“Mm, yes please,” Jenny said.
“I can offer you something stronger if you’d like?”
“No. No, tea will be fine. I was just on my way to visit a colleague in Lyndgarth and I thought I’d drop by. I don’t have much, I’m afraid, but I can give you a sketch of what I’ve dug up so far. It might be some help.”
Gristhorpe directed her to the study while he went to the kitchen. Jenny stood and gazed at the books, the clearly divided sections on military and naval history, general history, Yorkshire, then the novels, philosophy, poetry. On the small table by the armchair lay a paperback copy of The Way of All Flesh. Jenny had always loved the title but had never read it. Her background in English was distinctly weak, she realized.
Somehow the house and this room in particular spoke of a solitary, meditative, serious man, perhaps ill at ease in company. All that was missing was a pipe lying in an ashtray on the table, and perhaps a pipe-rack over the hearth. But Gristhorpe had a gregarious side to his character, too, she knew. He enjoyed telling tales with his
mates and colleagues over a pint; he wasn’t at all uneasy in groups. A man’s man, perhaps?
Gristhorpe came back bearing a tray with a teapot and two mugs, a little jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. Jenny moved the book from the table and he set the tray down. He bade her sit in the leather armchair that she knew instinctively was “his” and pulled up a smaller chair for himself.
“That camp-bed was beginning to make me feel like an old man,” he said. “Besides, they know where I am if anything breaks.”
“No progress?”
“I wouldn’t say that. We’ve talked to the neighbours again, and to Gemma’s schoolfriends, the kids she played with, and none them saw anyone hanging about or heard Gemma mention anyone they didn’t know. So that’s a blank. But …” Gristhorpe went on to tell her about the Manleys’ deserted cottage and his outing to the moors with Mark Hudson.
“What’s happened to him?” she asked.
“I sent him home when I finally got the truth out of him. He led us on a merry dance, but he’s got nothing to do with Gemma. He was out for a bit of extramarital activity. He’d settled on the spot in advance because it was some distance from the road and the rocks offered protection. He just stumbled across the clothing. We’ve got the woman’s name. Of course, we’ll talk to her and have another chat with him, just for procedure’s sake.”
“So the clothing is Gemma Scupham’s?”
“Yes. The mother identified it. And there’s a bit of blood on it?at least, it looks like blood. But we won’t know much more till tomorrow, when the forensic team gets its job done.”
“Still… .” Jenny shivered.
“Cold?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine, really.” Jenny was wearing jeans and a fuzzy russet jumper that matched the colour of her hair, a warm enough outfit for a mild night. “Someone walked over my grave, that’s all.” She sipped some soothing tea. “I’ve been looking at instances of pairs of sexual deviants, and quite frankly there’s hardly any. Often you’ll find a couple who might commit crimes for gain, like Bonnie and Clyde, I suppose, but deviants usually act solo.”
“What about the ones who don’t?” Gristhorpe asked.
“There are some case studies. Usually you get a dominant leader and an accomplice, and usually they’re both male. Leopold and Loeb, for example.”
Gristhorpe nodded.
“Have you read Compulsion!” Jenny asked.
“Yes. It was one of Ian Brady’s favourite books, you know.”
“There are some parallels. The way your couple seem to have coldly planned and executed the crime, for a start,” Jenny said. “But there’s another thing: mixed pairs are very rare. Brady and Hindley come to mind, of course.”
“Aye,” said Gristhorpe. “Maybe Alan’s told you I’ve got what you might call an unhealthy preoccupation with that case. But I was involved in the search. And I heard the tape of young Lesley Ann Downey pleading for her life.” He shook his head and let the silence hang.
“Is that why you’re getting so actively involved in this case? I mean, you don’t usually.”
Gristhorpe smiled. “Partly, I suppose. And maybe I’m trying to prove there’s life in the old dog yet. I’m getting near retiring age, you know. But mostly I want to stop them before they do it again. We spend most of our time making cases against people we think have broken the law. Oh, we talk about prevention?we have coppers on
the beat, keeping their eyes open—but mostly we come on the scene after the fact. That’s also true this time, I realize. Gemma Scupham may be lost to us, but I’m damned if I’m going to let it happen to another child on my patch. Make sense?”
Jenny nodded.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
“From what little I know so far,” Jenny said, “I’d say it’s certainly possible we could be dealing with a Brady Hindley pair. And they may not be paedophiles, as such. Paedophiles have a genuine sexual attraction to children, and they don’t usually go in for murder unless they panic, but children also make good victims just because they’re very vulnerable, like women. Brady’s last victim was a seventeen-year-old male homosexual, I gather. Hardly a child.”
“You’ve obviously done your research,” Gristhorpe said. “Owt else?”
“I’d look more closely at why they did it the way they did, and why they chose Gemma Scupham. It’s also come out from a few studies lately that more women are involved in paedophilia than we’d ever thought before, so I wouldn’t discount that possibility altogether. Maybe she wasn’t along just for the ride.”
“Could he have been the one along for the ride?” Gristhorpe asked.
