The Hanging Valley Read Online Free PDF

Only amateurs wear waterproofs all the time. Experienced walkers put their clothes on and off in layers according to the weather. If this is all he was wearing when he was killed, we might be able to get some idea of the date of death by checking weather records.”
    “It’s been fairly constant these past few weeks,” Banks pointed out. “We had a late spring, but now it looks like an early summer.”
    “True enough. Still, forensic might be able to come up with something. Better get the team up, Alan.”
    “The way we came? It’s not going to be easy.”
    Gristhorpe thought for a moment. “There might be a better way,” he said at last. “If my geography’s correct.”
    “Yes?”
    “Well, if I’m right, this’ll be the beck that ends in Rawley Force on the Helmthorpe road about a mile east of Swainshead village. It’s a hanging valley.”
    “Come again?”
    “A hanging valley,” Gristhorpe repeated. “It’s a tributary valley running into Swainsdale at a right angle. The glacier here was too small to deepen it as much as the larger one that carved out the dale itself, so it’s left hanging above the main valley floor like a cross-section. The water usually reaches the main river over a waterfall, like Rawley Force. I thought you’d been reading up on local geology, Alan.”
    “Haven’t got that far yet,” Banks mumbled. In fact, he’d put aside the geology book, after reading only two chapters, in favour of a new history of Yorkshire that his daughter, Tracy, had recommended. The trouble was that he wanted to know so much but had so little time for learning that he tended to skitter from one subject to another without fully absorbing anything.
    “Anyway,” Gristhorpe went on, “Rawley Force is only about ninety feet high. If we can get in touch with the Mountain Rescue Post at Helmthorpe and they’re willing to rig up a winch, we’ll be able to get the team up and down without much trouble. I can hardly see Glendenning, for one, walking the way we did. There’ll be a lot of coming and going. And we’ll have to get the body down somehow, too. A winch just might be the answer. It should be easy enough. The Craven and Bradford pot-hole clubs put one up at Gaping Gill for a few days each year to give the tourists a look— and that’s a hell of a lot deeper.”
    “It sounds good,” Banks said dubiously. He remembered swinging the three hundred feet down Gaping Gill, which opened into a cavern as huge as the inside of York Minster. It was an experience he had no wish to repeat. “We’d better get cracking, though, or it’ll be dark before they all get here. Should we get Sergeant Hatchley in on this, too?”
    Gristhorpe nodded.
    “DC Richmond?”
    “Not just yet. Let’s see exactly what we’ve got on our hands before we bring in all our manpower. Richmond can hold the fort back at the station. I’ll stay here while you go back to the car and radio in. You’d better let the doc know what state the body’s in. He might need some special equipment.”
    Banks glanced towards the corpse, then back at Gristhorpe.
    “Are you sure you want to stay here?”
    “It’s not a matter of wanting,” Gristhorpe said. “Somebody should stay.”
    “It’s been here alone long enough. I doubt that another half-hour will make any difference.”
    “Somebody should stay,” Gristhorpe repeated.
    Banks knew when to give up. Leaving the superintendent sitting like Buddha under an ash tree by the beck, he set off back through the woods to the car.
    II
    “What’s wrong?” Katie Greenock asked as Sam and Stephen staggered in with Fellowes between them.
    “He’s had a bit too much to drink, that’s all,” Sam said. “Out of the way, woman. Is number five still vacant?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Don’t worry, he’s not going to puke on your precious sheets.
    He just needs sleep.”
    “All right,” Katie said, biting her lip. “Better take him up.” Stephen smiled apologetically at her as they