Wednesday's Child ib-6

by Peter Robinson

  85

  had been. The burglars had cut through a chain-link fence, drugged a guard dog, and disabled the alarm system. They had then loaded a van up with electrical goods, taken off into the night and never been seen since. It would have taken at least three men, he speculated, and Les Poole was probably one of them. But there were far more serious things to think about now. At least Poole was under surveillance, and any step he made out of line would soon come to Banks’s attention.

  The traffic along Market Street slowed almost to a standstill as yet more tourists poured into town. Because it was market day, parking was a problem. Drivers would spend an extra half-hour cruising around the narrow streets looking for a parking space. It would be a busy day for the traffic police.

  Banks opened the window a couple of inches. He could hear the honking horns and the babble of voices down in the square, and the smell of fresh bread drifted up from the bakery on Market Street, mingled with exhaust fumes.

  At their morning conference, Gristhorpe had assigned Banks and DC Susan Gay to the lead-mine murder; Gristhorpe himself, along with DS Richmond, would pursue the Gemma Scupham investigation, with Jenny Fuller acting as consultant. With each day that went by, the pressure increased. Parents were scared; they were keeping their children home from school. Ever since Gemma had disappeared, police forces county-wide had been knocking on doors and conducting searches of wasteland and out-of-the-way areas. The surprising thing was that nothing had come to light so far. The way it seemed, Gemma had disappeared from the face of the earth. Despite his reassignment, Banks knew he would have to keep up to date on the case. He couldn’t forget Gemma Scupham that easily.

  For a moment, he found himself wondering if the two cases could be connected in some way. It was rare that two serious crimes should happen in Swainsdale at about the same time. Could it be more than mere coincidence? He didn’t see how, but it was something worth bearing in mind.

  His first task was to identify the body they had found. Certainly a photograph could be published; clothing labels sometimes helped; then there were medical features —an operation scar, birthmark—and dental charts. It would be easy enough to track down such information if the man were local, but practically impossible if he were a stranger to the area. Banks had already sent DC Gay to make enquiries in Gratly and Relton, the nearest villages to the mine, but he didn’t expect much to come of that. At best, someone might have seen a car heading towards the mine.

  A red van had got itself wedged into the junction of Market Street and the square, just in front of the Queen’s Arms, and irate motorists started honking. The van’s owner kept on unloading boxes of tights and women’s underwear, oblivious to the angry tourists. One man got out and headed towards him.

  Banks turned away from the window and went over the lead-mine scene in his mind. The victim had probably been murdered in the smelting mill, an out-of-the-way place. His pockets had been emptied and his body had been hidden in the flue, which few people ever en tered due to the danger of falling stones. Safe to assume, Banks thought, that the killer didn’t want the body found for a while. That made sense, as most leads in an investigation occur in the first twenty-four hours. But the body had been found much sooner than the killer expected, and that might just give Banks an edge.

  Just as Banks was about to leave his office in search of

  more coffee, the phone rang. It was Vic Manson from the forensic lab near Wetherby.

  “You’ve been quick,” Banks said. “What have you got?”

  “Lucky. You want to know who he is?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Uh-huh. I’d like to claim brilliant deduction, but it was routine.”

  “Fingerprints?” Banks guessed. It was the first thing they would check, and while most people’s prints weren’t on file anywhere, a lot were. Another break.

  “Got it. Seems he did a stretch in Armley Jail. Tried to con an old lady out of her life’s savings, but she turned out to be smarter than him. Name’s Carl Johnson. He’s from Bradford, but he’s been living in your neck of the woods for a year or so. Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street.”

  Banks knew the street. It was in the north-eastern part of Eastvale, where a few of the large old houses had been converted into cheap flats.

  “You can get your man to pull his file from the computer,” Manson said.

  “Thanks, Vic. I’ll do that. Keep at it.”

  “Have I any bloody choice? We’re snowed under. Anyway, I’ll get back to you soon as we find out any more.”

  Banks hurried over to Richmond’s office. Richmond sat over his keyboard, tapping away, and Banks waited until he reached a point when he could pause. Then he explained what Vic Manson had said.

  “No problem,” said Richmond. “Just let me finish entering this report in the database and I’ll get you a printout.”

  “Thanks, Phil.”

  Banks grabbed a coffee and went back to his office to wait. The market square was teeming with people now,

  lingering at stalls, feeling the goods, listening to the vendors’ pitches, watching the man who juggled plates as if he were a circus performer.

  Carl Johnson. The name didn’t ring a bell. If he had been in London, Banks would have got out on the street to question informers and meet with undercover officers. Someone would have heard a whisper, a boast, a rumour. But in Eastvale no real criminal underbelly existed. And he certainly knew of no one capable of killing in the way Carl Johnson had been killed. There were low-lifes like Les Poole, of course, but Poole was a coward at heart, and whatever he was, he wasn’t a murderer. Still, it might be worth mentioning Johnson’s name to him, just to see the reaction.

  Had the killer not known about Johnson’s record, that he would be easy to identify? Certainly whoever it was had gone to great lengths to hide the body, but he hadn’t tried to destroy the fingerprints, as some killers did. Perhaps he was squeamish—unlikely, given the way he’d killed Johnson—or he was careless. Careless or cocky. Whatever the reason, Banks at least had something to go on: Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street. That was the place to start.

  II

  If Gristhorpe had expected inverted crosses, black candles,

  pentagrams and ceremonial robes, he couldn’t have

  been more mistaken. Melville Westman’s Helmthorpe

  cottage was as ordinary as could be: teal wallpaper with

  white curlicue patterns, beige three-piece suite, television,

  music centre. Sunlight poured through the windows

  past the white lace curtains and gave the place a bright,

  airy feel. The only clues to Westman’s interests were to

  be found in the bookcase: Eliphas Levi’s Le Dogme et le

  Rituel de la Haute Magie, Mathers’s translation of The Key of Solomon, Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Malleus Malefic arum and a few other books on astrology, Cabbala, the tarot, witchcraft and ritual magic. In addition, a sampler over the fireplace bore the motto, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” in the same kind of embroidery one would expect to find such ancient saws as, “A house is built of bricks; a home is built on love.”

  Similarly, if Gristhorpe had expected a bedraggled, wild-eyed Charles Manson look-alike, he would have been disappointed. Westman was a dapper, middle-aged man with sparse mousy hair, dressed in a grey V-neck pullover over a white shirt, wearing equally grey pants with sharp creases. He was a short, portly man, but he had presence. It was partly in the slightly flared nostrils that gave his face a constant expression of arrogant sneering, and partly in the controlled intensity of his cold eyes.

  “It took you long enough,” he said to Gristhorpe, gesturing towards an armchair.

  Gristhorpe sat down. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on, Superintendent! Let’s not play games. The girl, the missing girl. I read about it in the paper.”

  “What’s that got to do with you?”

  Westman sat opposite Gristhorpe and le
aned forward in his chair, linking his hands on his lap. “Nothing, of course. But you have to ask, don’t you?”

  “And?”

  Westman smiled and shook his head slowly. “And nothing.”

  “Mr Westman,” Gristhorpe said. “In cases like this we have to consider every possibility. If you know anything about the child’s disappearance, .’d be best if you told me.”

  “I told you. I know nothing. Why should I?”

  “We both know about your involvement in witchcraft and Satanism. Don’t be naďve.”

  “Involvement? Witchcraft? Satanism? Superintendent, just because I practise a different religion from you, don’t assume I’m some kind of monster. I’m not a Satanist, and I’m not a witch, either. Most people you would call witches are silly dabblers who appropriate the old ways and practices as an excuse for sexual excess. Ex-hippies and New Agers.”

  “Whatever you call yourself,” Gristhorpe said, “there’s a history of people like you being involved in sacrifice.”

  “Sacrificial virgins? Really! Again, you’re confusing me with the psychopathic Satanists who use the ancient ways as an excuse. People who read too much Aleister Crowley—he did exaggerate, you know—and found he appealed to their sick fantasies. You find a few bloody pentagrams daubed on a wall and a bit of gibberish in Latin and you think you’re dealing with the real thing. You’re not.”

  Gristhorpe pointed towards the bookcase. “I notice you have a few Aleister Crowley books yourself. Does that make you a psychopathic Satanist?”

  Westinan’s lips curled at the edges like an old sandwich. “Crowley has things to teach to those who understand. Do you know the purpose of magic, Superintendent?”

  “Power,” said Gristhorpe.

  Westman sniffed. “Typical. It comes from the same root as ‘magi,’ wise man. The purpose of the ‘Great Work’ is to become God, and you dismiss it as mere human hunger for power.”

  Gristhorpe sighed and tried to hold onto his temper. The man’s sanctimonious tone was grating on his nerves. “Mr Westman, I don’t really give a damn what illusions

  you cling to. That’s not the purpose—”

  “Illusions! Superintendent, believe me, the work of the magician is far from an illusion. It’s a matter of will, courage, intense study of—”

  “I don’t want a lecture, Mr Westman. I know enough about the subject already. I know, for example, that sacrifice is important because you regard living creatures as storehouses of energy. When you kill them, when you spill their blood, you release this energy and concentrate it. I also know it’s as much a matter of blood-lust, of murderous frenzy, as it is of any practical purpose. The incense, incantations, and finally the gushing of blood. It’s orgasmic, a sexual kick.”

  Westman waved his hand. “I can see you know nothing, Superintendent. Again, you’re talking about the deviants, the charlatans.”

  “And,” Gristhorpe went on, “a human sacrifice is the most effective of all, gives you the biggest kick. Especially the sacrifice of a pure child.”

  Westman pursed his lips and put his forefinger to them. He stared at Gristhorpe for a few moments, then shrugged and sat back in the chair. “Human sacrifice is rare in true magic,” he said. “It’s difficult enough for those who practise such arts to simply exist in such a narrow-minded world as the one we inhabit; we are hardly likely to make things worse by kidnapping children and slaughtering them.”

  “So you know nothing at all about Gemma Scupham?”

  “Only what I read in the newspapers. And though I expected a visit, given my notoriety, as far as I can gather, I bear no resemblance to either of the suspects.”

  “True, but that doesn’t mean you’re not associated with them in some way. A lot of people don’t do their own dirty work.”

  “Insults, is it now? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I

  prepared a couple of zombies to do the job. Do you remember the Rochdale scandal, Superintendent? Ten children were taken from their parents and put into care by child-workers who believed a few wild tales about ritualistic, satanic abuse. And what happened? They were sent home. There was no evidence. Children have overactive imaginations. If some six-year-old tells you he’s eaten a cat, the odds are it was a chocolate one, or some kind of animal-shaped breakfast cereal.”

  “I know about the Rochdale affair,” Gristhorpe said, “and about what happened in Nottingham. It didn’t come out at the trial, but we found out later there was ritual abuse involved. These kids were tortured, starved, humiliated and used as sex objects.”

  “But they weren’t sacrificed to the devil, or any such nonsense. All these tales about organized satanic abuse were discredited. Most such abuse takes place in extended families, between family members.”

  “That’s not the issue.” Gristhorpe leaned forward. “Gemma Scupham was abducted from her home and we can’t find hide nor hair of her. If she’d been killed and dumped somewhere in the dale, we’d most likely have found her now. We haven’t. What does that imply to you?”

  “I don’t know. You’re supposed to be the detective. You tell me.”

  “One of two things. Either she’s dead and her body has been very well hidden, perhaps somewhere other than Swainsdale, or someone is keeping her alive somewhere, maybe for a part she’s due to play in some ritual. That’s why I’m here talking to you. And, believe me, I’d rather be elsewhere.”

  “I applaud your deductive abilities, Superintendent, but you’d be making better use of your time if you were somewhere else. I know nothing.”

  Gristhorpe looked around the room. “What if I were to arrange for a search warrant?”

  Westman stood up. “You don’t need to do that. Be my guest.”

  Gristhorpe did. It was a small cottage, and it didn’t take him long. Upstairs was a bedroom and an office, where a computer hummed on a messy desk and a printer pushed out sheets of paper.

  “I’m a systems consultant,” Westman said. “It means I get to do most of my work at home. It also means I have to work weekends sometimes, too.”

  Gristhorpe nodded. They went downstairs and looked at the kitchen, then into the cellar, a dark, chill place with whitewashed walls, mostly used for storing coal and the various bits and pieces of an old Vincent motorcycle.

  “A hobby,” Westman explained. “Are you satisfied now?”

  They climbed back up to the living-room. “Do you know of anyone who might be involved?” Gristhorpe asked. “For any reason?”

  Westman raised his eyebrows. “Asking for help now, are you? I’d be happy to oblige, but I told you, I’ve no idea. I do not, have not, and never will sacrifice children, or any other human beings for that matter. I told you, I’m not a dabbler. It would take too long to explain to you about my beliefs, and you’d probably be too prejudiced to understand anyway. It’s certainly not tabloid Satanism.”

  “But you must know people who do know about these things. These dabblers you mentioned—these Satanists, thrill-seekers—any of them around these parts?”

  “Not that I know of. There are a couple of witches’ covens, but they’re pretty tame, and you probably know about them, anyway. Amateurs. You’d never find them sacrificing a fly, let alone a child. Their get-togethers are

  a bit like a church social. No, Superintendent, I think you’re on the wrong track.”

  Gristhorpe stood up. “Maybe, Mr Westman, but I like to keep an open mind. Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll see myself out.”

  In the street, Gristhorpe breathed in the fresh air. He didn’t know why he felt such distaste for Westman and his kind. After all, he had read a fair bit about the black arts and he knew there was nothing necessarily evil about an interest in magic. Perhaps it was his Methodist background. He had given up going to chapel years ago, but there was still an innate sense that such desire for Godlike power, whether mumbo-jumbo or not, was a sacrilege, a blasphemy against reason and common sense as much as against God.

  The limestone face of Crow Scar towere
d over the village to the north. Today it was bright in the autumn sun, and the higher pastures were already turning pale brown. The drystone walls that criss-crossed the daleside shone like the ribs and vertebrae of a giant poking through the earth.

  Gristhorpe walked along High Street, busy with tourists window-shopping for walking-gear and local crafts, or ramblers sitting at the wooden picnic-tables outside The Dog and Gun and The Hare and Hounds, sipping pints of Theakston’s and nibbling at sandwiches. It was tempting to join them, but Gristhorpe decided to wait until he got back to Eastvale before eating a late lunch.

  He turned at the fork and headed for the Helmthorpe station. It was a converted terrace house, built of local greyish limestone, and was staffed by a sergeant and two constables. Constable Weaver sat pecking away at an old manual typewriter when Gristhorpe entered. Gristhorpe remembered him from the Steadman case, the first

  murder they’d had in Helmthorpe in a hundred years.

  Weaver looked up, blushed and walked over. “I can’t seem to get used to the computer, sir,” he said. “Keep giving the wrong commands.”

  Gristhorpe smiled. “I know what you mean. I can’t help but feel like an incompetent idiot when I have to deal with the things. Still, they have their uses. Look lad, do you know Melville Westman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything on him? I’m not asking for anything that might be on record, you understand, just rumours, suspicions?”

  Weaver shook his head. “Not really, sir. I mean, we know he’s one of those black magicians, but he’s not stepped out of line in any real way. Can’t say I believe in it myself, curses and whatnot.”

  “What about the sheep?”

  “Aye, well we suspected him, all right—still do, for that matter—but there was nowt we could prove. Why, sir?”

  “It might be nothing, but I’d like you to keep a discreet eye on him, if you can. And keep your ears open for gossip.”