really feel about their parting?
Banks laid his pipe to rest in the ashtray and Penny announced ‘Like Musgrave and Lady Barnard’, the last song of the set.
TWO
At about nine o’clock, Sally Lumb left the house on Hill Road. Because it was Friday, her mother was at bingo in Eastvale with Mrs Crawford, and her father was down in the public bar of the Bridge playing in a local darts match. They wouldn’t be back till about eleven o’clock, which gave her plenty of time. There would be no awkward questions to answer.
Despite the gathering clouds, it was a warm evening: a bit too hot and sticky, if anything. Sally knew from experience that such signs meant a storm was on its way. She walked down the hill and turned left, by the Bridge, on to High Street. It was a quiet time in Helmthorpe; most people were either in the pubs or sat glued to the idiot box in their living rooms. There’d be nothing much stirring until closing time unless a party of campers got too rowdy at the Hare and Hounds disco and Big Cyril had to chuck them out.
She walked on down the street and paused outside the Dog and Gun. The front door was open and she could hear singing from inside. Penny Cartwright, by the sound of it. Sally had heard her before but hadn’t known she was singing in the village that evening. She looked at her watch. Plenty of time. The words of the song drifted out on the humid air:
‘A grave, a grave,’ Lord Barnard cried, ‘To put these lovers in; But bury my lady on the top For she was of noble kin.’
With the familiar tune in her mind, Sally walked on, pausing for a moment to listen to the broad beck flowing under the bridge at the eastern end of High Street. She quickened her pace and, leaving the road, struck out up the long wild southern slope of the dale, past where she and Kevin had seen Penny the other day. She had an appointment to keep, a warning to give. Everything would be sorted out soon.
THREE
During the intermission, Penny Cartwright walked by Banks on her way out of the pub and flashed him a cool smile of acknowledgment. Barker, following closely behind her, nodded and bowed to Harriet and Sandra.
‘She’s so talented and beautiful,’ Sandra said after they’d gone. ‘Surely she can’t be one of your suspects?’
Banks just told her that Penny had been a friend of the victim, and Sandra left it at that. The four chatted about the music, which they had all enjoyed, ordered more drinks, suffered through a mercifully short set of contemporary ‘protest’ folk music, and awaited Penny’s second set. She came back at ten fifteen and walked straight to the stage.
This time there was a new, slightly distant quality in her performance. She was still involved in what she did, but it didn’t have the same emotional cutting edge. Banks listened to the ballads and was struck by the parallel that he was dealing with exactly the same kinds of feelings and events that the old songs were forged from. And he wondered how the ballad of Harry Steadman would end. Nobody would be ‘hung high’, of course, not these days. But who would the killer turn out to be? What was his motive, and what would be Banks’s own part in the song? All of a sudden, it seemed as if he was in another century, and that this beautiful young woman in the spotlight, life’s disappointments and cruelties showing just enough in her voice to intensify her beauty, was singing a tragic ballad about the murder of Harry Steadman.
The sharp change to a brisk singalong tune snapped him out of his reverie, and he finished off his drink, noting that he immediately felt impatient for another. He was drunk, or at least tipsy, and it wasn’t far off closing time. If Barker was in love with the girl, and if there had been anything between her and Steadman… If Ramsden still… If Mrs Steadman knew… If Steadman and his wife hadn’t been quite as close as everyone made out… The random thoughts curled like pipe smoke and evaporated in the air.
When the set ended to loud and prolonged applause, Banks caught the passing waiter and ordered another pint for himself and a half for David. Sandra looked at him with a hint of reprimand in her eyes, but he just shrugged and grinned foolishly. He had never had a problem with alcohol, but he knew he could sometimes be quite adolescent in his consumption of numerous pints. He could tell that Sandra was worried he might make an idiot of himself, but he knew he could handle his drink. He hadn’t had all that much, anyway. There might even be room for another one if he had time.
FOUR
There was going to be a storm, Sally was sure of it. She sat on the low packhorse bridge dangling her legs over the warm stone as she watched the sun go down. When it had disappeared behind the hills, leaving a halo of dark red-gold, it seemed to shine upwards from the depths of the earth and pick out the relief of the heavy grey clouds that massed high above. Insects buzzed on the still, humid air.
It was an isolated spot, ideal for such business, barely even suitable for cars. During her walk, Sally had enjoyed the peace and the strange tremors of excitement that the anticipation of a storm seemed to lay on the landscape. The colours were richer, the wild flowers and rough grass more vibrant, and the clouds’ shadows seemed palpable masses on the distant valley side.
But now she was nervous, and she didn’t know why. It was the coming storm, she told herself, the electricity in the air, the isolation, the gathering darkness. Soon the wind would shake the rough moorland grass and rain would lash the dale. It was the perfect place for a secret meeting; she understood that. If they were seen together, word might get back to the chief inspector and awkward questions would be asked. She wanted to handle this herself, perhaps save a life and catch a killer. Nonetheless, she knew deep down that her shivers were not entirely due to the weather.
Idly, she cast a loose stone from the bridge into the shallow slow-moving beck. After the rain, she thought, it would be swift, sparkling and ringing with fresh water cascading down the valley side and right under Helmthorpe High Street.
She looked at her watch. Twenty to ten. Tired of waiting, she wished it was all over. The aftermath of sunset was quickly vanishing as the clouds thickened overhead. A curlew called plaintively in the distance. The place began to feel like a wilderness in a gothic romance. It was creepy, even though she’d been there often enough. A flock of rooks spun across the sky like oily rags. Sally became aware of a new sound throbbing through the silence. A car. She pricked up her ears, cast another stone in the beck and stood to face the track. Yes, she could see the headlights as they dipped and flashed on the winding road. It wouldn’t be long now.
FIVE
The storm finally broke at about five a.m. Sharp cracks of thunder woke Banks from a vaguely unpleasant dream. He had a dry mouth and a thick head. So much for control. But at least he hadn’t made a fool of himself; that he remembered.
Careful not to disturb Sandra, he walked over to the window and looked out on the back garden just in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning streak from north to south across the sky. The first few drops of rain, fat and heavy, came slowly. They burst at intervals on the windowpane and smacked against the slates of the sloping tool shed roof; then they came more quickly and slapped against the leaves of the trees that lined the back alley
