Wednesday's Child (30 page)

Jenny took a deep breath. “The two crimes are so different. I can't really find a pattern.”

“Are there no elements in common?”

Jenny thought for a moment, and the images of Johnson's body came back. She sipped at her drink. “From all I've seen and heard,” she said, “I'd say that the two crimes at least demonstrate a complete lack of empathy on the criminal's part, which leans towards the theory of the psychopath. If that's the case, he probably
wasn't sexually interested in Gemma, only in his power over her, which he may have been demonstrating to the woman, as I said to the superintendent last time we met.” She ran her hand through her hair. “I just don't have anything more to go on.”

“Think about the Johnson murder.”

Jenny leaned forward and rested her hands on the table. “All right. The couple who took Gemma showed no feeling for the mother at all. Whoever killed Johnson didn't feel his pain, or if he did, he enjoyed it. You know even better than I do that murder can take many forms—there's the heat of the moment, and there's at least some distancing, as when a gun's used. Even the classic poisoner often prefers to be far away when the poison takes effect. But here we have someone who, according to all the evidence you've shown me, must have stood very close indeed to his victim, looked him in the eye as he killed slowly. Could you do that? Could I? I don't think so. Most of us have at least some sensitivity to another's pain—we imagine what it would feel like if we suffered it ourselves. But one class of person doesn't—the psychopath. He can't relate to anyone else's pain, can't imagine it happening to him. He's so self-centred that he lacks empathy completely.”

“You keep saying ‘he.'”

Jenny slapped his wrist playfully. “You know as well as I do that, statistically speaking, most psychopaths are men. And it might be pretty interesting to try to find out why. But that's beside the point. That's what the two crimes, what I know of them, have in common. There are other elements that fit the psychopath profile, too: the apparent coolness and bravado with which Gemma was abducted; the charm Chivers must have exhibited to her mother; the clever deceit he must have played to get Johnson out to the mill, if that's what he did. And you can add that he's also likely to be manipulative, impulsive, egocentric and irresponsible. You're nursing your pint, Alan. Anything wrong?”

“What? Oh, no. I'm just preserving my liver. I have to meet Jim Hatchley for dinner in a couple of hours.”

“So he's in town again, is he?”

“Just for a little job.”

Jenny held her hand up. “Say no more. I don't want to know anything about it. I can't understand why you like that man.”

Banks shrugged. “Jim's all right. Anyway, back to Chivers. What if he committed the Carl Johnson murder out of self-preservation?”

“The method was still his choice.”

“Yes.” Banks lit another cigarette. “Look, I'll tell you what I'm getting at. Just before you arrived, I talked to my old friend Barney Merritt at the Yard, and he told me that Criminal Intelligence has got quite a file on Chivers. They've never been able to put him away for anything, but they've had reports of his suspected activities from time to time, and they've usually had some connection with organized crime. The closest they came to nabbing him was four years ago. An outsider trying to muscle in on a protection racket in Birmingham was found on a building site with a bullet in his brain. The police knew Chivers was connected with the local mob up there, and a couple of witnesses placed him with the victim in a pub near the site. Soon as things got serious, though, the witnesses started to lose their memories.”

“What are you telling me, Alan, that he's a hit man or something?”

Banks waved his hand. “No, hold on, let me finish. Most of the information in the CI files concerns his suspected connection with criminal gangs in London and in Birmingham, doing hits, nobbling witnesses, enforcing debt-collection and the like. But word has it that when business is slack, Chivers is not averse to a bit of murder and mayhem on the side, just for the fun of it. And according to Barney, his employers started to get bad feelings about him about a year ago. They're keeping their distance. Again, there's nothing proven, just hearsay.”

“Interesting,” said Jenny. “Is there any more?”

“Just a few details. He's prime suspect—without a scrap of proof—in three murders down south, one involving a fair amount of torture before death, and there are rumours of one or two fourteen-year-old girls he's treated roughly in bed.”

Jenny shook her head. “If you're getting at some kind of connection between that and Gemma, I'd say it's highly unlikely.”

“But why? He likes his sex rough and strange. He likes them young. What happens when fourteen isn't enough of a kick any more?”

“The fact that he likes having sex with fourteen-year-old girls in no way indicates, psychologically, that he could be interested in seven-year-olds. Quite the opposite, really.”

Banks frowned. “I don't understand.”

“It was something else I discovered in my research. According to statistics, the younger the child, the older the paedophile is likely to be. Your Chivers sounds about the right age for an unhealthy interest in fourteen-year-olds, but, you know, if you'd given me no information at all about Gemma's abduction, I'd say you should be looking for someone over forty, most likely someone who knew Gemma—a family friend, neighbour or even a relative— who lives in the area, or not far away, and probably lives alone. I certainly wouldn't be looking for a young couple from Birmingham, or wherever.”

Banks shook his head. “Okay, let's get back on track. Tell me what you think of this scenario. We know that plenty of psychopaths have found gainful employment in organized crime. They're good at frightening people, they're clever, and they make good killers. The problem is that they're hard to control. Now, what do you do with a psychopath when you find him more of a business liability than an asset? You try to cut him loose and hope to hell he doesn't bear a grudge. Or you have him killed, and so the cycle continues. His old bosses don't trust Chivers any more, Jenny. He's
persona non grata
. They're scared of him. He has to provide his own entertainment now.”

“Hmm.” Jenny swirled her glass and took another sip. “It makes some sense, but I doubt that it's quite like that. In the first place, if he's hard to control, it's more likely to mean that he's losing control of himself. From what you told me, Chivers must have been a highly organized personality type at one time, exhibiting a great deal of control. But psychopaths are also highly unstable. They're prone to deterioration. His personality could be disintegrating towards the disorganized type, and right now he might be in the middle, the mixed type. Most serial killers, for example, keep on
killing until they're caught or until they lose touch completely with reality. That's why you don't find many of them over forty. They've either been caught by then, or they're hopelessly insane.”

Banks stubbed out his cigarette. “Are you suggesting that Chivers could be turning into a serial killer?”

Jenny shrugged. “Not necessarily a serial killer, but it's possible, isn't it? He doesn't fit the general profile of a paedophile, and he's certainly changing into
something
. Yes, it makes sense, Alan. I'm not saying it's true, but it's certainly consistent with the information you've got.”

“So what next?”

Jenny shuddered. “Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever it is, you can be sure it won't be very pleasant. If he is experiencing loss of control, then he's probably at a very volatile and unpredictable stage.” She finished her drink. “I'll give you one piece of advice, though.”

“What's that?”

“If it is true, be very careful. This man's a loose cannon on the deck. He's very dangerous. Maybe even more so than you realize.”

III

“Congratulations,” said Banks. “I really mean it, Jim. I'm happy for you. Why the hell didn't you tell me before?”

“Aye, well … weren't sure.” Sergeant Hatchley blushed. A typical Yorkshireman, he wasn't comfortable with expressions of sentiment.

The two of them sat in the large oak-panelled dining-room of the Red Lion Hotel, an enormous Victorian structure by the roundabout on the southern edge of Eastvale. Hatchley was looking a bit healthier than he had on his arrival that afternoon. Then the ravages of a hangover had still been apparent around his eyes and in his skin, but now he had regained his normal ruddy complexion and that tell-me-another-one look in his pale blue eyes. Just for a few moments, though, his colour deepened even more and his eyes filled with pride. Banks was congratulating him on his wife's pregnancy. Their first.

“When's it due?” Banks asked.

“I don't know. Don't they usually take nine months?”

“I just wondered if the doctor had given you a date.”

“Mebbe Carol knows. She didn't say owt to me, though. This is a good bit of beef.” He cut into his prime-rib roast and washed it down with a draught of Theakston's bitter. “Ah, it's good to be home again.”

Banks was eating lamb and drinking red wine. Not that he had become averse to Theakston's, but the Red Lion had a decent house claret and it seemed a shame to ignore it. “You still think of Eastvale as home?” he asked.

“Grew up here,” replied Hatchley around a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding. “Place gets in your blood.”

“How are you liking the coast?”

“It's all right. Been a good summer.” Sergeant Hatchley had been transferred to Saltby Bay, between Scarborough and Whitby, mostly in order to make way for Phil Richmond's boost up the promotion ladder. Hatchley was a good sergeant and always would be; Richmond, Banks suspected, would probably make at least Chief Inspector, his own rank, and might go even further if he kept on top of the latest computer technology and showed a bit more initiative and leadership quality. Susan Gay, their most recent DC, was certainly demonstrating plenty of initiative, though it didn't always lead where it should.

“Do I detect a note of nostalgia?” Banks asked.

Hatchley grinned. “Let me put it this way. It's a bit like a holiday. Trouble is—and I never thought I'd be complaining about
this
—it's a holiday that never bloody ends. There's not much goes on for CID to deal with out there, save for a bit of organized pickpocketing in season, a few Band-Es, or a spot of trouble with the bookies now and then. It's mostly paperwork, a desk job.” Hatchley uttered those last two words with flat-vowelled Yorkshire contempt.

“Thought you'd be enjoying the rest.”

“I might be a bit of a lazy sod, but I'm not bloody retiring age yet. You know me, I like a bit of action now and then. Out there, half the time I think I've died and gone to Harrogate, only by the sea.”

“What are you getting at, Jim?”

Hatchley hesitated for a moment, then put his knife and fork down. “I'll be blunt. We're all right for now, Carol and me, but after the baby's born, do you think there's any chance of us getting back to Eastvale?”

Banks sipped some wine and thought for a moment.

“Look,” Hatchley said, “I know the super doesn't like me. Never has. I knew that even before you came on the scene.”

Three and a half years ago, Banks thought. Was that all? So much had happened. He raised his eyebrows.

“But we get on all right, don't we?” Hatchley went on. “I mean, it took us a while, we didn't have the best of starts. But I know my faults. I've got strengths, too, is all I'm saying.”

“I know that,” Banks said. “And you're right.” He remembered that it had taken him two years to call Sergeant Hatchley by his first name. By then he had developed a grudging respect for the man's tenacity. Hatchley might take the easy way out, act in unorthodox ways, cut corners, take risks, but he generally got what he set out to get. In other words, he was a bit of a maverick, like Banks himself, and he was neither as thick nor as thuggish as Banks had first thought.

Apart from Gristhorpe, Banks felt most comfortable with Hatchley. Phil Richmond was all right, pleasant enough, but he always seemed a bit remote and self-absorbed. For God's sake, Banks thought, what could you expect from a man who read science fiction, listened to New Age music and spent half his time playing computer games? Susan Gay was too prickly, too over-sensitive to feel really at ease with, though he admired her spunk and her common sense.

“It's not up to me,” Banks said finally. “You know that. But the way Phil's going it wouldn't surprise me if he went in for a transfer to the Yard before long.”

“Aye, well, he always was an ambitious lad, was Phil.”

It was said without rancour, but Banks knew it must have hurt Hatchley to be shunted to a backwater so as not to impede a younger man's progress up the ranks. Transfer to CID was no more a “promotion”
per se
than transfer to Traffic and Communications—
a sergeant was a sergeant, whether he or she had the prefix “detective” or not—though some, like Susan Gay, actually saw it that way, as a mark of recognition of special abilities. Some detectives were transferred back to uniform; some returned from choice. But Banks knew that Hatchley had no desire to walk the beat or drive the patrol cars again. What he wanted was to come back to Eastvale as a Detective Sergeant, and there simply wasn't room for him with Richmond at the same rank.

Banks shrugged. “What can I say, Jim? Be patient.”

“Can I count on your support, if the situation arises?”

Banks nodded. “You can.” He smiled to himself as the unbidden image of Jim Hatchley and Susan Gay working together came to mind. Oh, there would be fun and games ahead if Sergeant Hatchley came back to Eastvale.