In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson Page A

potato nose, but it was the kind of face you could trust. If eyes really were the windows of the soul, then Inspector Harmond had a decent soul.
    â€œIt’s this skeleton thing,” she said, crossing her legs and cradling her coffee mug on her lap.
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œWell, that’s just it, sir. We don’t know anything about it yet. DCI Banks wanted to know how many doctors and dentists lived in Hobb’s End, and if anyone who used to live there lives here now.”
    Harmond scratched his temple. “I can answer your last question easily enough,” he said. “You remember Mrs Kettering, the one whose budgie escaped that time she was having a new three-piece suite delivered?”
    â€œHow could I forget?” It was one of Annie’s first cases in Harkside.
    Inspector Harmond smiled. “She lived in Hobb’s End. I don’t know exactly when or for how long, but I know she lived there. She must be pushing ninety if she’s a day.”
    â€œAnyone else?”
    â€œNot that I can think of. Not offhand, at any rate.
    Leave it with me, I’ll ask around. Remember where she lives?”
    â€œUp on The Edge, isn’t it? The corner house with the big garden?”
    The Edge was what the locals called the fifty-foot embankment that ran along the south side of Harksmere Reservoir, the road that used to lead over the pack-horse bridge to Hobb’s End. Its real name was Harksmere View, and it didn’t lead anywhere now. Only one row of cottages overlooked the water, separated from the rest of Harkside village by about half a mile of open countryside.
    â€œWhat about doctors and dentists?” Annie asked. “That’s a bit trickier,” Harmond said. “There must have been a few over the years, but Lord knows what’s happened to them. Seeing as the village cleared out after the war, they’re probably all dead now. Remember, lass, I’m not that old. I were still a lad myself when the place emptied out. As far as I remember, there wasn’t any village bobby, either. Too small. Hobb’s End was part of the Harkside beat.”
    â€œHow many schools were there?”
    Inspector Harmond scratched his head. “Just infants and junior, I think. Grammar school and secondary modern were here in Harkside.”
    â€œAny idea where the old records would be?”
    â€œLocal education authority, most likely. Unless they were destroyed somehow. A lot of records got destroyed back then, after the war and all. Is there anything else?”
    Annie sipped some coffee and stood up. “Not right now, sir.”
    â€œYou’ll keep me informed?”
    â€œI will.”
    â€œAnd Annie?”
    â€œYes, sir?”
    Harmond scratched the side of his nose. “This DCI
    Banks. I’ve never met him myself, but I’ve heard a bit about him. What’s he like?”
    Annie paused at the door and frowned as she thought. “Do you know, sir,” she said finally, “I haven’t got a clue.”
    â€œBit of an enigma, then, eh?”
    â€œYes,” Annie said, “a bit of an enigma. I suppose you could say that.”
    â€œBetter watch yourself, then, lass,” she heard him say as she turned to leave.

    Before I tell you what happened next, let me tell you a little about myself and my village. My name, as you already know, is Gwen Shackleton, which is short for Gwynneth, not for Gwendolyn. I know this sounds Welsh, but my family has lived in Hobb’s End, Yorkshire, for at least two generations. My father, God bless his soul, died of cancer three years before the war began, and by 1940 my mother was an invalid, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Sometimes she was able to help out in the shop, but not often, so the brunt of the work fell to me.
    Matthew helped me as much as he could, but university kept him busy most of the week and the Home Guard took up his weekends. He was twenty-one, but