Aftermath

7

One good thing about the family-style chain pubs, thought Maggie, was that nobody raised an eyebrow if you only ordered a pot of tea or a cup of coffee, which was all she wanted when she met Lorraine Temple at The Woodcutter’s that Tuesday lunchtime.

Lorraine was a plump, petite brunette with an easy manner and an open face, a face you could trust. She was about Maggie’s age, early thirties, wearing black jeans and a jacket over a white silk blouse. She bought the coffees and put Maggie at ease with some small talk and sympathetic noises about the recent events on The Hill, then she got down to business. She used a notebook rather than a tape recorder, Maggie was glad to see. For some reason, she didn’t like the idea of her voice, her words, being recorded as sounds; but as squiggles on the page, they hardly seemed to matter.

“Do you use shorthand?” she asked, thinking nobody used that anymore.

Lorraine smiled up at her. “My own version. Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“Okay. We’ll start, then, if that’s all right with you?”

Maggie tensed a little, waiting for the questions. The pub was quiet, mostly because it was a weekday and the bottom of The Hill was hardly a tourist area or a business center. There were a couple of industrial estates nearby, but it wasn’t quite lunchtime yet. Pop music played on the jukebox at an acceptable level, and even the few children in the family room seemed more subdued than she would have expected. Maybe the recent events had got to everyone in one way or another. It felt as if a pall lay over the place.

“Can you tell me how it happened?” Lorraine asked first.

Maggie thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t sleep very well, and maybe I was awake or it woke me up, I’m not sure, but I heard noises across the street.”

“What noises?”

“Voices arguing. A man’s and a woman’s. Then a sound of glass breaking and then a thud.”

“And you know this was coming from across the street?”

“Yes. When I looked out of the window, there was a light on and I thought I saw a shadow pass across it.”

Lorraine paused a moment to catch up with her notes. “Why were you so sure it was a domestic incident?” she asked, as she had done over the phone.

“It just… I mean…”

“Take your time, Maggie. I don’t want to rush you. Think back. Try to remember.”

Maggie ran her hand over her hair. “Well, I didn’t know for certain,” she said. “I suppose I just assumed, from the raised voices and, you know…”

“Did you recognize the voices?”

“No. They were too muffled.”

“But it could have been someone fighting off a burglar, couldn’t it? I understand there’s quite a high burglary rate in this area?”

“That’s true.”

“So what I’m getting at, Maggie, is that maybe there was some other reason you thought you were witnessing a domestic argument.”

Maggie paused. Her moment of decision had arrived, and when it came, it was more difficult than she had thought it would be. For one thing, she didn’t want her name splashed all over the papers in case Bill saw it back in Toronto, though she very much doubted that even he would come this far to get at her. There was little likelihood of such exposure with a regional daily like the Post, of course, but if the national press got onto it, that would be another matter. This was a big story, and the odds were that it would at least make the National Post and the Globe and Mail back home.

On the other hand, she had to remember her goal, focus on what was important here: Lucy’s predicament. First and foremost she was talking to Lorraine Temple in order to get the image of Lucy the victim in people’s minds. Call it a preemptive strike: the more the public saw her that way from the start, the less likely they were to believe that she was the embodiment of evil. All people knew so far was that the body of Kimberley Myers had been found in the Paynes’ cellar, and a policeman had been killed, most likely by Terence Payne, but everyone knew they were digging there, and everyone knew what they were likely to find. “Maybe there was,” she said.

“Could you elaborate on that?”

Maggie sipped some coffee. It was lukewarm. In Toronto, she remembered, they would come around and refill your cup once or twice. Not here. “I might have had reason to believe that Lucy Payne was in danger from her husband.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“That her husband abused her?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of Terence Payne?”

“Not much, really.”

“Do you like him?”

“Not particularly.” Not at all, Maggie admitted to herself. Terence Payne very much gave her the creeps. She didn’t know why, but she would cross the street if she saw him coming rather than meet, say hello and make small talk about the weather, all the time with him looking at her in that curiously empty, dispassionate manner he had, as if she were a butterfly pinned to a felt pad, or a frog on the table ready for dissection.

As far as she knew, though, she was the only one to feel that way. He was handsome and charming on the surface, and according to Lucy he was popular at school, both with the kids and with his colleagues on staff. But there was still something about him that put Maggie off, an emptiness at his center that she found disturbing. With most people, she felt that whatever it was she communicated, whatever radar or sonar beam went out, bounced off something and came back in some way, made some sort of blip on the screen. With Terry, it didn’t; it disappeared in the vast, sprawling darkness inside him, where it echoed forever unheard. That was the only way she could explain the way she felt about Terry Payne.

She admitted to herself that she might be imagining it, responding to some deep fear or inadequacy of her own – and God knew, there were enough of those – so she had resolved to try not to criticize him for Lucy’s sake, but it had been difficult.

“What did you do after Lucy told you this?”

“Talked to her, tried to persuade her to seek professional help.”

“Have you ever worked with abused women?”

“No, not really. I…”

“Were you a victim of abuse yourself?”

Maggie felt herself tightening up inside; her head started to spin. She reached for her cigarettes, offered one to Lorraine, who refused, then lit up. She had never talked about the details of her life with Bill – the pattern of violence and remorse, blows and presents – with anyone here except her psychiatrist and Lucy Payne. “I’m not here to talk about me,” she said. “I don’t want you to write about me. I’m here to talk about Lucy. I don’t know what happened in that house, but it’s my feeling that Lucy was as much a victim as anything else.”

Lorraine put her notebook aside and finished her coffee. “You’re Canadian, aren’t you?” she asked.

Surprised, Maggie answered that she was.

“Where from?”

“Toronto. Why?”

“Just curious, that’s all. I’ve got a cousin lives there. That house you’re living in. Tell me, but doesn’t it belong to Ruth Everett, the illustrator?”

“Yes, it does.”

“I thought so. I interviewed her there once. She seems like a nice person.”

“She’s been a good friend.”

“How did you meet, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“We met professionally, at a convention a few years ago.”

“So you’re an illustrator, too?”

“Yes. Children’s books, mostly.”

“Perhaps we can do a feature on you and your work?”

“I’m not very well known. Illustrators rarely are.”

“Even so. We’re always looking for local celebrities.”

Maggie felt herself blush. “Well, I’m hardly that.”

“I’ll talk with my features editor, anyway, if that’s okay with you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, if that’s all right.”

“But-”

“Please! No. Okay?”

Lorraine held her hand up. “All right. I’ve never know anyone turn down a bit of free publicity before, but if you insist…” She put her notebook and pencil in her handbag. “I must be going now,” she said. “Thank you for talking to me.”

Maggie watched her leave, feeling oddly apprehensive. She looked at her watch. Time for a little walk around the pond before heading back to work.

“Well, you certainly know how to pamper a girl,” Tracy said as Banks led her into the McDonald’s at the corner of Briggate and Boar Lane later that afternoon.

Banks laughed. “I thought all kids loved McDonald’s.”

Tracy nudged him in the ribs. “Enough of the ‘kid,’ please,” she said. “I’m twenty now, you know.”

For one horrible moment Banks feared he might have forgotten her birthday. But no. It was back in February, before the task force, and he had sent a card, given her some money and taken her out to dinner at Brasserie 44. A very expensive dinner. “Not even a teenager anymore, then,” he said.

“That’s right.”

And it was true. Tracy was young woman now. An attractive one at that. It almost broke Banks’s heart to see how much she resembled Sandra twenty years ago: the same willowy figure, with the same dark eyebrows, high cheekbones, hair in a long blond pony-tail, stray tresses tucked behind her delicate ears. She even echoed some of Sandra’s mannerisms, such as biting her lower lip when she was concentrating and winding strands of hair around her fingers as she talked. She was dressed like a student today: blue jeans, white T-shirt with a rock band’s logo, denim jacket, carrying a backpack, and she moved with assurance and grace. A young woman, no doubt about it.

Banks had returned her phone call that morning, and they had arranged to meet for a late lunch, after her last lecture of the day. He had also told Christopher Wray that they hadn’t found his daughter’s body yet.

They stood in line. The place was full of office workers on afternoon break, truant school-kids and mothers with prams and toddlers taking a break from their shopping. “What do you want?” Banks asked. “My treat.”

“In that case, I’ll have the full Monty. Big Mac, large fries and large Coke.”

“Sure that’s all?”

“We’ll see about a sweet later.”

“It’ll bring you out in spots.”

“No, it won’t. I never come out in spots.”

It was true. Tracy had always had a flawless complexion; school friends had often hated her for it. “You’ll get fat, then.”

She patted her flat stomach and pulled a face at him. She had inherited his metabolism, which allowed him to live on beer and junk food and still remain lean.

They got their food and sat at a plastic table near the window. It was a warm afternoon. Women wore bright sleeveless summer dresses, and the men had their suit jackets slung over their shoulders and their shirtsleeves rolled up.

“How’s Damon?” Banks asked.

“We’ve decided not to see each other till after exams.”

There was something about Tracy’s tone that indicated there was more to it than that. Boyfriend trouble? With the monosyllabic Damon, who had spirited her off to Paris last November, when Banks himself should have been with her instead of hunting down Chief Constable Riddle’s wayward daughter? He didn’t want to make her talk about it; she would get to it in her own time, if she wanted to. He couldn’t make her talk, anyway; Tracy had always been a very private person and could be as stubborn as he was when it came to discussing her feelings. He bit into his Big Mac. Special sauce oozed down his chin. He wiped it off with a serviette. Tracy was already halfway through her burger, and the chips were disappearing quickly, too.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch very often lately,” Banks said. “I’ve been very busy.”

“Story of my life,” said Tracy.

“I suppose so.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I’m only teasing, Dad. I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

“You’ve got plenty, but it’s nice of you not to say so. Anyway, apart from Damon, how are you?”

“I’m fine. Studying hard. Some people say second year’s harder than finals.”

“Any plans for the summer?”

“I might go to France again. Charlotte’s parents have a cottage in the Dordogne but they’re going to be in America and they said she can take a couple of friends down if she wants.”

“Lucky you.”

Tracy finished her Big Mac and sipped some Coke through her straw, looking closely at Banks. “You look tired, Dad,” she said.

“I suppose I am.”

“Your job?”

“Yes. It’s a lot of responsibility. Keeps me awake at night. I’m not at all certain I’m cut out for it.”

“I’m sure you’re just wonderful.”

“Such faith. But I don’t know. I’ve never run such a big investigation before, and I’m not sure I ever want to again.”

“But you’ve caught him,” Tracy said. “The Chameleon killer.”

“Looks that way.”

“Congratulations. I knew you would.”

“I didn’t do anything. The whole thing was a series of accidents.”

“Well… the result’s the same, isn’t it?”

“True.”

“Look, Dad, I know why you haven’t been in touch. You’ve been busy, yes, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Banks pushed his half-eaten burger aside and worked on the chips. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You probably held yourself personally responsible for those girls’ abductions, the way you always do, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I’ll bet you thought that if you relaxed your vigilance for just one single moment he’d get someone else, another young woman just like me, didn’t you?”

Banks applauded his daughter’s perception. And she did have blond hair. “Well, there may be a grain of truth in that,” he said. “Just a tiny grain.”

“Was it really horrible down there?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Not at lunch. Not with you.”

“I suppose you think I’m being nosy for sensation like a newspaper reporter, but I worry about you. You’re not made of stone, you know. You let these things get to you.”

“For a daughter,” said Banks, “you do a pretty good impersonation of a nagging wife.” Immediately the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. It brought the specter of Sandra between them, again. Tracy, like Brian, had struggled not to take sides in the breakup, but whereas Brian had taken an immediate dislike to Sean, Sandra’s new companion, Tracy got along with him quite well and that hurt Banks, though he would never tell her.

“Have you talked to Mum lately?” Tracy asked, ignoring his criticism.

“You know I haven’t.”

Tracy sipped some more Coke, frowned like her mother and stared out of the window.

“Why?” Banks asked, sensing a change in the atmosphere. “Is there something I should know?”

“I was down there at Easter.”

“I know you were. Did she say something about me?” Banks knew he had been dragging his feet over the divorce. The whole thing had just seemed too hurried to him, and he wasn’t inclined to hurry, seeing no reason. So Sandra wanted to marry Sean, make it legal. Big deal. Let them wait.

“It’s not that,” Tracy said.

“What, then?”

“You really don’t know?”

“I’d say if I did.”

“Oh, shit.” Tracy bit her lip. “I wish I’d never got into this. Why do I have to be the one?”

“Because you started it. And don’t swear. Now, give.”

Tracy looked down at her empty chip carton and sighed. “All right. She told me not to say anything to you yet, but you’ll find out eventually. Remember, you asked for it.”

“Tracy!”

“Okay. Okay. Mum’s pregnant. That’s what it’s all about. She’s three months pregnant. She’s having Sean’s baby.”

Not long after Banks had left Lucy Payne’s room, Annie Cabbot strode down the corridors of the hospital to her appointment with Dr. Mogabe. She hadn’t been at all satisfied with PC Taylor’s statement and needed to check out the medical angle as far as it was possible to do so. Of course, Payne wasn’t dead, so there would be no postmortem, at least not yet. If he had done what it very much seemed that he had, then Annie thought it might not be such a bad idea to carry out a postmortem on him while he was still alive.

“Come in,” called Dr. Mogabe.

Annie went in. The office was small and functional, with a couple of bookcases full of medical texts, a filing cabinet whose top drawer wouldn’t shut, and the inevitable computer on the desk, a laptop. Various medical degrees and honors hung on the cream-painted walls, and a pewter-framed photograph stood on the desk facing the doctor. A family picture, Annie guessed. There was no skull beside it, though; nor was there a skeleton standing in the corner.

Dr. Mogabe was smaller than Annie had imagined, and his voice was higher in pitch. His skin was a shiny purple-black and his short curly hair gray. He also had small hands, but the fingers were long and tapered; a brain surgeon’s fingers, Annie thought, though she had nothing for comparison, and the thought of them poking their way through the gray matter made her stomach lurch. Pianist’s fingers, she decided. Much easier to live with. Or artist’s fingers, like her father’s.

He leaned forward and linked his hands on the desk. “I’m glad you’re here, Detective Inspector Cabbot,” he said, with a voice straight out of Oxford. “Indeed, if the police hadn’t seen fit to call, I would have felt obliged to bring them in myself. Mr. Payne was most brutally beaten.”

“Always willing to be of service,” said Annie. “What can you tell me about the patient? In layman’s terms, if you please.”

Dr. Mogabe inclined his head slightly. “Of course,” he said, as if he already knew the elite, technical mumbo jumbo of his profession would be wasted on an ignorant copper such as Annie. “Mr. Payne was admitted with serious head wounds, resulting in brain damage. He also had a broken ulna. So far, we have operated on him twice. Once to relieve a subdural hematoma. That’s-”

“I know what a hematoma is,” said Annie.

“Very well. The second to remove skull fragments from the brain. I could be more specific, if you wish?”

“Go ahead.”

Dr. Mogabe stood up and started walking back and forth behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back, as if he were delivering a lecture. When he came to name the various parts, he pointed to them on his own skull as he paced. “The human brain is essentially made up of the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The cerebrum is uppermost, divided into two hemispheres by a deep groove at the top, giving what you have probably heard called right brain and left brain. Do you follow?”

“I think so.”

“Prominent grooves also divide each hemisphere into lobes. The frontal lobe is the largest. There are also parietal, temporal and occipital lobes. The cerebellum is at the base of the skull, behind the brain stem.”

When Dr. Mogabe had finished, he sat down again, looking very pleased with himself.

“How many blows were there?” Annie asked.

“It’s difficult to be specific at this stage,” said Dr. Mogabe. “I was concerned merely with saving the man’s life, you understand, not with conducting an autopsy, but at an estimate I’d say two blows to the left temple, perhaps three. They caused the most damage to begin with, including the hematoma and skull fragments. There is also evidence of one or two blows to the top of the cranium, denting the skull.”

“The top of his head?”

“The cranium is that part of the head which isn’t the face, yes.”

“Hard blows? As if someone hit directly down on it?”

“Possibly. But I can’t be a judge of that. They would have been incapacitating, but not life-threatening. The top of the cranium is hard, and though the skull there was dented and fractured, as I said, the bone didn’t splinter.”

Annie made some notes.

“Those weren’t the most damaging injuries, though,” Dr. Mogabe added.

“Oh?”

“No, the most serious injury was caused by one or more blows to the back of the head, the brain-stem area. You see, that contains the medulla oblongata, which is the heart, blood vessel and breathing center of the brain. Any serious injury to it can be fatal.”

“Yet Mr. Payne is still alive.”

“Barely.”

“Is there a possibility of permanent brain damage?”

“There already is permanent brain damage. If Mr. Payne recovers, he may well spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair in need of twenty-four-hour-a-day care. The only good thing is that he probably won’t be aware of that fact.”

“This injury to the medulla? Could it have occurred as Mr. Payne fell back against the wall?”

Dr. Mogabe rubbed his chin. “Again, it’s not my place to do the police’s job, or the pathologist’s, Detective Inspector. Suffice it to say that in my opinion these wounds were caused by the same blunt instrument as the others. Make of that what you will.” He leaned forward. “In this simplest layman’s terms, this man received a most vicious beating about the head, Detective Inspector. Most vicious. I hope you believe, as I do, that the perpetrator should be brought to justice.”

Shit, thought Annie, putting her notebook away. “Of course, Doctor,” she said, heading for the door. “You will keep me informed, won’t you?”

“You can count on it.”

Annie looked at her watch. Time to head back to Eastvale and prepare her daily report for Detective Superintendent Chambers.

After his lunch with Tracy, Banks wandered around Leeds city center in a daze thinking of the news she had given him. The matter of Sandra’s pregnancy had hit him harder than he would have expected after so long apart, he realized as he stood and gazed in Curry’s window on Briggate, hardly taking in the display of computers, camcorders and stereo systems. He had last seen her in London the previous November, when he was down there searching for Chief Constable Riddle’s runaway daughter, Emily. Looking back, he felt foolish for the way he had approached that meeting, full of confidence that because he had applied for a job with the National Crime Squad that would take him back to live in London, Sandra would see the error of her ways, dump the temporary Sean and run back into Banks’s arms.

Wrong.

Instead she had told Banks that she wanted a divorce because she and Sean wanted to get married, and that cathartic event, he thought, had flushed Sandra out of his system forever, along with any thoughts of moving to the NCS.

Until Tracy told him about the pregnancy.

Banks hadn’t thought, hadn’t suspected for a moment, that they wanted to get married because they wanted to have a baby. What on earth did Sandra think she was playing at? The idea of a half brother or sister for Brian and Tracy, twenty years younger, seemed unreal to Banks. And the thought of Sean, whom he had never met, being the father seemed even more absurd. He tried to imagine their conversations leading up to the decision, the lovemaking, the maternal desire rekindled in Sandra after so many years, and even the shadowiest of imaginings made him feel sick. He didn’t know her, this woman in her early forties who wanted a baby with a boyfriend she had hardly been with for five minutes, and that also made Banks feel sad.

Banks was in Borders looking at the colorful display of bestsellers, and he didn’t even remember walking in the shop, when his mobile rang. He went outside and ducked into the Victoria Quarter before answering, leaning near the entrance across from the Harvey Nichols café. It was Stefan.

“Alan, thought you’d like to know ASAP, we’ve identified the three bodies in the cellar. Got lucky with the dentists. We’ll still run the DNA, though, cross-check with the parents.”

“That’s great,” said Banks, snapping back from his gloomy thoughts of Sandra and Sean. “And?”

“Melissa Horrocks, Samantha Foster and Kelly Matthews.”

“What?”

“I said-”

“I know. I heard what you said. I just…” People were walking by with their shopping and Banks didn’t want to be overheard. To be truthful, he also still felt like a bit of a dickhead talking on his mobile in public, though from what he saw around him, nobody else did. He had even once witnessed a father sitting in a Helmthorpe café phone his daughter in the playground across the road when it was time to go home, and curse because the kid had switched her mobile off so he had to walk across the road and shout to her instead. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s the sequence,” Banks said. “It’s all wrong.” He lowered his voice and hoped that Stefan could still hear him. “Working backward: Kimberley Myers, Melissa Horrocks, Leanne Wray, Samantha Foster, Kelly Matthews. One of the three should be Leanne Wray. Why isn’t she there?”

A little girl holding her mother’s hand gave Banks a curious look as they passed him by in the arcade. Banks switched off his mobile and headed toward Millgarth.

Jenny Fuller was surprised to find Banks ringing her doorbell that evening. It was a long time since he had visited her at home. They had met many times, for coffee or drinks, even lunch or dinner, but rarely had he come here. Jenny had often wondered whether this was anything to do with that clumsy attempt at seduction the first time they had worked together.

“Come in,” she said, and Banks followed her through the narrow hall into the high-ceilinged living room. She had redecorated and rearranged the furniture since his last visit and noticed him glancing around in that policeman’s way of his, checking it out. Well, the expensive stereo was the same, and the sofa, she thought, smiling to herself, was the very same one where she had tried to seduce him.

She had bought a small television and video when she got back from America, having picked up the habit of watching there, but apart from the wallpaper and carpeting, nothing much else had changed. She noticed his gaze settle on the Emily Carr print over the fireplace, a huge dark, steep mountain dominating a village in the foreground. Jenny had fallen in love with Emily Carr’s work when she was doing postgraduate work in Vancouver and had bought that print to bring back as a reminder of her three years there. Happy years, for the most part.

“Drink?” she asked.

“Whatever you’re pouring.”

“Knew I could count on you. I’m sorry I don’t have any Laphroaig. Is red wine okay?”

“Fine.”

Jenny went to pour the wine and noticed Banks walk over to the window. The Green looked peaceful enough in the golden evening sunlight – long shadows, dark green leaves, people walking their dogs, kids holding hands. Perhaps he was remembering the second time he visited her, Jenny thought with a shudder as she poured the Sainsbury’s Côtes du Rhône.

A drugged-out kid called Mick Webster had held her hostage with a handgun and Banks had managed to defuse the situation. The kid’s mood swings had been extreme, and the whole thing had been touch and go for a while. Jenny had been terrified. Ever since that day, she had been unable to listen to Tosca, which had been playing in the background at the time. When she had poured the wine, she shook off the bad memory, put a CD of Mozart string quartets on and carried the glasses over to the sofa.

“Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Banks looked as tired as Jenny had ever seen him. His skin was pale and even his normally sharp and lean features seemed to be sagging on the bone the way his suit sagged on his frame, and his eyes seemed more deeply set than usual, duller, lacking their usual sparkle. Still, she told herself, the poor sod probably hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he was put in charge of the task force. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, smooth away the cares, but she didn’t dare risk rejection again.

“So? To what do I owe the honor?” Jenny said. “I’m assuming it’s not just my irresistible company that’s brought you here?”

Banks smiled. It made him look a little better, she thought. A little. “I’d like to say it was,” he answered, “but I’d be a liar if I did.”

“And God forbid you should ever be a liar, Alan Banks. Such an honorable man. But couldn’t you be a bit less honorable sometimes? The rest of us human beings, well, we can’t help the occasional untruth, but you, no, you can’t even lie to give a girl a compliment.”

“Jenny, I just couldn’t stay away. Some inner force drove me to your house, compelled me to seek you out. I just knew I had to come-”

Jenny laughed and waved him down. “All right, all right. That’s enough. Honorable is much better.” She ran her hand through her hair. “How’s Sandra?”

“Sandra’s pregnant.”

Jenny shook her head as if she had been slapped. “She’s what?”

“She’s pregnant. I’m sorry to state it so abruptly, but I can’t think of a better way.”

“That’s all right. I’m just a bit gob-smacked.”

“You and me both.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“You sound like a psychologist.”

“I am a psychologist.”

“I know. But you don’t have to sound like one. How do I feel about it? I don’t know yet. When you get right down to it, it’s none of my business, is it? I let go the night she asked for a divorce so she could marry Sean.”

“Is that why…?”

“Yes. They want to get married, make the kid legal.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. Tracy told me. Sandra and I… well, we don’t communicate much anymore.”

“That’s sad, Alan.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s still a lot of anger and bitterness?”

“Funnily enough, there isn’t. Oh, I know I might sound a bit upset, but it was the shock, that’s all. I mean, there was a lot of anger, but it was sort of a revelation when she asked for the divorce. A release. I knew then that it was really over and that I should just get on with my life.”

“And?”

“And I have done, for the most part.”

“But residual feelings surprise you sometimes? Creep up behind you and hit you on the back of your head?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Welcome to the human race, Alan. You ought to know by now that you don’t stop having feelings for someone just because you split up.”

“It was all new to me. She was the only woman I’d been with for any length of time. The only one I wanted. Now I know what it feels like. Naturally, I wish them all the best.”

“Meow. There you go again.”

Banks laughed. “No. Really, I do.”

Jenny sensed that there was something he wasn’t telling her, but she also knew that he guarded his feelings when he wanted to and she would get nowhere if she pushed him. Best move on to the business at hand, she thought. And if he wants to say anything more about Sandra, he’ll say it in his own time. “That wasn’t why you came to see me, either, was it?”

“Not really. Maybe partly. But I do want to talk to you about the case.”

“Any new developments?”

“Just one.” Banks told her about the identification of the three bodies and how he found it puzzling.

“Curious,” Jenny agreed. “I would have expected some sort of sequence, too. They’re still digging outside?”

“Oh, yes. They’ll be out there for a while.”

“There wasn’t much room in that little cellar.”

“Just enough for about three, true,” said Banks, “but that still doesn’t explain why it isn’t the most recent three. Anyway, I’d just like to go over some stuff with you. Remember when you suggested, quite early on, that the killer might have had an accomplice?”

“It was only a remote possibility. Despite the inordinate amounts of publicity your Wests and Bradys and Hindleys get, the killer couple is still a rare phenomenon. I assume you’re thinking of Lucy Payne?”

Banks sipped some wine. “I talked to her at the hospital. She… well, she said she didn’t remember much about what happened.”

“Not surprising,” said Jenny. “Retrograde amnesia.”

“That’s what Dr. Landsberg said. It’s not that I don’t believe in it – I’ve come across it before – it’s just so damn…”

“Convenient?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Jenny, I just couldn’t get over the feeling that she was waiting, calculating, stalling in some way.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Waiting to see which way the wind was going to blow, as if she can’t work out what to say until she knows what’s happening with Terry. And it would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

“What would?”

“The way the girls were taken. A girl walking home on her own would be most unlikely to stop and give directions, say, to a male driver, but she might stop if a woman called her over.”

“And the man?”

“Crouched down in the backseat with the chloroform ready? Jumps out the back door and drags her in? I don’t know the details. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it makes sense. Have you got any other evidence of her complicity?”

“None. But it’s early days yet. The SOCOs are still going through the house and the lab boys are working on the clothes she was wearing when she was assaulted. Even that might come to nothing if she says she went down in the cellar, saw what her husband had done and ran away screaming. That’s what I mean about her waiting to see which way the wind blows. If Terence Payne dies, Lucy’s home free. If he lives, his memory could be damaged irretrievably. He is very badly hurt. And even if he recovers, he might decide to protect her, gloss over what part she played.”

“If she played a part. She certainly couldn’t rely on his memory being damaged, or his dying.”

“That’s true. But it might have given her the perfect opportunity to cover up her own involvement, if there was any. You had a look around the house, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What was your impression?”

Jenny sipped some wine and thought about it: the magazine perfect decor, the little knickknacks, the obsessive cleanliness. “I suppose you’re thinking of the videos and books?” she said.

“Partly. There looked to be some pretty raunchy stuff, especially in the bedroom.”

“So they’re into porn and kinky sex. So what?” She raised her eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I’ve got a couple of soft porn videos in my bedroom. I don’t mind a little kinkiness, now and then. Oh, don’t blush, Alan. I’m not trying to seduce you. I’m simply pointing out that a few videos featuring three-way sex and a bit of mild, consensual S and M don’t necessarily make a killer.”

“I know that.”

“And while it is true,” Jenny went on, “that, statistically, most sex killers are into pornography of an extreme kind, it’s false logic to argue the opposite.”

“I know that, too,” said Banks. “What about the occult connection? I wondered about the candles and incense in the cellar.”

“Could be just for atmosphere.”

“But there was a sort of ritual element.”

“Possibly.”

“I was even wondering if there could be some connection there with the fourth victim, Melissa Horrocks. She was into that satanic rock music stuff. You know, Marilyn Manson and the rest.”

“Or maybe Payne just has an extreme sense of irony in his choice of victims. But look, Alan, even if Lucy did get off on the kinky stuff and Satanism, it’s hardly evidence of anything else, is it?”

“I’m not asking for court evidence. At the moment I’ll take anything I can get.”

Jenny laughed. “Clutching at straws again?”

“Maybe so. Ken Blackstone reckons Payne might also be the Seacroft Rapist.”

“Seacroft Rapist?”

“Two years ago, between May and August. You were in America. A man raped six women in Seacroft. Never caught. It turns out Payne was living there, single, at the time. He met Lucy that July, and they moved to The Hill around the beginning of September, when he started teaching at Silverhill. The rapes stopped.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a serial killer was a rapist first.”

“Indeed not. Anyway, they’re working on DNA.”

“Have a smoke if you want,” Jenny said. “I can see you’re getting all twitchy.”

“Am I? I will, then, if you don’t mind.”

Jenny brought him an ashtray she kept in the sideboard for the occasional visitor who smoked. Though a non-smoker herself, she wasn’t as fanatical about not allowing any smoking in her house, as some of her friends were. In fact, her time in California had made her hate the nico-Nazis even more than the smokers.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Your job,” said Banks, leaning forward. “And the way I see it now is that we’ve probably got enough to convict Terry Payne ten times over, if he survives. It’s Lucy I’m interested in, and time’s running out.”

“What do you mean?”

Banks drew on his cigarette before answering. “As long as she stays in hospital, we’re fine, but as soon as she’s released we can only hold her for twenty-four hours. Oh, we can get extensions, maybe in an extreme case like this up to ninety-six hours, but we’d better damn well have something solid to go on if we’re going to do that, or she walks.”

“I still think it’s more than possible that she had nothing to do with the killings. Something woke her up that night and her husband wasn’t there, so she looked around the house for him, saw the lights in the cellar, went down and saw-”

“But why hadn’t she noticed before, Jenny? Why hadn’t she been down there before?”

“She was afraid to. It sounds as if she’s terrified of her husband. Look at what happened to her when she did go down.”

“I know that. But Kimberley Myers was the fifth victim, for God’s sake. The fifth. Why did it take Lucy so long to find out? Why did she wake up and go exploring only this time? She said she never went down in the cellar, that she didn’t dare. What was so different about this time?”

“Perhaps she didn’t want to know before. But, don’t forget, the way it looks is that Payne was escalating, unraveling. I’d guess he was fast becoming highly unstable. Perhaps this time even she couldn’t look away.”

Jenny watched Banks take a contemplative drag on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. “You think so?” he said.

“It’s possible, isn’t it? Earlier, if her husband was behaving strangely, she might have suspected that he had some sort of horrible secret vice, and she wanted to pretend it wasn’t there, the way most of us do with bad things.”

“Sweep it under the carpet?”

“Or play the ostrich. Bury her head in the sand. Yes. Why not?”

“So we’re both agreed that there are any number of possibilities to explain what happened and that Lucy Payne might be innocent?”

“Where are you going with this, Alan?”

“I want you to dig deep into Lucy Payne’s background. I want you to find out all you can about her. I want-”

“But-”

“No, let me finish, Jenny. I want you to get to know her inside out, her background, her childhood, her family, her fantasies, her hopes, her fears.”

“Slow down, Alan. What’s the point of all this?”

“You might come across something that implicates her.”

“Or absolves her?”

Banks held his hands out, palms open. “If that’s what you find, fine. I’m not asking you to make anything up. Just dig.”

“Even if I do, I might not come up with anything useful at all.”

“Doesn’t matter. At least we’ll have tried.”

“Isn’t this a police job?”

Banks stubbed out his cigarette. “Not really. I’m after an evaluation here, an in-depth psychological profile of Lucy Payne. Of course, we’ll check out any leads you might stumble across. I don’t expect you to play detective.”

“Well, I’m grateful for that.”

“Think about it, Jenny. If she’s guilty, she didn’t just start helping her husband abduct and kill young girls out of the blue on New Year’s Eve. There has to be some pathology, some background of psychological disturbance, some abnormal pattern of behavior, doesn’t there?”

“There usually is. But even if I find out she was a bed wetter, liked to start fires and pulled the wings off flies, it still won’t give you anything you can use against her in court.”

“It will if someone was hurt in the fire. It will if you find out about any other mysterious events in her life that we can investigate. That’s all I’m asking, Jenny. That you make a start on the psychopathology of Lucy Payne, and if you turn up anything we should investigate further, you let us know and we do it.”

“And if I turn up nothing?”

“Then we go nowhere. But we’re already nowhere.”

Jenny sipped some more wine and thought for a moment. Alan seemed so intense about it that she was feeling browbeaten, and she didn’t want to give in just because of that. But she was intrigued by his request; she couldn’t deny that the enigma of Lucy Payne interested her both professionally and as a woman. She had never had the chance to probe the psychology of a possible serial killer up close before, and Banks was right that if Lucy Payne was complicit in her husband’s acts, then she hadn’t just come from nowhere. If Jenny dug deeply enough, there was a chance that she might find something in Lucy’s past. After that… well, Banks had said that was the police’s job, and he was right about that, too.

She topped up their wineglasses. “What if I agree?” she asked. “Where do I start?”

“Right here,” said Banks, digging out his notebook. “There’s a friend from the NatWest branch where Lucy Payne worked. One of our teams went and talked to the employees, and there’s only one of them who knows her well. Name’s Pat Mitchell. Then there’s Clive and Hilary Liversedge. Lucy’s parents. They live out Hull way.”

“Do they know?”

“Of course they know. What do you think we are?”

Jenny raised a fine, plucked eyebrow.

“They know.”

“How did they react?”

“Upset, of course. Stunned, even. But according to the DC who interviewed them, they weren’t much help. They hadn’t been in close touch with Lucy since she married Terry.”

“Have they been to see her in hospital?”

“No. Seems the mother’s too ill to travel and the father’s a reluctant caregiver.”

“What about his parents? Terry’s.”

“As far as we’ve been able to work out,” Banks said, “his mother’s in a mental asylum – has been for fifteen years or so.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Schizophrenia.”

“And the father?”

“Died two years ago.”

“What of?”

“Massive stroke. He was a butcher in Halifax, had a record for minor sex offenses – exposing himself, peeping, that sort of thing. Sounds a pretty classic background for someone like Terry Payne, wouldn’t you say?”

“If there is such a thing.”

“The miracle is that Terry managed to become a teacher.”

Jenny laughed. “Oh, they’ll let anyone in the classroom these days. Besides, that’s not the miracle.”

“What is?”

“That he managed to hold on to the job for so long. And that he was married. Usually serial sex offenders such as Terence Payne find it hard to hold down a job and maintain a relationship. Our man did both.”

“Is that significant?”

“It’s intriguing. If I’d been pushed for a profile a month or so ago I’d have said you were looking for a man between twenty and thirty, most likely living alone and working at some sort of menial job, or a succession of such jobs. Just shows how wrong one can be, doesn’t it?”

“Will you do it?”

Jenny toyed with the stem of her glass. The Mozart ended and left only the memory of music. A car passed by and a dog barked on The Green. She had the time to do as Banks asked. She had a lecture to give on Friday morning, but it was one she had given a hundred times, so she didn’t need to prepare. Then she had nothing until a string of tutorials on Monday. That should give her plenty of time. “As I said, it’s intriguing. I’ll need to talk to Lucy herself.”

“That can be arranged. You are our official consultant psychologist, after all.”

“Easy for you to say that now you need me.”

“I’ve known it all along. Don’t let a few narrow-minded-”

“All right,” said Jenny. “You’ve made your point. I can take being laughed at behind my back by a bunch of thick plods. I’m a big girl. When can I talk to her?”

“Best do it as soon as possible, while she’s still only a witness. Believe it or not, but defense lawyers have been known to claim that psychologists have tricked suspects into incriminating themselves. How about tomorrow morning? I’ve got to be down at the hospital for the next postmortem at eleven, anyway.”

“Lucky you. Okay.”

“I’ll give you a lift if you like.”

“No. I’ll go straight over to talk to the parents after I’ve talked to Lucy and her friend. I’ll need my car. Meet you there?”

“Ten o’clock, then?”

“Fine.”

Banks told her how to find Lucy’s room. “And I’ll let the parents know you’re coming.” Banks gave her the details. “You’ll do it, then? What I’m asking?”

“Doesn’t look as if I have much choice, does it?”

Banks stood up, leaned forward and kissed her swiftly on the cheek. Even though she could smell the wine and smoke on his breath, her heart jumped and she wished his lips had lingered a little longer, moved a little closer to her own. “Hey! Any more of that,” she said, “and I’ll have you up on sexual harassment charges.”