Wednesday's Child (3 page)

Grimly, he put on his tweed jacket and went outside to the car. It was completely dark now, and the lights of Lyndgarth twinkled below on the daleside. Gristhorpe drove through the village, past the squat St Mary's, and onto the main Eastvale road. It was a journey he had made hundreds of times, and he drove automatically, without even having to think about the dips and turns. Normally, even in the dark, he would glance at certain landmarks— the lights of the old Lister house way up on the opposite slopes of the valley; the six trees bent over by the wind on the drumlin to the west—but this time he was too distracted to notice the landscape.

As he drove towards the lights of Eastvale, he remembered that long Saturday in October, 1965, when he and dozens of other young policemen had stood in the drizzle and the biting wind 1,600 feet up the Pennines listening to their orders. There they all stood, in anoraks and wellington boots, shivering in the late autumn cold on the top of Saddleworth Moor, complaining about the Saturday afternoon football they were missing. It was eerie enough just being up there in the banshee wind, the rain and inky light, with those outcrops of rocks like decayed teeth on the skyline. All day they had searched, dragging their feet through the mud and peat, from 9:30 a.m. until well after three o'clock. The rain had stopped by then, and the weather was a little warmer, the moor shrouded in a slight mist.

Suddenly Gristhorpe had heard the shout from a searcher in the distance: a young lad, he remembered, just out of training college, who had taken a break to answer a call of nature. Those nearby,
Gristhorpe included, hurried towards him, and watched in horror as Detective Sergeant Eckersley came and scraped away the clinging peat from a child's arm bone. A little more digging revealed a head. Eckersley stopped at that. He sent for the scene-of-crime officers, and soon they all arrived, out of nowhere, the Assistant Chief Constable, police surgeons, photographers, Joe Mounsey, the lot.

They put up canvas screens and everyone but the brass and the SOCOs had to stand back. As the doctor scraped off the dirt and the flash camera popped, the whole gruesome discovery finally lay revealed. Gristhorpe caught only a glimpse of the body through a gap in the canvas, but it was enough.

They had been looking for a boy called John Kilbride, but what they had found was the near-skeletal body of a girl lying on her side with her right arm raised above her head. Close to her feet, her clothes lay bundled—a blue coat, a pink cardigan, a red-and-green tartan skirt. Instead of John Kilbride, they had found the body of Lesley Ann Downey, aged ten, another victim of the couple who came to be called the “Moors Murderers,” Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

Somehow, that day stood engraved in Gristhorpe's memory more than any other day in his life. Months, even years, might go by and he wouldn't even think of that October day in 1965, but when something like this happened, there it was, every bit as real and as horrifying as if he were back there on the moor seeing that arm sticking up through the quagmire as if it were waving or pointing.

He had thought of it only once in the past few years, and that was when a sixteen-year-old girl had gone missing from one of the Swainsdale villages. And now two people, a man and a woman— just as Brady and Hindley had been—had walked bold as brass into a house on the East Side Estate and abducted a seven-year-old girl.

As Gristhorpe drove down narrow North Market Street past the Town Hall, the lit window displays of the tourist shops and the community centre, he gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white as he once again heard the girl's voice in his head from the tape Brady and Hindley recorded before they murdered her:
Lesley Ann whimpering and begging for her mummy and daddy to help her; Brady telling her to put something in her mouth and saying he wants to photograph her. And that damn music, that damn music, “The Little Drummer Boy.” Gristhorpe had never been able to listen comfortably to any music since then without hearing the girl screaming and begging for mercy in his head, and he let everyone believe he was tone deaf to avoid awkward explanations.

He turned his car into the parking area at the back of the station, an old Tudor-fronted building, the front of which faced Eastvale's market square, and sat for a few moments to calm himself down and rid himself of the memory. And before he went inside, he delivered a silent prayer—not without some embarrassment, for he wasn't a religious man—that there should be nothing,
nothing
to compare between this affair and the Moors Murders. No time for thoughts of retirement now.

III

As Banks walked down the street towards The Barleycorn, he glanced at the rows of identical red brick houses. There was no doubt about it, the East Side Estate was a disaster. True, some tenants had bought the houses when the Thatcher government sold them off, and many had added a white fence here, a lick of paint there, or even a dormer window. But it was a shabby area, with junk-littered lawns, children's tricycles left in the street, and mangy dogs running free, fouling the pavements, barking and snapping at passers-by.

And The Barleycorn was a typical estate pub, right from its unimaginative name and its squat flat-roofed exterior to its jukebox, video games and poorly kept keg beer.

Banks pushed open the door and glanced around. Little Richard's “Good Golly Miss Molly” was playing too loudly on the jukebox. The cash register rang up another sale. Most of the tables were empty, and only a few diehard drinkers stood at the bar.

As the door shut behind him, Banks noticed the people look in his direction, and suddenly one man took off towards the back. Banks
dashed after him, bumping his knee on a chair and knocking it over as he went. He caught the man by the shoulder just before he had reached the exit. The man tried to pull free, but Banks kept his grip, spun him around and hit him hard, just once, in the solar plexus. The man groaned and doubled up. Banks took him by the elbow and helped him to a table the way one escorts an elderly relative.

As soon as they had sat down, the barman rushed over.

“Look, mister, I don't want no trouble,” he said.

“Good,” Banks answered. “Neither do I. But I'd like a small brandy for my friend here, just to settle his stomach.”

“What do you think I am, a bloody waitress?”

Banks looked at the man. He was about six feet tall and gone to fat. His nose looked as if it had been broken a few times, and old scar tissue hooded his left eye.

“Just bring the drink,” Banks said. “I won't have anything myself. Not while I'm on duty.”

The barman stared at Banks, then his jaw dropped. He shrugged and turned back to the bar. In a few seconds he came back with the brandy. “It's on the house,” he mumbled.

Banks thanked him and passed the glass over to his companion, who sat rubbing his stomach and gasping for breath. “Here's to your health, Les.”

The man glared at him through teary eyes, knocked back the brandy in one and banged the glass down hard on the table. “You didn't need to have done that,” he said. “I was only off for a piss.”

“Bollocks, Les,” said Banks. “The only time I've seen anyone run as fast as that to the bog they had dysentery. Why were you running?”

“I told you.”

“I know, but I want you to tell me the truth.”

Les Poole was well known to the Eastvale police and had been a frequent guest at the station. He had congenitally sticky fingers and couldn't stand the idea of anything belonging to anyone else but him. Consequently, he had been in and out of jail since Borstal, mostly for burglary. No doubt, Banks thought, had he the intelligence, he might also have risen to the dizzy heights of fraud and blackmail. Les had never held a job, though rumour had it that he
had, in fact, once worked as a dustbin man for six weeks but got the sack for wasting too much time rummaging through people's rubbish looking for things he could keep or sell. In short, Banks thought, Les Poole was little more than a doodle in the margin of life. At least until now.

Les was an odd-looking character, too, like someone who had fallen through a time warp from the 1950s. He had greased-back hair, complete with quiff, sideboards and duck's arse, a triangular face with a Kirk Douglas dimple on his chin, a long, thin nose, and eyes as flat and grey as slate. About Banks's height, he was wearing a black leather jacket, red T-shirt and jeans. His beer-belly bulged over the belt. He looked as if he should be playing stand-up bass in a rockabilly band. Why he had always been so attractive to women, Banks couldn't fathom. Maybe it was his long dark eyelashes.

“Well?” prompted Banks.

“Well what?”

Banks sighed. “Let's start this again, Les. What we'll do is we'll back up and lead nice and slowly to the question. Maybe that way you'll be able to understand it, all right?”

Les Poole just glared at him.

Banks lit a cigarette and went on. “I came down here to ask if you know anything about young Gemma's disappearance. Do you?” “She was taken away, that's all I know. Brenda told me.” “Where were you when it happened?”

“Eh?”

“Where were you yesterday afternoon?”

“Out and about.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, this and that.”

“Right. So while you were out and about doing this and that, a man and a woman, both well-dressed and official-looking, called at your house, said they were child-care workers, talked their way inside and persuaded Brenda to hand over her daughter for tests and further examination. Now what I want to know, Les, is do you know anything about that?”

Les shrugged. “It's not my kid, is it? I can't help it if she's so fucking daft she'll give her kid away.”

The barman appeared at Banks's shoulder and asked if they wanted anything else.

“I'll have a pint, Sid,” Les said.

“Bring me one too, this time,” Banks added. “I feel like I bloody well need it.”

After the barman had brought the beer, which tasted more like cold dishwater than real ale, Banks carried on.

“Right,” he said, “so we've established you don't give a damn about the child one way or another. That still doesn't answer my questions. Where were you, and do you know anything about it?”

“Now come on, Mr Banks. I know I've been in a bit of bother now and then, but surely even you can't suspect me of doing a thing like that? This is what they call persecution, this is. Just because I've got a record you think you can pin everything on me.”

“Don't be a silly bugger, Les. I'm not trying to pin anything on you yet. For a start, I couldn't picture you in a suit, and even if you'd managed to nick one from somewhere, I think Brenda might still have recognized you, don't you?”

“You don't have to take the piss, you know.”

“Let's make it simple, then. Do you know
anything
about what happened?”

“No.”

“Right. Another one: what were you doing?”

“What's that got to do with anything? I don't see what that's got to do with anything. I mean, if you don't suspect me, why does it matter where I was?”

“Got a job, Les?”

“Me? Nah.”

“I don't suppose you'd want me to know if you did have, would you? I might tell the social and they'd cut off your benefits, wouldn't they?”

“I don't have a job, Mr Banks. You know what it's like these days, all that unemployment and all.”

“Join the rest of us in the nineties, Les. Maggie's gone. The three million unemployed are a thing of the past.”

“Still …”

“Okay. So you don't have a job. What were you doing?”

“Just helping a mate move some junk, that's all.”

“That's better. His name?”

“John.”

“And where does he live, this John?”

“He's got a shop, second-hand stuff, down Rampart Street, over by The Oak …”

“I know it. So you spent the afternoon with this bloke John, helping him in his shop?”

“Yeah.”

“I suppose he'd confirm that?”

“Come again?”

“If I asked him, he'd tell me you were with him.”

“Course he would.”

“Where'd you get the nice new television and stereo, Les?” “What do you mean? They're Brenda's. She had them before she met me. Ask her.”

“Oh, I'm sure she'll back you up. The thing is, they don't look that old. And Fletcher's electronics warehouse got broken into last Friday night. Someone took off with a van full of stereos and televisions. Did you know that?”

“Can't say as I did. Anyway, what's all this in aid of? I thought you were after the kid?”

“I cast a wide net, Les. A wide net. Why did Brenda wait so long before calling us?”

“How should I know? Because she's a stupid cow, I suppose.” “Sure it was nothing to do with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“She said you had a row. Maybe you didn't want the police coming to the house and seeing that television, or the new music centre.”

“Look, I told you—”

“I know what you told me, Les. Why don't you answer the question? Was it you persuaded Brenda to wait so long before calling us?”

Poole looked away and said nothing.

“Do you know Gemma could be dead?” Poole shrugged.

“For Christ's sake, don't you care?”

“I told you, she's not my kid. Bloody nuisance, if you ask me.”

“You ever hit her, Les?”

“Me? Course I didn't. That's not my style.”

“Ever see Brenda do it?”

Poole shook his head. Banks stood up, glanced at the beer in his glass and decided to leave it.

“I'm off now, Les,” he said, “but I'll be around. You'll be seeing so much of the police in the next few days you'll think you've died and gone to hell. And I want you to stick around, too. Know what I mean? Be seeing you.”