Wednesday's Child (7 page)

She smiled to herself, imagining Alan Banks sitting at one of Le Bistro's wobbly little tables, no doubt feeling out of place among the yuppie lunch crowd with their Perriers and portable
telephones. He would be far more comfortable in the Queen's Arms with a pie and a pint in front of him, not at a table covered in a coral cloth with a long-stemmed rose in a vase at its centre. But Jenny had been lecturing to the Americans all morning, and she was damned if she was going to be done out of the shrimp
provençale
and the glass of white wine she had promised to treat herself.

Jenny remembered her surprise the first time the Eastvale CID had brought her into a case, involving a peeping Tom, three years ago. She had guessed (correctly) that they wanted a visible female presence as a sop to Dorothy Wycombe and the Eastvale feminist contingent, WEEF, Women of Eastvale for Emancipation and Freedom. Still, she had done a good job, and since then her professional field of interests had broadened to include a certain amount of criminal and deviant psychology. She had even attended a series of fascinating lectures on the psychological profiling of serial killers, given by a visiting American from the FBI Behavioral Sciences section.

She had also had a brief fling with the visitor, but she didn't care to remember that too clearly. Like most of her affairs, it was best forgotten. Still, that was eighteen months ago, when she had been still hurting over her split with Dennis Osmond. Since then she had not been involved with anyone. Instead, she had done a lot of thinking about her lousy relationships, and the reasons for them. She hadn't come up with any answers yet. Most often she ended up wondering why the hell her professional insights seemed to shed no light at all on her personal life.

The tires screeched as she turned right at the market square and drove down by Castle Hill between the terraced river gardens and the formal gardens. People sat on the terraces and ate packed lunches on one side of the road, while on the other, mothers dragged bored children around the displays of fading flowers.

At last, she crossed the small bridge over the River Swain, turned right and pulled up outside the café.

Le Bistro was one of Eastvale's newest cafés. Tourism, the dale's main industry, had increased, and the many Americans drawn to do the “James Herriot” tour wanted a little more than fish and chips
and warm beer, quaint as they found such things. In addition, a more sophisticated, cosmopolitan crowd had moved up from London while property in the north was still a good deal cheaper than down south. Many of them commuted from Eastvale to York, Darlington, and even as far as Tyneside, Leeds and Bradford, and they naturally demanded a little more diversity in matters of dining.

Best of all, as far as Jenny was concerned, was that Le Bistro was actually situated in a converted Georgian semi only four houses south of her own. The new owners had, somehow, received planning permission to knock down the wall between the two houses and turn them into a café. For Jenny it was a godsend, as she often couldn't be bothered to cook after a hard day. The food was good and the prices were relatively reasonable.

She dashed through the door. The place was fairly busy, but she saw Banks immediately. There he was in a dark grey sports jacket, white shirt and tie. As usual, his top button was open and the tie loose and askew. Under close-cropped black hair, his dark blue eyes sparkled as he looked over at her. He was working on a crossword and holding what looked like a glass of mineral water. Jenny couldn't suppress a giggle as she sat down in a flurry of apologies. Le Bistro didn't serve pints.

“It's all right,” said Banks rather glumly, putting his newspaper away in his briefcase. “I'm supposed to be cutting down on the ale anyway.”

“Since when?”

Banks patted his stomach. “Since I turned forty and noticed this beginning to swell.”

“Nonsense. You're as lean as ever. You're just suffering from male menopause. Next you'll be having an affair with a twenty-one-year-old rookie policewoman.”

Banks laughed. “Chance would be a fine thing. But don't joke about it. You never know. Anyway, how are you?”

Jenny shrugged and tossed back the thick mane of red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. “Okay, I suppose. I'm not sure I like teaching summer school though.”

“Working in summer?” mocked Banks. “Tut-tut, what a terrible thing. What is the world coming to?”

Jenny thumped him on the arm. “It's supposed to be one of the perks of the job, remember? Teachers get summers off. Not this year, though.”

“Never mind. You're looking well for it.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” Jenny inclined her head graciously.

“And you haven't changed. Honestly, Alan. You still don't look a day over thirty-nine. How's Sandra?”

“Busy.”

“Oh-oh. Feeling all neglected, are we?”

Banks grinned. “Something like that. But we're not here to talk about me.”

“And how's Susan Gay?” Jenny had spent some time helping Susan adjust to her CID posting, on a semi-professional basis, and the two had become fairly close. They were different personalities, but Jenny saw something in Susan—a sense of determination, a single-mindedness—that both appealed to her and disturbed her. If she could persuade Susan to relax a little, she felt, then a more balanced and attractive personality might be permitted to emerge.

Banks told her Susan was doing well, though she still seemed a little tense and prickly, and the two chatted about family and mutual friends. “Have you studied the menu yet?” Jenny asked him after a short silence.

“Mm. No sausage and chips, I noticed. How's the croque monsieur?”

“Good.”

“Then I'll have that. And by the way, I like the music.”

Jenny cocked an ear. Singing quietly in the background was the unmistakable voice of Edith Piaf. Typical of him to notice that, she thought. Left to herself she would have ignored it as wallpaper music.

“Wine?” she asked.

“Not for me. It makes me sleepy and I've a lot of paperwork to do this afternoon.”

“So, it's about little Gemma Scupham, is it?” Jenny said, unfolding a coral napkin and spreading it over her lap. “That's why you've called me in?”

Banks nodded. “Superintendent Gristhorpe thought you might be able to help.”

“At least I'm not the token feminist this time.”

“No. Seriously, Jenny, can you help?”

“Maybe. What do you want from me?”

“For the moment I'd just like grounding in a few basics. I can understand a lot about things most people don't even want to think about—robbery, murder, even rape—but I can't seem to grasp the motivation for something like this.”

Jenny took a deep breath and held it a moment. “All right. I'll do what I can. Shall we order first, though?” She called over the waitress and gave their orders, asking for a glass of white wine for herself right now, and a coffee for Banks, then she sat back in her chair. “First you'd better tell me the details so far,” she said.

Banks told her. Before he finished, the food arrived, and they both tucked in.

Jenny pushed her plate away and set the half-full wineglass in front of her. Banks ordered another coffee.

“I don't really know where to start,” she said. “I mean, it's not really my field.”

“You do know something about sexual deviance, though.”

“Honestly, Alan, you make me sound like a real pervert. Basically, nobody really knows what causes someone to be a paedophile or a rapist or a sadist. They don't necessarily realize they're doing anything wrong.”

“Are you telling me that a man who sexually assaults little children doesn't think he's doing anything wrong?”

“Depends what you mean by wrong. He would know he's breaking the law, of course, but … He's only satisfying desires he can't help feeling. He never
asked
to feel them in the first place. And many also feel tremendous guilt and remorse.”

“For doing something they don't even think is wrong? You make it sound almost legitimate.”

“You asked. I'm just telling you what little I know.”

“I'm sorry. Go on.”

“Look, you might think a person is simply born the way he or she is, but sexual behaviour isn't fixed from the start. There are
theories that almost everything is biologically based, caused by chemicals, or by genes. For what it's worth, most studies indicate that sexual behaviour is mostly a matter of learning. At first, everything is diffuse, in a kind of flux—polymorphous perverse, I believe Freud called infant sexuality. It depends on a number of factors what preferences come to the fore.”

“Like what?”

“Experience. Learning. Family. They're probably the most important. You try something, and if you like it, you do it again. That's experience. Many people are given no information about sex, or such wrong-headed information that they become very confused. That's learning, or lack of it. Even what we call normal sexuality is a dark, murky thing at best. Look at the extremes of sexual jealousy, of how sex and desire can so easily turn to violence. There's loss of control. Then there's the association of orgasm with death. Did you know it used to be called the ‘little death'?”

“You don't make it sound like much fun.”

“That's the point,” Jenny said. “For a lot of people, it isn't. Desire is a ball and chain they can't get rid of, or a ringmaster they don't dare disobey. Sexuality has lots of possible outcomes other than what we label ‘normal' or socially acceptable. It's
learned
behaviour. When you're prepubescent or adolescent, any object or situation
could
become stimulating. Remember the thrill you used to get looking at pictures of naked women? It's easy as an adolescent to get fixated on things like underwear, big breasts, the image rather than the real thing. Remember our peeping Tom? That was his particular fixation, a visual stimulation.

“It doesn't take long before most of us start to prefer certain stimuli to others. Pretty soon sexual excitement and satisfaction become limited to a certain, fairly narrow range. That's what we call normal. Your good old, socially approved, heterosexual sex. The problem with most sexual deviants, though, is that they can't handle what we regard as normal personal relationships. Many try, but they fail. It's a lot more complicated than that, of course. It may not be apparent on the surface that they've failed, for example. They may become very good at faking it in order to cover up their real needs and actions.”

“So what kind of person are we talking about? You said it's someone who can't handle ordinary relationships.”

“I'll have to do some research and see what I can come up with, but your basic deviant is probably pretty much the chap-next-door type, with some very notable exceptions, of course. By the way, you don't have to look around so nervously, you can smoke if you want. Giselle will fetch an ashtray. Remember, it's a
French
restaurant. Everyone smokes over there.”

Banks lit up and Giselle duly brought the ashtray along with their bill. “Go on,” he said. “You were telling me about the chap next door.”

“It's just that most sex offenders become skilled at leading quite normal lives on the surface. They learn to play the game. They can hold down a job, keep a marriage going, even raise children—”

“Paedophiles?”

“Yes.”

“I must admit that's a surprise,” said Banks. “I've come across psychopaths and deviants of various kinds before—I mean, I'm not entirely ignorant on the subject—and it
has
often amazed me how they keep their secrets. Look at Dennis Nilsen, for Christ's sake, chopping up kids and putting their heads on the ring to boil while he takes his dog for a walk, saying hello to the neighbours. Such a nice, quiet man.” Banks shook his head. “I know the Boston Strangler was married, and Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. But how the hell can a paedophile keep a thing like that hidden from his wife and kids?”

“People can become very adept at keeping secrets if they have to, Alan. You don't spend all your life in someone else's company, under someone's scrutiny, do you? Surely you managed to find time alone to masturbate when you were a kid? And you probably thought about it a fair bit, too, anticipated the picture you'd look at or the girl you'd imagine undressing. The whole thing takes on a kind of magical intensity, a ritualistic element, if you like. A sex offender will simply spend all his free time anticipating and planning his deviant acts.”

Banks loosened his tie a little more. Jenny noticed him look around the restaurant and smile at the three businessmen at the
next table, who seemed to have been listening with growing fascination and horror to the conversation. “You seem to know a lot about adolescent male behaviour,” he said.

Jenny laughed. “Alan, I've embarrassed you. Oh, don't look so uncomfortable. It
is
part of my field, after all. The things little boys and little girls get up to.”

“What's your prognosis?” Banks asked.

Jenny sighed. “For you? I'm afraid there's no hope. No, really, I

honestly haven't done enough research for anything like that yet.” She frowned, the lines crinkling her smooth forehead. “You know what really puzzles me, though? Again, it's probably something you've already considered from your point of view, but psychologically it's interesting, too.”

“What's that?”

“The woman.”

“You mean why she was there?”

“Yes. What's her part in the whole business?”

“Well, her presence would certainly give credibility to the social worker story. I doubt that even someone as thick as Brenda Scupham would have trusted a man alone.”

“No. I realize that. But think about it, Alan.” Jenny leaned forward, her hands clasped on the table. “She's a woman. Surely you're not telling me she didn't know what they were doing, taking the child?”