Gallows View (3 page)

“I’ll look forward to it, then,” Banks said.

Jenny picked up her briefcase and he held the door open for her. Gristhorpe caught his eye and beckoned him to stay behind. When Jenny had gone, Banks settled back into his chair, and the superintendent rang for coffee.

“Good woman,” Gristhorpe said, rubbing a hairy hand over his red, pock-marked face. “I asked Ted Simpson to recommend a bright lass for the job, and I think he did his homework all right, don’t you?”

“It remains to be seen,” replied Banks. “But I’ll agree she bodes well. You said a woman. Why? Has Mrs Hawkins stopped cooking and cleaning for you?”

Gristhorpe laughed. “No, no. Still brings me fresh scones and keeps the place neat and tidy. No, I’m not after another wife. I just thought it would be politic, that’s all.”

Banks had a good idea what Gristhorpe meant, but he chose to carry on playing dumb. “Politic?”

“Aye, politic. Diplomatic. Tactful. You know what it means. It’s the biggest part of my job. The biggest pain in the arse, too. We’ve got the local feminists on our backs, haven’t we? Aren’t they saying we’re not doing our job because it’s women who are involved? Well, if we can be seen to be working with an obviously capable, successful woman, then there’s not a lot they can say, is there?”

Banks smiled to himself. “I see what you mean. But how are we going to be seen to be working with Jenny Fuller? It’s hardly headline material.”

Gristhorpe put a finger to the side of his hooked nose. “Jenny Fuller’s attached to the local feminists. She’ll report back everything that’s going on.”

“Is that right?” Banks grinned. “And I’m going to be working with her? I’d better be on my toes, then, hadn’t I?”

“It shouldn’t be any problem, should it?” Gristhorpe asked, his guileless blue eyes as disconcerting as a newborn baby’s. “We’ve got
nothing to hide, have we? We know we’re doing our best on this one. I just want others to know, that’s all. Besides, those profiles can be damn useful in a case like this. Help us predict patterns, know where to look. And she won’t be hard on the eyes, will she? A right bobby-dazzler, don’t you think?”

“She certainly is.”

“Well, then.” Gristhorpe smiled and slapped both his hands on the desk. “No problem, is there? Now, how’s that break-in business going?”

“It’s very odd, but we’ve had three of those in a month, too, all involving old women alone in their homes—one even got a broken arm—and we’ve got about as far with that as we have with the Tom business. The thing is, though, there are no pensioners’ groups giving us a lot of stick, telling us we’re not doing anything because only old people are getting hurt.”

“It’s the way of the times, Alan,” Gristhorpe said. “And you have to admit that the feminists do have a point, even if it doesn’t apply in this particular case.”

“I know that. It just irritates me, being criticized publicly when I’m doing the best I can.”

“Well, now’s your chance to put that right. What about this fence in Leeds? Think it’ll lead anywhere with the break-ins?”

Banks shrugged. “Might do. Depends on Mr Crutchley’s power of recall. These things vary.”

“According to the level of threat you convey? Yes, I know. I should imagine Joe Barnshaw’s done some groundwork for you. He’s a good man. Why bother yourself? Why not let him handle it?”

“It’s our case. I’d rather talk to Crutchley myself—that way I can’t blame anyone else if mistakes are made. What he says might ring a bell, too. I’ll ask Inspector Barnshaw to show him the pictures later, get an artist in if the description’s good enough.”

Gristhorpe nodded. “Makes sense. Taking Sergeant Hatchley?”

“No, I’ll handle this by myself. I’ll put Hatchley on the peeper business till I get back.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“He can’t do much damage in an afternoon, can he? Besides, if he does, it’ll give the feminists a target worthy of their wrath.”

Gristhorpe laughed. “Away with you, Alan. Throwing your sergeant to the wolves like that.”

It was raining hard. Hatchley covered his head with a copy of
The Sun
as he ran with Banks across Market Street to the Golden Grill. It was a narrow street, but by the time they got there the page-three beauty was sodden. The two sat down at a window table and looked out at distorted shop-fronts through the runnels of rain, silent until their standing order of coffee and toasted teacakes was duly delivered by the perky, petite young waitress in her red checked dress.

The relationship between the inspector and his sergeant had changed slowly over the six months Banks had been in Eastvale. At first, Hatchley had resented an “incomer,” especially one from the big city, being brought in to do the job he had expected to get. But as they worked together, the Dalesman had come to respect, albeit somewhat grudgingly (for a Yorkshireman’s respect is often tempered with a sarcasm intended to deflate airs and graces), his inspector’s sharp mind and the effort Banks had made to adapt to his new environment.

Hatchley had got plenty of laughs observing this latter process. At first, Banks had been hyperactive, running on adrenalin, chain-smoking Capstan Full Strength, exactly as he had in his London job. But all this had changed over the months as he got used to the slower pace in Yorkshire. Outwardly, he was now calm and relaxed—deceptively so, as Hatchley knew, for inside he was a dynamo, his energy contained and channelled, flashing in his bright dark eyes. He still had his tempers, and he retained a tendency to brood when frustrated. But these were good signs; they produced results. He had also switched to mild cigarettes, which he smoked sparingly.

Hatchley felt more comfortable with him now, even though they remained two distinctly different breeds, and he appreciated his boss’s grasp of northern informality. A working-class Southerner didn’t seem so different from a Northerner, after all. Now, when Hatchley called Banks “sir,” it was plain by his tone that he was
puzzled or annoyed, and Banks had learned to recognize the dry, Yorkshire irony that could sometimes be heard in his sergeant’s voice.

For his part, Banks had learned to accept, but not to condone, the prejudices of his sergeant and to appreciate his doggedness and the sense of threat that he could, when called for, convey to a reticent suspect. Banks’s menace was cerebral, but some people responded better to Hatchley’s sheer size and gruff voice. Though he never actually used violence, Hatchley made criminals believe that perhaps the days of the rubber hosepipe weren’t quite over. The two also worked well together in interrogation. Suspects would become particularly confused when the big, rough-and-tumble Dalesman turned avuncular and Banks, who didn’t even look tall enough to be a policeman, raised his voice.

“Hell’s bloody bells, I can’t see why I have to spend so much time chasing a bloke who just likes to look at a nice pair of knockers,” said Hatchley, as the two of them lit cigarettes and sipped coffee.

Banks sighed. Why was it, he wondered, that talking to Hatchley always made him, a moderate socialist, feel like a bleeding-heart liberal?

“Because the women don’t want to be looked at,” he answered tersely.

Hatchley grunted. “If you saw the way that Carol Ellis dressed on a Sat’day night at The Oak you wouldn’t think that.”

“Her choice, Sergeant. I assume she wears at least some clothes at The Oak? Otherwise you’d be derelict in your duty for not pulling her in on indecent exposure charges.”

“Whatever it is, it ain’t indecent.” Hatchley winked.

“Everybody deserves privacy, and this peeper’s violating it,” Banks argued. “He’s breaking the law, and we’re paid to uphold it. Simple as that.” He knew that it was far from simple, but had neither the patience nor the inclination to enter into an argument about the police in society with Sergeant Hatchley.

“But it’s not as if he’s dangerous.”

“He is to his victims. Physical violence isn’t the only dangerous crime. You mentioned The Oak just now. Does the woman often drink there?”

“I’ve seen her there a few times. It’s my local.”

“Do you think our man might have seen her there, too, and followed her home? If she dresses like you say, he might have got excited looking at her.”

“Do myself,” Hatchley admitted cheerfully. “But peeping’s not my line. Yes, it’s possible. Remember, it was a Monday, though.”

“So?”

“Well, in my experience, sir, the women don’t dress up quite so much on a Monday as a Sat’day. See, they have to go to work the next day so they can’t spend all night—”

“All right,” Banks said, holding up his hand. “Point taken. What about the others?”

“What about them?”

“Carol Ellis is the fourth. There were three others before her. Did any of them drink at The Oak?”

“Can’t remember. I do recollect seeing Josie Campbell there a few times. She was one of them, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, the second. Look, go over the statements and see if you can find out if any of the others were regulars at The Oak. Go talk to them. Jog their memories. Look for some kind of a pattern. They needn’t have been there just prior to the incidents. If not, find out where they do drink, look up where they were before they were . . .”

“Peeped on?” Hatchley suggested.

Banks laughed uneasily. “Yes. There isn’t really a proper word for it, is there?”

“Talking about peeping, I saw a smashing bit of stuff coming out of Gristhorpe’s office. Is he turning into a dirty old man?”

“That was Dr Jenny Fuller,” Banks told him. “She’s a psychologist, and I’m going to be working with her on a profile of our peeper.”

“Lucky you. Hope the missis doesn’t find out.”

“You’ve got a dirty mind, Sergeant. Get over to The Oak this lunchtime. Talk to the bar staff. Find out if anyone paid too much attention to Carol Ellis or if anyone seemed to be watching her. Anything odd. You know the routine. If the lunchtime staff’s different, get back there tonight and talk to the ones who were in last night. And talk to Carol Ellis again, too, while it’s fresh in her mind.”

“This is work, sir?”

“Yes.”

“At The Oak?”

“That’s what I said.”

Hatchley broke into a big grin, like a kid who’d lost a penny and found a pound. “I’ll see what I can do, then,” he said, and with that he was off like a shot. After all, Banks thought as he finished his coffee and watched a woman struggle in the doorway with a transparent umbrella, it was eleven o’clock. Opening time.

It was a dull journey down the A1 to Leeds, and Banks cursed himself for not taking the quieter, more picturesque minor roads through Ripon and Harrogate, or even further west, via Grassington, Skipton and Ilkley. There always seemed to be hundreds of ways of getting from A to B in the Dales, none of them direct, but the A1 was usually the fastest route to Leeds, unless the farmer just north of Wetherby exercised his privilege and switched on the red light while he led his cows across the motorway.

As if the rain weren’t bad enough, there was also the muddy spray from the juggernauts in front—transcontinentals, most of them, travelling from Newcastle or Edinburgh to Lille, Rotterdam, Milan or Barcelona. Still, it was cosy inside the car, and he had
Rigoletto
for company.

At the Wetherby roundabout, Banks turned onto the A58, leaving most of the lorries behind, and drove by Collingham, Bardsey and Scarcroft into Leeds itself. He carried on through Roundhay and Harehills, and arrived in Chapeltown halfway through “La Donna è Mobile.”

It was a desolate area and looked even more so swept by dirty rain under the leaden sky. Amid the heaps of red-brick rubble, a few old houses clung on like obstinate teeth in an empty, rotten mouth; grim shadows in raincoats pushed prams and shopping-carts along the pavements as if they were looking for shops and homes they couldn’t find. It was Chapeltown Road, “Ripper” territory, host of the ’81 race riots.

Crutchley’s shop had barred windows and stood next to a boarded-up grocers with a faded sign. The paintwork was peeling and a layer
of dust covered the objects in the window: valves from old radios; a clarinet resting on the torn red velvet of its case; a guitar with four strings; a sheathed bayonet with a black swastika inlaid in its handle; chipped plates with views of Weymouth and Lyme Regis painted on them; a bicycle pump; a scattering of beads and cheap rings.

The door jerked open after initial resistance, and a bell pinged loudly as Banks walked in. The smell of the place—a mixture of mildew, furniture polish and rotten eggs—was overwhelming. Out of the back came around-shouldered, shifty-looking man wearing a threadbare sweater and woollen gloves with the fingers cut off. He eyed Banks suspiciously, and his “Can I help you?” sounded more like a “Must I help you?”

“Mr Crutchley?” Banks showed his identification and mentioned Inspector Barnshaw, who had first put him onto the lead. Crutchley was immediately transformed from Mr Krook into Uriah Heep.

“Anything I can do, sir, anything at all,” he whined, rubbing his hands together. “I try to run an honest shop here, but,” he shrugged, “you know, it’s difficult. I can’t check on everything people bring in, can I?”

“Of course not,” Banks agreed amiably, brushing off a layer of dust and leaning carefully against the dirty counter. “Inspector Barnshaw told me he’s thinking of letting it go by this time. He asked for my advice. We know how hard it is in a business like yours. He did say that you might be able to help me, though.”

“Of course, sir. Anything at all.”

“We think that the jewellery the constable saw in your window was stolen from an old lady in Eastvale. You could help us, and help yourself, if you can give me a description of the man who brought it in.”

Crutchley screwed up his face in concentration—not a pretty sight, Banks thought, looking away at the stuffed birds, elephant-foot umbrella stands, sentimental Victorian prints and other junk. “My memory’s not as good as it used to be, sir. I’m not getting any younger.”

“Of course not. None of us are, are we?” Banks smiled. “Inspector Barnshaw said he thought it would be a crying shame if you had to do time for this, what with it not being your fault, and at your age.”