“We don’t think anything yet. At the very least he deserves to know what’s happened to his daughter.”
“I don’t see why. He never cared when he was around. Why should he care now?”
“Where is he, Brenda?”
“I’ve told you, I don’t know.”
“What’s his full name?”
“Garswood. Terry Garswood. Terence, I suppose, but everyone called him Terry.”
“What was his job?”
“He was in the army. Hardly ever around.”
“Is there anyone else? A man, I mean.”
“There’s Les. We’ve been together nearly a year now.”
“Where is he?”
She jerked her head. “Where he always is, The Barleycorn round the corner.”
“Does he know what’s happened?”
“Oh, aye, he knows. We had a row.”
Banks saw Susan Gay look up from her notebook and shake her head slowly in disbelief.
“Can I have another fag?” Brenda Scupham asked. “I
meant to get some more, but it just slipped my mind.”
“Of course.” Banks gave her a Silk Cut. “Where do you work, Brenda?”
“I don’t … I … I stay home.” He lit the cigarette for her, and she coughed when she took her first drag. Patting her chest, she said, “Must stop.”
Banks nodded. “Me, too. Look, Brenda, do you think you could give us a description of this Mr Brown and Miss Peterson?”
She frowned. “I’ll try. I’m not very good with faces, though. Like I said, he had a nice suit on, Mr Brown, navy blue it was, with narrow white stripes. And he had a white shirt and a plain tie. I’m not sure what colour that was, dark anyways.”
“How tall was he?”
“About average.”
“What’s that?” Banks stood up. “Taller or shorter than me?” At around five foot nine, Banks was small for a policeman, hardly above regulation height.
“About the same.”
“Hair?”
“Black, sort of like yours, but longer, and combed straight back. And he was going a bit thin at the sides.”
“How old would you say he was?”
“I don’t know. He had a boyish look about him, but he was probably around thirty, I’d say.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about him? His voice, mannerisms?”
“Not really.” Brenda flicked some ash at the ashtray and missed. “Like I said, he had a posh accent. Oh, there was one thing, though I don’t suppose it’d be any help.”
“What’s that?”
“He had a nice smile.”
And so it went. When they had finished, Banks had a description of Mr Brown that would match at least half
the young businessmen in Eastvale, or in the entire country,
for that matter, and one of Miss Peterson—brunette,
hair coiled up at the back, well-spoken, nice figure, expensive
clothes—that would fit a good number of young
professional women.
“Did you recognize either of them?” he asked. “Had you seen them around before?” Banks didn’t expect much to come from this—Eastvale was a fair-sized town—but it was worth a try.
She shook her head.
“Did they touch anything while they were here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you offer them tea or anything?”
“No. Of course I didn’t.”
Banks was thinking of fingerprints. There was a slight chance that if they had drunk tea or coffee, Mrs Scupham might not have washed the cups yet. Certainly any prints on the door handles, if they hadn’t been too blurred in the first place, would have been obscured by now.
Banks asked for, and got, a fairly recent school photograph of Gemma Scupham. She was a pretty child, with
