but suddenly she had felt dizzy and nauseated. Something about the way the belly gaped open like a huge fish- mouth … no, she wouldn’t think about it any more.
Banks returned with their drinks and reached for his cigarettes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m a real idiot.”
“Not at all. I just wasn’t thinking. I should have prepared you.”
“Anyway, I’m fine now.” She raised her glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
She could see Market Street through a clear, rain-streaked pane. Young mothers walked by pushing prams, plastic rainhats tied over their heads, and delivery vans blocked the traffic while men in white smocks carried boxes in and out of the shops, oblivious to the downpour. All the hurly and burly of commerce so essential to a thriving English market town. So normal. She shivered.
“I take it you’re assuming the crimes are related now?” she asked.
Banks nodded. “We are for the moment. I’ve read over the paperwork on the Gemma Scupham case, and I’ve filled the super in on Johnson. How are you getting on with him, by the way?”
Jenny smiled. “Fine. He doesn’t seem like such an ogre when you get to know him a bit.”
“True, he’s not. Anyway, we know that the Manleys abducted Gemma, and that in all likelihood the man’s real name is Chivers. We still don’t know who the woman is.”
“But you don’t know for sure that this Chivers killed Carl Johnson?”
“No. I realize it’s a bit thin, but when you get connections like this between two major crimes you can’t overlook them. Maybe in a big city you could, but not in Eastvale.”
“And even if he did it, you don’t know if the woman was present?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“For a start, I want to know if you think it could be the same person, or same people, psychologically speaking.”
Jenny took a deep breath. “The two crimes are so different. I can’t really find a pattern.”
“Are there no elements in common?”
Jenny thought for a moment, and the images of Johnson’s body came back. She sipped at her drink. “From all I’ve seen and heard,” she said, “I’d say that the two crimes at least demonstrate a complete lack of empathy on the criminal’s part, which leans towards the theory of the psychopath. If that’s the case, he probably wasn’t sexually interested in Gemma, only in his power over her, which he may have been demonstrating to the woman, as I said to the superintendent last time we met.” She ran her hand through her hair. “I just don’t have anything more to go on.”
“Think about the Johnson murder.”
Jenny leaned forward and rested her hands on the table. “All right. The couple who took Gemma showed
no feeling for the mother at all. Whoever killed Johnson didn’t feel his pain, or if he did, he enjoyed it. You know even better than I do that murder can take many forms? there’s the heat of the moment, and there’s at least some distancing, as when a gun’s used. Even the classic poisoner often prefers to be far away when the poison takes effect. But here we have someone who, according to all the evidence you’ve shown me, must have stood very close indeed to his victim, looked him in the eye as he killed slowly. Could you do that? Could I? I don’t think so. Most of us have at least some sensitivity to another’s pain?we imagine what it would feel like if we suffered it ourselves. But one class of person doesn’t?the psychopath. He can’t relate to anyone else’s pain, can’t imagine it happening to him. He’s so self-centred that he lacks empathy completely.”
“You keep saying ‘he.’”
Jenny slapped his wrist playfully. “You know as well as I do that, statistically speaking, most psychopaths are men. And it might be pretty interesting to try to find out why. But that’s beside the point. That’s what the two crimes, what I know of them, have in common. There are other elements that fit the psychopath profile, too: the apparent coolness and bravado with which Gemma was abducted; the charm Chivers must have exhibited to her mother; the clever deceit he must have played to get Johnson out to the mill, if that’s what he did. And you can add that he’s also likely to be manipulative, impulsive, egocentric and irresponsible. You’re nursing your pint, Alan. Anything wrong?”
“What? Oh, no. I’m just preserving my liver. I have to meet Jim Hatchley for dinner in a couple of hours.”
“So he’s in town again, is he?”
“Just for a little job.”
Jenny held her hand up. “Say no more. I don’t want to
know anything about it. I can’t understand why you like that man.”
Banks shrugged. “Jim’s all right. Anyway, back to Chivers. What if he committed the Carl Johnson murder out of self-preservation?”
“The method was still his choice.”
“Yes.” Banks lit another cigarette. “Look, I’ll tell you what I’m getting at. Just before you arrived, I talked to my old friend Barney Merritt at the Yard, and he told me that Criminal Intelligence has got quite a file on Chivers. They’ve never been able to put him away for anything, but they’ve had reports of his suspected activities from time to time, and they’ve usually had some connection with organized crime. The closest they came to nabbing him was four years ago. An outsider trying to muscle in on a protection racket in Birmingham was found on a building site with a bullet in his brain. The police knew Chivers was connected with the local mob up there, and a couple of witnesses placed him with the victim in a pub near the site. Soon as things got serious, though, the witnesses started to lose their memories.”
“What are you telling me, Alan, that he’s a hit man or something?”
