‘I don’t suppose you remember anyone who might have wanted to harm Gavin Miller, do you?’ Gerry asked.
‘What? From forty odd years ago? No, I can’t think of anyone. What sort of thing are you talking about? Blood feud? Mafia vendetta, or something?’
‘No, of course not. Just thought I’d ask.’
‘Sorry I can’t help you.’
When they got out into the open air, Annie took a deep breath. ‘That was good, Gerry,’ she said. ‘Very good.’
‘It was fascinating,’ Gerry said. ‘But has it really got us anywhere? I get the feeling I asked all the wrong questions.’
They headed back up Woodhouse Lane to the car. ‘Not at all,’ said Annie. ‘Not at all. In fact, I think it’s got us quite a long way. Now, let me tell you what I know about Joe Jarvis, and you can fill in the gaps later with your research.’
Sir Jeremy Chalmers gave Banks a sidelong glance. ‘Don’t worry. Your car will be quite safe at Brierley until we get back.’
They were heading out of town, along the dale towards Helmthorpe, but Sir Jeremy turned off to the left on an unfenced road which meandered through a couple of sleepy hamlets up to the vast moors above. Banks thought the landscape looked more like a bog than the usual wilderness of gorse and heather, cut with steep, shallow ravines and peppered with rocky outcrops, all dark tones and lowering skies. He bet there was quicksand and mires, like the Dartmoor of The Hound of the Baskervilles. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but there had been so much of the wet stuff lately that, even up here, the ground was waterlogged for days after the last shower. Luckily, the cambered road surface was fine, apart from where it was full of potholes. Sir Jeremy splashed through them without even appearing to notice. They reached a passing place, and Sir Jeremy pulled in and turned off the engine. He took a couple of deep breaths, still holding the wheel, then got out. Banks followed suit. It had been a mostly silent journey so far.
Though the clouds were low, the view was staggering in all directions. Distant hilltops floated above the mist like disembodied monoliths, water trickled in a nearby gully, and a lone curlew cried above them. The peewits were silent, though; they had already moved down to the lower meadow for the winter.
Banks had the absurd idea at first that Sir Jeremy was going to hit him, but he did nothing.
‘I love it up here,’ Sir Jeremy said finally. ‘Far from the madding crowd. A man can think up here.’ He rested the backs of his thighs against the bonnet of the car and squinted at Banks. ‘You’ve been causing my family a lot of grief lately.’
‘It’s not my intention, believe me.’
‘I know. I suppose you’ll say you’re only doing your job.’
‘A man has been brutally murdered, Sir Jeremy. A man your wife knew, and whom she talked to on the telephone a week before he died.’
‘She knew him? This Miller person?’
Banks was surprised at the reaction. Sir Jeremy clearly didn’t know that. Had Lady Chalmers not told her husband about the phone call? ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I assumed you would have known. They went out together for a while at university.’
‘Oh, that’s all,’ he said, clearly relieved. ‘I should imagine Ronnie went out with lots of boys at university. She was quite a beauty. I’ve never asked for a list of her conquests, and she’s never asked for a list of mine. You surely don’t think I believe I’m the first one?’ He paused. ‘You don’t...? Surely you don’t think I killed this Miller person out of jealousy?’
Though the thought had crossed Banks’s mind, it sounded absurd out in the open like that. ‘It’s not a matter of that,’ he said. ‘It’s the evasions. At first she denied knowing him, then, when we faced her with concrete evidence, she admitted that she did.’
‘So she lied. She didn’t want to get involved. Would you?’
Banks had realised many times before, when he had been asked this question, that he probably wouldn’t. But he could live with contradiction, and he certainly wasn’t going to admit as much to a witness or possible suspect. ‘People lie to us all the time in my business,’ he said.
Sir Jeremy gave a quiet laugh. ‘I wouldn’t, by any means, say it was restricted to your business.’
‘Perhaps not. But it happens enough to be an occupational hazard.’
‘I suppose it also makes you suspicious of everyone. You begin to think that people are going to lie before they even open their mouths.’
‘Sometimes. But I try to get over it.’ Banks sighed. ‘Look, we’re people, too. I don’t go about my job to cause anyone trouble. Except criminals. I happen to like Lady Chalmers. It would sadden me to hurt her. But if she had only explained from the beginning her connection with Gavin Miller, instead of weaving a tissue of lies, then I’d have an easier time believing what she says now. As it is at the moment, yes, I think I would treat any further utterance from her with suspicion.’
Sir Jeremy seemed to contemplate that for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ He next surprised Banks by taking a packet of Marlboros from his top pocket and lighting one. He offered Banks the packet, and for one terrible instant, the urge coursed through him again and almost overwhelmed him. ‘No, thanks,’ he said, brushing it aside. Ninety-nine per cent of the time he never thought about smoking, or the idea of it repulsed him, but that other one per cent he longed to return to being a smoker again, to being a member of that happy, carefree fraternity, now drawn even closer together as they were fellow outlaws, pariahs, in the eyes of most people.
‘I understand my brother-in-law Tony caused you a few problems?’ Sir Jeremy said.
‘He did.’
‘I’m sorry about that, but you must realise that we’re a close-knit family. He thought he was only protecting Ronnie. I’m very protective of my wife. I was too far away to be of any help, or I’d have done the same. It was a natural instinct.’
‘To pull strings, peddle influence?’
‘It’s one of the things I do well. It’s why I’m so successful at my business. Do you have any idea what it’s like to put together a multimillion-dollar Broadway musical?’
‘No. Do you have any idea what it’s like to catch a particularly slippery murderer?’
‘Touché, Mr Banks.’
‘What about Lady Chalmers’ circle. Oriana Serroni, for example?’ Banks asked.
Sir Jeremy frowned. ‘What about her?’
‘Do you think she might have anything to do with this business?’
‘I can’t imagine what. I’ve known Oriana more or less all her life, and as far as I’m concerned she’s above reproach.’ He gave Banks a curious glance. ‘She likes you.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The way she defended you when Tony jumped in, or so Ronnie told me.’ Sir Jeremy paused. ‘And I believe she had lunch with you recently?’
So Oriana had told Sir Jeremy and, no doubt, Lady Chalmers, about the lunch. In a way, that pleased him. She had been adamant about not telling Nathan and Anthony Litton, which was what he cared about most. Banks remembered Oriana’s frostiness on the day he and Annie had confronted Lady Chalmers surrounded by her lawyer and brother-in-law. How easily we can misread or misinterpret events, he thought. Perhaps she was more disturbed by the lawyer’s presence than by Banks’ and Annie’s arrival.
A breeze sprang up and ruffled Sir Jeremy’s longish grey hair. He was wearing jeans and a zip-up leather jacket over a checked shirt, and he seemed warm enough in them. Banks was only wearing his best M&S suit, the one he always wore to go and talk to people who lived in big houses, the same one he’d been wearing all week, and he felt the chill.
‘I’m still surprised you didn’t know about your wife and Gavin Miller,’ Banks went on. ‘One thing I’ve been trying to clear up is whether they were in contact at all over the previous twenty-five years or so that you’ve lived in Eastvale. He actually taught at the college here for three years or so not long ago.’