Gallows View (6 page)

“Okay. I’m sorry. I’m not really a shrill virago, either. I’m just interested in men’s attitudes, that’s all. It’s my field—male and female, masculine and feminine psychology, similarities, differences. That’s why they thought I was the next best thing to a brilliant, ideally qualified man for this job.”

She laughed at herself and Banks laughed with her. Then she held out her hands as if holding up a clapper-board, snapped them together and said, “Banks and Fuller:
Co-operation
, Take Two. More drinks first, though. No, I’ll get them this time.”

Enjoying the slow, feline grace of her movements, Banks watched her walk to the bar and lean on it as the barman drew the beer. When she got back, she smiled and put the drinks on the table.

“Right,” she said. “Down to business. What do you want to know?”

“A great deal.”

“Well, that’ll take a long time.”

“I’m sure it’ll be time well spent.”

Jenny smiled in agreement. “Yes,” she said, “I do believe you’re right.”

To cut through the silence that followed, Banks put his first question: “Is there any chance of this peeper moving on to more violent sex acts?”

“Mmmm,” Jenny said. “I’m afraid I’m going to seem as noncommittal as any scientist on some of these matters. According to most of the evidence, voyeurism in itself isn’t regarded as a very serious disorder, and it’s unlikely to spiral into other forms.”

“But?”

“But it’s only ‘unlikely’ according to existing evidence. All that means is that we don’t have many documented cases of voyeurs becoming rapists—peeping is usually about as far as they can go. It doesn’t mean there are no cases, though, and it doesn’t mean that your man might not be one of them. Something could snap. If just looking ceases to give him what he needs, he could either break down or turn to other, more aggravated forms of sexual violence. I’ll see if I can look up some case histories for you.”

“You call it violence, but he hasn’t physically hurt anyone.”

“I call it violence purposely, because that’s what it is. Look at it this way. We all like to watch the opposite sex. Men more than women—and I think I can safely say that your peeper’s definitely not a woman. So why do men do this? There’s always the sense, in childhood, of not being permitted to look at a woman’s body, so it becomes mysterious and desirable. You don’t need a degree in psychology to figure out why men like breasts, for example—they’re one of the first sources of love and nourishment we ever experience. Okay so far?”

Banks nodded.

“So we all like to look. You look at women in the street. They seem to dress just to make you look at them. And why not? It makes the world go round, keeps the race going. But at what point does looking, the kind we all do—and women these days now and then glance at a man’s bum or the bulge in his pants—become voyeurism?
In the streets, in pubs, in all public places, it’s fine, there’s an implicit permission to look. We even have special places such as strip-clubs which legitimize the voyeuristic impulse—all quite legal. But when a woman is in her bedroom getting undressed for bed, unless she’s doing it for her husband or lover, she doesn’t want anyone to watch. Often enough, she doesn’t even want her husband to watch. The permission is no longer there, and to look then is an act of sexual violence because it’s an intrusion, a violation, a penetration into her world. It degrades her by turning her into an object. Am I making myself clear?”

“Very,” Banks said. “What does the voyeur get out of it, then? Why does he do it?”

“They’re both very difficult questions to answer. For one thing, he’s getting power over her, a certain triumph in dehumanizing her, and perhaps he’s also getting revenge for some past wrong that he imagines women have done him. At the same time, he’s re-enacting a primal sexual scene, whatever it was that first excited him. He just keeps on repeating himself because it’s the only way he can achieve sexual pleasure. You see how complicated it is? When the voyeur penetrates his victim’s privacy, then he dominates her, and the element of risk, of ‘sin’ involved only endows that act with a special intensity for him. Does your man masturbate while he’s watching?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t found any traces of semen.”

“Have you looked?”

“The lab boys have been brought in on every incident. I’m sure if it was there they’d find it.”

“Okay. It doesn’t really matter. I suppose his pants would act as a prophylactic—either that or he stores the image and masturbates later.”

“What kind of person are we talking about?”

“His personality?”

“Yes.”

“Again, I’m going to have to be a bit vague. He could be an introvert or an extrovert, tall or short, thin or fat . . .”

“That’s certainly vague.”

Jenny laughed. “Yes, it is. Sorry, but there’s no one type. In a way, it’s much easier to describe the true psychopath—a sex murderer, for
example. A voyeur—the scientific term is scopophiliac, by the way—is not simply a grubby loner in a dirty mac. Our man’s actions are caused by frustration, basically. Intense frustration with life in general and with relationships in particular. It might be that the most meaningful early sexual experience he had was voyeuristic—he saw something he shouldn’t have seen, like his parents making love—and since then everything’s been a let-down, especially sex. He’d certainly have difficulty handling the real thing.

“What makes voyeurism, or ‘scopophilia,’ what we call ‘abnormal’ is simply that the scopophiliac gets all his gratification from looking. Nobody would deny that looking is an integral part of the sex act. Lots of men like to watch their partners undress; it excites them. Plenty of men like to go to strip-clubs too, and whatever the women’s movement thinks of that, nobody would seriously consider such men to be clinically abnormal. The scopophiliac, though, gets stuck at the pre-genital stage—his development gets short-circuited. Whatever relationship he’s living in—alone, with a wife or a dominating mother or father—it’s essentially a frustrating one, and he probably feels great pressure, an intense desire to break through.

“It’s unlikely that he’s married, but if he is, there are serious problems. In all probability, though, he’s living alone. His sexuality wouldn’t be mature enough to deal with the demands of a real, flesh-and-blood woman, unless she’s a particularly unusual person herself.”

“I see,” said Banks, lighting a cigarette. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy, does it?”

“No. It never is when it comes to people. We’re all such incredibly complex beings.”

“Oh? I always thought of myself as simple and straightforward.”

“You’re probably one of the most complex of the lot, Alan Banks. First off, what’s a nice man like you doing in the police force?”

“Earning a living and trying to uphold the law. See? Simple.”

“Would you uphold a law you didn’t believe in?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if the law said that anyone caught stealing a loaf of bread should lose his or her hand? Would you actively go looking for people stealing bread?”

“I think that, in that kind of society, I wouldn’t be a policeman.”

“Oh, what an evasive answer!”

Banks shrugged. “What can I say? At least it’s an honest one.”

“All right, what about the drug laws? What about students smoking pot?”

“What are you asking me?”

“Do you pester them? Do you think people should be prosecuted for smoking pot?”

“As long as it’s against the law, yes. If you want to know whether I agree with every law in the country, the answer’s no. There’s a certain amount of discretion allowed in the enforcement, you know. We don’t tend to bother students smoking pot so much these days, but we are interested in people bringing heroin up from London or the Midlands.”

“Why shouldn’t a person take heroin if he or she wants to? It doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

“I could well ask why shouldn’t a man go around watching women get undressed. That doesn’t hurt anyone, either.”

“It’s not the same thing and you know it. Besides, the woman is hurt. She’s shocked, degraded.”

“Only the ones who know.”

“What?”

“Think of it this way. So far, four incidents have been reported. How many do you think have gone unnoticed? How many times has he got away with it?”

“I never really thought of that,” Jenny admitted. “And by the way, I’m not going to forget our discussion of a few moments ago, before you so cleverly sidetracked me back to work.” She smiled sharply at him as he went off to buy two more drinks.

“I suppose,” she said when Banks returned, “that he could actually do it every night, though I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Most sexual activities, normal or perverted, require a kind of gestation period between acts. It varies. The pressure builds again and there’s only one way to relieve it.”

“I see. Would once or twice a week be too much?”

“For who? You or me?”

“Don’t distract me. For our man.”

“No. I’d say once a week might do him fine, two at the most.” She broke into a fit of laughter and covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. I get a bit gigglish sometimes. I think you must make me nervous.”

“It comes with the job. Though I sometimes wonder which came first. A chicken or egg thing. Do I make people nervous because I’ve learned to do it unconsciously through dealing with so many criminals, or was I like that in the first place? Is that why the job suited me?”

“Well?”

“I didn’t say I knew the answer, only that I wonder sometimes. Don’t worry, when you get to know me better it won’t bother you.”

“A promise?”

“Let’s get back to business.”

“All right.” Jenny wiped her eyes, full of tears of laughter, sat up straight and once again broke into a laughing fit. Banks watched her, smiling, and soon the others in the pub were looking. Jenny was turning as red as her hair, which was shaking like the fire in the grate. “Oh, I’m sorry, I really am,” she said. “Whenever I get like this it’s so hard to stop. You must think I’m a real idiot.”

“Not at all,” Banks said drily. “I appreciate a person with a sense of humour.”

“I think it’s better now,” she said, sipping cautiously at her half of bitter. “It’s just all those
double entendres
. Oops,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “Now I’ve got hiccups!”

“Drink a glass of water in an inverted position,” Banks told her. “Best cure for hiccups I’ve ever known.”

Jenny frowned at him. “Standing on my head?”

“No, not like that.” Banks was just about to demonstrate to her, using his pint glass, when he sensed a shadow over the table and heard a polite cough. It was Fred Rowe, the station desk-sergeant.

“Pardon me for bothering you, sir,” Rowe said quietly, pulling up a chair, “but there’s been some trouble.”

“Go on,” Banks said, putting down his glass.

“It’s an old woman, sir, she’s been found dead.”

“Cause?”

“We can’t say yet, sir, but it looks suspicious. The friend who reported it said the place had been robbed.”

“All right. Thanks, Fred. I’ll get right over. Address?”

“Number two, Gallows View. That’s down by—”

“Yes, I know it. Look, get onto Sergeant Hatchley. He’ll be in The Oak. And get Dr Glendenning and the photographer out there, and as many of the Scene-of-Crime boys as you can rustle up. Better get DC Richmond along too. Does the super know?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine. Tell him I’m on my way, then.”

Sergeant Rowe returned to the station and Banks stood up to leave, making his apologies to Jenny. Then he remembered that Sandra had taken the Cortina.

“Dammit,” he cursed, “I’ll have to go over and sign out a car.”

“Can’t I drive you?” Jenny offered. “I know where Gallows View is.”

“Would you?”

“Of course. You’re probably over the limit, anyway. I’ve only been drinking halves.”

“You’ll have to keep out of the way, stay in the car.”

“I understand.”

“Right, then, let’s go.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny said, saluting him.

It had stopped raining only an hour earlier, and the air was still damp and chilly. Trevor held his jacket collar tight around his neck as he set off across The Green thinking over what Mick had said. Past the Georgian semis, he crossed the fourteenth-century bridge and spat in the water that cascaded over the terraced falls. Then he strode through the riverside gardens, and took the road that curved around Castle Hill to the market square.

Sometimes Mick scared him. Not his physical presence, but his stupidity. There would be no increased percentage from Lenny, Trevor was certain, because Mick wouldn’t even dare ask him. Trevor would. He wasn’t frightened of Lenny, gun or no gun. The gun didn’t really interest him at all; it seemed more like a silly toy for Mick to show off about.

It was the pills, most likely. Them and natural stupidity. Trevor was sick of seeing Mick sweating and ranting on, hopping from one foot to the other as if he wanted to piss all the time. It was pathetic. He hadn’t tried them himself, though he thought he might do one day. After all, he wasn’t Mick; they wouldn’t affect him the same way.

He hadn’t tried sex either. Mick kept boasting about having it off with some scrubber up against an alley wall, but Trevor was unimpressed. Even if it was true, it wasn’t the kind of fun he was interested in. He would do it all: drugs, sex, whatever. All in his own sweet time. And he would know when the time was right.

As for the new idea, it made sense. Old people seemed to have nothing worth much these days. Probably had to pawn all their old
keepsakes just to keep them in pabulum. Trevor laughed at the image. The first time it had been fun, a change from dipping, or mugging the odd tourist—“Just doing my bit for the Tourist Board, your honour, trying to make the New Yorkers feel at home”—it was exciting being able to do whatever you wanted in somebody else’s house, break stuff, and them too feeble to do a thing about it. Not that Trevor was a bully; he would never touch the old women (more out of disgust than kindness, though). That was Mick’s specialty—Mick
was
a bully.