“What is it?” Brenda asked.
Lenora didn’t answer. Instead, she walked forward, reached out for the bear, and sat down on the bed with it. The bedspread had Walt Disney characters printed all over it: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bambi, Dumbo. How Gemma loved cartoons. They were the only things that made her smile, Brenda remembered. But it was an odd, inward smile, not one to be shared.
Lenora clutched the bear to her breast and rocked slowly, eyes closed. Brenda felt a shiver go up her spine. It was as if the atmosphere of the room had subtly changed, somehow become thicker, deeper and colder. For what seemed like ages, Lenora hung onto the bear and rocked silently. Brenda clutched her blouse at her throat. Then finally, Lenora opened her eyes. They were glazed and unfocused. She began to speak.
“Gemma is alive,” she said. “Alive. But, oh, she’s so alone, so frightened. So much suffering. She wants you. She wants her mother. She needs you Brenda. You must find her.”
Brenda felt light-headed. “She can’t be,” she whispered. “They’ve found her clothes… I’ve seen them.”
“She’s alive, Brenda.” Lenora turned and grasped Brenda’s wrist. Her grip was tight.
Brenda steadied herself on the back of the small chair by Gemma’s desk. She felt dizzy, her skin cold and clammy, as if she had had too much to drink and the world was spinning fast. “Where can I find her?” she asked. “Where do I look? Tell me, where do I look?”
EIGHT
I
By Tuesday morning, the searchers had turned up nothing buried in the garden of the holiday cottage; nor had anything of interest been discovered on the moors where Gemma’s clothing had been found. Gristhorpe sat in his office going over the paperwork, waiting to hear from forensics about Parkinson’s car. Outside, mucky clouds, like balls of black wool, started to attack from the west.
It was close to twelve when Vic Manson called.
“What did you find?” Gristhorpe asked.
“Plenty. The girl was in there all right. We found her prints. Windows, back of the front seat, all over. I checked them with the ones on file, and they match.”
“Good work, Vic.”
“And we found yellow fibres.”
“The dungarees?”
“Looks like it. I’m still waiting for the confirmation.”
“Anything else?”
“A bit of black hair-dye smeared on the driver’s headrest. Soil and gravel in the wheels, could have come from just about anywhere locally. Lay-by, track, drive, quarry.”
“No particular kind of limestone deposit you only find on Aldington Edge, or anything like that?”
Manson laughed. “Sorry, no. Look, remember that whitish powder I told you about on the kid’s dungarees? It’s a lime solution, most likely whitewash.”
“Where from?”
“Same as the soil and gravel, it could have come from anywhere, really. A pub wall, a cellar, outhouse.”
“You can’t be more specific?”
“Whitewash is whitewash. Now if you’ll kindly get off the bloody phone and let me get on with the confirmations, we’ll have a pile of stuff that just might stand up in court when you catch the bastards.”
“All right, all right. And Vic?”
“Yes.”
“I’m eternally grateful.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Gristhorpe hung up. He no longer had to sit around waiting for the phone to ring. There were things to do: question Parkinson again, and his neighbours; get in touch with the press and television. They could run this on “Crimewatch.” And where had he seen whitewash recently? Calling for Richmond on his way, he swept down the corridor towards the stairs.
II
Why was it, Banks thought, as he sat in Corrigan’s Bar and Grill on York Road near the bus station, that so many people gravitated towards these trendy, renovated pubs? What on earth was wrong with a down-to-earth, honest-to-goodness old pub? Just look at Le Bistro, that place he had met Jenny last week. All coral pink tablecloths, long-stemmed wine glasses and stiff napkins.
And now this: eighteenth-century Yorkshire translated almost overnight into twentieth-century New York, complete with booths, brass rails, square Formica-top tables and waitresses who might bustle in New York, but in Yorkshire moved at their normal couldn’t-care-less pace. At least some things didn’t change.
And then there was the menu: a large, thin laminated card of bold, handwritten items with outrageous prices. Burgers, of course, club sandwiches, corned beef on rye (and they didn’t mean Fray Bentos), and such delights for dessert as raspberry cheesecake, pecan pie and frozen yoghurt. All to the accompaniment (not too loud, thank the Lord) of Euro-pop.
Maybe he was getting conservative since the move to Yorkshire, he wondered. Certainly in London, Sandra and he had happily embraced the changes that seemed to happen so fast from the sixties on, delighted in the varieties of food and ambience available. But somehow here, in a town with a cobbled market square, ancient cross, Norman church and excavated pre-Roman ruins, so close to the timeless, glacier-carved dales and towering fells with their jagged limestone edges and criss-cross dry-stone walls, the phoney American theme and fashionable food seemed an affront.
The beer was a problem, too, just as it was in Le Bistro. Here was no Theakston’s bitter, no Old Peculier, no Tetley’s, Marston’s or Sam Smith’s, just a choice of gassy keg beer and imported bottled lagers from Germany, Holland, Mexico and Spain, all ice cold, of course. Funnily enough, he sat over a glass (they didn’t serve pints, only tall heavy glasses that tapered towards their thick bases) of Labatt’s, one of the less interesting lagers he remembered from his trip to Toronto.
Such were his thoughts as he puzzled over the menu waiting for Linda Fish, the Champagne socialist, to show. Corrigan’s had been her choice, and as he wanted information, he had thought it best to comply. The sacrifices a copper makes in the course of duty, he thought to himself, shaking his head. At least there was an ashtray on the table. He looked out of the window at the lunch-time shoppers darting in and out of the shopping centre opposite in the rain. Raincoats, waxed-jackets, a chill in the air: it looked as if autumn had arrived at last.
Linda walked in after he had been musing gloomily for ten minutes or so. She packed up her telescope umbrella and looked around, then waved and came over to join him. She had always reminded Banks of an overgrown child. It was partly the way she dressed — today blue sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt with a pink teddy bear on its front — and partly the slightly unformed face, a kind of freckled, doughy blob on which had been stuck two watery eyes accentuated by blue shadow, a button nose and thin lips made fuller by lipstick. Her straw-coloured hair looked as if she had just cut it herself with blunt scissors in front of a funfair mirror. As always, she carried her oversized and scuffed leather shoulder-bag, something she had picked up in Florence, she had once told him, and with great sentimental value. Whether it was stuffed with bricks and toiletries or unpublished manuscripts, he had no idea, but it certainly looked heavy.
Linda squeezed her bulk into the booth opposite Banks. “I hope you don’t mind meeting here,” she said conspiratorially, “but I’m afraid I’ve become quite addicted to the chili-burgers.”
“It’s fine,” Banks lied. She wasn’t from Yorkshire, and her slight lisp seemed to make the Home Counties accent sound even posher. Whatever you might say or think about Linda, though, Banks reminded himself, she was far from stupid. Not only did she run the local Writers’ Circle with such energy and enthusiasm that left most bystanders gasping, but she was indeed a published writer, not a mere hopeful or dilettante. She had, in fact, published a short novel with a large firm only a year ago. Banks had read it, and admitted it was good. Very good, in fact. No, Linda Fish was no fool. If she wanted to look ridiculous, then that was her business.