Aftermath

9

Pat Mitchell took a break when Jenny turned up at the bank, and they walked to the café in the shopping center over the road, where they sipped rather weak milky tea as they talked. Pat was a vivacious brunette with damp brown eyes and a big engagement ring. All she could do at first was shake her head and repeat, “I still can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this is happening.”

Jenny was no stranger to denial, either as a psychologist or as a woman, so she made sympathetic noises and gave Pat the time to compose herself. Once in a while, someone from one of the other tables would give them a puzzled look, as if he or she recognized them but couldn’t quite place them, but for the most part the café was empty and they were able to talk undisturbed.

“How well do you know Lucy?” Jenny asked when Pat had stopped crying.

“We’re pretty close. I mean, I’ve known her for about four years, ever since she started here at the bank. She had a little flat then, just off Tong Road. We’re about the same age. How is she? Have you seen her?” All the time she talked, Pat’s big brown eyes continued to glisten on the brink of tears.

“I saw her this morning,” Jenny answered. “She’s doing well. Healing nicely.” Physically, anyway. “What was she like when you first met?”

Pat smiled at the memory. “She was fun, a laugh. She liked a lark.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. She just wanted to enjoy herself, have a good time.”

“What was her idea of a good time?”

“Clubbing, going to pubs, parties, dancing, chatting up lads.”

“Just chatting them up?”

“Lucy was… well, she was just funny when it came to lads back then. I mean, most of them seemed to bore her. She’d go out with them a couple of times and then she’d chuck them.”

“Why do you think that was?”

Pat swirled the grayish tea in her cup and looked into it as if she were seeking her fortune in the leaves. “I don’t know. It was as if she was waiting for someone.”

“Mr. Right?”

Pat laughed. “Something like that.” Jenny got the impression that her laugh would have been a lot more ready and frequent had it not been for the circumstances.

“Did she ever tell you what her idea of Mr. Right was?”

“No. Just that none of the lads around here seemed to satisfy her in any way. She thought they were all stupid and all they had on their minds was football and sex. In that order.”

Jenny had met plenty of lads like that. “What was she after? A rich man? An exciting one? A dangerous one?”

“She wasn’t interested in money particularly. Dangerous? I don’t know. Maybe. She liked to live on the edge. Back then, like. She could be quite over-the-top.”

Jenny made some notes. “How? In what way?”

“It’s nothing, really. I shouldn’t have spoken.”

“Go on. Tell me.”

Pat lowered her voice. “Look, you’re a psychiatrist, right?”

“Psychologist.”

“Whatever. Does that mean if I tell you something it goes no further? It stays between you and me and nobody can make you name your source? I mean, I wouldn’t want Lucy to think I’d been talking out of turn.”

While Jenny might have some valid defenses for not turning over her patients’ files without a court order, in this instance she was working for the police and couldn’t promise privacy. On the other hand, she needed to hear Pat’s story, and Lucy would probably never find out about it. Without resorting to an outright lie, she said, “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

Pat chewed on her lower lip and thought for a moment, then she leaned forward and gripped her teacup in both hands. “Well, once she wanted to go to some of those clubs in Chapeltown.”

“West Indian clubs?”

“Yes. I mean, most nice white girls wouldn’t go near places like that, but Lucy thought it would be exciting.”

“Did she go?”

“Yes, she went with Jasmine, a Jamaican girl from the Boar Lane branch. Of course, nothing happened. I think she might have tried some drugs, though.”

“Why? What did she say?”

“She just hinted and did that, you know, that knowing sort of thing with her eyes, like she’d been there and the rest of us had only seen it on television. She can be quite unnerving like that, can Lucy.”

“Was there anything else?”

“Yes.” Once Pat was in full flow, it seemed there was no stopping her. “She once told me she’d acted as a prostitute.”

“She’d what?”

“It’s true.” Pat looked around to make sure no one was interested and lowered her voice even more. “It was over a couple of years ago, before Terry came on the scene. We’d talked about it in a pub one night when we saw one – you know, a prostitute – wondering what it would be like and all, doing it for money, just as a bit of a laugh, really. Lucy said she’d like to try it and find out and she’d let us know.”

“Did she?”

“Uh-huh. That’s what she told me. About a week later, she said the night before she’d put on some slutty clothes – fishnet tights, high heels, a black leather miniskirt and a low-cut blouse and she sat at the bar of one of those business hotels near the motorway. It didn’t take long, she said, before a man approached her.”

“Did she tell you what happened?”

“Not all the details. She knows when to hold back, does Lucy. For effect, like. But she said they talked, very business-like and polite and all that, and they came to some financial arrangement, then they went up to his room and… and they did it.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Not at first. I mean, it’s outrageous, isn’t it? But…”

“Eventually you did?”

“Well, like I said, Lucy’s always capable of surprising you, and she likes danger, excitement. I suppose it was when she showed me the money that tipped the balance.”

“She showed you?”

“Yes. Two hundred pounds.”

“She could have got it out of the bank.”

“She could, but… Anyway, that’s all I know about it.”

Jenny made some more notes. Pat tilted her head to see what she was writing. “It must be a fascinating job, yours,” she said.

“It has its moments.”

“Just like that woman who used to be on television. Prime Suspect.”

“I’m not a policewoman, Pat. Just a consultant psychologist.”

Pat wrinkled her nose. “Still, it’s an exciting life, isn’t it? Catching criminals and all that.”

Excitement wasn’t the first word that came to Jenny’s mind, but she decided to leave Pat to her illusions. Like most people’s, they wouldn’t do her any real harm. “What about after Lucy met Terry?”

“She changed. But then you do, don’t you? Otherwise what’s the point of getting married? If it doesn’t change you, I mean.”

“I see your point. How did she change?”

“She became a lot more reserved. Stopped home more. Terry’s a bit of a homebody, so there was no more clubbing. He’s the jealous type, too, is Terry, if you know what I mean, so she had to watch herself chatting up the lads. Not that she did that after they were married. It was Terry, Terry, Terry all the way then.”

“Were they in love?”

“I’d say. Dotty about each other. At least that’s what she said, and she seemed happy. Mostly.”

“Let’s back up a bit. Were you there when they met?”

“She says so, but I can’t for the life of me remember them meeting.”

“When was it?”

“Nearly two years ago. July. A warm, muggy night. We were at a girls’ night out at a pub in Seacroft. One of those really big places with lots of rooms and dancing.”

“How do you remember it?”

“I remember Lucy leaving alone. She said she hadn’t enough money for a taxi and she didn’t want to miss her bus. They don’t run late. I’d had a few drinks, but I remember because I said something about her being careful. The Seacroft Rapist was active around then.”

“What did she say?”

“She just gave me that look and left.”

“Did you see Terry there that night? Did you see him chatting her up?”

“I think I saw him there, by himself at the bar, but I don’t remember seeing them talking.”

“What did Lucy say later?”

“That she’d talked to him when she went to the bar for drinks once and quite liked the look of him, then they met again on her way out and went to some other pub together. I can’t remember. I was definitely a bit squiffy. Anyway, whatever happened, that was it. From then on it was a different Lucy. She didn’t have anywhere near enough time for her old friends.”

“Did you ever visit them? Go for dinner?”

“A couple of times, with my fiancé, Steve. We got engaged a year ago.” She held up her ring. The diamond caught the light and flashed. “We’re getting married in August. We’ve already booked the honeymoon. We’re going to Rhodes.”

“Did you get along with Terry okay?”

Pat gave a little shudder. “No. I don’t like him. Never did. Steve thought he was all right, but… That’s why we stopped going over, really. There’s just something about him… And Lucy, she was sort of like a zombie when he was around. Either that or she acted like she was on drugs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just a figure of speech. I mean, I know she wasn’t really on drugs, but just, you know, overexcited, talking too much, mind jumping all over the place.”

“Did you ever see any signs of abuse?”

“You mean did he hit her and stuff?”

“Yes.”

“No. Nothing. I never saw any bruises or anything like that.”

“Did Lucy seem to change in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Recently. Did she become more withdrawn, seem afraid of anything?”

Pat chewed on her the edge of her thumb for a moment before answering. “She changed a bit the past few months, now you come to mention it,” she said finally. “I can’t say exactly when it started, but she seemed more nervy, more distracted, as if she had a problem, a lot on her mind.”

“Did she confide in you?”

“No. We’d drifted apart quite a bit by then. Was he really beating her? I can’t understand it, can you, how a woman, especially a woman like Lucy, can let that happen?”

Jenny could, but there was no point trying to convince Pat. If Lucy sensed that would be her old friend’s attitude toward her problem, it was no surprise that she turned to a neighbor like Maggie Forrest, who at least showed empathy.

“Did Lucy ever talk about her past, her childhood?”

Pat looked at her watch. “No. All I know is that she’s from somewhere near Hull and it was a pretty dull life. She couldn’t wait to get away, and she didn’t keep in touch as much as she should, especially after Terry came on the scene. Look, I really have to get back now. I hope I’ve been of help.” She stood up.

Jenny stood and shook her hand. “Thanks. Yes, you’ve been very helpful.” As she watched Pat scurry back to the bank, Jenny looked at her watch, too. She had enough time to drive out to Hull and see what Lucy’s parents had to say.

It was several days since Banks had last stopped in at his Eastvale office, and the amount of accumulated paperwork was staggering, since he had temporarily inherited Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe’s workload. Consequently, when he did find time to drop by the station late that afternoon, driving straight back after his interview with Geoff Brighouse, his pigeonhole was stuffed with reports, budget revisions, memos, requests, telephone message slips, crime statistics and various circulars awaiting his signature. He decided to clear up some of the backlog of paperwork and take Annie Cabbot for a quick drink at the Queen’s Arms to discuss her progress in the Janet Taylor investigation, and maybe build a few bridges in the process.

After leaving a message for Annie to drop by his office at six o’clock, Banks closed the door behind him and dropped the pile of papers on his desk. He hadn’t even changed his Dalesman calendar from April to May, he noticed, flipping over from a photo of the stone bridge at Linton to the soaring lines of York Minster’s east window, pink and white may blossom blurred in the foreground.

It was Thursday, the eleventh of May. Hard to believe it was only three days since the gruesome discovery at number 35 The Hill. Already the tabloids were rubbing their hands with glee and calling the place “Dr. Terry’s House of Horrors” and, even worse, “The House of Payne.” They had somehow got hold of photographs of both Terry and Lucy Payne – the former cropped from a school class picture, by the look of it, and the latter from an “employee of the month” presentation to Lucy at the NatWest branch where she worked. Both photos were poor in quality, and you’d have to know who they were before you’d recognize either of them.

Banks turned on his computer and answered any E-mail he thought merited a response, then he picked away at the pile of papers. Not much, it seemed, had happened in his absence. The major preoccupation had been with a series of nasty post office robberies, in which one masked man terrorized staff and customers with a long knife and an ammonia spray. No one had been hurt yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be. There had been four such robberies in the Western Division over a month. DS Hatchley was out rounding up his ragbag assortment of informants. Apart from the robberies, perhaps the most serious crime on their hands was the theft of a tortoise that happened to be sleeping in a cardboard box nicked from someone’s garden, along with a Raleigh bicycle and a lawn mower.

Business as usual. And somehow Banks found an odd sort of comfort in these dull, predictable crimes after the horrors of the Paynes’ cellar.

He turned on his radio and recognized the slow movement from a late Schubert piano sonata. He felt a tight pain between his eyes and massaged the spot gently. When that didn’t work he swallowed a couple of Paracetamol he kept in his desk for emergencies such as this, washed them down with tepid coffee, then he pushed the mound of papers aside and let the music spill over him in gentle waves. The headaches were coming more frequently these days, along with the sleepless nights and a strange reluctance to go to work. It reminded him of the pattern he went through just before he left London for Yorkshire, when he was on the edge of burnout, and he wondered if he was getting in the same state again. He should probably see his doctor, he decided, when he had time.

The ringing telephone disturbed him, as it had so often before. Scowling, he picked up the offending instrument and growled, “Banks.”

“Stefan here. You asked me to keep you informed.”

Banks relaxed his tone. “Yes, Stefan. Any developments?” Banks could hear voices in the background. Millgarth, most likely. Or the Payne house.

“One piece of good news. They’ve lifted Payne’s prints from the machete used to kill PC Morrisey, and the lab reports both yellow plastic fibers from the rope in the scrapings taken from under Lucy Payne’s fingernails, along with traces of Kimberley Myers’s blood on the sleeve of her dressing gown.”

“Kimberley’s blood on Lucy Payne’s dressing gown?”

“Yes.”

“So she was down there,” Banks said.

“Looks like it. Mind you, she could explain away the fibers by saying she hung out the washing. They did use the same kind of clothes-line in the back garden. I’ve seen it.”

“But the blood?”

“Maybe more tricky,” said Stefan. “There wasn’t very much, but at least it proves that she was down there.”

“Thanks, Stefan. It’s a big help. What about Terence Payne?”

“The same. Blood and yellow fibers. Along with a fair quantity of PC Morrisey’s blood.”

“What about the bodies?”

“One more, skeletal, out in the garden. That makes all five.”

“Skeletal? How long would that take?”

“Depends on temperature and insect activity,” said Stefan.

“Could it have happened in just a month or so?”

“Could have, with the right conditions. It hasn’t been very warm this past month, though.”

“But is it possible?”

“It’s possible.”

Leanne Wray had disappeared on the thirty-first of March, which was slightly over a month ago, so there was at least some possibility that it was her remains.

“Anyway,” Stefan went on, “there’s plenty of garden left. They’re digging very slowly and carefully to avoid disturbing the bones. I’ve arranged for a botanist and an entomologist from the university to visit the scene tomorrow. They should be able to help us with time of death.”

“Did you find any clothing with the victims?”

“No. Nothing of a personal nature.”

“Get to work on identifying that body, Stefan, and let me know the minute you have anything, even if it’s negative.”

“Will do.”

Banks said good-bye to Stefan and hung up, then he walked over to his open window and sneaked a prohibited cigarette. It was a hot, muggy afternoon, with the sort of tension in the air that meant rain would probably come soon, perhaps even a thunderstorm. Office workers sniffed the air and reached for their umbrellas as they headed home. Shopkeepers closed up and wound back the awnings. Banks thought about Sandra again, how when she used to work at the community center down North Market Street they would often meet for a drink in the Queen’s Arms before heading home. Happy days. Or so they had seemed. And now she was pregnant with Sean’s baby.

The Schubert piano music played on, the serene and elegiac opening of the final, B-flat sonata. Banks’s headache began to subside a little. The one thing he remembered about Sandra’s pregnancies was that she hadn’t enjoyed them, hadn’t glowed with the joys of approaching motherhood. She had suffered extreme morning sickness, and though she didn’t drink or smoke much, she continued to do both because back then nobody made such a fuss about it. She also continued to go to galleries and plays and meet with friends, and complained when her condition made it difficult or impossible for her to do so.

While pregnant with Tracy, she had slipped on the ice and broken her leg in her seventh month and spent the rest of her confinement with a cast on. That more than anything had driven her crazy, unable to get out and about with her camera the way she loved to do, stuck in their poky little Kennington flat watching gray day follow gray day all that winter while Banks was working all hours, hardly ever home. Well, perhaps Sean would be around for her more often. Lord only knew, perhaps if Banks had been…

But he didn’t get to follow that thought to the particular circle of hell he was sure must be reserved for neglectful husbands and fathers. Annie Cabbot tapped at his door and popped her head around, giving him a temporary escape from the guilt and self-recrimination that seemed to be so much his lot these days, no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing.

“You did say six o’clock, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Sorry, Annie. Miles away.” Banks picked up his jacket, checking the pockets for wallet and cigarettes, then cast a backward glance at the pile of untouched paperwork on his desk. To hell with it. If they expected him to do two, three jobs at once, then they could wait for their bloody paperwork.

As Jenny drove through a shower and looked out at the ugly forest of cranes that rose up from Goole docks, she wondered for the umpteenth time what on earth had induced her to return to England. To Yorkshire. It certainly wasn’t family ties. Jenny was an only child and her parents were retired academics living in Sussex. Both her mother and father had been far too wrapped up in their work – he as a historian, she as a physicist – and Jenny had spent more of her childhood with a succession of nannies and au pairs than with her parents. Given their natural academic detachment, too, Jenny often felt that she had been far more of an experiment than a daughter.

It didn’t bother her – after all, she didn’t know any different – and it was very much the way she had lived her life, too: as an experiment. Sometimes she looked back and it all seemed so shallow and self-centered that she felt herself panic; other times it seemed just fine.

She would turn forty that coming December, was still single – had never, in fact, been married – and while a bit shop-soiled, battered and bruised, she was far from down and out for the count. She still had her looks and her figure, though she needed more and more magic potions for the former and had to work harder and harder at the university gym to keep those excess pounds from creeping on, given her taste for good food and wine. She also had a good job, a growing reputation as an offender profiler, publications to her credit.

So why did she sometimes feel so empty? Why did she always feel she was in a hurry to get somewhere she never arrived at? Even now, with the rain lashing against her windscreen, the wipers going as fast as they could go, she was doing ninety kilometers per hour. She slowed down to eighty, but her speed soon started creeping up again, along with the feeling that she was late for something, always late for something.

The shower ended. Elgar’s Enigma Variations was playing on Classic FM. To the north, a power station with its huge corset-shaped cooling towers squatted against the horizon, the steam it spewed almost indistinguishable from the low cloud. She was nearing the end of the motorway now. The east-bound M62 was like so many things in life; it left you just short of your destination.

Well, she told herself, she had come back to Yorkshire because she was running away from a bad relationship with Randy. Story of her life. She had a nice condo in West Hollywood, rented at a most generous rate by a writer who had made enough money to buy a place way up in Laurel Canyon, and she was within walking distance of a supermarket and the restaurants and clubs on Santa Monica Boulevard. She had her teaching and research at UCLA, and she had Randy. But Randy had a habit of sleeping with pretty twenty-one-year-old graduate students.

After a minor breakdown, Jenny had called it a day and come running back to Eastvale. Perhaps that explained why she was always in a hurry, she thought – desperate to get home, wherever that was, desperate to get away from one bad relationship and right into the next one. It was a theory, at any rate. And then, of course, Alan was in Eastvale, too. If he was part of the reason why she had stayed away, could he also be part of the reason why she had come back? She didn’t want to dwell on that.

The M62 turned into the A63, and soon Jenny caught a glimpse of the Humber Bridge ahead to her right, stretching out majestically over the broad estuary into the mists and fens of Lincolnshire and Little Holland. Suddenly, a few shafts of sunlight pierced the ragged cloud cover as the “Nimrod” variation reached its rousing climax. A “Yorkshire moment.” She remembered the “L.A. moments” Randy was so fond of pointing out in their early days when they drove and drove and drove around the huge, sprawling city: a palm tree silhouetted against a blood-orange sky; a big, bright full moon low over the HOLLYWOOD sign.

As soon as she could, Jenny pulled into a lay-by and studied her map. The clouds were dispersing now, allowing even more sunlight through, but the roads were still swamped with puddles and the cars and lorries swished up sheets of water as they sped by her.

Lucy’s parents lived off the A164 to Beverley, so she didn’t have to drive through Hull city center. She pressed on through the straggling western suburbs and soon found the residential area she was looking for. Clive and Hilary Liversedge’s house was a nicely maintained bay-window semi in a quiet crescent of similar houses. Not much of a place for a young girl to grow up, Jenny thought. Her own parents had moved often throughout her childhood, and though she had been born in Durham, she had at various times lived in Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Norwich, all university towns, and all full of randy young men. She had never been stuck in a dull suburban backwater like this.

A small plump man with a soft gray mustache answered the door. He was wearing a green cardigan, unbuttoned, and dark brown trousers which hugged the underside of his rounded gut. A belt wouldn’t be much good with a shape like that, Jenny thought, noticing the braces that held the trousers up.

“Clive Liversedge?”

“Come in, love,” he said. “You must be Dr. Fuller.”

“That’s me.” Jenny followed him into the cramped hall, from which a glass-paneled door led to a tidy living room with a red velour three-piece suite, an electric fire with fake coals and striped wallpaper. Somehow, it wasn’t the kind of place Jenny had imagined Lucy Payne growing up in; she couldn’t get any sense of Lucy living in this environment at all.

She could see what Banks meant about the invalid mother. Pale skin and raccoon eyes, Hilary Liversedge reclined on the sofa, a wool blanket covering her lower half. Her arms were thin and the skin looked puckered and loose. She didn’t move when Jenny entered, but her eyes looked lively and attentive enough, despite the yellowish cast of the sclera. Jenny didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she put it down to one of those vague chronic illnesses that certain types of people luxuriate in toward the ends of their lives.

“How is she?” Clive Liversedge asked, as if Lucy had perhaps suffered a minor fall or car accident. “They said it wasn’t serious. Is she doing all right?”

“I saw her this morning,” Jenny said, “and she’s bearing up well.”

“Poor lass,” said Hilary. “To think of what she’s been through. Tell her she’s welcome to come here and stay with us when she gets out of hospital.”

“I just came to get some sense of what Lucy’s like,” Jenny began. “What sort of a girl she was.”

The Liversedges looked at each other. “Just ordinary,” said Clive.

“Normal,” said Hilary.

Right, thought Jenny. Normal girls go marrying serial killers every day. Even if Lucy had nothing at all to do with the killings, there had to be something odd about her, something out of the ordinary. Jenny had even sensed that during their brief chat in the hospital that morning. She could couch it in as much psychological gobbledygook as she wanted – and Jenny had come across plenty of that in her career – but what it came down to was the feeling that Lucy Payne was definitely a sausage or two short of the full English breakfast.

“What was she like at school?” Jenny pressed on.

“Very bright,” answered Clive.

“She got three A-levels. Good marks, too. As and Bs,” added Hilary.

“She could have gone to university,” Clive added.

“Why didn’t she?”

“She didn’t want to,” said Clive. “She wanted to get out in the world and make a living for herself.”

“Is she ambitious?”

“She’s not greedy, if that’s what you mean,” Hilary answered. “Of course she wants to get on in the world like everyone else, but she doesn’t think she needs a university degree to do it. They’re overrated, anyway, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” said Jenny, who had a BA and a PhD. “Was she studious when she was at school?”

“I wouldn’t really say so,” said Hilary. “She did what she had to do in order to pass, but she wasn’t a swot.”

“Was she popular at school?”

“She seemed to get on all right with the other children. We got no complaints from her, at any rate.”

“No bullying, nothing like that?”

“Well, there was one girl, once, but that came to nothing,” said Clive.

“Someone bullying Lucy?”

“No. Someone complaining she was being bullied by Lucy, accused her of demanding money with threats.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. It was just her word against Lucy’s.”

“And you believed Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“So no action was taken?”

“No. They couldn’t prove anything against her.”

“And nothing else like that occurred?”

“No.”

“Did she take part in any after-school activities?”

“She wasn’t much a one for sports, but she was in a couple of school plays. Very good, too, wasn’t she, love?”

Hilary Liversedge nodded.

“Was she wild at all?”

“She could be high-spirited, and if she got it in her mind to do something, there was no stopping her, but I wouldn’t say she was especially wild.”

“What about at home? How did you all get along?”

They looked at each again. It was an ordinary enough gesture, but it unnerved Jenny a bit. “Fine. Quiet as a mouse. Never any trouble,” said Clive.

“When did she leave home?”

“When she was eighteen. She got that job at the bank in Leeds. We didn’t stand in her way.”

“Not that we could have,” added Hilary.

“Have you seen much of her lately?”

Hilary’s expression darkened a little. “She said she’s not been able to get over here as much as she’d have liked.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Christmas,” answered Clive.

“Last Christmas?”

“The year before.”

It was as Pat Mitchell had said; Lucy had become distanced from her parents. “So that’s seventeen months?”

“I suppose so.”

“Did she telephone or write?”

“She writes us nice letters,” said Hilary.

“What does she tell you about her life?”

“About her job and the house. Just normal, ordinary sorts of things.”

“Did she tell you how Terry was doing at the school?”

This exchanged look definitely spoke volumes. “No,” said Clive. “And we didn’t ask.”

“We didn’t approve of her taking up with the first boy she met,” said Hilary.

“Did she have other boyfriends before Terry?”

“Nobody serious.”

“But you thought she could do better?”

“We’re not saying there’s anything wrong with Terry. He seems nice enough, and he’s got a decent job, good prospects.”

“But?”

“But he seemed to sort of take over, didn’t he, Clive?”

“Yes. It was very odd.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny asked.

“It was as if he didn’t want her to see us.”

“Did he or she ever say that?”

Hilary shook her head. The loose skin flapped. “Not in so many words. It was just an impression I got. We got.”

Jenny made a note. To her, this sounded like one of the stages of a sexually sadistic relationship that she had learned about at Quantico. The sadist, in this case Terry Payne, starts to isolate his partner from her family. Pat Mitchell had also suggested the same sort of progressive separation from her friends.

“They just kept to themselves,” said Clive.

“What did you think of Terry?”

“There was something strange about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“What sort of person is Lucy?” Jenny went on. “Is she generally trusting? Naïve? Dependent?”

“I wouldn’t really describe her in any of those terms, would you, Hilary?”

“No,” said Hilary. “She’s very independent, for a start. Headstrong, too. Always makes her own decisions and acts on them. Like about not going to university and getting a job instead. Once she’d made her mind up, she was off. It was the same with marrying Terry. Love at first sight, she said.”

“You weren’t at the wedding, though?”

“Hilary can’t travel anymore,” said Clive, going over and patting his wife’s inert form. “Can you, love?”

“We sent a telegram and a present,” Hilary said. “A nice set of Royal Doulton.”

“Do you think Lucy lacks confidence, self-esteem?”

“It depends on what you’re talking about. She’s confident enough at work, but not so much around people. She often becomes very quiet around strangers, very wary and reserved. She doesn’t like crowds, but she used to like going out with a small group of friends. You know, the girls from work. That sort of thing.”

“Would you say she’s a loner by nature?”

“To some extent, yes. She’s a very private person, never told us much about what was going on or what was going through her mind.”

Jenny was wondering whether she should ask if Lucy pulled the wings off flies, wet her bed and set fire to the local school, but she couldn’t find an easy way to get around to doing it. “Was she like that even as a child?” she asked. “Or did her need for solitude develop later in life?”

“We wouldn’t know the answer to that,” said Clive, looking over at his wife. “We didn’t know her then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Lucy wasn’t our daughter, not our natural daughter. Hilary can’t have children, you see. She’s got a heart condition. Always has had. Doctor said childbirth could kill her.” Hilary patted her heart and gave Jenny a rueful look.

“You adopted Lucy?”

“No. No. We fostered her. Lucy was our foster child. The third and last, as it turned out. She was with us by far the longest and we came to think of her as our own.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell the police this?”

“They didn’t ask,” said Clive, as if that made it all perfectly reasonable.

Jenny was stunned. Here was an essential piece of information in the puzzle that was Lucy Payne, and nobody else on the team knew it. “How old was she when she came to you?” Jenny asked.

“Twelve,” said Clive. “It was in March 1990. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. Didn’t you know? Lucy was one of the Alderthorpe Seven.”

Annie lounged back in her hard wood chair as if it had been molded to fit her shape, and stretched out her legs. Banks had always envied the way she managed to seem so centered and comfortable in almost any environment, and she was doing it now. She took a sip of her Theakston’s bitter and almost purred. Then she smiled at Banks.

“I’ve been cursing you all day, you know,” she said. “Taking your name in vain.”

“I thought my ears were burning.”

“By rights they should have both burned off by now.”

“Point taken. What did Superintendent Chambers have to say?”

Annie gave a dismissive wave. “What you’d expect. That it’s my career on the line if there’s any fallout. Oh, and he warned me about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes. Said he thought you might try to pump me for information, to play my cards close to my chest. Which he examined rather too closely for my comfort, by the way.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He said you’re a ladies’ man. Is that true?”

Banks laughed. “He did? He really said that?”

Annie nodded.

The Queen’s Arms was busy with the after-work crowd and tourists seeking shelter, and Banks and Annie had been lucky to get seats at the small, dimpled copper-topped table in the corner by the window. Banks could see the ghostly images of people with umbrellas drifting back and forth on Market Street beyond the red and yellow panes of glass. Rain spotted the windows, and he could hear it tapping in the pauses between words. Savage Garden were on the jukebox claiming that they loved someone before they met her. The air was full of smoke and animated chatter.

“What do you think of Janet Taylor?” Banks asked. “I’m not trying to pry into your case. I’m just interested in your first impression.”

“So you say. Anyway, I quite like her, and I feel sorry for her. She’s a probationary PC with limited experience put in an impossible position. She did what came naturally.”

“But?”

“I’ll not let my feelings blinker my judgment. I haven’t been able to put it all together yet, but it looks to me as if Janet Taylor lied on her statement.”

“Deliberately lied or just didn’t remember?”

“I suppose we could give her the benefit of the doubt on that. Look, I’ve never been in a situation like she was. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her. The fact remains that, according to Dr. Mogabe, she must have hit Payne with her baton at least seven or eight times after he was beyond any sort of retaliatory action.”

“He was stronger than her. Maybe that’s what was required to subdue him. The law allows us some latitude on reasonable force in making an arrest.”

Annie shook her head. She stretched out her legs sideways from the chair and crossed them. Banks noticed the thin gold chain around her ankle, one of the many things he found sexy about Annie. “She lost it, Alan. It goes way beyond self-defense and reasonable force. There’s another thing, too.”

“What?”

“I spoke to the paramedics and ambulance attendants who were first at the scene. They hadn’t a clue what had happened, of course, but it didn’t take them long to work out it was something really nasty and bizarre.”

“And?”

“One of them said when he went over to PC Taylor, who was cradling PC Morrisey’s body, she looked over at Payne and said, ‘Is he dead? Did I kill the bastard?’ ”

“That could mean anything.”

“My point exactly. In the hands of a good barrister it could mean she had intended to kill him all along and was asking if she had succeeded in her aim. It could signify intent.”

“It could also just be an innocent question.”

“You know as well as I do there’s nothing innocent about this business at all. Especially with the Hadleigh case on the news every day. And don’t forget that Payne was unarmed and down on the floor when she aimed the final few blows.”

“How do we know that?”

“PC Taylor had already broken his wrist, according to her statement, and kicked the machete into the corner where it was found later. Also, the angles of the blows and the force behind them indicate she had the advantage of height, which we know she didn’t have naturally. Payne’s six foot one and PC Taylor’s only five foot six.”

Banks took a long drag on his cigarette as he digested what Annie had to say, thinking it wouldn’t be a hell of a lot of fun to tell AC Hartnell about this. “Not an immediate threat to her, then?” he said.

“Not from where I’m looking.” Annie shifted a little in her chair. “It’s possible,” she admitted. “I’m not saying that wouldn’t freak out even the best-trained copper. But I’ve got to say that it looks to me as if she lost it. I’d still like to have a look at the scene.”

“Sure. Though I doubt there’s much left to see now the SOCOs have been in there for three days.”

“Even so…”

“I understand,” said Banks. And he did. There was something ritualistic in visiting the scene. Whether you picked up vibrations from the walls or what, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that it connected you more closely with the crime. You’d stood there, in that place where evil had happened. “When do you want to go?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll call on Janet Taylor after.”

“I’ll arrange it with the officers on duty,” said Banks. “We can go down there together if you like. I’m off to talk to Lucy Payne again before she disappears.”

“They’re releasing her from hospital?”

“So I’ve heard. Her injuries aren’t that serious. Besides, they need the bed.”

Annie paused, then she said, “I’d rather make my own way.”

“Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“Oh, don’t look so crestfallen, Alan. It’s nothing personal. It just wouldn’t look good. And people would see us, no matter what you think.”

“You’re right,” Banks agreed. “Look, if there’s any chance of a bit of spare time Saturday night, how about dinner and…?”

The corners of Annie’s mouth turned up, and a gleam came to her dark eyes. “Dinner and what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t. Tell me.”

Banks glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then he leaned forward. But before he could say anything, the doors opened and DC Winsome Jackman walked in. Heads turned: some because she was black, and some because she was a gorgeous, statuesque young woman. Winsome was on duty and Banks and Annie had told her where they would be.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

“That’s all right,” said Banks. “What is it?”

“A DC Karen Hodgkins from the task force just phoned.”

“And?”

Winsome looked at Annie. “It’s Terence Payne,” she said. “He died an hour ago in the infirmary without recovering consciousness.”

“Oh, shit,” said Annie.

“Well, that should make life interesting,” said Banks, reaching for another cigarette.

“Tell me about the Alderthorpe Seven,” said Banks into his phone at home later that evening. He had just settled down to Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige, the latest copy of Gramophone and two fingers of Laphroaig when Jenny phoned. He turned down the music and reached for his cigarettes. “I mean,” he went on, “I vaguely remember hearing about it at the time, but I can’t remember many details.”

“I don’t have a lot yet, myself,” said Jenny. “Only what the Liversedges told me.”

“Go on.”

Banks heard a rustle of paper at the other end of the line. “On the eleventh of February, 1990,” Jenny began, “police and social workers made a dawn raid on the village of Alderthorpe, near Spurn Head on the East Yorkshire coast. They were acting on allegations of ritual satanic abuse of children and investigating a missing child.”

“Who blew the whistle?” Banks asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “I didn’t ask.”

Banks filed it away for later. “Okay. Carry on.”

“I’m not a policeman, Alan. I don’t know what sort of questions to ask.”

“I’m sure you did just fine. Please, go on.”

“They took six children from two separate households into care.”

“What exactly was supposed to have been going on?”

“At first it was all very vague. ‘Lewd and libidinous behavior. Ritualistic music, dance and costume.’ ”

“Sounds like police headquarters on a Saturday night. Anything else?”

“Well, that’s where it gets interesting. And sick. It seems this was one of the few such cases in which prosecutions went forward and convictions were gained. All the Liversedges would tell me was that there were tales of torture, of kids being forced to drink urine and eat… Christ, I’m not squeamish, Alan, but this stuff turns my stomach.”

“That’s all right. Take it easy.”

“They were humiliated,” Jenny went on. “Sometimes physically injured, kept in cages without food for days, used as objects of sexual gratification in satanic rituals. One child, a girl called Kathleen Murray, was found dead. Her remains showed evidence of torture and sexual abuse.”

“How did she die?”

“She was strangled. She’d also been beaten and half-starved, too. That was what sparked the whistle-blower, her not turning up for school.”

“And this was proven in court?”

“Most of it, yes. The killing. The satanic stuff didn’t come out in the trial. I suppose the CPS must have thought it would just sound like too much mumbo jumbo.”

“How did it come out?”

“Some of the children gave descriptions later, after they’d been fostered.”

“Lucy?”

“No. According to the Liversedges, Lucy never spoke about what happened. She just put it all behind her.”

“Was it followed up?”

“No. There were similar allegations and raids in Cleveland, Rochdale and the Orkneys, and pretty soon it was all over the papers. Caused a hell of a national outcry. Epidemic of child abuse, that sort of thing. Overzealous social workers. Questions in the House, the lot.”

“I remember,” said Banks.

“Most of the cases were thrown out, and nobody wanted to talk about the one that was true. Well, Alderthorpe wasn’t the only one. There was a similar case in Nottingham in 1989 that also resulted in convictions, but it wasn’t widely publicized. Then we got the Butler-Schloss report and revisions of the Children’s Act.”

“What happened to Lucy’s real parents?”

“They went to jail. The Liversedges have no idea whether they’re still there or what. They haven’t kept track of things.”

Banks sipped some Laphroaig and flicked his cigarette end into the empty grate. “So Lucy stayed with the Liversedges?”

“Yes. She changed her name, too, by the way. She used to be called Linda. Linda Godwin. Then, with all the publicity, she wanted to change it. The Liversedges assured me it’s all legal and aboveboard.”

From Linda Godwin to Lucy Liversedge to Lucy Payne, Banks thought. Interesting.

“Anyway,” Jenny went on, “after they’d told me all this I pushed them a bit more and at least got them to admit life with Lucy wasn’t quite as ‘ordinary’ and ‘normal’ as they’d originally said it was.”

“Oh?”

“Problems adjusting. Surprise, surprise. The first two years, between the ages of twelve and fourteen, Lucy was as good as gold, a quiet, passive, considerate and sensitive kid. They were worried she was traumatized.”

“And?”

“Lucy saw a child psychiatrist for a while.”

“Then?”

“From fourteen to sixteen she started to act up, come out of her shell. She stopped seeing the psychiatrist. There were boys, suspicions that she was having sex, and then there was the bullying.”

“Bullying?”

“Yes. At first they told me it was an isolated incident and came to nothing, but later they said it caused a few problems with the school. Lucy was bullying younger girls out of their dinner money and stuff like that. It’s fairly common.”

“But in Lucy’s case?”

“A phase. The Liversedges worked with the school authorities, and the psychiatrist entered the picture again briefly. Then Lucy settled down to behave herself. The next two years, sixteen to eighteen, she quieted down, withdrew more into herself, became less active socially and sexually. She did her A-levels, got good results and got a job with the NatWest bank in Leeds. That was four years ago. It seemed almost as if she were planning her escape. She had very little contact with the Liversedges after she left, and I get the impression that they were relieved.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. Call it intuition, but I got the feeling that they ended up being scared of Lucy, for the way she seemed able to manipulate them. As I say, it’s just a vague feeling.”

“Interesting. Go on.”

“They saw even less of her after she hooked up with Terence Payne. I thought when they first told me that that he might have been responsible for isolating her from her family and friends, you know, the way abusers often do, but now it seems just as likely that she was isolating herself. Her friend from work, Pat Mitchell, said the same thing. Meeting Terry really changed Lucy, cut her off almost entirely from her old life, her old ways.”

“So she was either under his thrall or she’d found a new sort of life that she preferred?”

“Yes.” Jenny told him about the incident of Lucy’s prostitution.

Banks thought for a moment. “It’s interesting,” he said. “Really interesting. But it doesn’t prove anything.”

“I told you that would probably be the case. It makes her weird, but being weird’s no grounds for arrest or half the population would be behind bars.”

“More than half. But hang on a minute, Jenny. You’ve come up with a number of leads worth pursuing.”

“Like what?”

“Like what if Lucy was involved in the Alderthorpe abuse herself? I remember reading at the time that there were cases of some of the older victims abusing their own younger siblings.”

“But what would it mean even if we could prove that after all this time?”

“I don’t know, Jenny. I’m just thinking out aloud. What’s your next step?”

“I’m going to talk to someone from the social services tomorrow, see if I can get the names of any of the social workers involved.”

“Good. I’ll work it from the police angle when I get a spare moment. There are bound to be records, files. Then what?”

“I want to go to Alderthorpe, nose around, talk to people who remember.”

“Be careful, Jenny. It’s bound to be a very raw nerve still out there, even after all this time.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“And don’t forget, there might still be someone who escaped prosecution worried about new revelations.”

“That makes me feel really safe and secure.”

“The other kids…”

“Yes?”

“What do you know about them?”

“Nothing, really, except they were aged between eight and twelve.”

“Any idea where they are?”

“No. The Liversedges don’t know. And I did ask them.”

“Don’t be defensive. We’ll make a detective of you yet.”

“No, thanks.”

“Let’s see if we can find them, shall we? They might be able to tell us a lot more about Lucy Payne than anyone else.”

“Okay. I’ll see how much the social workers are willing to tell me.”

“Not much, I’ll bet. Your best chance will be if one of them’s retired or moved on to some other line of work. Then spilling the beans won’t seem like such a betrayal.”

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the psychologist. Leave that sort of thinking to me.”

Banks laughed over the phone. “It’s a blurred line sometimes, isn’t it? Detective work and psychology.”

“Try and tell some of your oafish colleagues that.”

“Thanks, Jenny. You’ve done a great job.”

“And I’ve only just begun.”

“Keep in touch.”

“Promise.”

When Banks put the phone down, Mahalia Jackson was singing “Come Sunday.” He turned up the volume and took his drink outside to his little balcony over Gratly Falls. The rain had stopped, but the downpour had been heavy enough to swell the sound of the falls. It was just after sunset and the deep vermilions, purples and oranges were dying in the western sky, streaked with dark ribs of cloud, while the darkening east went from pale to inky blue. Just across the falls was a field of grazing sheep. In it stood a clump of huge old trees where rooks nested and often woke him early in the morning with their noisy squabbling. Such ill-tempered birds, they seemed. Beyond the field, the daleside sloped down to the river Swain and Banks could see the opposite hillside a mile or more away, darkening in the evening, rising to the long, grinning skeleton’s mouth of Crow Scar. The runic patterns of the drystone walls seemed to stand out in relief as the light faded. Just a little to his right, he could see the Helmthorpe Church tower poking up from the valley bottom.

Banks looked at his watch. Still early enough to stroll down there and have a pint or two in the Dog and Gun, maybe chat with one or two of the locals he’d become friendly with since his move. But he decided he didn’t fancy company; he had too much on his mind, what with Terence Payne’s death, the mystery of Leanne Wray, and the revelations Jenny Fuller had just come through with as regards Lucy’s past. Since taking on the Chameleon investigation, he realized, he had become more and more of a loner, less inclined to make small talk at the bar. Partly, he supposed, it was the burden of command, but it was also something more; the proximity to such evil, perhaps, that tainted him somehow and made small talk seem like a completely inadequate response to what was happening.

The news of Sandra’s pregnancy was also still weighing on his mind, bringing back some memories he had hoped to forget. He knew he wouldn’t be good company, but nor would he be able to get to sleep so early. He nipped inside and poured another shot of whiskey, then picked up his cigarettes and went back outside to lean against the damp wall and enjoy the last of the evening light. A curlew piped up on the distant moors and Mahalia Jackson sang on, humming the tune long after she had run out of words.