The Hanging Valley by Peter Robinson Page B

said. “He was staying with us as a friend. Besides, you know as well as I do that those guest books aren’t legal requirements—they’re only for people to write comments in if they want, show they’ve been here.”
    “When our man called and asked if you’d had any Canadians staying recently, why didn’t you mention Bernard Allen?”
    “He didn’t ask me anything. He just looked at the register. Besides, I never thought of Bernie as a Canadian. Oh, I know he lived there, but that’s not everything, is it? I’ve known people wholived in Saudi Arabia for a year working on the oil fields but I don’t think of them as Saudis.”
    “Come off it, Sam. Bernard Allen had been in Canada for eight years, and you hadn’t seen him for four. This was only his third trip back.”
    “Still . . .”
    “Did you have any reason to lie about Bernie being here?”
    “No. I told you—”
    “Because if you did, we can charge you with concealment of information. That’s serious, Sam. You could get two years.”
    Sam leaned forward. “Look, I never thought. That policeman who came, he didn’t tell us what he was looking for.”
    “We can check, you know.”
    “Bloody check then. It’s true.”
    Sam couldn’t remember the officer’s name, so Banks asked Hatchley to make a note of the time and date. It would be easy enough to find out who had made the visit and what approach he had taken. He still wasn’t sure about Sam Greenock, though.
    Banks sighed. “All right. We’ll leave that for now. Which room did he stay in?”
    Sam looked at Katie. She was staring out on the fell-side, so he had to nudge her and repeat the question.
    “Five,” she said, as if speaking from a great distance. “Room five.”
    “We’ll need to have a look,” Banks told her.
    “It was two weeks ago,” Sam said. “There’s been other people in since then. That’s where we took Fellowes after he’d found the body.”
    “We’ll still need to look.”
    “Do you think he’s hidden some secret message there, Inspector? Taped it to the bottom of the dresser drawer, maybe?”
    “You’ve been reading too many espionage novels. And if I were you, I’d cut the bloody sarcasm. You might start me thinking that there’s some reason you don’t want me to look in Bernie Allen’s room. And while we’re at it, he’s not the first person to get killed after leaving this guest house, is he, Sam?”
    “Now wait a minute,” said Sam. “If you’re trying to imply—” Banks held his hand up. “I’m not trying to imply anything. Whatwas it the man said: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence? Let’s just hope there’s not a third time.”
    Sam put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. It’s the shock. And now all these questions.”
    “Look at it from my point of view, Sam. Bernard Allen was killed after he left your guest house. That’s given his killer about two whole weeks to cover his tracks, leave the country, arrange for an alibi, whatever. I need everything I can get, and I need it quick. And the last thing I need is for some clever bugger who just might have been withholding information to start playing the comic.”
    “Look, I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want?”
    “First of all you can tell us when he left?”
    “About two weeks ago.”
    “Can you be more specific?”
    “Katie?”
    Again, with great difficulty, Katie turned her attention to the people in the room. Banks repeated his question.
    “It was a Friday,” she said.
    Hatchley checked the dates against his diary. “That’d be the seventeenth, sir,” he said. “Friday, May seventeenth.”
    “What time?”
    “Just after breakfast. About nine-thirty. He said he wanted to get an early start,” Sam said.
    “Where was he going?”
    “He was heading for the Pennine Way, then up to Swaledale.”
    “Do you know where he was intending to stay?”
    Sam shook his head. “No. He just said he’d