Wednesday's Child ib-6

by Peter Robinson

  Banks rubbed his cheek. “Do I?”

  “Of course you do. If only you could bring as much perception to your own family as you do to your cases you wouldn’t have these problems.”

  “Knowing is one thing, feeling all right about it is quite another.”

  “I realize that. But you have to start with knowing.”

  “How do you cope?” Banks asked. “You’ve been like a stranger to me these past few months.”

  “I didn’t say I’d been coping very well either, only that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not easy, but we’ve reached that time where our children are no longer children. They can no longer keep us together.”

  Banks felt a chill run through him. “What do you mean they can’t keep us together?”

  “What I say. Oh, for God’s sake don’t look so worried. I didn’t mean it that way. Maybe I didn’t choose the best words. The kids gave us a lot in common, shared pleasures, anxieties. They’ll still do that, of course, though I’m sure more on the anxieties side, but we can’t relate to them the same way. They’re not just children to be seen and not heard. You can’t just order them not to do things. They’ll only rebel and do worse. Remember your own childhood? You were a bit of a shit-disturber even when I met you. Still are, if truth be known. See Brian and Tracy for what they are, for what they’re becoming.”

  “But what did you mean about them keeping us together? It sounded ominous to me.”

  “Only that we won’t have them to gather around for much longer. We’ll have to find other things, discover one another in other ways.”

  “It could be fun.”

  Sandra nodded. “It could be. But we’ve both been avoiding it so far.”

  “You too?”

  “Of course. How many times have we spent an evening in the house alone together these past eighteen years?”

  “There’s been times.”

  “Oh yes, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand. Besides, we knew Brian would be back from Boys’ Brigade or Tracy from the Guides, or they were up in their rooms. We’re not old, Alan. We married young and we’ve got a lot ahead of us.”

  Banks looked at Sandra. Not old, certainly. The earnest face, her eyes shining with emotion, black eyebrows contrasting the blonde hair that hung down over her shoulders. A lump came to his throat. If I walked into the pub right this moment, he thought, and saw her sitting there, I’d be over like a shot.

  “Where do we start?” he asked.

  Sandra tossed back her head and laughed. People turned to look at her but she paid them no attention. “Well, I’ve got this bloody show to organize still, and it’s not all been a matter of staying late at the gallery to avoid facing things. I do have a lot of hours to put in.”

  “I know that,” Banks said. “And so do I.”

  Sandra frowned. “There’s still nothing on that missing child, is there?”

  Banks shook his head. “No. It’s been five days now since she was abducted.”

  “Just imagine what her poor mother must be going through. Have you given up hope?”

  “We don’t expect miracles.” He paused. “You know something? She reminds me of Tracy when she was that age. The blonde hair, the serious expression. Tracy always did take after you.”

  “You’re being sentimental, Alan. From the photo I saw in the paper she didn’t look a bit like Tracy.”

  Banks smiled. “Maybe not. But I’m on another case now. That reminds me. Have you ever heard of a bloke called Adam Harkness?”

  “Harkness? Of course I have. He’s pretty well known locally as a patron of the arts.”

  “Yes, he mentioned something like that. Has he given your lot any money?”

  “We weren’t as needy as some. Remember that bumper grant we got?”

  “The oversight?”

  “They still haven’t asked for it back. Anyway, he’s given money to the Amateur Operatic Society and a couple of other groups.” She frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, some of the arts groups are a bit, you know, leftish. They tend to get blinkered. It’s the old package deal: if you’re against this, you have to be against that too. You know, you have to be pro-abortion, anti apartheid and green to boot.”

  “Well?”

  “Some of them wouldn’t take Harkness’s money because of the way he makes it.”

  “South Africa?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s anti-apartheid. He just told me. That’s partly why he left. Besides, things have changed over there. Apartheid’s fallen to pieces.”

  Sandra shrugged. “Maybe. And I wouldn’t know about his personal beliefs. All I know is that Linda Fish—you know, that woman who runs the Writers’ Circle—wouldn’t take any money towards engaging visiting speakers and readers.”

  “Linda Fish, the Champagne socialist?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “What does she know about him?”

  “Oh, she’s got contacts among South African writers, or so she claims. All this anti-apartheid stuff is a load of bunk, she thinks. She’s got a point. I mean, after all, whatever he professes to believe he’s still earning his fortune by exploiting the system, isn’t he?”

  “I’d better have a talk with her.”

  “Well,” Sandra said, “you don’t make his kind of money by being square and above-board, do you? Let’s drop it anyway. I’m sure Linda will be delighted to see you. I think she’s secretly fancied you ever since she

  found out you’d read Thomas Hardy.”

  Banks gave a mock shudder. “Look,” he said, “I’ve just had an idea.”

  Sandra raised her eyebrows.

  “Not that kind of idea. Well… . Anyway, when all this is over—the show, the case—let’s go on holiday, just you and me. Somewhere exotic.”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “No. But we’ll manage somehow. Tracy can stay with your mum and dad. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  “No. They’re always glad to see her. I bet she’ll mind this time, though. To be separated from the first boyfriend for even a day is a pretty traumatic experience, you know.”

  “We’ll deal with that problem when we get to it. What about the holiday?”

  “You’re on. I’ll start thinking of suitably exotic places.”

  “And … er … about that other idea …”

  “What other idea?”

  “You know. Erotic places.”

  “Oh, that one.”

  “Yes. Well?”

  Sandra looked at her watch. “It’s ten past eleven. Tracy said she’ll be home at twelve.”

  “When has she ever been on time?”

  “Still,” Sandra said, finishing her drink and grabbing Banks’s arm. “I think we’d better hurry.”

  IV

  The tea was cold. Wearily, Brenda Scupham picked up

  her cup and carried it to the microwave. When she had

  reheated it, she went back into the living-room, flopped

  down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.

  She had been watching television. That was how she had let the tea get cold. Not even watching it really, just sitting there and letting the images and sounds tumble over her and deaden the thoughts that she couldn’t keep at bay. It had been a documentary about some obscure African tribe. That much she remembered. Now the news was on and someone had blown up a jumbo jet over a jungle somewhere. Images of the strewn wreckage taken from a helicopter washed over her.

  Brenda sipped her tea. Too hot now. It wasn’t tea she needed, anyway, it was a drink. The pill she had taken had some effect, but it would work better with a gin and tonic. Getting up, she went and poured herself a stiff one, then sat down again.

  It was that man from the newspaper who had got her thinking such terrible thoughts. Mostly the police did a good job of keeping the press away from her, but this one she had agreed to talk to. For one thing, he w
as from the Yorkshire Post, and for another, she liked the look of him. He had been kind and gentle in his questioning, too, sensitive to her feelings, but had nevertheless probed areas Brenda hadn’t even known existed. And somehow, talking about her grief over the loss of her “poor Gemma” had actually made her feel it more, just as speculating about what might have happened to the child had made her imagine awful things happening, fears she couldn’t shut out even now, long after the man had gone, after she had taken the tranquillizer, and after the images of Africa had numbed her. It was like being at the dentist’s when the anaesthetic numbs your gums but you can still feel a shadow of pain in the background when he probes with his drill.

  Now she found herself drifting way back to when she first got pregnant. Right from the start she knew instinc—

  lively that she didn’t want the child growing inside her. Some days, she hoped to fall and induce a miscarriage, and other, worse days, she wished she would get run over by a bus. The odd thing was, though, that she couldn’t actually bring herself to do any of these things—throw herself down the stairs, get rid of the foetus, jump out of a window. Maybe it was because she had been brought up Catholic and believed in a sort of elemental way that both suicide and abortion were sins. She couldn’t even sit in a bathtub and drink gin like that dateless June Williams had done when Billy Jackson had got her in the family way (not that it had worked anyway; all June had got out of it was wrinkled skin and a nasty hangover). No, whatever happened just had to happen; it had to be God’s will, even though Brenda didn’t think now that she really believed in God.

  Later, still stunned by the pain of childbirth, when she saw Gemma for the first time, she remembered wondering even back then how such a strange child could possibly be hers. And she turned her back. Oh, she had done the necessaries, of course. She could no more neglect to feed the child and keep her warm than she could have thrown herself under a bus. But that was where it stopped. She had been unable to feel love for Gemma, which is why it felt so strange, after talking about her loss to the reporter, that she should actually feel it now. And she felt guilty, too, guilty for the way she had neglected and abandoned Gemma. She knew she might never get a chance to make it up to her.

  She poured another gin. Maybe this would do the nick. The thing was, it had been guilt made her hand Gemma over in the first place. Guilt and fear. The social workers, real or not, had been right when they talked Ťbout abuse; it was their timing that seemed uncanny, for ‘.hough Brenda might have neglected her daughter, she

  had never, ever hit her until a few days before they called. Even then, she hadn’t really hit Gemma, but when the man and the woman with their posh accents and their well-cut clothes called at her door, she somehow felt they had arrived in answer to a call; they were her retribution or her salvation, she didn’t really know which.

  Gemma had angered Les. When she spilled the paint on the racing page of his paper, he retaliated, as he usually did, not by violence, but by hitting her where it hurt, tearing up and throwing out some of her colouring books. Afterwards, he had been in a terrible mood all through tea-time, needling Brenda, complaining, arguing. And to cap it all, Gemma had been sitting there giving them the evil eye. She hadn’t said a word, nor shed a tear, but the accusation and the hurt in those eyes had been too much. Finally, Brenda grabbed her by the arm and shook her until she did start to cry, then let go of her and watched her run up to her room, no doubt to throw herself on her bed and cry herself to sleep. She had shaken Gemma so hard there were bruises on her arm. And when the social workers came, it was as if they knew not only how Brenda had lost her temper that day, but that if it happened again she might keep on shaking Gemma until she killed her. It was silly, she knew that— of course they couldn’t know—but that had been how she felt.

  And that was why she had given up Gemma so easily, to save her. Or was it to get rid of her? Brenda still couldn’t be sure; the complexity of her feelings about the whole business knotted deep in her breast and she couldn’t, try as she might, sort it all out and analyze it like she assumed most people did. She couldn’t help not being smart, and most of the time it never really bothered her that other people knew more about the world than she did, or that they were able to talk about things she

  couldn’t understand, or look at a situation and break it down into all its parts. It never really bothered her, but sometimes she thought it was bloody unfair.

  She finished her gin and lit another cigarette. Now she had talked to the reporter she thought she might like to go on television. They had asked her on the second day, but she had been too scared. Maybe, though, in her best outfit, with the right make-up, she might not look too bad. She could make an appeal to the kidnapper, and if Gemma was still alive… . Still alive … no, she couldn’t think about that again. But it might help.

  She heard a key in the door. Les back from the pub. Her expression hardened. Over these past few days, she realized, she had come to hate him. The door opened. She went and poured herself another gin and tonic. She would have to do something about Les soon. She couldn’t go on like this.

  Later that Saturday night, after closing-time, a car

  weaved its way over a desolate stretch of the North York

  Moors some thirty miles east of Eastvale. Its occupants

  —Mark Hudson and Mandy Vernon—could hardly

  keep their hands off one another. They had been for a

  slap-up dinner and drinks at the White Horse Farm

  Hotel, in Rosedale, and were now on their way back to

  Helmsley.

  As Mark tried to concentrate on the narrow, unfenced road, the rabbits running away from the headlights’ beam, his hand kept straying to Mandy’s thigh, where her short skirt exposed a long stretch of delectable nylon-encased warm flesh. Finally, he pulled into a lay-by. All around them lay darkness, not even a farmhouse light in

  sight.

  First they kissed, but the gear-stick and steering wheel got in the way. Metros weren’t built for passion. Then Mark suggested they get in the back. They did so, but when he got his hand up her skirt and started tugging at her tights, she banged her knee on the back of the seat and cursed.

  “There’s not enough room,” she said. “I’ll break my bloody leg.”

  “Let’s get out, then,” Mark suggested.

  “What? Do it in the open air?”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “But it’s cold.”

  “It’s not that cold. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm. I’ve got a blanket in the back.”

  Mandy considered it for a moment. His hand found her left breast inside her blouse and he started rubbing her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ve not got much choice, have we?”

  And indeed they hadn’t. They couldn’t take a room at the hotel because Mark was married, supposed to be at a company do, and Mandy still lived with her mother and brother, who expected her home from her girlfriend’s by midnight. He had bought her an expensive five-course dinner, and they had drunk Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Going home, he had even negotiated the winding one-in-three hill that led over the open moors because it was more isolated up there than on the valley road. This might be one of the last warm evenings of the year; he might never get another chance.

  Using the torch, they made their way over the heather and found a shaded knoll surrounded by rocks and boulders about fifty yards from the road. Mark spread the blanket and Mandy lay down. Open moorland stretched

  for miles all around, and a half-moon frosted the heather and gave the place the eerie look of a moonscape. It was cold, but they soon ceased to notice as they warmed each other with caresses. Finally, Mark got Mandy’s tights and knickers down around her ankles, pushed her knees apart and lay on top of her.

  Mandy stretched out her arms and snatched at the heather as the waves of pleasure swept through her. Soon, Mark speeded up and began to make grunting sounds deep in his throat. Mandy
knew the end was close. She could smell the port and Stilton on his breath and feel his stubble against her shoulder. The more he groaned, the more she snatched at the heather by the nearest rock, but even as he came and she encouraged him with cries of ecstasy, she was aware that what she clutched in her right hand wasn’t grass or heather, but something softer, some kind of material, more like an article of clothing.

  I

  That Sunday morning in Eastvale passed as most

  Sundays did. The locals read the papers, washed their

  cars, put the roast in, went to church, messed about in the

  garden. Some took walks in the dale or went to visit

  nearby relatives. The fine weather held, and tourists

  came, of course, jamming the market square with their

  cars, posing by the ancient cross or the façade of the

  Norman church for photographs, perhaps enjoying a pub

  lunch at the Queen’s Arms or tea and sandwiches at the

  Golden Grill, then driving on to the craft show at

  Helmthorpe, the sheep fair at Relton, or the big car-boot

  sale in Hoggett’s field near Fortford. And out in the dale,

  around massive Witch Fell between Skield and

  Swainshead, the search for seven-year-old Gemma

  Scupham went into its fourth full day.

  Back in Eastvale, at eleven-thirty that morning, a very nervous and hungover Mark Hudson walked into the police station carrying a Marks and Spencer’s bag. He quickly placed it on the front desk, mumbling, “You might be interested in this,” then tried to make a casual exit.

  It was not to be. The desk sergeant caught a glimpse of

  140

  yellow cotton in the bag, and before he knew it Mark Hudson was whisked politely upstairs to the CID.

  Gristhorpe, aware that his office was far too comfortable for the interrogation of suspects, had Hudson taken to an interview room with a metal desk and chairs bolted to the floor and a small window covered by a metal grille. It smelled of Dettol and stale cigarette smoke.