Free In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson Page A

friend here doesn’t fall to pieces.” He looked at his watch. “With any luck, we can have it in the lab by one o’clock.”
    DS Cabbot leaned back against a tree, arms folded, one leg crossed over the other. Today she was wearing a red T-shirt and white Nikes with her jeans, her sunglasses pushed up over her hairline. Pretty loose dress codes at Harkside, it seemed to Banks, but then he was one to talk. He had always hated suits and ties, right from his early days as a business student at London Polytechnic. He had spent three years there on a sandwich course—six months college and six months work—and the student life fast made encroachments on his dedication to the business world. Everyone at the poly was joining up with the sixties thing back then, even though it was the early seventies; it was all caftans, bell-bottoms and Afghans, bright, embroidered Indian cheesecloth shirts, bandannas, beads, the whole caboodle. Banks had never committed himself fully to the spirit of the times, neither in philosophy nor in dress, but he had let his hair grow over his collar, and hewas once sent home from work for wearing sandals and a flowered tie.
    â€œI need to know a lot more about the village,” he said to DS Cabbot. “Some names would be a great help. Try the Voters’ Register and the Land Registry.” He pointed towards the ruins of the cottage near the bridge. “The outbuilding clearly belonged to that cottage, so I’d like to know who lived there and who the neighbours were. It seems to me that we’ve got three possibilities. Either we’re dealing with someone who used the empty village as a dumping spot to bury a body during the time it was in disuse—”
    â€œBetween May 1946 and August 1953 . I checked this morning.”
    â€œRight. Either then, or the body was buried while the village was still occupied, before May 1946 , and the victim wasn’t buried too far from home. Or it was put there this summer, as you suggested earlier. It’s too early for speculation, but we do need to know who lived in that cottage when, and if anyone from the village was reported missing.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWhat happened to the church? I’m assuming there was one.”
    â€œA church and a chapel. St Bartholomew’s was decon-secrated, then demolished.”
    â€œWhere are the parish records now?”
    â€œI don’t know. Never had cause to seek them out. I imagine they were moved to St Jude’s in Harkside, along with all the coffins from the graveyard.”
    â€œThey might be worth a look if you draw a blank elsewhere. You never know what you can find out from oldchurch records and parish magazines. There’s the local newspaper, too. What’s it called?”
    â€œThe Harkside Chronicle .”
    â€œRight. Might be worth looking there, too, if our expert can narrow the range a bit this evening. And DS Cabbot?”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œLook, I can’t keep calling you DS Cabbot. What’s your first name?”
    She smiled. “Annie, sir. Annie Cabbot.”
    â€œRight, Annie Cabbot, do you happen to know how many doctors or dentists there were in Hobb’s End?”
    â€œI shouldn’t imagine there were many. Most people probably went to Harkside. Maybe there were a few more around when everyone was working in the flax mill. Very altruistic, very concerned about their workers’ welfare, some of these old mill owners.”
    â€œVery concerned they were fit to work a sixteen-hour shift without dropping dead, more like,” said Banks.
    Annie laughed. “Bolshevik.”
    â€œI’ve been called worse. Try to find out, anyway. It’s a long shot, but if we can find any dental records matching the remains, we’ll be in luck.”
    â€œI’ll look into it, sir. Anything else?”
    â€œUtilities, tax records. They might all have to be checked.”
    â€œAnd