Gallows View (2 page)

“Perverts, the lot of them,” Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks said, adjusting the treble on the stereo.

“Including me?” asked Sandra.

“For all I know.”

“Since when has making artistic representations of the naked human form been a mark of perversion?”

“Since half of them don’t even have films in their cameras.”

“But I always have film in my camera.”

“Yes,” Banks said enthusiastically, “I’ve seen the results. Where on earth do you find those girls?”

“They’re mostly students from the art college.”

“Anyway,” Banks went on, returning to his scotch, “I’m damn sure Jack Tatum doesn’t have a film in his camera. And Fred Barton wouldn’t know a wide-angle lens from a putting iron. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they imagined you posing—a nice willowy blonde.”

Sandra laughed. “Me? Nonsense. And stop playing the yahoo, Alan. It doesn’t suit you. You don’t have a leg to stand on, acting the idiot over photography while you’re inflicting this bloody opera on me.”

“For someone who appreciates artistic representations of the naked human form, you’re a proper philistine when it comes to music, you know.”

“Music I can take. It’s all this screeching gives me a headache.”

“Screeching! Good lord, woman, this is the sound of the human spirit soaring: ‘
Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore
.’” Banks’s soprano imitation made up in volume what it lacked in melody.

“Oh, put a sock in it,” Sandra sighed, reaching for her drink.

It was always like this when he found a new interest. He would pursue it with a passion for anywhere between one and six months, then he would have a restless period, lose interest and move on to something else. Of course, the detritus would remain, and he would always profess to be still deeply interested—just too pushed for time. That was how the house had come to be so cluttered up with the novels of Charles Dickens, wine-making equipment, twenties jazz records, barely used jogging shoes, a collection of birds’ eggs and books on almost every subject under the sun—from Tudor history to how to fix your own plumbing.

He had become interested in opera after seeing, quite by chance, a version of Mozart’s
Magic Flute
on television. It was always like that. Something piqued his curiosity and he wanted to know more. There was no order to it, neither in his mind nor in his filing system. He would plunge into a subject with cavalier disregard for its chronological
development. And so it was with the opera craze:
Orfeo
rubbed shoulders with
Lulu
;
Peter Grimes
was
Tosca
’s strange bedfellow; and
Madama Butterfly
shared shelf-space with
The Rake’s Progress
. Much as she loved music, opera was driving Sandra crazy. Already, complaints from Brian and Tracy had resulted in the removal of the television to the spare room upstairs. And Sandra was forever tripping over the book-sized cassette boxes, which Banks preferred to records, as he liked to walk to work and listen to Purcell or Monteverdi on his Walkman; in the car, it was generally Puccini or Guiseppe Verdi, good old Joe Green.

They were both alike in their thirst for knowledge, Sandra reflected. Neither was an academic or intellectual, but both pursued self-education with an urgency often found in bright working-class people who hadn’t had culture thrust down their throats from the cradle onwards. If only, she wished, he would take up something quiet and peaceful, like beekeeping or stamp collecting.

The soprano reached a crescendo which sent involuntary shivers up Sandra’s spine.

“You’re surely not serious about some people in the Camera Club being perverts, are you?” she asked.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if one or two of them got more than an artistic kick out of it, that’s all.”

“You could be right, you know,” Sandra agreed. “They’re not only women, the models. We had a very nice Rastafarian the other week. Lovely pector—”

The phone rang.

“Damn and blast it.” Banks cursed and hurried over to pick up the offending instrument. Sandra took the opportunity to turn down the volume on
Tosca
surreptitiously.

“Seems that someone’s been taking unasked-for peeks at the naked human form again,” said Banks when he sat down again a few minutes later.

“Another of those Peeping Tom incidents?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to go in, do you?”

“No. It’ll wait till morning. Nobody’s been hurt. She’s more angry than anything else. Young Richmond is taking her statement.”

“What happened?”

“Woman by the name of Carol Ellis. Know her?”

“No.”

“Seems she came back from a quiet evening at the pub, got undressed for bed and noticed someone watching her through a gap in the curtains. He took off as soon as he realized he’d been spotted. It was on that new estate, Leaview, those ugly bungalows down by the Gallows View cottages. Great places for voyeurs, bungalows. They don’t even need to shin up the drainpipe.” Banks paused and lit a Benson and Hedges Special Mild. “This one’s taken a few risks in the past, though. Last time it was a second-floor maisonette.”

“It makes my skin crawl,” Sandra said, hugging herself. “The thought of someone watching when you think you’re alone.”

“I suppose it would,” Banks agreed. “But what worries me now is that we’ll have that bloody feminist group down on us again. They really seem to think we haven’t bothered trying to catch him because we secretly approve. They believe all men are closet rapists. According to them, our secret hero is Jack the Ripper. They think we’ve got pin-ups on the station walls.”

“You do. I’ve seen them. Not in your office, maybe, but downstairs.”

“I mean pin-ups of Jack the Ripper.”

Sandra laughed. “That’s going a bit far, I agree.”

“Do you know how difficult it is to catch a peeper?” Banks asked. “All the bugger does is look and run away into the night. No fingerprints, no sightings, nothing. The best we can hope for is to catch him in the act, and we’ve had extra men and women walking the beat in the most likely areas for weeks now. Still nothing. Anyway,” Banks said, reaching out for her, “all this talk about naked bodies is exciting me. Time for bed?”

“Sorry,” answered Sandra, turning off the stereo. “Not tonight, dear, I’ve got a headache.”

“And where the bloody hell do you think you were till all hours last night?” Graham Sharp roared at his son over the breakfast table.

Trevor glowered into his cornflakes. “Out.”

“I know you were bloody out. Out with that good-for-nothing Mick Webster, I’ll bet?”

“What if I was? It’s my business who I hang out with.”

“He’s a bad ’un, Trevor. Like his brother and his father before him. A rotten apple.”

“Mick’s all right.”

“I didn’t raise you all these years with my own hands just so you could hang about with hooligans and get into trouble.”

“Well, if you weren’t such a bleeding little Hitler my mum might not have run off.”

“Never mind that,” Graham said quietly. “You don’t know nothing about it, you was only a kid. I just want you to do well for yourself,” he pleaded. “Look, I’ve not done much. Never had the opportunity. But you’re a bright lad. If you work hard you can go to university, get yourself a good education.”

“What’s the point? There’s no jobs anyway.”

“It’s not always going to be like this, Trevor. I know the country’s going through a bad time right now. You don’t need to tell me that. But look to the future, lad. It’ll be five or six years by the time you’ve done your ‘A’ Levels and your degree. Things can change a lot in that time. All you need to do is stay in a bit more and do your homework. You never found it hard, you know you can do it.”

“It’s boring.”

“Look what happened to Mick, then,” Graham went on, his voice rising with anger again. “Left school a year ago and still on the bloody dole. Sharing a hovel with that layabout brother of his, father run off God knows where and his mother never home to take care of him.”

“Lenny’s not a layabout. He had a job in London. Just got made redundant, that’s all. It wasn’t his fault.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Trevor. I want you to stay in more and spend some time on your schoolwork. I might not have made much out of my life, but you can—and you’re bloody well going to, even if it kills me.”

Trevor stood up and reached for his satchel. “Better be off,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to be late for school, would I?”

After the door slammed, Graham Sharp put his head in his hands and sighed. He knew that Trevor was at a difficult age—he’d been a bit of a lad himself at fifteen—but if only he could persuade him that he had so much to lose. Life was hard enough these days without making it worse for yourself. Since Maureen had walked out ten years ago, Graham had devoted himself to their only child. He would have sent Trevor to a public school if he’d had enough money, but had to settle for the local comprehensive. Even there, despite all the drawbacks, the boy had always done well—top of the class, prizes every Speech Day—until last year, when he took up with Mick Webster.

Graham’s hands shook as he picked up the breakfast dishes and carried them to the sink. Soon it would be opening time. At least since he’d stopped doing morning papers he got a bit of a lie-in. In the old days, when Maureen was around, he’d had to get up at six o’clock, and he’d kept it going as long as he could. Now he couldn’t afford to employ a flock of paper-carriers, nor could he manage to pay the assistant he would need to deal with other business. As things were, he could just about handle it all himself—orders, accounts, stock checks, shelf arrangements—and usually still manage to come up with a smile and a hello for the customers.

His real worry was Trevor, and he didn’t know if he was going about things the right way or not. He knew he had a bit of a temper and went on at the lad too much. Maybe it was better to leave him
alone, wait till he passed through the phase himself. But perhaps then it would be too late.

Graham stacked the dishes in the drainer, checked his watch, and walked through to the shop. Five minutes late. He turned the sign to read OPEN and unlocked the door. Grouchy old Ted Croft was already counting out his pennies, shuffling his feet as he waited for his week’s supply of baccy. Not a good start to the day.

Banks reluctantly snapped off his Walkman in the middle of Dido’s lament and walked into the station, a Tudor-fronted building in the town centre, where Market Street ran into the cobbled square. He said “Good morning” to Sergeant Rowe at the desk and climbed upstairs to his office.

The whitewashed walls and black-painted beams of the building’s exterior belied its modern, functional innards. Banks’s office, for example, featured a venetian blind that was almost impossible to work and a grey metal desk with drawers that rattled. The only human touch was the calendar on the wall, with its series of local scenes. The illustration for October showed a stretch of the River Wharfe, near Grassington, with trees lining the waterside in full autumn colour. It was quite a contrast to the real October: nothing but grey skies, rain and cold winds so far.

On his desk was a message from Superintendent Gristhorpe: “Alan, Come see me in my office soon as you get in. G.”

Remembering first to unhook the Walkman and put it in his desk drawer, Banks walked along the corridor and knocked on the superintendent’s door.

“Come in,” Gristhorpe called, and Banks entered.

Inside was luxury—teak desk, bookcases, shaded table lamps—most of which had been supplied by Gristhorpe himself over the years.

“Ah, good morning Alan,” the superintendent greeted him, “I’d like you to meet Dr Fuller.” He gestured towards the woman sitting opposite him, and she stood up to shake Banks’s hand. She had a
shock of curly red hair, bright green eyes with crinkly laugh-lines around the edges, and a luscious mouth. The turquoise top she was wearing looked like a cross between a straight-jacket and a dentist’s smock. Below that she wore rust-coloured cords that tapered to a halt just above her shapely ankles. All in all, Banks thought, the doctor was a knock-out.

“Please, Inspector Banks,” Dr Fuller said as she gently let go of his hand, “call me Jenny.”

“Jenny it is, then,” Banks smiled and dug for a cigarette. “I suppose that makes me Alan.”

“Not if you don’t want to be.” Her sparkling eyes seemed to challenge him.

“Not at all, it’s a pleasure,” he said, meeting her gaze. Then he remembered Gristhorpe’s recent ban against smoking in his office, and put the pack away.

“Dr Fuller is a professor at York University,” Gristhorpe explained, “but she lives here in Eastvale. Psychology’s her field, and I brought her in to help with the Peeping Tom case. Actually,” he turned a charming smile in Jenny’s direction, “Dr Fuller—Jenny—was recommended by an old and valued friend of mine in the department. We were hoping she might be able to work with us on a profile.”

Banks nodded. “It would certainly give us more than we’ve got already. How can I help?”

“I’d just like to talk to you about the details of the incidents,” Jenny said, looking up from a notepad that rested on her lap. “There’s been three so far, is that right?”

“Four now, counting last night’s. All blondes.”

Jenny nodded and made the change in her notes.

“Perhaps the two of you can arrange to meet sometime,” Gristhorpe suggested.

“Is now no good?” Banks asked.

“Afraid not,” Jenny said. “This might take a bit of time, and I’ve got a class in just over an hour. Look, what about tonight, if it’s not too much of an imposition on your time?”

Banks thought quickly. It was Tuesday; Sandra would be at the Camera Club, and the kids, now trusted in the house without a sitter, would be overjoyed to spend an opera-free evening. “All right,” he
agreed. “Make it seven in the Queen’s Arms across the street, if that’s okay with you.”

When Jenny smiled, the lines around her eyes crinkled with pleasure and humour. “Why not? It’s an informal kind of procedure anyway. I just want to build up a picture of the psychological type.”