Wednesday's Child (10 page)

Banks looked at the blood again. “It doesn't look like much, though, does it?” he said. “And I'd say it's smeared rather than spilled.”

“Aye,” said Gristhorpe, standing. “Like someone wiped off a knife or something. We'll leave it to the SOCOs.”

The first to arrive was Peter Darby, the photographer. He came bounding up the track, fresh-faced, two cameras slung around his neck and a square metal case at his side. If it's Gemma Scupham in there, Banks thought, he won't look so bloody cheerful when he comes out.

Darby went to take some preliminary photographs, starting with the stained grass, on Gristhorpe's suggestion, then the flue entrance, then carefully making his way inside. Banks could see the bulbs flash in the black hole as Darby took his pictures. When he'd finished in the flue, he took more photographs in and around the smelting mill.

About half an hour after Peter Darby, Dr Glendenning came huffing and puffing up the path.

“At least I didn't need a bloody truss to get here this time,” he said, referring to the occasion when they had all been winched up the side of Rawley Force to get to a body in a hanging valley. He pointed towards the flue. “In there, you said?”

Gristhorpe nodded.

“Hmphh. Why the bloody hell do you keep on finding bodies in awkward places, eh? I'm not getting any younger, you know. It's not even my job. You could get a bloody GP to pronounce the body dead at the scene.”

Banks shrugged. “Sorry.” Glendenning was a Home Office pathologist, one of the best in the country, and both Banks and Gristhorpe knew he would be offended if they didn't call him to the scene first.

“Aye, well …” He turned towards the entrance.

They accompanied Glendenning as he picked his way over the scree, complaining all the way, and ducked to enter the flue. Banks held the torch this time. It didn't provide much light, but the SOCOs had been instructed to bring bottled-gas lamps as it would be impossible to get a van with a generator up the narrow track.

Glendenning knelt for a while, sniffing the air and glancing around the inside of the flue, then he touched the small hand and moved it, muttering to himself. Next he took out a mercury thermometer and held it close to the body, measuring the air temperature.

The entrance of the flue darkened and someone called out. It was Vic Manson, fingerprint expert and leader of the SOCO team. He came up the passage with a gas-lamp and soon the place was full of light. It cast eerie shadows on the slimy stone walls and gave an unreal sheen to the heap of stones on the ground. Manson called back to one of his assistants and asked him to bring up some large plastic bags.

Then everyone stood silent, breath held, as the men started to lift the stones and place them in the bags for later forensic investigation. A few spiders scurried away and a couple of obstinate flies buzzed the men angrily then zigzagged off.

Banks leaned against the wall, his back bent into its curve. One stone, two, three … Then a whole arm became visible.

Banks and Gristhorpe moved forward. They crouched over and looked at the small hand, then both saw the man's wristwatch and frayed sleeve of a grey bomber-jacket. “It's not her,” Gristhorpe whispered. “Jesus Christ, it's not Gemma Scupham.”

Banks felt the relief, too. He had always clung to a vague hope that Gemma might still be alive, but the discovery of the body had seemed to wreck all that. Nobody else in the dale had been reported missing. And now, as Manson and his men picked stone after stone away, they looked down at what was obviously the body
of a young man, complete with moustache. A young man with unusually small hands. But, Banks asked himself, if it isn't Gemma Scupham, then who the hell is it?

III

Jenny darted into the Eastvale Regional Headquarters at two o'clock, just in time for her appointment with Banks. She always seemed to be rushing these days, she thought, as if she were a watch a few minutes slow always trying to catch up. She wasn't even really late this time.

“Miss Fuller?”

Jenny walked over to the front desk. “Yes?”

“Message from Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe, miss. Says he's on his way. You can wait in his office if you wish.”

Jenny frowned. “But I thought I was to see Alan—Chief Inspector Banks?”

“He's at the scene.”

“What scene?”

“It looks like a murder scene. I'm sorry I can't say any more, miss. We don't really know anything yet.”

“That's all right,” Jenny said. “I'll wait.”

“Very well. The superintendent's office—”

“I know where it is, thanks.”

Jenny poured herself some coffee from the machine at the bottom of the stairs then went up to Gristhorpe's office. She had been there before, but never alone. It was larger than Alan's, and much better appointed. She had heard that rank determines the level of luxury in policemen's offices, but she also knew that the department itself was hardly likely to supply such things as the large teak desk, or the matching bookcases that covered one wall. The cream and burgundy patterned carpet, perhaps—it was hardly an expensive one, Jenny noticed—but not the shaded desk lamp and the books that lined the shelves.

She glanced over the titles. They were mostly works of criminology and law—the essential
Archbold's Criminal Pleading, Evidence & Practice
and Glaister's
Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology
in addition to several other technical and forensic texts—but there were also books on history, fishing, cricket, a few novels and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's edition of
The Oxford Book of English Verse
. What surprised Jenny most was the number of mystery paperbacks: about four feet of them, mostly Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Edmund Crispin and Michael Innes.

“That's just the overflow,” a voice said behind her, making her jump. “The rest are at home.”

“I didn't hear you come in,” Jenny said, putting her hand to her chest. “You startled me.”

“We coppers are a light-footed lot,” Gristhorpe said, with a twinkle in his baby-blue eyes. “Have to be to catch the villains. Sit down.”

Jenny sat. “This murder, I couldn't help thinking … It's not … ?”

“No, it's not, thank God. It's bad enough, though. We don't know who the victim is yet. I left Alan at the scene. I decided to stick with the Gemma Scupham case and let him handle the murder.”

Jenny had never felt entirely at ease with Superintendent Gristhorpe, but she didn't know why. He seemed very much his own man—self-contained, strong, determined—and he projected a solid, comforting presence. But something made her feel awkward. Perhaps, she speculated, it was the underlying sense of isolation she sensed, the fortress he seemed to have built around his feelings. She knew about his wife's death from cancer several years ago, and guessed that perhaps a part of him had died with her. Susan Gay, she remembered, had said that she also felt uncomfortable with him, yet he had a reputation as a kind and compassionate man.

His physical presence was difficult to ignore, too. He was a big man—bulky, but not fat—with bushy eyebrows and an unruly thatch of grey hair. With his reddish, pock-marked complexion and the slightly hooked nose, he was very much the dalesman, she thought, if indeed there was such a creature, weathered and moulded by the landscape.

“I did a bit of preliminary research last night,” Jenny began. “I
can
probably give you a capsule version of the paedophile types.”

Gristhorpe nodded. As she spoke, Jenny somehow felt that he probably knew more than she did about the subject. After all, some of his books dealt with criminal psychology and forensic psychiatry, and he was reputed to be well read. But she didn't feel he was simply being polite when he let her speak. No, he was listening all right, listening for something he might not have come across or thought of himself. Watching her carefully with those deceptively innocent eyes.

She balanced her black-rimmed reading-glasses on her nose and took her notes out of her briefcase. “Basically, there are four types of paedophile,” she began. “And so far it doesn't seem like your couple fits any. The first kind is someone who hasn't really been able to establish satisfactory relationships with his peers. It's the most common type, and he only feels sexually comfortable with children. He usually
knows
his victim, maybe a family friend, or even a relation.”

Gristhorpe nodded. “What about age, roughly?”

“Average age is about forty.”

“Hmm. Go on.”

“The second type is someone who seems to develop normally but finds it increasingly difficult to adjust to adult life—work, marriage, et cetera. Feels inadequate, often turns to drink. Usually the marriage, if there is one, breaks down. With this type, something sets things in motion. He reaches a kind of breaking-point. Maybe his wife or girlfriend is having an affair, intensifying his feelings of inadequacy. This kind doesn't usually know his victim. It may be someone he sees passing by in a car or something. Again, not much like the situation you described at Brenda Scupham's.”

“No,” agreed Gristhorpe. “But we've got to keep an open mind at this point.”

“And I think we can dismiss the third type, too,” Jenny went on. “This is someone who generally had his formative sexual experiences with young boys in an institution of some kind.”

“Ah,” said Gristhorpe. “Public school?”

Jenny looked up at him and smiled. “I suppose that would qualify.” She turned back to her notes. “Anyway, this type is
generally a homosexual paedophile, the type that cruises the streets for victims or uses male prostitutes.”

“And the last?”

“The wild card,” Jenny said. “The psychopathic paedophile. It's hard to pin this type down. He's in search of new sexual thrills, and pain and fear are generally involved. He'll hurt his victims, introduce sharp objects into the sexual organs, that kind of thing. The more aggressive he gets, the more excited he becomes. A person like this usually has a history of anti-social behaviour.”

Gristhorpe held the bridge of his nose and grunted.

“I'm sorry I can't really be of any more help yet,” Jenny said, “but I'm working on it. The really odd thing, as I told Alan, is that there were two of them, a man and a woman. I want to look a bit further into that aspect.”

Gristhorpe nodded. “Go ahead. And please don't underestimate your usefulness.”

Jenny smiled at him and shuffled her notes back into the briefcase.

“This stuff the newspapers were on about,” Gristhorpe went on, “organized gangs of paedophiles, what do you think of that?”

Jenny shook her head. “It doesn't figure. Paedophiles are like other sexual deviants, essentially loners, solo operators. And most of the allegations of ritual abuse turned out to be social workers' fantasies. Of course, when you get abuse in families, people close ranks. They might look like organized gangs, but they're not really. Paedophiles simply aren't the types to form clubs, except …”

“Except what?”

“I was thinking of kiddie porn, child prostitution and the like.

It's around, it happens, there's no denying it, and that takes a bit of organization.”

“Videos, magazines?”

“Yes. Even snuff films.”

“We're doing our best,” Gristhorpe said. “I've been in touch with the paedophile squad. Those rings are hard to penetrate, but if anything concerning Gemma turns up, believe me, we'll know about it.”

Jenny stood up. “I'll do a bit more research.”

“Thanks.” Gristhorpe walked over to open the door for her.

Jenny dashed back to her car, got in and turned her key in the ignition. Suddenly, she paused. She couldn't remember where she was supposed to go or why she was in such a hurry. She checked her appointment book and then racked her brains to see if she had forgotten anything. No. The truth was, she had nowhere to go and no reason at all to hurry.

IV

Banks breathed deeply, grateful for the fresh air outside the flue. Claustrophobia was bad enough, but what he had just seen made it even worse.

After Gristhorpe had gone to meet Jenny, the SOCOs had slowly and carefully removed all the stones from the body of a man in his mid- to late-twenties. When they had finished, Dr Glendenning bent forward to see what he could find out. First, he opened the bomber-jacket and cursed when he had to stop the tangle of greyish intestines from spilling out of the man's shirt. A couple more flies finally gave up the ghost and crawled out from under the tubing and took off indignantly. The wind moaned down the flue. Quickly, Banks had searched the dead man's pockets: all empty.

Banks lit a cigarette; fresh air wasn't enough to get the taste of the flue and of death out of his mouth. The smell was difficult to pin down. Sickly, sweet, with a slight metallic edge, it always seemed to linger around him like an aura for days after attending the scene of a murder.

Glendenning had been crouched in the flue alone for over half an hour now, and the SOCOs were still going over the ground inside the taped-off area: every blade of glass, every stone.

Banks wandered into the smelting mill and looked at the ruins of the furnace and the ore hearth while he waited, trying to put the first shocking glimpse of those spilled intestines out of his mind. He had seen the same thing once before, back in London, and it wasn't something even the most hardened policeman forgot easily.

He stared at the dullish brown patch in the corner, marked off by the SOCOs as blood. The murder, they said, had probably taken place in the mill.

At last, Glendenning emerged from the flue, red in the face. He stood upright and dusted his jacket where it had come into contact with the stones. A cigarette dangled from his mouth.

“I suppose you want to know it all right away, don't you?” he said to Banks, sitting on a boulder outside the smelting mill. “Time of death, cause of death, what he had for breakfast?”