Inspector Banks: Wednesday's Child Part 14

Hudson rubbed his damp forehead. "I was thinking about that on my way here," he said. "That you might want to know."

"It could be useful. We still haven't found the girl's body."

"Yes, well ... I could try. I mean, I think I might remember if I saw the spot again. But it was dark and it's pretty bleak up there. I must admit after I found the clothes I didn't want to hang around."

"And you were no doubt under the influence of Bacchus?" "What?"

"You'd been drinking."

"I'd had a little wine, yes. But I wasn't over the limit, if that's what you mean."

"I don't care how much you had to drink," said Gristhorpe, standing up. "Although judging by your eyes this morning I'd say you're a b.l.o.o.d.y liar. It's your memory I'm concerned about. What I want you to do is to take me to the spot where you found the clothes. I'll go with you in your car and DS Richmond here will follow. All right?"

"I don't have much choice, do I?" "No," said Gristhorpe. "No, you don't."

II.

Gristhorpe said nothing during the journey. They crawled up Sutton Bank into the Hambleton Hills, pa.s.sed through Helmsley, then turned off the main road into Hutton-le-Hole. On the broad village green, split by Hutton Beck, the sides connected by a small white bridge, tourists ate picnics. Several sheep also picnicked from the gra.s.s itself, keeping their distance from the humans. It was a marvel of work-saving, Gristhorpe thought, letting the sheep wander the village and keep the green well cropped.

Beyond Hutton, they turned north onto a narrow, unfenced road over the desolate moors.

"I'd have more chance if we were going the other way," Hudson said. "I mean, that was the way I was driving, and it was very dark."

"Don't worry," said Gristhorpe, "you'll get your chance."

They had no luck on the way to Rosedale, so Gristhorpe turned in the car park and set off back again, up the one-in-three hill, with Richmond still behind. The moorland stretched for miles on all sides, a dark sea of purple heather, just past its prime. Hudson seemed to be concentrating as they drove, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes and looking into the distance, trying to remember how long he had been driving before he stopped. Finally, he pointed to a small outcrop of rocks among the heather about fifty yards from the roadside. "This is it!" he shouted. "This is the place."

Gristhorpe turned into the lay-by and waited for Richmond to pull in behind. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Well, I can't be a hundred percent, but I'd been driving about this long, and I remember those rocks over there. There aren't many spots like that around here."

Gristhorpe opened the door. "By the roadside here, then? Let's take a look."

"Well, actually," Hudson said, "it was further from the road, closer to the rocks."

Richmond had joined them, and Gristhorpe gave him a puzzled look before he said, "Phil. If you stopped for a p.i.s.s on this road at half past twelve at night, would you walk fifty yards or so away from your car to do it?"

Richmond shook his head. "No way, sir."

"I thought not." He fixed Hudson with his innocent gaze again.

"But you did, right?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I wasn't really thinking about it. I suppose I didn't want to be seen."

Gristhorpe looked around the desolate landscape in disbelief. "Didn't want to be seen?"

"That's right."

"You had a torch, I a.s.sume?"

"Yes."

Gristhorpe raised his bushy eyebrows and shook his head. "Come on, then, show us where."

Hudson led them over the rough, springy heather towards the outcrop, a natural shelter, and pointed. Gristhorpe didn't want to ruin any more evidence there might be, so he stood at the entrance and looked. It was a small area, maybe three or four yards square, surrounded on all sides but one with rocks, some as high as Gristhorpe's chest, but most of them no more than knee-high stones. In the centre, a small area of heather looked as if it had been flattened recently. There had been some blood on the yellow dungarees, he recalled. In all likelihood, there would be more blood around here, and perhaps other valuable trace evidence.

"Where exactly did you find the bundle of clothes?" Gristhorpe asked.

Hudson thought for a moment, then pointed towards one of the smaller rocks near a corner of the flattened heather. "There. Stuffed under there. I think."

"What made you look there?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I saw something out the corner of my eye."

Gristhorpe stood for a few moments taking in the scene, then turned to go back to the car.

"Can I go home now?" Hudson asked when they arrived. "My wife. She'll be wondering where I am."

"You can phone her when we get back to the station." "Station?"

"Yes. Phil?" Gristhorpe ignored Hudson's protests. "Radio in and get the SOCO team, if you can raise any of them on a Sunday afternoon."

"Will do, sir." Richmond went to his car.

"But I don't understand," Hudson went on as Gristhorpe took him by the arm and gently guided him into the pa.s.senger seat.

"Don't you? It's simple really. I don't believe you. First off, I don't believe anyone would walk this far for a p.i.s.s on a dark night in a place like this, and second I don't like the fact that you didn't show up at the station till nearly noon and then tried to leave as soon as you'd dumped the bag."

"But I've explained all that."

Gristhorpe started the car. "Not to my satisfaction, you haven't. Not by a long chalk. I don't like it at all. Besides, there's another thing."

"What?"

"I don't like you."

III.

When Jenny Fuller pulled up outside Superintendent Gristhorpe's house above Lyndgarth at about seven o'clock that evening, lights shone a welcome from the lower windows. She hadn't phoned to say she was coming, but Phil Richmond had told her at the station that the superintendent had finally abandoned his camp-bed and gone home.

She knocked at the heavy door and waited. When Gristhorpe opened it, he was clearly surprised to see her there but didn't hesitate to invite her in.

"I've just finished doing a bit of work on the wall," he said as they stood in the hall. "Until it got too dark. Fancy a cup of tea?"

"Mm, yes please," Jenny said.

"I can offer you something stronger if you'd like?"

"No. No, tea will be fine. I was just on my way to visit a colleague in Lyndgarth and I thought I'd drop by. I don't have much, I'm afraid, but I can give you a sketch of what I've dug up so far. It might be some help."

Gristhorpe directed her to the study while he went to the kitchen. Jenny stood and gazed at the books, the clearly divided sections on military and naval history, general history, Yorks.h.i.+re, then the novels, philosophy, poetry. On the small table by the armchair lay a paperback copy of The Way of All Flesh. Jenny had always loved the t.i.tle but had never read it. Her background in English was distinctly weak, she realized.

Somehow the house and this room in particular spoke of a solitary, meditative, serious man, perhaps ill at ease in company. All that was missing was a pipe lying in an ashtray on the table, and perhaps a pipe-rack over the hearth. But Gristhorpe had a gregarious side to his character, too, she knew. He enjoyed telling tales with his mates and colleagues over a pint; he wasn't at all uneasy in groups. A man's man, perhaps?

Gristhorpe came back bearing a tray with a teapot and two mugs, a little jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. Jenny moved the book from the table and he set the tray down. He bade her sit in the leather armchair that she knew instinctively was "his" and pulled up a smaller chair for himself.

"That camp-bed was beginning to make me feel like an old man," he said. "Besides, they know where I am if anything breaks."

"No progress?"

"I wouldn't say that. We've talked to the neighbours again, and to Gemma's schoolfriends, the kids she played with, and none of them saw anyone hanging about or heard Gemma mention anyone they didn't know. So that's a blank. But ..." Gristhorpe went on to tell her about the Manleys' deserted cottage and his outing to the moors with Mark Hudson.

"What's happened to him?" she asked.

"I sent him home when I finally got the truth out of him. He led us on a merry dance, but he's got nothing to do with Gemma. He was out for a bit of extramarital activity. He'd settled on the spot in advance because it was some distance from the road and the rocks offered protection. He just stumbled across the clothing. We've got the woman's name. Of course, we'll talk to her and have another chat with him, just for procedure's sake."

"So the clothing is Gemma Scupham's?"

"Yes. The mother identified it. And there's a bit of blood on it- at least, it looks like blood. But we won't know much more till tomorrow, when the forensic team gets its job done."

"Still ..." Jenny s.h.i.+vered.

"Cold?"

"Oh, no. I'm fine, really." Jenny was wearing jeans and a fuzzy russet jumper that matched the colour of her hair, a warm enough outfit for a mild night. "Someone walked over my grave, that's all." She sipped some soothing tea. "I've been looking at instances of pairs of s.e.xual deviants, and quite frankly there's hardly any. Often you'll find a couple who might commit crimes for gain, like Bonnie and Clyde, I suppose, but deviants usually act solo."

"What about the ones who don't?" Gristhorpe asked.

"There are some case studies. Usually you get a dominant leader and an accomplice, and usually they're both male. Leopold and Loeb, for example."

Gristhorpe nodded.

"Have you read Compulsion?" Jenny asked.

"Yes. It was one of Ian Brady's favourite books, you know."

"There are some parallels. The way your couple seem to have coldly planned and executed the crime, for a start," Jenny said. "But there's another thing: mixed pairs are very rare. Brady and Hindley come to mind, of course."

"Aye," said Gristhorpe. "Maybe Alan's told you I've got what you might call an unhealthy preoccupation with that case. But I was involved in the search. And I heard the tape of young Lesley Ann Downey pleading for her life." He shook his head and let the silence hang.

"Is that why you're getting so actively involved in this case? I mean, you don't usually."

Gristhorpe smiled. "Partly, I suppose. And maybe I'm trying to prove there's life in the old dog yet. I'm getting near retiring age, you know. But mostly I want to stop them before they do it again. We spend most of our time making cases against people we think have broken the law. Oh, we talk about prevention-we have coppers on the beat, keeping their eyes open-but mostly we come on the scene after the fact. That's also true this time, I realize. Gemma Scupham may be lost to us, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I'm going to let it happen to another child on my patch. Make sense?"

Jenny nodded.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"From what little I know so far," Jenny said, "I'd say it's certainly possible we could be dealing with a Brady-Hindley pair. And they may not be paedophiles, as such. Paedophiles have a genuine s.e.xual attraction to children, and they don't usually go in for murder unless they panic, but children also make good victims just because they're very vulnerable, like women. Brady's last victim was a seventeen-year-old male h.o.m.os.e.xual, I gather. Hardly a child."

"You've obviously done your research," Gristhorpe said. "Owt else?"

"I'd look more closely at why they did it the way they did, and why they chose Gemma Scupham. It's also come out from a few studies lately that more women are involved in paedophilia than we'd ever thought before, so I wouldn't discount that possibility altogether. Maybe she wasn't along just for the ride."

"Could he have been the one along for the ride?" Gristhorpe asked.

"I doubt it. Not according to the statistics, at least."

"Any good news?"

Jenny shook her head. "What it comes down to," she said, leaning forward, "is that in my opinion-and remember it's still all basically guesswork-you're probably dealing with a psychopath, most likely the male, and a woman who's become fixated on him, who'll do anything he says. There's something odd about them, though, something odd about the whole business. The psychology doesn't quite add up." She frowned. "Anyway, I'd concentrate on him. He might not be a paedophile in particular, so I wouldn't depend on criminal records. I think it's more likely that he just likes to act out s.a.d.i.s.tic fantasies in front of an adoring audience. I-Oh, G.o.d, what am I saying? That poor d.a.m.n kid." Jenny flopped back in the chair and put her hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm behaving like a silly girl."

"Nay, la.s.s," said Gristhorpe. "When they played that tape there wasn't a dry eye in the courtroom-and they were hardened coppers all."

"Still," said Jenny, "if I'm to be any help I have to try to remain calm and objective."

"Aye," said Gristhorpe, sitting down again. "Aye, you can try. But I don't imagine it's easy for any of us with a possible psychopath on the loose, is it? Another cup of tea?"

Jenny looked at her watch. No, she didn't have to hurry; she had plenty of time. "Yes," she said. "That'd be very nice. I think I will."

SEVEN.

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?"