In a Dry Season (9 page)

“I've been called worse. Try to find out, anyway. It's a long shot, but if we can find any dental records matching the remains, we'll be in luck.”

“I'll look into it, sir. Anything else?”

“Utilities, tax records. They might all have to be checked.”

“And what should I do next year?”

Banks smiled. “I'm sure you can conscript one of your
PC
s to help. If we don't get a break soon, I'll see what I can do about manpower, though somehow I doubt this is a high-priority case.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“For now, let's concentrate on the identity of the victim. That's crucial.”

“Okay.”

“Just a thought, but, do you happen to know if there's anyone who lived in Hobb's End still alive, maybe living in Harkside now? It doesn't seem an unreasonable assumption.”

“I'll ask Inspector Harmond. He grew up around these parts.”

“Good. I'll leave you to it and see these bones off to Leeds with John.”

“Do you want me to go down there this evening?”

“If you like. Meet me at the lab at six o'clock. Know where it is?”

Annie nodded. “Dr Williams explained over the phone.” She told Banks.

“In the meantime,” he said, “here's my mobile number. Give me a ring if you come up with anything.”

“Right you are, sir.” Annie seemed to just touch her sunglasses and they slid down perfectly into place on her nose. With that, she turned and strode off into the woods.

Banks was an odd fish, Annie thought as she drove back to Harkside. Of course, before she'd met him she'd heard a few rumours. She knew, for example, that Chief Constable Riddle hated him, that Banks was under a cloud, almost lost
in
the clouds, though she didn't know why. Someone had even hinted at fisticuffs between the two. Whatever the reason, his career was on hold and he was not a good horse to hitch one's wagon to.

Annie had no particular liking for Jimmy Riddle, either.

On the one or two occasions she had met him, she had found him arrogant and condescending. Annie was one of Millie's projects—
ACC
Millicent Cummings, new Director of Human Resources, dedicated to bringing more women into the ranks and seeing that they were well treated—and the antagonism between Millie and Riddle, who had opposed her appointment from the start, was well known. Not that Riddle was especially
for
the ill-treatment of women, but he preferred to avoid the problem altogether by keeping their presence among the ranks to an absolute minimum.

Annie had also heard that Banks's wife had left him for someone else not too long ago. Not only that, but there were stories going around that he had a woman in Leeds, had had for some time, even before his wife left. She had heard him described as a loner, a skiver and a Bolshy bastard. He was a brilliant detective gone to seed, they said, over the hill since his wife left, past it, burned out, a shadow of his former self.

On first impressions, Annie didn't really know what to make of him. She thought she liked him. She certainly found him attractive, and he didn't look much older than his mid-thirties, despite the scattering of grey at the temples of his closely cropped black hair. As far as being burned out was concerned, he seemed tired and he seemed to carry a burden of sadness in him, but she could sense that the fire still smouldered somewhere behind his sharp blue eyes. A little diminished in power, perhaps, but still there.

On the other hand, perhaps he really
had
lost it, and he was simply going through the motions, content to shuffle paper until retirement. Perhaps the fire she sensed in him
was simply embers, not fully extinguished yet, just about to cave in on themselves. Well, if Annie had learned one thing over the past couple of years, it was not to jump to conclusions about anyone: the brave man often appears weak; the wise man often seems foolish. After all, enough people thought she was weird, too, and it wouldn't be hard to argue that she been merely going through the motions lately, either. She wondered if there were any rumours about her going around the region. If there were, she had a good guess what they would be: dyke bitch.

Annie parked on the strip of tarmac beside the ugly brick section station and walked inside. Only four of them worked directly out of the station: Inspector Harmond, Annie and
PC
s Cameron and Gould. Apart from Samantha, their civilian clerk, Annie was the only woman. That was okay with her; they seemed a pretty decent bunch of men, as men go. She certainly felt no threat from any of them.
PC
Cameron was married, with two kids to whom he was clearly devoted. Gould seemed to be one of those rare types who have no sexual dimension whatsoever, content to live at home with his mum, play with his model trains and add stamps to his album. She knew that in books such types often turn out to be the most dangerous of all, the serial killers and sexual deviants, but Gould was harmless. Even if he liked to wear women's underwear in private, Annie didn't care. Inspector Harmond was, well,
avuncu-lar
. He liked to think himself as a bit like Sergeant Blake-ton out of “Heartbeat,” but he didn't even come close, in Annie's opinion.

Harkside police station might be ugly on the outside but at least inside it was a sparsely populated open-plan office area—apart from Inspector Harmond's office, partitioned
off at the far end—and there was plenty of room to spread oneself around. Annie liked that. Her L-shaped desk was the messiest of all, but she knew where everything was and could put her hands on anything anyone asked her for so quickly that even Inspector Harmond had given up teasing her about it.

Annie's desk also took up a corner, part of which included a side window. It wasn't much of a view, only the cobbled alley, a gate and the back wall of the Three Feathers, but at least she was close to a source of light and air, and it was good to be able to see
something
of the outside world. Even if there was hardly any breeze these days, she loved each gentle waft of warm air through the window; it lifted her spirits. These little things mattered so much, Annie had discovered. She had had her shot at the big-time, the fast-track, with all its excitement, but it had ended badly for her. Now she was slowly rediscovering what mattered in life.

Harkside was generally a law-abiding sort of community, so there wasn't a lot for a detective sergeant to do. There was plenty of paperwork to keep her occupied, make her feel she'd earned her pay, but it was hardly a high-overtime posting, and there were slack periods. That also suited her fine. Sometimes it was good to do nothing. And why should she complain if enough people weren't getting robbed, killed or beaten up?

Just now, she had two domestic violence cases and a spate of after-dark vandalism on her plate. And now the skeleton. Well, the others could wait. Inspector Harmond had increased patrols in the area most often hit by the vandals, who would probably be caught red-handed before long, and the wife-beaters were at the moment contrite and arranging to seek help.

Annie headed first to the coffee machine and filled her mug, the one with “She Who Must Be Obeyed” written on it, then she walked over and knocked on Inspector Harmond's door. He asked her to come in.

“Sir?”

Harmond looked up from his desk. “Annie. What is it, lass?”

“Got a minute?”

“Aye. Sit down.”

Annie sat. Harmond's was a plain office, with only his merit awards on the wall for decoration, and framed photos of his wife and children on the desk. In his early fifties, he seemed perfectly content to be a rural inspector for the rest of his working life. His head was too large for his gangly frame, and Annie always worried it would fall off if he tilted it too far to one side. It never had; not yet. He had a pleasant, round, open face. The features were a bit coarse, and a few black hairs grew out the end of his misshapen, potato nose, but it was the kind of face you could trust. If eyes really were the windows of the soul, then Inspector Harmond had a decent soul.

“It's this skeleton thing,” she said, crossing her legs and cradling her coffee mug on her lap.

“What about it?”

“Well, that's just it, sir. We don't know anything about it yet.
DCI
Banks wanted to know how many doctors and dentists lived in Hobb's End, and if anyone who used to live there lives here now.”

Harmond scratched his temple. “I can answer your last question easily enough,” he said. “You remember Mrs Kettering, the one whose budgie escaped that time she was having a new three-piece suite delivered?”

“How could I forget?” It was one of Annie's first cases in Harkside.

Inspector Harmond smiled. “She lived in Hobb's End. I don't know exactly when or for how long, but I know she lived there. She must be pushing ninety if she's a day.”

“Anyone else?”

“Not that I can think of. Not offhand, at any rate.

Leave it with me, I'll ask around. Remember where she lives?”

“Up on The Edge, isn't it? The corner house with the big garden?”

The Edge was what the locals called the fifty-foot embankment that ran along the south side of Harksmere Reservoir, the road that used to lead over the pack-horse bridge to Hobb's End. Its real name was Harksmere View, and it didn't lead anywhere now. Only one row of cottages overlooked the water, separated from the rest of Harkside village by about half a mile of open countryside.

“What about doctors and dentists?” Annie asked. “That's a bit trickier,” Harmond said. “There must have been a few over the years, but Lord knows what's happened to them. Seeing as the village cleared out after the war, they're probably all dead now. Remember, lass, I'm not that old. I were still a lad myself when the place emptied out. As far as I remember, there wasn't any village bobby, either. Too small. Hobb's End was part of the Harkside beat.”

“How many schools were there?”

Inspector Harmond scratched his head. “Just infants and junior, I think. Grammar school and secondary modern were here in Harkside.”

“Any idea where the old records would be?”

“Local education authority, most likely. Unless they were destroyed somehow. A lot of records got destroyed back then, after the war and all. Is there anything else?”

Annie sipped some coffee and stood up. “Not right now, sir.”

“You'll keep me informed?”

“I will.”

“And Annie?”

“Yes, sir?”

Harmond scratched the side of his nose. “This
DCI

Banks. I've never met him myself, but I've heard a bit about him. What's he like?”

Annie paused at the door and frowned as she thought. “Do you know, sir,” she said finally, “I haven't got a clue.”

“Bit of an enigma, then, eh?”

“Yes,” Annie said, “a bit of an enigma. I suppose you could say that.”

“Better watch yourself, then, lass,” she heard him say as she turned to leave.

Before I tell you what happened next, let me tell you a little about myself and my village. My name, as you already know, is Gwen Shackleton, which is short for Gwynneth, not for Gwendolyn. I know this sounds Welsh, but my family has lived in Hobb's End, Yorkshire, for at least two generations. My father, God bless his soul, died of cancer three years before the war began, and by 1940 my mother was an invalid, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Sometimes she was able to help out in the shop, but not often, so the brunt of the work fell to me.

Matthew helped me as much as he could, but university kept him busy most of the week and the Home Guard took up his weekends. He was twenty-one, but despite the call-up, the Ministry was encouraging him to finish the third year of his engineering degree at the University of Leeds. They believed, I suppose, that his training would come in useful in the forces.

Our little shop was a newsagent's-cum-general store about halfway along the High Street, near the butcher's and the greengrocer's, and we lived above it. We didn't sell perishable goods, just things like newspapers, sweets, cigarettes, stationery, jam and other odds and ends, tea and tinned goods—depending, of course, on what was available at the time. I was especially proud of the little lending library I had built up. Because paper was getting scarce and books were in short supply, I rented them out for tuppence a week. I kept a good selection of World's Classic editions: Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens in particular. I also stocked a number of the more sensational novels, Agatha Christie and the Mills and Boon romances, for those who liked such things—unfortunately, the majority of my customers!