The Hanging Valley Read online

  Critical acclaim for Peter Robinson and the Inspector Banks series

  GALLOWS VIEW

  ‘Peter Robinson is an expert plotter with an eye for telling detail’ New York Times

  ‘An impressive debut’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘Fans of P. D. James and Ruth Rendell who crave more contemporary themes should look no further than Peter Robinson’ Washington Post

  A DEDICATED MAN

  ‘Robinson’s profound sense of place and reflective study of human nature give fine depth to his mystery’ New York Times

  ‘A deftly constructed plot . . . Robinson’s skill with the British police procedural has been burnished to a high gloss’ Chicago Tribune

  A NECESSARY END

  ‘Another superior mystery’ Publishers Weekly

  THE HANGING VALLEY

  ‘Highly recommended’ Kirkus Review

  PAST REASON HATED

  ‘The characterizations are unfailingly sharp and subtle’ New York Times

  WEDNESDAY’S CHILD

  ‘A dark, unsettling story . . . Impressive’ New York Times

  DRY BONES THAT DREAM

  ‘Highly entertaining’ Scotland on Sunday

  ‘High-quality crime from one of Canada’s top crime-writers’ Toronto Star

  INNOCENT GRAVES

  ‘Atmospheric’ Time Out

  DEAD RIGHT

  ‘Every page here is readable and compelling’ Washington Times

  ‘This book has everything that makes a Peter Robinson book good . . . He writes absolutely perfect dialogue. And the plot keeps the reader guessing until the end’ Mystery Scene

  IN A DRY SEASON

  ‘A powerfully moving work’ IAN RANKIN

  ‘A wonderful novel’ MICHAEL CONNELLY

  COLD IS THE GRAVE

  ‘Full of twists and surprises’ Chicago Tribune

  ‘Exhilarating’ Toronto Star

  AFTERMATH

  ‘Move over Ian Rankin – there’s a new gunslinger in town. If you haven’t caught up with him already, now is the time to start’ Independent on Sunday

  ‘It demonstrates how the crime novel, when done right, can reach parts that other books can’t . . . A considerable achievement’ Guardian

  ‘A taut thriller with more twists than the Leeds to Goole highway’ Time Out

  THE HANGING VALLEY

  Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in Canada.

  His Inspector Banks series has won numerous awards in Britain, Europe, the United States and Canada. There are now fifteen novels published by Pan Macmillan in the series, of which The Hanging Valley is the fourth. Aftermath, the twelfth, was a Sunday Times bestseller.

  The Inspector Banks series

  GALLOWS VIEW

  A DEDICATED MAN

  A NECESSARY END

  THE HANGING VALLEY

  PAST REASON HATED

  WEDNESDAY’S CHILD

  DRY BONES THAT DREAM

  INNOCENT GRAVES

  DEAD RIGHT

  IN A DRY SEASON

  COLD IS THE GRAVE

  AFTERMATH

  THE SUMMER THAT NEVER WAS

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  STRANGE AFFAIR

  Also by Peter Robinson

  CAEDMON’S SONG

  NOT SAFE AFTER DARK AND OTHER WORKS

  PETER

  ROBINSON

  THE HANGING VALLEY

  AN INSPECTOR BANKS MYSTERY

  PAN BOOKS

  First published 1989 by Penguin Books Canada

  This electronic edition published 2009 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-51463-7 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-51462-0 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-51464-4 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Peter Robinson 1989

  The right of Peter Robinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Two

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Three

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  For Jan

  PART ONE:

  MOTION IN CORRUPTION

  1

  ONE

  It was the most exhilarating feeling in the world. His thighs ached, his calves throbbed and his breath came in short sharp gasps. But he had made it. Neil Fellowes, humble wages clerk from Pontefract, stood at the summit of Swainshead Fell.

  Not that it was an achievement comparable to Sir Edmund Hillary’s; after all, the fell was only 1,631 feet high. But Neil was not getting any younger, and the crowd at Baxwell’s Machine Tools, where he worked, had taken the mickey something cruel when he told them he was going on a fell-walking holiday in the Yorkshire Dales.

  ‘Fell?’ taunted Dick Blatchley, one of the mail-room wags. Tha’ll a fell before tha’s got started, Neil.’ And they had all laughed.

  But now, as he stood there in the thin air, his heart beating deep in his chest like the steam-driven pistons in the factory, he was the one to laugh. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and wiped off the sweat over which they had slid. Next he adjusted the straps of his rucksack, which were biting into his shoulders.

  He had been climbing for well over an hour: nothing too dangerous – no sheer heights, nothing that required special equipment. Fell-walking was a democratic recreation, just plain hard work. And it was an ideal day for walking. The sun danced in and out between plump white clouds and a cool breeze kept the temperature down. Perfect late May weather.

  He stood in the rough grass and heather with nothing but a few sheep for company – and they had already turned their backs on him and scuttled a safe distance away. Lord of the whole scene, he sat on a weathered limestone boulder to savour the feeling.

  Back down the fell he could just make out the northern tip of Swainshead village, from where he had come. He could easily pick out the whitewashed front of the White Rose across the beck, and the lichen-covered flagstone roof of the Greenock Guest House, where he had spent a comfortable night after the previous day’s walking in Wharfedale. He had also enjoyed there a breakfast of sausage, bacon, black pudding, fried bread, grilled mushrooms, tomato, two fried eggs, tea, toast and marmalade before setting off that morning.

  He stood up to take in the panorama, starting with the west, where the fells descended and rolled like frozen waves to the sea. To the north-we
st ranged the old rounded hills of the Lake District. Neil fancied he could see the Striding Edge along Helvellyn and the occasional glint of sun on Windermere or Ullswater. Next he looked south, where the landscape hardened into the Pennines, the backbone of England. The rock was darker there, with outcrops of millstone grit ousting the glinting white limestone. Miles of wild forbidding moorland stretched down as far as Derbyshire. South-east lay Swainsdale itself, its valley bottom hidden from view.

  But what astonished Neil most of all was a small wooded valley down the eastern slope just below where he stood. The guidebooks hadn’t mentioned anything of particular interest on the route he had chosen; indeed, one of his reasons for taking it was that nobody was likely to spoil his solitude. Most people, it seemed to Neil, would be off in search of stone circles, old lead mines and historic buildings.

  In addition to its location and seclusion, the dale also had unusual foliage. It must have been a trick of the light, Neil thought, but whereas the trees everywhere else were fresh and green with spring, the ash, alders and sycamores below him seemed tinged with russet, orange and earth-brown. It seemed to him like a valley out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

  It would mean an extra mile or two and an unplanned climb back out again, but the sides didn’t appear too steep, and Neil thought he might find some interesting wild flowers along the shaded banks of the beck. Balancing his pack, he struck out for the enchanted valley.

  Soon, the rough tussocks underfoot gave way to springier grass. When Neil entered the woods, the leaves seemed much greener now the sunlight filtered through them. The smell of wild garlic filled his nostrils and made him feel light-headed. Bluebells swayed in the breeze.

  He heard the beck before he saw it between the trees; it made a light bubbling sound, joyful and carefree. From the inside too, the valley clearly had a magical quality. It was more luxuriant than the surrounding area, its ferns and shrubs more lush and abundant as if, Neil thought, God had blessed it with a special grace.

  He eased off his rucksack and laid it down on the thick grass by the waterside. Taking off his glasses, he thought he would stay a while and relax, perhaps drink some coffee from his flask before carrying on. He rested his head on the pack and closed his eyes. His mind emptied of everything but the heady scent of the garlic, the song of the beck, the cool fingers of the wind that rustled through wild roses and honeysuckle and the warbling of skylarks as they aimed themselves up at the sun and floated down like feathers, singing.

  Refreshed – indeed feeling as if he had been born anew – Neil wiped his eyes and put on his glasses again. Looking around, he noticed a wild flower in the woods across the water. It seemed, from where he was, to be about a foot high, with red-brown sepals and pale yellow petals. Thinking it might be a rare lady’s slipper orchis, he decided to cross over and have a closer look. The beck wasn’t very wide, and there were plenty of fortuitously placed stepping stones.

  As he neared the flower, he became aware of another smell, much more harsh and cloying than the garlic or loam. It clogged his nose and stuck to his bronchial passages. Wondering what it could be, he looked around, but could see nothing unusual. Near the flower, which was definitely a lady’s slipper, some branches fallen from a tree lay on the ground and blocked his way. He started to pull them aside to get a better view.

  But he didn’t get very far. There, under a makeshift cover, lay the source of the smell: a human body. In the instant before he turned to vomit into the shrubs, Neil noticed two things: that it had no face, and that it seemed to be moving – its flesh was literally crawling.

  Pausing only to wash his face and rinse out his mouth in the beck, Neil left his rucksack where it was and hurried as fast as he could back to Swainshead.

  TWO

  Disgusting, thought Katie Greenock, turning up her nose as she emptied the waste bin of room three. You’d think people would be ashamed to leave such things lying around for anyone to see. Thank God they’d left that morning. There always had seemed something unwholesome about them anyway: the way they kissed and canoodled at the breakfast table, how it was always so long before they set off for the day and so early when they returned to their room. She didn’t even believe they were married.

  Sighing, Katie brushed back a strand of ash-blonde hair and emptied the bin into the black plastic bag she carried with her on her rounds. Already she was tired out. Her day began at six o’clock, and there were no easy rustic mornings of birdsong and dew for her, just sheer hard work.

  First she had to cook the breakfasts and coordinate everything so that the eggs weren’t cold when the bacon was ready and the tea was fresh for the guests as soon as they decided to come down. They could help themselves to juice and cereal, which she had put out earlier – though not too early, for the milk had to be chilled. The toast could get as cold as it liked – cold toast seemed to be a part of the tradition of an English breakfast – but Katie was pleased when, as sometimes happened, she succeeded in serving it warm at exactly the right time. Not that anyone ever said thank you.

  Then, of course, she had to serve the meals and manage a smile for all the guests, whatever their comments about the quality of the food and no matter what their sweet little children saw fit to drop on the floor or throw at the walls. She was also often asked for advice about where to go for the day, but sometimes Sam would help with that part, breaking off from his usual morning monologue on current events with which he entertained the visitors daily whether they liked it or not.

  Next, she had to clear the tables and wash the dishes. The machine Sam had finally bought her helped a lot. Indeed, it saved her so much time that she could hurry down to Thetford’s Grocery on the Helmthorpe Road and take her pick of the morning’s fresh produce. Sam used to do that before he had installed the machine, but now he had more time for the sundry business matters that always seemed to be pressing.

  When Katie had planned the menu for the evening meal and bought all the ingredients, it was time to change the sheets and clean the rooms. It was hardly surprising then that by noon she was almost always tired. If she was lucky, she could sometimes find a little time for gardening around mid afternoon.

  Putting off the moment when she would have to move on to the next room, Katie walked over to the window and rested her elbows on the sill. It was a fine day in a beautiful part of the world but to her the landscape felt like an enormous trap; the fells were boulders that shut her in, the stretches of moorland like deserts impossible to cross. A chance of freedom had offered itself recently, but there was nothing she could do about it yet. She could only wait patiently and see what developed.

  She looked down on the grassy banks at each side of the fledgling River Swain, at the children sitting patiently with their home-made fishing nets, a visiting couple having a picnic, the old men gossiping as usual on the small stone bridge. She could see it all, but not feel the beauty of any of it.

  And there, almost dead opposite, was the White Rose, founded in 1605, as its sign proudly proclaimed, where Sam would no doubt be hobnobbing with his upper-class chums. The fool, Katie thought. He thinks he’s well in, but they’ll never really accept him, ever after all these years and all he’s done for them. Their kind never does. She was sure they laughed at him behind his back. And had he noticed the way Nicholas Collier kept looking at her? Did Sam know about the times Nicholas had tried to touch her?

  Katie shuddered at the thought. Outside, a sudden movement caught her eye and she saw the old men part like the Red Sea and stare open-mouthed as a slight figure hurried across the bridge.

  It was that man who’d set off just a few hours ago, Katie realized, the mild-mannered clerk from Castleford or Featherstone or somewhere like that. Surely he’d said he was heading for the Pennine Way? And he was as white as the pub front. He turned left at the end of the bridge, hurried the last few yards and went running into the White Rose.

  Katie felt her chest tighten. What was it that had brought him back in such a state? W
hat was wrong? Surely nothing terrible had happened in Swainshead? Not again.

  THREE

  ‘Well,’ Sam Greenock was saying about the racial mix in England, ‘they have their ways, I suppose, but—’

  Then Neil Fellowes burst through the door and looked desperately around the pub for a familiar face.

  Seeing Sam at his usual table with the Collier brothers and John Fletcher, Neil hurried over and pulled up a chair.

  ‘We must do something,’ he said, gasping for breath and pointing outside. ‘There’s a body up on the fell. Dead.’

  ‘Calm down, mate,’ Sam said. ‘Get your breath, then tell us what’s happened.’ He called over to the barman. ‘A brandy for Mr Fellowes, Freddie, if you please. A large one.’ Seeing Freddie hesitate, he added, ‘Don’t worry, you bloody old skinflint, I’ll pay. And get a move on.’

  Conversation at the table stopped while Freddie Metcalfe carried the drink over. Neil gulped the brandy and it brought on a coughing fit.

  ‘At least that’s put a bit of colour back in your cheeks,’ Sam said, slapping Neil on the back.

  ‘It was terrible,’ Neil said, wiping off the brandy where it had dribbled down his chin. He wasn’t used to strong drink, but he did approve of it in emergencies such as this.

  ‘His face was all gone, all eaten away, and the whole thing was moving, like waves.’ He put his glass to his thin lips again and drained it. ‘We must do something. The police.’ He got up and strode over to Freddie Metcalfe. ‘Where’s the police station in Swainshead?’

  Metcalfe scratched his shiny red scalp and answered slowly. ‘Let me see. . . There aren’t no bobbies in T’ Head itself. Nearest’s Helmthorpe, I reckon. Sergeant Mullins and young Weaver. That’s nigh on ten miles off.’

  Neil bought himself another double brandy while Metcalfe screwed up his weather-beaten face and thought.