Wednesday's Child (38 page)

“All right,” said Gristhorpe. “Let me do the talking. Keep your eyes peeled. We'll try and get Harkness out of there if we can.”

Banks nodded, turned into the driveway and crunched over the gravel. He felt a claw tighten at the pit of his stomach; the gun hung heavy in his pocket.

They rang the doorbell. Harkness flung the door open and growled, “You again? What the bloody hell do you want this time?”

Gristhorpe introduced himself. “I think it might be best if we did this at the station,” he said to Harkness.

“Am I under arrest? You can't be serious. This is nothing but a tissue of unsubstantiated lies.”

He was sweating.

“I think it would be best, sir,” said Gristhorpe. “Of course, you have the right to consult your solicitor.”

“I'll sue the both of you for wrongful arrest. I'll have you off the force. I'll—”

Banks thought he noticed a flash of movement behind Harkness on the staircase, but it was hard to see into the house clearly. What followed next was so sudden and so unexpected, he realized in retrospect that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it.

They heard a sound like a dull pop and Harkness's eyes seemed to fill with blood. His forehead opened like a rose in time-lapse photography. Both Banks and Gristhorpe flung themselves out of the way by instinct. As Banks flattened himself against the wall of the house, he became aware of the blood and tissue on his face and chest. Harkness's. He wanted to be sick.

Time seemed to hang like over-ripe fruit ready to fall at any moment. Harkness lay half in and half out the door, only a small hole showing in the back of his closely cropped skull and a pool of dark blood thickening under his face around his head. Gristhorpe stood back, flat against the wall on one side of the door, Banks on the other. From inside, they heard nothing but silence. Then, it could have been minutes or just seconds after the shooting, they heard a crash from the far side of the house, followed by a curse and the sound of someone running.

They glanced quickly at one another, then Gristhorpe nodded and swung himself into the doorway first, gun sweeping the hall and stairwell. Nothing. Banks followed, adopting the stance he had learned in training: gun extended in one hand, other hand gripping the wrist. They got to the front room and found no one. But there, beyond the french windows, one of which had been smashed by a careless elbow as he dashed by, they saw Chivers running down the lawn towards the riverbank.

“Get on the radio, Alan,” said Gristhorpe. “Tell them to close in. And tell them to be bloody careful. Get an ambulance here, too.”

Banks dashed to the car and gave the message to the plain-clothes watchers, all of whom carried police radios in their fishing boxes or picnic hampers. After he had radioed headquarters for an ambulance, he hurried through the house after Gristhorpe and Chivers.

Chivers was in the garden, heading for the river. As he ran, he turned around and fired several times. A window shattered, slate
chips showered from the roof, then Gristhorpe went down. Banks took cover behind the copper beech and looked back at the superintendent's body sprawled on the lawn. He wanted to go to him, but he couldn't break cover. Carefully, he edged around the tree trunk and looked for Chivers.

There weren't many places Chivers could go. Fences and thick hedges blocked off the riverbank to the east and west, enclosing Harkness's property, and ahead lay the water. With a quick glance right and left and a wild shot, Chivers charged into the water. Soon it was up to his hips, then his waist. He aimed towards the tree and fired again. The bullet thudded into the bark. When Banks looked around the trunk again, he saw the other police in a line across the river, all with guns, closing fast. Gristhorpe must have commandeered the whole bloody dale, he thought. Glancing back towards the house, he saw Susan Gay and Phil Richmond framed by the french window staring at Gristhorpe. He waved to them to take cover.

Chivers stopped when the water came up to his armpits and fired again, but the hammer fell with an empty click. He tried a few more times, but it was empty. Banks shouted for Richmond and Susan to see to the superintendent, then he walked down the slope.

“Come on,” he said. “Look around you. It's over.”

Chivers looked and saw the men lining the opposite bank. They were in range now. He looked again at Banks. Then he shrugged, tossed the gun in the water, and smiled.

II

Everything had been done by the book; Banks saw to that. Thus, when they finally got to talk to Chivers, the custody record had been opened; he had been offered the right to legal advice, which he had repeatedly refused; offered the chance to inform a friend or relative of his arrest, at which he had laughed; and even offered a cup of tea, which he had accepted. The desk sergeant had managed to rustle up a disposable white boiler suit to replace his wet clothes, as according to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, “a person
may not be interviewed unless adequate clothing has been offered to him.” And the interview room they sat in, while not especially large, was at least “adequately heated, lit and ventilated” according to the letter of the law. If questioning went on for a long time, Chivers would be brought meals and allowed periods of rest.

In addition, Jenny Fuller had turned up at the station and asked if she could be present during the questioning. It was an unusual request, and at first Banks refused. Jenny persisted, claiming her presence might even help, as Chivers seemed to like to show off to women. Finally, Banks asked Chivers's permission, which galled him, and Chivers said, “The more the merrier.”

Back at Harkness's house, Banks knew, the SOCO team would be collecting evidence, Glendenning poring over Harkness's body, a group of constables digging up the garden that Carl Johnson had so lovingly tended, and police frogmen searching the river.

Sometimes, thought Banks, the creaking machinery of the law was a welcome prophylactic on his desire to reach out and throttle someone. Hampered as he had often felt by the Act, today, ironically enough, he was glad of it as he sat across the table looking at the man who had murdered at least three people, wounded Superintendent Gristhorpe and abducted Gemma Scupham.

As he looked, he certainly felt the impulse to kill Chivers, simply to swat him as one would a troublesome wasp. But it wasn't an impulse he was proud of. All his life, both in spite of and because of his job, Banks had tried to cultivate his own version of compassion. If crime really was part of what made us human, he thought, then it merited deep study. If we simply kill off the pests that bother us, we make no progress at all. He knew that he could, in some strange way,
learn
from Chivers. It was a knowledge he might deeply wish to reject, but spiritual and intellectual cowardice had never been among his failings.

Banks sat opposite Chivers, Richmond stood behind him, by the door, and Jenny sat by the window, diagonally across from him.

Close up, the monster didn't look like much at all, Banks noted. About Banks's height, and with the same kind of lean, wiry strength, he sat erect, hands placed palms down on the table in front of him, their backs covered with ginger down. His skin was
pale, his hair an undistinguished shade of sandy brown, and his general look could only be described as boyish—the kind of boy who pulled pranks and was amused to see their effects on the victims.

If there was anything outstanding about him at all, it was his eyes. They were the kind of green the sea looks sometimes, and when he wasn't smiling they looked just as cold, as deep and as unpredictable as the ocean itself. When he did smile, though, they lit up with such a bright, honest light you felt you could trust him with anything. At least, it was
almost
like that, Banks thought, if it weren't for that glint of madness in them; not quite insanity, but close enough to the edge. Not everyone would notice, but then not everyone was looking at him as a murderer.

Banks turned on the tape-recorder, repeated the caution and reminded Chivers of his rights. “Before we get onto the other charges against you,” he said, “I'd like to ask you a few questions about Gemma Scupham.”

“Why not?” said Chivers. “It was just a lark really.” His voice, a little more whiny and high-pitched than Banks had expected, bore no trace of regional accent; it was as bland and characterless as a BBC 2 announcer's.

“Whose idea was it?”

“Mr Harkness wanted a companion.”

“How did he get in touch with you?”

“Through Carl Johnson. We'd known each other for a while. Carl was … well, between you and me he wasn't too bright. Like that other chap, what's his name?”

“Poole?”

“That's right. Small-time, the two of them. Low-lifes.”

“How did you first meet Harkness?”

“Look, does any of this really matter? It's very dull stuff for me, you know.” He shifted in his chair, and Banks noticed him look over at Jenny.

“Humour us.”

Chivers sighed. “Oh, very well. Harkness knew Carl was a gutless oaf, of course, but he had contacts. Harkness needed someone taken care of a couple of months ago.” He waved his hand
dismissively. “Someone had been stealing from him in the London office, apparently, and Harkness wanted him taught a lesson. Carl got in touch with me.”

“What happened?”

“I did the job, of course. Harkness paid well. I got an inkling from our little chats that this was a man with unusual tastes and plenty of money. I thought a nice little holiday in Yorkshire might turn out fruitful.” He smiled.

“And did it?”

“Of course.”

“How much?”

“Please. A gentleman never discusses money.”

“How much?”

Chivers shrugged. “I asked for twenty thousand pounds. We compromised on seventeen-fifty.”

“So you abducted Gemma Scupham just for money?”

“No, no. Of course not. Not just for the money.” Chivers leaned forward. “You don't understand, do you? It sounded like fun, too. It had to be interesting.”

“So you'd heard about Gemma through Les Poole and thought she would be the perfect candidate?”

“Oh, the fool was always moaning about her. Her mother sounded as thick as two short planks, and she clearly didn't care much about the child anyway. They didn't want her. Harkness did. It's a buyer's market. It was almost too easy. We picked her up, drove around for a while just to be on the safe side, then dropped her off at Harkness's after dark and returned the car.” He smiled. “You should have seen his face light up. It was love at first sight.”

“Did either Johnson or Poole know about this?”

“I'm not stupid. I wouldn't have trusted either of them.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Nothing. It was the perfect crime,” Chivers mused. “But Carl got foolish and greedy. Otherwise you'd never have gone anywhere near Harkness.”

“But we did.”

“Yes. Carl suspected something. Maybe he actually saw the child, I don't know. Or perhaps he caught Harkness drooling over
his kiddie porn and put two and two together. That surprised me, that did. I never thought him capable of that. Putting two and two together and coming up with the right answer. I must admit I underestimated him.”

“What happened?”

Chivers made a steeple with his hands and his eyes glazed over.

He seemed lost in his own world. Banks repeated the question. Chivers seemed to come back from a great distance.

“What? Oh.” He gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “He tried to put the touch on Harkness. Harkness got worried and called me again. I said I'd take care of it.”

“For a fee?”

“Of course. I wouldn't say I'm in it for the money, but I need a fair bit to keep me in the style to which I'm accustomed. Harkness arranged to meet him at the old lead mine to pay him off and Chelsea and I gave him a lift there. Poor bastard, he never suspected a thing.”

“Chelsea?”

He stared at a spot above Banks's left shoulder. “Yes. Silly name, isn't it? Fancy naming someone after a flower show, or a bun. Poor Chelsea. She just couldn't quite understand.”

“Understand what?”

“The beauty of it all.” Chivers's eyes turned suddenly back on Jenny. They looked like a dark green whirlpool, Banks thought, with blackness at its centre, evil with a sense of humour. “She liked it at the time, you know, the thrill. And she never liked poor Carl anyway. She said he was always undressing her with his eyes. You should have seen the look in
her
eyes when I killed him. She was standing right next to me and I could smell her sex. Needless to say, we had a
lot
of fun later that night. But she got jittery, read the newspapers, began to wonder, asked too many questions… . As I said, she didn't fully comprehend the beauty of it all.”

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

He turned his eyes slowly back to Banks. “Yes. That was the last straw. It turned her all weepy, the sentimental fool. I had to kill her then.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn't want another one like me in this universe, would we?” He winked. “Besides, it was what she wanted. I have a knack of knowing what people really
want
.”

“What did she want?”

“Death, of course. She enjoyed it. I know. I was there. It was glorious, the way she thrust and struggled.” He looked over at Jenny again. “
You
understand, don't you?”

“And Harkness?” Banks said.

“Oh, it was very easy to see into his dirty soul. Little children.

Little kiddies. He'd had it easy before. South Africa, Amsterdam. He found it a bit difficult here. He was getting desperate, that's all. It's simply a matter of knowing the right people.”

Banks noticed that Chivers had dampened a part of his cuff and was rubbing at an old coffee ring on the desk. “What happened to Gemma?” he asked.