour or so later, after a lot of false trails and time wasted on hold, she managed to reach one of the retired Carlisle police officers who had looked into Donald Bradford’s death: Ex-Detective Sergeant Raymond Scholes, now living out his retirement on the Cumbrian coast.

“I don’t know what I can tell you after all this time,” Scholes said. “Donald Bradford was just unlucky.”

“What happened?”

“Surprised a burglar. Someone broke into his house, and before Bradford could do anything he got beaten so badly he died of his injuries.”

Michelle felt a chill. The same thing might have happened to her on Saturday, if she’d been home earlier. “Ever