In a Dry Season Read Online Free

the kettle. He didn’t even feel like a cup of tea any more.
    Money isn’t everything. What about your future? Banks couldn’t believe he had said those things. Not because he thought that money was everything, but because that was exactly what his parents had said to him when he told them he wanted a weekend job in the supermarket to earn someextra money. It frightened him how deeply instinctive his whole response to Brian’s news was, as if someone else—his own parents—had spoken the words and he was only the ventriloquist’s dummy. Some people say that the older we get, the more we come to resemble our parents, and Banks was beginning to wonder if they were right. If so, it was a frightening idea.
    Money isn’t everything , his father had said, though in a way it was everything to him because he had never had any. What about your future? his mother said; her way of telling him that he would be far better off staying home studying for his exams than wasting his weekends making money he would only use to go hanging around billiard halls or bowling alleys. They wanted him to go into a nice, respectable, secure white-collar job like banking or insurance, just like his older brother, Roy. With a good degree behind him, they said, he could better himself , which meant he could do better than they had done. He was bright, and that was what bright working-class kids were supposed to do back in the sixties.
    Before Banks had a chance to think any further, the phone rang again. Hoping it was Brian ringing back to apologize, he dashed into the living-room and picked up the receiver.
    This time it was Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle. Must be my lucky day, Banks thought. Not only was it not Brian, the new call also meant that Banks couldn’t even dial 1471 to get Brian’s Wimbledon phone number, which he had neglected to ask for. That only worked for the most recent call you received. He cursed and reached for his cigarettes again. At this rate he’d never stop. Bugger it. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinarymeasures. He lit up.
    â€œSkiving off again, are you, Banks?”
    â€œHoliday,” said Banks. “It’s official. You can check.” “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a job for you to do.”
    â€œI’ll be back in the morning.”
    â€œNow.”
    Banks wondered what kind of job Jimmy Riddle would call him off his holidays for. Ever since Riddle had had to reinstate him reluctantly after dishing out a hasty suspension the previous year, Banks had been in career Siberia, his life a treadmill of reports, statistics and more reports. Everything short of going around the schools giving road-safety talks. Not one active investigation in nine months. He was so far out of the loop he might as well have been on Pluto; even the few informers he had cultivated since arriving in Eastvale had deserted him. Surely the situation wasn’t going to change this easily? There had to be more to it; Riddle never made a move without a hidden agenda.
    â€œWe’ve just got a report in from Harkside,” Riddle went on. “A young lad found some bones at the bottom of Thornfield Reservoir. It’s one of the ones that dried up over the summer. Used to be a village there, I gather. Anyway, there’s nothing but a section station in Harkside, and all they’ve got is a lowly DS . I want you down there as senior investigating officer.”
    â€œOld bones? Can’t it wait?”
    â€œProbably. But I’d rather you get started right away.
    Any problem with that?”
    â€œWhat about Harrogate or Ripon?”
    â€œToo busy. Don’t be such an ungrateful bastard, Banks.
    Here’s the perfect opportunity for you to drag your career out of the slump it’s fallen into.”Sure, Banks thought, and pigs can fly. He hadn’t fallen into the slump, he had been pushed , and, knowing Jimmy Riddle, this case