‘Well, she found it all rather glamorous, exciting, as if it was something she was watching on telly. I don’t mean to say she wasn’t sorry about poor Mr Steadman, we all were, it’s just that she didn’t see it from that point of view. To Sally it was an adventure. Do you know what I mean? It was all a bit of a game with her as the heroine.’
This was exactly what Banks wanted. He nodded in appreciation of Anne’s observation. ‘Did she talk about it much?’ he asked.
‘Only in a mysterious kind of way,’ Anne answered.
‘As if she knew something nobody else did?’
‘Yes. Exactly like that. I think it made her feel important, that she’d noticed something and been to see you. She thought you were rather dishy at first.’ Anne said this with a perfectly straight face, as if she didn’t quite know what the word meant. ‘Then she seemed disappointed with your response. I don’t know what it was, she didn’t say, but she got even more mysterious as the week went on.’
‘Did she say anything specific?’
‘Oh, she tried to convince us that she was hot on the trail,’ Anne said, adjusting her glasses. ‘That she had an idea who dunnit. But that’s all. Just hints. She didn’t do anything about it, as far as I know.’
Banks was dreading the moment, which surely couldn’t be far off, when Anne would realize the significance of his line of questioning. But luckily it didn’t come. He thanked the girls for their time and, as he left, noted again how distracted Hazel Kirk seemed to be. Instead of questioning her there and then, he decided to leave it for a while and see what developed.
9
ONE
It was time to concentrate on the Steadman case again. However disturbing her disappearance was, Banks thought, Sally Lumb might turn up in Birmingham or Bristol any moment. But Steadman was dead and his killer was still free.
He told Weaver where he was going and drove up the hill to Gratly, turning right after the small low bridge in the centre of the hamlet and pulling up outside Jack Barker’s converted farmhouse by the side of the broad beck. The water was already running faster and louder over the series of terraced falls. In a day or two, when the rain percolated down from the moorlands and higher slopes, the stream would turn into a deafening torrent.
Banks realized as he rang the doorbell that he had not visited Barker at home before, and he wondered what the house would reveal of the man.
‘Oh, it’s you, Chief Inspector,’ a puzzled-looking Barker said, after keeping Banks waiting at the door for an unusually long time. ‘Come in. Excuse my surprise but I don’t get very many visitors.’
Banks took off his wet mac and shoes in the hall and followed Barker inside. Although it wasn’t cold, the rain had certainly put a damp chill in the stone, and Banks decided to keep his jacket on.
‘Do you mind if we talk in the study?’ Barker asked. ‘It’s warmer up there. I’ve just been working, and that’s where the coffee pot is. You look as if you could do with some.’
‘Good idea,’ Banks replied, following his host through a sparsely furnished living room and up a very narrow flight of stone stairs into a cosy room that looked out on the fell sides at the back of the house. Two walls were lined with books, and by a third, where the door was, stood a filing cabinet and a small desk stacked with papers. Barker’s work table, on which an electric typewriter hummed, stood directly by the window. Through the streaming rain, the sharply rising slope outside had the look of an Impressionist painting. At the centre of the room was a low coffee table. The red light of the automatic drip-filter machine was on, and the Pyrex pot was half full of rich dark coffee. By the table, there were two small but comfortable armchairs. The two men sat down with their coffee; both took black, no sugar.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at work,’ Banks said, sipping the refreshing liquid.
‘Think nothing of it. It’s an occupational hazard.’
Banks raised an eyebrow.
‘What I mean is,’ Barker explained, ‘that if you work at home, you’re at home, aren’t you? Fair game for any salesman and bill collector. Somehow, the old Protestant work ethic won’t allow most people to accept that writing books in the comfort of one’s own home is really work, if you see what I mean. I can’t think why, mind you. It was common enough for weavers and loom operators to work at home before the Industrial Revolution. These days, work has to be something we hate, something we do in a noisy dirty factory or an antiseptic fluorescent office. No offence.’ But Banks could tell by the sparkle in his eyes that Barker was baiting him gently. ‘None taken,’ he replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I’d be happier to spend a bit more time in my office and less of it tramping about the dales in this weather.’
Barker smiled and reached for a cigarette from the packet on the table. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t seem to get many visitors, except salesmen. I take the phone off the hook, too. Work was going well. I’d just got to a good part, and it’s always been my practice to stop for a while when things get good. That way I feel excited about going back to work later.’
‘That’s an interesting work habit,’ Banks remarked, trying to ignore the craving he felt when Barker lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply.
‘Sorry,’ Barker said, offering him a cigarette as if he had read his mind.
Banks shook his head. ‘Trying to stop.’
‘Of course. You’re a pipe man, aren’t you? Please feel free. Pipe smoke doesn’t bother me at all.’
‘It broke.’
After the two of them had laughed at the absurdity of the broken pipe, Banks gave in. ‘Perhaps I will have a cigarette,’ he said. As he reached for one, he noticed Barker tense up to face the inevitable questions. The cigarette tasted good. Every bit as good as he remembered. He didn’t cough or feel dizzy. In fact, he felt no indication that he had ever given up cigarettes in the first place; it was like a reunion with a long lost friend.
‘So, what can I do for you this time?’ Barker asked, putting unnecessary emphasis on the last two words.
‘I suppose you’ve heard about the girl from the village, Sally Lumb?’ he asked.
‘No. What about her?’
‘You mean you don’t know? I’d have thought in a community this size the news would spread fast. People certainly knew about Harold Steadman soon enough.’
‘I haven’t been out since I walked Penny home after the folk club last night.’
‘The girl’s missing,’ Banks told him. ‘She didn’t go home last night.’
‘Good Lord!’ Barker said, looking towards the window. ‘If she’s wandered off and got lost in this weather… What do you think?’
‘It’s too early to know yet. She could have got lost, yes. But she grew up around here and she seemed like a sensible girl.’
‘Run away?’
‘Another possibility. We’re checking on it.’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘We just don’t know.’
‘Have you got search parties out?’
‘We can’t in this weather.’
‘But still… Something’s got to be done.’
‘We’re doing all we can,’ Banks assured him. ‘Did you know her?’
Barker narrowed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say I really knew her, no. I’ve seen her around, of course, to say hello to. And she once came to me about a school project. Pretty girl.’
‘Very,’ Banks agreed.
‘I don’t suppose that’s what you came to talk to me about though, is it?’
‘No.’ Banks stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I wanted to ask you about Penny Cartwright.’
