Gallows View

I

It had stopped raining only an hour earlier, and the air was still damp and chilly. Trevor held his jacket collar tight around his neck as he set off across The Green thinking over what Mick had said. Past the Georgian semis, he crossed the fourteenth-century bridge and spat in the water that cascaded over the terraced falls. Then he strode through the riverside gardens, and took the road that curved around Castle Hill to the market square.

Sometimes Mick scared him. Not his physical presence, but his stupidity. There would be no increased percentage from Lenny, Trevor was certain, because Mick wouldn't even dare ask him. Trevor would. He wasn't frightened of Lenny, gun or no gun. The gun didn't really interest him at all; it seemed more like a silly toy for Mick to show off about.

It was the pills, most likely. Them and natural stupidity. Trevor was sick of seeing Mick sweating and ranting on, hopping from one foot to the other as if he wanted to piss all the time. It was pathetic. He hadn't tried them himself, though he thought he might one day. After all, he wasn't Mick; they wouldn't affect him the same way.

He hadn't tried sex either. Mick kept boasting about having it off with some scrubber up against an alley wall, but Trevor was unimpressed. Even if it was true, it wasn't the kind of fun he was interested in. He would do it all: drugs, sex, whatever. All in his own sweet time. And he would know when the time was right.

As for the new idea, it made sense. Old people seemed to have nothing worth much these days. Probably had to pawn all their old keepsakes just to keep them in pabulum. Trevor laughed at the image. The first time it had been fun, a change from dipping, or mugging the odd tourist-"Just doing my bit for the Tourist Board, your honor, trying to make the New Yorkers feel at home"-it was exciting being able to do whatever you wanted in somebody else's house, break stuff, and them too feeble to do a thing about it. Not that Trevor was a bully; he would never touch the old women (more out of disgust than kindness, though). That was Mick's specialty-Mick was a bully.

This would be something different. The old folks' houses all smelled of the past: lavender water, Vicks chest rub, commodes, old dead skin. This time they would be in the classy homes, places with VCRs, fancy music centers, dishwashers, freezers full of whole cows. They could take their time, enjoy it, maybe even do some real damage. After all, they wouldn't be able to carry everything away. Best stick to the portables: cash, jewelry, silver, gold. He could just imagine Mick and Lenny being stupid enough to try and sell stolen color tellys and videos at Eastvale market. These days everyone wrote their bloody names and zip codes on everything from microwaves to washing-machines with those ultraviolet pens, and the cops could read them under special lights. He hoped Mick was right about burglar alarms, too. It seemed that people were becoming very security-conscious these days.

He crossed the south side of the deserted market square and walked through the complex of narrow, twisted streets to King Street. Then he cut through Leaview Estate toward Gallows 'View. The terrace of old cottages stood like a wizened finger pointing west to the Dales.

As he passed the bungalows and crossed Cardigan Drive to the dirt track in front of the cottages, Trevor noticed some activity outside the first house, number two. That was where the old bag, Matlock, lived. He walked by slowly and saw a crowd of people through the open door. There was that hotshot copper from London, Banks, who'd got his picture in the local paper when he'd got the job a few months back; that well-known local thug, Hatchley, who looked a bit unsteady on his pins; and the woman standing in the doorway. What on earth was she doing there? He was sure it was her, the one who lived in the fancy Georgian semis across The Green from the East Side Estate, the one Mick was always saying he'd like to fuck. Maybe she was a cop, too. You never could tell. He walked into number eight to confront his father once again over homework not done.

II

Jenny, who had disobeyed Banks's orders and stood unobserved in the doorway, had never seen a corpse before, and this one looked particularly bad. Its wrinkled bluish-gray face was frozen in a grimace of anger and pain, and pools of dark blood had coagulated under the head on the stone flags of the room. Alice Matlock lay on her back at the foot of a table, on the corner of which, it appeared, she had fractured her skull while falling backwards. These were only appearances, though, Jenny realized, and the battery of experts arriving in dribs and drabs would soon piece together what had really happened.

Despite the horror of the scene, Jenny felt outside it all, taking in the little details as an objective observer. Perhaps, she thought, that was one of the qualities that made her a good psychologist: the ability to stand outside the flux of human emotions and pay careful attention. Outside looking in. Perhaps it also made her not so acceptable as a woman-at least one or two of her lovers had complained that however enjoyable she was in bed and however much fun she was to be with, they felt that they couldn't really get close to her and were always aware of themselves being studied like subjects in a mysterious experiment. Jenny brushed aside the self-criticism; if she didn't conform to men's ideas of what a woman should be-fainting, crying, subjective, irrational, intuitive, sentimental-then screw them.

The house was oppressive. Not just because of the all-pervading presence of death, but because it was absolutely cluttered with the past. The walls seemed unusually honeycombed with little alcoves, nooks and crannies where painted Easter eggs and silver teaspoons from Rhyll or Morecambe nestled alongside old snuff boxes, delicate china figurines, a ship in a bottle, yellowed birthday cards and miniatures. The mantelpiece was littered with sepia photographs: family groups, stiff and formal before the camera, four women in nurses' uniforms standing in front of an old-fashioned army ambulance; and the remaining wall space seemed taken up by framed samplers, and water-colors of wildflowers, birds and butterflies. Jenny shuddered. Her own house, though structurally old, was sparse and modern inside. It would drive her crazy to live in a mausoleum like this.

She watched Banks at work. As she had expected, he was professional and efficient, but he often seemed distracted, and sometimes a look of pain and sadness crossed his features when he leaned against the wall and gazed at the old woman's body. The photographer popped his flash from every angle. He looked far too young, Jenny thought, to be so matter-of-fact about death. The doctor, one of those older, cigarette-smoking types who pay house calls when you have flu or tonsillitis, busied himself with thermometers, charts and other tools of his trade. Out of decency, Jenny turned away and tried to name the wildflowers depicted on the walls. She felt invisible, standing by the doorway, arms folded across her breasts. Everyone seemed to think she had come with Banks. Nobody even paid her the slightest bit of attention; no one, that is, except the slightly drunk detective she had seen earlier on her visit to the station, who occasionally cast lecherous glances in her direction. Jenny ignored him and watched the men at work.

Also in the midst of this routine, robotic activity sat Ethel Carstairs, who had discovered the body. Though trembling and white with shock as she sipped the brandy a police constable had brought her from Alice 's medicinal bottle in the kitchen, she had regained enough control to talk to Banks.

" Alice was supposed to call on me this evening," said Ethel in a weak, shaky voice. "She always comes on Sundays and Tuesdays. We play rummy. She's not on the phone, so when she didn't come there wasn't much I could do. As time went on I got worried, then I decided to walk over and see if she was all right. She was eighty-seven just last week, Inspector. I bought her that sugar bowl broken on the floor there."

It looked as if someone had pulled all the drawers out of the old oak sideboard, and a pretty, rose-patterned sugar bowl lay in several places on the flags.

"She always did have a sweet tooth, despite what the doctor told her," Ethel went on, pausing to wipe her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

"Is this exactly how you found her?" Banks asked gently.

"Yes. I didn't touch a thing. I watch a lot of telly, Inspector. I know about fingerprints and all that. I just stood in the doorway there, saw her and all the mess and went to the box on the corner of Cardigan Drive and phoned the police."

Banks nodded. "Good, you did exactly the right thing. What about the door?"

"What?"

"The door. You must have touched it to get in."

"Oh yes, silly of me. I'm sorry but I did have to open the door. I must have smudged all the prints."

Banks smiled over at Vic Manson, who was busy dusting the furniture with aluminium powder. "Don't worry, Mrs. Carstairs," Manson assured her. "Whoever it was probably wore gloves. The criminals watch a lot of telly these days, too. We have to look, though, just in case."

"The door," Banks went on. "Was it ajar, open, locked?"

"It was just open. I knocked first, then when I got no answer, I tried the handle and it just opened."

"There's no sign of forced entry, sir," added Detective Constable Richmond, who had been examining the doorframe beside Jenny. "Whoever it was, she must have let them in."

Hatchley came down from his search of the upper rooms. He wasn't irredeemably drunk, only about two sheets to the wind, and like most professionals, he could snap back into gear in a crisis. "It's been gone over pretty thoroughly," he said to Banks. "Wardrobe, drawers, laundry chest, the lot."

"Do you know if Mrs. Matlock owned anything of value, Mrs. Carstairs?" Banks asked.

"It's Miss Matlock, Inspector. Alice was a spinster. She never married."

"So she has no immediate family?"

"Nobody. She outlived them all."

"Did she own anything valuable?"

"Not really what you'd call valuable, Inspector. Not to anyone else, that is. There was some silverware-she kept that in the sideboard cupboard, bottom shelf." The cupboard door gaped open and there was no sign of cutlery among the bric-a-brac scattered on the flags. "But her most valuable possessions were these." Ethel gestured toward the knick-knacks and photographs that filled the room. "Her memories."

"What about money? Did she keep much cash in the house?"

"She used to keep a bit around, just for emergencies. She usually kept it in the bottom drawer of her dressing table."

"How much did she have there, as a rule?"

"Oh, not much. About fifty pounds or so."

Banks glanced at Hatchley, who shook his head. "It's a mess up there," he said. "If there was any money, it's gone now."

"Do you think our man, or men, knew where to look?"

"Not by the looks of it," Hatchley answered. "They searched everywhere. Same pattern as the other break-ins."

"Yes," Banks said quietly, almost to himself. "The victims always let them in. You'd think older people would be more careful these days."

"Prosopagnosia," announced Jenny, who had been listening carefully to all this.

"Pardon?" Banks said, seeming as surprised to see her there as she was by the sound of her own voice. The others looked around, too. With an angry glance, Banks introduced her: "Dr. Fuller. She's helping us with a case." Everyone smiled or nodded and went back to work. "Can you explain it, then?" Banks asked.

"Prosopagnosia? It's the inability to recognize faces. People sometimes get it after brain damage, but it's most common in senility."

"I don't quite see the connection."

" Alice wasn't senile, young lady," Ethel Carstairs cut in, "but it's true that she was beginning to forget little, day-to-day things, and the past was much closer to her."

Jenny nodded. "I didn't mean to be insulting, Mrs. Carstairs. I just meant it's part of the aging process. It happens to us all, sooner or later." She turned back to Banks. "Most of us, when we see a face, compare it with our files of known faces. We either recognize it or we don't, all in about a split second. With prosopagnosia, the observer can see all the components of the face but can't assemble the whole to check against memory files. It makes elderly people vulnerable to strangers, that's why I mentioned it."

"You mean she might have thought she recognized whoever it was?" Banks asked.

"Or thought she should have and not wanted to be rude. That's the most common problem. If you're a kind, polite person, you'll want to avoid giving offense, so you'll pretend you know who it is. It's like when you forget the name of an acquaintance and find ways of avoiding having to say it, only this must be much worse."

Dr. Glendenning packed up his battered brown bag, lit a cigarette-strictly forbidden at the scene of a crime, but generally overlooked in his case-and shambled over to Banks and Jenny. "Dead about twenty-four hours," he said out of the corner of his mouth in a nicotine-ravaged voice with a strong trace of Edinburgh in it. "Cause of death, fractured skull, most likely inflicted by that table edge there."

"Can you tell if she was pushed?"

"Looks like it. One or two bruises on the upper arms and shoulders. That's just preliminary, though. Can't tell you more till, after the autopsy. But unless the old dear was poisoned, too, I shouldn't imagine there'll be much more to tell. You can get her to the morgue now. There'll be a coroner's inquest, of course," he said, and walked out.

Everybody had finished. Manson had plenty of fingerprints to play with, most of them probably Alice Matlock's, and the other two Scene-of-Crime boys had envelopes filled with hairs, fragments of clothing and blood scrapings.

"You can go now, Mrs. Carstairs," Banks said. "I'd appreciate it if you'd drop by the station in the morning and give a formal statement." He called Detective Constable Richmond to drive Ethel home and instructed him also to pick her up in the morning and take her statement.

"Right, then. I'm off home, too," Banks said in a tired voice. "It's up to you now, Sergeant. See there's someone posted here all night. Deal with the ambulance. And you might as well start talking to the neighbors. They'll still be up. Curiosity's a great cause of insomnia. Do Gallows View and the six end bungalows over the street here. The rest can wait till tomorrow. Remember, the doctor puts the time of death at about twenty-four hours ago-let's say between ten o'clock and midnight last night. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. Okay?"

Hatchley nodded glumly. Then his expression brightened when he saw Richmond leading Ethel Carstairs outside. "Don't be long, lad," he said, baring his yellow teeth in what passed for a smile. "I've got work for you to do."

Banks and Jenny left. She was surprised that he didn't vent his anger at her disobedience, but they broke the silence in the car only to arrange another meeting to work on the profile later in the week, then she dropped him off and drove home, unable to get the image of Alice Matlock's body out of her mind.

III

Detective Constable Philip Richmond was almost as pleased with his recent promotion to the CID as he was with his new mustache: the latter made him look older, more distinguished, and the former, more important, successful. He had worn the uniform, driven the Panda cars and walked the beat in Eastvale for as long as he cared to, and he had an intimate knowledge of every alley, snicket and back street in the town: every lover's lane, every villain's hangout and every pub where visiting squaddies from Catterick camp were likely to cut up a bit rough at closing time.

He also knew Gallows View, the cottages at the far western edge of the town. Developers had petitioned for their demolition, especially when Leaview Estate was under construction, but the council, under pressure from the Parks and Monuments Commission, had reluctantly decided that they could stay. There were, after all, only five cottages, and two of those, at the western end of the street, had been knocked together into a shop and living quarters. Richmond had often bought gob-stoppers, Tizer and lucky-bags there as a lad, later graduating to cigarettes, which the owner would often trade him for his mother's coupons giving threepence off Tide or Stardrops.

Richmond stood in the street, drawing his raincoat tighter to keep out the chill, and cursed that damned slave driver Hatchley to himself. The bastard was probably guzzling the dead woman's medicinal brandy while his junior paid the house calls in the rain. Well, blow him, Richmond thought. Damned if he's going to get credit for anything I come up with.

Resigned, he knocked on the door of number four, which was opened almost immediately by an attractive young woman holding the lapels of her dressing gown close around her throat. Richmond showed his identification proudly, stroked his mustache and followed her indoors. The place might be an old cottage, he thought, but by heck they'd done a good job on the inside: double-glazing, central heating, stucco walls, nice framed paintings, a bit abstract for his taste, but none of your Woolworth's tat, and one of those glass-topped coffee tables between two tube-and-cushion armchairs.

He accepted her offer of coffee-it would help keep him awake-but was surprised at how long she took to make it and at the odd, whirring noises he heard coming from the kitchen. When he finally got to taste the coffee, he knew; it was made from fresh-ground beans, filter-dripped, and it tasted delicious. She put a coaster on the low table in front of him-a wild flower, wood sorrel, he guessed, pressed between two circles of glass, the circumference bound in bamboo-then, at last, he was able to get down to business.

First he took her name, Andrea Rigby, and discovered that she lived there with her husband, a systems analyst, who was often away during the week working on projects in London or Bristol. They had lived in Gallows View for three years, ever since he had landed the well-paying job and been able to fulfill his dream of country living. The woman had an Italian or Spanish look about her, Richmond couldn't decide which, but her maiden name was Smith and she came originally from Leominster.

"What's happened?" Andrea asked. "Is it Miss Matlock next door?"

"Yes," Richmond answered, unwilling to give away too much. "Did you know her?"

"I wouldn't say I knew her. Not well, at any rate. We said hello to each other and I went to the shops a few times for her when she was ill last year."

"We're interested to know if you heard anything odd last night between ten and midnight, Mrs. Rigby."

"Last night? Let me see. That was Monday, wasn't it. Ronnie had gone back down to London… I just sat around reading and watching television. I do remember hearing someone running in the street, over in Cardigan Drive. It must have been about eleven because the news had finished and I'd been watching an old film for about half an hour. Then I turned it off because it was boring."

"Someone running? That's all?"

"Yes."

"You didn't go to the window and look out?"

"No. Why should I? It was probably just kids."

Richmond jotted in his notebook. "Anything else? Did you hear any sounds from next door?"

"I thought I heard someone knocking at a door after the running, but I can't be sure. It sounded muffled, distant. I'm sorry, I really wasn't paying attention."

"How long after the running?"

"Right after. The one stopped, then I heard the other."

"Did the running fade into the distance or stop abruptly?"

Andrea thought for a moment. "More abruptly, really. As soon as people or cars or anything pass the corner of our street you can't hear them anymore, so it doesn't mean much."

"Did you hear any sounds at all from Miss Matlock's, next door?"

"No, nothing. But then I never do, not even when her friend comes to see her. I can hear knocking at the door, but nothing from inside. The way these old places were built the walls are very thick and we both have our staircases back to back, so there's quite a gap, really, between her living room and mine. I sometimes hear the stairs creak when she's going up to bed, but that's all."

Richmond nodded, closing his notebook. "You haven't noticed anyone hanging around here lately, have you? Kids, a stranger?"

Andrea shook her head. Richmond couldn't think of anymore questions, and it was getting late-he still had others to talk to. He thanked Andrea Rigby for her excellent coffee, then went to knock at number six.

The door opened a crack and a man wearing thick glasses peered out. Once Richmond had gained entry, he recognized Henry Wooller, the branch librarian, a bit of an oddball, loner, dry stick. Wooller's house was a tip. Scraps of newspaper, dirty plates, worn socks and half-full cups of tea with clumps of mold floating in them were strewn all over the room; and the place stank: an acrid, animal smell. Richmond noticed the corner of a pornographic magazine sticking out from under the Sunday Times Review section, where it had probably been hastily hidden. It was one he recognized, imported from Denmark, and the UNCY of its name, BIG'N'BOUNCY, was clearly visible. Wooller made a pretense of tidying things up a bit and was careful to hide the magazine completely.

Richmond asked the same questions he'd put to Andrea Rigby, but Wooller insisted that he had heard nothing at all. It was true that he was one cottage further from Cardigan Drive, which ran at right angles to the easternmost end of Gallows View, along the western edge of Leaview Estate, but Richmond didn't think the distance was a factor. He felt not only that Wooller didn't want to get involved, a common enough reaction to police inquiries, but also that he was hiding something. The expression behind the distorting glasses, however, remained fixed and deadpan; Wooller was giving nothing away. Richmond thanked him cursorily and left, making a note of his dissatisfaction.

The entrance to the living quarters of the shop was what used to be the door to number eight. Hearing voices raised, Richmond paused outside, hoping to learn something of value. He could only catch the odd word-the door must have been thick, or perhaps they were in the back-but it didn't take long to work out that a young lad was being told off for staying out too late and for not spending enough time on his school-work. Richmond smiled, feeling an immediate sympathy for the boy. How many times had he heard the same sermon himself?

When he knocked, the voices stopped immediately and the door was opened abruptly. Graham Sharp looked worried when he found out that a policeman wanted to see him. Everybody did, Richmond reflected, and it usually meant nothing more than an outstanding parking ticket.

"No, I didn't know her well," he said. "She came in here to do some of her shopping. It was convenient for her, I suppose. But she kept herself to herself. What happened to her?"

"Did you hear anything around eleven o'clock last night?" Richmond asked.

"No, nothing," Sharp answered. "I was watching telly in the room upstairs. We've converted one of the old bedrooms into a kind of sitting room. It's right at the western end, as far as you can get in Eastvale without being in a field, so I wouldn't be able to hear anything from Cardigan Drive way."

"Noticed anything odd lately? Any strangers, kids hanging about?"

"No."

"No newcomers in the shop? Nobody asking questions?"

"Only you." Sharp smiled tightly, clearly relieved to see Richmond pocketing his notebook.

"Could I speak to your son for a moment, sir?" Richmond asked before leaving.

"My son?" Sharp echoed, sounding nervous again. "What for? He's just a young lad, only fifteen."

"He might be able to help."

"Very well." Sharp called Trevor from upstairs and the boy slouched down moodily.

"Where were you at about eleven o'clock last night?" Richmond asked.

"He was here with me," Sharp butted in. "Didn't I already tell you? We were upstairs watching telly."

Richmond flipped back through his notebook- mostly for effect, because his memory was good. "You told me that you were upstairs watching television, sir. You didn't say anything about your son."

"Well, that's what I meant. I just took it for granted. I mean, where else would he be at that time?" He put his arm around Trevor's shoulder. The boy winced visibly.

"Well?" Richmond addressed Trevor.

"It's like he says, we were watching telly. Not much else to do around here, is there?"

Richmond thanked them both and left, again jotting down his reservations in his book, and also noting that he thought he recognized Trevor Sharp from somewhere. All in all, it wasn't turning out to be a bad evening's haul. Already he was enjoying the responsibility of interrogation and feeling less vitriolic toward Sergeant Hatchley.

Nobody was at home in the first two houses on Cardigan Drive. Residents of two of the others had been out late at a club fundraiser the previous evening, and the remaining two had heard somebody running past at about eleven, but neither had looked out of their windows nor heard anyone knocking on Alice Matlock's door.

Richmond, who had thought to show some keenness by doing more than the first six houses, was beginning to tire a little by then, and as he'd done his duty, he decided to report back to Hatchley.

He found the sergeant sitting in Alice Matlock's armchair, his feet up on the stool, snoring loudly. The body was gone and all that remained were the chalk outline on the worn flags and the pools of dried blood. The place was still dusty with Manson's aluminium powder. The level in the brandy bottle had dropped considerably.

Richmond coughed and Hatchley opened a bloodshot eye. "Ah, back already, lad? Just thinking about the case, taking in the atmosphere. Done all the houses?"

Richmond nodded.

"Good lad. I think we'd better be off now. You'll need your beauty sleep for all the report writing you've got to do in the morning."

"Inspector Banks said to leave someone on duty here, sir."

"Did he? Yes, of course. One of the uniformed blokes. Look, you hang on here and I'll call the station on my way. Someone should be down in about fifteen minutes. All right, lad?"

Weary, cold and wet, Richmond mumbled, "Yes, sir," and settled down to comfort himself with thoughts of the beautiful Andrea Rigby not more than about seven or eight feet away from him through the wall. Taking out his notebook, he thought he might as well draft the outline of his report, and he began to look over his small, neat handwriting to see how it all added up.