Wednesday's Child (11 page)

Banks grinned. “As much as you can tell me.”

“Aye, well, that might be a bit more than usual in this case. Given the temperature, I'd say rigor mortis went basically according to the norm. It was just after two o'clock when I got the chance to have a really good look at him. Allowing, say, two to three hours for rigor to start, then about ten or twelve to spread, I'd say he was killed sometime after dark last night, but not much later than ten o'clock. His body temperature confirms it, too. Is that good enough for you?”

Banks said it was, thank you very much, doctor, and mentioned the blood in the smelting mill.

“You're probably right about that,” Glendenning said. “I'll check post-mortem lividity later when I get him on the table, but as far as I could tell there was no blood around the body, and there would be, given a wound like that.”

“What about cause of death?”

“That's not difficult. Looks like he was gutted. You saw that for yourself.” Glendenning lit a new cigarette from the stub of his old one. “It's an especially vicious crime,” he went on. “In the first place, to do something like that you have to get very close.”

“Would it take a lot of strength?”

“Aye, a fair bit to drag the knife up when it's stuck so deeply in.

But not a superman. Given a sharp enough knife. What are you getting at? Man or woman?”

“Something like that.”

“You know how I hate guesswork, laddie, but I'd go for a moderately strong man or an exceptionally strong woman.”

“Thanks. First we'll check all the female bodybuilders in Yorkshire. Left-handed or right?”

“I should be able to tell you later when I get a good look at the entry point and the direction of the slit.”

“What about the weapon?”

“Again, you'll have to wait. All I can say now is it looks like a typical upthrust knife wound. Have you made arrangements for the removal?”

Banks nodded.

“Good. I'll get to it as soon as I can.” Glendenning stood up and headed down the track to his car. Banks looked at his watch: almost three o'clock and he hadn't had lunch yet. Maybe an hour or so more up here and he'd be able to leave the scene for a local constable to guard. He called Vic Manson over.

“Any sign of the murder weapon?”

“Not so far. I don't think it's around here. The lads have almost finished the third grid search, and they'd have found it by now.”

Banks walked back over to the smelting mill and leaned against the wall watching the men examine the scree outside the flue entrance. “A particularly vicious crime,” Dr Glendenning had said. Indeed it was. It was hard to believe, thought Banks, that in such beautiful countryside on such a fine autumn evening, one human being had got so close to another that he could watch, and perhaps even savour, the look in his victim's eyes as he thrust a sharp knife in his groin and slowly dragged it up through the stomach to the chest.

V

Brenda Scupham lay alone in bed that night. Les was out at the pub. Not that she really cared. These days he was practically worse than useless. He mostly kept out of her way, and that suited her fine. The only thing was, she didn't really want to be alone tonight. A nice warm body to love her and hold her would help take her mind off the bad things she couldn't seem to stop herself from feeling.

She hadn't wanted Gemma, it was true. But things like that happened. She had done her best. At first, there always seemed to be so much to do: changing nappies, feeding, scraping and saving
for new clothes. And the sleepless nights she had listened to Gemma cry from her cot, leaving her till she cried herself to sleep because her own mother had said you shouldn't make a habit of being at a baby's beck and call. Well, she should know all about that, Brenda thought.

Even as she got older, Gemma had got in the way, too. Every time Brenda had a man over, she had to explain the child. Nobody stayed with her when they found out she had a kid. One night was the best she could expect from most, then a hasty exit, usually well before dawn, and Gemma there wailing away.

Brenda understood women who had beaten or killed their children. It happened all the time. They could drive you to that. One night, she remembered with shame, she had wrapped three-month-old Gemma in blankets and left her on the steps of the Catholic church. She hadn't been home five minutes before guilt sent her racing back to reclaim the bundle. Luckily, nobody else had got there first.

But no matter what those policemen tried to say, she had never abused Gemma. Some mothers sat their children on the elements of electric cookers, poured boiling water on them, locked them in the cellar without food or drink until they died of dehydration. Brenda would never have done anything like that. She put up with Gemma and took her pleasure when she could. True, she had left the child alone for visits to the pub. But nothing had ever happened to her. Also true, she never had much time to spend with her, what with the odd bit of waitressing she did on the sly to eke out her social. Meals had occasionally been forgotten, old clothes left unwashed too long. Gemma herself, like most kids, was not over-fond of bath-time, and she had never complained about going without a bath for a couple of weeks.

What upset Brenda most as she lay there alone in the dark was accepting that she had never really
liked
her child. Oh, she had got used to her, all right, but there was something secretive and isolated about Gemma, something alien that Brenda felt she could never reach. And there was something creepy about the way she skulked around the place. Many a time Brenda had felt Gemma's accusing, woebegone eyes on her. Even now, alone in the dark, she could feel
Gemma's eyes looking at her in that way. Still, you didn't
choose
your child, no more than she chose to be born. She wasn't made to order.

But now Gemma was gone, Brenda felt guilty for feeling relieved when Miss Peterson and Mr Brown took her away. Why did it have to be so complicated? Why couldn't they have been real social workers like they said they were? Then she wouldn't have to feel so guilty for being relieved. Now she couldn't even bear to think about what they might have done to Gemma. She shivered. Gemma must be dead. Brenda only hoped it had happened quickly and painlessly and that soon the police would find out everything and leave her alone to get her grieving done.

Again she replayed what she could remember of the social workers' visit. Maybe she had been a fool for believing them, but they
had
looked so real, and they
had
been so convincing. She knew she had neglected Gemma and that she was wrong to do so, however much she couldn't help herself. She knew she was guilty, especially after what happened the week before. But they surely couldn't have known about that? No, they were right. She had to let them take the child. She found herself hoping, after the door closed, that they would decide to keep her or find her a good home. It would be best for everyone that way.

And then there was Les. She remembered defending him to the police that morning, saying he wasn't much but he was better than nothing. She wasn't even sure that was true any longer. Mostly, she'd been thinking of sex. He used to do it three, four times a night, if he hadn't had a skinful of ale, and she couldn't get enough of him. He had made her laugh, too. But lately all the passion had gone. It happened, she knew, and you became nothing more than a maid, your home no more than a hotel room.

She turned on her side and put her hand between her legs, then began gently stroking herself with her fingers. It would help her forget, she thought, rubbing harder. Forget her foolishness, forget her guilt, forget Gemma. Gemma, precious stone, name stolen from an old schoolfriend whose serene beauty she had always envied.

Just before the climax flooded her, an image of Gemma going out of the door with Mr Brown and Miss Peterson appeared in her mind's eye. As she came, it receded, like someone waving goodbye from a train window.

FOUR

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.”