Banks turned to a report on tightening up alcohol sales. It included an incident report about a ten-year-old kid who got pissed on alco-pop and rode his bicycle through a shoe-shop window. Minor cuts and bruises. Lucky bugger. Which was more than could be said than for the poor sales clerk who just happened to be bending over a prospective customer’s feet with a shoehorn at the time. Instant hemorrhoid surgery.
Banks signed off on the reports and memos – including one that informed him CID was having its name changed to Crime Management – then he worked for a while on an article he was writing on policing in the nineties. One of the advantages of his new computer and his desk-bound existence was that he had written two of these over the past couple of months, and he found he enjoyed the process. He had also given a few talks and lectures and discovered he was good at that, too. There had been times when he had thought it might not be a bad idea to try for some sort of police-related teaching career, but the cards were stacked against him in the form of his education – or lack of it. Banks didn’t have a university degree, as Brian had so cruelly reminded him the other day. He had come out of the Poly with a Higher National Diploma in Business Studies. It was supposed to be the equivalent of a pass degree, but only the equivalent. And that had been almost a quarter of a century ago. As far as he knew, such diplomas probably didn’t even exist anymore. A prospective employer would take one look at it and burst out laughing. The thought made Banks flush with shame and anger.
At least Brian had got a third-class honors, which beat a mere pass, or equivalent. Christ, it sounded like a poker game. Was he in competition with his son all of a sudden?
Luckily, the phone rang before he could frame an answer. It was John Webb.
“I’ve just picked up the stuff we dug up with the Hobb’s End skeleton,” he said. “Dr. William’s lads have given it a good clean.”
“What did you find? Not much after all this time, I imagine.”
“Actually, you’d be amazed at some of things that do survive. It’s all very unpredictable. I found a few buttons and some metal clips that look as if they might have come from a brassiere or a suspender belt. I also found some small leather shoes which look as though they might have belonged to the corpse.”
“So you’re saying she was buried in her clothes?”
“Looks like it.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, some other material, black and heavy. Definitely not clothing.”
“Any ideas?”
“Some sort of curtains, perhaps?”
“Did you find a wedding ring, or anything that looked as if it might have been one?” he asked.
“I think so. I wasn’t sure at first because of the corrosion, but that’s what it looks like all right.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a name and date engraved on the inside, is there?”
Webb laughed. “Even if there was, I wouldn’t be able to read it after this long.”
“Thought not. Any sign of the murder weapon? Most likely some sort of knife.”
“Nothing like that.”
“Handbag or a purse? Anything with identification.”
“Sorry, no. Just what I’ve told you. And a locket, no inscription and nothing inside. Nothing that survived the years underground, anyway. If there was a photo or something like that, it probably disintegrated.”
“Okay, thanks a lot, John.”
“No problem. I’ll have it sent over to you later today.”
Banks walked over to the window. The heat was still getting to him; he felt sleepy and woolly-headed, as if he’d had a couple of drinks, which he hadn’t. The cobbled market square was chockablock with tourists, coaches from Leeds, Wigan, and Scunthorpe, cars parked in every available nook and cranny, a riot of primary colors. All summer the tourist hordes had been coming to the Dales. Pubs, hotels, shops and B and Bs had all done record business. Of course, it hadn’t rained in two months, and even before that there had been nothing much more than minor showers since April.
Though the health fascists had finally succeeded in banning smoking from every police station in the country, Banks lit a cigarette. He had been quietly ignoring the no-smoking order for a while now. In the larger open-plan stations, you couldn’t get around it, of course; you simply had to go outside. But here, in the old Tudor-fronted warren, he had his own office. With the door closed and the window open, who would know? What did he care, anyway? What were they going to do, put him in detention?
Watching a couple of pretty young tourists dressed in T-shirts and shorts sitting eating ice lollies on the raised parapet of the market cross, Banks started to drift into pleasurable fantasies involving Annie Cabbot and her red wellies. He had been fantasizing a lot lately, and he didn’t know whether it was a healthy sign or not.
Officially, of course, fellow police officers did not sleep together. Especially DCIs and sergeants. That was a real no-no. From one perspective it could be called sexual harassment, and from the other, sleeping your way to the top.
In reality, it happened all the time. All over the country, coppers were shagging one another like rabbits, fucking away like minks, regardless of rank. Murder scenes in particular got them going: sex and death, the old aphrodisiac combination.
Dream on, he told himself, snapping out of the fantasy. The truth was that Annie Cabbot wouldn’t have him, and he wouldn’t try it anyway. Any facility at chatting up women he may have had as a teenager had deserted him now. How do you start that sort of thing all over again? He was too old to go out on dates and worry about whether a good-night kiss would be welcome. Or a nightcap. Or an invitation to stay the night. Or who should take care of the condoms. The whole idea made him feel nervous and awkward. He wouldn’t know where to begin.
He had had only one sexual encounter since Sandra left, and that had been a complete disaster. In his cups at Susan Gay’s farewell party in the Queen’s Arms, Banks had picked up a woman called Karen something-or-other. Or perhaps Karen had picked him up. Either way, the beer was boosting his confidence, and Karen was tipsy and definitely frisky. Instant lust. Without much preamble, they went back to his place where, after only the briefest of hesitations, they got into a clinch and fell onto the sofa, clothes flying everywhere. Despite the booze, everything worked just fine.
Somehow, later, they must have crawled up into the bed, because Banks awoke around four in the morning with a pounding headache, a naked woman wrapped around him and a burning desire to be alone. He had used Karen – as perhaps she had used him – and now all he wanted to do was discard her. Instead, he lay awake beside her thinking gloomy thoughts until she stirred in the early dawn and said she had to go home. He didn’t object, didn’t show any tenderness on parting, and he never saw her again.
The telephone dragged him out of his depressing memory and back to his desk. It was Geoff Turner, the forensic odontologist. This reminded Banks that he had a dentist’s appointment looming, and he had hated the dentist’s since his school days. Maybe he would have an excuse to cancel if this case went anywhere.
“Alan?”
“Geoff. You’re fast. Any news?”
“Nothing dramatic. Too soon for that. But I was keen to make a start. I’ve always been fascinated by skeletal remains.”
Banks thought of Dr. Williams caressing the skeleton’s pelvic region. “Pervert.”
Turner laughed. “Scientifically, I mean.”
“Go on.”
“I’m calling from the lab. What I wanted to do first of all was confirm Dr. Williams’s estimate of her age at the time of death. He’s right. The third molars are up – that’s wisdom teeth to you laymen – but the apexes haven’t quite closed yet, nor have the medial sides of the incisal sutures. The third molars don’t usually come up until your early twenties, so there’s our first clue. Then the apexes are usually closed by the age of twenty-five and medials by thirty. Which makes her mid-twenties, give or take a year or two.”