Peter Robinson - A Dedicated Man

Sally’s father, enraged with grief after receiving a letter from the Marion Boyars Academy of Theatre Arts saying they would be pleased to accept Sally as a student, had begun his search alone on Saturday in the rain. The weather so affected his rheumatism and his spirits that he was confined to bed by Dr Barnes the following day. Charles Lumb knew that Sally hadn’t run away, despite their differences; anxiety and anger gave way to resignation. Even if the searchers did find her, what state would she be in after three or more nights out in the wilds?

On Sunday, the first area searched was the wide stretch of moorland to the north of Helmthorpe above Crow Scar. Gristhorpe, in making his decision, realized he might have been influenced by the fact that Steadman’s body had been found on the northern slopes, but he reasoned that the area was, after all, the wildest spread of countryside – seven miles of rough high moors before the next dale – and had the greatest number of hiding places: old mines, steep quarries, potholes.

The only result of Sunday’s effort was an accident in which a police constable drafted in from Askrigg fell down a twenty-foot bell pit. Fortunately, his fall was broken by accumulated water and mud, but it took over two hours of valuable time to rig up ropes and pull him out. Up on the moorland, two small parties got so bogged down in mud that they were unable to continue, and progress everywhere was slow.

By Monday, the sun was out to stay and conditions had improved. Gristhorpe, who had been up since five in the morning, sat red-eyed in the communications room logging check-in calls from search parties, and the map before him soon began to look like a chessboard. This was one task he refused to delegate.

At about three o’clock, the superintendent took Sergeant Rowe’s advice and dropped by Banks’s office to suggest a walk.

They walked into Market Street, which was crowded with tourists from the nearby cities who, seeing an end to the rain, had decided on an afternoon out. It was also market day, and the cobbled square in front of the church was thronged with colourful stalls selling everything from Marks and Spencer rejects to dinner sets and toilet-bowl brushes. There were stalls of second-hand paperbacks, yards of plain and patterned material – cotton, linen, muslin, rayon, denim, cheesecloth – spilling over almost to the ground, and stalls piled with crockery and cutlery. Skilled vendors drew crowds by shouting out the virtues of their wares as they juggled plates and saucers. The people milled around to listen, take photographs and, occasionally, to buy things. In the narrow twisting side streets around the central market square – old alleys where the sun never penetrated and you could shake hands across second-storey bay windows – the small souvenir and local delicacy shops with magnifying-glass windows did good business. Everything, from toffee and tea to spoons and fluffy toys, was labelled ‘Yorkshire’, no matter where it had actually been made.

Gristhorpe directed Banks to a small tea shop and the two of them settled down to tea and buns.

Gristhorpe ran his hand through his thick messy mop of grey hair and smiled weakly. ‘Had to get out for a bit,’ he said, spooning sugar into his mug. ‘It gets so damn stuffy in that little room.’

‘You look all-in,’ Banks said, lighting a Benson and Hedges Special Mild. ‘Perhaps you should go home and get some sleep.’

Gristhorpe grunted and waved away the smoke. ‘Thought you’d given that filthy habit up,’ he grumbled. ‘Anyway, I suppose I am tired. I’m not as young as I used to be. But it’s not just tiredness, Alan. Have you ever taken part in an operation like this before?’

‘Not a search in open country, no. I’ve looked for missing teens in Soho, but nothing like this, in these conditions. Do you think there’s any hope?’

Gristhorpe shook his head slowly. ‘No. I think the girl’s been killed. Stupid bloody kid. Why couldn’t she have come to us?’

Banks had no answer. ‘Have you been involved in this kind of search before?’ he asked.

‘More than twenty years ago now,’ Gristhorpe said, adding an extra spoonful of sugar to his tea. ‘And this makes it feel like only yesterday.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Young girl called Lesley Ann Downey. Only ten. And a lad called John Kilbride, twelve. You’ll have heard about all that, though: Brady and Hindley, the Moors Murders?’

‘You were in on that?’

‘Manchester brought some of us in for the search. It’s not that far away, you know. Still, that was different.’

‘Sir?’

‘Brady and Hindley were involved in Nazism, torture, fetishism – you name it. This time it’s more calculated, if we’re right. I don’t know which is worse.’

‘The result’s the same.’

‘Aye.’ Gristhorpe gulped some tea and nibbled at his bun. ‘Getting anywhere?’

Banks shook his head. ‘Nothing new. Hackett’s in the clear now. Barnes, too, by the looks of it. We’re stuck.’

‘It’s always like that when the trail goes cold. You know that as well as I do, Alan. If the answer isn’t staring you in the face within twenty-four hours, the whole thing goes stale. When you get stuck you just have to push a bit harder, that’s all. Sometimes you get lucky.’

‘I’ve been thinking about the time of Sally Lumb’s disappearance,’ Banks said, trying to waft his smoke away from Gristhorpe. ‘She was last seen on Helmthorpe High Street walking east around nine o’clock on Friday evening.’

‘Well?’

‘I was in Helmthorpe at that time, in the Dog and Gun with Sandra and a couple of friends. We went to listen to Penny Cartwright sing. Jack Barker was there too.’

‘So that lets them off the hook.’

‘No, sir. That’s just it. She finished her first set just after nine, then she and Barker disappeared from the pub for about an hour.’

‘Right after Sally had been seen in the village?’

‘Yes.’

‘Better follow it up, then. What do you think?’

‘I’ve talked to them both a couple of times. They’re difficult, sharp. If I were easily swayed by sentiment, I’d say no, not a chance. Penny Cartwright seems sincere, and Barker’s a clever bugger but likeable enough when you take the time to chat to him. He swears blind he’d nothing to do with Steadman’s death. But I’ve met some damn good liars in my time. He’s got no alibi and he might have been jealous about Steadman and the Cartwright woman.’

Gristhorpe ate the final few crumbs of his bun and suggested they carry on walking. They headed east and looped down by the river near the terraced gardens.

‘The Swain’s filling up,’ Gristhorpe said. ‘I hope we don’t have a bloody flood to contend with, too.’

‘Does that happen often?’

‘Often enough. Usually at spring thaw after a particularly snowy winter. But if you get enough water channelled down from the dales, it might break the banks here.’

They turned up a dank waterside alley, where moss and lichen grew on the rough stone, skirted the base of Castle Hill and arrived back at the market square. Gristhorpe headed straight for the communications room and Banks accompanied him. There was nothing new.

Even Purcell’s ‘Hail Bright Cecilia’ failed to cheer Banks up as he drove into Helmthorpe that evening. When he walked along High Street past the gift shop with its revolving racks of postcards and the small newsagent’s with the evening papers outside fluttering in the light breeze, he could sense the mood of the village. Nothing was obvious; people went about their business as usual, shutting up shop for the day and coming home from work, but it felt like a place that had drawn in on itself. Even the air, despite the wind, seemed tight and grim. The small noises – footsteps, doors opening, distant telephones ringing – sounded eerie and isolated against the backdrop of the silent green valley sides and massive brow of Crow Scar, bright in the evening sun.