“Chelsea?”
He stared at a spot above Banks’s left shoulder. “Yes. Silly name, isn’t it? Fancy naming someone after a flower show, or a bun. Poor Chelsea. She just couldn’t quite understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The beauty of it all.” Chivers’s eyes turned suddenly back on Jenny. They looked like a dark green whirlpool, Banks thought, with blackness at its centre, evil with a sense of humour. “She liked it at the time, you know, the thrill. And she never liked poor Carl anyway. She said he was always undressing her with his eyes. You should have seen the look in her eyes when I killed him. She was standing right next to me and I could smell her sex. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun later that night. But she got jittery, read the newspapers, began to wonder, asked too many questions… As I said, she didn’t fully comprehend the beauty of it all.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
He turned his eyes slowly back to Banks. “Yes. That was the last straw. It turned her all weepy, the sentimental fool. I had to kill her then.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t want another one like me in this universe, would we?” He winked. “Besides, it was what she wanted. I have a knack of knowing what people really want.”
“What did she want?”
“Death, of course. She enjoyed it. I know. I was there. It was glorious, the way she thrust and struggled.” He looked over at Jenny again. “You understand, don’t you?”
“And Harkness?” Banks said.
“Oh, it was very easy to see into his dirty soul. Little children. Little kiddies. He’d had it easy before. South Africa, Amsterdam. He found it a bit difficult here. He was getting desperate, that’s all. It’s simply a matter of knowing the right people.”
Banks noticed that Chivers had dampened a part of his cuff and was rubbing at an old coffee ring on the desk. “What happened to Gemma?” he asked.
He shrugged. “No idea. I completed my side of the bargain. I suppose when the old pervert had finished with her he probably killed her and buried the body under the petunia patch or something. Isn’t that what they do? Or maybe he sold her, tried to recoup what he’d spent. There’s plenty in the market for that kind of thing, you know.”
“What about the clothing we found?”
“You want me to do your job for you? I don’t know. I suppose as soon as things got too hot for him he wanted to put you off the scent. Does that sound about right?”
“Why did you come back to Eastvale? You could probably have got away, you know.”
Chivers’s eyes dulled. “Fatal flaw, I suppose. I can’t bear to miss anything. Besides, you only caught me because I wanted you to, you know. I’ve never been on trial, never been in jail. It might be interesting. And, remember, I’m not there yet.” He shot Jenny a quick smile and began to rub harder at the coffee stain, still making no impression. He was clearly uncomfortable in the boiler suit they had found for him, too, scratching now and then where the rough material made his skin itch.
Banks walked over to the door and opened it to the two uniformed officers who stood outside and nodded for them to take Chivers down to the holding cells for the time being.
Chivers sat at the desk staring down at the stain he was rubbing and rubbing. Finally, he gave up and banged the table once, hard, with his fist.
III
Banks stood by his office window with the light off and looked down on the darkening market square again, a cigarette between his fingers. Like Phil and Jenny, he had felt as if he needed a long, hot bath after watching and listening to Chivers. It was odd how they had drifted away to try to scrub themselves free of the dirt: Jenny, pale and quiet, had gone home; Richmond had gone to the computer room. They all recognized one another’s need for a little solitude, despite the work that remained.
Little people like Les Poole and others Banks had met in Eastvale sometimes made him despair of human intelligence; someone like Chivers made him wonder seriously about the human soul. Not that Banks was a religious man, but as he looked at the Norman church with its low square tower and the arched door with its carvings of the saints, he burned with unanswered questions.
They could wait, though. The hospital had called to tell him that Gristhorpe had a flesh wound in his thigh and was already proving to be a difficult patient. The SOCOs had called several times from The Leas area; no luck so far in finding Gemma’s body, and it was getting dark. The frogmen had packed up and gone home. They had found Chivers’s gun easily enough, but no trace of Gemma. They would be back tomorrow, though they didn’t hold out much hope. The garden was in ruins, but so far the men had uncovered nothing but stones and roots.
Harkness’s body lay in the mortuary now, and if anyone had to make him look presentable for the funeral, good luck to them. Banks shuddered at the memory. He had washed and washed his face, but he could still smell the blood, or so he thought. And he had tossed away his jacket and shirt, knowing he could never wear them again, and changed into the spares he always kept at the station.
And he thought of Chelsea. So that was her name, the poor twisted shape on the hotel bed in Weymouth. Why had she been so drawn to a monster like Chivers? Can’t people see evil when it’s staring them right in the face? Maybe not until it’s too late, he thought. And the baby. Chivers knew his own evil, revelled in it. Chelsea. Who was she? Where did she come from? Who were her parents and what were they like? Bit by bit, he would find out.
He had been alone with his thoughts for about an hour, watching dusk fall slowly on the cobbled square and the people dribble into the church for the evening service. The glow from the coloured-glass windows of the Queen’s Arms looked welcoming on the opposite corner. God, he could do with a drink to take the taste of blood out of his mouth, out of his soul.
The harsh ring of the telephone broke the silence. He picked it up and heard Gristhorpe say, “The buggers wouldn’t let me out to question Chivers. Have you done it? Did it go all right?”
Banks smiled to himself and assured Gristhorpe that all was well.
“Come and see me, Alan. There’s a couple of things I want to talk about.”
Banks put on his coat and drove over to Eastvale General. He hated hospitals, the smell of disinfectant, the starched uniforms, the pale shadows with clear fluid dripping into them from plastic bags being pushed on trolleys down gloomy hallways. But Gristhorpe had a pleasant enough private room. Already, someone had sent flowers and Banks felt suddenly guilty that he had come empty-handed.
Gristhorpe looked a little pale and weak, mostly from shock and blood loss, but apart from that he seemed in fine enough fettle.
“Harkness never expected any trouble from the police over Gemma’s abduction, did he?” he asked.
“No,” said Banks. “As Chivers told us, why should he? It was almost the perfect crime. He’d managed to keep a very low profile in the area. Nobody knew how sick his tastes really were.”
“Aye, but everything changed, didn’t it, after Johnson’s murder?”
“Yes.”
“And you were a bit hard on Harkness, given that chip on your shoulder, weren’t you?”
“I suppose so. What are you getting at?”
Gristhorpe tried to sit up in bed and grimaced. “So much so that he might think we’d get onto him?” he said.
“Probably.” Banks rearranged the pillows. “I think he felt quite certain I’d be back.” The superintendent was wearing striped pyjamas, he noticed.
“And he claimed harassment and threatened to call the Commissioner and probably the Prime Minister for all I know.”