Not Safe After Dark (46 page)

Banks’s mother picked up her handbag, took out her purse and gave Geoffrey a handwritten list and a twenty-pound note. ‘Will that cover it?’

‘Easily, Mrs B. Easily. I’ll be back in a tick. Coach and Horses tonight, Arthur?’

‘Maybe. We’ll see how I feel,’ said Banks’s father. On closer examination, he did look tired and drawn, Banks thought. More than when he had last seen him in the summer.
His eyes had the look of milky marbles and his skin was the colour of porridge. It could be the strain of preparing for the upcoming party – Arthur Banks, while gregarious enough in the pub,
had never liked a house full of relatives – but most of the organization, Banks guessed, would have fallen to his mother. Perhaps it was simple old age catching up fast.

Geoff Salisbury left, and Banks saw him go up to the red Fiesta with the rusted chassis, parked behind Banks’s Renault. Geoff paused and looked Banks’s car over before getting into
his own and driving off.

‘Who’s that?’ Banks asked his mother.

‘I told you. Geoff Salisbury. He’s a neighbour.’

‘He seems at home here.’

‘I don’t know what we’d do without him,’ said Mrs Banks. ‘He’s just like a son to us. Anyway, sit yourself down. Have a cuppa.’

Banks sat and his mother poured. ‘So Roy’s not coming till Sunday, then?’ he said.

‘No. He rang us last night, didn’t he, Arthur?’ She said it as if it were some momentous event. Arthur Banks nodded. ‘He’s got an important business meeting all day
Saturday,’ she went on. ‘Something to do with some Yanks flying in, and they have to be back in New York by evening . . . I don’t know. Anyway, he says he should be here by Sunday
lunchtime.’

‘Good of him to bother,’ Banks muttered.

His mother cast him a long-suffering glance. Banks knew she had been used to the brothers’ bickering when they both lived at home, and it was no surprise whose side she usually took.
‘What time are you planning on starting the party?’ Banks asked.

‘We told everyone to come about six o’clock. That’ll give us time to clear up and get things ready after lunch. By the way, I don’t suppose you’ve heard yet, but
Mrs Summerville passed away.’ She announced it in the sort of soft and solemn tones generally reserved for those who had
passed away
.

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ said Banks. Mrs Summerville was the mother of the first girl he had ever slept with, though he had always believed that neither the late Mrs Summerville
nor his own mother knew that. ‘What did she die of?’

‘It wasn’t anything suspicious, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Perish the thought.’

His mother studied him, frowning. ‘Yes . . . well, it was a blessing really. She’d been very poorly. Died in her sleep, according to Alice Green.’

‘Still—’ said Banks, uncertain what to say. He sipped some tea. As usual, it was milky and sweet, though he had stopped taking milk and sugar twenty years ago.

‘And how are the Marshalls?’ he asked. The Marshalls were the parents of Banks’s school friend Graham, who had disappeared at the age of fourteen and whose body had been
discovered the previous summer. Banks had come down to help the locals work on the case and the solution hadn’t pleased anyone. It was during that time he had met Detective Inspector Michelle
Hart, whom he had been seeing on and off ever since. Pity she wasn’t around this weekend, he thought.

‘Same as ever, I suppose,’ said Mrs Banks. ‘We don’t see much of them, do we, Arthur?’

Arthur Banks shook his head.

‘It’s as if they’ve shut themselves away since you were last down.’ Banks’s mother cast him an accusing glance, as if their becoming recluses were his fault. And
maybe it was, in a way. The truth is rarely as liberating as people would have us believe; it often binds more than it frees.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said.

‘You know,’ his mother went on, ‘while you’re here, you ought to go and see Mrs Green. She keeps asking about you, and she was very put out you didn’t drop by and
see her in the summer. She still thinks very fondly of you, though I can’t see why, the noise you lot used to make at her house.’

Banks smiled. He remembered Mrs Green fondly, too. She was the mother of an old school friend, Tony Green, whom Banks hadn’t seen since he left home. Tony hadn’t been one of the real
in-crowd, but he had been in the rugby team with Banks, and Banks had always liked Mrs Green. Most of the kids did. She didn’t stop them from smoking in her house, and she didn’t mind
them playing the sort of music – the Beatles and the Rolling Stones mostly – that most adults hated. Once or twice she had given Banks and Tony half a crown apiece and sent them off to
the pictures out of her way. She had also been very pretty, with the kind of bosom young boys dream about, and she certainly had a mouth on her. Mrs Green had a reputation for speaking her mind,
nobody ruffled her feathers and got away with it. Tony had gone off to Canada, Banks remembered. And Mr Green had died of emphysema about nine months ago. His mother had told him over the
telephone, and he had sent a sympathy card. Yes, he would pay Mrs Green a visit.

2

So Banks sipped
tea with his mother and father, catching up on the local gossip. The usual stuff: another school friend had emigrated to Australia, an old
neighbour, who had moved into a home a year ago, had died, and the Venables lad from number sixty-six had been sent to Borstal for mugging a pensioner. Banks didn’t bother telling his mother
that it wasn’t called ‘Borstal’ any more but ‘detention centre’ or ‘youth custody centre’. They weren’t much interested in what he’d been
doing, outside of the divorce from Sandra. They were more interested in Brian and Tracy, and they expressed regret that neither could come to the party on Sunday: Brian’s band was playing an
important series of gigs in Germany, and Tracy had flu. Not entirely convinced this wasn’t some excuse, Banks had dropped by and offered to drive her from her university residence in Leeds,
but when he saw her, he took pity and said he’d look in again on his way back. Fortunately, she had friends there who would feed her chicken noodle soup and Lemsip in the meantime.

‘Have you seen who’s moved in next door?’ Mrs Banks asked.

‘No,’ said Banks, ‘but I heard them.’

‘Not that side. The other. A Paki family, that’s who. I must say, though,’ she went on, ‘they seem really nice. Very quiet they are, even the kids, aren’t they,
Arthur? And polite. Always say good morning and ask how you’re doing. Talk just like us, they do. Makes a change from that lot on the other side.’

‘Who are they?’ Banks asked.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know their name. They moved in about two weeks ago. They’re not very friendly neighbours. Don’t know how many of them live there,
either. Shifty-looking lot. Comings and goings all hours of the day and night. Noise. And the place is a pigsty.’

It sounded like a drug house. Banks made a mental note to keep his eyes open. If he noticed anything suspicious, he’d get on to the local police.

Banks’s father picked up the remote control and turned the television on at half-past five, as Banks remembered he did every weekday. ‘Is that the time?’ said Ida Banks.
‘I’d better get the tea on. Pork chops, peas and chips all right?’

‘Fine,’ said Banks, his stomach sinking. As if there was a choice.

‘And a nice bit of steamed pudding and custard for sweet.’

‘I’ll help.’ Banks followed her into the kitchen.

True to his word, Geoff Salisbury came back from Asda with a bag of groceries. He dumped it on the kitchen table and handed Ida Banks two pound coins in change, then they went through to the
living room. Banks, peeling potatoes at the time, started to unload the groceries. As he did so, he came across the printed receipt stuck by condensation to the side of a bottle of chilled apple
juice.

The print was a little blurred, but even so he could see that the total came to £16.08, which left a discrepancy of £1.92 between that and the £2 Geoff had handed his mother.
Holding the receipt, Banks went into the living room.

‘I think you’ve got the change wrong,’ he said, holding out the receipt for Geoff to see.

Banks’s mother frowned. ‘Alan! Must you?’ Then she turned to Geoff. ‘I’m so sorry. Our Alan’s in the police and he can’t seem to let us forget
it,’ she said with a dismissive sniff.

‘One of the boys in blue, eh?’

‘CID, actually,’ said Banks.

‘Ah. All that Sherlock Holmes stuff.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Let’s see, then.’ Geoff took a pair of bifocals from his shirt pocket and squinted at the list. ‘Bloody hell, you’re right,’ he admitted, blushing. He showed
the receipt to Ida Banks. ‘It’s a fair cop. See there, Mrs B? It looks like an eight to me but it’s really a six. That’s what comes of being too vain to wear my glasses in
the supermarket.’

Ida Banks laughed and slapped him on the arm playfully. ‘Oh, get away with you, Geoff. Anyone could make a mistake like that.’

Geoff counted out the rest of the change into her hand. He glanced sideways at Banks, still slightly red with embarrassment. ‘I can see I’ll have to watch myself now there’s a
copper around,’ he joked.

‘Yes,’ said Banks, not laughing. ‘I think you better had.’

3

‘There was no
need for that, Alan,’ Banks’s mother said after Geoff Salisbury had left. ‘Embarrassing us all.’

‘I wasn’t embarrassed,’ Banks said. ‘Besides, he tried to cheat you.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s like he said, he couldn’t see the figures properly.’

‘Does he do this often?’

‘Do what?’

‘Go shopping for you.’

‘Yes. We can’t get around like we used to, you know, what with your dad’s angina and my legs and feet.’

‘Legs and feet?’

‘My varicose veins and bunions. Getting old is no treat, Alan, I can tell you that much. You’ll find out yourself one day. Anyway, he’s been good to us, has Geoff, and now
you’ve gone and upset him.’

‘I don’t think he’s upset at all.’

‘Only here five minutes, and there’s trouble already.’

‘Mum, I really don’t think I upset him. Maybe he’ll just be more careful in future.’

‘And maybe we’ll have to find
someone else
who’ll do our shopping for us and give the place a good dust and a vacuum every now and then. Fat chance of that.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

‘Well, I just hope you’ll apologize next time you see him.’

‘Apologize?’

‘Yes. You as good as called the man a thief.’

‘Fine,’ said Banks, raising his hands in surrender. ‘I’ll apologize.’

His mother gave another disapproving little sniff. ‘I’d better see to those pork chops.’ Then she strode off into the kitchen and shut the door behind her.

4

The Coach and
Horses, about a hundred yards away on the main road, was one of those pubs that had hardly changed at all in the past forty years or so. True,
they’d got in a jukebox and a few video machines, and the brewery had forked out for a minor facelift sometime in the eighties, hoping to pull in a younger, freer-spending crowd. But it
didn’t take. The people who drank at the Coach and Horses had, for the most part, been drinking there most of their lives. And their fathers had supped there before them.

Though there were few young people to be seen, it still managed to be a warm and lively pub, Banks noticed as he walked in with his father just after eight o’clock that night, the steamed
pudding and custard still weighing heavy in his stomach. His father had managed the walk without too much puffing and wheezing, which he put down to having stopped smoking two years ago. Banks, who
had only stopped that summer, still felt frequent and powerful urges.

‘Arthur! Arthur! Come on, lad, come on over.’ It was Geoff Salisbury. He was sitting at a table with an elderly couple Banks didn’t recognize and two other men in their sixties
he remembered from his previous visit. They cleared a little space when Banks and his father walked over to join them.

‘My shout,’ said Geoff. ‘Name your poison.’

‘No,’ said Banks, still standing. ‘I’m the visitor. Let me buy the first round.’

That got no argument, so Banks wandered off to the bar. He hardly had to fight his way through the crowds of impatient drinkers. The bartender, the same one Banks remembered when he had last
been in the Coach that summer, nodded a curt greeting and proceeded to pull the pints. When Banks carried the tray back to the table, his father was already talking football with one of his old
pals, Harry Finnegan. Harry looked up and said hello to Banks, asked him how he was doing.

‘Fine,’ said Banks. ‘You’re looking well yourself.’

‘Fair to middling. Sorry to hear about you and that young lass of yours splitting up.’

Sandra.
No secrets here. He wondered if they also knew about Sean and the imminent baby. ‘Well,’ said Banks, ‘these things happen.’ More to his generation than
theirs, he realized. Theirs tended to stick at marriage even when all the love had gone out of it. He didn’t know if that was better or worse than changing wives every decade. Probably best
not to get married at all, he suspected.

But his mother and father still loved one another, or so he believed. Fifty years together meant they probably didn’t have much new to say to one another any more, and the passion might
have disappeared from their relationship years ago, but they were comfortable together. Besides, passion is transitory and infinitely transferable, anyway, Banks believed. What his parents had was
stronger, deeper, more permanent; it was what he would never get to experience with Sandra: growing old together. He was used to the loss by now, but every now and then he still felt a pang of
regret for what might have been and a lump came to his throat.

Harry introduced Banks to the couple at the table, Dick and Mavis Conroy. The other man, Jock McFall, said hello and shook hands.

‘I hear you’re a Leeds United supporter these days, Alan,’ said Harry, a twinkle in his eye.

Banks nodded. ‘For my sins. Not that I get the chance to go to Elland Road very often.
Match of the Day
is usually the closest I get.’