Banks sniffed the air. It was another fine morning. A couple of sheep stood facing the drystone wall as if just wishing it would all go away. Well, it wouldn’t, Banks knew. No more than the tightness in his gut, which felt like a clenched fist, would go away before tomorrow.
“Well?” he asked, after the doctor had finished his examination.
“As we’re not in court, laddie,” said Glendenning, with a crooked grin, “I can tell you that she probably died between ten o’clock last night and one or two o’clock in the morning.”
“Do you think she was killed here?”
“Looks like it from the lividity on her back and thighs.”
“So he brought her here alive all the way from Eastvale?”
Banks made a mental calculation. The girl, Ellen Gilchrist, had disappeared on her way home shortly after eleven o’clock last night. By car, it was about thirty miles from Eastvale to Skield, but some of that journey was on bad moorland roads where you couldn’t drive very fast, especially at night. For one thing, the sheep were inclined to wander, and as anyone it has happened to will tell you, running into a sheep on a dark road is a very nasty experience indeed. Especially for the sheep.
It would probably have taken the killer an hour, Banks estimated, particularly if he took an indirect route to avoid being seen. Why bother? Why not just dump her in Eastvale somewhere? Was location important to him, part of his profile? Did he hope the body would remain undiscovered for longer here? Not much hope of that, Banks thought. Skield and Witch Fell were popular spots for ramblers, especially with the good weather.
“There’s a nasty gash behind her left ear,” Glendenning said, “which means she was probably unconscious when he brought her here, before he strangled her. It looks like it could have been caused by a hammer or some such heavy object. Cause of death, off the record, of course, is ligature strangulation, just like the last one. Shoulder-bag strap this time, instead of a satchel.”
“And the bag’s open, also like last time,” Banks mused.
“Aye,” said Glendenning. “Well, you can have the body sent to the mortuary now.” And he walked off.
Banks tried to run the scenario in his mind as if it were a film: girl leaves friends at end of School Lane, walks onto King Street, busy during tourist hours but quiet at night, apart from the odd pub or two. Some street-lamps, but not an especially well-lit area. Most kids are still at the dance, but Ellen’s going home ahead of her curfew because she has a headache, or so her friend said. She walks alone down the hill towards the Leaview Estate, not more than ten minutes at the most. Car pulls up. Or is it already waiting down the road, lights turned off, knowing there’s a school dance, hoping someone will be careless enough to walk home alone?
He’s standing by the car, looking harmless enough. He can’t believe his luck. Another blonde, just like Deborah Harrison, and about the same age. Or did he know who he wanted? Had he been watching her? Did he know her?
As she passes, he grabs her and drags her into the passenger seat before she knows what’s happening. She tries to scream, perhaps, but he puts his hand over her mouth to muffle her. He knocks her out. Now she’s in the passenger seat, unconscious, bleeding behind her ear. He straps her in with the safety belt and sets off. Maybe someone saw the car, someone else leaving the dance? He has to get her to an isolated spot before he’s seen.
All the way to Skield, he savors what he’s going to do to her. The anticipation is almost as thrilling as the act itself, maybe even more so. He anticipates it, and later he relives it, replays it over and over in his mind.
He parks off the road, out of the way, car hidden behind a clump of trees, perhaps, and drags her up the hillside. It’s not very far or very steep, the first lynchet, but he’s sweating with the effort, and maybe she’s coming round now, trying to struggle, beginning to realize that something terrible is about to happen to her. They get to the lynchet, and he lays her down on the grass and does…whatever he does.
“Alan?”
“What? Oh, sorry, sir. Lost in thought.”
Superintendent Gristhorpe and DC Gay had come to stand beside him as uniformed officers searched the area.
“We’d better get back to the station and get things moving,” said Gristhorpe. “We can start by questioning all the friends who were at the dance with her again, and then do a house-to-house along King Street, check out the pubs, too. I’ll get someone to ask around Skield as well. You never know. Someone might have been suffering from insomnia.”
“Sir?”
Both Banks and Gristhorpe looked around to see PC Weaver, one of the searchers, approach with something hooked over the end of a pencil. When he got closer, Banks could see that it was one of those transparent plastic containers that 35mm films come in. Living with Sandra, he had seen plenty of those.
“Found this in the grass near the body, sir,” he said.
“Near the shoulder-bag?” Gristhorpe asked.
“No, sir, that’s why I thought it was odd. It was on the other side of her, a couple of yards away. Do you think it could be the killer’s?”
“It could be anyone’s, lad,” Gristhorpe said. “A tourist’s, maybe. But we’d better check it for prints as quickly as we can.” He turned to Banks. “Maybe we’ve got one who likes to photograph his victims?”
“Possible,” Banks agreed. “And we already know one keen amateur photographer, don’t we? I’ll get Vic Manson on it right away. He should be able to do a comparison before the morning’s over.”
Just at that moment, a red bald head, shiny with perspiration, appeared over the rim of the meadow. “What’s going on?” grunted Chief Constable Riddle.
“Oh, we’ve just finished here, sir,” said Banks, smiling cheekily as he walked past Riddle and headed down the slope.
II
The church was hot and smelled like dust burning on the element of an electric fire. Owen remembered hearing somewhere that most household dust was just dead skin. Which meant the church smelled like dead bits of people burning. Hell? All flesh is grass. The heaps of dead, dry grass burning in allotments, or autumn stubble burning in the country fields, vast, rolling carpets of fire spread out in the distance, palls of smoke hanging and twisting in the still twilight air.
Owen took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He had never been comfortable in churches. His parents were both dyed-in-the-wool atheists, and the only times he had really been in church were for weddings and funerals. So he always wore a suit and tie.
Of course, it was all right when you were a tourist checking out the Saxon fonts and Gothic arches, but a different story altogether when there was a vicar up front prattling on about loving they neighbor. Owen had always distrusted overly churchy types before, feeling that the church offered a public aura of respectability to many who pursued their perversions in private. But the vicar in this case was Daniel Charters, now one of the few allies Owen had in the entire world.
Today it was the hoary old chestnut about how you get nothing but bad news in the papers and how that can make you cynical about the world, but really there are wonders and miracles going on all around you all the time.
That morning, Owen could certainly relate to the first part of the sermon, if not the uplifting bit. Just before he had set off for church, he had screwed up the News of the World in a ball and tossed it across the room.
Judging by the looks he got when he walked into St. Mary’s, and by the way so many members of the congregation leaned towards one another and whispered behind cupped hands, even the upmarket clientele of St. Mary’s had had a butcher’s at the News of the World over their cappuccino and croissants.
And there it was, blazoned across the front page in thick black letters: THE STORY THEY COULDN’T TELL IN COURT. Obviously Michelle’s journalist friend had probed her thoroughly. There was a reference to Owen’s liking to take photographs, phrased in such a way that it sounded downright sinister, and a mention of his love of kinky positions. He also, it appeared, liked his sex rough and, as far as partners were concerned, the younger the better. Michelle came out of it sounding more like a victim than a willing lover. Which, Owen supposed, was the intention.