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

as anyone knows, and it wasn’t the end of anything—except maybe civilization as we know it.”
    â€œHow long was the village there?”
    â€œNo idea. Since medieval times, probably. Most of them have been.”
    â€œWhy was it empty? What drove people away?” “Nothing drove them away. It just died. Places do, like people. Did you notice that big building at the far west end?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat was the flax mill. It was the village’s raison d’être in the nineteenth century. The mill owner, Lord Clifford, also owned the land and the cottages. Very feudal.”
    â€œYou seem to be an expert, but you don’t sound as if you come from these parts.”
    â€œI don’t. I read up on the area when I came here. It’s got quite an interesting history. Anyway, the flax mill started to lose business—too much competition from bigger operations and from abroad—then old Lord Clifford died and his son wanted nothing to do with the place. This was just after the Second World War. Tourism wasn’t such big business in the Dales back then, and you didn’t get absentees buying up all the cottages for holiday rentals. When someone moved out, if nobody else wanted to move in, the cottage was usually left empty and soonfell to rack and ruin. People moved away to the cities or to the other dales. Finally, the new Lord Clifford sold the land to Leeds Corporation Waterworks. They rehoused the remaining tenants, and that was that. Over the next few years, the engineers moved in and prepared the site, then they created the reservoir.”
    â€œWhy that site in particular? There must be plenty of places to build reservoirs.”
    â€œNot really. It’s partly because the other two were nearby and it was easier for the engineers to add one to the string. That way they could control the levels better. But mostly I imagine it’s to do with water tables and bedrock and such. There’s a lot of limestone in the Dales, and apparently you can’t build reservoirs on that sort of limestone. It’s permeable. The Rowan valley bottom’s made of something else, something hard. It’s all to do with faults and extrusions. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of my school geology.”
    â€œMe, too. When did you say all this happened?” “Between the end of the Second World War and the early fifties. I can check the exact dates back at the station.”
    â€œPlease.” Banks paused and tasted some beer. “So our body, if indeed there is one, and if it’s human, has to have been down there since before the early fifties?”
    â€œUnless someone put it there this summer.”
    â€œI’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks older than that.”
    â€œIt could have been moved from somewhere else. Maybe when the reservoir dried up someone found a better hiding place for a body they already had.”
    â€œI suppose it’s possible.”
    â€œWhatever happened, I doubt that whoever buried itthere would have put on a frogman’s outfit and swum down.”
    â€œWhoever buried it?”
    â€œOh, yes, sir. I’d say it was buried, wouldn’t you?” Banks finished his pie and pushed the rest of the chips aside. “Go on.”
    â€œThe stone slabs. Maybe the body could have got covered by two or three feet of earth without much help. Maybe. I mean, we don’t know how much things shifted and silted down there over the last forty years or more. We also don’t know yet whether the victim was wearing concrete wellies. But it beats me how a body could have got under those stone slabs on the outbuilding floor without a little human intervention, don’t you think, sir?”

    It was a blustery afternoon in April 1941 when she appeared in our shop for the first time. Even in her land-girl uniform, the green V-neck pullover, biscuit-coloured blouse, green tie and