Sleeping in the Ground

by Peter Robinson

  ‘Er, Ray,’ Banks cut in, tapping his watch. ‘Weren’t you about to head off to the Dog and Gun? Folk night.’

  ‘Is it? Was I?’ Ray scratched his temple. ‘Ah, yes. Of course. Right. See you later, Jane. I mean Gerry.’ And he shot off through the kitchen and out of the front door.

  ‘He’s an artist. What can I say?’ Banks picked up a remote and turned off the music.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that for me, sir. I was enjoying it.’

  ‘Sure you wouldn’t prefer Pink Floyd?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, sir,’ said Gerry. ‘I haven’t heard Pink Floyd. Not that I know of. I mean, I know the name, but, you know . . . I’m pleased to hear that Mahler wrote the song for his wife. It must have been a wonderful gift to receive. Nobody’s ever written a song for me, let alone one as lovely as that.’

  ‘Me, neither,’ said Banks. ‘And next time we’re in the car together, remind me to play you Ummagumma. So what can I help you with? Would you like a glass of wine? Cup of tea? Coffee? Perhaps a wee dram of whisky?’ He turned the CD player on again with the remote and the beautiful music continued quietly in the background.

  ‘Nothing, thanks, sir. I can’t stay. I just . . . well, I found something I thought was interesting, and I wanted to tell you in person.’

  ‘You’ve got my attention. Go ahead.’

  Gerry sat in the one of the wicker chairs. Outside, the dark humps of the fells stood out in silhouette against the lighter night sky. Banks sat on the angled chair beside her and picked up a glass of purplish-red wine from the table between them.

  ‘You know you told me to dig a bit further into the Wendy Vincent business?’

  ‘You were working late on that tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then don’t keep me in suspense.’

  Gerry turned slightly to face him. ‘Do you remember anything about the Wendy Vincent murder, sir? December, 1964.’

  ‘Even I’m not so old that I’ve been on the force that long,’ said Banks. ‘But I do believe I heard the name in the news not long ago.’

  ‘That’s right. I’ll get to that.’ Gerry went on, ‘Wendy Vincent was a fifteen-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered in some woods near her home in Leeds. There were rumours that she could have been an early victim of Brady and Hindley, and more recently the press threw Jimmy Savile and Peter Sutcliffe in the mix.’

  ‘How old would Sutcliffe have been in 1964?’

  ‘Eighteen, sir. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. If they hadn’t caught the real killer, that is. Frank Dowson. A couple of years back there was a piece in the papers on the fiftieth anniversary of fifth December, 1964. Just a simple retelling of an unsolved crime. That’s probably why you remember the name. The murder took place in the same part of west Leeds where Maureen Tindall lived at the time with her parents. Maureen and Wendy Vincent were the same age, went to the same school and were best friends. According to one of her teachers interviewed for the TV programme, Wendy had been playing hockey for the school team that morning, and she took a short cut through the woods on her way home. Apparently, she had taken a bit of a knock on the field, so she wasn’t feeling too great.’

  ‘And that’s where she was killed? The woods?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Raped and stabbed repeatedly. Her body was found hidden under some branches and bracken under a bridge over the stream. There was no mention of Maureen Tindall in the articles that coincided with the fiftieth anniversary, or on the TV footage about it, but I found one passing mention on a website, quoting a local newspaper back at the time, in 1964. The newspaper is no longer published, but the website had scans of back issues, and I found mention of Wendy’s best friend there: Maureen Grainger.’

  ‘Maureen Tindall’s maiden name.’

  ‘That’s right. It was the usual sort of human interest story you’d get in a small local weekly – what was the “real” Wendy like, what was her taste in clothes, music, did she have a boyfriend, what was she like as a friend, that type of thing.’

  ‘As I remember, that anniversary article you mentioned and the accompanying TV documentary sparked a reopening of the case, and that’s where Frank Dowson comes in, right?’

  ‘Yes. First on DNA evidence, connected with a series of rapes, then he confessed. Some of the papers accused the original police investigation of a massive cock-up, sir. Please excuse my language.’

  ‘I remember that. But there’s no question that they got the right man?’

  ‘Not as far as I can tell. Everything was done by the book. The confession was solid, the DNA evidence admissible. They’d found traces of blood and skin under Wendy’s fingernails that they were certain came from her killer. Of course, DNA typing didn’t exist at the time, but the samples were properly stored. After the case was reopened in 2015, they were checked against other cold-case samples, and a match was found for a suspect in several rapes. He was also on the database. Frank Dowson. He’d been twenty-one at the time of Wendy’s murder, and in the merchant navy. He admitted to a number of other unsolved rapes when they brought him in. And to Wendy’s murder. He got life, but he died in the prison hospital early this year. Respiratory failure.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting, Gerry, Maureen Tindall, or Grainger, being the best friend of a murder victim fifty years ago, and the killer finally being caught after all that time, but it happens these days. You know that. How could there possibly be any connection between the Wendy Vincent murder and what happened at Laura Tindall’s wedding? I mean, Frank Dowson could hardly have done it. He’s dead.’

  Gerry’s shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know, sir, but I think we should talk to Maureen Tindall again, and maybe do a bit of digging around in the West Yorkshire archives for whatever files they’ve still got. People who were around at the time. You never know. Someone might remember something. There might even be a connection with Edgeworth.’

  ‘Edgeworth was just a child in 1964.’

  ‘Later, then. Some point over the last fifty years.’

  ‘That’s stretching it a bit,’ said Banks.

  Gerry could sense his frustration. She felt it, herself, but she also felt she was on to something. ‘It’s the only angle I’ve come up with so far, sir. I drew a blank with the bridesmaids and the maid of honour. You’ve already interviewed Katie Shea’s boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, Boyd Farrow, and his alibi stands up. The Wendy Vincent murder is all we’ve got so far. However tenuous the link may be. Otherwise, it’s back to Martin Edgeworth. And Maureen Tindall was definitely strange when we talked to her, as if she was remembering a long way back and seeing a possibility she didn’t want to admit.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s not just your imagination after the fact?’

  ‘Maybe, sir. But if her best friend was murdered, and we were asking her if she could think of anyone, no matter how long ago, who might want to do her family harm, and she seemed to remember something she wouldn’t tell us, don’t you think it’s worth following up on?’

  She watched as Banks leaned back and drank more wine.

  ‘I’m still curious as to why you came all the way out here to tell me this,’ he said. ‘What you’ve told me is interesting, yes, but surely the telephone would have done?’

  Gerry hesitated. There was something she hadn’t told him yet that had made her irrationally determined to put the facts of the case before him in person. ‘Well, you’ll have to be the judge of that, yourself, sir,’ she said. ‘It was just that a name came up once or twice in the old newspaper reports from 1964, someone we might want to talk to.’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘Yes. One of the investigating officers. I did a bit of checking around and found out he’s someone you know. I just wanted to run the name by you before going off half-cocked. I mean, with all the press criticism of the original investigation and so on.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it was DI Chadwick again?’ Banks said.

  ‘No, sir. Definitely not
Chadwick. It was someone called Gristhorpe. A DC Gristhorpe. Apparently, he used to be your boss.’

  Chapter 10

  Banks and Jenny Fuller drove down the rutted drive to ex-Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe’s farmhouse outside the village of Lyndgarth late the following morning. The sky looked like a pot full of boiling oily rags, and the air was so moist that it was hard to breathe, but at least it wasn’t raining. Which was just as well. All the meteorological reports stated that the ground was so waterlogged already that one more spell of heavy rain would cause even more serious flooding.

  The car splashed up water from the puddles, and Banks finally brought it to a halt outside the back door. He hadn’t been to visit the old man in quite a while, but not much had changed. The drystone wall that went nowhere and fenced in nothing still ran through his large back garden, but ended jaggedly and abruptly. There had been no decent weather for working on it lately. It was Gristhorpe’s hobby – he said it was therapeutic, kept him calm and focused – and whenever he came to the end of his allotted pile of stones, he dismantled the wall then mixed them up like a bag of dominoes, adding a few new ones, and started all over again.

  The green paint on the heavy back door was so fresh Banks could smell it. He rang the bell. They didn’t have long to wait before it opened and the tall, bulky figure of Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe stood there beckoning them in, wearing a pair of old brown cords and a dark woolly jumper.

  ‘Well, look at you, lass,’ he said to Jenny. ‘It’s been years since I last saw you, and you’ve hardly changed at all. You’re still a right bobby-dazzler.’

  Jenny blushed and gave him a hug. ‘You silver-tongued old devil. It’s been a long time. How are you?’

  ‘Can’t complain, though I wouldn’t recommend old age,’ said Gristhorpe as he led them into his wood-panelled, book-lined living room and bade them sit in the worn leather armchairs. There was a fire crackling in the hearth and a book on the table beside Gristhorpe’s chair. Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, Banks noticed. So the old man was still rereading the classics. ‘First, tea.’ Gristhorpe rubbed his hands together. ‘Then talk.’ He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jenny smiled at Banks. ‘It brings back so many memories, just seeing him again. Hearing his voice.’ Her eyes were shining.

  ‘How long has it been?’ Banks asked.

  ‘More years than I’d care to remember.’

  Banks stared into the flames in silence, thinking about time and age and Emily and death, then Gristhorpe reappeared with the tea and mugs on a tray. He moved his book and set the tray down on the table, rubbing his hands together. ‘We’ll let it mash for a while first.’

  Gristhorpe eased himself into his chair. Banks thought he noticed a grimace of pain flash briefly across his features. The old man always did suffer from back problems and a touch of arthritis. Otherwise, he seemed hale and hearty. He had the same weathered, pock-marked face, and the unruly thatch of hair might have turned a bit greyer and thinner since the last time they met, but it was still mostly all there.

  When the tea was ready, Gristhorpe poured them each a mug, opened a tin of ginger nut biscuits and sat down again, cradling the mug on his lap. ‘You mentioned something on the telephone about the Wendy Vincent case,’ he said to Banks.

  ‘Yes. It came up in some research Gerry – that’s DC Masterson – was doing on the wedding shooting.’

  ‘Nasty business that. But I thought it was all over and done with. I thought you got your man?’

  ‘We’re not exactly sure about that.’

  ‘The man we found didn’t match any profile I could come up with for a mass murderer or spree killer,’ Jenny added. ‘Not that such things are always an accurate guide – I’d be the first to admit – but there are certain parameters.’

  ‘Exception to the rule?’

  ‘Could be,’ Jenny admitted. ‘But I think Alan also has a number of forensic issues and other concerns.’

  ‘When you add it all together,’ Banks said, ‘I think the case merits further investigation.’

  He told Gristhorpe about Dr Glendenning’s doubts and added a few of his own. Gristhorpe took a mouthful of tea and dunked his ginger biscuit as he listened.

  When Banks had finished, Gristhorpe frowned. ‘I’ll go along with you for the time being,’ he said. ‘Maybe it does deserve a bit more attention. But where does Wendy Vincent come into it? I remember that case well. It was one of my very first, and it was a complete bloody disaster. It still galls me to this day, even though they finally caught the bastard. We should have had the gumption to question Frank Dowson back at the time of the crime – it’s not as if he was unknown to us – but he was a merchant seaman, and nobody told us he was in the area at the time.’

  ‘When your name came up,’ Banks said, ‘Gerry found your connection with me, and she thought I might want your name kept out of it. So she came to me with the story first, in person.’

  ‘She thought I might resent my failure being broadcast around again?’

  ‘It may have crossed her mind. She’s young. And she doesn’t know you like I do.’

  ‘She’ll probably go far, then.’ Gristhorpe slurped some tea. His eyes twinkled.

  ‘One of the members of the wedding was Maureen Tindall, née Grainger,’ Banks went on. ‘DC Masterson’s discovered in the course of her research that she was Wendy Vincent’s best friend.’

  ‘That’s right. I remember her. Pretty young thing in a flower-patterned frock. Nervous as hell. And clearly very upset. She was at the wedding?’

  ‘Mother of the bride.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Unharmed.’

  ‘Then why make the connection?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘All I know is that I suspect there might be one, and I’m not a hundred per cent convinced that Martin Edgeworth was responsible for the shooting.’

  ‘You’re not trying to say that someone shot Maureen Grainger’s daughter because of what happened to Wendy Vincent over fifty years ago, are you?’

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m saying. Why don’t you tell me about it?’

  ‘We worked on the assumption that it was a crime of opportunity.’

  ‘Most likely it was,’ said Banks. ‘But why did Frank Dowson kill Wendy Vincent after raping her?’

  ‘You know as well as I do, Alan,’ said Jenny, ‘that rapists often kill their victims.’

  ‘Not always,’ Banks said. ‘Unless they’re sexual psychopaths. And usually, if they do, it’s a matter of identification.’

  ‘Which is exactly what it was in this case,’ said Gristhorpe. ‘Wendy Vincent did know Frank Dowson. Not well, but certainly well enough to recognise him, to know who he was. He lived on the same estate. He was the older brother of someone she knew. When they finally caught up with Dowson a couple of years ago, he confessed to a number of other rapes, but denied any more murders.’

  ‘The others were strangers?’ Jenny said.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Was there any gossip about Wendy Vincent?’ Banks asked. ‘Did she have any sort of a reputation to make Dowson think she’d be easy, or asking for it? Anything that might make him believe she was sexually available?’

  ‘Good lord, no,’ said Gristhorpe. ‘Quite the opposite. Young Wendy was an angel, by all accounts. Sunday school, Brownies, the whole kit and caboodle. Did well at school, good at sports. Pretty much held a dysfunctional household together by herself. There’d been problems, social services involved, that sort of thing. The parents were alcoholics. But Wendy was a nice kid. Everyone said so.’

  ‘Is it possible that he might not have intended to kill Wendy Vincent, but that she surprised him by struggling?’

  ‘He was certainly a strong lad, and one of those who didn’t know his own strength. But he raped her then stabbed her five times, Alan. There wasn’t much of a struggle. I’d hardly say he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. You were right first time. He knew she’d
be able to identify him. And that’s what the court believed as well, fifty years later, despite the sneaky defence barrister trying to claim diminished responsibility.’

  ‘Frank Dowson was mentally challenged?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘He had a very low IQ. But he knew what rape and murder were. At least he knew how to commit them.’

  ‘Can you remember what happened that day?’ Banks asked.

  ‘As if it were yesterday. Happens when you get older, you know, Alan. Yesterday becomes a blur, but the distant past comes sharp into focus. I remember all my cases, and Wendy Vincent was one of the first, like I said. I was a callow DC working in West Yorkshire.’

  ‘Do you remember anyone called Chadwick, a DI? Was he involved in this case at all?’

  ‘I knew Chadwick, but he wasn’t on the Wendy Vincent case. I never worked with him, but I heard things. I don’t even think he was around at the time. Always thought he was a bit iffy. Detective Superintendent Lindsay was running the investigation, and I was working mostly with DI Rattigan and DS Saunders. Decent coppers, all of them. Of course, there were plenty of others involved, plainclothes and uniformed. There was a huge search for the girl, then a manhunt for her killer, but by then Dowson was back at sea, and as far as we knew he’d always been there.’

  ‘How did it begin?’

  ‘We got a phone call from Wendy’s parents. Her father, if I remember rightly. They didn’t have a phone in their house, so he had to walk to the nearest telephone box. That’s before they all got vandalised.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About seven in the evening. They’d been expecting her home to make their tea. She was playing hockey for the school in the morning, then there was a lunch afterwards at school for the team. Teatime at home was half past five. Regular as clockwork. They assumed she’d be knocking about with her mates in the afternoon, but when she wasn’t home by then, they got worried. By seven they were even more worried. It wasn’t like her. Wendy was a good girl. They got in touch with Maureen’s parents, who said that Maureen hadn’t seen Wendy that day. Maureen wasn’t a hockey player, by the way, so she’d been visiting her gran in Thornhill, near Bradford, and not at the game. Then they got really worried. Being December, it was dark by late afternoon, of course, and it had started raining.’