time, at four-thirty the following afternoon. She knew she could probably have asked him questions over the phone, but phone calls, she always felt, were too open to interruptions, and too limiting. If the governor needed to consult a warden for additional information, for example, that might prove difficult over the phone. Besides, she was old- fashioned; she liked to be able to watch people’s eyes when she talked to them.
She put her briefcase by the door and dropped her keys on the hall table. She had made a lot of changes to the place since her promotion to CID. It had once been little more than a hotel suite, somewhere to sleep. But now she had plants and a growing collection of books and records.
Susan favoured the more traditional, romantic kind of classical music, the ones you remember bits from and find yourself humming along with now and then: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, bits of opera from films and TV adverts. Most of her records were “greatest hits,” so she didn’t have their complete symphonies or anything, just the movements everyone remembered.
Her reading was still limited mostly to technical stuff, like forensics and criminology, but she made space on her shelves for the occasional Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis and Robert Ludlum. Banks wouldn’t approve of her tastes, she was sure, but at least now she knew she had tastes.
As usual, if she was in, she had “Calendar” on the television as she fussed around in the kitchen throwing together a salad. Normally, she would just be listening, as the TV set was in the living-room, but this evening, an item caught her attention and she walked through, salad
bowl in hand and stood and watched openmouthed.
It was Brenda Scupham and a gypsyish looking woman on the couch being interviewed. She hadn’t caught the introduction, but they were talking about clairvoyance. Brenda, in a tight lemon chiffon blouse tucked into a black mini-skirt much too short for a worried mother, sat staring blankly into the camera, while the other woman explained how objects dear to people bear psychic traces of them and act as conduits into the extrasensory world.
Brenda nodded in agreement occasionally. When Richard Whiteley turned to her and asked her what she thought, she said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” then she looked over at the other woman. “But I’m convinced my Gemma is still alive and I want to beg whoever knows where she is to let her come back to her mother, please. You won’t be punished, I promise.”
“What about the police?” he asked. “What do they think?”
Brenda shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think they believe she’s dead. Ever since they found her clothes, I think they’ve given up on her.”
Susan flopped into her armchair, salad forgotten for the moment. Bloody hell, she thought, Superintendent Gristhorpe’s going to love this.
I
Gristhorpe was indeed furious when he heard about
Brenda Scupham’s television appearance. As he had no
TV set of his own, though, he didn’t find out until
Wednesday morning.
“It’s been over a week now since Gemma Scupham disappeared,” he said, shaking his head over coffee and toasted teacakes with Banks at the Golden Grill. “I can’t say I hold out much hope. Especially since we found the clothes.”
“I can’t, either,” Banks agreed. “But Brenda Scupham’s got some bloody psychic to convince her that Gemma’s alive. Who would you rather listen to, if you were her?”
“I suppose you’re right. Anyway, it all connects: the abandoned cottage, the borrowed car, the hair-dye. We’ve got descriptions of the Manleys out—both as themselves and as Peterson and Brown. Somebody, somewhere must know them. How about you?”
Banks sipped some hot black coffee. “Not much. The lab finally came through with the scene analysis. The blood in the mill matched Johnson’s, so we can be pretty certain that’s where he was killed. Glendenning says it was a right-handed upthrust wound. Six-inch blade,
194
single-edged. Probably some kind of sheath-knife, and you know how common those are. No handy footprints or tire tracks, and no sign of the weapon. I’m off to see Harkness again, though I don’t suppose it’ll do much good.”
“You think he did it?”
“Apart from the mysterious stranger seen leaving Johnson’s building, he’s the only lead I’ve got. I keep telling myself that just because I didn’t take to the man it doesn’t mean he’s a killer. But nobody gets that rich without making a few enemies. And Johnson was a crook. He could have been involved somewhere along the line.”
“Aye, maybe you’re right. Be careful, though, the last thing I need right now is the ACC on my back.”
Banks laughed. “You know me. Diplomacy personified.”
“Aye, well … I’d better be off to see Mrs Scupham. See if I can’t talk some sense into her. I want a word with that bloody psychic, too. I’ve got Phil out looking for her.” He looked outside. A fine mist nuzzled the window.
“Hang on a minute, sir,” Banks said. “You know, Brenda Scupham might be right.”
“What?”
“If Gemma is alive, a television appeal won’t do any harm. It might even do some good.”
“I realize that. We can’t have any idea what the woman’s going through. All I want to do is reassure her that we are doing the best we can. If Gemma is alive, we’ve more chance of finding her than some bloody tea-leaf reader. There’s a trail to follow somewhere in all this, and I think we’re picking it up. But these people, the Manleys or whatever they call themselves now, they talked to enough people, got on well enough with the locals, but they gave nothing away. We don’t even know
where they come from, and we can’t be sure what they look like, either. They’re still two-dimensional.”
“What about the notes they used to pay for the cottage?”
“Patricia Cummings, the estate agent, said she paid the cash directly into the bank. Right now it’s mixed up with all the rest of the money they’ve got in their vaults.”