“Oh, I’m sure she’ll back you up. The thing is, they don’t look that old. And Fletcher’s electronics warehouse got broken into last Friday night. Someone took off with a van full of stereos and televisions. Did you know that?”
“Can’t say as I did. Anyway, what’s all this in aid of? I thought you were after the kid?”
“I cast a wide net, Les. A wide net. Why did Brenda wait so long before calling us?”
“How should I know? Because she’s a stupid cow, I suppose.”
“Sure it was nothing to do with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“She said you had a row. Maybe you didn’t want the police coming to the house and seeing that television, or the new music centre.”
“Look, I told you—”
“I know what you told me, Les. Why don’t you answer the question? Was it you persuaded Brenda to wait so long before calling us?”
Poole looked away and said nothing.
“Do you know Gemma could be dead?” Poole shrugged.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t you care?”
“I told you, she’s not my kid. Bloody nuisance, if you ask me.”
“You ever hit her, Les?”
“Me? Course I didn’t. That’s not my style.”
“Ever see Brenda do it?”
Poole shook his head. Banks stood up, glanced at the beer in his glass and decided to leave it.
“I’m off now, Les,” he said, “but I’ll be around. You’ll be seeing so much of the police in the next few days you’ll think you’ve died and gone to hell. And I want you to stick around, too. Know what I mean? Be seeing you.”
Banks left The Barleycorn for the dark autumn evening. He was wearing only his sports jacket over his shirt, and he felt the chill in the air as he walked back to Brenda Scupham’s with a terrier yapping at his heels. Television screens flickered behind curtains, some pulled back just an inch or two so the neighbours could watch all the excitement at number twenty-four.
As he turned up the path, he thought of Brenda and the enormity of what she had allowed. He could have told her about the recent Children’s Act, designed to protect parents from overzealous social workers, but he knew he would only get a blank stare in return. Besides, telling her that was as clear an example as you can get of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone.
He thought again about Les Poole and wondered what he was hiding. Maybe it had just been the criminal’s typical nervousness at an encounter with the police. Whatever it was, it had been evident in his clipped answers, his evasions, his nervous body language, and most of all in the guilty thoughts Banks could see skittering about like tiny insects behind the slate eyes.
IV
Gristhorpe tried to recall whether he had left anything undone. He had informed the ACC, made sure the press had all the information they needed, set up a mobile unit on a patch of waste ground at the end of Brenda Scupham’s street, drawn up a search plan, arranged to draft in extra personnel, and got someone working on a list of all known local child-molesters. Also, he had faxed the bare details and a copy of Gemma’s photograph to the paedophile squad, which operated out of Vine Street police station, in London. Soon, every policeman in the county would be on the alert. In the morning, the searchers would begin. For now, though, there was nothing more he could do until he had discussed developments with Banks.
His stomach rumbled, and he remembered the cheese-and-pickle sandwich left uneaten on the table at home, the tea going cold. Leaving a message for Banks, he went across the street to the Queen’s Arms and persuaded Cyril, the landlord, to make him a ham sandwich, which he washed down with a half-pint of bitter.
He had been sitting hunched over his beer at a dimpled, copper-topped table for about ten minutes, oblivious to the buzz of conversation around him, when a voice startled him out of his dark thoughts.
“Sir?”
Gristhorpe looked up and saw Banks standing over him.
“Everything all right, Alan?” Gristhorpe asked. “You look knackered.”
“I am,” said Banks, sitting down and reaching for his cigarettes. “This Gemma Scupham business…”
“Aye,” said Gristhorpe. “Get yourself a drink and we’ll see what we can come up with.”
Banks bought a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps and a pint, then told Gristhorpe about his suspicions of Les Poole.
Gristhorpe rubbed his chin and frowned. “We’ll keep an eye on him, then,” he said. “Give him a bit of slack. If we bring him in over that Fletcher’s warehouse job it’ll do us no good. Besides, we can hardly cart off the poor woman’s telly when someone’s just abducted her child, can we?”
“Agreed,” said Banks. “OK. So far we’ve got six men working on the house-to-house, questioning the neighbours. Phil and Susan are with them. At least there’s a chance someone might have seen the car.”
“What about the mother? Who’s with her?”
“Susan stayed for a while, then she offered to get a WPC to come in, but Mrs Scupham didn’t want one. I don’t think either she or Les feels comfortable with the police around. Anyway, she’s got a friend in.”
“I suppose we’d better start with the obvious, hadn’t we?” Gristhorpe said. “Do you believe the mother’s story?”
Banks took a sip of beer. “I think so. She seemed genuinely shocked, and I don’t think she’s bright enough to make up a story like that.”
“Oh, come on, Alan. It doesn’t take much imagination. She could have hurt the child, gone too far and killed her — or Poole could have — then they dumped the body and made up this cock-and-bull story.”
“Yes, she could have. All I’m saying is the story seems a bit over-elaborate. It would have been a hell of a lot easier just to say that Gemma had been snatched while she was out playing, wouldn’t it, rather than having to make up descriptions of two people and risk us finding it odd that no one in the street saw them. They’re a nosy lot down on the East Side Estate. Anyway, I had the officers on the scene search the house thoroughly twice and they didn’t come up with anything. We’ve got a SOCO team there now doing their bit. If there’s any chance Gemma was harmed in the house then taken somewhere else, they’ll find it.”
Gristhorpe sighed. “I suppose we can rule out kidnapping?”
“Brenda Scupham’s got no money. She might be fiddling the social, making a bit on the side, but that hardly makes her Mrs Rothschild.”
“What about the father? Custody battle? Maybe he hired someone to snatch Gemma for him?”
Banks shook his head. “According to Brenda, he’s not interested, hasn’t been for years. We’re tracking him down anyway.”
Gristhorpe waved a plume of smoke aside. “I don’t like the alternatives,” he said.
“Me neither, but we’ve got to face them. Remember those stories a while back? Paedophiles posing as social workers and asking to examine people’s kids for evidence of abuse?”
Gristhorpe nodded.
“Luckily, most parents sent them away,” Banks went on. “But suppose this time they succeeded?”
“I’ve checked on the descriptions with the divisions involved,” Gristhorpe said, “and they don’t match. But you’re right. It’s something we have to consider. Someone else could have got the idea from reading the papers. Then there’s the ritual stuff to consider, too.”
Not long ago, the press had been rife with stories of children used for ritual abuse, often with satanic overtones. In Cleveland, Nottingham, Rochdale and the Orkneys, children were taken into care after allegations of just such abuse involving torture, starvation, humiliation and sexual molestation. Nobody had come up with any hard evidence — in fact, most people thought it was more likely that the children needed to be protected from the social workers — but the rumours were disturbing enough. And Gristhorpe didn’t fool himself that such a thing couldn’t happen in Eastvale. It could.