Abattoir Blues by Peter Robinson Page B

long. He also realised that it probably wasn’t a job for someone of her rank; she’d send a patrol car, most likely, and at most a DC to question the kids. But she had come to see him again in person. That was something to hold on to.
    Almost before he noticed, she was putting away her notebook and preparing to get up and leave. He was trying to think of a way to get her to stay when he had forgotten to offer her basic hospitality. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I forgot to ask if you wanted anything to drink. Would you like something? Tea? Coffee?’
    Winsome smiled. ‘No, thanks. It’s getting a bit late. I ought to be off. We’re not only in it for the perks, you know.’
    He started to protest that wasn’t what he meant when he noticed the cheeky grin on her face. ‘Got me there,’ he said.
    He grasped the arms of the chair to heave himself up and follow her out, but she said, ‘No, that’s all right. Stay there. I can find my own way. Don’t worry about it.’ Then she smiled again and the next thing he knew the door had closed behind her.
    He sagged back into the chair feeling like an abject failure. He banged the chair arm with his fist, then thumped his gammy leg, too, just for good measure.
     
    Banks got home to a cold house at about eight o’clock. He turned up the thermostat, promising himself yet again that if he ever got a pay increase, the first thing he would buy would be a better heating system. He dumped his bag and satchel on the floor, hung up his coat and picked up the post from the inside mat. It consisted mostly of bills, subscription renewal forms and a box set of Janet Baker CDs that had only just fit through the letter box.
    There was also a postcard from his parents, who were cruising the Amazon: a picture of the Manaus opera house. Banks turned it over and read his mother’s small neat handwriting. His father didn’t like to write, Banks knew, because he was self-conscious about his spelling and grammar. His mother, with her typical economy, had crammed as many words in the small space as she possibly could. ‘We thought you might like this, being an opera fan and all. It’s very hot and muggy here, so bad some days your poor dad can hardly breathe. The food is good on the ship. Some of the other passengers are really rude and stuck-up but we’ve made friends with a couple from York and some nice people from near Stratford. We went for a boat ride around some islands yesterday and saw a sloth, two iguanas and a conda. Your dad caught a piranha off the side of the boat. He’s proper chuffed with himself!’
    Banks puzzled for a moment over ‘and a conda’ then guessed his mother meant an anaconda. She was in her eighties, after all. He could just imagine them in their sunhats and long-sleeved shirts, sweating in the heat, busy spending their inheritance. Good for them, he thought. They had never got much out of life, and they had had to suffer the death of their favourite son Roy not so very long ago. Spend it while you’re alive to enjoy it, Banks thought, admiring them for their adventurousness. When he’d been young and excited by all the strange faraway places in the atlas, he could never have imagined his father – a beer and fish and chips sort of bloke if ever there was one – or his mother – homemaker, queen of the overcooked roast beef and soggy sprouts – venturing far beyond Skeggy or Clacton. But there they were, cruising the Amazon, something he himself had never managed to do. Banks had inherited his brother’s Porsche, and for a long time he had tried to convince himself to sell it. Now it felt lived in, he found that he sort of liked it. And it was a link with his dead brother, a link he hadn’t felt when Roy was alive.
    He put the postcard down beside his computer and walked through the hall to the kitchen, where he poured himself a couple of fingers of Macallan twelve-year-old. He was still working his way back to Laphroaig. He took a sip and sat at the