The Summer That Never Was (10 page)

“Is it to be DI Hart, then?” Banks asked.

Michelle glanced sideways at him. “I suppose you can call me Michelle, if you want.”

“Michelle it is, then. Nice name.”

Was he
flirting
? “Come off it,” Michelle said.

“No, seriously. I mean it. No need to blush.”

Angry at herself for letting her embarrassment show, Michelle said, “Just as long as you don’t start singing the old Beatles song.”

“I never sing to a woman I’ve just met. Besides, I imagine you must have heard it many times.”

Michelle graced him with a smile. “Too numerous to mention.”

The pub had parking at the back and a big freshly mown lawn with white tables and chairs where they could sit out in the sun. A couple of families were already there, settled in for the afternoon, by the look of it, kids running around and playing on the swings and slide in a small playground the pub provided, but Michelle and Banks managed to find a quiet-enough spot at the far end near the trees. Michelle watched the children play as Banks went inside to get the drinks. One of them was about six or seven, head covered in lovely golden curls, laughing
unselfconsciously as she went higher on the swings.
Melissa
. Michelle felt as if her heart was breaking up inside her chest as she watched. It was a relief when Banks came back with a pint for himself and a shandy for her, and set two menus down on the table.

“What’s up?” he asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have,” she said. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Banks was diplomatic, she noted, curious about her mood, but sensitive and considerate enough to leave well enough alone and pretend to be studying the menu. Michelle liked that. She wasn’t very hungry, but she ordered a prawn sandwich just to avoid being questioned about her lack of appetite. If truth be told, her stomach still felt sour from last night’s wine. Banks was obviously ravenous, as he ordered a huge Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and gravy.

When their orders were in, they sat back in the chairs and relaxed. They were in the shade of a beech tree, where it was still warm, but out of the direct sunlight. Banks drank some beer and lit a cigarette. He looked in good shape, Michelle thought, for someone who smoked, drank and ate huge Yorkshire puddings and sausages. But how long would that last? If he really was Graham Marshall’s contemporary, he’d be around fifty now, and wasn’t that the age that men started worrying about their arteries and blood pressure, not to mention the prostate? Still, who was she to judge. True, she didn’t smoke, but she drank too much and ate far too much junk food.

“So what else can you tell me about Graham Marshall?” she asked.

Banks drew on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. He seemed to be enjoying it, Michelle thought, or was it a strategy he used to gain the upper hand in interviews? They all had some sort of strategy, even Michelle, though she would have been hard-pushed to define what it was. She thought herself quite direct. Finally, he
answered, “We were friends at school, and out of it, too. He lived a few doors down the street, and for the year I knew him there was a small gang of us, who were pretty much inseparable.”

“David Grenfell, Paul Major, Steven Hill and you. I’ve only had time to track down and speak to David and Paul on the phone so far, though neither of them was able to tell me very much. Go on.”

“I haven’t see any of them since I left for London when I was eighteen.”

“You only knew Graham for a year?”

“Yes. He was a new kid in our class the September before he disappeared, so it wasn’t quite a full year, even. His family had moved up from London that July or August, the way quite a lot of people were already doing then. This was before the huge influx; that came later in the sixties and the early seventies, the ‘new town’ expansion. You probably weren’t around then.”

“I certainly wasn’t here.”

“Where, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I grew up in Hawick, border country. Spent most of my early police career with Greater Manchester, and since then I’ve been on the move. I’ve only been here a couple of months. Go on with your story.”

“That explains the accent.” Banks paused to sip beer and smoke again. “I grew up here, a provincial kid. ‘Where my childhood was unspent.’ Graham seemed, I don’t know, sort of cool, exotic, different. He was from
London
, and that was where it was all happening. When you grow up in the provinces, you feel everything’s passing you by, happening somewhere else, and London was one of those ‘in’ places back then, like San Francisco.”

“What do you mean by ‘cool’?”

Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. Michelle wondered how he’d got it. “I don’t know. Not much fazed him. He never showed much emotion or reaction, and he seemed sort of worldly-wise beyond his years. Don’t get
me wrong, though; Graham had his enthusiasms. He knew a lot about pop music, obscure B-sides and all that. He played guitar quite well. He was crazy about science fiction. And he had a Beatle haircut. My mother wouldn’t let me have one. Short back and sides all the way.”

“But he was cool?”

“Yes. I don’t know how to define the quality, really. How do you?”

“I think I know what you mean. I had a girlfriend like that. She was just like…oh, I don’t know…someone who made you feel awkward, someone you wanted to emulate, perhaps. I’m not sure I can define it any more clearly.”

“No. Just
cool
, before it was even cool to be cool.”

“His mother said something about bullying.”

“Oh, that was just after he arrived. Mick Slack, the school bully. He had to try it on with everybody. Graham wasn’t much of a fighter, but he didn’t give up, and Slack never went near him again. Neither did anybody else. It was the only time I ever saw him fight.”

“I know it’s hard to remember that far back,” said Michelle, “but did you notice anything different about him towards the end?”

“No. He seemed much the same as always.”

“He went on holiday with you shortly before he disappeared, so his mother told me.”

“Yes. His parents couldn’t go that year, so they let him come with us. It’s good to have someone your own age to hang about with when you’re away for a couple of weeks. It could get awfully boring with just parents and a younger brother.”

Michelle smiled. “Younger sister, too. When did you last see Graham?”

“Just the day before he disappeared. Saturday.”

“What did you do?”

Banks gazed away into the trees before answering. “Do? What we usually did on Saturdays. In the morning
we went to the Palace, to the matinee.
Flash Gordon
or
Hopalong Cassidy
, a Three Stooges short.”

“And the afternoon?”

“In town. There was an electrical shop on Bridge Street that used to sell records. Long gone now. Three or four of us would sometimes crowd into one of those booths and smoke ourselves silly listening to the latest singles.”

“And that night?”

“Don’t remember. I think I just stayed in watching TV. Saturday nights were good.
Juke Box Jury
,
Doctor Who
,
Dixon of Dock Green
. Then there was
The Avengers
, but I don’t think it was on that summer. I don’t remember it, anyway.”

“Anything odd about the day at all? About Graham?”

“You know, for the life of me I can’t remember anything unusual. I’m thinking perhaps I didn’t know him very well, after all.”

Michelle was getting the strong impression that Banks
did
know something, that he was holding back. She didn’t know why, but she was certain that was the case.

“Number twelve?” A young girl carrying two plates wandered into the garden.

Banks glanced at the number the bartender had given him. “Over here,” he said.

She delivered the plates. Michelle gazed at her prawn sandwich, wondering if she’d be able to finish it. Banks tucked into his Yorkshire pudding and sausage for a while, then said, “I used to do Graham’s paper round before him, before the shop changed owners. It used to be Thackeray’s until old man Thackeray got TB and let the business run into the ground. That’s when Bradford bought the shop and built it up again.”

“But you didn’t go back?”

“No. I’d got an after-school job at the mushroom farm down past the allotments. Filthy work, but it paid well, at least for back then.”

“Ever have any trouble on the paper round?”

“No. I was thinking about that on my way here, among other things.”

“No strangers ever invited you inside or anything?”

“There was one bloke who always seemed a bit weird at the time, though he was probably harmless.”

“Oh?” Michelle took out her notebook, prawn sandwich still untouched on the plate in front of her, now arousing the interest of a passing bluebottle.

Banks swatted the fly away. “Better eat it soon,” he said.

“Who was this bloke you were talking about?”

“I can’t remember the number, but it was near the end of Hazel Crescent, before you crossed Wilmer Road. Thing was, he was about the only one ever awake at that time, and I got the impression he hadn’t even gone to bed. He’d open the door in his pyjamas and ask me to come in for a smoke or drink or whatever, but I always said no.”

“Why?”

Banks shrugged. “Dunno. Instinct. Something about him. A smell, I don’t know. Sometimes when you’re a kid you’ve got a sort of sixth sense for danger. If you’re lucky, it stays with you. Anyway, I’d already been well-trained not to accept sweets from strange men, so I wasn’t going to accept anything else, either.”

“Harry Chatham,” Michelle said.

“What?”

“That’ll be Harry Chatham. Body odour, one of his characteristics.”

“You
have
done your homework.”

“He came under suspicion at the time, but he was eventually ruled out. You were right to stay away. He did have a history of exposing himself to young boys. Never went further than that, though.”

“They were sure?”

Michelle nodded. “He was on holiday in Great Yarmouth. Didn’t get back until that Sunday night. Plenty of witnesses.
Jet Harris
gave him the third degree, I should imagine.”

Banks smiled. “Jet Harris. Haven’t heard his name in years. You know, when I was a kid growing up around there, it was always, ‘Better keep your nose clean or Jet Harris will get you and lock you up.’ We were terrified of him, though none of us had ever met him.”

Michelle laughed. “It’s still pretty much the same today,” she said.

“Surely he must be dead by now?”

“Eight years ago. But the legend lingers on.” She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. It was good. She realized she was hungry after all and had soon devoured the first half. “Was there anything else?” Michelle asked.

She noticed Banks hesitate again. He had finished his Yorkshire pudding, and he reached for another cigarette. A temporary postponement. Funny, she’d seen the signs before in criminals she’d interviewed. This man definitely had something on his conscience, and he was debating whether to tell her or not. Michelle sensed that she couldn’t hurry matters by pushing him, so she let him put the cigarette in his mouth and fiddle with his lighter for a few moments. And she waited.

Annie wished she hadn’t given up smoking. At least it would have been something to do as she lay on her belly in the wet grass keeping an eye on the distant shepherd’s shelter. She glanced at her watch and realized she had been lying there over four hours and nobody had come for the money.

Under her clothes, and the jacket protecting the back of her neck, Annie felt bathed in sweat. All she wanted to do was walk under a nice cool shower and luxuriate there for half an hour. But if she left her spot, what would happen? On the other hand, what would happen if she stayed there?

The kidnapper might turn up, but would Annie go running down the daleside to make an arrest? No, because Luke Armitage certainly wouldn’t be with him. Would she have time to get to her car in Mortsett and follow
whoever picked up the money? Possibly, but she would have a much better chance if she were already in the car.

In the end, Annie decided that she should go back down to Mortsett, still keeping an eye on the shelter, and keep trying until she found someone home with a telephone, then sit in her car and watch from there until relief came from Eastvale. She felt her bones ache as she stood up and brushed the loose grass from her blouse.

It was a plan, and it beat lying around up here melting in the sun.

Now that it was time to confess, Banks was finding it more difficult than he had imagined. He knew he was stalling, playing for time, when what he should do was just come right out with it, but his mouth felt dry, and the words stuck in his throat. He sipped some beer. It didn’t help much. Sweat tickled the back of his neck and ran down his spine.

“We were playing down by the river,” he said, “not far from the city centre. It wasn’t developed quite as much as it is today, so it was a pretty desolate stretch of water.”

“Who was playing with you?”

“Just Paul and Steve.”

“Go on.”

“It was nothing, really,” Banks said, embarrassed at how slight the events that had haunted him for years now seemed on this bright afternoon sitting under a beech tree with an attractive woman. But there was no backing out now. “We were throwing stones in the water, skimming, that sort of thing. Then we moved down the riverbank a bit and found some bigger stones and bricks. We started chucking those in to make a big splash. At least I did. Steve and Paul were a bit farther down. Anyway, I was holding this big rock to my chest with both hands–it took all my strength–when I noticed this tall, scruffy sort of bloke walking along the riverbank towards me.”

“What did you do?”

“Held on to it,” said Banks. “So I didn’t splash him. Always the polite little bugger, I was. I remember smiling as he got nearer, you know, showing him I was holding off dropping the rock until he was out of range.” Banks paused and drew on his cigarette. “Next thing I knew,” he went on, “he’d grabbed hold of me from behind and I’d dropped the rock and splashed us both.”