Wednesday's Child

I

“Don’t tell me you’ve been burning the midnight oil?” Gristhorpe said, when Vic Manson phoned at nine o’clock Monday morning.

Manson laughed. “Afraid so.”

“Anything?”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Start with the search of the moorland.”

“The lads haven’t finished yet. They’re still out there. No sign of a body so far.”

“What about the clothes?”

“I’ve got Frank’s report in front of me. He’s our blood expert. It was a dry stain, so we can’t tell as much as we’d like — the presence of certain drugs, for example — but it is blood, it’s human, and it’s group A, one of the most common, unfortunately, and the same as Gemma’s, according to our files. We’re doing more tests.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, we can tell a fair bit about how it came to be there and — this is the interesting part — first, there wasn’t very much, nowhere near enough to cause loss of life. It was restricted to the bib area of the T-shirt and the dungarees, which might make you think on first sight that someone cut her throat, but no way, according to Frank. At least not while she was wearing them.”

“Then how did it get to be there?”

“It didn’t drip. It was smeared, as if you cut your finger and wiped it on your shirt.”

“But you surely wouldn’t wipe it on a white T-shirt and yellow dungarees?”

“I wouldn’t, no. That’d be grounds for divorce. But Gemma was only seven, remember. How careful were you about getting your clothes dirty when you were seven? Someone else washed them for you.”

“Still… And less of your cheek, Vic. What kind of injury could have caused it?”

“We can’t say for certain, but most likely a scratch, a small cut, something like that.”

“Any idea how long the clothes had been out there?”

“Sorry.”

“Anything else at all?”

“Yes. In addition to the items I’ve mentioned, we received a pair of white cotton socks and child’s sneakers. There was no underwear. You might care to consider that.”

“I will.”

“And there was some whitish powder or dust on the dungarees. It’s being analyzed.”

“What about the cottage?”

“Very interesting. Whoever cleaned that place up really did a good job. They even took the vacuum bag with them and combed out all the fibres from the brushes.”

“As if they had something to hide?”

“Either that or they were a right pair of oddballs. Maybe house- cleaning in the nude got them all excited.”

“Aye, and maybe pigs can fly. But we’ve got nothing to tie them in to the missing lass?”

“No prints, no bloodstains, no bodily fluids. Just hair. It’s practically impossible to get rid of every hair from a scene.”

“And it’s also practically impossible to pin it down to any one person,” said Gristhorpe.

“There’s still the DNA typing. It takes a bloody long time, though, and it’s not as reliable as people think.”

“Was there anything that might have indicated the child’s presence?”

“No. The hairs were definitely adult. Some sandy coloured, fairly short, probably a man’s, and the others we found were long and blonde. A woman’s, I’d say. A child’s hairs are usually finer in pigment, with a much more rudimentary character. We found some fibres, too, mostly from clothes you can buy anywhere — lamb’s-wool, rayon, that kind of thing. No white or yellow cotton. There was something else, though, and I think this will interest you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you know we took the drains apart?”

“Will Patricia Cummings ever let me forget?”

“There’s a fair bit of dark sludge in there.”

“Could it be blood?”

“Let me finish. No, it’s not blood. We haven’t run the final tests yet, but we think it’s hair-dye, the kind you can wash out easily.”

“Well, well, well,” said Gristhorpe. “That is interesting. Just one more thing, Vic.”

“Yes.”

“I think you’d better get the lads digging up the cottage gardens, front and back. I know it’s a long shot — most likely somebody would have seen them burying anything out there — but we can’t overlook it.”

“I suppose not,” Manson sighed. “Your estate agent’s going to love us for this.”

“Can’t be helped, Vic.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch later.”

Gristhorpe sat at his desk for a moment running his palm over his chin and frowning. This was the first positive link between Mr Brown and Miss Peterson, who had abducted Gemma Scupham on Tuesday afternoon, and Chris and Connie Manley, who had abandoned a prepaid holiday cottage in spotless condition on the Thursday of that same week. Coincidence wasn’t enough; nor was the fact that Manson’s men had found traces of hair-dye in the drains, but it was a bloody good start. His phone buzzed.

“Gristhorpe,” he grunted.

“Sir,” said Sergeant Rowe, “I think there’s someone here you’d better see.”

“Yes? Who is it?”

“A Mr Bruce Parkinson, sir. From what he tells me, I think he might know something about the car. You know, the one they used to take that young lass away.”

Christ, it was coming in thick and fast now, the way it usually did after days of hard slog leading nowhere. “Hang onto him, Geoff,” said Gristhorpe. “I’ll be right down.”

II

Dark satanic mills, indeed, thought DC Susan Gay as she approached Bradford. Even on a fine autumn day like this, even with most of the mills closed down or turned into craft shops or business centres, the tall, dark chimneys down in the valley still had a gloomy aspect.

Bradford had been cleaned up. It now advertised itself as the gateway to Brontë country and boasted such tourist attractions as Bolling Hall, the National Museum of Photography and even Undercliffe Cemetery. But as Susan navigated her way through the one-way streets of the city centre, past the gothic Victorian Wool Exchange and the Town Hall, with its huge campanile tower, Bradford still felt to her like a nineteenth-century city in fancy dress.

After driving around in circles for what seemed like ages, she finally turned past St George’s Hall and drove by the enormous Metro Travel Interchange onto Wakefield Road. The next time she had to stop for a red light, she consulted her street map again and found Hawthorne Terrace. It didn’t seem too far away: a right, a left and a right again. Soon she found herself in an area of terrace back-to-backs, with washing hanging across rundown tarmac streets. The car bumped in potholes as she looked for the street name. There it was.

An old man in a turban and a long white beard hobbled across the street on his walking-stick. Despite the chill that had crept into the air that morning, people sat out on their doorsteps. Children played hand-cricket against wickets chalked on walls and she had to drive very slowly in case one of the less cautious players ran out in front of her chasing a catch. Some of the corner shops had posters in Hindi in their windows. One showed a golden-skinned woman apparently swooning in a rajah’s arms — a new video release, by the look of it. She noticed the smells in the air, too: cumin, coriander, cardamom.

At last she bumped to a halt outside number six, watched by a group of children over the street. There were no gardens, just a cracked pavement beyond the kerb, then the houses themselves in an unbroken row. The red bricks had darkened over the years, and these places hadn’t been sandblasted clean like the Town Hall. Like any other northern city, Bradford had its share of new housing, both council and private, but the Johnsons’ part of town was pre-war, and here, old didn’t mean charming, as it often did out in the country. Still, it was no real slum, no indication of abject poverty. As she locked her car door and looked around, Susan noticed the individualizing touches to some of the houses: an ornate brass door-knocker on one bright red door; a dormer window atop one house; double-glazing in another.

Taking a deep breath, Susan knocked. She knew that, even though the Johnsons had agreed to her coming, she would be intruding on their grief. No matter what the late Carl’s police record said, to them he was a son who had been brutally murdered. At least she wasn’t the one to break the news. The Bradford police had already done that. The upstairs curtains, she noticed, were drawn, a sign that there had been a death in the family.

A woman opened the door. In her late fifties, Susan guessed, she looked well preserved, with a trim figure, dyed red hair nicely permed and just the right amount of make-up to hide a few wrinkles. She was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse tucked in the waistband. A pair of glasses dangled on a cord around her neck.

“Come in, dearie,” she said, after Susan had introduced herself. “Make yourself at home.”

The front door led straight into a small living-room. The furniture was old and worn, but everything was clean and well cared for. A framed print of a white flower in a jar standing in front of a range of mountains in varying shades of blue brightened the wall opposite the window, which admitted enough sunlight to make the wooden surfaces of the sideboard gleam. Mrs Johnson noticed Susan looking at it.

“It’s a Hockney print,” she said proudly. “We bought it at the photography museum when we went to see his exhibition. It brightens up the place a bit, doesn’t it? He’s a local lad, you know, Hockney.” Her accent sounded vaguely posh and wholly put-on.

“Yes,” said Susan. She remembered Sandra Banks telling her about David Hockney once. A local lad he might be, but he lived near the sea now in southern California, a far cry from Bradford. “It’s very nice,” she added.

“I think so,” said Mrs Johnson. “I’ve always had an eye for a good painting, you know. Sometimes I think if I’d stuck at it and not… ” She looked around. “Well… it’s too late for that now, isn’t it? Cup of tea?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sit down, dearie, there you go. Won’t be a minute. Mr Johnson’s just gone to the corner shop. He won’t be long.”

Susan sat in one of the dark blue armchairs. It was upholstered in some velvety kind of material, and she didn’t like the feel of it against her fingertips, so she folded her hands in her lap. A clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Beside it stood a couple of postcards from sunny beaches, and three cards of condolence, from neighbours no doubt. Below was a brown tiled hearth and fireplace, its grate covered by a gas-fire with fake glowing coals. Even though it was still warm enough indoors, Susan could make out a faint glow and hear the hiss of the gas supply. The Johnsons obviously didn’t want her to think they were stingy.

Before Mrs Johnson returned with the tea, the front door opened and a tall, thin man in baggy jeans and a red short-sleeved jumper over a white shirt walked in. When he saw Susan, he smiled and held out his hand. He had a narrow, lined face, a long nose, and a few fluffy grey hairs around the edges of his predominantly bald head. The corners of his thin lips were perpetually upturned as if on the verge of a conspiratorial smile.

“You must be from the police?” he said. “Pleased to see you.”

It was an odd greeting, certainly not the kind Susan was used to, but she shook his hand and mumbled her condolences.

“Fox’s Custard Creams,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“That’s what Mother sent me out for. Fox’s Custard Creams.” He shook his head. “She thought they’d go nice with a cup of tea.” Unlike his wife’s, Mr Johnson’s accent was clearly and unashamedly West Riding. “You think I could get any, though? Could I hell-as-like.”

At that moment, Mrs Johnson came in with a tray bearing cups and saucers, her best china, by the look of it, delicate pieces with rose patterns and gold around the rims, and a teapot covered by a quilted pink cosy. She set this down on the low polished-wood table in front of the settee.

“What’s wrong?” she asked her husband.

He glanced at Susan. “Everything’s changed, that’s what. Oh, it’s been going on for years, I know, but I just can’t seem to get used to it, especially as I’m home most of the time now.”

“He got made redundant,” said Mrs Johnson, whispering as if she were telling someone a neighbour had cancer. “Had a good job as a clerk in the accounts department at British Home Stores, but they had staff cutbacks. I ask you, after nearly thirty years’ loyal service. And how’s a man to get a job at his age? It’s young ’uns they want these days.” Her accent slipped as she expressed her disgust.

“Now that’s enough of that, Edie,” he said, then looked at Susan again. “I’m as tolerant as the next man — I don’t want you to think I’m not — but I’d say things have come to a pretty pass when you can buy all the poppadoms and samosas you want at the corner shop but you can’t get a packet of Fox’s blooming Custard Creams. What’ll it be next? that’s what I ask myself. Baked beans? Milk? Butter? Tea?”

“Well, you’ll have to go to Taylor’s in future won’t you?”

“Taylor’s! Taylor’s was bought out by Gandhi’s or some such lot months back, woman. Shows how much shopping you do.”

“I go to the supermarket down on the main road.” She looked at Susan. “It’s a Sainsbury’s, you know, very nice.”

“Anyway,” said Mr Johnson, “the lass doesn’t want to hear about our problems, does she? She’s got a job to do.” He sat down and they all waited quietly as Mrs Johnson poured the tea.

“We do have some ginger biscuits,” she said to Susan, “if you’d like one.”

“No thanks. Tea’ll be fine, Mrs Johnson, honest.”

“Where do you come from, lass?” asked Mr Johnson.

“Sheffield.”

“I thought it were Yorkshire, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Sheffield, eh.” He nodded, and kept on nodding, as if he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m sorry to be calling at a time like this,” Susan said, accepting her cup and saucer from Mrs Johnson, “but it’s important we get as much information as we can as soon as possible.” She placed the tea carefully at the edge of the low table and took out her notebook. In a crucial interrogation, either she would have someone along to do that, or she would be taking the notes while Banks asked the questions, but the Johnsons were hardly suspects, and all she hoped to get was a few names of their son’s friends and acquaintances. “When did you last see Carl?” she asked first.

“Now then, when was it, love?” Mr Johnson asked his wife. “Seven years? Eight?”

“More like nine or ten, I’d say.”

“Nine years?” Susan grasped at a number. “You hadn’t seen him in all that time?”

“Broke his mother’s heart, Carl did,” said Mr Johnson, with the incongruous smile hovering as he spoke. “He never had no time for us.”

“Now that’s not true,” said Mrs Johnson. “He fell in with bad company, that’s what happened. He was always too easily led, our Carl.”

“Aye, and look where it got him.”

“Stop it, Bert, don’t talk like that. You know I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

Susan coughed and they both looked at her shamefacedly. “Sorry,” said Mrs Johnson. “I know we weren’t close, but he was our son.”

“Yes,” said Susan. “What I was wondering was if you could tell me anything about him, his friends, what he liked to do.”

“We don’t really know,” said Mrs Johnson, “do we, Bert?” Her husband shook his head. “It was nine years ago, I remember now. His twenty-first birthday. That was the last time we saw him.”

“What happened?”

“There was a local lass,” Mr Johnson explained. “Our Carl got her… well, you know. Anyway, instead of doing the honourable thing, he said it was her problem. She came round, right at his birthday party, and told us. We had a barney and Carl stormed out. We never saw him again. He sent us a postcard about a year later, just to let us know he was all right.”

“Where was it from?”

“London. It was a picture of Tower Bridge.”

“Always did have a temper, did Carl,” Mrs Johnson said.

“What was the girl’s name?” Susan asked.

Mr Johnson frowned. “Beryl, if I remember correctly,” he said. “I think she moved away years back, though.”

“Her mum and dad still live round the corner,” said Mrs Johnson. Susan got their address and made a note to call on them later.

“Did Carl keep in touch at all?”

“No. He wasn’t even in much after he turned sixteen, but there’s not been a dicky-bird since that postcard. He’d be thirty when he… when he… wouldn’t he?”

“Yes,” Susan said.

“It’s awful young to die,” Mrs Johnson muttered. “I blame bad company. Even when he was at school, whenever he got in trouble it was because somebody put him up to it, got him to do the dirty work. When he got caught shoplifting that time, it was that what’s-his-name, you know, Bert, the lad with the spotty face.”

“They all had spotty faces,” said Mr Johnson, grinning at Susan.

“You know who I mean. Robert Naylor, that’s the one. He was behind it all. He always looked up to the wrong people did our Carl. Always trusted the wrong ones. I’m sure he wasn’t bad in himself, just too easily led. He always seemed to have this… this fascination for bad ’uns. He liked to watch those old James Cagney films on telly. Just loved them, he did. What was his favourite, Bert? You know, that one where James Cagney keeps getting these headaches, the one where he loves his mother.”

“White Heat.” Mr Johnson looked at Susan. “You know the one. ‘Top of the world, Ma!’”

Susan didn’t, but she nodded anyway.

“That’s the one,” said Mrs Johnson. “Loved that film, our Carl did. I blame the telly myself for a lot of the violence that goes on these days, I really do. They can get away with anything now.”

“Did you know any of his other friends?” Susan asked her.

“Only when he was at school. He just wasn’t home much after he left school.”

“You don’t know the names of anyone else he went around with?”

“Sorry, dearie, no. It’s so long ago I just can’t remember. It’s a miracle Robert Naylor came back to me, and that’s only because of the shoplifting. Had the police round then, we did.”

“What about this Robert Naylor? Where does he live?”

Mrs Johnson shook her head. Susan made a note of the name anyway. It might be worth trying to track him down. If he was such a “bad ’un” he might even have a record by now. There didn’t seem anything else to be gained from talking to the Johnsons, Susan thought. Best nip round the corner and find out about the girl Carl got pregnant, then head back to Eastvale. She finished her tea and stood up to leave.

“Nay, lass,” said Mr Johnson. “Have another cup.”

“No, I really must be going. Thank you very much.”

“Well,” he said, “I suppose you’ve got your job to do.”

“Thank you for your time,” Susan said, and opened the door.

“You can be sure of one thing, you mark my words,” said Mrs Johnson.

Susan paused in the doorway. “Yes?”

“There’ll be someone behind this had an influence on our Carl. Put him up to things. A bad ’un. A real bad ’un, with no conscience.” And she nodded, as if to emphasize her words.

“I’ll remember that,” said Susan, then walked out into the cobbled street where bed-sheets, shirts and underclothes flapped on a breeze that carried the fragrances of the east.

III

The man sitting under a graphic poster about the perils of drunken driving had the irritated, pursed-lipped look of an accountant whose figures won’t add up right. When he saw Gristhorpe coming, he got to his feet sharply.

“What are you going to do about it, then?” he asked.

Gristhorpe looked over to Sergeant Rowe, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head, then he led the man to one of the downstairs interview rooms. He was in his mid-thirties, Gristhorpe guessed, dressed neatly in a grey suit, white shirt and blue and red striped tie, fair hair combed back, wire-framed glasses, and his chin thrust out. His complexion had a scrubbed and faintly ruddy complexion that Gristhorpe always, rightly or wrongly, associated with the churchy crowd, and he smelled of Pears soap. When they sat down, Gristhorpe asked him what the problem was.

“My car’s been stolen, that’s what. Didn’t the sergeant tell you?”

“You’re here about a stolen car?”

“That’s right. It’s outside.”

Gristhorpe rubbed his brow. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Can you explain it from the beginning?”

The man sighed and looked at his watch. “Look,” he said, “I’ve been here twenty-two minutes already, first waiting to see the sergeant back there, then explaining everything to him. Are you telling me I have to go through it all again? Because if you are, you’ve got a nerve. I had trouble enough getting this time off from the office in the first place. Why don’t you ask the other policeman what happened?”

Gristhorpe kept his silence throughout the tirade. He was used to impatient, precise and fastidious people like Mr Parkinson and found it best to let them carry on until they ran out of steam. “I’d rather hear it from you, sir,” he replied.

“Oh, very well. I’ve been away for a while. When I—”

“Since when?”

“When what?”

“When did you go away?”

“Last Monday morning, a week ago. As I was saying, I left my car in the garage as usual, then I—”

“What do you mean, ‘as usual’?”

“Exactly what I say. Now if—”

“You mean you were in the habit of doing this?”

“I think that’s what ‘as usual’ means, don’t you, Inspector?”

“Carry on.” Gristhorpe didn’t bother to correct him over rank. If the car turned out to be a useful lead, it would be important to find out how many people knew about Parkinson’s habit of leaving his car for days at a time, and why he did so, but for now it was best to let him finish.

“When I returned this morning, it was exactly as I had left it, except for one thing.”

“Yes?”

“The mileage. I always keep a careful record of how many miles I’ve done on each journey. I find it’s important these days, with the price of petrol the way it is. Anyway, when I left, the mileometer stood at 7655. I know this for a fact because I wrote it down in the log I keep. When I got back it read 7782. Now, that’s a difference of one hundred and twenty-seven miles, Inspector. Someone has driven my car one hundred and twenty-seven miles in my absence. How do you explain that?”

Gristhorpe scratched his bristly chin. “It certainly sounds as if someone borrowed it. If you—”

“Borrowed?” echoed Parkinson. “That implies I gave someone permission. I did no such thing. Someone stole my car, Inspector. Stole it. The fact that they returned it is irrelevant.”

“Mm, you’ve got a point,” said Gristhorpe. “Were there any signs of forced entry? Scratches around the door, that kind of thing?”

“There were scratches at the bottom of the chassis I’m positive weren’t there before, but none at all around the door or windows. I imagine that today’s criminal has more sophisticated means of entry than the wire coat-hanger some fools are reduced to when they lock themselves out of their cars?”

“You imagine right,” said Gristhorpe. “Keys aren’t hard to come by. And garages are easy to get into. What make is the car?”

“Make. I don’t see—”

“For our records.”

“Very well. It’s a Toyota. I find the Japanese perfectly reliable when it comes to cars.”

“Of course. And what colour?”

“Dark blue. Look, you can save us both a lot of time if you come and have a look yourself. It’s parked right outside.”

“Fine.” Gristhorpe stood up. “Let’s go.”

Parkinson led. As he walked, he stuck his hands in his pockets and jingled keys and loose change. Outside the station, opposite the market square, Gristhorpe sniffed the air. His experienced dalesman’s nose smelled rain. Already, clouds were blowing in from the northwest. He also smelled pub grub from the Queen’s Arms, steak-and-kidney pie if he was right, and he realized he was getting hungry.

Parkinson’s car was, indeed, a dark blue Toyota, illegally parked right in front of the police station.

“Look at that,” Parkinson said, pointing to scratched paintwork on the bottom of the chassis, just behind the left front wheel. “Careless driving that is. Must have caught against a stone or something. Well? Aren’t you going to have a look inside?”

“The fewer people do that, the better, sir,” said Gristhorpe, looking to see what stones and dirt were trapped in the tread of the tires.

Parkinson frowned. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

Gristhorpe turned to face him. “You say you left last Monday?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“I took the eight-thirty flight from Leeds and Bradford.”

“To where?”

“I don’t see as it’s any of your business, but Brussels. EEC business.”

Gristhorpe nodded. They were standing in the middle of the pavement and passers-by had to get around them somehow. A woman with a pram asked Parkinson to step out of the way so she could get by. A teenager with cropped hair and a tattoo on his cheek swore at him. Parkinson was clearly uncomfortable talking in the street. A mark of his middle-class background, Gristhorpe thought. The working classes — both urban and rural — had always felt quite comfortable standing and chatting in the street. But Parkinson hopped from foot to foot, glancing irritably from the corners of his eyes as people brushed and jostled past them to get by. His glasses had slipped down his nose, and a stray lock of hair fell over his right eye.

“How did you get to the airport?” Gristhorpe pressed on.

“A friend drove me. A business colleague. It’s no mystery, Inspector, believe me. Long-term parking at the airport is expensive. My colleague drives a company car, and the company pays. It’s as simple as that.” He pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. “It’s not that I’m overly concerned about saving money, of course. But why pay when you don’t have to?”

“Indeed. Do you always do it that way?”

“What way?”

“Don’t you ever take it in turns?”

“I told you. He has a company car. Look, I don’t see—”

“Please bear with me. Did nobody notice the car was gone?”

“How could they? It was in the garage, and the garage door was locked.”

“Have you asked if anyone heard anything?”

“That’s your job. That’s why—”

“Where do you live, sir?”

“Bartlett Drive. Just off the Helmthorpe road.”

“I know it.” If Gristhorpe remembered correctly, Bartlett Drive was close to the holiday cottage the Manleys had so suddenly deserted. “And the car was replaced as if it had never been gone?”

“That’s right. Only they didn’t bargain for my record-keeping.”

“Quite. Look, I’ll get someone to drive you home and take a full statement, then—”

“What? You’ll do what?” A couple walking by stopped and stared. Parkinson blushed and lowered his voice. “I’ve already told you I’ve given up enough time already. Now why don’t you—”

Gristhorpe held his hand up, palm out, and his innocent gaze silenced Parkinson just as it had put the fear of God into many a villain. “I can understand your feelings,” Gristhorpe said, “but please listen to me for a minute. There’s a chance, a very good chance, that your car was used to abduct a little girl from her home last Tuesday afternoon. If that’s the case, it’s essential that we get a forensic team to go over the car thoroughly. Do you understand?”

Parkinson nodded, mouth open.

“Now, this may mean some inconvenience to you. You’ll get your car back in the same condition it’s in now, but I can’t say exactly when. Of course, we’ll try to help you in any way we can, but basically, you’re acting like the true public-spirited citizen that you are. You’re generously helping us try to get to the bottom of a particularly nasty bit of business, right?”

“Well,” said Parkinson. “Seeing as you put it that way.” And the first drops of rain fell on their heads.

IV

Banks and Susan stood at the bar in the Queen’s Arms that Monday lunch-time, wedged between two farmers and a family of tourists, and munched cheese-and-onion sandwiches with their drinks. Banks had a pint of Theakston’s bitter, Susan a Slimline Tonic Water. A song about a broken love affair was playing on the jukebox in the background, and somewhere by the door to the toilets, a video game beeped as aliens went down in flames. From what he could overhear, Banks gathered that the farmers were talking about money and the tourists were arguing about whether to go home because of the rain or carry on to the Bowes Museum.

“So you found the girl’s parents?” Banks asked.

“Uh-uh.” Susan put her hand to her mouth and wiped away some crumbs, then swallowed. “Sorry, sir. Yes, they were home. Seems like everyone except the Pakistanis around there is unemployed or retired.”

“Get anything?”

Susan shook her head. Tight blonde curls danced over her ears.

Banks noticed the dangling earrings, stylized, elongated Egyptian cats in light gold. Susan had certainly brightened up her appearance a bit lately. “Dead end,” she said. “Oh, it happened all right. Right charmer Carl Johnson was, from what I can gather. But the girl, Beryl’s her name, she’s been living in America for the past five years.”

“What happened?”

“Just what his folks said. He got her in the family way, then dumped her. She came around to make a fuss, embarrass him like, at his twenty-first birthday party. He was still living at home then, off and on, and his parents invited a few close relatives over. There was a big row and he stormed out. Didn’t even take any of his clothes with him. They never saw him again.”

Banks sipped at his pint and thought for a moment. “So they’ve no idea who he hung around with, or where he went?”

“No.” Susan frowned. “They know he went to London, but that’s all. There was a chap called Robert Naylor. Mrs Johnson saw him as bad influence.”

“Has he got form?”

“Yes, sir. I checked. Just minor vandalism, drunk and disorderly. But he’s dead. Nothing suspicious. He was riding his motorbike too fast. He lost control and skidded into a lorry on the M1.”

“So that’s that.”

“I’m afraid so, sir. From what I can gather, Johnson was the type to fall in with bad company.”

“That’s obvious enough.”

“What I mean, sir, is that both his parents and Beryl’s mother said he looked up to tough guys. He wasn’t much in himself, they said, but he liked to be around dangerous people.”

Banks took another sip of beer. One of the tourists bumped his elbow and he spilled a little on the bar. The woman apologized. “Sounds like the kind that hero-worships psychos and terrorists,” Banks said. “He’d probably have been happy working for the Krays or someone like that back in the old days.”

“That’s it, sir. He was a weakling himself, but he liked to boast about the rough company he kept.”

“It fits. Small-time con-man, wants to be in with the big boys. So you’re thinking that might give us somewhere to look for his killer?”

“Well, there could be a connection, couldn’t there?” Susan said, pushing her empty plate away.

Banks lit a cigarette, taking care that the smoke didn’t drift directly into Susan’s face. “You mean he might have been playing out of his league, tried a double-cross or something?”

“It’s possible,” said Susan.

“True. At least it’s an angle to work on, and there don’t seem very many. I dropped by The Barleycorn last night and found Les Poole. I just thought I’d mention Johnson to him, seeing as they’re both in the same business, so to speak.”

“And?”

“Nothing. Poole denied knowing him — well, of course he would — and he’s not a bad liar. No signs in his voice or his body language that he wasn’t telling the truth. But…” Banks shook his head. “I don’t know. There was something there. The only way I can describe it is as a whiff of fear. It came and went in a second, and I’m not sure even Les was aware of it, but it was there. Anyway, no good chasing will-o’-the-wisps. Adam Harkness’s Golf Club alibi checks out. I still think we might bring South Africa up whenever we question someone, though. Johnson could have been blackmailing Harkness, and Harkness could afford to pay someone to get rid of him. Have you had time to ask around the other flats?”

“Last night, sir. I meant to tell you, but I set off for Bradford so early. There’s a student on the ground floor called Edwina Whixley. She heard male voices occasionally from Johnson’s room. And she saw someone coming down the stairs one day she thought might have been visiting him.”

“Did you get a description?”

“Yes.” Susan fished for her notebook and found the page. “About five foot five, mid-thirties, cropped black hair and squarish head. He was wearing a suede zip-up jacket and jeans.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ring a bell?”

Susan shook her head.

“Me, neither. Maybe you can get her to come and look at some mug-shots. And you might as well check into Johnson’s form, his prison mates, that kind of thing. See if you can come up with any local names, anyone fitting the description.”

“Yes, sir.” Susan picked up her bag and left.

She had a very purposeful, no-nonsense walk, Banks noticed. He remembered the trouble she had had not so long ago and decided it had actually done her good. Susan Gay wasn’t the kind to throw her hands up in the air and surrender. Adversity strengthened her; she learned from her mistakes. Maybe that hardened her a bit, made her more cynical and less trusting, but perhaps they weren’t such bad qualities for a detective. It was hard not to be cynical when you saw so much villainy and human misery, but in many cases the cynicism was just a shell, as the sick jokes at crime scenes and postmortems were ways of coping with the horror and the gruesomeness of death, and perhaps, too, with the fact that it comes to us all at one time. The best coppers, Banks thought, are the ones who hang onto their humanity against all odds. He hoped he had managed to do that; he knew Gristhorpe had; and he hoped that Susan would. She was young yet.

The tourists decided to go home, partly because their youngest child was making a fearful racket, and the farmers had moved on to discuss the prospects for the three-forty at Newmarket. Banks drained his pint, then headed back to the office. There was paperwork to be done. And he would make an appointment to meet with Linda Fish, from the Writers’ Circle, tomorrow, much as the thought made him wince, and see what light she could shed on Mr Adam Harkness.

V

The strange woman called on Brenda Scupham shortly after Les had left for the pub that Monday evening. She was washing the dishes and lip-synching to a Patsy Cline record when the doorbell rang. Drying her hands with the tea towel, she walked through and opened the door.

“Mrs Scupham? Brenda Scupham?”

The woman stood there in the rain, a navy-blue raincoat buttoned up to her neck and a dark scarf fastened over her head. Wind tugged at the black umbrella she held. Beyond her, Brenda could see the nosy woman from number eleven across the street peeking through her curtains.

Brenda hugged herself against the cold and frowned. “Yes. What do you want?”

“I’m Lenora Carlyle,” the woman said. “You might have heard of me?”

“Are you a reporter?”

“No. Can I come in?”

Brenda stood back, and the woman let down her umbrella and entered. Brenda noticed immediately in the hall light her intense dark eyes and Romany complexion. She unfastened her scarf and shook out her head of luxuriant, coal-black hair.

“I don’t want anything,” Brenda went on, suddenly nervous.

“I’m not a reporter, Brenda, and I’m not selling anything,” the woman said in soft, hypnotic tones. “I’m a psychic. I’m here because of your daughter, Gemma. I want to help you.”

Brenda just gaped and stood back as the woman unbuttoned her raincoat. Numbly, she took the umbrella and stood it on the rubber mat with the shoes, then she took the woman’s coat and hung it up.

Lenora Carlyle was heavy-set, wearing a chunky-knit black cardigan covered with red and yellow roses, black slacks, and a religious symbol of some kind on a chain around her neck. Or so the odd-looking cross with the loop at the top seemed to Brenda. Lenora straightened her cardigan and smiled, revealing stained and crooked teeth.

Brenda led her into the living-room and turned off the music. She still felt a little frightened. The supernatural always made her feel that way. She wasn’t sure if she believed in it or not, but she’d heard of enough strange things happening to people to make her wonder — like the time her old friend Laurie Burton dreamed about her father for the first time in years the very night he died.

After they had sat down, Brenda lit a cigarette and asked, “What do you mean, help? How can you help?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lenora said, “but I’m sure I can. If you’ll let me.”

“How much do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.”

Brenda felt suspicious, but you couldn’t argue with that. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

Lenora put a friendly hand on her knee. “Nothing, dear, except relax and be open. Are you a believer?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“It’s all right. The Lord knows His own. Do you have something of Gemma’s? Something personal.”

“Like what?”

“Well, hair would be best, but perhaps an article of clothing, a favourite toy. Something she felt strongly about, touched a lot.”

Brenda thought of the teddy bear one of her ex-boyfriends — Bob? Ken? — had bought Gemma some years ago. Even now she was older, Gemma never slept without it. Brenda felt a pang of guilt as she thought about it. If there were any chance that Gemma was alive, she would miss her teddy bear terribly. Being without it would make her so miserable. But no. Gemma was dead; she had to be.

She went upstairs to Gemma’s room and Lenora Carlyle followed her. While Brenda walked to the tiny bed to pick up the bear, Lenora stood on the threshold and seemed to take several deep breaths.

“What is it?” Brenda asked.

Lenora didn’t answer. Instead, she walked forward, reached out for the bear, and sat down on the bed with it. The bedspread had Walt Disney characters printed all over it: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bambi, Dumbo. How Gemma loved cartoons. They were the only things that made her smile, Brenda remembered. But it was an odd, inward smile, not one to be shared.

Lenora clutched the bear to her breast and rocked slowly, eyes closed. Brenda felt a shiver go up her spine. It was as if the atmosphere of the room had subtly changed, somehow become thicker, deeper and colder. For what seemed like ages, Lenora hung onto the bear and rocked silently. Brenda clutched her blouse at her throat. Then finally, Lenora opened her eyes. They were glazed and unfocused. She began to speak.

“Gemma is alive,” she said. “Alive. But, oh, she’s so alone, so frightened. So much suffering. She wants you. She wants her mother. She needs you Brenda. You must find her.”

Brenda felt light-headed. “She can’t be,” she whispered. “They’ve found her clothes… I’ve seen them.”

“She’s alive, Brenda.” Lenora turned and grasped Brenda’s wrist. Her grip was tight.

Brenda steadied herself on the back of the small chair by Gemma’s desk. She felt dizzy, her skin cold and clammy, as if she had had too much to drink and the world was spinning fast. “Where can I find her?” she asked. “Where do I look? Tell me, where do I look?”