The Hanging Valley Read online

  ‘We were just having our tea,’ Esther Haines said. ‘Les is on the night shift at the yeast factory.’

  ‘Aye,’ her husband said, pulling up a chair and facing Banks aggressively. ‘What’s all this about?’

  A child with jam smeared all over his pale grinning face crawled through the open kitchen door and busied himself trying to tear apart a fluffy toy dog.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Banks said, ‘but I’ve got some bad news for you.’

  And the rest followed as it always did: disbelief, denial, shock, tears and finally a kind of numb acceptance. Banks was relieved to see that the first thing Mr Haines did was light a cigarette. He followed suit. Esther clutched a handkerchief to her nose. Her husband went to make tea and took the child with him.

  After Mr Haines had brought in the teapot and cups, leaving the child to play in the kitchen, Banks leaned forward in his seat and said to Esther, ‘There are some questions I’ve got to ask.’

  She nodded. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘Are you sure it’s our Bernie?’

  ‘As sure as we can be at this point,’ Banks told her. He didn’t want to have to tell her what state her brother’s corpse had been in. ‘Your answers will help us a lot. When did you last see him?’

  ‘It was a couple of weeks ago, now,’ she said. ‘He stayed with us a week.’

  ‘Can you find out the exact date he left here, Mrs Haines? It’s important.’

  Her husband walked over to a calendar of Canadian scenes and ran a stubby finger along the squares. ‘It was the thirteenth,’ he said, then looked over at Esther. ‘Remember, love, that morning he went to the dentist’s for that filling he needed?’

  Mrs Haines nodded.

  ‘Did he leave immediately after his visit to Mr Jarrett’s?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Les Haines. ‘He was heading for the Dales, so he had to be off about eleven. He was after taking one of them trains on the Settle-Carlisle route.’

  ‘And that was the last time either of you saw him, at eleven o’clock on May the thirteenth?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Do you know where he was going?’

  ‘Of course,’ Esther said. ‘He were off back to Swainshead.’

  ‘Going back? I don’t understand. Is that where he was before he came to stay with you?’

  ‘No, it’s where he grew up; it’s where we used to live.’

  Now Banks remembered where he’d heard the name before. Allen. Nicholas Collier had directed Gristhorpe and himself to the ruins of Archie Allen’s old farmhouse high on the side of Swainshead Fell.

  ‘Is your father Archie Allen?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And you lived on the fell side, worked a farm?’

  ‘Until it went belly up,’ Mr Haines cut in.

  ‘Did you live there too?’ Banks asked him.

  ‘Me? No. Leeds born and bred. But the missus grew up there.’

  ‘How long ago was this, Mrs Haines?’ Banks asked Esther, who had started weeping quietly again.

  ‘It’s ten years since we moved, now.’

  ‘And you came straight here?’

  ‘Not until Les and I got married. We lived in an old back-to-back off Tong Road. It’s not far away. Dad got a job at Blakey’s Castings. It were all he could get. Then they went to Melbourne – Australia, like – to go and live with our Denny after they retired. Oh God, somebody’ll have to tell Mum and Dad.’ She looked beseechingly at her husband, who patted her arm. ‘Don’t worry about that, love,’ he said. ‘It’ll keep a while.’

  ‘As far as I can gather,’ Banks said when Mrs Haines had regained her composure, ‘your brother had some connection with Toronto in Canada. Is that right?’

  She nodded. ‘He couldn’t get a job over here. He was a bright lad, our Bernie. Got a degree. But there was no jobs. He emigrated eight years ago.’

  ‘What did he do in Toronto?’

  ‘He’s a teacher in a college. Teaching English. It’s a good job. We was off out to see him next year.’

  Banks lit another cigarette as she wiped away the tears and blew her nose.

  ‘Can you give me his address?’

  She nodded and said, ‘Be a love, Les.’ Her husband went to the sideboard and brought out a tattered Wool-worth’s address book.

  ‘How often did Bernard come home?’ Banks asked, writing down the Toronto address.

  ‘Well, he came as often as he could. This was his third trip, but he hadn’t been for four years. Proper homesick he was.’

  ‘Why did he stay in Canada, then?’

  She shrugged. ‘Money. No work for him here, is there? Not with Thatcher running the country.’

  ‘What did he talk about while he was with you?’

  ‘Nothing really. Just family things.’

  ‘Did he say anything odd to you, Mr Haines? Anything that struck you as unusual?’

  ‘No. We didn’t talk a lot. We’d not much in common really. I’m not a great reader, never did well at school. And he liked his books, did Bernie. We talked about ale a bit. About what the boozers are like over there. He told me he’d found a nice pub in Toronto where he could get John Smith’s and Tartan on draught.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Haines shrugged. ‘Like I said, we didn’t have much in common.’

  Banks turned to Mrs Haines again. ‘What state of mind was he in? Was he upset about anything, depressed?’

  ‘He’d just got divorced about a year ago,’ she said, ‘and he were a bit upset about that. I think that’s what made him homesick. But I wouldn’t say he were really depressed, no. He seemed to think he might be able to come back and live here again before too long.’

  ‘Did he say anything about a job?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How could he manage to move back here then?’

  Esther Haines shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. He just hinted. Maybe it were wishful thinking, like, now he didn’t have Barbara any more.’

  ‘That was his wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened between them?’

  ‘She ran off wi’ another man.’

  ‘Where had Bernie been before he visited you?’

  Esther took a deep breath and dabbed at her red eyes. ‘He’d come to England for a month, all told,’ she said. ‘First off, he spent a week seeing friends in London and Bristol, then he came up here. He’d be due to go back about now, wouldn’t he, Les?’

  ‘Do you know how to get in touch with these friends?’ Banks asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry. They were friends of Bernie’s from university.’

  ‘Which university?’

  ‘York.’

  ‘And you didn’t know them?’

  ‘No. They’d be in his notebook. He always carried a notebook full of names and stuff.’

  ‘We didn’t find it. Never mind, we’ll find them somehow.’ If necessary, Banks knew he could check with the university authorities and track down Bernard Allen’s contemporaries. ‘Do you know where he was heading after Swainshead?’

  ‘He were going to see another friend in Edinburgh, then fly back from Prestwick. You can do that with Wardair, he said, fly to London and go back from somewhere else.’ She put her handkerchief to her nose again and sniffed.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have this person’s address in Edinburgh?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘So,’ Banks said, stubbing out his cigarette and reaching for the tea, ‘he left here on May the thirteenth to do some fell-walking in the Dales, and then—’

  Mrs Haines cut in. ‘No, that’s not right. That’s not the reason he went.’

  ‘Why did he go, then? Sentimental reasons?’

  ‘Partly, I suppose. But he went to stay with friends.’

  ‘What friends?’

  ‘Sam and Katie. They run a guest house – Greenock’s. Bernie was going to stay with Sam and Katie.’

  Struggling to keep his excit
ement and surprise to himself, Banks asked how Bernard had got to know Sam and Katie. At first, Mrs Haines seemed unable to concentrate for weeping, but Banks encouraged her gently, and soon she was telling him the whole story, pulling at the handkerchief on her lap as she spoke.

  ‘They knew each other from Armley, from after we came to Leeds. Sam lived there, too. We were neighbours. Bernie was always going on about Swainshead and how wonderful it was, and I think it were him as put the idea into Sam’s head. Anyways, Sam and Katie scrimped and saved and that’s where they ended up.’

  ‘Did Bernie have any other close friends in Swainshead?’

  ‘Not really,’ Esther said. ‘Most of his childhood mates had moved away. There weren’t any jobs for them up there.’

  ‘How did he get on with the Colliers?’

  ‘A bit above our station,’ Esther said. ‘Oh, they’d say hello, but they weren’t friends of his, not as far as I know. You can’t be, can you, not with the sons of the fellow what owns your land?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Banks said. ‘Was there any bitterness over losing the farm?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, no. Sadness, yes, but bitterness? No. It were us own fault. There wasn’t much land fit for anything but sheep, and when the flock took sick . . .’

  ‘What was Mr Collier’s attitude?’

  ‘Mr Walter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He were right sorry for us. He helped out as much as he could, but it were no use. He were preparing to sell off to John Fletcher anyway. Getting out of farming, he were.’

  ‘How would that have affected you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The sale.’

  ‘Oh. Mr Walter said he’d write it into the terms that we could stay. John Fletcher didn’t mind. He and Dad got on quite well.’

  ‘So there was no ill feeling between your family and John Fletcher or the Colliers?’

  ‘No. Not to speak of. But I didn’t think much of them.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She pulled harder at the handkerchief on her lap, and it began to tear along one edge. ‘I always thought they were a pair of right toffee-nosed gits, but I never said nowt. Stephen thinks he’s God’s gift to women, and that Nicholas is a bit doolally, if you ask me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s like a little kid, gets all overexcited. Especially when he’s had a drink or two. Practically slavers all over a person, he does. Especially women. He even tried it on with me once, but I sent him away with his tail between his legs.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t know how they put up with him at that there school, unless they’re all a bit that way.’

  ‘What about Stephen?’

  Esther shrugged. ‘Seems a pleasant enough gent on the outside. Bit of a smoothie, really. Got a lot more class than his brother. Bit two-faced, though.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You know. All friendly one minute, then cuts you dead next time he sees you. But they can afford to do that, can’t they?’

  ‘Who can?’

  ‘Rich folks. Don’t have to live like ordinary people, like you and me, do they?’

  ‘I don’t imagine they have the same priorities, no,’ Banks said, unsure whether he approved of being called an ordinary person. ‘Did he try it on too?’

  ‘Mr Stephen? No. Oh, he liked the girls, all right, but he was too much of a gentleman, for all his faults.’

  Mrs Haines seemed to have forgotten her grief for a few moments, so absorbed had she been in the past, but as soon as silence fell, her tears began to flow again and her husband put his arm around her. In the kitchen, something smashed, and the child ran wailing into the room and buried his jammy face in Esther Haines’s lap.

  Banks stood up. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have been the bearer of such bad news.’

  Esther nodded, handkerchief pressed to her mouth, and Mr Haines showed him to the door. ‘What are we to do about . . . you know . . .’

  ‘The remains?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘We’ll be in touch soon,’ Banks said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Upstairs, a baby started crying.

  The first thing Banks did was look for a phone box to call Sandra and tell her when he’d be back. That didn’t prove as easy as it sounded. The first three he came across had been vandalized, and he had to drive almost two miles before he found one that worked.

  It was a pleasant drive back to Eastvale through Harrogate and Ripon. In a quiet mood, he slipped in Delius’s North Country Sketches instead of the 1960s pop he’d been listening to. As he drove, he tried to piece together all the information he’d got that day. Whichever way he looked at it, the trail led back to Swainshead, the Greenocks, the Colliers and John Fletcher.

  5

  ONE

  Only the cry of a distant curlew and the sound of water gurgling over rocks in the stream at the back broke the silence.

  Then Sam Greenock echoed the news: ‘Bernie? Dead? I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Banks said. It was the second time in two days that he had been the bearer of bad news, but this time it was easier. The investigation proper had begun, and he had more on his mind than Sam Greenock’s disbelief, real or feigned.

  They sat in the living room at the back of the house: the Greenocks, Banks, and Sergeant Hatchley taking notes. Katie gazed out of the window, or sometimes she stared at the huge ugly wooden cross on the mantelpiece. She had said nothing, given no reaction at all.

  ‘It’s true he was staying with you then, is it?’ Banks asked.

  Sam nodded.

  ‘Why didn’t his name show up on the register? We went to a lot of trouble checking every place in Swainsdale.’

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ Sam said. ‘He was staying with us as a friend. Besides, you know as well as I do that those guest books aren’t legal requirements; they’re only for people to write comments in if they want, show they’ve been here.’

  ‘When our man called and asked if you’d had any Canadians staying recently, why didn’t you mention Bernard Allen?’

  ‘He didn’t ask me anything. He just looked at the register. Besides, I never thought of Bernie as a Canadian. Oh, I know he lived there, but that’s not everything, is it? I’ve known people who lived in Saudi Arabia for a year working on the oil fields but I don’t think of them as Saudis.’

  ‘Come off it, Sam. Bernard Allen had been in Canada for eight years, and you hadn’t seen him for four. This was only his third trip back,’ said Banks.

  ‘Still . . .’

  ‘Did you have any reason to lie about Bernie being here?’

  ‘No. I told you—’

  ‘Because if you did, we can charge you with concealing information. That’s serious, Sam. You could get two years.’

  Sam leaned forward. ‘Look, I never thought. That policeman who came, he didn’t tell us what he was looking for.’

  ‘We can check, you know.’

  ‘Bloody check then. It’s true.’

  Sam couldn’t remember the officer’s name, so Banks asked Hatchley to make a note of the time and date. It would be easy enough to find out who had made the visit and what approach he had taken. He still wasn’t sure about Sam Greenock, though.

  Banks sighed. ‘All right. We’ll leave that for now. Which room did he stay in?’

  Sam looked at Katie. She was staring out on the fell side, so he had to nudge her and repeat the question.

  ‘Five,’ she said, as if speaking from a great distance. ‘Room five.’

  ‘We’ll need to have a look,’ Banks told her.

  ‘It was two weeks ago,’ Sam said. ‘There’s been other people in since then. That’s where we took Fellowes after he’d found the body.’

  ‘We’ll still need to look.’

  ‘Do you think he’s hidden some secret message there, Inspector? Taped it to the bottom of the dresser
drawer, maybe?’

  ‘You’ve been reading too many espionage novels. And if I were you, I’d cut the bloody sarcasm. You might start me thinking that there’s some reason you don’t want me to look in Bernie Allen’s room. And while we’re at it, he’s not the first person to get killed after leaving this guest house, is he, Sam?’

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ said Sam. ‘If you’re trying to imply—’

  Banks held his hand up. ‘I’m not trying to imply anything. What was it the man said: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence? Let’s just hope there’s not a third time.’

  Sam put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Really, I am. It’s the shock. And now all these questions.’

  ‘Look at it from my point of view, Sam. Bernard Allen was killed after he left your guest house. That’s given his killer about two whole weeks to cover his tracks, leave the country, arrange for an alibi, whatever. I need everything I can get, and I need it quickly. And the last thing I need is some clever bugger who just might have been withholding information to start playing the comic.’

  ‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want?’

  ‘First of all, you can tell us when he left.’

  ‘About two weeks ago.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘Katie?’

  Again, with great difficulty, Katie turned her attention to the people in the room. Banks repeated his question.

  ‘It was a Friday,’ she said.

  Hatchley checked the dates against his diary. That’d be the seventeenth, sir,’ he said. ‘Friday. May the seventeenth.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Just after breakfast. About nine thirty. He said he wanted to get an early start,’ Sam said.

  ‘Where was he going?’

  ‘He was heading for the Pennine Way, then up to Swaledale.’

  ‘Do you know where he was intending to stay?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No. He just said he’d find somewhere on the way. There are plenty of places; it’s a very popular route.’

  ‘Did he say anything to you about visiting the hanging valley on his way?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t have been surprised, though. He used to play there when he was a kid, or so he said.’