The evening was breezy but mild enough for him to walk by Gratly Beck and cut through the graveyard, then down the snicket past the antiquarian bookshop into Helmthorpe’s high street, where one or two groups of underdressed teenagers wandered noisily from one pub to another. They wouldn’t go to The Dog and Gun. It would be too crowded already, for a start, and they didn’t seem like the folk music type. There was a disco in the back room of The Bridge and cheap beer at The Hare and Hounds, which was now part of the Wetherspoons chain.
Banks arrived during a break between sets, and saw Penny standing at the bar surrounded by admirers, a pint in her hand. She looked radiant, tall, slim, her long black hair streaked with grey. She spotted Banks through the sea of faces in the semi-darkness, and he could have sworn her expression perked up, just a little. She waved him over and manouevred a bit of room for him beside her. They were pushed together by the crush of people trying to order drinks. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation as far as Banks was concerned.
‘Hello, stranger,’ she greeted him, leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek. The young man beside her, in the midst of a rather tedious lecture about the ‘folk revival’, seemed a bit put out by Banks’s appearance, but Penny seemed relieved at the interruption and focused her attention on the newcomer. Banks did likewise. When you were that close to her, looking into her eyes, it was difficult to do otherwise. They sparkled with an inner glow, full of mischief, sorrow and wisdom. The young man trailed off in mid-sentence and drifted away, crestfallen, back to his mates and more beer.
‘He’s too young for you, anyway,’ said Banks.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not averse to the occasional toyboy,’ said Penny. ‘Though I do admit to being more partial to a real man. So what have you been up to?’
Banks realised that he hadn’t seen her since the nasty business with Tracy the previous autumn, having either been working or shutting himself away in his cottage for the winter. He told her briefly about his travels in Arizona and Southern California. Penny, it seemed, had been doing quite a bit of travelling herself during the winter, mostly in Canada and the US on a promotional tour for her new CD. There was no mention of a man in her life, and Banks didn’t ask.
‘I see your son Brian’s doing well,’ Penny said.
‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘He’s just got back from America himself. I think they had a good tour, then they did some recording in Los Angeles.’
‘I saw a few posters while I was over there. Impressive. I’m sure The Blue Lamps sell a lot more than I do.’
They did, of course. Britpop with a tinge of psychedelia and a smattering of country-folk-blues did far better than traditional British folk music in the States. ‘I’m hoping he’ll be able to support me in my old age,’ Banks said.
Penny laughed. ‘I suppose that’s one use for children. So what have you been doing since you got back? I heard someone was found dead up at Garskill Farm Is that true?’
‘News travels fast,’ said Banks. ‘It’s no secret. Someone told us there was a group of Gypsies or Travellers living up there, but I’m not so sure.’
‘How perceptive of you,’ said Penny. ‘What an insult. I’ve got friends in those communities, and they wouldn’t stay in a dump like Garskill. It’s migrant workers.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m a folk singer. I have my finger on the pulse of the folk.’
Banks laughed. ‘Seriously.’
‘A friend told me. I still have my connections among the local historians and writers, you know.’
‘But where do they work?’
‘There are plenty of places where they’re not fussy who they employ, as long as the labour comes cheap enough, and most of these people aren’t in a position to complain. Varley’s Yeast Products, just north of town, for example. They’ve been using slave labour for years. Then there’s that slaughterhouse outside Darlington, a meat-packing factory out Carlisle way, the chemical-processing plant south of Middlesbrough. I’m surprised you don’t know about all this.’
‘It comes under Trading Standards or Immigration,’ said Banks. ‘At least it did. Now I’m not so sure. Anyway, you seem to know a lot about it. Do you know anything about the people who were living there?’
‘Not about any of them specifically, or individually, no. Are you grilling me now?’
‘It sounds like it, doesn’t it? Actually, I came out to get away from thinking about it. I was up there today, and it’s a bloody depressing place. Have you ever been there?’
‘Years ago,’ said Penny. ‘It was pretty much in a state of disrepair back then. I can only imagine what it’s like now.’
‘Those places were built to last,’ said Banks, ‘but I don’t envy the poor sods who were staying there.’
‘It wouldn’t have been their choice,’ said Penny. ‘They’re lured over here by the promise of jobs. It costs them all their savings, then they’re paid less than minimum wage for shit work, and they’ve got no recourse. Most of them don’t even speak English. They start out in debt; they get deeper and deeper in debt. Can you believe there are even loan sharks who prey on them?’
Banks could. Once more the name Warren Corrigan came to mind. He would be paying Mr Corrigan a visit on Monday.
The musicians — acoustic guitar, accordion, stand-up bass and fiddle — assembled on stage again, picking up and tuning their instruments. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ said Penny, touching Banks’s arm lightly. ‘Will you be here later?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘It’s been a long day. I’m dog tired.’
‘Try to last out the set,’ she said. ‘Any requests?’
‘ “Finisterre”,’ Banks said, without thinking.
Penny blinked in surprise. ‘ “Finisterre”? OK. It’s been a long time, but I think I can manage that.’
And she did. Unaccompanied. Her low, husky voice seemed to have grown richer over the years, with the qualities of warm dark chocolate and a fine Amarone. It wasn’t quite as deep in range as June Tabor’s, but it wasn’t far off. She went through ‘Death and the Lady’, ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, ‘Flowers of Knaresborough Forest’ and a number of other traditional songs. She didn’t neglect contemporary works, either. Dylan was represented by the moving and mysterious ‘Red River Shore’, Roy Harper by ‘I’ll See You Again’, and Richard Thompson by a version of ‘For Shame of Doing Wrong’ that brought tears to Banks’s eyes, the way Penny’s voice cracked in its heartbreaking chorus. She finished with what could, in someone else’s hands, have been a mere novelty, a slow, folksy version of Pulp’s ‘Common People’. But it worked. Her version brought depth out of the anthem and gave its lyrics a weight that was often easy to miss. Everyone sang along with the chorus, and the applause at the end was deafening. What Jarvis Cocker would have made of it, Banks had no idea, but it didn’t matter; he’d never been able to take Jarvis Cocker seriously, anyway, though he did like ‘Common People’ and ‘Running the World’. Maybe it was just his name.
As the crowd settled back to drink up their last orders when the band had finished, Penny came over to the corner table, where Banks had managed to find a chair, and sat down. A couple of the band members joined her, and the young man from the interval lurked in the background looking sulky and swaying a little, pint in hand. Banks had met the band members before and said hello. The accordion player was actually a DS from Durham Constabulary moonlighting as a folkie. ‘You made it,’ Penny said, smiling. ‘Didn’t doze off, did you?’
‘Not once. Thanks for singing my request.’
‘Pleasure. It’s a lovely song. I’d forgotten how lovely. Thanks for reminding me of it. So sad, though.’
‘Well, there aren’t an awful lot of happy folk songs, are there? It’s all murders, demon lovers, vengeful spirits, things that have vanished, how fleeting life and pleasure are, love turned cool, died or lost.’