silky blouse, and a long loose skirt that curved from her slim waist over the graceful swell of her hips. He only glimpsed her face in profile for a moment as she walked out. It looked good: angular, high cheekbones, straight nose, like a North American Indian. Half obscured by her hair, a crescent of silver flashed where her jaw met her long neck.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked Barker.
Barker smiled. ‘Oh, you noticed, I see. That’s Olicana.’ He pronounced the foreign word slowly.
‘Olicana?’
‘Yes. At least that’s what Harry used to call her. Apparently it’s what the Romans called Ilkely, the spirit of the place, the genius loci. Her real name is Penny Cartwright. Not half as exotic, is it?’
‘What happened last night?’ Banks asked with an abruptness that startled Barker. ‘Was it a normal evening’s drinking as far as you were all concerned?’
‘Yes,’ Barker answered. ‘Harry was on his way to York and dropped in for a couple of swift halves.’
‘He didn’t drink any more than usual?’
‘A little less, if anything. He was driving.’
‘Did he seem unusually excited or worried about anything?’
‘No.’ Barker assumed the role of spokesman. ‘He was always excited about his work – some rusty nail or broken cartwheel.’
‘Rusty nail?’
‘Yes. That’s how we used to joke about it. It was his field of study. Industrial archaeology. His one great passion, really. That and the Roman occupation.’
‘I see. I’ve been told that Mr Steadman was supposed to visit an old lead mine in Swaledale today. Know anything about that?’
‘I think he mentioned it, yes. We tried not to let him get away with too much shop talk, though. I mean, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, is it, rusty nails?’
‘What time did he leave here last night?’
Barker concentrated for a moment. ‘It’d be about a quarter to nine,’ he answered finally, and the others nodded in agreement.
‘When did you leave?’
Barker glanced at Barnes and Hackett before answering. ‘I left about ten fifteen. I was alone by then and it was no fun.’
Banks turned to the other two and they gave him their stories.
‘So you see,’ Barker concluded, ‘any one of us could have done it. Our alibis are all weak.’
‘Just a minute!’ Barnes cut in.
‘Only joking, Doc. Sorry, it was in poor taste. But it is true, isn’t it? Are we suspects, Inspector? It is Inspector, isn’t it?’
‘Chief Inspector,’ Banks answered. ‘And no, there aren’t any suspects yet.’
‘I know what that means. When there are no suspects, everybody’s a suspect.’
‘You write detective stories, don’t you, Mr Barker?’ Banks asked mildly. Barker flushed and the others laughed.
‘Defective stories, I always call them,’ Hackett chipped in.
‘Very droll,’ Barker growled. ‘There’s hope for you yet.’
‘Tell me,’ Banks went on, pushing the pace now he’d got them going. ‘You’re all well off. Why do you drink in a dump like this?’ He looked around at the peeling wallpaper and the scored, stained tables.
‘It’s got character,’ Barker replied. ‘Seriously, Chief Inspector, we’re not quite so well off as you think. Teddy here’s been living on credit ever since he bought up Hebden’s Gift Shop, and the doc’s making as much as he can fiddle from the NHS.’ Barnes just glared, not even bothering to interrupt. ‘And I’m just dying for someone to buy the film rights to one of my books. Harry was loaded, true, but when it came, it came as a bit of a surprise to him, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Apart from quitting his job and moving up here to devote himself to his studies, he didn’t change his way of life much. He wasn’t really interested in money for its own sake.’
‘You say it came as a surprise to him,’ Banks said. ‘I thought he inherited it from his father. Surely he must have known that he was in for a sizeable inheritance?’
‘Well, yes he did. But he didn’t expect as much as he got. I don’t think he really paid much mind to it. Harry was a bit of an absent-minded prof. Took after his father. It seems that the old man had patents nobody knew about tucked away all over the place.’
‘Was Steadman mean, stingy?’
‘Good heavens, no. He always paid for his round.’
Hackett smiled tolerantly while Barnes sighed and excused Barker’s flippancy. ‘What he’s trying to say in his charming manner,’ the doctor explained, ‘is that none of us feel we belong to the country club set. We’re comfortable here, and I’m not being facetious when I say it’s a damn good pint.’
Banks looked at him for a moment then laughed. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ he agreed.
This was another thing Banks had picked up during his first year in the north – the passion a Yorkshireman has for his pint. The people in Swainsdale seemed to feel the same way about their beer as a man from, say, Burgundy would feel about wine.
Banks got himself another drink and, by directing the conversation away from the murder, managed to get everyone talking more openly on general matters. They discussed ordinary things, it turned out, just like anyone else: politics, the economy, world affairs, sport, local gossip, books and television. They were three professionals, all more or less the same age, and all – except perhaps Barnes – just a little out of place in a small community that had its roots deep in agriculture and craftsmanship.
FOUR
Penny Cartwright locked and bolted the sturdy door behind her, drew the thick curtains tight and switched on the light. After she had put down her package and dropped her shawl over a chair, she went around the room lighting candles that stood, at various lengths, on saucers, in empty wine bottles and even in candlesticks.
When the room was flickering with tiny bright flames which made the walls look like melting butter, she turned out the electric light, slipped a tape in the cassette player and flopped down on the sofa.
The room was now as private and cosy as a womb. It was the kind of place that looked bright and happy in sunlight, and warm and intimate by candlelight. There were a few things tacked to the walls: a postcard-size reproduction of Henri Matisse’s The Dance, which a friend had sent her from New York; a framed copy of Sutcliffe’s photograph, Gathering Driftwood; and a glossy picture showing her singing at a concert she and the band had given years ago. Shadowed by candlelight, the alcoves at both sides of the fireplace overflowed with personal knick-knacks such as shells, pebbles and the kind of silly keepsakes one buys in foreign lands – things that always seem to bring back the whole atmosphere of the place and details of the day on which they were bought: a plastic key ring from Los Angeles, a miniature slide viewer from Niagara Falls, a tiny porcelain jar emblazoned with her zodiac sign, Libra, from Amsterdam. Mixed in with these were earrings, which Penny collected, of all shapes and colours.
Penny took out papers and hash from a battered Old Holborn tin and rolled a small joint; then she unwrapped the half-bottle of Bell’s. There seemed no point getting a glass, so she drank straight from the bottle, and the whisky burned her tongue and throat as it sank to stir a warm glow deep inside her.
The tape played unaccompanied traditional folk songs – a strong clear woman’s voice singing about men going off to war, lifeboat disasters, domestic tragedies and supernatural lovers of long ago. With part of her mind, Penny studied the vocal style critically; she admired the slight vibrato, but winced at the blurring on some of the high notes. As a professional, or an ex-professional, it was second nature to her to listen that way. Finally, she decided that she liked the woman’s voice, flaws and all. It had enough warmth and emotional response to the lyrics to make up for the occasional lapses in technique.
One song, about a murder in Staffordshire over two hundred years ago, she knew well. She had sung it herself many times to appreciative audiences in pubs and concert halls. It had even been on the first record she
