the market was in full swing. Tourists and locals browsed the stalls, where vendors dealt in everything from clothes and used books to car accessories and small electrical gadgets. As Banks watched them unload new stock from the vans, he speculated how much of the goods were stolen, fallen off the back of a lorry. Most of the things for sale were legitimate, of course—over-production or sub-standard stuff rejected by a company’s quality control and sold at slightly above cost—but a busy market was an ideal place for getting rid of hot property.
There would be nothing from the Fletcher’s warehouse job, though; televisions and stereos attracted too much attention at outdoor markets. Mostly, they would be sold by word of mouth, through pubs and video retailers.
Banks thought again about how smooth the operation
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had been. The burglars had cut through a chain-link fence, drugged a guard dog, and disabled the alarm system. They had then loaded a van up with electrical goods, taken off into the night and never been seen since. It would have taken at least three men, he speculated, and Les Poole was probably one of them. But there were far more serious things to think about now. At least Poole was under surveillance, and any step he made out of line would soon come to Banks’s attention.
The traffic along Market Street slowed almost to a standstill as yet more tourists poured into town. Because it was market day, parking was a problem. Drivers would spend an extra half-hour cruising around the narrow streets looking for a parking space. It would be a busy day for the traffic police.
Banks opened the window a couple of inches. He could hear the honking horns and the babble of voices down in the square, and the smell of fresh bread drifted up from the bakery on Market Street, mingled with exhaust fumes.
At their morning conference, Gristhorpe had assigned Banks and DC Susan Gay to the lead-mine murder; Gristhorpe himself, along with DS Richmond, would pursue the Gemma Scupham investigation, with Jenny Fuller acting as consultant. With each day that went by, the pressure increased. Parents were scared; they were keeping their children home from school. Ever since Gemma had disappeared, police forces county-wide had been knocking on doors and conducting searches of wasteland and out-of-the-way areas. The surprising thing was that nothing had come to light so far. The way it seemed, Gemma had disappeared from the face of the earth. Despite his reassignment, Banks knew he would have to keep up to date on the case. He couldn’t forget Gemma Scupham that easily.
For a moment, he found himself wondering if the two cases could be connected in some way. It was rare that two serious crimes should happen in Swainsdale at about the same time. Could it be more than mere coincidence? He didn’t see how, but it was something worth bearing in mind.
His first task was to identify the body they had found. Certainly a photograph could be published; clothing labels sometimes helped; then there were medical features —an operation scar, birthmark—and dental charts. It would be easy enough to track down such information if the man were local, but practically impossible if he were a stranger to the area. Banks had already sent DC Gay to make enquiries in Gratly and Relton, the nearest villages to the mine, but he didn’t expect much to come of that. At best, someone might have seen a car heading towards the mine.
A red van had got itself wedged into the junction of Market Street and the square, just in front of the Queen’s Arms, and irate motorists started honking. The van’s owner kept on unloading boxes of tights and women’s underwear, oblivious to the angry tourists. One man got out and headed towards him.
Banks turned away from the window and went over the lead-mine scene in his mind. The victim had probably been murdered in the smelting mill, an out-of-the-way place. His pockets had been emptied and his body had been hidden in the flue, which few people ever en tered due to the danger of falling stones. Safe to assume, Banks thought, that the killer didn’t want the body found for a while. That made sense, as most leads in an investigation occur in the first twenty-four hours. But the body had been found much sooner than the killer expected, and that might just give Banks an edge.
Just as Banks was about to leave his office in search of
more coffee, the phone rang. It was Vic Manson from the forensic lab near Wetherby.
“You’ve been quick,” Banks said. “What have you got?”
“Lucky. You want to know who he is?”
“You’re sure?”
“Uh-huh. I’d like to claim brilliant deduction, but it was routine.”
“Fingerprints?” Banks guessed. It was the first thing they would check, and while most people’s prints weren’t on file anywhere, a lot were. Another break.
“Got it. Seems he did a stretch in Armley Jail. Tried to con an old lady out of her life’s savings, but she turned out to be smarter than him. Name’s Carl Johnson. He’s from Bradford, but he’s been living in your neck of the woods for a year or so. Flat 6, 59 Calvin Street.”
Banks knew the street. It was in the north-eastern part of Eastvale, where a few of the large old houses had been converted into cheap flats.
“You can get your man to pull his file from the computer,” Manson said.
“Thanks, Vic. I’ll do that. Keep at it.”
“Have I any bloody choice? We’re snowed under. Anyway, I’ll get back to you soon as we find out any more.”
Banks hurried over to Richmond’s office. Richmond sat over his keyboard, tapping away, and Banks waited until he reached a point when he could pause. Then he explained what Vic Manson had said.
“No problem,” said Richmond. “Just let me finish entering this report in the database and I’ll get you a printout.”
“Thanks, Phil.”
Banks grabbed a coffee and went back to his office to wait. The market square was teeming with people now,
lingering at stalls, feeling the goods, listening to the vendors’ pitches, watching the man who juggled plates as if he were a circus performer.
Carl Johnson. The name didn’t ring a bell. If he had been in London, Banks would have got out on the street to question informers and meet with undercover officers. Someone would have heard a whisper, a boast, a rumour. But in Eastvale no real criminal underbelly existed. And he certainly knew of no one capable of killing in the way Carl
