Gallows View

by Peter Robinson

  “Who are his friends?” Banks asked. “Who does he hang around with?”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, Inspector. It’s so hard to keep track . . . .

  His form master, Mr Price, might be able to tell you.” He picked up his phone, handling it as if it were a severed limb. “I’ll ask Sonia to bring him in.”

  When Mr Price arrived, he looked both annoyed at having been disturbed on his dinner break and apprehensive about the purpose of the call. The head soon put him at ease, and curiosity then gained the better edge, turning him into a garrulous pedant. After trying to impress both Banks and the head for several minutes with his modern approach to language teaching and his theories on classroom management, he finally had to be brought around to the point of his visit.

  “I’ve come to inquire about one of your students, Mr Price—Trevor Sharp.”

  “Ah, Sharp, yes. Odd fellow, really. Doesn’t have much of anything to do with the other lads. Rather sullen and hostile. One simply tends to stay away from him.”

  “Is that what the other boys do?”

  “Seems so. Nobody’s actively against him or anything like that, but he goes his way and they go theirs.”

  “So he has no close friends here?”

  “None.”

  “Is he a bully?”

  “Not at all, though he could be if he wanted. Tough kid. Very good at games. He always dresses conservatively, while the others are trying to get away with whatever they can—purple hair, mohawk cuts, spiky bracelets, studded leather jackets, you name it. Not Sharp, though.”

  “The others don’t make fun of him?”

  “No. He’s the biggest in the class. Nobody bothers him.”

  “I understand from his school reports that he’s been absent a lot lately. Have you talked to him about this?”

  “Yes, certainly. In fact, last parents’ day I had a long chat with his father, who seemed very concerned. Doesn’t seem to have done much good, though; Sharp still comes and goes as he pleases. Personally, I think he’s just bored. He’s bright and he’s bored.”

  There was nothing more to say, especially as Banks had no concrete grounds on which to investigate Trevor. He thanked both the headmaster and Mr Price, repeated his request for discretion, and left.

  IV

  As Banks was shuffling through the reports in the headmaster’s office, Trevor himself was about a mile away. He had gone out of bounds to meet Mick at a pub where the question of drinking age was rarely broached, especially if the coins kept passing over the counter. They sat over the last quarters of their pints, smoking and listening to the songs that Mick had chosen on the jukebox.

  Trevor kept sucking and probing at his front teeth, pulling a face.

  “What’s the matter with you,” Mick asked. “It’s driving me bleeding barmy, all that fucking around with your gob.”

  “Don’t know,” Trevor answered. “Hurts a bit, feels rough. I think I’ve lost a filling.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Trevor bared his teeth in an evil grin, like a horse with the bit in its mouth, while Mick looked and pronounced his verdict. “Yeah, one of ’em’s getting a bit black round the edges—that little one next to the big yellow one. I’d see a fucking dentist if I was you.”

  “I don’t like dentists.”

  “Fucking coward!” Mick jeered.

  Trevor shrugged. “Maybe so, but I don’t like them. Anyway, you said we’d got two jobs on?” he asked when the music had finished.

  “That’s right. One tonight, one next Monday.”

  “Why tonight? It seems pretty short notice to me.” “Coming back from ’oliday tomorrow, aren’t they? And Lenny says the pickings’ll be good.”

  “What about next Monday?”

  “Bird always goes to her country club Mondays. Lenny’s heard she always keeps quite a bit of jewellery around the place. Rich divorcée, like.”

  “Has Lenny given you any idea about how we get in?”

  “Better.” Mick grinned pimplishly. “He’s given me this.” And he opened his parka to show Trevor the tip of what looked like a crow-bar. “Easy,” he went on. “Just stick it between the door and the post and you’re home free.”

  “What if someone sees us?”

  “Nobody will. These are big ’ouses, detached like. And we’ll go in the back way. All quiet, nobody around. Better wear the balas to be on the safe side, though.”

  Trevor nodded. The thought of breaking into a big, empty, dark house was frightening and exciting. “We’ll need torches,” he said. “Little ones, those pen-lights.”

  “Got ’em,” Mick said proudly. “Lenny gave us a couple before he split for The Smoke.”

  “Fine, then,” Trevor smiled. “We’re on.”

  “We’re on,” Mick echoed. And they drank to it.

  SEVEN

  I

  Jenny laughed at Banks’s theory about the peeper spying on female pub habitutées: “Only been working for me three days and already coming up with ideas of your own, eh?”

  “But is it any good?”

  “Might be, yes. It could be part of his pattern, like his fixation on blondes. On the other hand it was perhaps just the most convenient time. A time when nobody would miss him or see him. Or a time when he could depend on his victims going to bed after a few drinks. He wouldn’t have to hang around too long to get what he came for.”

  “Now you’re doing my job.”

  Jenny smiled. They sat in deep, comfortable chairs by the crackling fire and looked as if they should have been drinking brandy and smoking cigars. But both preferred Theakston’s bitter, and only Banks puffed sparingly at his Benson and Hedges Special Milds.

  “How many pubs are there in Eastvale?” Jenny asked.

  “Fifty-seven. I checked.”

  Jenny whistled through her teeth. “Alcoholic’s paradise. But still, you must know which areas he operates in?”

  “Random so far. He’s spread himself around except for picking two from the same pub, so that doesn’t help us much, but we do have some evidence that indicates a possible link between our peeper and the Alice Matlock killing. Could it be the same person?”

  “Do you expect a yes-or-no answer?”

  “All I want is your opinion. Is it likely that the peeper, after watching Carol Ellis get undressed, ran down the street, knocked on Alice Matlock’s door and, for some reason, killed her either intentionally or accidentally?”

  “You want an answer based purely on psychological considerations?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d say no, then. It’s very unlikely. In the first place, he would have no reason to run to Alice Matlock’s house. If he’d been spotted, his impulse would be to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.”

  “You’re still doing my job.”

  “Well, dammit,” Jenny said, “they’re so close. What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. Something about a peeper not being the murdering kind.”

  Jenny laughed. “Primary-school psychology? You won’t get that from me. I’ve told you it’s unlikely and I’ve given you one good reason. If he got the release he needed from watching Carol Ellis, I doubt that he’d be emotionally capable of murder immediately afterwards.”

  “That’s what I said to the superintendent.”

  “Well, why the bloody hell . . . .” Jenny started, and then began to laugh. “We really are doing each other’s jobs, aren’t we? But seriously, Alan, I say it’s unlikely but it’s not impossible.”

  “Would he go to her to confess, perhaps?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not to an old woman. Doesn’t fit at all. Offhand, I’d say you’re looking for a bald, shortsighted, middle-aged man wearing a plastic mac, bicycle-clips and galoshes.”

  “If only.”

  “Stereotypes do exist, you know.”

  “Oh, I know. Believe me, I do.”

  “What do you mean?”

 
; “Dorothy Wycombe.”

  “Ah,” Jenny said. “Had a visit, have you?”

  “This morning.”

  “Ah, yes. Dorothy’s quite a formidable opponent, don’t you think? I find her a bit hard to take, myself.”

  “I thought you two were friends.”

  “Acquaintances. We’ve worked together on one or two projects, that’s all. We don’t really have a lot in common, but Dorothy is energetic and very good at her job.”

  “WEEF?”

  “Yes, WEEF. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

  Banks nodded.

  “Anyway,” Jenny went on, “Dorothy is an intelligent woman, but she lets her dogma get in the way of her thinking. What was it all about, if it’s not private?”

  “It is a bit delicate,” Banks told her, then gave an abbreviated account, not mentioning any names, and they both had another laugh.

  “The poor man,” Jenny sympathized. “He was just trying to chat her up.”

  “Not so much of the ‘poor man,’ if you please. He should have known better.”

  “But why did she report him to Dorothy?”

  “She didn’t. I popped round to see her on my way here, and she was very annoyed by what had happened. Apparently Ms Wycombe had been visiting the victims—rather like some Victorian lady visiting the poor, I should imagine—and trying to gather some ammunition against us. The woman chatted in quite a friendly way to Ms Wycombe and joked about my man’s visit. She’d actually been quite flattered as she’d had her eye on him for a while and wondered when, if ever, he was going to make his move. Anyway, Dorothy Wycombe twisted the information to suit her purposes and marched in demanding blood.”

  “What a job you do.”

  “I know. It’s a dirty job—”

  “—but somebody’s got to do it. Talking of dirty jobs,” Jenny went on, “I’ve dug out a couple of case histories for you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Ever heard of Charles Floyd or Patrick Byrne?”

  Banks shook his head. “I’m afraid my history of crime’s not what it should be. Tell me.”

  “Patrick Byrne murdered a girl in the Birmingham YWCA in 1959. He was a labourer on a building site near the hostel, and one afternoon he got sent back to the yard by his foreman for returning to work drunk after lunch. He’d often peeped on the girls undressing in the hostel, but this time he went in and strangled a girl. After that, he undressed her, raped her, then cut off her head with a table knife. He also made an attempt to eat one of her breasts with sugar.”

  “That’s not a very encouraging tale, is it?”

  “No. Apparently Byrne had had sadistic fantasies, including cutting women in half with a circular saw, since he was about seventeen. He said he wanted to get his own back on women for causing him nervous tension through sex. Before that, he’d been content with simply watching girls undress, but because he was drunk and upset by being told off by his foreman, he went beyond everything he’d ever done before. He also left a note that read, ‘This was what I thought would never happen.’”

  “Is the other case just as heartening?”

  “Yes. About the only consolation is that it happened in Texas in the forties. Charles Floyd started by watching women get undressed. Then he waited till they went to sleep, killed them and raped them, in that order. There was one woman who never closed her curtains, and he watched her for several nights before he finally climbed in after she fell asleep. He battered her to death, then wrapped her head in a sheet and raped her. After that, he spent the rest of the night in bed with her. He killed other women, too, and when he got caught he admitted he’d been a Peeping Tom who turned to murder and rape when the sexual excitement got too much for him.”

  “The woman didn’t close her curtains?” Banks commented. “Surely that was asking for it in a way?”

  Jenny shot him a cold glance. “We’ve already been through that.”

  “And I did say that women should be careful not to appear to be inviting men to sex.”

  “And I said that we should be able to dress how we like and go where we damn well please.”

  “So we agree to differ.”

  “It looks like it. But please understand, I’m not condoning the woman leaving her curtains open. It was probably a very stupid thing to do. All I’m saying is that what Floyd did was an act of violence more than of sex, and that such things will happen anyway, whatever we do, until more men start to see women as people, not as sex objects.”

  “I don’t believe the solution is as simple as that, admirable as it sounds,” Banks said. “Yes, they are acts of violence, but it’s violence that is highly sexual in nature. I think it’s true that at least one of the reasons for the rise in sex crimes is the increase in stimulation—and that includes fashions, pornography, advertising, films, TV, the lot.”

  “And who determines women’s fashions?”

  “Mostly men, I should imagine.”

  “That’s right. You dress us the way you want us, you create us in the image you desire, and then you have the gall to accuse us of asking for it!”

  “Okay, calm down,” Banks said, concerned at seeing Jenny so hurt and angry. He put his hand on her shoulder and she didn’t brush it off. “I understand what you’re saying. It’s a very complex subject and it’s hard to portion out blame. I’m willing to take my share. How about you?”

  Jenny nodded and they shook hands.

  “What conclusions have you drawn from those cases?” Banks asked.

  “None, really. Only the most obvious ones.”

  “I must be thick, nothing’s obvious to me.”

  “Until we know our man’s motivation, we can’t know whether some kind of trigger might exist for him, or how close he is to reaching it.”

  “Look,” Banks said, glancing at his watch, “it’s almost ten o’clock. Can I get you another drink?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Right you are. And while I’m at the bar, think about this. Is there any indication at all, from what little we know already, that our man might cross the same borders as Floyd and Byrne did?”

  II

  The area around the lock splintered easily when Mick pushed on the crowbar, and the two of them broke into the dark, silent house in no time. The light from their small torches criss-crossed the kitchen, picking out the gleaming appliances: fridge, washing machine, microwave, dishwasher, oven. Quickly, they moved on; only the poor kept their money in jam jars in the kitchen.

  Down a short hallway was the split-level living-room, and Mick cursed as he tripped over the divide. It was a big room, sparsely furnished as far as they could make out. Their torches picked out a three-piece suite, TV and video on a stand, and a music centre. By the door stood a tall cabinet full of china and crystal glasses. Mick opened the lower doors and found it full of booze—scotch, gin, vodka, brandy, rum, everything under the sun—and he grabbed a bottle of Rémy Martin by the neck. He slugged it back greedily and began to cough and splutter. Trevor told him to keep quiet.

  Trevor was awed just to be in the place. Already he’d forgotten what they came for and was trembling with the excitement of violation. This was someone’s home, someone’s “castle,” and he wasn’t supposed to be in it. It felt like a vast cave full of possibilities, one of those boat rides through dark tunnels he used to take as a child at Blackpool Pleasure Beach—a ghost train, even, because he did feel fear, and each tiny detail his light picked out was a surprise: a wall-lamp curving upwards like a bent arm holding a torch; an ornate standard lamp with carved snakes winding around its column; an antique pipe on the mantelpiece. And his light caught occasional images from the big framed paintings on the walls: a giant bird terrorizing a man; some naked tart standing on a seashell. He could hear his heartbeat, his breathing, and every movement he made was a further violation of somebody else’s silence.

  Mick finished with the cognac and dropped the bottle on the floor. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he tapp
ed Trevor on the shoulder and suggested that they look around upstairs. In the master bedroom, their eyes, now accustomed to the dark, picked out the outlines of bed, wardrobe and dresser. The gleam of a streetlamp through the net curtains helped visibility, too, and they turned off their pen-lights.

  Trevor began searching through the drawers, using his light again to illuminate the contents. He found dark, silky underwear: bras, panties, tights, slips, camisoles. They were soft and slippery in his hands, charging him with static, and he rubbed them against his face, smelling the fresh, lemony scent of the woman. He also found an old cigar box in a drawer full of the man’s socks, string vests and under-pants; inside it were a set of keys and about a hundred and fifty pounds in cash.

  Mick found what looked like a jewellery box on the dresser. When he opened it up, a ballet dancer began spinning to tinkling music. He dropped the box and spilled the jewels on the floor; then, cursing, he bent and scooped them up.

  Trevor looked around for any locked cabinets that the keys might fit, but he found nothing. The two of them went back downstairs, feet sinking luxuriously into the deep pile carpeting, and, shining their torches again, had another look around the living-room. There, in a corner, set into the wall, was what looked like a safe. Trevor tried his keys but none fit. Mick tried the crowbar but it bent. Eventually, they gave up.

  “Let’s take the VCR,” Mick whispered.

  “No. It’s too heavy, too easy to trace.”

  “Lenny’ll get rid of it in London.”

  “No, Mick. We’re not taking big stuff like that. It’ll slow us down. You’ve got the jewels and I’ve got a hundred quid. It’s enough.”

  “Enough!” Mick snorted. “These people are fucking rolling in it. We’ve not got much more than we get from the old bags.”

  “Yes, we have. And people are more careful these days—we’re bloody lucky to have got so much.”

  Reluctantly Mick gave up the idea and agreed to leave. Trevor was still enjoying just being there, though, still tingling, and he wanted to do something. Finally, he unzipped his fly and started to urinate over the TV, VCR and music centre, spraying lavishly on the carpet, paintings and mantelpiece, too. It seemed to go on forever, a powerful, translucent stream glittering in the pen-light’s beam, and with it, he felt himself relax, felt a delicious warmth infuse his bones.