In a Dry Season Read Online Free Page A

was only going to push him even deeper into it. “Human bones?”
    â€œWe don’t know yet. In fact, we know nothing at all so far. That’s why I want you to get down there and find out.”
    â€œHarkside?”
    â€œNo. Thornfield bloody Reservoir. You’ll find the local DS already at the scene. Cabbot’s the name.”
    Banks stopped to think. What the hell was going on here? Riddle was clearly not doing him any favours; he must have got tired of confining Banks to the station and thought up some new and interesting way to torture him.
    A skeleton in a dried-up reservoir?
    A detective chief inspector would not, under normal circumstances, be dispatched to the remote borders of the county simply to examine a pile of old bones. Also, chief constables never assigned cases to detectives. That was a job for the superintendent or chief superintendent. In Banks’s experience, CCS usually restricted their activities to waffling on the telly, opening farm shows and judging brass-band competitions. Except for bloody Jimmy Riddle, of course, Mr Hands-On himself, who would never miss an opportunity to rub salt into Banks’s wounds.
    However busy Harrogate and Ripon were, Banks was certain they could spare someone qualified to do the job. Riddle obviously thought the case would be boring and unpleasant, or both, and that it would lead to certain failure and embarrassment; otherwise, why give it to Banks? And this DS Cabbot, whoever he was, was probably as thick as pigshit or he would have been left to handle things himself. Besides, why else was a detective sergeant stuck in asection station in Harkside, of all places? Hardly the crime capital of the north.
    â€œAnd Banks.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œDon’t forget your wellies.”
    Banks could have sworn he heard Riddle snigger like a school bully.
    He dug out a map of the Yorkshire Dales and checked the lie of the land. Thornfield was the westernmost in a chain of three linked reservoirs built along the River Rowan, which ran more or less east from its source high in the Pennines until it turned south and joined the River Wharfe near Otley. Though Thornfield Reservoir was only about twenty-five miles away as the crow flies, there was no fast way, only minor, unfenced roads for the most part. Banks traced a route on the map with his forefinger. He would probably be best heading south over the moors and along Langstrothdale Chase to Grassington, then east towards Pateley Bridge. Even then it would probably take an hour or more.
    After a quick shower, Banks picked up his jacket and tapped his pockets by habit to make certain he had car keys and wallet, then walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
    Before setting off, he stood for a moment, resting his hands on the warm stone wall and looked down at the bare rocks where Gratly waterfalls should have been. A quote from a T.S. Eliot poem he had read the previous evening came to his mind: “Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.” Very apt. It had been a long drought; everything was dry that summer, including Banks’s thoughts.
    His conversation with Brian still nagged on his mind; he wished it hadn’t ended the way it had. Though Banksknew he fretted more about his daughter, Tracy, who was at present travelling around France in an old van with a couple of girlfriends, that didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned about Brian.
    Because of his job, Banks had seen so many kids go wrong it was beyond a joke. Drugs. Vandalism. Mugging. Burglary.Violent crime. Brian was too sensible to do anything like that, Banks had always told himself; he had been given every possible middle-class advantage. More than Banks had ever got. Which was probably why he felt more hurt than anything by his son’s comments.
    A couple of ramblers passed by the front of the cottage, heavy rucksacks on their backs, knotted leg muscles, shorts, sturdy hiking boots, Ordnance Survey maps hanging in