A Dedicated Man by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

pot of tea. If I’m not mistaken there are still a few of Mrs Hawkins’s scones
left, too.’ He rhymed ‘scones’ with ‘on’, not, like a southerner, with ‘own’.
    They settled into the deep worn armchairs, and Banks cast his eyes over the bookcases that covered one entire wall from floor to ceiling. There were books on all kinds of subjects – local
lore, geology, criminology, topography, history, botany, travel – and shelves of leather-bound classics ranging from Homer, Cervantes, Rabelais and Dante to Wordsworth, Dickens, James Joyce,
W. B. Yeats and D. H. Lawrence. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice lay on the table; the position of the bookmark indicated that Gristhorpe had almost finished it. As always when he
visited the superintendent, Banks mentally reminded himself that he should read more.
    Gristhorpe’s office in Eastvale was much the same: books everywhere, and not all of them relevant to police work. He came from old dales farming stock, and his decision to join the police
after university and army service had caused trouble. Nevertheless, he had persevered, and he had also helped out on the farm in his spare time. When Gristhorpe’s father saw that his
son’s natural aptitude and capacity for hard work was getting him places, he stopped complaining and accepted the situation. Gristhorpe’s father had been sad to see the farm dwindle to
little more than a large back garden before he died, but his pride in his son’s achievement and the status it gave him locally eased him, and his death was without acrimony.
    Gristhorpe had told Banks all this during their frequent meetings, usually over a good single malt whisky after a wall-building session. The older man’s candour, along with more practical
advice, made Banks feel like an apprentice, or protégé. Their relationship had developed this way since the Gallows View affair, Banks’s dramatic introduction to northern police
work. As he told what he knew about the Steadman murder, he was alert for any tips that might come his way.
    ‘It’s not going to be easy,’ Gristhorpe pronounced after a short silence. ‘And I won’t say it is. For one thing, you’ve all those tourists and campers to
consider. If Steadman had an enemy from the past, it would be an ideal way of doing the job. They never keep records at campsites as far as I know. All they care about is collecting the
money.’ He nibbled at his scone and sipped strong black tea. ‘Still, the killer could be a lot closer to home. Doesn’t look like you’ve got much physical evidence, though,
does it? Somebody might have heard a car, but I doubt they’d have paid it much mind. I know that road. It swings north-east all the way over to Sattersdale. Still, I don’t suppose I
need tell you your job, Alan. First thing is to find out as much as you can about Steadman. Friends, enemies, past, the lot. Nose about the village. Talk to people. Leave the donkey work to your
men.’
    ‘I’m an outsider, though,’ Banks said. ‘I always will be as far as people around here are concerned. I look out of place and I sound out of place. Nobody’s going to
give much away to me.’
    ‘Rubbish, Alan. Look at it this way. You’re a stranger in Helmthorpe, right?’ Banks nodded. ‘People notice you. They’ll soon get to know who you are. You
don’t look like a tourist, and no villager will mistake you for one. You’re even a bit of a celebrity – at least for them as reads the papers around here. They’ll be
curious, interested in the new copper, and they’ll want to find out what makes you tick. You’ll be surprised what they’ll tell you just to see how you react.’ He chuckled.
‘Before this is all over you’ll feel like a bloody priest in his confessional.’
    Banks smiled. ‘I was brought up C. of E.’
    ‘Ah. We’re all Methodists or Baptists hereabouts,’ Gristhorpe said. ‘But some of us are more lapsed than others, and most of the daftest sects –