Gallows View ib-1

by Peter Robinson

  But something was wrong. He didn't feel right. He lay there with the sheets pulled up and looked at the glossy posters of pop stars on his walls, wondering if the stickiness he felt meant that he'd had a wet dream. Cautiously, he pushed the bedclothes aside and sat up on the edge of the bed. The front of his pajamas was stained, and when he looked more closely he noticed a kind of yellowish discharge.

  Alarmed, Trevor rushed to the bathroom and washed himself. When he stood to urinate, the fear really took hold of him. It hurt like hell. It felt as if he was pissing red-hot needles. He leaned against the wall in a cold sweat, pressing his forehead against the tiles. When he'd finished, the pain faded and all that remained was a lingering throb, the echo of an ache.

  Trevor washed his face and stared at himself in the mirror. The dark patch between his teeth was spreading quickly, and he had two spots: one, still embryonic, wedged between the edge of his nostril and his upper lip; the other, yellow and juicy, exactly at the point where his chin curved under to become his throat. But they were the least of his worries. He was pale and his eyes were dull. He knew what he'd got; he'd got the clap. That fucking cunt had given him the clap.

  With a great effort, Trevor pulled himself together. He finished washing, then returned to his bedroom to get dressed.

  "Hurry up,' our Trev!" his father called. "Your bacon and eggs are going cold!"

  "Coming, dad," he yelled back. "Won't be a minute."

  He pulled his white shirt and gray slacks on, picked out a sleeveless, V-neck pullover with a muted pattern of gray and mauve, and he was ready. They ate breakfast together quickly, Graham beaming at his son.

  "It was a good day we had yesterday, wasn't it?" he asked.

  "Yes," Trevor lied.

  "Got a lot of work done."

  "We did, didn't we?"

  "And all your homework, too."

  "That's right."

  "Believe me, Trevor, it's worth it. You might not think so now, but you'll be grateful in the future, mark my words."

  "I suppose so," Trevor mumbled. "Look at the time! I'll be late." "Off you go, then," Graham said, ruffling Trevor's hair and smiling at him. "And don't forget to hand that homework in."

  "Don't worry, I won't," Trevor said, forcing a grin and picking up his satchel.

  "And you'd better get that tooth seen to, too, lad," Graham added, "or it'll only get worse. See if you can get an appointment with the school dentist."

  "All right, dad," Trevor replied, and rushed off.

  He had no intention of making any appointment with the school dentist, or with any other dentist, for that matter. It was Dr. Himmler, as he called the school dentist, and his assistant Griselda who had put Trevor off dentists in the first place. The man was grubby and his National Health glasses were stuck together across the bridge with Elastoplast. Griselda stood by, white-faced and red-lipped, like some medieval witch passing him the instruments of torture. He never gave anaesthetics for fillings; you simply had to grip the chair. For extractions he administered nitrous oxide, and Trevor would never forget that feeling of suffocation as the mask was finally pressed over his nose and mouth, like a polythene bag clinging to the pores, keeping all the air out. And afterwards, he would stand up groggily and stagger to the next room, where the previous patients were still standing around water fountains spitting or swilling the blood from their mouths.

  Trevor set off in the right direction for school. He walked up through Leaview Estate, which was already busy with the postman, the milkman and wives seeing husbands off to work, then turned onto King Street with its cobbles and trendy tourist shops. The places all had looking-glass windows and black-leaded railings leading down to basements stuffed with mildewed books, spinning wheels, bobbins and other relics of the woollen industry, which were now sold as antiques.

  The school was at the bottom of a narrow street to his left, and Trevor could see the white tips of the rugby posts and the dirty red-brick Victorian clocktower. Instead of turning down School Drive, though, he took the narrow, winding streets to the market square. On the eastern side of the square, between the National Westminster Bank and Jopling's Newsagent's, a short flight of worn stone steps led down to the El Toro Coffee Bar, a dim room with bullfight posters, castanets and maracas on the walls. Trevor slumped into the darkest corner, ordered an espresso coffee, and settled down to think.

  He knew he had VD because he'd heard other kids talking and joking about it at school. Nobody ever thought it would happen to them, though. And because Trevor's intelligence was imaginative rather than scientific, his ideas about the consequences of the disease were farfetched, to say the least. He pictured his penis turning black and rotten, the flesh coming away in great gobbets in his hands the next time he had to go to the toilet. He was convinced that it would drop off altogether within hours. There was treatment, he knew, though he had no idea what it was. But anything was better than dying that way; even the school dentist would be better than that.

  He could not go to his GP, Dr. Fanner, because his father would find out. He could bear the embarrassment, but not disclosure. Too many awkward questions would be asked. There were special clinics, or so he'd heard people say, and he figured that one of those was his best bet. There had been nothing in the papers about the woman he had raped, so Trevor assumed that Mick's boot had done the trick and she was keeping quiet for fear of worse reprisals. Still, the police didn't publicize everything they knew, so it would be best to avoid Eastvale, just in case. Trevor asked the owner for the phone directory and looked up hospitals and clinics. As he had guessed, there was a place in York. He scribbled down the address on a page torn out of a school exercise book and left the El Toro.

  At the bus station, he put his satchel and school blazer in a locker, wearing only his duffle-coat over his shirt and pullover. That way he didn't look at all like a schoolboy. The next bus for York was due to leave in fifteen minutes. He bought a copy of Melody Maker at the newsstand and sat on the cracked green bench to wait.

  II

  All day Monday Banks seethed with impatience. He had made great efforts to put the Thelma Pitt business out of his mind over the weekend, mostly for the sake of his family. On Saturday, they had driven into York to do some shopping and on Sunday they had all gone on a vigorous walk from Bainbridge to Semerwater, in Wensleydale. It was a brisk day, sunny and cool, but they were all warm enough in their walking gear.

  On Monday morning, though, Banks took off his Walkman, hardly having noticed which opera he'd been listening to, slammed it shut in the drawer and shouted for Hatchley. "Sir?" the sergeant said, red-faced with the effort of running upstairs.

  Banks looked at him sternly. "You'd better do something about the shape you're in, Sergeant," he said first. "You'd not be much use in a chase, would you?"

  "No, sir," Hatchley replied, gasping for breath.

  "Anyway, that's not what I want to see you about. Anything from the clinics?"

  "No, sir."

  "Damn!" Banks thumped the desk.

  "You did ask us to let you know, sir," Hatchley reminded him. "I'm sure you'd have heard if there'd been any news over the weekend."

  Banks glared at him. "Of course," he said, scratching his head and sitting down.

  "It can take'up to ten days, sir."

  "When would that take us to?"

  "Wednesday or Thursday, sir."

  "Thursday," Banks repeated, tapping a ruler against his thigh. "Anything could happen before then. What about Moxton?"

  "Moxton, sir?"

  "Micklethwaite, as he calls himself now."

  "Oh, him. Nothing there either, I'm afraid."

  Banks had ordered surveillance on Moxton, assuming that he might try to warn his partner, whoever that was.

  "He didn't do much at all," Hatchley added, "though he did go and visit the woman."

  "Thelma Pitt?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And?"

  "And nothing, sir. Stayed about fifteen minutes, then drove
home. Seemed a bit pissed off, if you ask me. Slammed the car door. He stayed in all Saturday night, went for a walk on Sunday morning, washed his car, dropped in for a quick drink at that posh place, the Hope and Anchor, about nine o'clock, then went home and stayed there."

  "Did he talk to anyone at the Hope and Anchor?"

  "Only the landlord, sir."

  "Anyone we know?"

  "No, sir. Straight as a die. Never even sold short measure, far as we can tell." Banks took a deep breath. "All right, Sergeant. Thank you," he said, softening his tone a little to mollify Hatchley. "Have some coffee sent up, will you?"

  "Sir?"

  Banks grinned. "I know it's awful muck, but I need it all the same."

  "Will do," Hatchley said, lingering. "Er… Sir?…"

  "What is it?"

  "Have you got any idea who it was, sir? The rapist?"

  "I'm not sure, Sergeant. It could be that Sharp kid and his mate or a pair very much like them. It's the same ones who robbed the old ladies and pissed on the Ottershaws' VCR-that I am sure about."

  "And the Matlock killing?"

  Banks shook his head. "I don't think so. That's something different. Another problem altogether."

  "Why not bring the Sharp kid in for questioning?"

  "Because I can't prove anything. Do you think I wouldn't have had him in before if I had something on him? Besides, I'm not certain yet that he is the one, I just got the feeling there was something wrong when I talked to him and his father."

  "That bit about the bad tooth, sir. If he-"

  Banks waved his hand as if to brush aside a fly. "By itself it's nothing. You know that as well as I do. On the other hand, if he's got the clap…"

  "We could always bring him in, just to shake him up a bit."

  "No good. His father would insist on being present. He'd probably send for a bloody lawyer, too, then they'd just clam up on us. If Sharp's our lad, we need evidence before we tackle him again or we'll lose him for good."

  Hatchley scratched the seat of his pants. "What about the woman?" he asked.

  "Thelma Pitt?"

  "Yes."

  "She said she couldn't positively identify them. We don't want to take any risks on this. When we get him, I want him to stay, not walk off on some technicality. Besides, I'd rather not put her through it until we've got a bit more to go on. If it's Sharp, we know he's got the clap. Sooner or later, he'll turn up at one of the clinics. Then we'll haul him in."

  Hatchley nodded and went back downstairs.

  When the coffee came, Banks realized all over again why he usually took his breaks in the Golden Grill. He sat with his chair turned to face the window, smoked and stared blankly over the market square, watching the first activities of the morning. Delivery vans double parked outside the shops; the minister, glancing at his watch, hurried into the church; a housewife in a paisley headscarf rattled the door of Bradwell's Grocery, which didn't appear to be open yet.

  But all this was mere activity without meaning to Banks. He was close to solving the robberies and the rape of Thelma Pitt-he knew that, he could feel it in his bones-but there was nothing he could do to hurry things along. As so often in his job, he had to be patient; this time he literally had to let nature take its course.

  Slowly, while he smoked yet another cigarette, the market square came to life. As the first tourists stepped into the Norman church, Bradwell's Grocery finally opened its doors and took delivery of boxes of fruit from an orange van with a sombrero painted on its side. The woman in the paisley headscarf was nowhere to be seen.

  By mid-morning, Banks was sick of being cooped up in his office. He told Sergeant Rowe he was going out for half an hour or so, then went for a walk to burn off some of his impatience.

  He hurried across the market square, fastening his overcoat as he went, then cut down the narrow back-streets and through the flower gardens to the riverside. The slowly increasing cloud cover had not yet quite blotted out the sun, but it had drawn a thin veil over it that weakened the light and gave the whole landscape the look of a watercolor in pale greens, yellows, orange, brown and red. The scent of rain came on a chilling wind, which seemed to be blowing from the northwest, along the channel of Swainsdale itself. The breeze hurried the river over the terraced falls and set up a constant skittering sound in the trees that lined the banks. Leaves were already falling and scraping along the ground. Most of them ended up in the water.

  Across the Swain was another pathway, and behind that more trees and flowerbeds. The houses that Banks could just see through the waving branches were the ones fronting The Green, which separated them from the East Side Estate. Banks knew that Jenny's house was among them, but he couldn't tell which one it was from that distance and angle.

  He pushed his hands deep into his overcoat pockets, hunched his shoulders and hurried on. The exercise was doing the trick, driving chaotic thoughts from his mind and helping him work up an appetite for lunch.

  He doubled back around the castle to the market square. Hatchley and Richmond were lunching in the Queen's Arms when he got there, and Hatchley stopped in mid-sentence when he saw his boss enter. Banks remembered that he had been rude to the sergeant that morning and guessed that they were complaining about him. Taking a deep breath, he joined them at their table and set things right again by buying both his men a pint.

  III

  The York bus arrived at the station by the Roman wall at ten-thirty. Trevor walked along the wall, passed the railway station, then crossed the Ouse over Lendal Bridge by the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey and the Yorkshire Museum. After that, he wandered in a daze around the busy city until he felt hungry. Just after opening time, he found a pub on Stonegate-with his height and out-of-school dress he certainly looked over eighteen-where he ate a steak-and-mushroom pie along with his pint of keg beer.

  He lingered there for almost two hours, nursing his pint and reading every word (including the "Musicians Wanted" column) in his Melody Maker, before venturing out into the streets again. Everywhere he walked he seemed to stumble across pairs of American tourists, most of them complaining because they were inadequately dressed for the cool weather.

  "Goddamn sun's out," he heard one fat man in thin cotton slacks and a blazer grumble. "You'd think there'd be some goddamn heat, for Christ's sake."

  "Oh, Elmer," his wife said. "We've been in Yoorp for a month now. You oughtta know it never gets hot north of Athens."

  Trevor sneered. Silly sods, he thought. Why even bother to come here and litter up the streets if they were too soft to take a bit of autumn chill. He imagined America as a vast continent baking in the sun-pavements you could fry eggs on; people stripped to the waist all the time having barbecues; enormous, uninhabitable stretches of desert and jungle.

  About an hour later, he knew he was lost. He seemed to have wandered outside the city walls. This was no tourist area he was in; it was too working-class. The long straight rows of tiny back-to-backs built of dusty pink bricks seemed endless. Washing flapped on lines hung across the narrow streets. Trevor turned back, and at the end of the street saw the Minster's bright towers in the distance. He started walking in their direction.

  He'd put it off for long enough, he decided. If he didn't want his penis to shrivel up and drop off, he'd better go for treatment, however frightening the prospect seemed.

  In a newsagent's, he found time to look up the location of the clinic in a street guide before the suspicious owner told him to clear off if he wasn't going to buy anything.

  "Bleeding Paki," Trevor muttered under his breath as he found himself being ushered out. But he'd got what he'd come for.

  The clinic, not very far from the hub of the city, was a squat, modern building of windowless concrete with a fiat, asphalt roof. Trevor presented himself at reception, where he was told to take a seat and wait until a doctor became available. There were two other people before him, a middle-aged man and a scruffy female student, and both of them looked embarrassed. As they waited, nob
ody spoke and they all avoided even accidental eye contact.

  About an hour later, it was Trevor's turn. A bald, long-faced doctor led him into a small room and bid him sit in front of the desk. Trevor shifted anxiously, wishing to God the whole thing was over and done with. The place smelled of Dettol and carbolic; it reminded him of the dentist's.

  "Right," the doctor said brightly, after scribbling a few notes on a form. "What can we do for you, young man?"

  What a stupid question, Trevor thought. What the hell does he think I'm here for, to have my bunions seen to?

  "I've got a problem," he mumbled, and gave the doctor the details.

  "What's your name?" the doctor asked, after umming and ahing over Trevor's description of his symptoms.

  "Peter Upshaw," Trevor answered smartly. It was something he'd had the foresight to work out in advance, a name he had picked out from the columns of Melody Maker.

  "Address?"

  "Forty-two Arrowsmith Drive."

  The doctor glanced at him sharply: "Is that here, in York?"

  "Yes."

  "Whereabouts?" He scratched his shiny pate with his ballpoint pen. "I don't believe I know it."

  "It's by the Minster," Trevor blurted out, reddening. He hadn't anticipated that the quack would be so inquisitive. "The Minster? Ah, yes…"The doctor made an entry on the form. "All right, Peter," he said, putting down his pen. "We'll have some tests to do, of course, but first I have to ask you where you caught this disease, who you caught it from."

  Trevor certainly hadn't bargained for this. He couldn't tell the truth, he couldn't name anyone he knew, and he certainly couldn't answer, "Nobody."

  "A prostitute," he replied quickly. It was the first thing that came into his mind.

  The doctor raised his thin eyebrows. "A prostitute? Where was this, Peter?"

  "Here."

  "In York?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "About a week ago."