Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) (18 page)

‘Hard to say for certain, but I doubt it. After about four days the skin starts to get marble-like, and the veins come closer to surface, become more visible. That hasn’t happened yet. There’s also not much insect activity. Some signs of bluebottles and blowflies, but they’re always the first. Sometimes they come on the first day. The ants and beetles come later. I’d say Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. That would be my preliminary guess, at any rate.’

‘Much appreciated,’ said Banks. If it was the same man who had phoned Bill Quinn around nine o’clock on Tuesday evening, it would have taken him probably about an hour to walk back to Garskill Farm from Ingleby, maybe a bit less, so he had to have been killed sometime after about ten o’clock on Tuesday evening and before, say, eleven on Wednesday evening.

Dr Burns turned the body slightly so that Banks could see the pooling, or hypostasis on his back and legs. ‘All that tells us in terms of time is that he’s been dead more than six hours,’ said Dr Burns.

‘But it also tells us that he more than likely died here and hasn’t been moved from that position, am I right?’

‘That’s right. You’re learning.’

‘So what killed him?’

Dr Burns said nothing for a few moments as he examined the body again, touched the hair and looked up at the roof. Then he examined the front and back for signs of fatal injuries. ‘There are no knife wounds or bullet entry points, as far as I can make out,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they’re hard to spot, especially a thin blade or a small calibre bullet, but I’ve been as thorough as I can under the circumstances.’

‘Blunt object trauma?’

‘You can see for yourself there’s nothing of that sort.’

‘So what killed him? Was he poisoned? Did he die of natural causes?’

‘He could have been poisoned, but that’ll have to wait until the post-mortem. As for natural causes, again, it’s possible, but given the bruising, the condition of his body, the rope marks, I’d say they rule it out somewhat.’ Dr Burns paused. ‘You’re probably going to think I’m crazy, and I don’t want you repeating this to anyone except your immediate team until the post-mortem has been conducted, but if it helps you at all, it’s my opinion that he drowned.’

‘Drowned?’

‘Yes. He was naked. His hands were bound behind his back.’ Dr Burns pressed the chest slightly. ‘And if I do that, you can just about hear a slight gurgling sound and feel the presence of water in the lungs. If I pressed much harder it would probably come out of his nose and mouth, but I don’t want to risk disturbing the body that much.’ He gestured to the trough of water, the twisted towels, lengths of rope and overturned chair. ‘In fact, if you ask me, this man died of drowning, probably in conjunction with waterboarding. Those towels by the trough are still wet.’

Banks stood up and took in everything Dr Burns had mentioned. He had never understood the term ‘waterboarding’. It sounded so much like a pleasant activity, something you do at the lake on a lazy summer afternoon, something you do for fun. Along with the rest of the world, he’d had a rude awakening when it hit the news so often over the last few years, especially when George Bush said he approved of it. Now he knew that waterboarding meant putting a cloth or towel over someone’s face and pouring water over it while they were lying on their back. It was said to be excruciatingly painful, and could cause death by dry drowning, a form of suffocation. ‘He didn’t die of the waterboarding, then?’

‘He could have,’ said Dr Burns. ‘Depends on the water in his lungs. Dr Glendenning will be able to do a more thorough examination than I can. If he finds petechial haemorrhaging in the eyes, which I am unable to see, then you could be right. You would get that in dry drowning, but not in the case of drowning by water. Rarely, at any rate.’

‘But you can’t see any?’

‘That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Sometimes they’re no larger than pinpricks. You’ll have to wait for the post-mortem.’ Dr Burns stood up. ‘If he was drowned,’ he went on, ‘you should be able to find enough forensic information to prove it, to tie the water in his lungs to the water in the trough, for example. On the other hand, if he died of dry drowning as a result of waterboarding, you probably won’t find any water. There’s always a chance it was accidental. Torture isn’t an exact science. But if he was drowned in the trough, then the odds are somebody would have had to hold his head under until he died. It’s a natural human reaction to breathe, and we’ll use every ounce of strength we have to keep on doing so.’

‘How come you know so much about it?’ Banks asked.

‘I’ve been to some places nobody should ever have to go to,’ said Burns, then he picked up his bag and walked outside. ‘I’ll tell the helicopter pilot we’re ready for him,’ he said over his shoulder. Banks could remember when Burns was still wet around the ears. Now he had been to places where he had regularly seen the sort of things they had seen here today. Sometimes Banks wondered whether there was any innocence left in the world, and he felt terribly old.

By ten o’clock on Saturday night Banks felt like getting out of the house. He had been home only an hour or so, just enough time to eat his Indian takeaway, and he was feeling restless, tormented by the images of the dead bodies of Bill Quinn and the unknown man at Garskill Farm. He couldn’t concentrate on television, and even Bill Evans’s
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
CD didn’t help. He needed somewhere noisy, vibrant and full of life; he needed to be with people, surrounded by conversation and laughter. He realised that he had become a bit of a stop-at-home lately, cultivating a rather melancholy disposition, importing his solo entertainment via CDs and DVDs, but The Dog and Gun had folk night tonight, and Penny Cartwright was guest starring. There would still be time to catch a set.

Banks had met Penny on his second case in Eastvale, more than twenty years ago. She would be about fifty now, but back then she had been a young folk singer returning to her roots in Helmthorpe after forging some success in the big city, and her best friend had been killed. Over the years, her fame had grown, as much as a traditional folk singer’s fame can be said to grow, and she had recently moved to a larger house close to the river, which always seemed to be full of guests and passing visitors when she was in residence, many of them well known in folk circles. The wine flowed freely, and the gatherings always ended in a jam session and a mass sing-along. Though Banks had treated her as a suspect on the first case, and it took her many years to forgive him, she seemed comfortable enough with him now and had invited him to her home on occasion. He had joined in with the singing, but very quietly. He had hated his singing voice ever since the music teacher at school made everyone in class sing solo and gave them a mark out of twenty immediately after they had finished. Banks had got nine. He would never forget the public humiliation.

The evening was breezy but mild enough for him to walk by Gratly Beck and cut through the graveyard, then down the snicket past the antiquarian bookshop into Helmthorpe’s high street, where one or two groups of underdressed teenagers wandered noisily from one pub to another. They wouldn’t go to The Dog and Gun. It would be too crowded already, for a start, and they didn’t seem like the folk music type. There was a disco in the back room of The Bridge and cheap beer at The Hare and Hounds, which was now part of the Wetherspoons chain.

Banks arrived during a break between sets, and saw Penny standing at the bar surrounded by admirers, a pint in her hand. She looked radiant, tall, slim, her long black hair streaked with grey. She spotted Banks through the sea of faces in the semi-darkness, and he could have sworn her expression perked up, just a little. She waved him over and manouevred a bit of room for him beside her. They were pushed together by the crush of people trying to order drinks. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation as far as Banks was concerned.

‘Hello, stranger,’ she greeted him, leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek. The young man beside her, in the midst of a rather tedious lecture about the ‘folk revival’, seemed a bit put out by Banks’s appearance, but Penny seemed relieved at the interruption and focused her attention on the newcomer. Banks did likewise. When you were that close to her, looking into her eyes, it was difficult to do otherwise. They sparkled with an inner glow, full of mischief, sorrow and wisdom. The young man trailed off in mid-sentence and drifted away, crestfallen, back to his mates and more beer.

‘He’s too young for you, anyway,’ said Banks.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not averse to the occasional toyboy,’ said Penny. ‘Though I do admit to being more partial to a real man. So what have you been up to?’

Banks realised that he hadn’t seen her since the nasty business with Tracy the previous autumn, having either been working or shutting himself away in his cottage for the winter. He told her briefly about his travels in Arizona and Southern California. Penny, it seemed, had been doing quite a bit of travelling herself during the winter, mostly in Canada and the US on a promotional tour for her new CD. There was no mention of a man in her life, and Banks didn’t ask.

‘I see your son Brian’s doing well,’ Penny said.

‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘He’s just got back from America himself. I think they had a good tour, then they did some recording in Los Angeles.’

‘I saw a few posters while I was over there. Impressive. I’m sure The Blue Lamps sell a lot more than I do.’

They did, of course. Britpop with a tinge of psychedelia and a smattering of country-folk-blues did far better than traditional British folk music in the States. ‘I’m hoping he’ll be able to support me in my old age,’ Banks said.

Penny laughed. ‘I suppose that’s one use for children. So what have you been doing since you got back? I heard someone was found dead up at Garskill Farm Is that true?’

‘News travels fast,’ said Banks. ‘It’s no secret. Someone told us there was a group of Gypsies or Travellers living up there, but I’m not so sure.’

‘How perceptive of you,’ said Penny. ‘What an insult. I’ve got friends in those communities, and they wouldn’t stay in a dump like Garskill. It’s migrant workers.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m a folk singer. I have my finger on the pulse of the folk.’

Banks laughed. ‘Seriously.’

‘A friend told me. I still have my connections among the local historians and writers, you know.’

‘But where do they work?’

‘There are plenty of places where they’re not fussy who they employ, as long as the labour comes cheap enough, and most of these people aren’t in a position to complain. Varley’s Yeast Products, just north of town, for example. They’ve been using slave labour for years. Then there’s that slaughterhouse outside Darlington, a meat-packing factory out Carlisle way, the chemical-processing plant south of Middlesbrough. I’m surprised you don’t know about all this.’

‘It comes under Trading Standards or Immigration,’ said Banks. ‘At least it did. Now I’m not so sure. Anyway, you seem to know a lot about it. Do you know anything about the people who were living there?’

‘Not about any of them specifically, or individually, no. Are you grilling me now?’

‘It sounds like it, doesn’t it? Actually, I came out to get away from thinking about it. I was up there today, and it’s a bloody depressing place. Have you ever been there?’

‘Years ago,’ said Penny. ‘It was pretty much in a state of disrepair back then. I can only imagine what it’s like now.’

‘Those places were built to last,’ said Banks, ‘but I don’t envy the poor sods who were staying there.’

‘It wouldn’t have been their choice,’ said Penny. ‘They’re lured over here by the promise of jobs. It costs them all their savings, then they’re paid less than minimum wage for shit work, and they’ve got no recourse. Most of them don’t even speak English. They start out in debt; they get deeper and deeper in debt. Can you believe there are even loan sharks who prey on them?’

Banks could. Once more the name Warren Corrigan came to mind. He would be paying Mr Corrigan a visit on Monday.

The musicians – acoustic guitar, accordion, stand-up bass and fiddle – assembled on stage again, picking up and tuning their instruments. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ said Penny, touching Banks’s arm lightly. ‘Will you be here later?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘It’s been a long day. I’m dog tired.’

‘Try to last out the set,’ she said. ‘Any requests?’

‘“Finisterre”,’ Banks said, without thinking.

Penny blinked in surprise. ‘“Finisterre”? OK. It’s been a long time, but I think I can manage that.’

And she did. Unaccompanied. Her low, husky voice seemed to have grown richer over the years, with the qualities of warm dark chocolate and a fine Amarone. It wasn’t quite as deep in range as June Tabor’s, but it wasn’t far off. She went through ‘Death and the Lady’, ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, ‘Flowers of Knaresborough Forest’ and a number of other traditional songs. She didn’t neglect contemporary works, either. Dylan was represented by the moving and mysterious ‘Red River Shore’, Roy Harper by ‘I’ll See You Again’, and Richard Thompson by a version of ‘For Shame of Doing Wrong’ that brought tears to Banks’s eyes, the way Penny’s voice cracked in its heartbreaking chorus. She finished with what could, in someone else’s hands, have been a mere novelty, a slow, folksy version of Pulp’s ‘Common People’. But it worked. Her version brought depth out of the anthem and gave its lyrics a weight that was often easy to miss. Everyone sang along with the chorus, and the applause at the end was deafening. What Jarvis Cocker would have made of it, Banks had no idea, but it didn’t matter; he’d never been able to take Jarvis Cocker seriously, anyway, though he did like ‘Common People’ and ‘Running the World’. Maybe it was just his name.