Not Safe After Dark (3 page)

Banks stared at him, then looked at Susan, whose face showed sceptical interest. Never having been one to shy away from what killed the cat, Banks let his curiosity get the better of him yet
again. ‘All right,’ he said, standing up. ‘We’ll look into it. Where did you say you were staying?’

3

Banks turned right
by the whitewashed sixteenth-century Rose and Crown in Fortford, and stopped just after he had crossed the small stone bridge over the River
Swain.

The rain was still falling, obscuring the higher green dale sides and their latticework of drystone walls. Lyndgarth, a cluster of limestone cottages and a church huddled around a small village
green, looked like an Impressionist painting. The rain-darkened ruins of Devraulx Abbey, just up the hill to his left, poked through the trees like a setting for
Camelot
.

Banks rolled his window down and listened to the rain slapping against leaves and dancing on the river’s surface. To the west he could see the drumlin that Jerry Singer had felt so
strongly about.

Today it looked ghostly in the rain, and it was easy to imagine the place as some ancient barrow where the spirits of Bronze Age men lingered. But it wasn’t a barrow; it was a drumlin
created by glacial deposits. And Jerry Singer hadn’t been a Bronze Age man in his previous lifetime; he had been a sixties hippie, or so he believed.

Leaving the window down, Banks drove through Lyndgarth and parked at the end of Gristhorpe’s rutted driveway, in front of the squat limestone farmhouse. Inside, he found Gristhorpe staring
gloomily out of the back window at a pile of stones and a half-completed dry-stone wall. The superintendent, he knew, had taken a week’s holiday and hoped to work on the wall, which went
nowhere and closed in nothing. But he hadn’t bargained for the summer rain, which had been falling nonstop for the past two days.

He poured Banks a cup of tea so strong you could stand a spoon up in it, offered some scones, and they sat in Gristhorpe’s study. A paperback copy of Trollope’s
The Vicar of
Bullhampton
lay on a small table beside a worn and scuffed brown leather armchair.

‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’ Banks asked.

Gristhorpe considered the question a moment. ‘No. Why?’

Banks told him about Jerry Singer, then said, ‘I wanted your opinion. Besides, you were here then, weren’t you?’

Gristhorpe’s bushy eyebrows knit in a frown. ‘Nineteen sixty-six?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was here, but that’s over thirty years ago, Alan. My memory’s not what it used to be. Besides, what makes you think there’s anything in this other than some New Age
fantasy?’

‘I don’t know that there is,’ Banks answered, at a loss how to explain his interest, even to the broad-minded Gristhorpe. Boredom, partly, and the oddness of Singer’s
claim, the certainty the man seemed to feel about it. But how could he tell his superintendent that he had so little to do he was opening investigations into the supernatural? ‘There was a
sort of innocence about him,’ he said. ‘And he seemed so sincere about it, so intense.’

‘ “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” W. B. Yeats,’ Gristhorpe replied.

‘Perhaps. Anyway, I’ve arranged to talk to Jenny Fuller about it later today.’ Jenny was a psychologist who had worked with the Eastvale police before.

‘Good idea,’ said Gristhorpe. ‘All right, then, just for argument’s sake, let’s examine his claim objectively. He’s convinced he was a hippie murdered in
Swainsdale in summer, nineteen sixty-six, right?’

Banks nodded.

‘And he thinks this because he believes in reincarnation, he had a déjà vu and he’s had a recurring dream?’

‘True.’

‘Now,’ Gristhorpe went on, ‘leaving aside the question of whether you or I believe in reincarnation, or, indeed, whether there is such a thing – a philosophical
speculation we could hardly settle over tea and scones, anyway – he doesn’t give us a hell of a lot to go on, does he?’

‘That’s the problem. I thought you might remember something.’

Gristhorpe sighed and shifted in his chair. The scuffed leather creaked. ‘In nineteen sixty-six, I was a thirty-year-old detective sergeant in a backwoods division. In fact, we were
nothing but a subdivision then, and I was the senior detective. Most of the time I investigated burglaries, the occasional outbreak of sheep stealing, market-stall owners fencing stolen
goods.’ He sipped some tea. ‘We had one or two murders – really interesting ones I’ll tell you about someday – but not a lot. What I’m saying, Alan, is that no
matter how poor my memory is, I’d remember a murdered hippie.’

‘And nothing fits the bill?’

‘Nothing. I’m not saying we didn’t have a few hippies around, but none of them got murdered. I think your Mr Singer must be mistaken.’

Banks put his mug down on the table and stood up to leave. ‘Better get back to the crime statistics, then,’ he said.

Gristhorpe smiled. ‘So
that’s
why you’re so interested in this cock and bull story? Can’t say I blame you. Sorry I can’t help. Wait a minute, though,’
he added as they walked to the door. ‘There was old Bert Atherton’s lad. I suppose that was around the time you’re talking about, give or take a year or two.’

Banks paused at the door. ‘Atherton?’

‘Aye. Owns a farm between Lyndgarth and Helmthorpe. Or did. He’s dead now. I only mention it because Atherton’s son, Joseph, was something of a hippie.’

‘What happened?’

‘Fell down the stairs and broke his neck. Family never got over it. As I said, old man Atherton died a couple of years back, but his missis is still around.’

‘You’d no reason to suspect anything?’

Gristhorpe shook his head. ‘None at all. The Athertons were a decent, hard-working family. Apparently the lad was visiting them on his way to Scotland to join some commune or other. He
fell down the stairs. It’s a pretty isolated spot, and it was too late when the ambulance arrived, especially as they had to drive a mile down country lanes to the nearest telephone box. They
were really devastated. He was their only child.’

‘What made him fall?’

‘He wasn’t pushed, if that’s what you’re thinking. There was no stair carpet and the steps were a bit slippery. According to his dad, Joseph was walking around without
his slippers on and he slipped in his stockinged feet.’

‘And you’ve no reason to doubt him?’

‘No. I did have one small suspicion at the time, though.’

‘What?’

‘According to the post-mortem, Joseph Atherton was a heroin addict, though he didn’t have any traces of the drug in his system at the time of his death. I thought he might have been
smoking marijuana or something up in his room. That might have made him a bit unsteady on his feet.’

‘Did you search the place?’

Gristhorpe snorted. ‘Nay, Alan. There was no sense bringing more grief on his parents. What would we do if we found something, charge
them
with possession?’

‘I see your point.’ Banks opened the door and put up his collar against the rain. ‘I might dig up the file anyway,’ he called, running over to the car. ‘Enjoy the
rest of your week off.’

Gristhorpe’s curse was lost in the sound of the engine starting up and the finale of Mussorgsky’s ‘Great Gate of Kiev’ on Classic FM, blasting out from the radio, which
Banks had forgotten to switch off.

4

In addition to
the cells and the charge room, the lower floor of Eastvale Divisional Headquarters housed old files and records. The dank room was lit by a single
bare light bulb and packed with dusty files. So far, Banks had checked nineteen sixty-five and sixty-six but found nothing on the Atherton business.

Give or take a couple of years
, Gristhorpe had said. Without much hope, Banks reached for nineteen sixty-four. That was a bit too early for hippies, he thought, especially in the far
reaches of rural North Yorkshire.

In nineteen sixty-four, he remembered, the Beatles were still recording ballads like ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ and old rockers like ‘Long Tall Sally’. John hadn’t
met Yoko, and there wasn’t a sitar within earshot. The Rolling Stones were doing ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’, the Kinks had a huge hit with
‘You Really Got Me’, and the charts were full of Dusty Springfield, Peter and Gordon, the Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits.

So nineteen sixty-four was a write-off as far as dead hippies were concerned. Banks looked anyway. Maybe Joseph Atherton had been way ahead of his time. Or perhaps Jerry Singer’s
channeller had been wrong about the time between incarnations. Why was this whole charade taking on such an aura of unreality?

Banks’s stomach rumbled. Apart from that scone at Gristhorpe’s, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, he realized. He put the file aside. Though there hardly seemed any point
looking further ahead than nineteen sixty-six, he did so out of curiosity. Just as he was feeling success slip away, he came across it: Joseph Atherton. Coroner’s verdict: accidental death.
There was only one problem: it had happened in 1969.

According to the Athertons’ statement, their son wrote to say he was coming to see them en route to Scotland. He said he was on his way to join some sort of commune and arrived at Eastvale
station on the London train at three forty-five in the afternoon, 11 July 1969. By ten o’clock that night he was dead. He didn’t have transport of his own, so his father had met him at
the station in the Land Rover and driven him back to the farm.

Banks picked up a sheet of lined writing paper, yellowed around the edges. A separate sheet described it as an anonymous note received at the Eastvale police station about a week after the
coroner’s verdict. All it said, in block capitals, was, ‘Ask Atherton about the red Volkswagen.’

Next came a brief interview report, in which a PC Wythers said he had questioned the Athertons about the car and they said they didn’t know what he was talking about. That was that.

Banks supposed it was remotely possible that whoever was in the red Volkswagen had killed Joseph Atherton. But why would his parents lie? According to the statement, they spent the evening
together at the farm eating dinner, catching up on family news, then Joseph went up to his room to unpack and came down in his stockinged feet. Maybe he’d been smoking marijuana, as
Gristhorpe suggested. Anyway, he slipped at the top of the stairs and broke his neck. It was tragic, but hardly what Banks was looking for.

He heard a sound at the door and looked up to see Susan Gay.

‘Found anything, sir?’ she asked.

‘Maybe,’ said Banks. ‘One or two loose ends. But I haven’t a clue what it all means, if anything. I’m beginning to wish I’d never seen Mr Jerry
Singer.’

Susan smiled. ‘Do you know, sir,’ she said, ‘he almost had me believing him.’

Banks put the file aside. ‘Did he? I suppose it always pays to keep an open mind,’ he said. ‘That’s why we’re going to visit Mrs Atherton.’

5

The Atherton farm
was every bit as isolated as Gristhorpe had said, and the relentless rain had muddied the lane. At one point Banks thought they would have to get
out and push, but on the third try the wheels caught and the car lurched forward.

The farmyard looked neglected: bedraggled weeds poked through the mud; part of the barn roof had collapsed; and the wheels and tines of the old hayrake had rusted.

Mrs Atherton answered their knock almost immediately. Banks had phoned ahead so their arrival wouldn’t frighten her. After all, a woman living alone in such a wild place couldn’t be
too careful.

She led them into the large kitchen and put the kettle on the Aga. The stone-walled room looked clean and tidy enough, but Banks noted an underlying smell, like old greens and meat rotting under
the sink.

Mrs Atherton carried the aura of the sickroom about with her. Her complexion was as grey as her sparse hair; her eyes were dull yellow with milky blue irises; and the skin below them looked dark
as a bruise. As she made the tea, she moved slowly, as if measuring the energy required for each step. How on earth, Banks wondered, did she manage up here all by herself? Yorkshire grit was
legendary, and often as close to foolhardiness as anything else, he thought.

She put the teapot on the table. ‘We’ll just let it mash a minute,’ she said. ‘Now, what is it you want to talk to me about?’

Banks didn’t know how to begin. He had no intention of telling Mrs Atherton about Jerry Singer’s ‘previous lifetime’, or of interrogating her about her son’s death.
Which didn’t leave him many options.

‘How are you managing?’ he asked first.

‘Mustn’t grumble.’

‘It must be hard, taking care of this place all by yourself?’

‘Nay, there’s not much to do these days. Jack Crocker keeps an eye on the sheep. I’ve nobbut got a few cows to milk.’

‘No poultry?’

‘Nay, it’s not worth it any more, not with these battery farms. Anyway, seeing as you’re a copper, I don’t suppose you came to talk to me about the farming life, did you?
Come on, spit it out, lad.’

Banks noticed Susan look down and smile. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I hate to bring up a painful subject, but it’s your son’s death we want to talk to you about.’

Mrs Atherton looked at Susan as if noticing her for the first time. A shadow crossed her face. Then she turned back to Banks. ‘Our Joseph?’ she said. ‘But he’s been dead
nigh on thirty years.’

‘I know that,’ said Banks. ‘We won’t trouble you for long.’

‘There’s nowt else to add.’ She poured the tea, fussed with milk and sugar, and sat down again.

‘You said your son wrote and said he was coming?’

‘Aye.’

‘Did you keep the letter?’

‘What?’

‘The letter. I’ve not seen any mention of it anywhere. It’s not in the file.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? We don’t leave scraps of paper cluttering up the place.’

‘So you threw it out?’

‘Aye. Bert or me.’ She looked at Susan again. ‘That was my husband, God rest his soul. Besides,’ she said, ‘how else would we know he was coming? We couldn’t
afford a telephone back then.’