It was about ten o'clock when the road crested the hill and Banks could see Edinburgh spread out in the distance in all its hazy glory: the stepped rows of tenements, the dark Gothic spire of the Sir Walter Scott monument; like some alien space rocket, the hump of Arthur's Seat; the castle on its crag; the glimmer of sea beyond.
Apart from one or two brief, police-related visits, it was years since Banks had spent any time there, he realized as he coasted down the hill, Van Morrison's “Tupelo Honey” on the stereo. When he was a student, he used to drive up to see friends quite often and spent most weekends and holidays there. At one time he had a girlfriend, a raven-haired young beauty called Alison, who lived down on St Stephen Street. But as is the nature of such long-distance relationships, “out of sight, out of mind” beats “absence makes the heart grow fonder” any day of the week, and during one visit, she simply turned up at the pub with someone else. Easy come, easy go. By then he had his eye
on another woman, called Jo, anyway.
Banks's Edinburgh days were all pre-
Trainspotting
and the place didn't look quite so romantic when he came down off the hill into the built-up streets of dark stone, the roundabouts and traffic lights, shopping centres and zebra crossings. He got through Dalkeith easily enough, but shortly afterwards he made one simple mistake and found himself heading towards Glasgow on a double-carriageway for about three miles before he found an exit.
Elizabeth Goodall lived just off Dalkeith Road not far from the city centre. She had given him precise directions on the telephone the previous evening, and after only a couple more wrong turns, he found the narrow street of tall tenements.
Mrs Goodall lived on the ground floor. She answered Banks's ring promptly and led him into a high-ceilinged living-room that smelled of lavender and peppermint. All the windows were shut fast, and not the slightest breeze stirred the warm, perfumed air. Only a little daylight managed to steal through. The wallpaper was patterned with sprigs of rosemary and thyme. Parsley and sage, too, for all Banks could tell. Mrs Goodall bade him sit in a sturdy, damask armchair. Like all the other chairs in the room, its arms and back were covered by white lace antimacassars.
“So you found your way all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Banks lied. “Nothing to it.”
“I don't drive a motor car, myself,” she said, with a trace of her old Yorkshire accent. “I have to rely on buses and trains if I want to go anywhere, which is rare these days.” She rubbed her small, wrinkled hands together. “Well, then, you're here. Tea?”
“Please.”
She disappeared into the kitchen. Banks surveyed the room. It was a nondescript sort of place: clean and tidy, but not much character. A few framed photographs stood on the sideboard, but none of them showed Hobb's End. One glass-fronted cabinet held a few knick-knacks, including trophies, silverware and crystal. That would be tempting to burglars, Banks thought: old woman in a ground-floor flat with a nice haul of silverware just there for the taking. He hadn't noticed any signs of a security system.
Mrs Goodall walked back into the room slowly, carrying a china tea-set on a silver tray. She set it down on a doily on the low table in front of the sofa then sat down, knees together, and smoothed her skirt.
She was a short, stout woman, dressed in a grey tweed skirt, white blouse and a navy blue cardigan, despite the heat. Her recently permed hair was almost white, and its waves looked frozen, razor-sharp to the touch, Margaret Thatcher style. Her forehead was high and her glaucous, watery eyes pink-rimmed. She had a prissy slit of a mouth that seemed painted on with red lipstick.
“We'll just let it mash a few minutes, shall we?” she said. “Then we'll pour.”
“Fine,” said Banks, banishing the image of the two of them holding the thin teapot handle and pouring.
“Now,” she said, hands clasped on her lap, “let us begin. You mentioned Hobb's End on the telephone, but that was all you saw fit to tell me. What do you wish to know?”
Banks leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. A number of general questions came to mind, but he needed something more specific, something to take her memory right back, if possible. “Do you remember Gloria
Shackleton?” he asked. “She lived in Bridge Cottage during the war.”
Mrs Goodall looked as if she had just swallowed a mouthful of vinegar. “Of course I remember her,” she said. “Dreadful girl.”
“Oh? In what way?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Chief Inspector, the girl was a brazen hussy. It was perfectly obvious. The flir-tatious manner, the tilt of her head, the lascivious smile. I knew it the first moment I set eyes on her.”
“Where was that?”
“Where? Why, in church, of course. My father was the verger at St Bartholomew's. Though how such a . . . a painted strumpet would dare to show herself like that in the sight of the Lord is beyond me.”
“So you first met her in church?”
“I didn't say I
met
her, just that I
saw
her there first. She was still called Gloria Stringer then.”
“Was she religious?”
“No true Christian woman would go about flaunting herself the way she did.”
“Why did she go to church, then?”
“Because the Shackletons went, of course. She had her feet firmly under their kitchen table.”
“She was from London originally, wasn't she?”
“So she said.”
“Did she ever say anything about her background, about her family?”
“Not to me, though I vaguely remember someone told me her parents were killed in the Blitz.”
“She'd come to Hobb's End with the Women's Land Army, hadn't she?”
“Yes. A
land-girl.
Tea?”
“Please.”
Mrs Goodall sat up, back erect, and poured. The teacupsâwith matching saucersâwere tiny, fragile bone china things with pink roses painted inside and out, a gold rim and a handle he couldn't possibly get a finger through. Not a drop stained the white lace doily. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Just as it comes, thanks very much.”
She frowned, as if she didn't approve of that. Anything other than milk and two sugars was probably unpatriotic in her book. “Of course,” she went on, “one hoped that over time she would make attempts to fit in, to alter her manner and appearance according to the standards of village society, but . . . ”
“She made no attempt?”
“She did not. None at all.”
“Did you know her well?”
“Chief Inspector, does she sound like the kind of person whose company I would cultivate?”
“It was a small village. You must have been about the same age.”
“I was one year older.”
“Even so.”
“Aliceâthat's Alice Pooleâused to spend quite a bit of time with her. Against my advice, I might add. But then Alice always was a bit too free and easy.”
“Did you have any dealings with Gloria at all?”
Mrs Goodall paused as if to bring to mind an unpleasant memory. Then she nodded. “Indeed I did. It fell to me to advise her that her behaviour was unacceptable, as was the way she looked.”
“Looked?”
“Yes. The sort of clothes she wore, the way she sashayed about, the way she wore her hair, like some sort of cheap American film star. It was not ladylike. Not in the least. As if that weren't bad enough,
she smoked in the street.
”
“You say it
fell
to you? On what authority? Was there strong general feeling against her?”
“In my capacity as a member of the Church of England.”
“I see. Was everyone else in Hobb's End ladylike?” She pursed her lips again and let him know with a quick daggerglance that she hadn't missed the insolence in his tone. “I'm not saying that there weren't lower elements in the village, Chief Inspector. Don't get me wrong. Of course, there were. As there are in every village society. But even the lowly of birth can aspire to at least a certain level of good manners and decent behaviour. Wouldn't you agree?”
“How did Gloria react when you rebuked her?”
Mrs Goodall flushed at the memory. “She laughed. I pointed out that it might do her much good, morally and socially, were she to become active in the Women's Institute and the Missionary Society.”
“What was her response to this?”
“She called me an interfering busybody and indicated that there was only one missionary position she was interested in, and it was
not
the church's. Can you believe it? And she used such language as I would not expect from the mouth of the lowest mill girl. Despite her put-on speech, I think she showed her true colours then.”
“How did she speak?”
“Oh, she had her airs and graces. She spoke like somone on the wireless. Not the way they do these days, of course,
but as they did back then, when people spoke properly on the wireless. But you could tell it was put on. She had clearly been practising the arts of imitation and deception.”
“She married Matthew Shackleton, didn't she?”
Mrs Goodall sucked in her breath with an audible hiss. “Yes. I was at their wedding. And I must say that, although Matthew was only a shopkeeper's son, he married well beneath himself when he married the Stringer girl. Matthew was an exceptional boy. I expected far better of him than that.”
“Do you know anything about their relationship?”
“It wasn't long after they were married he was sent abroad. He went missing in action, poor Matthew. Missing, presumed dead.”
Banks frowned. “When was this?”
“When he went missing?”
“Yes.”
“Sometime in
1943
. He was in the Far East. Captured by the Japanese.” She gave a little shudder.
“What happened to him?”
“I have no idea. I presume he was dead.”
“You lost touch?”
She fiddled with her wedding ring. “Yes. My husband, William, was engaged in top-secret work for the home front, and he was assigned to Scotland early in
1944
. I accompanied him. My parents came to live with us, and we didn't have anything more to do with Hobb's End. I still keep in touch with Ruby Kettering and Alice Poole, but they are my only connections. It was all so long ago. We women don't dwell on the war the way the men do, with their Legions and their regimental reunions.”
“Do you know if Gloria had affairs with anyone other
than Matthew?”
Mrs Goodall sniffed. “Almost certainly.”
“Who with?”
She paused a moment, as if to let him know that she shouldn't be telling him this, then she uttered just one word. “Soldiers.”
“What soldiers?”
“This was wartime, Chief Inspector. Contrary to what you might imagine, not every man in the armed forces was over fighting the Hun or the Nip. Unfortunately. There were soldiers everywhere. Not all of them British, either.”
“What soldiers were these?”
For the first time in their conversation, Mrs Goodall let a small smile slip. It endeared her to Banks tremendously. “Oversexed,” she said, “overpaid and over here.”
“Americans?”
“Yes. The
RAF
handed Rowan Woods over to the American Air Force.”
“Did you see much of these Americans?”
“Oh, yes. They often used to come and drink in the village pubs, or attend our occasional dances at the church hall. Some even came to the Sunday services. They had their own on the base, of course, but St Bartholomew's was a beautiful old church. Such a pity it had to be knocked down.”
“Did Gloria have American boyfriends, then?”
“Several. And I needn't tell you about the opportunities for immorality and indiscretion that a wide area of wooded land like Rowan Woods has to offer, need I?”
Banks wondered if she would take a positive answer as an indication of personal experience. He decided not to risk it. “Was there anyone in particular?” he asked.
“I have no first-hand knowledge. I kept my distance from them. According to Cynthia Garmen, she had more than one. Not that Cynthia was one to talk. No better than she ought to be, that one.”
“Why?”
“She married one of them, didn't she? Went off to live in Pennsylvania or some such place.”
“So there was no one serious for Gloria?”
“Oh, I've no doubt her liaisons were every bit as serious as a woman such as Gloria Shackleton was capable of. A
married
woman.”
“But you said she thought her husband was dead.”
“Missing,
presumed
dead. It's not quite the same. Besides, that's no excuse.” Mrs Goodall remained silent for a few moments, then said, “May I ask
you
a question, Chief Inspector?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why are you asking me about the Shackleton girl after all these years?”
“Don't you watch the news?”
“I prefer to read historical biography.”
“Newspapers?”
“On occasion. But only the obituaries. What are you hinting at, Chief Inspector? Am I missing something?”
Banks told her about the reservoir drying up and the discovery of the body they believed to be Gloria's. Mrs Goodall paled and clutched at the silver crucifix around her neck. “I don't like to speak ill of the dead,” she muttered. “You should have told me sooner.”
“Would that have changed what you said?”
She paused a moment, then sighed and said, “Probably not. I have always considered telling the truth to be an
important virtue. All I can tell you, though, is that Gloria Shackleton was alive and well when William and I left Hobb's End in May
1944
.”
“Thank you,” said Banks. “That helps us narrow things down a bit. Do you know if she had any enemies?”
“Not what you'd call enemies. Nobody who would do what you have just described. Many people, like myself, disapproved of her. But that's quite a different thing. One would hardly murder a person for not joining the Women's Institute. Might I make a suggestion?”