The Summer That Never Was (28 page)

“Yet you manage the teacher-student relationship.”

“I have a talent for teaching.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“In a way. Sometimes.”

Banks got up and walked over to the window. There was a fine view of the dale, looking back towards Eastvale in the distance. Banks thought he could just make out the castle on its hill.

“Did Luke Armitage ever come here?” he asked, turning to face Ford.

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“Very few people come here. I would remember. Look, if you want to know about Luke, ask Lauren.”

“Lauren Anderson?”

“Yes. She knew him far better than I did. She’s a…well, you know, she’s the sort of person people talk to, about their problems and stuff.”

“Emotions.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know if Luke was close to anyone else?”

“You could try our head teacher’s daughter.”

Banks had a quick flash of that sudden flurry of blond hair and long leg he had noticed after his conversation with Gavin Barlow. “Rose Barlow?”

“That’s the one. Little minx.”

“Were she and Luke friends?”

“Thick as thieves.”

“When was this?”

“Earlier this year. February or March.”

“Where did you see them together?”

“At school.”

“Nowhere else?”

“I don’t go anywhere else. Except here. All I can say is I saw them talking sometimes in the corridors and playground, and they seemed close.”

Banks made a mental note to follow up on Rose Barlow. “Do you have a mobile phone?” he asked.

“Good Lord, what an odd question!”

“Do you?”

“No. I see no use for one, personally. I barely use the telephone I do have.”

“Where were you last Monday?”

“Here.”

“Were you in Eastvale at all last week?”

“I’ve already told you. I’ve hardly left the cottage.”

“What have you been doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here. In the cottage. Alone. All this time.”

Ford got to his feet and the birdlike motions started up again. “Playing music. Listening. Reading. Dabbling in a little composition. Look, really it’s none of your business, you know, even if you
are
a policeman. The last time I noticed, we were still living in a free country.”

“It was just a simple question, Mr. Ford. No need to get upset.”

Ford’s voice took on a piercing edge. “I’m not getting upset. But you’re prying. I hate people prying. I can’t tell you anything. Go talk to Lauren. Leave me alone.”

Banks stared at him for a moment. Ford wouldn’t meet his gaze. “If I find out you’ve been lying to me, Mr. Ford, I’ll be back. Do you understand?”

“I’m not lying. I haven’t done anything. Leave me alone.”

Before leaving, Banks showed him the artist’s impression of the girl Josie Batty had seen with Luke. Ford hardly glanced at the sketch and said he didn’t recognize her. He was weird, without a doubt, Banks thought as he started his car, but you couldn’t arrest people just for being weird. The volume went way up again, and Banks could hear Verdi’s “Lacrimosa” chasing him all the way to Lyndgarth.

“Thank you for seeing to the release, love,” Mrs. Marshall said. “We’ll be holding the funeral service at St. Peter’s the day after tomorrow. Joan’s coming back up for it, of course. I must say, the vicar’s been very good, considering none of us were what you’d call regular churchgoers. You’ll be there?”

“Yes, of course,” said Michelle. “There’s just one thing.”

“What’s that, love?”

Michelle told her about the rib they needed for evidence.

Mrs. Marshall frowned and thought for a moment. “I don’t think we need worry about a little thing like a missing rib, need we? Especially if it might help you.”

“Thank you,” said Michelle.

“You look tired, love. Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Fine.” Michelle managed to dredge up a weak smile.

“Is there any more news?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Only more questions.”

“I can’t understand what else I have to tell you, but please go ahead.”

Michelle leaned back in her chair. This was going to be difficult, she knew. To find out about any mischief Graham might have been up to without suggesting that he got up to mischief–which his mother would never accept–was almost to do the impossible. Still, she could but try. “Was Graham ever away from home for any periods of time?”

“What do you mean? Did we send him away?”

“No. But you know what kids are like. Sometimes they just like to take off and not tell you where they’ve been. They worry you sick but they don’t seem to realize it at the time.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I’m not saying our Graham was any different from the other kids that way. He missed his tea from time to time, and once or twice he missed his nine o’clock curfew. And many’s the occasion we didn’t see hide nor hair of him from dawn till dusk. Not during term time, mind you. Just weekends and school holidays he could be a bit unreliable.”

“Did you have any idea where he’d been when he turned up late?”

“Playing with his pals. Sometimes he’d have his guitar with him, too. They were practising, see. The group.”

“Where did they do that?”

“David Grenfell’s house.”

“Other than group practice, did he ever stay out late on other occasions?”

“Once in a while. He was just a normal boy.”

“How much pocket money did you give him?”

“Five shillings a week. It was all we could afford. But he had his paper round and that made him a bit extra.”

“And you bought all his clothes?”

“Sometimes he’d save up if there was something he really wanted. Like a Beatle jumper. You know, like the one he’s wearing in the photo there.”

“So he didn’t go short of anything?”

“No. Not so’s you’d notice. Why? What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m just trying to get a picture of his activities, Mrs. Marshall. It’ll help me try to work out what might have happened to him, who might have stopped and picked him up.”

“You think it was somebody he knew?”

“I didn’t say that, but it’s possible.”

Mrs. Marshall fiddled with her necklace. The idea clearly upset her. Whether it was the idea of an acquaintance being responsible, or whether she had suspected such a thing deep down, was impossible to say. “But we didn’t know anybody like that,” she said.

“Like what?”

“A pervert,” she whispered.

“We don’t know that it
was
a pervert.”

“I don’t understand. That’s what the police said. Who else could it be?”

“Jet Harris told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone ever suggest, at any time, that Graham might have been abducted by someone he knew?”

“Heavens, no! Why would anyone do that?”

“Why, indeed?” said Michelle. “And you know nothing about any unsavoury company Graham might have been keeping–perhaps on these occasions when he stayed out late or was gone all day?”

“No. He was with his friends. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“It’s all right,” said Michelle. “I’m not sure that I understand it myself. I suppose all I really want to ask is whether Graham had any friends you disliked, or spent time with anyone you didn’t approve of.”

“Oh. No. They were all just regular lads. We knew their mums and dads. They were just like us.”

“No older boys? No one you thought was a bad influence?”

“No.”

“And Graham never seemed to have more money than you expected him to have?”

Mrs. Marshall’s expression sharpened and Michelle knew she’d gone too far. She also knew that she had touched a raw nerve.

“Are you suggesting our Graham was a thief?”

“Of course not,” Michelle backtracked. “I just wondered if he maybe did other odd jobs he didn’t tell you about, other than the paper round, perhaps when he should have been at school.”

Mrs. Marshall still eyed her suspiciously. Bill Marshall seemed to be taking everything in, his beady eyes moving
from one to the other as they spoke, but they were the only things moving in his face. If only he could talk, Michelle thought. And then she realized that would be no use. He wouldn’t tell her anything.

“I suppose it’s just a mark of my frustration with the case,” Michelle admitted. “After all, it was so long ago.”

“Jet Harris always said it was them Moors Murderers, the ones who were tried the year after. He said we’d all probably have nightmares for the rest of our lives if we ever knew how many young lives they’d taken and where the bodies were buried.”

“He told you that, did he?” said Michelle. How very convenient. She was fast coming to the conclusion–or reaffirming what she had suspected earlier–that Detective Superintendent Harris had run the case with blinkers on, and Mrs. Marshall, like so many mothers, hadn’t a clue what her son was up to most of the time. She wondered if his father knew. Bill Marshall’s lopsided face gave away nothing, but Michelle fancied she could see wariness in his eyes. And something else. She couldn’t say with any certainty that it was guilt, but it looked like that to her. Michelle took a deep breath and plunged in.

“I understand your husband used to work for the Kray twins back in London.”

There was a short silence, then Mrs. Marshall said, “Bill didn’t
work
for them, as such. He did used to spar with them down the gym. We knew them. Of course we did. We grew up in the same neighbourhood. Everybody knew Reggie and Ronnie. Always polite to me, they were, no matter what anybody says about them, and I’ve heard some stories as would make your hair curl. But they were basically good lads. People don’t like it when others get a bit above their station, you know.”

Michelle could feel her jaw dropping. There was nothing more to be gained here, she realized, and if she was going to solve this case she was going to do so without the family’s help, and without Ben Shaw’s. And perhaps in
peril of her life. “
Remember Melissa. You could join her
….” Promising again that she would be at the funeral, Michelle excused herself and hurried off.

That evening at home, Banks glanced through the evening paper over a Madras curry he’d bought earlier at Marks & Spencer, slipped Bill Evans’s
Paris Concert
into the CD player, poured himself a couple of fingers of Laphroaig and flopped down on the sofa with his 1965
Photoplay
diary. He thought it was Oscar Wilde who said, “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train,” but he could have been wrong. It was easy to attribute just about any witty saying to Oscar Wilde or Groucho Marx. Curious, though, he stirred himself and checked the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
and found that he was right this time.

Banks’s diary was far from sensational. As he flipped the pages once again, glancing at the pretty actresses he hardly remembered–Carol Lynley, Jill St. John, Yvette Mimieux–he was struck by how many records he bought and films he saw. Until, just a couple of weeks from Graham’s disappearance, Banks saw that his diary did, in fact, have its moments, and as he read the trivial or cryptic entries, he was able to fill in the rest with his memory and imagination.

In the first week of August 1965, the Banks family had set off for their annual holidays. There was nothing unusual in that; they went every year at the same time, his father’s annual factory shut-down fortnight. What
was
unusual that year was that they went to Blackpool–much farther afield than their usual trip to Great Yarmouth or Skegness–and that they took Graham Marshall with them.

At fourteen, Banks was of an age when he found wandering around a seaside resort with his parents embarrassing, and riding the donkey on the beach or playing with a bucket and spade no longer held any appeal. As Graham’s dad had just started on a large building project–his work being far
more seasonal than Arthur Banks’s–and it didn’t look as if the Marshalls would get a holiday that year, financial arrangements were made, and Graham was allowed to accompany them.

Visit Blackpool! See the Famous Tower! Hear Reginald Dixon at the Mighty Organ! See the glorious Golden Mile! Go to a star-studded Variety Show on one of the Three Piers! Have hours of Family Fun at the Pleasure Beach!

It might as well have been the moon.

At some ridiculously early hour in the morning, because that was when they always set off on holiday, they would have piled their cases into the back of Arthur Banks’s Morris Traveller, a popular sort of estate car with a wood-frame rear, and headed north on their long journey, no doubt arriving tired and cranky, but in good time for tea at Mrs. Barraclough’s boarding house. Bed, breakfast and evening meal at six o’clock on the dot, and woe betide you if you were late. Mrs. Barraclough was a large, forbidding presence, whom Banks remembered even now as dressed in a pinny, standing with her thick legs apart and her arms folded under her massive bosom.

Banks saw that he had recorded the weather every day at the top of his entry, and as holidays went, they had done quite well: nine days of at least partial sunshine out of fourteen, and only two-and-a-half complete washouts. On the rainy days, Banks and Graham had hung about the amusement arcades on the Golden Mile, he noted, or on one of the piers, and played the one-armed bandits and pinball machines. One rainy Sunday afternoon they spent watching the old war films that always seemed to be showing on rainy Sunday afternoons, patriotic films with titles such as
The Day Will Dawn
,
In Which We Serve
and
Went the Day Well
?

On overcast days they would wander the prom, eating fish and chips from newspapers or boiled shrimp from paper bags and go hunting through the town’s few second-hand bookshops, Banks looking for Sexton Blake novelettes
(he had bought one called
The Mind Killers
) or Ian Fleming novels, while Graham went after
Famous Monsters
magazines and Isaac Asimov stories.

One night they all went to the Tower Circus, and Banks noted in his diary that he found Charlie Cairoli’s act “very funny.” They also took in a variety show on the North Pier, with Morecambe and Wise providing the comedy and the Hollies the music.