In a Dry Season (43 page)

He was on page ten when Jenny dashed in, out of breath, tousled red hair flaming around her face as she looked this way and that. When she saw him, she waved, patted her chest and hurried over. She bent and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Sorry I'm late. My God, you look awful.”

Banks smiled and raised his glass. “Hair of the dog.” Jenny picked up the paperback he had set down on the table and turned up her nose. “I didn't think this sort of thing was up your alley.”

“Work.”

“Aha.” She raised her eyebrows. The California tan looked good on her, Banks thought. It hadn't burned her, the way it did with most redheads, only darkened the natural creams and reds of her complexion and brought out her freckles, especially across her nose. Her figure looked as good as ever in tight black jeans and a loose jade silk top.

“So,” Banks said, when Jenny had settled herself down and deposited her oversized shoulder-bag on the floor beside her. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Campari and soda, please.”

“Food?”

“Scampi and chips. I've been craving scampi and chips for about a month now.”

“Scampi and chips it is.” Banks made his way to the bar, got them each a drink and ordered the food. There were a few more exotic dishes finding their way onto the menu these days, like fajitas and pad thai noodles, but Banks finally settled for plaice and chips. It wasn't that he had anything against exotic food, but from experience he didn't
trust the pub version of it. Besides, he could still taste the curry he had eaten in Leeds last night.

He carried the drinks back and found Jenny poring over
The Shadow of Death
, one hand holding her hair back from her eyes. When he approached, she flashed him a quick smile and closed the book. “I think I saw this on
TV
over there,” she said, touching the cover. “On
PBS
. They interviewed her afterwards. Vivian Elmsley. She's very popular in the States, you know. Quite a striking woman.”

Banks told her briefly about the case so far, including the possibility of Vivian Elmsley's having a role in the affair. By the time he had finished, their food arrived.

“Is it as good as you remembered?” he asked after she had taken a couple of bites.

“Nothing ever is,” Jenny said. He noticed a new sadness and weariness in her eyes. “It's good, though.”

“What happened over there?”

“What do you mean?” She glanced at him, then looked away quickly. Too quickly. He saw fear in her eyes.

He thought of the very first time he had met her in Gristhorpe's office, shortly after he had arrived in Eastvale, how he had been struck by her sharp intelligence and her quick sense of humour, as well as her natural beauty, the flaming red hair, full lips and green eyes with their attractive laugh lines.

Jenny Fuller had been thirty-one then; she was nearly thirty-eight now. The lines had etched themselves a little deeper, and they weren't as easy to associate with laughter any more. His first impression had been that she was a knockout. He felt exactly the same today. They had come close to an affair, but Banks had backed off, unwilling to commit himself to infidelity. He had been different then,
more confident, more certain of what his life was all about and where it was going. Life had been simpler for him then, or perhaps he had approached it on more absolute terms. It had
seemed
simple, at least: he loved Sandra and believed she loved him; therefore, he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that, no matter how tempting. They had just moved up from London, where Banks felt he was quickly burning out, to a less hectic region, partly to save their marriage. And it had worked, up to a point. Seven years.

Against all odds, Banks and Jenny had remained friends. Jenny had become friends with Sandra, too, though Banks got the impression they had drifted apart over the past two or three years.

“Come on, Jenny,” he said. “This sudden return wasn't on the agenda. I thought you'd become a California beach bunny for good.”

“
Beach bunny
?” Jenny laughed. “I guess I just didn't quite make the grade, did I?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, looked away, tried to form some words, sighed again, then laughed. There were tears in her eyes. She seemed a lot more twitchy than he remembered, always moving her hands. “It's all washed-up, Alan. That's what I've been meaning to say.”

“What's all washed-up?”

“All of it. The job. Randy. My life.” She cocked her head. “I never did have much luck with men, did I? I should have listened to you years ago.”

There was no arguing with that. Banks remembered one or two of Jenny's disasters that he had been around to mop up after.

Jenny pushed her plate aside, scampi and chips unfinished, and took a long swig of Campari and soda. Her glass was almost empty; Banks still had the best part of his pint left. He didn't want any more. “Another?” he asked.

“Am I becoming an alcoholic, too? No, don't answer that. I'll get it myself.” Before he could stop her, she stood up and headed for the Ladies'.

Banks finished his plaice and chips and looked at the back cover of
The Shadow of Death
on the table beside him. “A masterpiece.”

“Top-rate work.”

“A must-read.” The critics obviously loved Vivian Elmsley. Or were the brief quotes cunningly edited from less flattering sentences? “Whereas Dostoevsky wrote
a masterpiece
, Vivian Elmsley can be said to have written only a pot-boiler of the lowest kind.” Or “Had this book shown even the slightest sign of literary talent or creative imagination, I would not have hesitated to declare it a
must-read
and a piece of
top-rate work
, but as it possesses neither of these qualities, I have to say it's a dud.”

When Jenny came back, she had repaired what little damage the tears had caused to her make-up. She had also picked up another Campari and soda.

“You know,” she said, “I've been imagining sitting here and talking this over with you like this all the way over on the plane. Picturing how it would be, just you and me here in the Queen's Arms, like old times. I don't know why I found it so difficult. I think I might still be jet-lagged.”

“Take it easy,” said Banks. “Just tell me what you want to, at your own pace.”

She smiled and patted his arm. “Thanks. You're sweet.” She snatched a cigarette from his packet and lit up.

“You don't smoke,” Banks said.

“I do now.” Jenny blew out a long plume. “I've just about had it up to here with those nico-Nazis out there. You can't smoke anywhere. And to think California was a real hotbed of protest and innovation in the sixties. It's like a fucking kindergarten run by fascists now.”

He hadn't heard Jenny swear before. Something else new. Smoking, drinking, swearing. He noticed that she wasn't inhaling, and she stubbed the cigarette out halfway through. “As I'm sure you've gathered already,” she went on, “Randy, my main man, my paramour, my significant other, my reason for staying out there as long as I did, is no longer a part of my life. The little shit.”

“What happened?”

“Graduate students. Or to put it more bluntly, blonde twenty-something bimbos with their brains between their legs.”

“I'm sorry, Jenny.”

She waved her hand. “I should have seen it coming.

Anyone else would have. Anyway, soon as I found out about what he was up to, there wasn't much to keep me there. After I confronted him with the evidence, my dear Randy made damn sure I wasn't going to be offered another year's visiting lectureship.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, thank God they're not all like that. I'll be going back to my old lecturing job at York. Start next month. If that doesn't work out, I'll hang up my shingle next door to the cop-shop and go into private practice. I'm quite the expert on deviants and criminal psychology, should you happen to have such a creature as a serial killer lurking in the general vicinity. I've even been on training courses with the
FBI
profilers.”

“I've heard that's all a load of bollocks,” said Banks. “But I'm impressed. Sorry we don't have anything at the moment.”

“I know—don't call us . . . Story of my life.”

“I do want to ask your advice on something, though.”

“Go ahead. I'm finished blubbering and moaning. And I didn't even ask about you. I haven't seen you since Sandra left. How are
you
doing?”

“I'm doing fine, thanks.”

“Seeing anyone?”

Banks paused a moment. “Sort of.”

“Serious?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“So it
is
serious. How about Sandra?”

“Do you mean is
she
seeing anyone? Yes, she is.”

“Oh.”

“It's okay. I'm fine, Jenny.”

“If you say so. What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“It's about Matthew Shackleton. Gwen's—possibly Vivian Elmsley's—brother. Apparently he was captured by the Japanese and spent a few years in one of their prison camps. By all accounts, he was pretty disturbed when he came home. Ended up committing suicide five years after the war. Thing is, all I can come up with in terms of psychiatric diagnoses are such vague terms as ‘shell-shock.' ”

“I thought that went out with the First World War.”

“Apparently not, they just changed the name to ‘battle fatigue' or ‘combat fatigue.' I was wondering what sort of diagnosis you'd come up with today.”

“That's a good one, Alan.” Jenny pointed her thumb at her chest. “You want me, a
psychologist
, to come up with a
psychiatric
diagnosis of a dead man's mental problems?
I like that, I really do. That takes the biscuit.”

Banks grinned. “Oh, don't be such a nitpicker, Jenny.”

“This had better be between you and me.”

“Cross my heart.”

Jenny toyed with her beer-mat, ripping off little pieces of damp cardboard. “Well,” she said, “I'm only guessing, you understand, but if your man had indeed been a prisoner of war under such terrible conditions, then he was probably suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Banks took his notebook from his inside pocket and jotted a few words down.

“Don't you dare quote me on this,” Jenny warned him. “I told you, it's strictly between you and me.”

“Don't worry, you won't be called upon to testify in court. I realize this is pure speculation. Anyway, it all happened a long time ago. This condition would have been caused by his experiences in the war and the camp, right?”

“Right. Basically,
PTSDS
are caused by some event or series of events well beyond the normal range of human experience. Maybe we should redefine exactly what that means these days, given the state of the so-called normal world, but it generally refers to extreme experiences. Things that go way beyond marital breakdowns, broken love affairs, simple bereavement, chronic illness or bankruptcy. The things most of us suffer from on a daily basis.”

“That bad?”

Jenny nodded. “Things like rape, assault, kidnapping, military combat, floods, earthquakes, fires, car crashes, bombing, torture, death camps. The list of divine and human atrocities goes on and on, but I'm sure you get the picture.”

“I get the picture. What are the symptoms?”

“Many and varied. Recurrent nightmares about the event are common. As is feeling that the event is recurring—things like flashbacks and hallucinations. Anything that reminds the person of the event is painful, too, such as an anniversary. Also things that were part of it. If a man was kept in a small cage for a long period, for example, then he would be likely to experience suffocating claustrophobia whenever those conditions were approximated. Maybe in a lift, for example.”

“What about amnesia?”

“Yes, there's psychological memory loss sometimes.

Believe me, most of the people who suffer from this would find the memory loss preferable to the persistent nightmares. But the problem is that strong feelings of detachment, estrangement and separation come with it. You can't even enjoy your lack of recollection of the horror. People who suffer from
PTSDS
often find it difficult to feel or accept love, they become alienated from society, from their families and loved ones, and they have an extremely diminished sense of the future. Add to that insomnia, difficulty in concentrating, hypervigilance, depressive or panic disorders.”

“Sounds like me.”

“Much worse. Suicide is also not uncommon. He's a suspect, I assume?”

“Yes. That was another thing I wanted to ask you. Might he be likely to become violent?”

“That's a difficult one to answer. Anyone can become violent given the right stimulus. He would certainly be prone to irritability and outbursts of anger, but I'm not sure they'd necessarily lead him to murder.”

“I was thinking he might have killed his wife because he found out she'd been having an affair.”

“I suppose it's possible he got a bee in his bonnet about it,” Jenny said.

“But you don't think so?”

“I didn't say that. Let me just say I hold reservations.

Don't forget the constraints you've got me working under.”

“I won't. Tell me about your reservations.”

“The outbursts of anger in
PTSD
are usually fairly irrational. By linking them to his wife's behaviour, you're making it all far more logical, do you see? Cause and effect.”

“Yes.”

“And the other thing is that if he did feel detached and was unable to love, then where does the hate come in? Or the jealousy?”

“So could he or couldn't he?”