Summer Rain: An Inspector Banks Short Story Read Free

your week off.”
    Gristhorpe’s curse was lost in the sound of the engine starting up and the finale of Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate of Kiev” on Classic FM blasting out from the radio, which Banks had forgotten to switch off.

 
    IV
     
    I N ADDITION TO the cells and the charge room, the lower floor of Eastvale Divisional Headquarters housed old files and records. The dank room was lit by a single bare light bulb and packed with dusty files. So far, Banks had checked 1965 and ’66 but found nothing on the Atherton business.
    Give or take a couple of years, Gristhorpe had said. Without much hope, Banks reached for 1964. That was a bit too early for hippies, he thought, especially in the far reaches of rural North Yorkshire.
    In 1964, he remembered, the Beatles were still recording ballads like “I’ll Follow the Sun” and old rockers like “Long Tall Sally.” John hadn’t met Yoko, and there wasn’t a sitar within earshot. The Rolling Stones were doing “Not Fade Away” and “It’s All Over Now,” the Kinks had a huge hit with “You Really Got Me,” and the charts were full of Dusty Springfield, Peter and Gordon, the Dave Clark Five, and Herman’s Hermits.
    So 1964 was a write-off as far as dead hippies were concerned. Banks looked anyway. Maybe Joseph Atherton had been way ahead of his time. Or perhaps Jerry Singer’s channeler had been wrong about the time between incarnations. Why was this whole charade taking on such an aura of unreality?
    Banks’s stomach rumbled. Apart from that scone at Gristhorpe’s, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, he realized. He put the file aside. Though there hardly seemed any point looking further ahead than 1966, he did so out of curiosity. Just as he was feeling success slip away, he came across it: Joseph Atherton. Coroner’s verdict: accidental death. There was only one problem: it had happened in 1969.
    According to the Athertons’ statement, their son wrote to say he was coming to see them en route to Scotland. He said he was on his way to join some sort of commune and arrived at Eastvale station on the London train at three forty-five in the afternoon, July 11, 1969. By ten o’clock that night, he was dead. He didn’t have transportation of his own, so his father had met him at the station in the Land Rover and driven him back to the farm.
    Banks picked up a sheet of lined writing paper, yellowed around the edges. A separate sheet described it as an anonymous note received at the Eastvale police station about a week after the coroner’s verdict. All it said, in block capitals, was: “Ask Atherton about the red Volkswagen.”
    Next came a brief interview report, in which a PC Wythers said he had questioned the Athertons about the car and they said they didn’t know what he was talking about. That was that.
    Banks supposed it was remotely possible that whoever was in the red Volkswagen had killed Joseph Atherton. But why would his parents lie? According to the statement, they all had spent the evening together at the farm eating dinner, catching up on family news, then Joseph went up to his room to unpack and came down in his stocking feet. Maybe he’d been smoking marijuana, as Gristhorpe suggested. Anyway, he slipped at the top of the stairs and broke his neck. It was tragic, but hardly what Banks was looking for.
    He heard a sound at the door and looked up to see Susan Gay.
    “Found anything, sir?” she asked.
    “Maybe,” said Banks. “One or two loose ends. But I haven’t a clue what it all means, if anything. I’m beginning to wish I’d never seen Mr. Jerry Singer.”
    Susan smiled. “Do you know, sir,” she said, “he almost had me believing him.”
    Banks put the file aside. “Did he? I suppose it always pays to keep an open mind,” he said. “That’s why we’re going to visit Mrs. Atherton.”

 
    V
     
    T HE A THERTON FARM was every bit as isolated as Gristhorpe had said, and the relentless rain had muddied the lane. At one point