Wednesday's Child (2 page)

“Did the cards have photographs on them?”

“No, I don't think so. I'm sure I would have noticed.”

“What exactly did they say to you?” Banks asked.

“They told me their names and said they was from the social, like, and then they showed their cards …”

“This was at the door, before you let them in?”

“Yes. And then they said they'd come to see me about my Gemma. Well, I had to let them in, didn't I? They were from the authorities.”

Her voice cracked a little when she mentioned her daughter's name, and she sucked her lower lip. Banks nodded. “What happened next?”

“When I let them in, they said they'd had reports of Gemma being … well, being abused …”

“Did they say where they'd heard this?”

She shook her head.

“Didn't you ask them?”

“I didn't think to. They seemed so … I mean, he was wearing a nice suit and his hair was all short and neatly brushed down, and she was dressed proper smart, too. They just seemed so sure of themselves. I didn't think to ask anything.”

“Was there any truth in what they said?”

Mrs Scupham flushed. “Of course not. I love my Gemma. I wouldn't harm her.”

“Go on,” Banks said. “What did they say next?”

“That's about it really. They said they had to take her in, just overnight, for some tests and examinations, and if everything was all right they'd bring her back this morning, just like I told you on the phone. When they didn't come, I got so worried … I … How could anyone do something like that, steal someone else's child?”

Banks could see the tears forming in her eyes. He knew there was nothing he could say to console her. In fact, the best thing he could do was keep quiet about how bloody stupid she'd been, and not ask her if she hadn't heard about the cases, just a few years ago, when bogus social workers had visited homes all around England with stories just like the one they'd given her. No, best keep quiet.

She had a fear of authority, probably bred into her, that meant she would believe just about anything that someone in a suit with a card, a nice haircut and an educated accent told her. She wasn't unique in that. Most often, the phoney social workers had simply asked to examine the children in the home, not to remove them. For all the mothers who had sent them packing, Banks wondered how many had allowed the examination and had then been too afraid or ashamed to admit it.

“How old is Gemma?” Banks asked.

“Seven. Just seven.”

“Where's your husband?”

Mrs Scupham crossed her legs and folded her hands on her lap. “I'm not married,” she said. “You might as well know. Well, there's no shame in it these days, is there, what with so much divorce about.”

“What about Gemma's father?”

“Terry?” She curled her upper lip in disgust. “He's long gone.” “Do you know where he is?”

Mrs Scupham shook her head. “He left when Gemma was three. I haven't seen or heard from him since. And good riddance.”

“We need to contact him,” Banks pressed. “Can you give us any information at all that might help?”

“Why? You don't … surely you don't think Terry could have had anything to do with it?”

“We don't think anything yet. At the very least he deserves to know what's happened to his daughter.”

“I don't see why. He never cared when he was around. Why should he care now?”

“Where is he, Brenda?”

“I've told you, I don't know.”

“What's his full name?”

“Garswood. Terry Garswood. Terence, I suppose, but everyone called him Terry.”

“What was his job?”

“He was in the army. Hardly ever around.”

“Is there anyone else? A man, I mean.”

“There's Les. We've been together nearly a year now.”

“Where is he?”

She jerked her head. “Where he always is, The Barleycorn round the corner.”

“Does he know what's happened?”

“Oh, aye, he knows. We had a row.”

Banks saw Susan Gay look up from her notebook and shake her head slowly in disbelief.

“Can I have another fag?” Brenda Scupham asked. “I meant to get some more, but it just slipped my mind.”

“Of course.” Banks gave her a Silk Cut. “Where do you work, Brenda?”

“I don't … I … I stay home.” He lit the cigarette for her, and she coughed when she took her first drag. Patting her chest, she said, “Must stop.”

Banks nodded. “Me, too. Look, Brenda, do you think you could give us a description of this Mr Brown and Miss Peterson?”

She frowned. “I'll try. I'm not very good with faces, though. Like I said, he had a nice suit on, Mr Brown, navy blue it was, with narrow white stripes. And he had a white shirt and a plain tie. I'm not sure what colour that was, dark anyways.”

“How tall was he?”

“About average.”

“What's that?” Banks stood up. “Taller or shorter than me?” At around five foot nine, Banks was small for a policeman, hardly above regulation height.

“About the same.”

“Hair?”

“Black, sort of like yours, but longer, and combed straight back. And he was going a bit thin at the sides.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“I don't know. He had a boyish look about him, but he was probably around thirty, I'd say.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about him? His voice, mannerisms?”

“Not really.” Brenda flicked some ash at the ashtray and missed. “Like I said, he had a posh accent. Oh, there was one thing, though I don't suppose it'd be any help.” “What's that?”

“He had a nice smile.”

And so it went. When they had finished, Banks had a description of Mr Brown that would match at least half the young businessmen in Eastvale, or in the entire country, for that matter, and one of Miss Peterson—brunette, hair coiled up at the back, well-spoken, nice figure, expensive clothes—that would fit a good number of young professional women.

“Did you recognize either of them?” he asked. “Had you seen them around before?” Banks didn't expect much to come from this—Eastvale was a fair-sized town—but it was worth a try.

She shook her head.

“Did they touch anything while they were here?”

“I don't think so.”

“Did you offer them tea or anything?”

“No. Of course I didn't.”

Banks was thinking of fingerprints. There was a slight chance that if they had drunk tea or coffee, Mrs Scupham might not have washed the cups yet. Certainly any prints on the door handles, if they hadn't been too blurred in the first place, would have been obscured by now.

Banks asked for, and got, a fairly recent school photograph of Gemma Scupham. She was a pretty child, with the same long hair as her mother—her blonde colouring was natural, though—and a sad, pensive expression on her face that belied her seven years.

“Where could she be?” Brenda Scupham asked. “What have they done to her?”

“Don't worry. We'll find her.” Banks knew how empty the words sounded as soon as he had spoken them. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“What was Gemma wearing?”

“Wearing? Oh, those yellow overall things, what do you call them?”

“Dungarees?”

“Yes, that's right. Yellow dungarees over a white T-shirt. It had some cartoon animal on the front. Donald Duck, I think. She loved cartoons.”

“Did the visitors mention any name other than Brown or Peterson?”

“No.”

“Did you see their car?”

“No, I didn't look. You don't, do you? I just let them in and we talked, then they went off with Gemma. They were so nice, I … I just can't believe it.” Her lower lip trembled and she started to cry, but it turned into another coughing fit.

Banks stood up and gestured for Susan to follow him out into the hall. “You'd better stay with her,” he whispered.

“But, sir—”

Banks held his hand up. “It's procedure, Susan. And she might remember something else, something important. I'd also like you to get something with Gemma's fingerprints on it. But first I want you to radio in and tell Sergeant Rowe to phone Superintendent Gristhorpe and let him know what's going on. You'd better get someone to contact all the Yorkshire social services, too. You never know, someone might have made a cock-up of the paperwork and we'd look right wallies if we didn't check. Ask Phil to organize a house-to-house of the neighbourhood.” He handed her the photograph. “And arrange to get some copies of this made.”

Susan went out to the unmarked police Rover, and Banks turned back into the living-room, where Brenda Scupham seemed lost in her own world of grief. He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I have to go,” he said. “DC Gay will be back in a moment. She'll stay with you. And don't worry. We're doing all we can.”

He walked down the short path to the patrol car and tapped on the window. “You told me you searched the place, right?” he said to the constable behind the wheel, pointing back up the path with his thumb.

“Yes, sir, first thing.”

“Well, do it again, just to be certain. And send someone to get Mrs Scupham a packet of fags, too. Silk Cut'll do. I'm off to the pub.” He headed down the street leaving a puzzled young PC behind him.

II

Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe squatted by his dry-stone wall in the back garden of his house above the village of Lyndgarth and contemplated retirement. He would be sixty in November, and while retirement was not mandatory, surely after more than forty years on the job it was time to move aside and devote himself to his books and his garden, as the wise old Roman, Virgil, had recommended.

He placed a stone, then stood up, acutely aware of the creak in his knees and the ache in his lower back as he did so. He had been working at the wall for too long. Why he bothered, the Lord only knew. After all, it went nowhere and closed in nothing. His grandfather had been a master waller in the dale, but the skill had not been passed down the generations. He supposed he liked it for the same reason he liked fishing: mindless relaxation. In an age of technocratic utilitarianism, Gristhorpe thought, a man needs as much purposeless activity as he can find.

The sun had set a short while ago, and the sharp line of Aldington Edge cut high on the horizon to the north, underlining a dark mauve and purple sky. As Gristhorpe walked towards the back door, he felt the chill in the light breeze that ruffled his thatch of unruly grey hair. Mid-September, and autumn was coming to the dale.

Inside the house, he brewed a pot of strong black tea, threw together a Wensleydale cheese-and-pickle sandwich, then went into his living-room. The eighteenth-century farmhouse was stur-dily built, with walls thick enough to withstand the worst a Yorkshire winter could throw at them, and since his wife's death Gristhorpe had transformed the living-room into a library. He had placed his favourite armchair close to the stone hearth and spent so many an off-duty hour reading there that the heat from the fire had cracked the leather upholstery on one side.

Gristhorpe had given the television his wife had enjoyed so much to Mrs Hawkins, the lady who “did” for him, but he kept the old walnut-cabinet wireless so he could listen to the news, “My Word,” cricket and the plays that sometimes came on in the evenings. Two walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves,
and a series of framed prints from Hogarth's “The Rake's Progress” hung over the fireplace.

Gristhorpe set his tea and sandwich beside the books on the small round table, within easy reach, and settled back with a sigh into his chair. The only sounds that broke the silence were the wind soughing through the elms and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.

To retire or not to retire, that was the question that kept him from immediately picking up
The Way of All Flesh
. Over the past few years he had delegated most of the investigative work to his team and spent his time on administrative and co-ordinating duties. He had absolute trust in Alan Banks, his protégé, and both DS Richmond and the recently appointed DC Gay were coming along well. Should he move aside and clear the space for Banks's promotion? Certainly Alan showed an enthusiasm for work and learning that reminded Gristhorpe of himself as a young lad. Both lacked formal education beyond the local grammar school, but neither let it hold him back. Banks was a good detective, despite his anti-authoritarian tendencies, occasional rashness and a loathing for the politics that were now becoming so much a part of the job. But Gristhorpe admired him for that. He, himself, hated police politics. Banks, though twenty years younger, was a real copper, a man who had come from the street. He also had imagination and curiosity, two qualities that Gristhorpe thought essential.

And what would he do with his time if he did retire? There was the dry-stone wall, of course, but that was hardly a full-time occupation. Nor was reading, especially with the way his eyesight had been declining of late. He was at an age when every odd ache or pain brought a little more fear than it had before, when colds lingered and settled on the chest. But he was no hypochondriac. The Gristhorpes were robust, always had been.

He would like to travel, he decided, to revisit Venice, Florence, Paris, Madrid, and go somewhere he had never been before—the Far East, perhaps, or Russia. But travel cost money, and a policeman's pension wouldn't stretch that far. Gristhorpe sighed and picked up Samuel Butler. He didn't have to make his decision tonight; best wait for a while.

He had hardly got through the first paragraph when the phone rang. Marking the page with a leather strip and putting the book aside, he got up and walked into the hall. It was Sergeant Rowe from the station. He had received a message from Susan Gay about a child gone missing from the East Side Estate. Could the superintendent come in as soon as possible? Gristhorpe could get few more details over the phone, except that the child had been taken by a man and a woman pretending to be social workers and that she had been gone over a day. As he listened to Sergeant Rowe deliver the message in his flat, emotionless voice, Gristhorpe felt a shiver go up his spine.