Wednesday's Child

I

At ten past eleven on Saturday morning, Banks stood at his office window, coffee in hand, and looked down on the market square. It was another beautiful day — the fifth in a row — with a pale blue sky and high wispy clouds. It was also four days since Gemma Scupham’s abduction.

Down in the cobbled square, the market was in full swing. Tourists and locals browsed the stalls, where vendors dealt in everything from clothes and used books to car accessories and small electrical gadgets. As Banks watched them unload new stock from the vans, he speculated how much of the goods were stolen, fallen off the back of a lorry. Most of the things for sale were legitimate, of course — over-production or sub-standard stuff rejected by a company’s quality control and sold at slightly above cost — but a busy market was an ideal place for getting rid of hot property.

There would be nothing from the Fletcher’s warehouse job, though; televisions and stereos attracted too much attention at outdoor markets. Mostly, they would be sold by word of mouth, through pubs and video retailers.

Banks thought again about how smooth the operation had been. The burglars had cut through a chain-link fence, drugged a guard dog, and disabled the alarm system. They had then loaded a van up with electrical goods, taken off into the night and never been seen since. It would have taken at least three men, he speculated, and Les Poole was probably one of them. But there were far more serious things to think about now. At least Poole was under surveillance, and any step he made out of line would soon come to Banks’s attention.

The traffic along Market Street slowed almost to a standstill as yet more tourists poured into town. Because it was market day, parking was a problem. Drivers would spend an extra half-hour cruising around the narrow streets looking for a parking space. It would be a busy day for the traffic police.

Banks opened the window a couple of inches. He could hear the honking horns and the babble of voices down in the square, and the smell of fresh bread drifted up from the bakery on Market Street, mingled with exhaust fumes.

At their morning conference, Gristhorpe had assigned Banks and DC Susan Gay to the lead-mine murder; Gristhorpe himself, along with DS Richmond, would pursue the Gemma Scupham investigation, with Jenny Fuller acting as consultant. With each day that went by, the pressure increased. Parents were scared; they were keeping their children home from school. Ever since Gemma had disappeared, police forces county-wide had been knocking on doors and conducting searches of wasteland and out-of-the-way areas. The surprising thing was that nothing had come to light so far. The way it seemed, Gemma had disappeared from the face of the earth. Despite his reassignment, Banks knew he would have to keep up to date on the case. He couldn’t forget Gemma Scupham that easily.

For a moment, he found himself wondering if the two cases could be connected in some way. It was rare that two serious crimes should happen in Swainsdale at about the same time. Could it be more than mere coincidence? He didn’t see how, but it was something worth bearing in mind.

His first task was to identify the body they had found. Certainly a photograph could be published; clothing labels sometimes helped; then there were medical features — an operation scar, birth-mark — and dental charts. It would be easy enough to track down such information if the man were local, but practically impossible if he were a stranger to the area. Banks had already sent DC Gay to make enquiries in Gratly and Relton, the nearest villages to the mine, but he didn’t expect much to come of that. At best, someone might have seen a car heading towards the mine.

A red van had got itself wedged into the junction of Market Street and the square, just in front of the Queen’s Arms, and irate motorists started honking. The van’s owner kept on unloading boxes of tights and women’s underwear, oblivious to the angry tourists. One man got out and headed towards him.

Banks turned away from the window and went over the lead-mine scene in his mind. The victim had probably been murdered in the smelting mill, an out-of-the-way place. His pockets had been emptied and his body had been hidden in the flue, which few people ever entered due to the danger of falling stones. Safe to assume, Banks thought, that the killer didn’t want the body found for a while. That made sense, as most leads in an investigation occur in the first twenty-four hours. But the body had been found much sooner than the killer expected, and that might just give Banks an edge.

Just as Banks was about to leave his office in search of more coffee, the phone rang. It was Vic Manson from the forensic lab near Wetherby.

“You’ve been quick,” Banks said. “What have you got?”

“Lucky. You want to know who he is?”

“You’re sure?”

“Uh-huh. I’d like to claim brilliant deduction, but it was routine.”

“Fingerprints?” Banks guessed. It was the first thing they would check, and while most people’s prints weren’t on file anywhere, a lot were. Another break.

“Got it. Seems he did a stretch in Armley Jail. Tried to con an old lady out of her life’s savings, but she turned out to be smarter than him. Name’s Carl Johnson. He’s from Bradford, but he’s been living in your neck of the woods for a year or so. Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street.”

Banks knew the street. It was in the north-eastern part of Eastvale, where a few of the large old houses had been converted into cheap flats.

“You can get your man to pull his file from the computer,” Manson said.

“Thanks, Vic. I’ll do that. Keep at it.”

“Have I any bloody choice? We’re snowed under. Anyway, I’ll get back to you soon as we find out any more.”

Banks hurried over to Richmond’s office. Richmond sat over his keyboard, tapping away, and Banks waited until he reached a point when he could pause. Then he explained what Vic Manson had said.

“No problem,” said Richmond. “Just let me finish entering this report in the database and I’ll get you a printout.”

“Thanks, Phil.”

Banks grabbed a coffee and went back to his office to wait. The market square was teeming with people now, lingering at stalls, feeling the goods, listening to the vendors’ pitches, watching the man who juggled plates as if he were a circus performer.

Carl Johnson. The name didn’t ring a bell. If he had been in London, Banks would have got out on the street to question informers and meet with undercover officers. Someone would have heard a whisper, a boast, a rumour. But in Eastvale no real criminal underbelly existed. And he certainly knew of no one capable of killing in the way Carl Johnson had been killed. There were low-lifes like Les Poole, of course, but Poole was a coward at heart, and whatever he was, he wasn’t a murderer. Still, it might be worth mentioning Johnson’s name to him, just to see the reaction.

Had the killer not known about Johnson’s record, that he would be easy to identify? Certainly whoever it was had gone to great lengths to hide the body, but he hadn’t tried to destroy the fingerprints, as some killers did. Perhaps he was squeamish — unlikely, given the way he’d killed Johnson — or he was careless. Careless or cocky. Whatever the reason, Banks at least had something to go on: Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street. That was the place to start.

II

If Gristhorpe had expected inverted crosses, black candles, pentagrams and ceremonial robes, he couldn’t have been more mistaken. Melville Westman’s Helmthorpe cottage was as ordinary as could be: teal wallpaper with white curlicue patterns, beige three-piece suite, television, music centre. Sunlight poured through the windows past the white lace curtains and gave the place a bright, airy feel. The only clues to Westman’s interests were to be found in the bookcase: Eliphas Levi’s Le Dogme et le Rituel de la Haute Magic, Mathers’s translation of The Key of Solomon, Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Malleus Maleficarum and a few other books on astrology, Cabbala, the tarot, witchcraft and ritual magic. In addition, a sampler over the fireplace bore the motto, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” in the same kind of embroidery one would expect to find such ancient saws as, “A house is built of bricks; a home is built on love.”

Similarly, if Gristhorpe had expected a bedraggled, wild-eyed Charles Manson look-alike, he would have been disappointed. Westman was a dapper, middle-aged man with sparse mousy hair, dressed in a grey V-neck pullover over a white shirt, wearing equally grey pants with sharp creases. He was a short, portly man, but he had presence. It was partly in the slightly flared nostrils that gave his face a constant expression of arrogant sneering, and partly in the controlled intensity of his cold eyes.

“It took you long enough,” he said to Gristhorpe, gesturing towards an armchair.

Gristhorpe sat down. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Superintendent! Let’s not play games. The girl, the missing girl. I read about it in the paper.”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

Westman sat opposite Gristhorpe and leaned forward in his chair, linking his hands on his lap. “Nothing, of course. But you have to ask, don’t you?”

“And?”

Westman smiled and shook his head slowly. “And nothing.”

“Mr Westman,” Gristhorpe said. “In cases like this we have to consider every possibility. If you know anything about the child’s disappearance, it’d be best if you told me.”

“I told you. I know nothing. Why should I?”

“We both know about your involvement in witchcraft and Satanism. Don’t be naïve.”

“Involvement? Witchcraft? Satanism? Superintendent, just because I practise a different religion from you, don’t assume I’m some kind of monster. I’m not a Satanist, and I’m not a witch, either. Most people you would call witches are silly dabblers who appropriate the old ways and practices as an excuse for sexual excess. Ex-hippies and New Agers.”

“Whatever you call yourself,” Gristhorpe said, “there’s a history of people like you being involved in sacrifice.”

“Sacrificial virgins? Really! Again, you’re confusing me with the psychopathic Satanists who use the ancient ways as an excuse. People who read too much Aleister Crowley — he did exaggerate, you know — and found he appealed to their sick fantasies. You find a few bloody pentagrams daubed on a wall and a bit of gibberish in Latin and you think you’re dealing with the real thing. You’re not.”

Gristhorpe pointed towards the bookcase. “I notice you have a few Aleister Crowley books yourself. Does that make you a psychopathic Satanist?”

Westman’s lips curled at the edges like an old sandwich. “Crowley has things to teach to those who understand. Do you know the purpose of magic, Superintendent?”

“Power,” said Gristhorpe.

Westman sniffed. “Typical. It comes from the same root as ‘magi,’ wise man. The purpose of the ‘Great Work’ is to become God, and you dismiss it as mere human hunger for power.”

Gristhorpe sighed and tried to hold onto his temper. The man’s sanctimonious tone was grating on his nerves. “Mr Westman, I don’t really give a damn what illusions you cling to. That’s not the purpose—”

“Illusions! Superintendent, believe me, the work of the magician is far from an illusion. It’s a matter of will, courage, intense study of—”

“I don’t want a lecture, Mr Westman. I know enough about the subject already. I know, for example, that sacrifice is important because you regard living creatures as storehouses of energy. When you kill them, when you spill their blood, you release this energy and concentrate it. I also know it’s as much a matter of blood-lust, of murderous frenzy, as it is of any practical purpose. The incense, incantations, and finally the gushing of blood. It’s orgasmic, a sexual kick.”

Westman waved his hand. “I can see you know nothing, Superintendent. Again, you’re talking about the deviants, the charlatans.”

“And,” Gristhorpe went on, “a human sacrifice is the most effective of all, gives you the biggest kick. Especially the sacrifice of a pure child.”

Westman pursed his lips and put his forefinger to them. He stared at Gristhorpe for a few moments, then shrugged and sat back in the chair. “Human sacrifice is rare in true magic,” he said. “It’s difficult enough for those who practise such arts to simply exist in such a narrow-minded world as the one we inhabit; we are hardly likely to make things worse by kidnapping children and slaughtering them.”

“So you know nothing at all about Gemma Scupham?”

“Only what I read in the newspapers. And though I expected a visit, given my notoriety, as far as I can gather, I bear no resemblance to either of the suspects.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean you’re not associated with them in some way. A lot of people don’t do their own dirty work.”

“Insults, is it now? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I prepared a couple of zombies to do the job. Do you remember the Rochdale scandal, Superintendent? Ten children were taken from their parents and put into care by child-workers who believed a few wild tales about ritualistic, satanic abuse. And what happened? They were sent home. There was no evidence. Children have overactive imaginations. If some six-year-old tells you he’s eaten a cat, the odds are it was a chocolate one, or some kind of animal-shaped breakfast cereal.”

“I know about the Rochdale affair,” Gristhorpe said, “and about what happened in Nottingham. It didn’t come out at the trial, but we found out later there was ritual abuse involved. These kids were tortured, starved, humiliated and used as sex objects.”

“But they weren’t sacrificed to the devil, or any such nonsense. All these tales about organized satanic abuse were discredited. Most such abuse takes place in extended families, between family members.”

“That’s not the issue.” Gristhorpe leaned forward. “Gemma Scupham was abducted from her home and we can’t find hide nor hair of her. If she’d been killed and dumped somewhere in the dale, we’d most likely have found her now. We haven’t. What does that imply to you?”

“I don’t know. You’re supposed to be the detective. You tell me.”

“One of two things. Either she’s dead and her body has been very well hidden, perhaps somewhere other than Swainsdale, or someone is keeping her alive somewhere, maybe for a part she’s due to play in some ritual. That’s why I’m here talking to you. And, believe me, I’d rather be elsewhere.”

“I applaud your deductive abilities, Superintendent, but you’d be making better use of your time if you were somewhere else. I know nothing.”

Gristhorpe looked around the room. “What if I were to arrange for a search warrant?”

Westman stood up. “You don’t need to do that. Be my guest.”

Gristhorpe did. It was a small cottage, and it didn’t take him long. Upstairs was a bedroom and an office, where a computer hummed on a messy desk and a printer pushed out sheets of paper.

“I’m a systems consultant,” Westman said. “It means I get to do most of my work at home. It also means I have to work weekends sometimes, too.”

Gristhorpe nodded. They went downstairs and looked at the kitchen, then into the cellar, a dark, chill place with whitewashed walls, mostly used for storing coal and the various bits and pieces of an old Vincent motorcycle.

“A hobby,” Westman explained. “Are you satisfied now?”

They climbed back up to the living-room. “Do you know of anyone who might be involved?” Gristhorpe asked. “For any reason?”

Westman raised his eyebrows. “Asking for help now, are you? I’d be happy to oblige, but I told you, I’ve no idea. I do not, have not, and never will sacrifice children, or any other human beings for that matter. I told you, I’m not a dabbler. It would take too long to explain to you about my beliefs, and you’d probably be too prejudiced to understand anyway. It’s certainly not tabloid Satanism.”

“But you must know people who do know about these things. These dabblers you mentioned — these Satanists, thrill-seekers — any of them around these parts?”

“Not that I know of. There are a couple of witches’ covens, but they’re pretty tame, and you probably know about them, anyway. Amateurs. You’d never find them sacrificing a fly, let alone a child. Their get-togethers are a bit like a church social. No, Superintendent, I think you’re on the wrong track.”

Gristhorpe stood up. “Maybe, Mr Westman, but I like to keep an open mind. Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll see myself out.”

In the street, Gristhorpe breathed in the fresh air. He didn’t know why he felt such distaste for Westman and his kind. After all, he had read a fair bit about the black arts and he knew there was nothing necessarily evil about an interest in magic. Perhaps it was his Methodist background. He had given up going to chapel years ago, but there was still an innate sense that such desire for Godlike power, whether mumbo-jumbo or not, was a sacrilege, a blasphemy against reason and common sense as much as against God.

The limestone face of Crow Scar towered over the village to the north. Today it was bright in the autumn sun, and the higher pastures were already turning pale brown. The dry-stone walls that criss-crossed the daleside shone like the ribs and vertebrae of a giant poking through the earth.

Gristhorpe walked along High Street, busy with tourists window-shopping for walking-gear and local crafts, or ramblers sitting at the wooden picnic-tables outside The Dog and Gun and The Hare and Hounds, sipping pints of Theakston’s and nibbling at sandwiches. It was tempting to join them, but Gristhorpe decided to wait until he got back to Eastvale before eating a late lunch.

He turned at the fork and headed for the Helmthorpe station. It was a converted terrace house, built of local greyish limestone, and was staffed by a sergeant and two constables. Constable Weaver sat pecking away at an old manual typewriter when Gristhorpe entered. Gristhorpe remembered him from the Steadman case, the first murder they’d had in Helmthorpe in a hundred years.

Weaver looked up, blushed and walked over. “I can’t seem to get used to the computer, sir,” he said. “Keep giving the wrong commands.”

Gristhorpe smiled. “I know what you mean. I can’t help but feel like an incompetent idiot when I have to deal with the things. Still, they have their uses. Look lad, do you know Melville Westman?”

“Yes.”

“Anything on him? I’m not asking for anything that might be on record, you understand, just rumours, suspicions?”

Weaver shook his head. “Not really, sir. I mean, we know he’s one of those black magicians, but he’s not stepped out of line in any real way. Can’t say I believe in it myself, curses and whatnot.”

“What about the sheep?”

“Aye, well we suspected him, all right — still do, for that matter — but there was nowt we could prove. Why, sir?”

“It might be nothing, but I’d like you to keep a discreet eye on him, if you can. And keep your ears open for gossip.”

“Is this about the young lass, sir?”

“Yes. But for Christ’s sake don’t spread it around.”

Weaver looked hurt. “Of course not, sir.”

“Good. Let me know if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary, and try not to let him know you’re watching. He’s a canny bugger, that one is.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gristhorpe walked outside and headed for his car. Westman was probably telling the truth, he thought, but there had been so many revelations about the links between child abuse and satanic rituals in the past few years that he had to check out the possibility. It couldn’t happen here, everyone said. But it did. His stomach rumbled. Definitely time to head back to Eastvale.

III

Banks believed you could tell a lot about people from their homes. It wasn’t infallible. For example, a normally fastidious person might let things go under pressure. On the whole, though, it had always worked well for him.

When he stood in the tiny living-room of Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street and tried to figure out Carl Johnson, he found very little to go on. First, he sniffed the air: stale, dusty, with an underlying hint of rotting vegetables. It was just what one would expect of a place unoccupied for a couple of days. Then he listened. He didn’t expect to hear ghosts or echoes of the dead man’s thoughts, but homes had their voices, too, that sometimes whispered of past evils or remembered laughter. Nothing. His immediate impression was of a temporary resting-place, somewhere to eat and sleep. What furniture there was looked second-hand, OXFAM or jumble-sale stuff. The carpet was worn so thin he could hardly make out its pattern. There were no photos or prints on the cream painted walls; nor was there any evidence of books, not even a tattered bestseller.

The kitchen was simply a curtained-off portion of the room, with a hotplate, toaster and a little storage space. Banks found a couple of dirty pans and plates in the sink. The cupboards offered nothing more than tea-bags, instant coffee, sugar, margarine and a few cans of baked beans. There was no refrigerator, and a curdled bottle of milk stood by the sink next to some mouldy white bread and three cans of McEwan’s lager.

The bedroom, painted the same drab cream as the living-room, was furnished with a single bed, the covers in disarray, pillow greasy and stained with sweat or hair-cream. Discarded clothes lay in an untidy heap on the floor. The dresser held socks and underwear, and apart from a couple of checked shirts, sneakers, one pair of Hush Puppies, jeans and a blouson jacket, there was little else in the closet. Banks could spot no evidence of Johnson having shared his flat or bed with anyone.

Banks had never seen a place that told so little about its occupier. Of course, that in itself indicated a number of things: Johnson clearly didn’t care about a neat, clean, permanent home; he wasn’t sentimental about possessions or interested in art and literature. But these were all negatives. What did he care about? There was no indication. He didn’t even seem to own a television or a radio. What did a man do, coming home to such surroundings? What did he think about as he sat in the creaky winged armchair with the threadbare arms and guzzled his baked beans on toast? Did he spend every evening out? At the pub? With a girlfriend?

From what Banks knew of his criminal record, Carl Johnson was thirty years old and, after a bit of trouble over “Paki-bashing” and soccer hooliganism in Bradford as a lad, he had spent three years of his adult life in prison for attempted fraud. It wasn’t a distinguished life, and it seemed to have left nothing of distinction to posterity.

Banks felt oppressed by the place. He levered open a window and let some fresh air in. He could hear a baby crying in a room across the Street.

Next, he had to do a more thorough search. He had found no letters, no passport, no bills, not even a birth certificate. Surely nobody could live a life so free of bureaucracy in this day and age? Banks searched under the sofa cushions, under the mattress, over the tops of the doors, deep in the back of the kitchen and bedroom cupboards. Nothing. There aren’t many hiding places in a flat, as he had discovered in his days on the drug squad, and most of them are well known to the police.

Carl Johnson’s flat was no exception. Banks found the thick legal-sized envelope taped to the underside of the cistern lid — a fairly obvious place — and took it into the front room. He had been careful to handle only the edges. Now he placed it on the card table by the window and slit a corner with his penknife to see what was inside. Twenty-pound notes. A lot of them, by the looks of it. Using the knife, he tried to peel each one at a time back and add it up. It was too awkward, and he kept losing his place. Patience. He took an evidence bag from his pocket, dropped the money in and took one last look around the room.

The whole place had a smell of petty greed about it, but petty criminals of Johnson’s kind didn’t usually end up gutted like a fish in old lead mines. What was different about Johnson? What had he been up to? Blackmail? Banks could read nothing more from the flat, so he locked up and left.

Across the hallway, he noticed a head peeping out of Flat 4 and walked over. The head retreated and its owner tried to close the door, but Banks got a foot in.

“I didn’t see anything, honest, mister,” the woman said. She was about twenty-five, with straight red hair and a pasty, freckled complexion.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t see you. You weren’t here. I’ve got nothing. Please—”

Banks took out his warrant card. The woman put her hand to her heart. “Thank God,” she said. “You just never know what might happen these days, the things you read in the papers.”

“True,” Banks agreed. “Why were you watching?”

“I heard you in there, that’s all. It’s been quiet for a while.”

“How long?”

“I’m not sure. Two or three days, anyway.”

“Do you know Carl Johnson?” Johnson’s identity hadn’t been revealed in the press yet, so the woman couldn’t know he was dead.

“No, I wouldn’t say I knew him. We chatted on the stairs now and then if we bumped into each other. He seemed a pleasant enough type, always a smile and a hello. What are you after, anyway? What were you doing up there? Has he done a moonlight flit?”

“Something like that.”

“He didn’t look like a criminal type to me.” She hugged herself and shuddered. “You just can’t tell, can you?”

“What did you talk about, when you met on the stairs?”

“Oh, this and that. How expensive things are getting, the weather… you know, just ordinary stuff.”

“Did you ever meet any of his friends?”

“No. I don’t really think he had any. He was a bit of a loner. I did hear voices a couple of times, but that’s all.”

“When? Recently?”

“Last couple of weeks, anyway.”

“How many people do you think were talking?”

“Only two, I’d say.”

“Could you describe the other voice?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t really listening. I mean, it’s muffled anyway, you couldn’t actually hear what anyone was saying. And I had the telly on. I could only hear them in the quiet bits.”

“Was it a man?”

“Oh, yes, it was another man. I’m certain about that. At least, he had a sort of deep voice.”

“Thank you, Mrs…?”

“Gerrard. Miss.”

“Thank you, Miss Gerrard. Do you know if Mr Johnson owned a car?”

“I don’t think he did. I never saw him in one, anyway.”

“Do you have any idea what he did for a living?”

She looked away. “Well, he…”

“Look, Miss Gerrard, I don’t care if he was cheating on the social or the taxman. That’s not what I’m interested in.”

She chewed her lower lip a few seconds, then smiled. “Well, we all do it a bit don’t we? I suppose even coppers cheat on their income tax, don’t they?”

Bank smiled back and put a finger to the side of his nose.

“And an important detective like yourself wouldn’t be interested in something as petty as that, would he?”

Banks shook his head.

“Right,” she said. “I only know because he mentioned the weather once, how nice it was to have outdoor work.”

“Outdoor work?”

“Yes.”

“Like what? Road work, construction?”

“Oh, no, he weren’t no ditch-digger. He was a gardener, Mr Johnson was, had real green fingers.”

It was amazing the skills one could learn in prison these days, Banks thought. “Where did he work?”

“Like I say, I only know because we got talking about it, how some people are so filthy rich and the rest of us just manage to scrape by. He wasn’t no communist, mind you, he—”

“Miss Gerrard, do you know who he worked for?”

“Oh, yes. I do go on a bit, don’t I? It was Mr Harkness, lives in that nice old house out Fortford way. Paid quite well, Mr Johnson said. But then, he could afford to, couldn’t he?”

The name rang a bell. There had been a feature about him in the local rag a year or two ago. Adam Harkness, Banks remembered, had come from a local family that had emigrated to South Africa and made a fortune in diamonds. Harkness had followed in his father’s footsteps, and after living for a while in Amsterdam had come back to Swainsdale in semi-retirement.

“Thank you,” Banks said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Have I?” She shrugged. “Oh well, always a pleasure to oblige.”

Banks walked out into the street and mulled over what he had learned from Miss Gerrard. Johnson had been working for Adam Harkness, probably for cash in hand, no questions asked. That might explain the thousand or so pounds in the envelope. On the other hand, surely gardening didn’t pay that much? And why did he hide the money? To guard against thieves, perhaps? Having sticky fingers himself, Johnson would probably be all too aware of the danger of leaving large sums of money lying around the place. Maybe he didn’t have a bank account, was the kind who hid his fortune in a mattress or, in this case, under the cistern lid. But it still didn’t ring true. Banks looked at his watch. Almost four in the afternoon. Time to pay Adam Harkness a visit before dinner.

IV

Detective Sergeant Philip Richmond’s eyes were beginning to ache. He saved his data, then stood up and stretched, rubbing the small of his back. He’d been at it for four hours, much too long to sit staring at a screen. Probably get cancer of the eyeballs from all the radiation it emitted. They were all very well, these computers, he mused, but you had to be careful not to get carried away with them. These days, though, the more courses he took, the more he learned about computers, the better his chances of promotion were.

He walked over to the window. Luckily, the new computer room faced the market square, like Banks’s office, but the window was tiny, as the place was nothing but a converted storage room for cleaners’ materials. Anyway, the doctor had told him to look away from the screen into the distance occasionally to exercise his eye muscles, so he did.

Already many of the tourists were walking back to their cars — no doubt jamming up many of Eastvale’s side streets and collecting a healthy amount in tickets — and some of the market stalls were closing.

He’d knock off soon, and then get himself ready for his date with Rachel Pierce. He had met her last Christmas in Barnard Castle, at the toy shop where she worked, while checking an alibi on a murder case, and they had been going steady ever since. There was still no talk of wedding bells, but if things continued going as well as they had been for much longer, Richmond knew he would seriously consider tying the knot. He had never met anyone quite as warm and as funny as Rachel before. They even shared a taste for science fiction; they both loved Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny. Tonight they would go and see that new horror film at the Crown — new for Eastvale, anyway, which was usually a good few months behind the rest of the country. Rachel loved scary films, and Richmond loved the way they made her cling to him. He looked at his watch. Barring emergencies, he would be with her in a couple of hours.

The phone rang.

Richmond cursed and answered it. The switchboard operator told him it was someone calling for Superintendent Gristhorpe, who was out, so she had put the call through to Richmond.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice came on the line.

Richmond introduced himself. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I really wanted the man in charge. I called that temporary number, you know, the one you mentioned in the paper, and the constable there told me to call this number if I wanted to talk to Superintendent Gristhorpe.”

Richmond explained the situation. “I’m sure I can help you,” he added. “What’s it about?”

“All right,” she said. “The reason I’m calling you so late is that I’ve only just heard it from the woman who does the cleaning. She does it once a week, you see, on Saturday mornings.”

“Heard what?”

“They’ve gone. Lock, stock and barrel. Both of them. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if they aren’t fully paid up or anything, and I wouldn’t say they looked exactly like the couple the papers described, but it is funny, isn’t it? People don’t usually just take off like that without so much as a by-your-leave, not when they’ve paid cash in advance.”

Richmond held the receiver away from his ear for a moment and frowned. Why didn’t this make any sense? Was he going insane? Had the computer radiation finally eaten its way into his frontal lobes?

“Where are you calling from?” he asked.

She sounded surprised. “Eastvale, of course. My office. I’m working late.”

“Your name?”

“Patricia. Patricia Cummings. But—”

“One thing at a time. You said your office. What kind of office?”

“I’m an estate agent. Randall and Palmer’s, just across the square from the police station. Now—”

“All right,” Richmond said. “I know the place. What are you calling about?”

“I thought I’d made myself perfectly clear, but apparently you need it spelled out.”

Richmond grinned. “Yes, please. Spell it out.”

“It’s about that girl who disappeared, Gemma Scupham. At least it might be. That’s why I wanted to speak to the man in charge. I think I might know something about the couple you’re looking for, the ones who did it.”

“I’ll be right over,” Richmond said, and hung up. He left a message at the front desk for Gristhorpe and dashed out into the market square.