Dry bones that dream, p.5
Dry Bones That Dream, page 5
When he spoke again, Pratt still didn’t look at Susan. She could see him only in profile. ‘I’ve always felt that about him, yes,’ he said. ‘That’s why I hesitated to call him a close friend. There was always something in reserve.’ He turned to face Susan again and placed his hands, palms down, on the desk. ‘Oh, years ago we’d let loose once in a while, go get blind drunk and not give a damn. Sometimes we’d go fishing together. But over time, Keith sort of reined himself in, cut himself off. I don’t really know how to explain this. It was just a feeling. Keith was a very private person . . . well, lots of people are . . . But the thing was, I had no idea what he lived for.’
‘Did he suffer from depression? Did you think—’
Pratt waved a hand. ‘No. No, you’re getting me wrong. He wasn’t suicidal. That’s not what I meant.’
‘Can you try and explain?’
‘I’ll try. It’s hard, though. I mean, I’d be hard pushed to say what I live for, too. There’s the wife and kids, of course, my pride and joy. And we like to go hang-gliding over Semerwater on suitable weekends. I collect antiques, I love cricket and we like to explore new places on our holidays. See what I mean? None of that’s what I actually live for, but it’s all part of it.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and the bridge of his nose, then put them back on again. ‘I know, I’m getting too philosophical. But I told you it was hard to explain.’
Susan smiled. ‘I’m still listening.’
‘Well, all those are just things, aren’t they? Possessions or activities. Things we do, things we care about. But there’s something behind them all that ties them all together into my life, who I am, what I am. With Keith, you never knew. He was a cipher. For example, I’m sure he loved his family, but he never really showed it or spoke much about it. I don’t know what really mattered to him. He never talked about hobbies or anything like that. I don’t know what he did in his spare time. It’s more than being private or secretive, it’s as if there was a dimension missing, a man with a hole in the middle.’ He scratched his temple. ‘This is ridiculous. Please forgive me. Keith was a perfectly nice bloke. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. But you never really knew what gripped him about life, what his dream was. I mean, mine’s a villa in Portugal, but a dream doesn’t have to be a thing, does it? I don’t know . . . maybe he valued abstractions too much.’
He paused, as if he had run out of breath and ideas. Susan didn’t really know what to jot down, but she finally settled for ‘dimension missing . . . interests and concerns elusive’. It would do. She had a good memory for conversations and could recount verbatim most of what Pratt had said, if Banks wished to hear it.
‘Let’s get back to Mr Rothwell’s work with your firm. Is there anything you can tell me about his . . . style . . . shall we say, his business practices?’
‘You want to know if Keith was a crook, don’t you?’
She did, of course, though that wasn’t why she was asking. Still, she thought, never look a gift-horse in the mouth. She gave him a ‘you caught me at it’ smile. ‘Well, was he?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Oh, come on, Mr Pratt. Surely in your business you must sail a little close to the wind at times?’
‘I resent that remark, especially coming from a policeman.’
Susan let that one slip by. ‘Touché,’ she said. Pratt seemed pleased enough with himself. Let him feel he’s winning, she thought, then he’ll tell you anyway, just to show he holds the power to do so. She was still sure he was holding something back. ‘But seriously, Mr Pratt,’ she went on, ‘I’m not just playing games, bandying insults. If there was anything at all unusual in Mr Rothwell’s business dealings, I hardly need tell you it could have a bearing on his murder.’
‘Hmm.’ Pratt swirled the rest of the brandy and tossed it back. He put the snifter in his ‘Out’ tray, no doubt for the secretary to take and wash. ‘I stand by what I said,’ he went on. ‘Keith Rothwell never did anything truly illegal that I knew of. Certainly nothing that could be relevant to his death.’
‘But . . .?’
He sighed. ‘Well, maybe I wasn’t entirely truthful earlier. I suppose I’d better tell you about it, hadn’t I? You’re bound to find out somehow.’
Susan turned her page. ‘I’m listening,’ she said.
3
ONE
The Black Sheep was the closest Swainsdale had to a well kept secret. Most tourists were put off by the pub’s external shabbiness. Those who prided themselves on not judging a book by its cover would, more often than not, pop their heads around the door, see the even shabbier interior and leave.
The renowned surliness of the landlord, Larry Grafton, kept them away in droves, too. There was a rumour that Larry had once refused to serve an American tourist with a Glenmorangie and ginger, objecting to the utter lack of taste that led her to ask for such a concoction. Banks believed it.
Larry was Dales born and bred, not one of the new landlords up from London. So many were recent immigrants these days, like Ian Falkland in the Rose and Crown. That was a tourist pub if ever there was one, Banks thought, probably selling more lager and lime, pork scratchings and microwaved curries than anything else.
The Black Sheep didn’t advertise its pub grub, but anyone who knew about it could get as thick and fresh a ham and piccalilli sandwich as ever they’d want from Elsie, Larry’s wife. And on some days, if her arthritis hadn’t been bothering her too much and she felt like cooking, she could do you a fry-up so good you could feel your arteries hardening as you ate.
As usual, the public bar was empty apart from one table of old men playing dominoes and a couple of young farmhands reading the sports news in the Daily Mirror.
As Banks had expected, Pat Clifford also stood propping up the bar. Pat was a hard, stout man with a round head, stubble for hair and a rough, red face burned by the sun and whipped by the wind and rain for fifty years.
‘Hello, stranger,’ said Pat, as Banks stood next to him. ‘Long time, no see.’
Banks apologized for his absence and brought up the subject of Keith Rothwell.
‘So tha only comes when tha wants summat, is that it?’ Pat said. But he said it with a smile, and over the years Banks had learned that Yorkshire folk often take the sting out of their criticisms that way. They put a sting in their compliments, too, on those rare occasions they get around to giving any.
In this case, Banks guessed that Pat wasn’t mortally offended at his protracted absence; he only wanted to make a point of it, let Banks know his feelings, and then get on with things. Banks acknowledged his culpability with a mild protest about the pressures of work, as expected, then listened to a minute or so of Pat’s complaining about how the elderly and isolated were neglected by all and sundry.
When Pat’s glass was empty, an event which occurred with alarming immediacy at the end of the diatribe, Banks’s offer to buy him another was grudgingly accepted. Pat took a couple of sips, put the glass down on the bar and wiped his lips with the back of his grimy hand.
‘He came in once or twice, did Mr Rothwell. Local, like. Nobody objected.’
‘How often?’
‘Once a week, mebbe. Sometimes twice. Larry—?’ And he asked the landlord the same question. Larry, who hardly had a charabanc full of thirsty customers to serve, came over and stood with them. He still treated Banks with a certain amount of disdain – after all, Banks was a southerner and a copper – but he showed respect, too.
Banks had never tried too hard to fit in, to pretend he was one of the crowd like some of the other incomers. He knew there was nothing annoyed a Dalesman so much as pretentiousness, airs and graces, and that there was nothing more contemptible or condescending than a southerner appropriating Dales speech and ways, playing the expert on a place he had only just come to. Banks kept his distance, kept his counsel, and in return he was accorded that particular Yorkshire brand of grudging acceptance.
‘Just at lunchtimes, like,’ Larry said. ‘Never saw him of an evening. He’d come in for one of Elsie’s sandwiches and always drink half a pint. Just one half, mind you.’
‘Did he talk much?’
Larry drifted off to dry some glasses and Pat picked up the threads. ‘Nay. He weren’t much of chatterbox, weren’t Mr Rothwell. Bit of a dry stick, if you ask me.’
‘What do you mean? Was he stuck-up?’
‘No-o. Just had nowt to talk abaht, that’s all.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘If you listen as much as I do,’ he said, ‘you soon find out what interests people. There’s not much when it comes down to it, tha knows.’ He started counting on the stubby fingers that stuck out of his cut-off gloves. ‘Telly, that’s number one. Sport – number two. And sex. That’s number three. After that there’s nobbut money and weather left.’
Banks smiled. ‘What about politics?’ he asked.
Pat pulled a face. ‘Only when them daft buggers in t’Common Market ’ave been up to summat with their Common Agricultural Policy.’ Then he grinned, showing stained, crooked teeth. ‘Aye, I suppose that’s often enough these days,’ he admitted, counting it off. ‘Politics. Number four.’
‘And what did Mr Rothwell talk about when he was here?’ Banks asked.
‘Nowt. That’s what I’m telling thee, lad. Oh, I s’pose seeing as he was an accountant, he was interested in money, but he kept that to himself. He’d be standing there, all right, just where you are, munching on his sandwich, supping his half-pint, and nodding in all the right places, but he never had owt to say. It seemed to me as if he were really somewhere else. And he didn’t know Neighbours from Coronation Street, if you ask me – or Leeds United from Northampton.’
‘There’s not a lot of difference as far as their performances go over the last few weeks, if you ask me, Pat.’
Pat grunted.
‘So you didn’t really know Keith Rothwell?’ Banks asked.
‘No. Nobody did.’
‘That’s right, Mr Banks,’ added Larry as he stood by them to pull a pint. ‘He said he came for the company, what with working alone at home and all that, but I reckon as he came to get away from that there wife of his.’ Then he was gone, bearing the pint.
Banks turned to Pat. ‘What did he mean?’
‘Ah, take no notice of him,’ Pat said with a dismissive wave in Grafton’s direction. ‘Mebbe he was a bit henpecked, at that. It must be hard working at home when the wife’s around all the time. Never get a minute’s peace, you wouldn’t. But Larry’s lass, Cathy, did for Mrs Rothwell now and again, like, and she says she were a bit of an interfering mistress, if you know what I mean. Standing over young Cathy while she worked and saying that weren’t done right, or that needed a bit more elbow grease. I nobbut met Mrs Rothwell once or twice, but my Grace speaks well of her, and that’s enough for me.’
Banks thought he might have a word with Larry’s lass, Cathy. He noticed Pat’s empty glass. ‘Another?’
‘Oh, aye. Thank you very much.’ Banks bought him a pint, but decided to forgo a second himself, much as the idea appealed. ‘There were one time, when I comes to think on it,’ Pat said, ‘that Mr Rothwell seemed a bit odd.’
‘When was this?’
‘Abaht two or three weeks ago. He came in one lunch-time, as usual, like, but he must have had a couple of pints, not ’alves. Anyroad, he got quite chatty, told a couple of jokes and we all had a good chuckle, didn’t we, Larry?’
‘Aye,’ shouted Larry from down the bar.
That sounded odd to Banks. According to Mrs Rothwell, her husband had been tense and edgy over the past three weeks. If he could chat and laugh at the Black Sheep, then maybe the problem had been at home. ‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘All? Well, it were summat for us to see him enjoying himself for once. I’d say that were enough, wouldn’t you?’
‘Did he say anything unusual?’
‘No. He just acted like an ordinary person. An ordinary happy person.’
‘As if he’d received some good news or something?’
‘He didn’t say owt about that.’
Banks gave up and moved on. ‘I know there’s been a bit of ill feeling among the hill-farmers about incomers lately,’ he said. ‘Did any of it spill over to Mr Rothwell?’
Pat sniffed. ‘You wouldn’t understand, Mr Banks,’ he said softly, offering an unfiltered cigarette. Banks refused it and lit a Silk Cut. ‘It’s not that there’s any ill feeling, as such. We just don’t know where we stand, how to plan for the future. One day the government says this, the next day it’s something else. Agricultural Policy . . . Europe . . . grugh.’ He spat on the floor to show his feelings. Either nobody noticed or the practice was perfectly welcome in the Black Sheep, another reason why people stayed away. ‘It needs years of experience to do it right, does hill-farming,’ Pat went on. ‘Continuity, passed on from father to son. When too many farms fall to weekenders and holiday-makers, pasture gets abused, walls get neglected. Live and let live, that’s what I say. But we want some respect and some understanding. And right now we’re not getting any.’
‘But what about the incomers?’
‘Aye, hold thy horses, lad, I’m getting to them. We’re not bloody park keepers, tha knows. We don’t graft for hours on end in all t’weather God sends keeping stone walls in good repair because we think they look picturesque, tha knows. They’re to keep old Harry Cobb’s sheep off my pasture and to make sure there’s no hanky-panky between his breed and mine.’
Banks nodded. ‘Fair enough, Pat. But how deep did the feeling go? Keith Rothwell bought that farm five years ago, or thereabouts. I’ve seen what he’s done to it, and it’s not a farm any more.’
‘Aye, well at least Mr Rothwell’s a Swainsdale lad, even if he did come from Eastvale. Nay, there were no problems. He sold off his land – I got some of it, and so did Frank Rowbottom. If you’re thinking me or Frank did it, then . . .’
‘No, nothing like that,’ Banks said. ‘I just wanted to get a sense of how Rothwell fitted in with the local scene, if he did.’
‘Well, he did and he didn’t,’ said Pat. ‘He was here and he wasn’t, and that’s all I can tell thee. He could tell a joke well enough when he put his mind to it, though.’ Pat chuckled at the memory.
As puzzled as he was before, Banks said goodbye and went outside. On the way back, he slipped in a cassette of Busoni’s Bach transcriptions. The precise, ordered music had no influence on the chaos of his thoughts.
TWO
Back in his office, Banks first glanced at Dr Glendenning’s post-mortem notes. Generally, there was no such thing as a preliminary post-mortem report, but Dr Glendenning usually condescended to send over the main points in layman’s language as quickly as possible. He also liked to appear at the scene, but this time he had been staying overnight with friends in Harrogate.
There was nothing in the notes that Banks hadn’t expected. Rothwell hadn’t been poisoned before he was shot; the stomach contents revealed only pasta and red wine. Dr Glendenning gave cause of death as a shotgun wound to the occipital region, the back of the head, most likely a contact wound given the massive damage to bone and tissue. He also noted that it was lucky they already knew who the victim was, as there wasn’t enough connected bone or tissue left to reconstruct the face, and though the tooth fragments could probably be collected and analysed, it would take a bloody long time. The blood group was ‘O’, which matched that supplied by Rothwell’s doctor, as well as that of about half the population.
Rothwell had most likely been killed in the place and position they found him, Dr Glendenning pointed out, because what blood remained had collected as purplish hypostasis around the upper chest and the ragged edges of the neck. He estimated time of death between eleven and one the previous night.
A cadaveric spasm had caused Rothwell to grab and hold on to a handful of dust at the moment of death, and Banks thought of the T. S. Eliot quotation, ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’, which he had come across as the title of an Evelyn Waugh novel.
Rothwell had been in generally good shape, Dr Glendenning said, and the only evidence of any ill health was an appendix scar. Rothwell’s doctor, Dr Hunter, was able to verify that Rothwell had had his appendix removed just over three years ago.
When Banks had finished, he phoned Sandra to say he didn’t know when he would be home. She said that didn’t surprise her. Then he went over to the window and looked down on the cobbled market square, most of which was covered by parked cars. The gold hands against the blue face of the church clock stood at a quarter to four.
Banks lit a cigarette and watched the local merchants taking deliveries and the tourists snapping pictures of the ancient market cross and the Norman church front. It was fine enough weather out there, sports-jacket warm, but the grey wash that had come at dawn still obscured the sunshine. On Banks’s Dalesman calendar, the May photograph showed a field of brilliant pink and purple flowers below Great Shunner Fell in Swaledale. So far, the real May had been struggling against showers and cool temperatures.
Sitting at his rattly metal desk, Banks next opened the envelope of Rothwell’s pocket contents and spread them out in front of him.
There were a few business cards in a leather slipcase, describing Rothwell as a ‘Financial Consultant’. In his wallet were three credit cards, including an American Express Gold; the receipt from Mario’s on the night of his anniversary dinner; receipts from Austick’s bookshop, a computer supplies shop and two restaurants, all from Leeds, and all dated the previous week; and photos of Alison and Mary Rothwell. Happy families indeed. In cash, Rothwell had a hundred and five pounds in his wallet, in new twenties and one crumpled old fiver.
Other pockets revealed a handkerchief, good quality silk and monogrammed ‘KAR’, like the cufflinks on the body, BMW keys, house keys, a small pack of Rennies, two buttons, a gold Cross fountain pen, an empty leather-bound notebook and – horror of horrors – a packet of ten Benson and Hedges, six of which had been smoked.
