NO ENTRY signs on every orifice. Sorry, love.” He looked at Susan, who simply gave him a blank stare. “No,” he went on, turning back to Richmond, “I don’t think Carl was daft enough to mess with her.”
“What about Gemma Scupham?”
Fairley looked surprised. “The kid who was abducted?”
“That’s her.”
“What about her?”
“You tell me, John.”
Fairley tensed. A vein throbbed at his temple. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that? Oh, come on! I don’t go in for little girls. No way.”
“What about Chivers?”
“Nothing about him would surprise me.”
“Did he ever mention her?”
“No. I mean, I had heard of her. Les complained about her sometimes and Carl sympathized. Chivers just seemed to be standing back, sort of laughing at it all, as if such a problem could never happen to him. He always seemed above everything, arrogant like, as if we were all just petty people with petty concerns and he’d think no more about stepping on us if he had to than he would about swatting a fly. Look, why are you asking me about Gemma? I never even met the kid.”
“She was never in this shop?”
“No. Why should she have been?”
“Where is Chivers now?”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know. He’s bad news.”
Richmond sat down carefully on a box. “Has it never struck you,” he said, “that if he did kill Johnson, then you and Les might be in danger, too?”
“No. Why? We didn’t do nothing. We always played square.”
“So did Carl, apparently. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me. It doesn’t seem to matter with Chivers, does it? Why do you think he killed Carl, if he did?”
“I told you, I don’t know. He’s a nutter. He always seemed to me like he was on the jdge, you know, ready to go off. People like him don’t always need reasons.
Maybe he did it for fun.”
“Maybe. So why not kill you, too? Might that not be fun?”
Fairley licked his lips. “Look, if you’re trying to scare me you’re doing a damn good job. Are you trying to warn me I’m in danger or just trying to make me talk? I think it’s about time I saw a solicitor.”
Richmond stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants with his palm. “Are you sure you have no idea where Chivers went after he left Eastvale?”
“None.”
“Did he say anything about his plans?”
“Not to me.”
“Where did he come from?”
“Dunno. He never talked about himself. Honest. Look, are you winding me up about all this?” Fairley had started to sweat now.
“We need to find him, John,” said Richmond quietly. “That’s all. Then we’ll all sleep a little easier in our beds.” He turned to Susan. “Let’s take him to station now and make it formal, shall we?” He rubbed the wall and held up his forefinger. “And we’d better get a SOCO team down here, too. Remember that whitewash on Gemma’s clothing?”
Susan nodded. As they left, she noticed that John Fairley seemed far more willing to accompany them to the station than most villains they arrested.
“I’ll tell you one thing for free,” he said as they got in the car.
“What’s that?” said Richmond.
“He had a gun, Chivers did. I saw it once when he was showing off with it in front of his girlfriend.”
“What kind of gun?”
“How would I know? I don’t know nothing about them.”
“Big, small, medium?”
“It wasn’t that big. Like those toy guns you play with when you’re a kid. But it weren’t no toy.”
“A revolver?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Never mind.”
“Isn’t it enough just to know the bastard’s got a gun?”
“Yes,” sighed Richmond, looking over at Susan. “Yes, it is.”
Ill
Banks and Gristhorpe leaned on the railings above the
beach and ate fish and chips out of cardboard cartons.
The hotel didn’t do evening meals, and, as in most seaside
