In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

it?” “Better not go too far.”
    Banks gestured out of the window. “Get much trouble?” he asked.
    â€œThe kids? Nah, not a lot. Bit of glue-sniffing, some vandalism. Mostly they’re bored. It’s just adolescent high spirits.”
    Banks nodded. At least Brian wasn’t bored and shiftless. He had a direction he passionately wanted to head in. Whether it was the right one or not was another matter. Banks tried to concentrate on the job at hand. “I called my sergeant on the way here,” he said. “He’ll organize a SOCO team to dig out the bones tomorrow morning. A bloke called John Webb will be in charge. He’s studied archaeology. Goes on digs for his holidays, so he ought to know what he’s doing. I’ve also phoned our odontologist, Geoff Turner, and asked him to have a look at the teeth as soon as it can be arranged. You can phone around the universities in the morning, see if you can come up with a friendly forensic anthropologist. These people are pretty keen, as a rule, so I don’t think that’ll be a problem. In the meantime,” he said as his smoke curled and twisted out of the window, “tell me all about Thornfield Reservoir.”
    DS Cabbot leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs at the ankles, resting the beer glass against her flat stomach. She had swapped her red wellies for a pair of white sandals, and her jeans rode up to reveal tapered ankles, bare except for a thin gold chain around the left one. Banks had never seen anyone manage to look quite so comfortable in a hard pub chair. He wondered again what she could possibly have done to end up in such a Godforsaken outpost as Harkside. Was she another of Jimmy Riddle’s pariahs?
    â€œIt’s the most recent of the three reservoirs built along the River Rowan,” she began. “Linwood and Harksmere were both created in the late nineteenth century to supplyLeeds with extra water. It’s piped from the reservoirs to the big waterworks just outside the city, then it’s purified and pumped into people’s homes.”
    â€œBut Harksmere and Thornfield are in North Yorkshire, not West Yorkshire. West Riding, I suppose it was back then. Even so, why should they be supplying water to Leeds?”
    â€œI don’t know how it came about, but some sort of deal was struck between North Yorkshire and the Leeds City Council for the land use. That’s why we’re not part of the park.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œRowandale. Nidderdale, too. We’re not part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, though we should be if you go by geography and natural beauty. It’s because of the water. Nobody wanted to have to deal with National Parks Commission’s rules and regulations, so it was easier just to exclude us.”
    Like Eastvale, Banks thought. Because it was just beyond the park’s border, the severe building restrictions that operated inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park didn’t apply. Consequently, you ended up with monstrosities like the East Side Estate, with its ugly tower blocks and maisonettes, and the new council estate just completed down by Gallows View: “Gibbet Acres,” as everyone was calling it at the station.
    Their meals arrived. Banks stubbed out his cigarette. “What about Thornfield?” he asked after he had swallowed his first bite. The pie was good, tender beef and just enough Stilton to complement it. “How long has it been there? What happened to the village?”
    â€œThornfield Reservoir was created in the early fifties,around the time the national parks system was established, but the village had already been empty a few years by then. Since the end of the war, I think. Used to have a population of around three or four hundred. It wasn’t called Thornfield; it was called Hobb’s End.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBeats me. There’s no Hobb in its history, as far