happened to Gemma. Nothing.”
“Convince me.”
Outside, they could hear Hatchley bellowing about what he would do to perverts if he had his way: “I’d cut your balls off with a blunt penknife, I bloody would! And I’d feed them down your fucking throat!” He got close enough to thump at the door and rattle the handle before they could hear him being dragged off still yelling down the corridor. Banks could hardly keep from laughing. Jim and the uniforms sounded like they were having the time of their lives.
“Christ,” said Les, with a shudder. “Just keep him off me, that’s all.”
“So you had nothing to do with Gemma’s disappearance?” Banks said.
“No. See, I used to talk about the kid down the pub, over a jar, like. I admit I wasn’t very flattering, but she was a strange one was Gemma. She could irritate you
just by looking at you that way she had, accusing like. Make you feel like dirt.”
“So you complained about your girlfriend’s kid. Nothing odd in that, is there, Les?”
“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? What I’ve been saying. It was just pub talk, that’s all. Now, I never touched her, Mr Banks. Never. Not a word of a lie. But Brenda got pissed off that time after Gemma spilled her paints on my racing form and gave her a bloody good shaking. First time I seen her do it, and it scared me, honest it did. Left big bruises on the kid’s arm. I felt sorry for her, but I’m not her fucking father, what am I supposed to do?”
“Get to the point, Les. Those lads out there can’t hold Sergeant Hatchley down forever.”
“Aye, well, I didn’t exactly tell you the truth before. You see, I did meet this Chivers and his bird a couple of times, with Carl at the pub. Never took to him. She wasn’t a bad-looking hint, mind you. A bit weird, but not bad. He thought I was coming on to her once and warned me, all quiet and civilized, like, that if I went so much as with a yard of her he’d cut off my balls and shove them up my arse.” Poole paused and swallowed. No doubt he was realizing, Banks thought, that threats to his privates were coming thick and fast from all sides. “He gave me the creeps, Mr Banks. There was something not right about him. About the pair of them, if you ask me.”
“Did this Chivers seem interested when you talked about Gemma?”
“Well, yeah, about as interested as he seemed in anything. He was a cool one. Cold. Like a fucking reptile. There was just no reading him. He’d ask about her, yeah, just over a few drinks, like, but I thought nothing of it. And once he told me about a case he’d read in the papers where some couple had pretended to be child-care workers and asked to examine a child. Thought that was
funny, he did. Thought it showed bottle. I put it out of my mind. To be honest, soon as we’d done the Fl?soon as we’d finished our bit of business, I wouldn’t go near him or her. I can’t explain it. They seemed nice and normal enough on the surface, all charm and that nice smile of his, but inside he was hard and cold, and you never knew what he was going to do next. I suppose that’s the kind of thing she liked. There’s no figuring out some women’s taste.”
“So Chivers showed some interest in Gemma and he told you about the newspaper story, right?”
“Right. And that’s as far as it went.”
“Did Chivers give you any reason to believe he was interested in little children?”
“Well, no, not directly. I mean, Carl told me a few stories about him, how he’d been involved in the porn trade down The Smoke and how he wasn’t averse to a bit of bondage and that. Just titillating stories, that’s all. And when you saw him and his bird together, they were weird, like they had something going that no one could get in on. She hung on his every word and when he told her to do something, she did. I mean … it was … Once, we was in the car, like, plann?, just talking, with them two in the front and me and Carl in the back, and he told her to suck him off. She got right down there and did it, and all the time he kept talking, just stopping once, like, to give a little sigh when he shot his load. Then she sat back up again as if nothing had happened.”
“But they never made any direct reference to children?”
“No. But you see what I mean, don’t you, Mr Banks? I mean, as far as I’m concerned, them two was capable of anything.”
“I see what you mean. What did you do?”
“Well, I kept quiet, didn’t I? I mean, there was no way
of knowing it was them took Gemma. The descriptions weren’t the same. And then when Carl turned up dead, I had a good idea who might have liked killing someone that way and … I was scared. I mean, wouldn’t you be? Maybe Carl had made the same connection, too, and Chivers had offed him while the hint looked on and laughed. That’s the kind of feeling they gave you.”
“Do you have any evidence that Chivers killed Carl?”
“Evidence? That’s down to you lot, isn’t it? No, I told you. I kept away from him. It just seemed like something he would do.”
“Where are they now, Les?”
“I’ve no idea, honest I don’t. And you can turn your gorilla on me and I can’t tell you any different. I haven’t seen nor heard of them since last week. And I don’t want to.”
“Do you think they’re still in Eastvale, Les?”
“Be daft if they were, wouldn’t they? But I don’t mind saying I was scared shitless those two nights sleeping out. I kept thinking there was someone creeping up on me to cut my throat. You know what it’s like out in the country, all those animal noises and the wind blowing barn doors.” He shuddered.
“Is that everything, Les?”
“Cross my heart.”
Banks noticed he didn’t say “hope to die” this time. “It’d better be,” said Banks, standing and stretching. He walked over to the door and peered outside, then turned to Gristhorpe. “Looks like they’ve got Jim away somewhere. What shall we do now?”
Gristhorpe assessed Poole with a steady gaze. “I think he’s told us all he knows,” he said finally. “We’d better take him to the charge room then lock him up.”
