Gallows View ib-1

by Peter Robinson

  Puzzled, and worried that something might have happened to Brian or Tracy, he told Rowe to keep an eye on the suspect for a few moments and ducked into the nearest empty room to take the call.

  "Alan? Thank God," Sandra breathed. Rowe was right. Banks had never heard her sound like that before.

  "What is it? What's wrong?"

  "It was Robin, Alan. The peeper. He came here. He had a knife."

  "What happened? Are you all right?"

  "Yes, yes, I'm all right. A bit scared and shaky, but he didn't hurt me. Alan, I think I've killed him. I hit him with the camera. Too hard. I wasn't thinking. I was so frightened and angry."

  "Stay there, Sandra," Banks told her. "Don't move. I'll be over in a few minutes. Understand?"

  "Yes. Hurry, Alan. Please."

  "I will."

  Banks got Rowe out of his office again and told the sergeant that an emergency had arisen and he had to rush home.

  "What about those two?" Rowe asked.

  "I'll be back," Banks said, thinking quickly. "Have Sergeant Hatchley call me at home when they get back with Webster. And don't, under any circumstances, let the two kids see each other."

  "Right, sir, got it," Rowe said. Banks could tell that he wanted to ask what was wrong or offer some sort of sympathy, but discretion got the better of him and he went back into Banks's office, shutting the door softly behind him. Banks got as far as the front door before PC Craig, on temporary desk duty, shouted after him.

  "Sir! Inspector Banks, sir!" Banks turned. "What is it?" he snapped, still edging toward the door.

  "A call, sir. Sergeant Hatchley. Says it's an emergency."

  Banks was of two minds whether to take it or not, but his professional instinct made him reach for the phone. At least Sandra wasn't in immediate danger any longer. A minute or two more wouldn't hurt.

  "What is it, Sergeant?"

  "The kid, sir. Webster. He gave us the slip."

  "Well, go after him."

  "It's not as simple as that. We know where he is."

  "Get to the bloody point, Sergeant," Banks growled. "I've got one bloody emergency on my hands already."

  "He ran across The Green and broke into a woman's house, sir. He's got her held hostage there. He's got a gun."

  Banks felt his stomach tighten. "Which house?"

  "It's that doctor woman, sir. The one I saw coming out of the super's office."

  "Christ," Banks gasped, rubbing his free hand over his eyes.

  "But there's more, sir. He says he wants you there. He asked for you and said if you didn't get here in twenty minutes he'd kill the woman."

  Banks had to think more quickly than he had ever done in his life. It was probably no more than a split second before he gave Hatchley his instructions, but in that period Banks felt as if he had been to hell and back. The two women flashed before his eyes. If he deserted Sandra when she needed him, he thought, things might never be right again; she would never fully trust him. If he didn't go to help Jenny, on the other hand, she would surely die. Banks reasoned that Sandra would, somehow, understand this if she knew, that his duty was to try to save a life rather than console his wife after she had already succeeded in freeing herself from a dangerous, terrifying situation. Though he was thinking specifically that it was Jenny in danger, that he couldn't let Jenny die, he knew he would also have to go even if it was a stranger Mick Webster had taken hostage. It was personal, yes, and this intensified his concern, but his job demanded that he do the same for anyone. Somebody, however, would have to go to Sandra. There was always the chance that the man would return to consciousness again. And if someone else dealt with it, then it would be official business. It was official anyway, he realized. It had gone too far to be covered up as easily as the peeper episode. No matter who went to Sandra now, all the details would have to come out.

  "I'll be there, Sergeant," Banks said quickly. "Send DC Richmond over to my house. Got it? MY HOUSE. Immediately. I've not got time to explain, but it's urgent. Tell him to hurry and to explain to my wife about the situation here."

  "Yes, sir," Hatchley said, sounding puzzled.

  "And let the super know," Banks added. "We'll need him down there if there's any negotiating to be done."

  "He's already on his way," Hatchley said, and hung up.

  Not wasting another moment, Banks rushed through the desk area, picked up the keys to the same car he had driven to York, and, without signing for them, dashed out of the back into the yard where the vehicles were parked. In seven minutes, he was outside Jenny's house.

  Hatchley and two uniformed men stood by the low wall at the bottom of the garden, which sloped upwards quite steeply to the bay window. The light in the front room was on, and Banks could hear the strains of Tosca playing in the background.

  "Any developments?" he asked Hatchley.

  "No, sir," the sergeant replied. "Haven't seen hide nor hair of him since he told us to send for you. They're inside, though. I sent Bradley and Jennings around the back. Told them not to do nothing, just keep their eyes open."

  Banks nodded. Hatchley had done well, considering that this was the first time he had had to deal with hostage taking. It was a difficult business, as Banks had found out for himself on one or two occasions down in London, but it was of chief importance to maintain as calm and reasonable an atmosphere as possible for negotiations.

  Another car drew up by the curb and Superintendent Gristhorpe got out. He looked like a bulky, absent-minded professor with his unkempt thatch of hair blowing in the breeze and his bushy eyebrows meeting in the middle of his frown. Banks explained the situation to him as quickly as possible.

  "Why does he want you here?" Gristhorpe asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Have you told him you've arrived?"

  "Not yet."

  "Better do it, Alan. He might be getting impatient."

  "Is there a megaphone?" Banks asked.

  Gristhorpe smiled wryly. "Now where the bloody hell would we get a megaphone, Alan?"

  Banks acknowledged this fact, then simply spoke out loud toward the broken window.

  "Mick! Mick Webster! I'm here. It's Inspector Banks."

  There were sounds of scuffling inside, then Webster appeared at the window, gun pointed at the side of Jenny's head.

  "What do you want?" Banks asked. "Why do you want me here?"

  "I want you in here," Mick shouted back.

  "Why do you want me? You've already got the girl."

  "Just do as I say. Get in here. And no tricks."

  "Mick, send the girl out. Send her out and then I'll come in."

  "Nothing doing. Come in now or I'll blow her fucking head off."

  "Come on, Mick, let's play fair. Let her go. We give a little and you give a little. Send her out and I'll come in."

  "I told you, Banks. Either you come in now or she dies. I'll give you thirty seconds."

  "Better do it, Alan," Gristhorpe said heavily. "He's not stable, you can't reason with him. Have you dealt with anything like this before?"

  "Yes," Banks answered. "A couple of times. Usually with pros, though."

  "But you know the ropes?"

  Banks nodded.

  "I'll try and keep him talking," Gristhorpe said, "keep negotiations open."

  "Your time's running out, Banks," Mick yelled.

  "All right," Banks said, climbing the steps, "I'm coming in, Mick." And as he walked, he thought of Sandra.

  Mick Webster was in a dangerously unstable state. Banks could see that at once as he obeyed orders and emptied out his pockets. The boy was constantly edgy, always scratching, sweating, fidgeting, shifting from one foot to the other, and it didn't take Banks long to recognize the signs of an amphetamine user.

  Jenny appeared to be calm enough. Her left cheek was inflamed, as if she had been hit, but she seemed to be trying to reassure him with the look in her eyes that all was well and that now he was here they had a chance to work together and get out alive. She w
as quick, Banks knew that, and he also felt that a certain intuitive bond had quickly been forged between them. If there was an opportunity, he thought, then they could probably do something about it between them. It was just a matter of waiting to see who took the initiative.

  Mick's moods were shifting minute by minute. One moment he'd be joking, the next he'd become morose and say he had nothing to lose. And all that pacing and jittering was driving Banks crazy. Tosca still played in the background, well into the second act, and the cassette box lay on a pine table by the broken window.

  "All right, Mick," Banks said quietly. "What is it you want?"

  "What do you think?" Mick sneered. "I want out of here." He swaggered over to the window and shouted: "I want ten thousand quid and safe passage out of the country, or the girl and the cop die, got it?"

  Outside in the cold evening, Gristhorpe whispered to Hatchley, "Not a snowball in hell's chance," and said back to Mick, "All right, we'll work on it. Stay in communication and we'll let you know."

  "I don't want to talk to you fuckers," Mick yelled back. "I know you and all your games. Just get me what I asked for and fuck off out of the way." He kept the gun pointed at Jenny. "Hurry up, get back in those trees where I can't see you or I'll kill the girl now."

  Reluctantly, Gristhorpe, Hatchley and the two uniformed men moved back across the road onto The Green.

  "That's right," Mick shouted at them. "And fucking well stay there till you've got something to tell me."

  Banks stood as close to Mick and Jenny as he dared. "Mick," he said, "they're not going to do it. You don't stand a chance."

  "They'll do it," Mick said. "They don't want to see your brains splattered all over the garden. Or hers."

  "They can't do it, Mick," Banks went on patiently. "They can't give in to demands like that. If they did, then every Tom, Dick and Harry would start taking hostages and asking for the world."

  Mick laughed. "Maybe I'll start a trend then, eh? They'll do it, and you'd better hope they do, both of you."

  The music went on quietly and the cool night air came in through the broken window. Outside, Banks could hear talking on a car radio. They would already have the street cordonned off, and should have evacuated the neighbors.

  Mick licked his lips and looked from one to the other of them. "Well," he said, "what shall we do when the transport comes?" And his eyes stayed on Jenny, who stood by the tile fireplace. Banks stuck close to the table by the window.

  "Don't make things worse, Mick," Banks said. "If you give up now, it'll be taken into consideration. Things wouldn't go too badly for you. But if you go any further…"

  "You know as well as I do," Mick said, turning to Banks, "that I'm in about as deep as can be."

  "That's not true, Mick. There's a way out of this."

  "And what's going to happen to me then?"

  "I can't make any promises, Mick. You know that. But it'll go in your favor."

  "Yeah, it'll go in my fucking favor. I'll only get twenty years instead of twenty-five, is that what you're telling me?"

  "You'll get a lot more if you hurt anyone, Mick. No one's been hurt yet. Remember that."

  Mick turned to Jenny. "This is what we're gonna do," he said. "When they fix up my transport, you're coming with me and he's staying. He'll know if he lets his copper mates do anything to stop us, you'll be dead. They might not think I mean it, but he does."

  "No," Jenny said.

  "What do you mean, 'no,' you cunt? What the fuck do you think this is in my hand, a fucking cap-gun?"

  Jenny shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm not going to let you lay one dirty finger on me."

  Mick reddened and looked, to Banks, dangerously near the end of his tether. But Jenny was the psychologist, and she seemed to have taken the initiative; it was up to Banks to follow. While Mick glared at Jenny, Banks picked up the cassette box from the table and tossed it out through the broken window.

  There was a sudden clattering sound on the path and Mick turned to aim the gun toward the noise. Banks was close enough to jump him when the gun was pointing out of the window. But before Banks could make his move, Mick actually fired into the garden. The gun made a dull explosion and they both heard Mick scream. Slowly, he turned back toward the room, his face white, mouth and eyes wide open with shock and pain. The blood from his hand dripped onto the clean pine table.

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  I

  As soon as Hatchley and Gristhorpe heard the shot and the scream, they dashed out of the trees toward the house. Inside, Jenny rushed to help Banks, who had already ripped off Mick's shirt-sleeve to apply as a tourniquet.

  "It's a mess," he said, tying the knot, then he caught Jenny's eye. "You did well," he told her. "But for a minute I thought you were going to push him too far."

  "Me, too. The idea was just to confuse him, then attract his attention. The kid was so stoned he didn't know what was happening. I'm glad you caught the signal." When Banks heard the others reach the steps, he walked over to the window to tell them it was all clear. Inside the house after that it was chaos-several people asking different questions at the same time, orders being given to uniformed men, phone calls being made for the ambulance and Scene-of-Crime Squad-and throughout it all, nobody thought to turn off the stereo; Tosca was still singing: Nell'ora del dolore Perche, perchi, Signor, Perche me ne rimuneri cosi?

  A still point for a moment at the center of all the frenetic activity, Banks took in the familiar words: "In this, my hour of grief and tribulation, Why Heavenly Father, Why hast thou forsaken me?"

  "Good work, Alan," Gristhorpe said, snapping Banks out of the music. "All right?"

  "Fine."

  "You look a bit pale."

  "I always do when I've been in close contact with guns."

  Gristhorpe looked down at Mick. "If all guns reacted the way that one did, Alan, it might be a better world. I'm not a religious man, as you know-too much of that pernicious Yorkshire Methodism in my background- but maybe sometimes God is there when we need him." Banks looked over at Jenny, who was telling a constable what had happened. "She was certainly there."

  He went onto explain about Sandra and asked permission to go home and skip the formalities until later.

  "Of course," Gristhorpe said. "You should have told me earlier. Are you sure she sounded all right?"

  "A bit shook up, but in control. Richmond's still with her."

  "Off you go, then," Gristhorpe said, giving Banks a gentle push in the small of the back.

  It was time to face Sandra.

  As he walked to the door, he saw Jenny, neglected now, slumped on the sofa with her face in her hands. He looked around the room again-the cold night air coming in through the broken window, the blood on the table, the shards of glass on the floor.

  "Jenny," he called softly, holding out his hand. "Come with me."

  She did as she was asked, and on the way home Banks told her about Sandra's ordeal.

  "Do you think it'll be all right?" she asked. "You know, me coming with you?"

  "To tell you the truth, Jenny, I don't know what to expect. I couldn't leave you there, though. Don't worry, the superintendent will see that everything's taken care of."

  Jenny shivered. "I don't think I could have stayed there. I'd have gone to a hotel. I still can. I shouldn't come with you."

  "Don't be silly."

  Banks drove on in silence.

  Finally, they arrived at the house and hurried up the path. Sandra flung open the door. Banks winced as she ran toward him, but she threw her arms around him.

  "Alan! Alan, thank God you're all right," she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder.

  He stroked her hair. "I'm all right, don't worry. Let's go inside. I could do with a drink."

  Richmond stood up as they entered the living room. The young DC stroked his mustache and cleared his throat. Banks suddenly remembered that it was Richmond he had seen that night in The Oak. Jenny had been with him then and t
hey must have seemed very close. God only knew what he was thinking!

  "There, I told you," Richmond said to Sandra. "I told you he'd be all right." He turned to Banks and gave him a nod, as if to signify that all was well. The two of them walked together to the door. "I've taken your wife's statement, sir. It's all very clear what happened. He's the peeper, no doubt about it."

  "How is he?"

  "Don't know yet, sir. It didn't look serious to me. They took him to the hospital about half an hour ago. Will that be all, sir?"

  Banks could tell that Richmond was anxious to leave, that being involved with his inspector in such a personal way was exceedingly uncomfortable for him. "Yes," he said. "You can go now. And Detective Richmond…"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Thanks."

  Richmond blushed and muttered something about it being nothing before he took off at a fair pace down the path.

  Banks closed the door and noticed Jenny and Sandra looking at each other. He knew that Sandra would be embarrassed at showing so much emotion in front of a stranger.

  "I'm sorry," he apologized wearily, running his hand over his close-cropped hair. "I didn't introduce you, did I?"

  After the introduction, Sandra offered Jenny a chair.

  Banks went straight to the drinks cabinet.

  "Something a bit stronger than tea, I think. Scotch all round?"

  "Yes, please." The two women nodded.

  It was hard to know what to do to break the ice, Banks realized as he poured them all generous measures of Macallan single malt. Jenny could hardly say to Sandra, "I heard you had a terrible ordeal tonight, dear?" nor could Sandra answer, "Oh yes, absolutely dreadful. I thought I was going to be raped, then murdered. You didn't have such an easy time, yourself, I hear?" So they sipped scotch and said nothing for a while and Banks smoked a much-needed cigarette.

  "Look, if you'd rather I went," Jenny said, "I'm feeling much better now."

  "Nonsense," Sandra told her. "You can't go back there. You're staying here, with us. I'll make up the spare bed. Oh, Alan, it's nearly time to pick the children up from the meetings. Shall I go?"