A Necessary End (3 page)

“War makes animals of us all, Sergeant,” Banks said, wishing he could remember where he'd heard that, and turned away. “I'd better get to the station. Does the super know?”

“It's his day off, sir.” Rowe still seemed stunned.

“I'd better call him. Hatchley and Richmond, too.”

“DC Richmond's over there, sir.” Rowe pointed to a tall, slim man standing near the Black Maria.

Banks walked over and touched Richmond's arm.

The young detective constable flinched. “Oh, it's you, sir. Sorry, this has got me all tense.”

“How long have you been here, Phil?”

“I came out when Sergeant Rowe told us what was happening.”

“You didn't see it start, then?”

“No, sir. It was all over in fifteen minutes.”

“Come on. We'd better get inside and help with the processing.”

Chaos reigned inside the station. Every square inch of available space was taken up by arrested demonstrators, some of them bleeding from minor cuts, and most of them complaining loudly about police brutality. As Banks and Richmond shouldered their way towards the stairs, a familiar voice called out after them.

“Craig!” Banks said, when the young constable caught up with them. “What happened?”

“Not much, sir,” PC Craig shouted over the noise. His right eye was dark and puffed up, and blood oozed from a split lip. “I got off lucky.”

“You should be at the hospital.”

“It's nothing, sir, really. They took Susan Gay off in an ambulance.”

“What was she doing out there?”

“They needed help, sir. The men on crowd control. We just went out. We never knew it would be like this . . . .”

“Is she hurt badly?”

“They think it's just concussion, sir. She got knocked down, and some bastard kicked her in the head. The hospital just phoned. A Dr Partridge wants to talk to you.”

A scuffle broke out behind them and someone went flying into the small of Richmond's back. He fell forward and knocked Banks and Craig against the wall.

Banks got up and regained his balance. “Can't anyone keep these bloody people quiet!” he shouted to the station in general. Then he turned to Craig again. “I'll talk to the doctor. But give the super a call, if you're up to it. Tell him what's happened and ask him to come in. Sergeant Hatchley, too. Then get to the hospital. You might as well have someone look at your eye while you pay a sick call on Susan.”

“Yes, sir.” Craig elbowed his way back through the crowd, and Banks and Richmond made their way upstairs to the CID offices.

First Banks reached into his desk drawer, where he kept a spare packet of cigarettes, then he dialled Eastvale General Infirmary.

Reception paged the doctor, who picked up the phone about a minute later.

“Are there any serious injuries?” Banks asked.

“Most of them are just cuts and bruises. A few minor head wounds. On the whole, I'd say it looks worse than it is. But that's not—”

“What about PC Gay?”

“Who?”

“Susan Gay. The policewoman.”

“Oh, yes. She's all right. She's got concussion. We'll keep her in overnight for observation, then after a few days' rest she'll be right as rain. Look, I understand your concern, Chief Inspector, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What is it, then?” For a moment, Banks felt an icy prickle of irrational fear. Sandra? The children? The results of his last chest X-ray?

“There's been a death.”

“At the demonstration?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“Well, it's more of a murder, I suppose.”

“Suppose?”

“I mean that's what it looks like. I'm not a pathologist. I'm not qualified—”

“Who's the victim?”

“It's a policeman. PC Edwin Gill.”

Banks frowned. “I've not heard the name. Where's he from?”

“One of the others said he was drafted in from Scarborough.”

“How did he die?”

“Well, that's the thing. You'd expect a fractured skull or some wound consistent with what went on.”

“But?”

“He was stabbed. He was still alive when he was brought in. I'm afraid we didn't . . . There was no obvious wound at first. We thought he'd just been knocked out like the others. He died before we could do anything. Internal bleeding.”

Banks put his hand over the receiver and turned his eyes up to the ceiling. “Shit!”

“Hello, Chief Inspector? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Sorry, doc. Thanks for calling so quickly. I'll send down some more police guards. Nobody's to leave, no matter how minor their injuries. Is there anyone from Eastvale station there? Anyone conscious, that is.”

“Just a minute.”

Dr Partridge came back with PC Tolliver, who had accompanied Susan Gay in the ambulance.

“Listen carefully, lad,” Banks said. “We've got a bloody crisis on our hands back here, so you'll have to handle the hospital end yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There'll be more men down there as soon as I can round some up, but until then do the best you can. I don't want anyone from tonight's fracas to leave there, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that includes our men, too. I realize some of them might be anxious to get home after they've had their cuts dressed, but I need statements, and I need them while things are fresh in their minds. Okay?”

“Yes, sir. There's two or three more blokes here without serious injuries. We'll see to it.”

“Good. You know about PC Gill?”

“Yes, sir. The doctor told me. I didn't know him.”

“You'd better get someone to identify the body formally. Did he have a family?”

“Don't know, sir.”

“Find out. If he did, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get Dr Glendenning down there. We need him to examine the body. We've got to move quickly on this, before things get cold.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Off you go.”

Banks hung up and turned to Richmond, who stood in the door-way nervously smoothing his moustache. “Go downstairs, would you, Phil, and tell whoever's in charge to get things quietened down and make sure no one sneaks out. Then call York and ask if they can spare a few more men for the night. If they can't, try Darlington. And you'd better get someone to rope off the street from the market square to the Town Hall, too.”

“What's up?” Richmond asked.

Banks sighed and ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “It looks like we've got a murder on our hands and a hundred or more bloody suspects.”

TWO

I

The wind chimes tinkled and rain hissed on the rough moorland grass. Mara Delacey had just put the children to bed and read them Beatrix Potter's
Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
. Now it was time for her to relax, to enjoy the stillness and isolation, the play of silence and natural sound. It reminded her of the old days when she used to meditate on her mantra.

As usual, it had been a tiring day: washing to do, meals to cook, children to take care of. But it had also been satisfying. She had managed to fit in a couple of hours throwing pots in the back of Elspeth's craft shop in Relton. If it was her lot in life to be an earth mother, she thought with a smile, better to be one here, away from the rigid rules and self-righteous spirituality of the ashram, where she hadn't even been able to sneak a cigarette after dinner. She was glad she'd left all that rubbish behind.

Now she could enjoy some time to herself without feeling she ought to be out chasing after converts or singing the praises of the guru—not that many did now he was serving his stretch in jail for fraud and tax evasion. The devotees had scattered: some, lost and lonely, had gone to look for new leaders; others, like Mara, had moved on to something else.

She had met Seth Cotton a year after he had bought the place near Relton, which he had christened Maggie's Farm. As soon as he showed it to her, she knew it had to be her home. It was a typical eighteenth-century Dales farmhouse set in a couple of acres of land on the moors above the dale. The walls were built of limestone, with gritstone corners
and a flagstone roof. Recessed windows looked north over the dale, and the heavy door-head, supported on stacked quoins, bore the initials T.J.H.—standing for the original owner—and the date 1765. The only addition apart from Seth's workshop, a shed at the far end of the back garden, was a limestone porch with a slate roof. Beyond the back-garden fence, about fifty yards east of the main house, stood an old barn, which Seth had been busy renovating when she met him. He had split it into an upper studio-apartment, where Rick Trelawney, an artist, lived with his son, and a one-bedroom flat on the ground floor, occupied by Zoe Hardacre and her daughter. Paul, their most recent tenant, had a room in the main house.

Although the barn was more modern inside, Mara preferred the farmhouse. Its front door led directly into the spacious living-room, a clean and tidy place furnished with a collection of odds and sods: an imitation Persian carpet, a reupholstered fifties sofa, and a large table and four chairs made of white pine by Seth himself. Large beanbag cushions lay scattered against the walls for comfort.

On the wall opposite the stone fireplace hung a huge tapestry of a Chinese scene. It showed enormous mountains, their snow-streaked peaks sharp as needles above the pine forests. In the middle-distance, a straggling line of tiny human figures moved up a winding path. Mara looked at it a lot. There was no overhead light in the room. She kept the shaded lamps dim and supplemented them with fat red candles because she liked the shadows the flames cast on the tapestry and the whitewashed stone walls. Her favourite place to curl up was near the window in an old rocking chair Seth had restored. There, she could hear the wind chimes clearly as she sipped wine and read.

In her early days, she had devoured Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Carlos Castaneda and the rest, but at thirty-eight she found their works embarrassingly adolescent, and her tastes had reverted to the classics she remembered from her university days. There was something about those long Victorian novels that suited a place as isolated and slow-moving as Maggie's Farm.

Now she decided to settle down and lose herself in
The Mill on the Floss
. A hand-rolled Old Holborn and a glass of Barsac would also go down nicely. And maybe some music. She walked to the stereo, selected Holst's
The Planets
, the side with “Saturn,” “Uranus” and
“Neptune,” then nestled in the chair to read by candlelight. The others were all at the demo, and they'd be sure to stop off for a pint or two at the Black Sheep in Relton on the way back. The kids were sleeping in the spare room upstairs, so she wouldn't have to keep nipping out to the barn to check on them. It was half-past nine now. She could probably count on at least a couple of hours to herself.

But she couldn't seem to concentrate. The hissing outside stopped. It was replaced by the steady dripping of rain from the eaves-troughs, the porch and the trees that protected Maggie's Farm from the harsh west winds. The chimes began to sound like warning bells. There was something in the air. If Zoe were home, she'd no doubt have plenty to say about psychic forces—probably the moon.

Shrugging off her feeling of unease, Mara returned to her reading: “And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon . . . .” It was no good; she couldn't get into it. George Eliot's spell just wasn't working tonight. Mara put down the book and concentrated on the music.

As the ethereal choir entered towards the end of “Neptune,” the front door rattled open and Paul rushed in. His combat jacket was dark with rain and his tight jeans stuck to his stick-insect legs.

Mara frowned. “You're back early,” she said. “Where are the others?”

“I don't know.” Paul was out of breath and his voice sounded shaky. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook at the back of the door. “I ran back by myself over the moors.”

“But that's more than four miles. What's wrong, Paul? Why didn't you wait for Seth and the others? You could have come back in the van.”

“There was some trouble,” Paul said. “Things got nasty.” He took a cigarette from his pack of Player's and lit it, cupping it in his hands the way soldiers do in old war films. His hands were trembling. Mara noticed again how short and stubby his fingers were, nails bitten to the quick. She rolled another cigarette. Paul started to pace the room.

“What's that?” Mara asked, pointing in alarm to the fleshy spot at the base of his left thumb. “It looks like blood. You've hurt yourself.”

“It's nothing.”

Mara reached out, but he pulled his hand away.

“At least let me put something on it.”

“I told you, it's nothing. I'll see to it later. Don't you want to hear what happened?”

Mara knew better than to persist. “Sit down, then,” she said. “You're driving me crazy pacing around like that.”

Paul flopped onto the cushions by the wall, taking care to keep his bloodied hand out of sight.

“Well?” Mara said.

“The police set on us, that's what. Fucking bastards.”

“Why?”

“They just laid into us, that's all. Don't ask me why. I don't know how cops think. Can I have some wine?”

Mara poured him a glass of Barsac. He took a sip and pulled a face.

“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot you don't like the sweet stuff. There's some beer in the fridge.”

“Great.” Paul hauled himself up and went through to the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying a can of Carlsberg lager and he'd stuck an Elastoplast on his hand.