“All right,” said Banks. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to give her a couple of minutes to mull over his question.
He and Susan waited silently while Brenda went into the kitchen and made tea. Outside, a car went by, a dog barked, and two laughing children kicked a tin can down the street. The wind shrilled at the ill-fitting windows, stirring the curtains in its draught. Banks studied the portrait of Elvis. It really was grotesque: a piece of kitsch dedicated to a bloated and gaudy idol.
As a teenager, he had been a keen Elvis fan. He had seen all those dreadful movies of the early sixties, where Elvis usually played a slightly podgy beach-bum, and he had bought all the new singles as soon as they came out. Somehow, though, after The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and the rest, Elvis had never seemed important again.
Still, he remembered how he had listened to “They Remind Me Too Much of You” over and over again the night June Higgins chucked him for John Hill. He had been assembling a model Messerschmitt at the time, so maybe it was the glue fumes that had made his eyes water. Glue-sniffing hadn’t been invented back then. He had been thirteen; now Elvis was dead but lived on in garish oils on walls like this.
The whistle blew. When it stopped, Banks heard Brenda go upstairs. A few moments later she came in with the teapot and three mugs. She had taken the opportunity to get dressed, run a brush through her hair and put on a bit of make-up.
“Where were we?” she asked, pouring the tea. “There’s milk and sugar if you want it.” Susan helped herself to a splash of milk and two teaspoons of sugar. Both Banks and Brenda took theirs as it came.
“Les’s reaction when you told him about Gemma.”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it while the tea was mashing,” Brenda said. “He didn’t believe me at first. I’d say more than anything he was surprised. It’s just that… well, he turned away from me, and I couldn’t see his face, but it was like he knew something or he suspected something, like he was frowning and he didn’t want me to see his expression. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“I could just feel it. I know I’ve not got any proof or anything, but sometimes you can sense things about people, can’t you? Lenora says she thinks I’m a bit psychic, too, so maybe that’s it. But I never thought for a moment he had anything to do with it. I mean, how could I? What could Les have had to do with those two well-dressed people who came to the door? And we lived together. I know he didn’t care for Gemma much, she got on his nerves, but he wouldn’t hurt her. I mean he was surprised, shocked, I’m sure of that, but when it sank in, he seemed to be thinking, puzzling over something. I put it out of my mind, but it nagged. After that we never really got on well. I’m glad he’s gone.” She paused, as if surprised at herself for saying so much, then reached for a second cigarette.
“What made you accuse him last night?” Banks asked.
“It’s just something that had been at the back of my mind, that’s all. Like I said, I never really believed he had anything to do with it. I just had this nagging feeling something wasn’t right. I suppose I lashed out, just for the sake of it. I couldn’t help myself.”
“What about now?”
“What?”
“You said you didn’t think Les had anything to do with Gemma’s disappearance at first. What do you think now?”
Brenda paused to blow on her hot tea, cradling the mug in her palms, then she turned her eyes up to Banks and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just don’t know.”
II
Banks and Jenny dashed across the cobbles in the rain to the Queen’s Arms. Once through the door, they shook their coats and hung them up.
“Double brandy, then?” Banks asked.
“No. No, really, Alan. I didn’t mean it,” Jenny said. “Just a small Scotch and water, please.”
Now she was embarrassed. She put her briefcase on the chair beside her and sat down at a table near the window. She had been in Banks’s office going over all the material on the Carl Johnson murder — statements, forensic reports, the lot — and when she got to the photographs of his body, she had turned pale and said she needed a drink. She didn’t know why they should affect her that way — she had seen similar images in textbooks — but suddenly she had felt dizzy and nauseated. Something about the way the belly gaped open like a huge fish-mouth… no, she wouldn’t think about it any more.
Banks returned with their drinks and reached for his cigarettes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m a real idiot.”
“Not at all. I just wasn’t thinking. I should have prepared you.”
“Anyway, I’m fine now.” She raised her glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
She could see Market Street through a clear, rain-streaked pane. Young mothers walked by pushing prams, plastic rain-hats tied over their heads, and delivery vans blocked the traffic while men in white smocks carried boxes in and out of the shops, oblivious to the downpour. All the hurly and burly of commerce so essential to a thriving English market town. So normal. She shivered.
“I take it you’re assuming the crimes are related now?” she asked.
Banks nodded. “We are for the moment. I’ve read over the paperwork on the Gemma Scupham case, and I’ve filled the super in on Johnson. How are you getting on with him, by the way?”
Jenny smiled. “Fine. He doesn’t seem like such an ogre when you get to know him a bit.”
“True, he’s not. Anyway, we know that the Manleys abducted Gemma, and that in all likelihood the man’s real name is Chivers. We still don’t know who the woman is.”
“But you don’t know for sure that this Chivers killed Carl Johnson?”
“No. I realize it’s a bit thin, but when you get connections like this between two major crimes you can’t overlook them. Maybe in a big city you could, but not in Eastvale.”
“And even if he did it, you don’t know if the woman was present?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“For a start, I want to know if you think it could be the same person, or same people, psychologically speaking.”
Jenny took a deep breath. “The two crimes are so different. I can’t really find a pattern.”
“Are there no elements in common?”
Jenny thought for a moment, and the images of Johnson’s body came back. She sipped at her drink. “From all I’ve seen and heard,” she said, “I’d say that the two crimes at least demonstrate a complete lack of empathy on the criminal’s part, which leans towards the theory of the psychopath. If that’s the case, he probably wasn’t sexually interested in Gemma, only in his power over her, which he may have been demonstrating to the woman, as I said to the superintendent last time we met.” She ran her hand through her hair. “I just don’t have anything more to go on.”
“Think about the Johnson murder.”
Jenny leaned forward and rested her hands on the table. “All right. The couple who took Gemma showed no feeling for the mother at all. Whoever killed Johnson didn’t feel his pain, or if he did, he enjoyed it. You know even better than I do that murder can take many forms — there’s the heat of the moment, and there’s at least some distancing, as when a gun’s used. Even the classic poisoner often prefers to be far away when the poison takes effect. But here we have someone who, according to all the evidence you’ve shown me, must have stood very close indeed to his victim, looked him in the eye as he killed slowly. Could you do that? Could I? I don’t think so. Most of us have at least some sensitivity to another’s pain — we imagine what it would feel like if we suffered it ourselves. But one class of person doesn’t — the psychopath. He can’t relate to anyone else’s pain, can’t imagine it happening to him. He’s so self-centred that he lacks empathy completely.”