‘I only said that his lawyer claimed diminished responsibility. And I said he had a low IQ, that’s all. It doesn’t mean he had no self-preservation instinct. He wasn’t without a certain low cunning. And you’d better watch it. You’ll have the political correctness squad after you if you go around calling intellectually challenged people thick.’
‘Even the least intelligent of us can be quite cunning under the right circumstances,’ said Jenny.
Gristhorpe sighed. ‘Aye, lass. You can say that again. He managed to elude our grasp for fifty years, at any rate. And he committed more rapes during that time. They said that was one of the things that finally led them to him. The crimes corresponded with the periods of his leave from the navy. That and his conviction five years ago for handling stolen goods and committing actual bodily harm. Only God knows how many rapes he committed on his travels around the world.’
‘Do you remember anything else about Wendy Vincent’s family background?’ Jenny asked.
‘From what I could gather,’ said Gristhorpe, ‘the parents weren’t abusive, just neglectful. It was the drink, of course. They could hardly take care of themselves, let alone two kids. Her dad was a bit of a wide boy, too, in and out of work, Beatles’ style haircut, fancied himself as a musician. The mother was a hard-working charlady when she had a job, but she got fired as often as not for absenteeism. There was a younger brother called Mark. He was only eleven at the time of the murder and, naturally, he was pretty shaken up, but maybe still a bit too young to take it all in. Frank Dowson came from an even more dodgy family on the same estate. His old man was a fence. Kept a lock-up across town full of stuff that “fell off the back of a lorry”. Small stuff, but we kept an eye on him. Frank had a younger brother called Billy Dowson, about Mark Vincent’s age. They were mates, as far as we could gather. Part of the same gang. And I don’t mean “gang” like you hear it used today. They never did owt more than knock on a few doors and run away and lather a few doorknobs with treacle. Typical Mischief Night behaviour. Mostly I should imagine they sat around in some den or other and smoked Park Drives and pored over dirty magazines and felt grown up. There was a sister, too. Cilla. She was sixteen and already on the game. But Frank Dowson didn’t live with his parents at the time. Like I said, he’d joined the merchant navy, and he only dropped by occasionally, when he was on leave. That’s one reason we didn’t follow up the way we should have. Nobody told us he was in the area when the murder occurred, so we neglected to check with the naval authorities to see if he had an alibi. It was sloppy police work. No excuses. Except there were more villains on that estate than you could shake a stick at. But I still can’t see how any of this is connected with your wedding shootings.’
‘Nor can I,’ said Banks. ‘What we need is a connection between Martin Edgeworth and the shooter, but we don’t know who the shooter is. All we have so far is a connection, however tenuous, between one member of the wedding party and this fifty-year-old crime. I think we’ll try to track down some of the people who were involved, if they’re still alive. Billy Dowson, maybe his sister, Cilla, Wendy’s brother, any other members of the gang. See if anyone remembers something that might help. Do you know what happened to them?’
‘I didn’t keep in touch,’ said Gristhorpe. ‘And as far as I know both families moved away from the estate fairly soon after the investigation ground to a halt. I know Wendy’s mum and dad split up not long after and the lad, Mark, was packed off to live with an aunt and uncle in Ferry Fryston or some such place, but don’t quote me on it. I can give you some names, and you should be able to find them easily enough with your modern methods.’
‘Gerry should be able to take it from there,’ said Banks. ‘She’s good with computer research.’
‘And now,’ said Gristhorpe, looking towards Jenny, ‘what have you been doing these past few years?’
‘Why is it people always seem to retire to places like this?’ asked Annie as Gerry drove along a narrow, winding road just beyond Sedburgh. They were almost in the Lake District, and the change was apparent in the shapes of the mountains and rolling hills, much older here, bigger and more rounded.
‘I suppose they’re after a bit of peace and quiet after fifty years of the daily grind, commuting and what have you,’ said Gerry.
‘It’s either somewhere like this or some seaside hellhole like Bognor or Blackpool.’
‘Nobody retires to Blackpool.’ Gerry swung the wheel at a particularly awkward corner. The tyres slipped on the shiny road surface.
‘Watch it,’ Annie said as they almost scraped a drystone wall. ‘When my time comes, I’m going to retire to London,’ she announced. ‘Spend my days in the art galleries and my nights in the theatres and pubs. After that, I’ll be out clubbing until dawn.’
Gerry laughed. ‘Better hurry up then.’
Annie gave her a sideways glance. ‘You think I’m too old, don’t you?’
‘Maybe if you just put in your thirty. Do you think that’s what you’ll do, or will you follow in the boss’s footsteps?’
‘Depends on whether I win the lottery,’ Annie said. ‘Ah, here we are. Village of Little-Feather-up-the-Bum.’
‘It’s Featheringham,’ said Gerry. ‘Little Featheringham.’
‘Thank God Alan isn’t here or we’d be getting a lecture about how Wordsworth wrote some stupid poem sitting up on that hill over there.’
‘We’re not quite in Wordsworth territory yet. And I got my A-level English. I know a thing or two about Wordsworth, myself.’
‘Spare me the details. In love with his sister or something, wasn’t he? Pervert. But it’s a fine place for a dentist to retire. Maybe he’s got a cellar full of reclining chairs and slow drills, those pointy things they try and pull your filling out with, and those scrapers they use to clean your teeth? Could be a real torture chamber down there. Nobody could hear you scream. Are you sure you’re ready for this?’
Gerry pulled up outside the squat cottage. A thin column of smoke twisted from the chimney. ‘I don’t suppose we need to worry about parking around here,’ she said. ‘Or the Krook lock.’
‘Doubt it,’ said Annie, slipping out of the car.
A short path led from the red wooden gate to the front door. Jonathan Martell answered almost immediately after Annie rang the bell, and she had to admit that he wasn’t quite what she had expected of a retired dentist. Slim, trim and handsome in a white V-neck cricket jumper over a blue button-down Oxford, jeans and Nike trainers, he appeared a lot younger than she had expected, for a start. He also had a fine head of wavy brown hair and a nice smile. She found herself wondering if he was married. He was wearing a ring, she noticed, but experience had taught her that didn’t always mean anything. They shook hands, and he led them through to the living room. The ceilings were low and criss-crossed with weathered wooden beams, but it was a cosy space, and the fire burned in the hearth. The walls were dotted with local landscapes, some of them quite good, in Annie’s eyes, and a number of framed photographs on the mantelpiece above the fire: Martell on a beach somewhere with an exotic dark-haired young beauty, Martell standing in the garden with his arms around the shoulders of two young children; a professional portrait of the beautiful woman, no doubt his wife, whose teeth were far whiter than Annie’s. She ran her tongue over molars. They felt furry and jagged. It was odd, she thought, as she settled into the comfortable armchair perhaps just a little too close to the fire, but it was as if a whole lifetime had flashed in front of her eyes when she entered the cottage. Not her own lifetime, necessarily, but a lifetime, nonetheless.