“Where’s Sandra?”
“Community Centre, still organizing that local artists’ exhibition. I’ll swear she spends more time there than she does at home. And Tracy’s out at the pictures with that boyfriend of hers.”
Gristhorpe caught the anxiety in Banks’s tone. “Don’t worry about her, Alan,” he said. “Tracy’s a sensible lass. She can take care of herself.”
Banks sighed. “I hope so.” He gestured towards Gristhorpe’s empty glass. “What about you?”
“Aye, why not? It might help me sleep.”
While Banks went to the bar, Gristhorpe considered the night ahead. He knew he wouldn’t be going home. For years, he had kept a camp-bed in the station storeroom for emergencies like this. Tonight, and perhaps for the next two or three nights, he would stay in his office. But he doubted that he would get much sleep. Not until he found out what had happened to Gemma Scupham, one way or the other.
I
Early the next morning, Banks stood on his doorstep
holding the milk bottles and breathed in the clear air. It
was a magnificent day: not a cloud in the light blue sky,
and hardly any wind. He could smell peat-smoke in the
air, and it seemed to accentuate the chill autumn edge,
the advancing touch of winter. More than anything, it
was a day for walking out in the dale, and it would bring
dozens of tourists to the Eastvale area.
He went inside and put the milk in the fridge. He could hear Tracy taking her morning shower and Sandra moving about in the bedroom, getting dressed. It had been a good night when he got back from the Queen’s Arms. Sandra had got home before him, and before bed they enjoyed a nightcap and some Ella Fitzgerald on the CD player she had bought him for his fortieth birthday. Tracy came home on time, cheerful enough, and Banks couldn’t detect any change for the worse in her that he could attribute to her boyfriend, Keith Harrison. Still, he thought as he poured himself a cup of coffee, domestic life had changed a lot over the summer.
For one thing, Brian had left home for Portsmouth Polytechnic, where he intended to study architecture.
28
Much as they had locked horns the past few years—especially over music and staying out too late—Banks missed him. He was left with Tracy, now so grown-up he hardly knew her: blonde hair chopped short and layered raggedly, mad about boys, make-up, clothes, pop music.
They never seemed to talk any more, and he missed those chats about history—her former passion—especially when he had been able to educate her on a point or two. Banks had always felt insecure about his lack of a good formal education, so Tracy’s questions had often made him feel useful. But he knew nothing about the latest pop groups, fashion or cosmetics.
And Sandra had become absorbed in her work. He told himself, as he buttered his toast, not to be so damned selfish and to stop feeling sorry for himself. She was doing what she wanted—getting involved in the arts—after so many years of sacrifice for the sake of the family and for his career. And if he hadn’t wanted an independent, spirited, creative woman, then he shouldn’t have married her. Still, he worried. She was late so often, and some of these local artists were handsome young devils with the reputation of being ladies’ men. They were more free- spirited than he was, too, with Bohemian attitudes about sex, no doubt.
Perhaps Sandra found him boring now and was looking for excitement elsewhere. At thirty-eight, she was a fine-looking woman, with an unusual mix of long blonde hair and dark eyebrows over intelligent blue eyes. The slim, shapely figure she had worked hard to maintain always turned heads. Again he told himself not to be such a fool. It was the work that was taking up her time, not another man.
Sandra and Tracy were still upstairs when he had finished his coffee and toast. He called out goodbye, put on his charcoal sports jacket, patting the side pocket for
cigarettes and lighter, and set off. It was such a fine morning?and he knew how quickly the day could turn to misery?that he decided to walk the mile or so to Eastvale Regional Headquarters rather than drive. He could always sign a car out of the pool if he needed one.
He stuck the Walkman in his pocket and turned it on. Ivor Gurney’s setting of “In Flanders” started: “I’m homesick for my hills again?My hills again!” Banks had come to Gurney first through some of his poems in an anthology of First World War poetry, then, learning he had been a composer too, went in search of the music. There wasn’t much available, just a handful of songs? settings of other people’s poems?and some piano music, but Banks found the spareness and simplicity intensely moving.
As he walked along Market Street, he said hello to the shopkeepers winding out their awnings and called in at the newsagent’s for his copy of The Independent. Glancing at the front page as he walked, he spotted Gemma Scupham’s photograph and a brief request for information. Good, they’d been quick off the mark.
When he got to the market square, the first car was disgorging its family of tourists, dad with a camera slung around his neck, and the children in orange and yellow cagoules. It was hard to believe on such a day that a seven-year-old girl probably lay dead somewhere in the dale.
Banks went straight to the conference room upstairs in the station. It was their largest room, with a well- polished oval table at its centre, around which stood ten stiff-backed chairs. It was rare that ten people actually sat there, though, and this morning, in addition to Banks, only Superintendent Gristhorpe, Susan Gay and Phil Richmond occupied chairs. Banks helped himself to a black coffee from the urn by the window and sat down.
He was a few minutes early, and the others were chatting informally, pads and pencils in front of them.
First, Gristhorpe tossed a pile of newspapers onto the table and bade everyone have a look. Gemma Scupham’s disappearance had made it in all the national dailies as well as in the Yorkshire Post, In some of the tabloids, she even made the headline: the photo of the melancholy-looking little girl with the straggly blonde hair appeared under captions such as HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? in “Jesus type.” The stories gave few details, which hardly surprised Banks as there were scant few to give. A couple of pieces implied criticism of Brenda Scupham, but nothing libellous. Most were sympathetic to the mother.
“That might help us a bit,” Gristhorpe said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. And remember, the press boys will be around here in droves as soon as the London trains come in this morning. Let’s be careful what we say, eh, or
