A Necessary End (33 page)

“Ever heard of a PC Gill, 1139, from Scarborough?”

“Only what I've read in the papers, sir. I hope you catch the bastard who did it.”

“So do I. What about a friend of Cotton's called Elizabeth Dale? Heard of her?”

“Oh, aye. Liz Dale hung around with the Cotton crowd all right. Thick as thieves. I felt sorry for her, myself. I mean it's like a sickness, isn't it, when you get so you need something all the time.”

“Was she a registered addict?”

“Aye. She never really gave us any trouble. We just like to keep an eye on them, that's all, make sure they're not selling off half their prescriptions.”

“What kind of person is she?”

“Moody,” Brooks said. “She got off drugs, but she were never really right afterwards. One day she'd be up, the next down. Right bloody yo-yo. But there was a lass with strong political opinions.”

“Liz Dale was political?”

“Aye. For a while, at least. Till she got it out of her system. Like I said, bandwagon.”

“But she was keener than the rest?”

“I'd say so, yes. Now Seth, he was never much more than partly interested. Rather be slicing up a piece of wood. And Alison, like I said, well, she had a lot of energy and she had to put it somewhere, but she was more your private, artistic type. But Liz Dale, she was up to her neck in everything at one time.”

“Were Liz Dale and Alison Cotton especially close?”

“Like sisters.”

Banks thought of the complaint Dale had made against PC Gill.

From that, he already knew she had attended at least one demonstration
and come across him. Perhaps there had been others, too. Alison Cotton could have been with her. Perhaps this was the link he was looking for. But so what? Alison was dead; Reginald Lee had run her over by accident. It still didn't add up, unless everyone was lying and Liz Dale
had
been at Maggie's Farm and at the Eastvale demonstration. Banks didn't know her, but if she did have a history of drug abuse, there was a chance she might be unbalanced.

“Thanks a lot,” Banks said. “You've been a great help.”

“I have? Oh, well—”

“Just one more thing. Do you know where Liz Dale lives?”

“Sorry, I can't help you there, sir. She's been away from here a few years now. I've no idea at all.”

“Never mind. Thanks anyway.”

Banks broke the connection and walked over to the window. At the far side of the square, just outside the National Westminster bank, a rusty blue Mini had slammed into the back of a BMW, and the two drivers were arguing. Automatically, Banks phoned downstairs and asked Sergeant Rowe to send someone over. Then he lit a cigarette and started thinking.

He certainly needed to know more about Liz Dale. If he could prove that she had been in the area at the time of the demo, then he had someone else with a motive for wanting to harm Gill. The Dale woman could easily have visited the farm one day earlier that week and taken the knife—Mara said that no one paid it any mind as a rule. If nobody had seen her, perhaps she had walked in and taken it while everyone was out. But was she at the demo? And why use Seth's knife? Did she have some reason other than revenge for wanting Gill dead? Obviously the best way to get the answer to that was to find Dale herself. Surely that couldn't prove too difficult.

As PC Craig approached the two drivers in the market square, Banks walked over to his filing cabinet.

IV

Mara stood inside the porch with Rick and Zoe and waved goodbye to Dennis Osmond and the others as they drove off. The sky was
darkening in the west, and that early-evening glow she loved so much held the dale in its spell, spreading a blanket of silence over the landscape. Flocks of birds crossed the sky and lights flicked on in cottages down in Relton and over the valley in Lyndgarth.

“What do you think?” she asked Rick, as they went back inside. The evening was cool. She hugged herself, then pulled on a sweater and sat in the rocking chair.

Rick's knees cracked as he knelt at the grate to start the fire. “I think it'll work,” he said. “We're bound to get the newspapers interested, maybe even TV. The police might try and discredit us, but people will get the message.”

Mara rolled a cigarette. “I'll be glad when it's all over,” she said. “The whole business seems to have brought us nothing but trouble.”

“Look on the bright side,” Rick said, turning to look at her. “It's a blow against the police and their heavy-handed tactics. Even that woman from the Church for Peace group has started calling them pigs.”

“Still,” Mara said firmly, “it would have been better for all of us if none of it had ever happened.”

“Everything's all right now,” Zoe said. “Paul's back, we're all together again.”

“I know, but . . .”

Mara couldn't help feeling uneasy. True, Paul's return had cheered them up no end, especially Seth, who had been moping around with a long face the whole time he'd been away. But it wasn't the end. The police weren't going to rest until they'd arrested someone for the murder, and they had their eyes on the farm. Paul might still end up in jail as an accessory, a serious charge, Mara now realized. She wondered if Banks was going to charge her, too. He wasn't stupid; he must know she had warned Paul about Crocker's finding the knife. Everything felt fragile. There was a chance she might lose it all, all the peace of mind and stability she had sought for so long. And the children, too. That didn't bear thinking about.

“Cheer up.” Rick crawled over and tilted her chin up. “We'll have a party to celebrate Paul's release. Invite everyone we can think of and fill the place with music and laughter, eh?”

Mara smiled. “I hope you're right.”

“Where is Paul, anyway?” Zoe asked.

“He went walking on the moors,” said Mara. “I suppose he's just enjoying his freedom.” She almost added “while it lasts,” but decided that Rick was right; she at least ought to try to enjoy herself while things were going well.

“Seth didn't want much to do with us this afternoon, either,” Rick complained.

“Don't be like that, Rick,” Mara said. “He's been getting behind in his work. This business with the police has been bothering him, too. Haven't you noticed how upset he's been? And you know what a perfectionist he is, what he's like about deadlines. Besides, I think he's just relieved Paul's back. He's as fed up of the aftermath of this bloody demonstration as I am.”

“We have to try and bring some good out of it,” Rick argued, placing the coal on top of the layered newspaper and wood chips. “Don't you see that?”

“Yes, I do. I just think we all need a rest from it, that's all.”

“The struggle goes on. There is no rest.” Rick lit the fire in several places and stood the piece of plywood in front of the fireplace to make it draw. Behind the board the flames began to roar like a hurricane, and Mara could see red around the edges.

“Be careful,” she said. “You know how wildly it burns with the wind up here.”

“Seriously,” Rick said, keeping an eye on the plywood shield, “we can't stop now. I can understand your lack of enthusiasm, but you'll just have to shake yourself. Seth and Paul, too. You don't get anywhere against the oppressors by packing it in because you're fed up.”

“I sometimes wonder if you ever get anywhere,” Mara muttered. She was aware that now she had found her home, Maggie's Farm, she was less concerned about the woes of the world. Not that she didn't care—she would be quite happy to write letters for Amnesty International and sign petitions—but she didn't want to make it her whole life, attending rallies, meetings and demonstrations. Compared to the farm, the children and her pottery, it all seemed so distant and pointless. People were going to go on being as cruel to one another as they always had been. But here was a place where she could make
room for love. Why should it be contaminated by the sordid world of politics and violence?

“Penny for them?”

“What? Oh, sorry, Zoe. Just dreaming.”

“It's okay to dream.”

“As long as you don't expect them to come true without hard work,” Rick added.

“Oh, shut up!” Mara said. “Just give it a rest, can't you, Rick? Let's pretend everything's all right for a few hours at least.”

Rick's jaw dropped. “Isn't that what I said at first?” Then he shook his head and muttered something about women. Mara couldn't be bothered to take him to task for it.

Just then, the kitchen door flew open and Paul stood there, white and trembling. Mara jumped to her feet. “Paul! What is it? What's wrong?”

At first he couldn't speak. He just leaned against the door jamb and tried to force the words out. Rick was beside him by then, and Zoe had reached for his hand.

“What is it, Paul?” she asked him softly. “Take a deep breath. You must try to tell us.”

Paul followed her advice and went to slump down on the cushions. “It's Seth,” he said finally, pointing towards the back garden. “I think he's dead.”

FOURTEEN

I

Banks and Burgess rushed through the dark garden to Seth's workshop, where a bare bulb shone inside the half-open door. Normally, they would have been more careful on their approach to the scene, but the weather was dry and a stone path led between the vegetable beds to the shed, so there was no likelihood of footprints.

Burgess pushed the door open slowly and they walked in. Mixed with the scents of shaved wood and varnish was the sickly metallic smell of blood. Both men had come across it often enough before to recognize it immediately.

At first, they stood in the doorway to take in the whole scene. Seth was just in front of them, wearing his sand-coloured smock, slumped over his work-bench. His head lay on the surface in a small pool of blood, and his arms dangled at his side. From where Banks was standing, it looked as if he had hit his head on the vice clamped to the bench slightly to his left. On the concrete floor over in the right-hand corner stood a small bureau in the Queen Anne style, its finish still wet, a rich, glistening nut-brown. At the far end of the workshop, another bare light bulb shone over the area Seth used for office work.

It was only when Banks moved forward a pace that he noticed he had stepped in something sticky and slippery. The light wasn't very strong and most of the floor space around Seth was in semi-darkness. Kneeling, Banks saw that what he had first taken for shadow was, in fact, more blood. Seth's feet stood at the centre of a large puddle of blood. It hadn't come from the head wound, though, Banks realized,
examining the bench again. There hadn't been much bleeding and none of the blood seemed to have dribbled off the edge. Bending again, he caught sight of a thin tubular object, a pen or a pencil, perhaps, half-submerged in the pool. He decided to leave it for the forensic team to deal with. They were on their way from Wetherby and should arrive shortly after Dr Glendenning and Peter Darby, the young photographer, neither of whom had as far to travel.

Leaving the body, Banks walked cautiously to the back of the workshop where the old Remington stood on its desk beside the filing cabinet. There was a sheet of paper in the typewriter. Leaning forward, Banks was able to read the message: “I did it. I killed the policeman Gill. It was wrong of me. I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused. This is the best way. Seth.”

He called Burgess over and pointed out the note to him. Burgess raised his eyebrows and whistled softly between his teeth.

“Suicide, then?”

“Looks like it. Glendenning should be able to give us a better idea.”

“Where the hell is this bloody doctor, anyway?” Burgess complained, looking at his watch. “It can't take him that long to get here. Everywhere's within pissing distance in this part of the country.”

Burgess and Glendenning hadn't met yet, and Banks was looking forward to seeing Dirty Dick try out his aggressive arrogance on the doctor. “Come on,” he said, “there's nothing more to do in here till the others arrive. We'll only mess up the scene. Let's go outside for a smoke.”

The two of them left the workshop and stood in the cool evening air. Glendenning, Banks knew, would smoke wherever he wanted and nobody had ever dared say a word to him, but then he was one of the top pathologists in the country, not a lowly chief inspector or superintendent.

From the doorway of the shed, they could see the kitchen light in the house. Someone—Zoe, it looked like—was filling a kettle. Mara had taken the news very badly, and Rick had called the local doctor for her. He had also phoned the Eastvale station, which surprised Banks, given Rick's usual hostility. Still, Seth Cotton was dead, there was no doubting that, and Rick probably knew there would be no way of avoiding an investigation. It made more sense to start out on
the right foot rather than have to explain omissions or evasions later. Banks wondered whether to go inside and have a chat with them, but decided to give them a bit longer. They would have probably got over the immediate shock by the time Glendenning and the scene-of-crime team had finished.

At last, the back door opened and the tall, white-haired doctor crossed the garden, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He was closely followed by a fresh-faced lad with a camera bag slung over his shoulder.

“About bloody time,” Burgess said.

Glendenning gave him a dismissive glance and stood in the door-way while Darby did his work. Banks and Burgess went back into the workshop to make sure he photographed everything, including the blood on the floor, the pen or pencil, the Queen Anne bureau and the typewriter. When Darby had finished, Glendenning went in. He was so tall he had to duck to get through the door.

“Watch out for the blood,” Banks warned him.

“And there's no smoking at the scene,” Burgess added. He got no answer.