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  Dorothy Wycombe moved further away from Banks and puffed herself up to her full size. “I am the chairperson of WEEF.”

  “Weef?”

  “W.E.E.F., Inspector Banks. The Women of Eastvale for Emancipation and Freedom. WEEF.”

  Banks had often thought it was amusing how groups twisted the language so that acronyms of organizations would sound like snappy words. It had started with NATO, SEATO, UNO and other important groups, progressed through such local manifestations as SPIT, SHOT and SPEAR, and now there was WEEF. It didn’t seem to matter at all that “Women of Eastvale” sounded vaguely mediaeval or that “Freedom” and “Emancipation” meant more or less the same thing. They simply existed to give birth to WEEF, which sounded to Banks like an impoverished “woof,” or the kind of squeak a frightened mouse might utter.

  “Very well,” Banks conceded, making a note. “And who brought the complaint to your attention?”

  “I’m not under any obligation to divulge my source,” Dorothy Wycombe snapped back, quick as a reporter in the dock.

  “Yesterday,” Banks sighed, “Sergeant Hatchley spoke to Carol Ellis, Mandy Selkirk, Josie Campbell and Ellen Parry about their experiences. He also spoke to Molly Torbeck, who had been with Carol Ellis in The Oak on the night of the incident. Would you like me to interview each in turn and find out for myself? I can do that, you know.”

  “Do what you want. I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Right,” Banks said, standing up to leave. “Then I’ve no intention of taking your complaint seriously. You must realize that we get a lot of unfounded allegations made against us, usually by overzealous members of the public. So many that we’ve got quite an elaborate system of screening them. I’m sure that, as a defender of freedom and emancipation, you wouldn’t want anyone’s career to suffer from injustice brought about by smear campaigns, would you?”

  Banks thought Dorothy Wycombe was about to explode, so red did her face become. Her chins trembled and her knuckles whitened as she grasped the edge of Gristhorpe’s desk.

  “This is outrageous!” she shouted. “I’ll not have my movement dictated to by a fascist police force.”

  “I’m sorry,” Banks said, heading for the door. “We just can’t deal with unidentified complainants.”

  “Carol Ellis!” The name burst from Dorothy Wycombe’s tight mouth like a huge build-up of steam from a stuck valve. “Now will you sit down and listen to me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Banks said, taking out his notebook again.

  “It’s Ms Wycombe,” she told him, “and I expect you to treat this matter seriously.”

  “It’s a serious charge,” Banks agreed, “as I said earlier. That’s why I want it fully documented. What exactly did Carol Ellis say?”

  “She said that Sergeant Hatchley seemed to treat the whole Peeping Tom business as a bit of a lark, that he seemed either bored or amused whilst interviewing her, and that he made certain suggestions about her body.”

  “Bored or amused, Ms Wycombe? Which? They’re very different, you know.”

  “Both, at different times.”

  “Certain suggestions about her body? What kind of suggestions? Lewd, offensive?”

  “What other kind are there, Inspector? He hinted that the Peeping Tom must have had quite a treat.”

  “Is that all?” “Isn’t it enough?

  What kind of—”

  “I mean are there any other allegations?”

  “No. That’s all I wanted to say. I hope I can trust you, Inspector, to see that something is done about this.”

  “Don’t worry, Ms Wycombe, I’ll get to the bottom of it. If there’s any truth in the charges, Sergeant Hatchley will be disciplined, you can be sure of that.”

  Dorothy Wycombe smiled grimly and suspiciously, then swished out of the office.

  Gristhorpe took a deep breath. “Alan,” he said, “when I made that joke about throwing your sergeant to the wolves the other day, I didn’t mean it bloody literally. Whatever we might think about Ms Wycombe and her manner, we’ve got to concede that she’s got a point. Don’t you agree?”

  “If what she says is true, yes.”

  “You think it might not be?”

  “We both know how the truth gets twisted in emotional situations, sir. Let me get Hatchley’s version before we go any further.”

  “Very well. But let me know, Alan. Are you getting any further?”

  “No, but I’m seeing Jenny Fuller again today. Perhaps she’ll have a bit more light to shed on things. If we can narrow the field down a bit, we might at least be able to start checking around.”

  “What about Alice Matlock?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Get a move on, Alan. Too many things are piling up for my liking.”

  II

  Back in his office, Banks found a note from Inspector Barnshaw accompanying a police artist’s drawing of the man that the Leeds junk dealer, Crutchley, had described. He had recognized none of the file photographs, but the sketch was a good realization of the description Banks had taken.

  He lit a cigarette, tidied the files on his desk, and sent for Sergeant Hatchley, who arrived about five minutes later.

  “Sit down,” Banks said, his abrupt tone foreshadowing the bol-locking the sergeant was in for.

  Banks decided not to beat about the bush. Instead, he told Hatchley exactly what Dorothy Wycombe had said and asked him for his version of what had happened during the Carol Ellis interview.

  Hatchley blushed and scratched his chin, avoiding Banks’s glance.

  “Is it true?” Banks pressed. “That’s all I want to know.”

  “Well, yes and no,” Hatchley admitted.

  “Meaning?”

  “Look, sir, I know Carol Ellis. I’m a bachelor and she’s not married either, and I’m not denying I’ve had my eye on her for some time—long before this business ever started.”

  “Go on.”

  “When I talked to her yesterday, she’d got over what happened. After all, it was just a bit of a shock. Nobody got hurt. And she was even joking about it a bit, wishing she’d worn her best underwear, given a better show, that kind of thing. ’Appen she was saying it to cover up her nerves, or maybe she was embarrassed. I don’t know. But, like I told you, I know her and I quite fancy her myself, so I might have joked along, you know, made things a bit more personal.”

  “‘Might have’?”

  “All right, I did.”

  “Were you bored?”

  “With Carol Ellis around? You must be joking, sir. A bit casual, maybe. It’s not like interrogating someone you don’t know, or a villain.”

  “Did you suggest that the peeper must have had quite a treat?”

  “I don’t rightly recollect. I might have joked along with her, like. When she said about wearing her best undies, I probably said she’d look fine to me in any underwear. You know, just like a compliment. A bit cheeky, but . . .”

  Banks sighed. It was clear to him what had happened, but it was equally clear that it shouldn’t have. The worst he could accuse Hatchley of was tactlessness and allowing personal affairs to come before police work. Whatever Carol Ellis had said to Dorothy Wycombe had probably been said in a spirit of fun, and was no doubt grossly distorted.

  “I don’t need to tell you that it was a bloody stupid thing to do, do I?” he said to Hatchley, who didn’t reply. “Because of your actions, we’re in for a lot more bad publicity, and we’ve got to spend time placating Dorothy bloody Wycombe. I do wish you’d learn to keep your urges to yourself. It’s one thing to chat the woman up in a pub, but quite another to do it while you’re interviewing her about a crime. Am I making myself clear?”

  Hatchley pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “Are you sure that Carol Ellis took your remarks in the spirit they were intended?”

  Here, Hatchley beamed. “She’s going out with me on Saturday night, sir, if that’s of any account.”

  Banks couldn�
��t help but smile. “Something must have got twisted in the communication network, then,” he muttered. “I’ll talk to her myself and straighten it out. But be bloody careful in future. I don’t need the aggro, and the superintendent certainly doesn’t. You’d better stay out of the peeper case in future. And you’d better stay out of the old man’s way for a day or two, as well.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Concentrate on the break-ins and the Alice Matlock killing.” He passed Hatchley the drawing. “Get copies done of this and spread them around. Help Richmond find out if Alice Matlock had any younger friends, any lame ducks, lonely hearts, that kind of thing. Did you see Wooller, by the way?”

  “Yes, last night.”

  “Anything?”

  Hatchley shook his head. “Nah. He’s an odd one all right, but I’m pretty damn sure he didn’t see or hear anything.”

  “Did you get the impression he was holding something back?”

  “Lots of things. He’s a dark horse, sure enough. But nothing about the Matlock case, no. I still reckon he’s worth keeping an eye on for the other business, though. You definitely get a kind of dirty feeling, talking to him.”

  “Okay,” Banks said. “But you’re off that. And if the press get hold of Dorothy Wycombe’s story, which I’m sure they will, I want no comments from you. None at all. That understood?”

  “Yes, sir. Bit of an Amazon, eh, that Dorothy Wycombe?”

  “Off you go, Sergeant.”

  Hatchley left and Banks relaxed, glad it was over. He didn’t mind yelling at the sergeant in the course of duty, but he hated the formality of the official reprimand. It was easy to see why Gristhorpe had passed the buck to him in the first place; the superintendent was diplomatic enough, all right, but he was also too soft-hearted when it came to his men. He looked at his watch. It was just after eleven. He decided to take his coffee and toasted teacake alone this morning, and leave Hatchley to lick his wounded pride for a while.

  III

  Eastvale Comprehensive used to be called Eastvale Grammar School. In the old days it was a respectable institution attended by promising children from miles around, many of whom gained scholarships to Oxford or Cambridge, or went on to the northern red-brick universities closer to home.

  The building itself was Victorian, attractive in a Gothic way from the outside, with turrets, a clock and a bell tower, and full of high gloomy corridors within. A number of “temporary” classrooms, trailers propped up on bricks, for the most part, had been added to the original building in the early seventies, and they looked as if they were definitely there to stay.

  Things changed for the school when the comprehensive system was turned loose on the country. Now teachers struggled with overcrowded classes of such mixed abilities that it was impossible to nurture the bright and do justice to the slow. Often the children had to suffer inept teaching by fools who knew more about athletics and rugby than Caesar’s conquest, Shakespeare, or the square roots of negative numbers.

  Banks knew the place, though he had never set foot inside the main building before. Both Brian and Tracy went there, and the tales they told did a lot to undermine Banks’s faith in the comprehensive system.

  As a working-class boy in Peterborough, he had always felt a strong aversion to any kind of elitism, yet as a moderately well-educated man with a taste for knowledge, he had to admit that no amount of special treatment and mollycoddling could turn a lazy, hostile slob into a star pupil; far from it, too many mediocre minds could do nothing but discourage exceptional students from doing their best. At school, he remembered, kids want to belong; they do not want to be ostracized by their peers, which happens if they excel at anything other than sports.

  As far as natural abilities went, he had no real opinion. Perhaps some were born with better brains than others. But that wasn’t, to him, the issue—the point was that everybody should be given the chance to find out, and the idealistic basis of the comprehensive system seemed to grant just that possibility. In practice, it didn’t seem to be turning out that way.

  In his own education, he had been very lucky indeed. After failing his “eleven-plus” exam, he had been condemned to the local secondary modern school, there to be moulded into an ideal electrician, brick-layer or road sweeper. He had nothing against manual occupations—his own father had been a sheet-metal worker until angina forced an early retirement—except that he wasn’t interested in any of them.

  Fortunately, because he did well at his studies, he got a shot at the “fourteen-plus.” He worked long and hard, passed, and found himself a new boy, an outsider at the grammar school. It seemed that all the relationships had been formed already during the three years he had spent in exile, and for the first two terms he despaired of making any friends. It was only typical schoolboy stand-offishness, though. As soon as the others found out that he was a terror in a scrap, owned the toughest conker in the school, and made perhaps the finest rugger scrum-half the team had ever seen, he had no problem gaining acceptance.

  It had been a cruel process, though, he reflected. The first exam split his groups of friends in the most divisive way: grammar school kids rarely talked to secondary modern boys, no matter how many games of commandos or cricket they had played together in their childhood; and his next exam accomplished much the same thing in reverse. This time, however, the friends that Banks had made at the secondary modern school never spoke to him again because they thought he had betrayed them. Entering the gates of Eastvale Comprehensive somehow brought back the good and the bad of his own schooldays.

  When Banks walked through the yard it was lunchtime; the children played hand-tennis or cricket against stumps chalked on the wall in the yard, or smoked behind the cycle sheds, and the teachers lounged in the smoky staff room reading the Guardian or grappling with the Sun crossword. The head, however, was in his sanctuary, and it was into this haven that Banks was ushered by a slim, pretty secretary, who looked hardly older than school-leaving age herself.

  The institutional-green corridors were half glass, so that anyone passing by could look into the classrooms. Now, the desks stood empty, and the blackboards were still partly covered in indecipherable scrawl. Many of the desks, Banks noticed, were just as desecrated with the carved initials of girlfriends and the names of famous cricketers, footballers and rock-and-roll bands as they had been in his own schooldays. Only the names had changed. And the place smelled pleasantly of bubble gum, chalk dust and satchel leather.

  The head was sipping tea in his panelled office, a well-thumbed copy of Cicero on the desk in front of him. He greeted Banks and turned sadly to the book. “Latin, Inspector. Such an elegant, noble language, quite easily capable of sustaining lengthy flights of poetry. Nobody, it seems, has any use for it these days. Anyway,” he sighed, standing up, “you’ve not come to hear about my problems, have you?”

  The head, like his book, looked as though he had seen better days. His face was haggard, his hair grey, and he had a pronounced stoop. His most noticeable feature, however, was a big red nose, and it didn’t take much imagination to guess what nicknames the kids had for him. Though he wore a bat-like cape, there was no mortarboard in sight. The study looked so much like Banks’s old headmaster’s lair that he felt the same quiver of adrenalin as he had all those years ago while waiting for the cane.

  “No, sir,” Banks smiled, slipping easily into the language of respect. “I came to ask a few questions about one of your boys.”

  “Oh, dear. Not been getting himself into trouble, has he? I’m afraid, these days, it’s very difficult to keep track of them, and there are several bad elements in the school. Do sit down.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s nothing definite,” Banks went on. “We’re just faced with one or two discrepancies in a statement and we’d like to know if you can tell us anything about Trevor Sharp.”

  There was no flash of recognition in Buxton’s expression. Obviously he had long since given up trying to keep track of all
his pupils. He got up and walked towards his filing cabinet, from which, after much muttering and tut-tutting, he pulled out a sheaf of papers.

  “Reports,” he said, tapping the papers with a bony finger. “These should tell us what you want to know. I’d appreciate it, though, Inspector, if this got no further than you and me. These are supposed to be confidential . . . .”

  “Of course. In return, I’d be pleased if you didn’t mention my visit, especially to the boy himself or to anyone who might tell him.”

  The head nodded and started turning the pages. “Let me see . . . 1983 . . . no . . . winter . . . summer . . . 1984 . . . excellent . . . ninety percent . . . very good . . .” and he went on in this fashion for some time before returning to Banks. “A bright boy, young Master Sharp. The name suits him. Look at this.” And he passed Banks the reports for the previous year. They were full of “excellents” and high marks in all subjects except Geography. About that, his teacher had said: “Does not seem interested. Obviously capable, but unwilling to work hard enough.”

  As it turned out, that lone failure foreshadowed the more recent reports, which were scattered with remarks such as “Could do better,” “Does not try hard enough” and “Takes negative attitude towards subject.” There were also several complaints from the teachers about his absences: “If Trevor were in class more often he would attain a better grasp of the subject,” wrote Mr Fox, his English teacher, and “Failure to hand in homework and to appear in class have contributed greatly towards Trevor’s disappointing performance in History this term,” commented Mr Rhodes.

  “What this adds up to, then,” Banks said, “is a promising pupil who seems to have lost his way.”

  “Yes,” Mr Buxton agreed sadly. “It happens so often these days. There seem to be so many distractions for the boys. Of course, in most cases it’s a phase they have to go through. Rebellion. Have to get it out of their systems, you know.”

  Banks knew, but the transformation from star pupil with a great career ahead into truant and slacker was certainly open to other interpretations.