Wednesday's Child (21 page)

“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 post-mortems 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.