A Necessary End (16 page)

Mara put the phone back gently. It had been rather like sending a telegram, something she had done once before. The feeling that every word cost money was very inhibiting, and so, in a different way, was the sense of a tape winding around the capstan past the recording head as she talked.

Anyway, it was done. Leaving the booth, she hurried towards the Black Sheep, feeling lighter in spirit now that she had at least taken a practical step to deal with her fears.

III

Banks and Jenny sat in the bar over aperitifs while they studied the menu. The Royal Oak was a cosy place with muted lights, mullioned windows and gleaming copper-ware in little nooks and crannies. Fastened horizontally between the dark beams on the ceiling was a collection of walking-sticks of all lengths and materials: knobbly ash-plants, coshers, sword-sticks and smooth canes, many with ornate brass handles. On a long shelf above the bar stood a row of toby jugs with such faces as Charles II, Shakespeare and Beethoven; some, however, depicted contemporaries, like Margaret Thatcher and Paul McCartney.

Jenny sipped a vodka-and-tonic, Banks a dry sherry, as they tried to decide what to order. Finally, after much self-recrimination about the damage it would do to her figure, Jenny settled for
steak au poivre
with a wine-and-cream sauce. Banks chose roast leg of lamb. Much as he liked to watch the little blighters frolic around the dale every
spring, he enjoyed eating them almost as much. They'd only grow up into sheep anyway, he reasoned.

They followed the waitress into the dining-room, pleased to find only one other table occupied, and that by a subdued couple already on dessert. Mozart's Clarinet Quintet played quietly in the background. Banks watched Jenny walk ahead of him. She was wearing a loose top, cut square across the collarbone, which looked as if it had been tie-dyed in various shades of blue and red. Her pleated skirt was plain rust-red, the colour of her tumbling, wavy hair, and came to midway down her calves. The tights she wore had some kind of pattern on them, which looked to Banks like a row of bruises up the sides of her legs. Being a gentleman, though, he had complimented her on her appearance.

The waitress lit the candle, took their orders and moved off soundlessly, leaving them with the wine list to study. Banks lit a cigarette and smiled at Jenny.

Despite the claims of
Playboy
, the Miss Universe contest and other promoters of the feminine image to men, Banks had often found that it was the most insignificant detail that made a woman physically attractive to him: a well-placed mole, a certain curve of the lips or turn of the ankle; or a mannerism, such as the way she picked up a glass, tilted her head before smiling, or fiddled with a necklace while speaking.

In the case of Sandra, his wife, it was the dark eyebrows and the contrast they made with her naturally ash-blonde hair. With Jenny, it was her eyes, or rather the delta of lines that crinkled their outer edges, especially when she smiled. They were like a map whose contours revealed a sense of humour and a curious mixture of toughness and vulnerability that Banks, himself, felt able to identify with. Her beautiful red hair and green eyes, her shapeliness, her long legs and full lips were all very well, but they were just icing on the cake. It was the lines around the eyes that did it.

“What are you thinking?” Jenny asked, looking up from the list.

Banks gave her the gist of it.

“Well,” she said, after a fit of laughter, “I'll take that as a compliment, though there are many women who wouldn't. What shall we have?”

“They've got a nice Seguret 1980 here, if I remember rightly. And not too expensive, either. That's if you like Rhône.”

“Fine by me.”

When the waitress returned with their smoked salmon and melon appetizers, Banks ordered the wine.

“So what's all this decadence in aid of?” asked Jenny, her eyes twinkling in the candle flame. “Are you planning to seduce me, or are you just softening me up for questioning?”

“What if I said I was planning to seduce you?”

“I'd say you were going about it the right way.” She smiled and looked around the room. “Candlelight, romantic music, nice atmosphere, good food.”

The wine arrived, shortly followed by their main courses, and soon they were enjoying the meal to the accompaniment of the Flute Quartets.

Over dinner, Jenny complained about her day. There had been too many classes to teach, and she was tired of the undergraduates' simplistic assumptions about psychology. Sometimes, she confessed, she was even sick of psychology itself and wished she'd studied English literature or history instead.

Banks told her about the funeral, careful to leave out his meeting with Tony Grant. It would be useful to have something in reserve later, if he could steer her around to talking about Osmond. He also mentioned his visit to Tim and Abha and how Burgess's approach had soured the pitch.

“Your Dirty Dick is a real jerk,” Jenny said, employing an Americanism the man himself would have been proud of. “Dare I ask about dessert?” she asked, pushing her empty plate aside.

“It's
your
figure.”

“In that case, I think I'll have chocolate mousse. Absolutely no calories at all. And coffee and cognac.”

When the waitress came by, Banks ordered Jenny's dessert and liqueur along with a wedge of Stilton and a glass of Sauternes for himself. “You didn't really answer my question, you know,” he said.

“What question's that?”

“The one about seducing you.”

“Oh, yes. But I did. I said you were going about it the right way.”

“But you didn't say whether I'd get anywhere or not.”

Jenny's eyes crinkled. “Alan! Are you feeling the itch because Sandra's away?”

Banks felt foolish for bringing the subject up in the first place. Flirting with Jenny might be fun, but it also had a serious edge that neither really wanted to get too close to. If it hadn't been for that damned incident at Osmond's flat, he thought, he'd never have been so silly as to start playing games like this. But when he had seen Jenny look around Osmond's bedroom door like that—the robe slipping off her shoulder, the tousled hair, the relaxed, unfocused look that follows love-making—it hadn't only made him jealous, it had also inflamed old desires. He had felt that nobody else should enjoy what he couldn't enjoy himself. And he couldn't; of that there was no doubt. So he played his games and ended up embarrassing both of them.

He lit a cigarette to hide behind and poured the last of the Seguret. “Change the subject?”

Jenny nodded. “A good idea.”

The dessert arrived at the same time as a noisy party of business-men. Fortunately, the waitress seated them at the far end of the room.

“This is delicious,” Jenny said, spooning up the chocolate mousse. “I suppose you're going to question me now? I've got a feeling that seduction would probably have been a lot more fun.”

“Don't tempt me,” Banks said. “But you're right. I would like your help on a couple of things.”

“Here we go. Can I just finish my sweet first?”

“Sure.”

When the dishes were empty, Jenny sipped some cognac. “All right,” she said, saluting and sitting up to attention. “I'm all ears.”

“Were you there?” Banks asked.

“Where?”

“At the demo. You came to see me at two in the morning. You said you'd been waiting at your house for your boy-friend—”

“Dennis!”

“Yes, all right. Dennis.” Banks wondered why he hated the sound of the name so much. “But you could have been at the demo, too.”

“You mean I could have been lying?”

“That's not what I'm getting at. You might have just failed to mention it.”

“Surely you don't think I'm a suspect now? Being seduced by Quasimodo would be more fun than this.”

Banks laughed. “That's not my point. Think about it. If you were there with Osmond right up until the time he got arrested, then you'd be a witness that he didn't stab PC Gill.”

“I see. So Dennis is a prime suspect as far as you're concerned?”

“He is as far as Burgess is concerned. And that's what counts.”

Banks wondered if he, too, wanted Osmond to be guilty. Part of him, he had to admit, did. He was also wondering whether or not to tell Jenny about the assault charges. It would be a mean thing to do right now, he decided, because he couldn't trust his motives. Would he be telling her for her own good, or out of the jealousy he felt, out of a desire to hurt her relationship with Osmond?

“I see what you mean,” Jenny said finally. “No, I wasn't at the demo. I don't know what happened. Dennis has talked to me about it, of course—and, by the way, he's going ahead with his own inquiry into the thing, you know, along with Tim and Abha. And Burgess is going to come off pretty badly. Apparently he was around again today with Hatchley.”

Banks knew that. He also knew that the dirty duo had got no more out of anyone than they had the first time around. They'd probably be drowning their sorrows in the Queens Arms by now, and with a bit of luck Dirty Dick would push it too far with Glenys and her Cyril would thump him.

“Back to the demo,” Banks said. “What exactly has Dennis said?”

“He doesn't know what happened to that policeman. Do you think I'd be sitting here talking to you, answering your questions, if I wasn't trying to convince you that he had nothing to do with it?”

“So he saw nothing?”

“No. He said he heard somebody shout—he didn't catch the words—and after that it was chaos.”

That seemed to square with what Tony Grant and Tim and Abha had said about the riot's origin. Banks took a sip of Sauternes and watched it make legs down the inside of his glass.

“Did he ever mention PC Gill to you?”

Jenny shrugged. “He may have done. I didn't have much to do with the demo, as I said.”

“Did you ever hear the name?”

“I don't know.” Jenny was getting prickly. “I can't say I pay much attention to Dennis's political concerns. And if you're going to take a cheap shot at that, forget it. Unless you want a lap full of hot coffee.”

Banks decided it was best to veer away from the subject of Osmond. “You know the people at Maggie's Farm, don't you?” he asked.

“Yes. Dennis got friendly with Seth and Mara. We've been up a few times. I like them, especially Mara.”

“What's the set-up there?”

Jenny swirled the cognac and took another sip. “Seth bought the place about three years ago,” she said. “Apparently, it was in a bit of a state, which was why he got it quite cheaply. He fixed it up, renovated the old barn and rented it out. After Mara, Rick came next, I think, with Julian. He was having some problems with his wife.”

“Yes, I've heard about his wife,” Banks said. “Do you know anything else about her?”

“No. Except according to Rick her name must be Bitch.”

“What about Zoe?”

“I'm not sure how she met up with them. She came later. As far as I know she's from the east coast. She seems like a bit of a space cadet, but I suspect she's quite shrewd, really. You'd be surprised how many people are into that New Age stuff these days. Looking for something, I suppose . . . reassurance . . . I don't know. Anyway, she makes a good living from it. She does the weekly horoscope in the
Gazette
, too, and takes a little booth on the coast on summer weekends for doing tarot readings and what not. You know, Madame Zoe, Gypsy Fortune Teller . . .”

“The east coast? Could it be Scarborough?”

Jenny shook her head. “Whitby, I think.”

“Still,” Banks muttered, “it's not far away.”

“What isn't?”

The waitress brought coffee, and Banks lit another cigarette, careful to keep the smoke away from Jenny.

“Tell me about Mara.”

“I like Mara a lot. She's bright, and she's had an interesting life. She was in some religious organization before she came to the farm, but she got disillusioned. She seems to want to settle down a bit now. For some reason, we get along quite well. Seth, as I say, I don't know much about. He grew up in the sixties and he hasn't sold out—I mean he hasn't become a stockbroker or an accountant, at least. His main interest is his carpentry. There's also something about a woman in his past.”

“What woman?”

“Oh, it was just something Mara said. Apparently Seth doesn't like to talk about it. He had a lover who died. Maybe they were even married, I don't know. That was just before he bought the farm.”

“What was her name?”

“Alison, I think.”

“How did she die?”

“Some kind of accident.”

“What kind?”

“That's all I know, really. I'm not being evasive. Mara said it's all she knows, too. Seth only told her because he got drunk once. Apparently he's not much of a drinker.”

“And that's all you know?”

“Yes. It was some kind of motor accident. She got knocked down or something.”

“Where was he living then?”

“Hebden Bridge, I think. Why does it matter?”

“It probably doesn't. I just like to know as much as I can about who I'm dealing with. They were involved in the demo, and every time I question someone, Maggie's Farm comes up.”

It would be easy enough to check the Hebden Bridge accident records, though where Gill might come into it, Banks had no idea. Perhaps he had been on traffic duty at the time? He would hardly have been involved in a religious organization either, unless he felt a close friend or relation had been brainwashed by such a group.

“What about Paul Boyd?” he asked.

Jenny paused. “He's quite new up there. I can't say I know him well. To tell you the truth—and to speak quite unprofessionally—he gives me the creeps. But Mara's very attached to him, like he's a younger brother, or a son, even. There's about seventeen years
between them. He's another generation, really—punk, post-sixties. Mara thinks he just needs tender loving care, something he's never had much of, apparently.”