The Hanging Valley (3 page)

“What was it you said before?” Banks asked. “About this not being the first body in Swainshead.”

“It was before your time.”

“Most things were.” Banks made the sharp westward turn, and soon they were out of the town, driving by the river meadows.

Gristhorpe opened his window and gulped in the fresh air. “A man had his skull fractured,” he said. “It was murder, no doubt about that. And we never solved it.”

“What happened?”

“Some Boy Scouts found the body dumped in an old mine shaft on the fell-side a couple of miles north of the village. The doc said it had been there about a week.”

“When?”

“Just over five years ago.”

“Was it a local?”

“No. The victim was a private-enquiry agent from London.”

“A private investigator?”

“That’s right. Name of Raymond Addison. A solo operator. One of the last of the breed, I should imagine.”

“Did you find out what he was doing up here?”

“No. We had his office searched, of course, but none of his files had any connection with Swainsdale. The Yard asked around among his friends and acquaintances—not that he had very many—but they turned up nothing. We thought he might have been on holiday, but why choose Yorkshire in February?”

“How long had he been in the village?”

“He’d arrived fairly late in the day and managed to get a room in a guest house run by a chap named Sam Greenock, who told us that Addison said nothing except for some remarks about the cold. He wrapped up well and went out for a walk after the evening meal, and that was the last anyone saw of him. We made enquiries, but nobody had seen or heard him. It was dark when he went out, of course, and even the old men who usually hang about chatting on the bridge come rain or shine had gone in by then.”

“And as far as you could find out he had no connection with the area at all?”

“None. And, believe me, we dug and dug. Either nobody knew or, more likely, someone wasn’t talking. He was an ex-serviceman, so we checked up on old army pals, that kind of thing. We ended up doing a house-to-house of the entire village. Nothing. It’s still unsolved.”

Banks slowed down as he drove through Helmthorpe, one of the dale’s largest villages. Beyond there, the landscape was unfamiliar to him. Though still broader than most of the dales, thanks to a glacier of particularly titanic proportions, the valley seemed to
narrow slightly as they got closer to The Head, and the commons sloped more steeply up the fell-sides. There were none of the long limestone scars that characterized the eastern part of Swainsdale, but the hills rose to high, rounded summits of moorland.

“And that’s not all,” Gristhorpe added after a few moments of silence. “A week before Addison’s body was found—the day after he was killed, as far as the doc could make out—a local woman disappeared. Name of Anne Ralston. Never been seen since.”

“And you think there must have been a connection?”

“Not necessarily. At the time she went, of course, the body hadn’t been discovered. The whole thing could have been a coincidence. And the doc admitted he could have been wrong about the exact day of death, too. It’s hard to be accurate after a body’s been buried that long. But we’ve no idea what happened to her. And you’ve got to admit it’s damned odd to get a missing person and a murder in the same village within a week of each other. She could have been killed and buried, or maybe she simply ran off with a fellow somewhere. We’d hardly cause to block all the ports and airports. Besides, she could have been anywhere in the world by the time the body was found. At best we’d have liked her to answer a few questions, just to put our minds at rest. As it was, we did a bit more poking around the landscape but found no traces of another body.”

“Do you think she might have murdered Addison and run off?”

“It’s possible. But it didn’t look like a woman’s job to me. Too much muscle-work involved, and Anne Ralston wasn’t one of those female body-builders. We questioned her boyfriend pretty closely. He’s Stephen Collier, managing director of the company she worked for. Comes from a very prominent local family.”

“Yes,” Banks said. “I’ve heard of the Colliers. Did he cause any problems?”

“No. He was co-operative. Said they hadn’t been getting on all that well lately, but he’d no idea where she’d gone, or why. In the end we’d no reason to think anything had happened to her, so we had to assume she’d just taken off. People do sometimes. And Anne Ralston seemed to be a particularly flighty lass, by all accounts.”

“Still . . .”

“Yes, I know.” Gristhorpe sighed. “It’s not at all satisfactory, is it? We reached nothing but dead ends whichever direction we turned.”

Banks drove on in silence. Obviously failure was hard for Gristhorpe to swallow, as it was for most detectives. But this murder, if that’s what it really turned out to be, was a different case, five years old. He wasn’t going to let the past clutter up his thinking if he could help it. Still, it would be well to keep Raymond Addison and Anne Ralston in mind.

“This is it,” Gristhorpe said a few minutes later, pointing to the row of houses ahead. “This is Lower Head, as the locals call it.”

“It hardly seems a big enough place to be split into two parts,” Banks observed.

“It’s not a matter of size, Alan. Lower Head is the newest part of the village, the part that’s grown since the road’s become more widely used. People just stop off there to admire the view over a quick cup of tea or a pint and a pub lunch. Upper Head’s older and quieter. A bit more genteel. It’s a little north-south dale in itself, wedged between two fells. There’s a road goes north up there, too, but when it gets past the village and the school it gets pretty bad. You can get to the Lake District if you’re willing to ride it out, but most people go from the Lancashire side. Turn right here.”

Banks turned. The base of a triangular village green ran beside the main road, allowing easy access to Swainshead from both directions. The first buildings he passed were a small stone church and a village hall.

Following the minor road north beside the narrow River Swain, Banks could see what Gristhorpe meant. There were two rows of cottages facing each other, set back quite a bit from the river and its grassy banks. Most of them were either semis or terrace blocks, and some had been converted into shops. They were plain, sturdy houses built mostly of limestone, discoloured here and there with moss and lichen. Many had individualizing touches, such as mullions or white borders painted around doors and windows. Behind the houses on both sides, the commons sloped up, criss-crossed here and there by dry-stone walls, and gave way to steep moorland fells.

Banks parked the car outside the whitewashed pub, and Gristhorpe pointed to a large house farther up the road.

“That’s the Collier place,” he said. “The old man was one of the richest farmers and landowners around these parts. He also had the sense to invest his money in a food-processing plant just west of here. He’s dead now, but young Stephen runs the factory and he shares the house with his brother. They’ve split it into two halves. Ugly pile of stone, isn’t it?”

Banks didn’t say so, but he rather admired the Victorian extravagance of the place, so at odds with the utilitarian austerity of most Dales architecture. Certainly it was ugly: oriels and turrets cluttered the upper half, making the whole building look top-heavy, and there was a stone porch at each front entrance. They probably had a gazebo and a folly in the back garden, too, he thought.

“And that’s where Raymond Addison stayed,” Gristhorpe said, pointing across the beck. The house, made of two knocked-together semis, was separated from the smaller terrace blocks on either side by only a few feet. A sign, Greenock Guest House, hung in the colourful, well-tended garden.

“’Ey up, lads,” Freddie Metcalfe said as they entered, “t’Sweeney’s ’ere.”

“Hello again, Freddie,” Gristhorpe said, leading Banks over to the bar. “Still serving drinks after hours?”

“Only to the select few, Mr Gristhorpe,” Metcalfe replied proudly. “What’ll you gents be ’aving?” He looked at Banks suspiciously. “Is ’ee over eighteen?”

“Just,” Gristhorpe answered.

Freddie burst into a rasping, smoker’s laugh.

“What’s this about a body?” Gristhorpe asked.

Metcalfe pursed his fleshy lips and nodded towards the only occupied table. “Bloke there says he found one on t’fell. ’Ee’s not going anywhere, so I might as well pull you gents a pint before you get down to business.”

The superintendent asked for a pint of bitter and Banks, having noticed that the White Rose was a Marston’s house, asked for a pint of Pedigree.

“’Ee’s got good taste, I’ll say that for ’im,” Metcalfe said. “Is ’ee ’ouse-trained an’ all?”
Banks observed a prudent silence throughout the exchange and took stock of his surroundings. The walls of the lounge-bar were panelled in dark wood up to waist height and above that papered an inoffensive dun colour. Most of the tables were the old round kind with cast-iron knee-capper legs, but a few modern square ones stood in the corner near the dartboard and the silent juke-box.

Banks lit a Silk Cut and sipped his pint. He’d refrained from smoking in the car in deference to Gristhorpe’s feelings, but now that he was in a public place he was going to take advantage of it and puff away to his heart’s, and lungs’, content.

Carrying their drinks, they walked over to the table. “Someone reported a death?” Gristhorpe asked, his innocent baby-blue eyes ranging over the five men who sat there.

Fellowes hiccuped and put his hand in the air. “I did,” he said, and slid off his chair onto the stone floor.

“Christ, he’s pissed as a newt,” Banks said, glaring at Sam Greenock. “Couldn’t you have kept him sober till we got here?”

“Don’t blame me,” Sam said. “He’s only had enough to put some colour back in his cheeks. It’s not my fault he can’t take his drink.”

Two of the others helped Fellowes back into his chair and Freddie Metcalfe rushed over with some smelling salts he kept behind the bar for this and similar exigencies.

Fellowes moaned and waved away the salts, then slumped back and squinted at Gristhorpe. He was clearly in no shape to guide them to the scene of the crime.

“It’s all right, Inshpector,” he said. “Bit of a shock to the syshtem, thass all.”

“Can you tell us where you found this body?” Gristhorpe spoke slowly, as if to a child.

“Over Shwainshead Fell, there’s a beautiful valley. All autumn colours. Can’t mish it, just down from where the footpath reaches the top. Go shtraight down till you get to the beck, then cross it . . . easy. Near the lady’s slipper.”

“Lady’s slipper?”

“Yes. The orchish, not the bird’s-foot trefoil. Very rare. Body’s near the lady’s shlipper.”
Then he half-twisted in his chair and stretched his arm up his back.

“I left my rucksack,” he said. “Thought I did. Just over from my rucksack, then. Ruckshack marks the spot.” Then he hiccuped again and his eyes closed.

“Does anyone know where’s he staying?” Banks asked the group. “He was staying at my guest house,” Sam said. “But he left this morning.”

“Better get him back there, if there’s room. He’s in no condition to go anywhere and we’ll want to talk to him again later.”

Sam nodded. “I think we’ve still got number five empty, unless someone’s arrived while I’ve been out. Stephen?” He looked over to the man next to him, who helped him get Fellowes to his feet.

“It’s Stephen Collier, isn’t it?” Gristhorpe asked, then turned to the person opposite Greenock. “And you’re Nicholas. Remember, I talked to you both a few years ago about Anne Ralston and that mysterious death?”

“We remember,” Nicholas answered. “You knew Father too, if I recall rightly?”

“Not well, but yes, we bent elbows together once or twice. Quite a man.”

“He was indeed,” Nicholas said.

Outside, Banks and Gristhorpe watched Sam and Stephen help Neil Fellowes over the bridge. The old men stood by and stared in silence.

Gristhorpe looked up at the fell-side. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It’s a long climb up there. How the bloody hell are we going to get Glendenning and the scene-of-crime team up if we need them? Come to that, how am
I
going to get up? I’m not as young as I used to be. And you smoke like a bloody chimney. You’ll never get ten yards.”

Banks followed Gristhorpe’s gaze and scratched his head. “Well,” he said, “I suppose we could give it a try.”

Gristhorpe pulled a face. “Aye,” he said. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

TWO

I

“Problem, gentlemen?” Nicholas Collier asked when he walked out of the White Rose and saw Banks and Gristhorpe staring up dejectedly at Swainshead Fell.

“Not at all,” Gristhorpe replied. “Simply admiring the view.”

“Might I suggest a way you can save yourselves some shoeleather?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you see that narrow line that crosses the fell diagonally?”

Nicholas pointed towards the slope and traced the direction of the line with a long finger.

“Yes,” said Gristhorpe. “It looks like an old track of some kind.”

“That’s exactly what it is. There used to be a farmhouse way up on the fell-side there. It belonged to Father, but he used to let it to Archie Allen. The place has fallen to ruin now, but the road that leads up is still there. It’s not in good repair, of course, and you might find it a bit overgrown, but you should be able to get a car well above half-way up, if that’s any help.”

“Thank you very much, Mr Collier,” Gristhorpe said. “For a man of my shape any effort saved is a blessing.”

“You’ll have to drive two miles up the road here to the next bridge to get on the track, but you’ll see your way easily enough,” said Nicholas, and with a smile he set off for home.

“Odd-looking sort of fellow, isn’t he?” Banks remarked. “Not a bit like his brother.”

Whereas Stephen had the elegant, world-weary look of a
finde-siècle
decadent, Nicholas’s sallow complexion, long nose and
prominent front teeth made him appear a bit horsy. The only resemblance was in their unusually bright blue eyes.