Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

lot more out of you the older you got, and that recovery took longer. But how old was he? He couldn’t have been all that much over sixty.

“How’s your mouth feeling?” he asked.

“The pain seems to have gone for now, sir, thanks for asking.”

“You should have gone to the hospital.”

“It was nothing. Just a glancing blow.”

“Even so… these things can have complications. How’s Wells?”

“Last I heard still in the infirmary. Armitage gave him a real going-over.”

“He always was a hothead, that one. Even as a football player. Now what about the Palmer girl? Anything interesting there?”

Annie recounted what little she had got from Liz Palmer, then Gristhorpe sipped some shandy and told her about Ryan Milne’s interview. “He said he knew nothing about the bag, just like his girlfriend. He told me he was out that day and didn’t see Luke at all.”

“Did you believe him, sir?”

“No. Winsome went at him a bit – she’s very good in interviews, that lass, a real tigress – but neither of us could shake him.”

“So what are they hiding?”

“Dunno. Maybe a night in the cells will soften them up a bit.”

“Do you think they did it, sir?”

“Did it?”

“Killed Luke and dumped the body.”

Gristhorpe pursed his lips, then said, “I don’t know, Annie. Milne’s got an old banger, so they had the means of transport. Like you, I suggested some sort of romantic angle, something going on between Luke and Liz, but Milne didn’t bite, and to be quite honest I didn’t notice any signs I’d hit the nail on the head.”

“So you don’t think there was any romantic angle?”

“Luke was only fifteen, and Liz Palmer is what?”

“Twenty-one.”

“As I remember, the last thing a twenty-one-year-old woman would want is a fifteen-year-old boyfriend. Now maybe if she were forty-one…”

Annie smiled. “A toyboy?”

“I’ve heard it called that. But I still think fifteen’s too young.”

“I don’t know,” said Annie. “The head teacher’s daughter told DCI Banks she thought Luke was having it off with his English teacher, and she’s pushing thirty.”

“Lauren Anderson?”

“That’s the one.”

“Stranger things have happened. What does Alan think?”

“That little Miss Barlow had reasons of her own for causing trouble for Miss Anderson.” Annie sipped some beer. Nectar. “But I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question that Luke was having relations with someone older than himself. Everything I’ve heard about him indicates he seemed much older than his age, both physically and mentally.”

“How about emotionally?”

“That I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s the one that counts,” Gristhorpe mused. “That’s what causes people to get out of their depth. They can understand something intellectually, accomplish something physically, but the emotional aspect can hit them like a sledgehammer if they’re not mature enough. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable.”

Annie agreed. She’d had enough experience with troubled teens in her job to know it was true, and Luke Armitage had been a complex personality, a mass of conflicting desires and unresolved problems. Add to that his creativity, his sensitivity, and Luke was probably as volatile to handle as nitroglycerine.

“Does the Anderson woman have a jealous boyfriend?” Gristhorpe asked.

“Not according to Winsome. She did a bit of digging. Only bit of dirt on Ms. Anderson is that her brother Vernon’s got a record.”

Gristhorpe raised his bushy eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Nothing really nasty. Just dodgy checks.”

“I’ve written a few of those in my time, according to my bank manager. What about the other teacher, Alastair Ford?”

“Kevin Templeton says there are rumors he’s gay, but only rumors. As far as anyone knows he has no sex life at all.”

“Any evidence that Luke Armitage was gay, too?”

“None. But there’s no evidence he was straight, either. Ford has a temper, though, like Armitage, and he’s been seeing a psychiatrist for several years now. Definitely the unstable kind.”

“Not to be ruled out, then?”

“No.”

“And Norman Wells?”

“Looking less likely, isn’t he?”

When their food arrived, both were hungry enough to stop talking for a while and eat, then Gristhorpe slowed down. “Any ideas of your own about how Luke’s bag ended up where it did, Annie?” he asked.

Annie finished her mouthful of lasagne, then said, “I think Luke went there after his run-in with the three bullies in the market square. What happened after that, I don’t know, but either he died there or something happened that made him run off without his bag, which I don’t think he’d do under any normal circumstances.”

“So something happened there?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“What about his mobile?”

“One of those tiny models you can just flip open and shut. Probably couldn’t find it among all the stuff if he kept it in his bag, so he carried it in his pocket. Anyway, it hasn’t been found yet.”

“Has it been used?”

“Not since the ransom call. Hasn’t even been switched on. I checked again with the company.”

“Anything valuable in the bag?”

“Stefan’s going through it. From what I saw, though, I don’t think so. I mean, the laptop was worth a bob or two, but I don’t think theft was the motive here. That is…”

“Yes, Annie?”

“Well, there was nothing valuable to you or me, nothing of any real material value, but I got the impression that Liz, at least, is ambitious, and there’s a chance they could ride a lot farther and a lot faster on Luke Armitage’s coattails – or rather Neil Byrd’s coattails.”

“I think I must be a bit of an old fogey,” said Gristhorpe, scratching the side of his hooked nose, “but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Neil Byrd. I know who he was to Luke and what happened to him, of course, but that’s about as far as it goes.”

“Alan – DCI Banks – knows a lot more about it than I do, sir, but Byrd was quite famous in his time. The record company is still bringing out CDs of previously unreleased stuff, greatest hits and live concerts, so there’s still a thriving Neil Byrd industry out there, a dozen years after his death. Luke inherited some of his father’s talent, and if Liz and Ryan wanted to milk the connection, I’m sure there are plenty of song ideas and fragments on the laptop and in his notebooks.”

“But he was only a kid, Annie. Surely he can’t have had that much to say?”

“It’s not what you say, sir, it’s how you say it. Teenage angst, mostly, from what I’ve heard. But it’s the name that’s the point. And, not to be too ghoulish about it, the circumstances. Dead son of famous rock suicide. With a promotion like that, the songs wouldn’t need to be that good. It’d get Liz’s band known, get them a name, and that’s more than half the battle in the music business.”

“But legally all Luke’s stuff belongs to his family now. Wouldn’t they sue if these people got as far as making a record of Luke’s songs?”

“Maybe, but it’d be too late then, wouldn’t it? And you know what they say: no publicity’s bad publicity. A