Aftermath

17

After taking her last tutorial group and clearing up some paperwork, Jenny left her office at York early on Tuesday afternoon and headed for the A1 to Durham. The traffic was heavy, especially lorries and delivery vans, but at least it was a pleasant, sunny day, not pouring down with rain.

After talking to Keith Murray – if he agreed to talk to her – Jenny thought she would still have time to continue on to Edinburgh later in the afternoon and look up Laura Godwin. It would mean an overnight stay – either that or a long drive home in the dark – but she could worry about that later. She had an old student friend in the Psychology Department at the University of Edinburgh, and it might be fun to get together and catch up with each other’s history. Not that Jenny’s recent history was anything to write home about, she thought glumly, and now that she had met Banks’s girlfriend, she decided there probably wasn’t much hope for her there, either. Still, she was used to that by now; after all, they had known each other for seven years or more, and they hadn’t once strayed beyond the bounds of propriety, more was the pity.

She still wasn’t certain whether The Girlfriend had been jealous when she came over to them in the Queen’s Arms. She must certainly have seen Banks touch Jenny’s arm, and though it was merely a friendly, concerned gesture, it was open to misinterpretation, like so much body language. Was The Girlfriend the jealous kind? Jenny didn’t know. Annie had seemed self-assured and poised, yet Jenny had sensed something in her attitude that made her feel strangely concerned for Banks, who was probably the only man she had ever met whom she worried about, wanted to protect. She didn’t know why. He was independent, strong, private; perhaps he was more vulnerable than he let on, but he certainly wasn’t the sort of person you went around feeling you needed to protect or mother.

A white van sped by on her outside lane just as she was turning off, and still lost in thought, she almost hit it. Luckily, instinct kicked in and she had time to swing back abruptly into her own lane without causing anyone else great distress, but she missed the turnoff she wanted. She honked her horn and cursed him out loud – impotent gestures, but all she could come up with – and drove on to the next junction.

When she had got off the A1, she switched the radio channel from a dreary Brahms symphony to some cheerful pop music, tunes she could hum along with and tap out the rhythm on the steering wheel.

Durham was on odd sort of place, Jenny had always thought. Though she had been born there, her parents had moved away when she was only three, and she didn’t remember it at all. Very early in her academic career, she had applied for a job at the university, but she got pipped at the post by a man with more publications to his name. She would have liked living here, she thought as she looked at the distant castle high on the hill, and all the greenery surrounding it, but York suited her well enough, and she had no desire to start applying for a new job at this stage in her career.

She had found from her map that Keith Murray lived out by the university sports grounds, so she was able to bypass the central maze around the cathedral and colleges, the city’s main tourist area. Even so, she still managed to get lost on a couple of occasions. There was a chance that Keith might be out at lectures, Jenny realized, though she remembered how few lectures she had attended when she was an undergraduate. If he was, she could wait until later if she had to, explore the city, have a pub lunch, and still be in plenty of time to get to Edinburgh to talk to Laura.

She pulled over into a small car park in front of some shops and consulted the map again. Not far away now. She just had to watch out for the one-way streets or she would end up back where she started.

On the second try, she got it right and pulled off the arterial road into an area of narrow streets. She was concentrating so much on finding the right street and the right house number that she almost didn’t see the car she parked behind until the last moment. When she did, her heart jumped into her throat. It was a blue Citroën.

Jenny told herself to be calm, that she couldn’t be certain it was the same blue Citroën that had followed her around Holderness because she hadn’t seen the number plate. But it was the exact same model, and she didn’t believe in coincidences.

What should she do? Go ahead anyway? If the Citroën belonged to Keith Murray, what had he been doing at Alderthorpe and Spurn Head, and why had he followed her? Was he dangerous?

As Jenny was trying to make up her mind what to do, the front door of the house opened and two people walked over to the car: a young man with keys in his hand and a woman who looked remarkably like Lucy Payne. Just as Jenny decided to pull away, the young man saw her, said something to Lucy, then walked over and jerked open the driver’s door of Jenny’s car before she had time to lock it.

Well, she thought, you’ve well and truly done it now, this time, haven’t you, Jenny?

There were no new developments at Millgarth, according to Ken Blackstone on the phone that morning. The SOCOs were getting to the point where there wasn’t much left of the Payne house to take apart. Both gardens had been dug up to a depth of between six and ten feet and searched in a grid system. The concrete floors in the cellar and the garage had been ripped up by pneumatic drills. Almost a thousand exhibits had been bagged and labeled. The entire contents of the house had been stripped and taken away. The walls had been punched open at regular intervals. In addition to the crime scene specialists going over all the collected material, forensic mechanics had taken Payne’s car apart looking for traces of the abducted girls. Payne might be dead, but a case still had to be answered, and Lucy’s role had still to be determined.

The only snippet of information about Lucy Payne was that she had withdrawn two hundred pounds from an ATM on Tottenham Court Road. It figured she would go to London if she wanted to disappear, Banks thought, remembering his search there for Chief Constable Riddle’s daughter, Emily. Perhaps he would have to go and search for Lucy, too, although this time he would have all the resources of the Metropolitan Police at his disposal. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that; maybe Lucy wasn’t involved and would simply ease herself into a new identity and a new look in a new place and try to rebuild her shattered life. Maybe.

Banks looked again at the loose sheets of papers on his desk.

Katya Pavelic.

Katya, Candy’s “Anna,” had been identified through dental records late the previous evening. Fortunately for Banks, she had suffered a toothache shortly before she disappeared, and Candy had directed Katya to her own dentist. Katya had disappeared, according to Candy, sometime last November. At least, she remembered the weather was cool and misty and the Christmas lights had recently been turned on in the city center. That likely made Katya the victim before Kelly Matthews.

Certainly Candy, or Hayley Lyndon, as she was called, had seen both Terence and Lucy Payne driving around the area on a number of occasions but couldn’t connect them directly with Katya. The circumstantial evidence was beginning to build up, though, and if Jenny’s psychological probing into the old Alderthorpe wounds turned up anything interesting, then it might be time to reel Lucy in. For the moment, let her enjoy the illusion of freedom.

Katya Pavelic had come to England from Bosnia four years ago, when she was fourteen. Like so many young girls there, she had been gang-raped by Serbian soldiers, and then shot, saving herself only by playing dead under a pile of corpses until some Canadian UN peace-keepers found her three days later. The wound was superficial and the blood had clotted. Her only problem was an infection, and that had responded well to antibiotics. Various groups and individuals had seen that Katya got to England, but she was a disturbed and troublesome girl, and she soon ran away from her foster parents when she was sixteen, and they had tried in vain to find her and contact her ever since.

The irony wasn’t lost on Banks. After having survived the horrors of the Bosnian war, Katya Pavelic had ended up raped, murdered and buried in the Paynes’ back garden. What was the bloody point of it all? he asked. As usual, he got no answer from the Supreme Ironist in the Sky, only a deep hollow laughter echoing through his brain. Sometimes, the pity and the horror of it all were almost too much for him to bear.

And there remained one more unidentified victim, the one who had been buried there the longest: a white woman in her late teens or early twenties, about five feet three inches tall, according to the forensic anthropologist, who was still conducting tests on the bones. There was little doubt in Banks’s mind that this could easily be another prostitute victim, and that might make the corpse hard to identify.

Banks had had one brainstorm and pulled in Terence Payne’s teacher friend Geoff Brighouse to help him find the Aberdeen schoolteacher the two of them had taken up to their room at the convention. Luckily, Banks turned out to be wrong, and she was still teaching in Aberdeen. Though she expressed some anger about her experience, she had kept quiet mostly because she didn’t want to damage her teaching career and had written that one off to experience. She had also been very embarrassed and angry with herself for being so drunk and foolish as to go to a hotel room with two strange men after all the things she had read in the papers. She had almost fainted when Banks told her that the man who had coerced her into having anal sex against her will was Terence Payne. She hadn’t made the connection from the photo in the newspapers and had only been on first-name terms with the two.

Banks opened his window on another fine day in the market-square, tourist buses pulling up already, disgorging their hordes on to the gleaming cobbles. A quick glance around the church’s interior, a walk up to the Castle, lunch at the Pied Piper – Banks felt depressed just thinking about what had happened there yesterday – then they’d pile back in the coach and be off to Castle Bolton or Devraulx Abbey. How he wished he could go on a long holiday. Maybe never come back.

The gold hands against the blue face of the church clock stood at five past ten. Banks lit a cigarette and planned out the rest of his day, plans that included Mick Blair, Ian Scott and Sarah Francis, not to mention the grieving parents, Christopher and Victoria Wray. Winsome had discovered nothing new from talking to the Wrays’ neighbors, none of whom had either seen or heard anything unusual. Banks still had his suspicions about them, though he found it difficult to convince himself that they could actually have killed Leanne.

He had suffered yet another restless night, this time partly because of Annie. Now, the more he thought about her decision, the more sense it made. He didn’t want to give her up, but if he was to be honest, it was best all around. Looking back at her on-again-off-again attitude toward their relationship, the way she bristled every time other aspects of his life came up, he realized that however much there had been, the relationship had also been a lot of grief, too. If she didn’t like the way his past made her face details of her own, like the abortion, then perhaps she was right to end it. Time to move on and stay “just friends,” let her pursue her career and let him try to exorcise his personal demons.

Just as he was finishing his cigarette, DC Winsome Jackman tapped at his door and walked in looking particularly elegant in a tailored pinstripe suit over a white blouse. The woman had clothes sense, Banks thought, unlike himself, and unlike Annie Cabbot. He liked Annie’s casual high style – it was definitely her – but no one could accuse her of making a fashion statement. Anyway, best forget about Annie. He turned toward Winsome.

“Come in. Sit down.”

Winsome sat, crossing her long legs, sniffing accusingly and wrinkling her nose at the smoke.

“I know, I know,” Banks said. “I’m going to stop soon, honestly.”

“That little job you asked me to do,” she said. “I thought you’d like to know that your instinct was right. There was a car reported stolen from Disraeli Street between nine-thirty and eleven o’clock on the night Leanne Wray disappeared.”

“Was there, indeed? Isn’t Disraeli Street just around the corner from the Old Ship Inn?”

“It is, sir.”

Banks sat down and rubbed his hands together. “Tell me more.”

“Keeper’s name is Samuel Gardner. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. Seems he parked there while he popped into the Cock and Bull on Palmerston Avenue, just for a pint of shandy, he stressed.”

“Of course. Perish the thought we should try to do him for drink-driving two months after the event. What do you think, Winsome?”

Winsome shifted and crossed her legs the other way, straightening the hem of her skirt over her knees. “I don’t know, sir. Seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?”

“That Ian Scott’s in the neighborhood?”

“Yes, sir. I know there are plenty of kids taking and driving away, but… well, the timing fits, and the location.”

“Indeed it does. When did he report it missing?”

“Ten past eleven that night.”

“And when was it found?”

“Not until the next morning, sir. One of the beat constables came across it illegally parked down by the formal gardens.”

“That’s not very far from The Riverboat, is it?”

“Ten-minute walk, at the most.”

“You know, this is starting to look good, Winsome. I want you to go and have a word with this Samuel Gardner, see if you can find out any more from him. Put him at ease. Make it clear we don’t give a damn whether he drank a whole bottle of whiskey as long as he tells us everything he can remember about that night. And have the car taken into the police garage for a full forensic examination. I doubt we’ll find anything after all this time, but Scott and Blair aren’t likely to know that, are they?”

Winsome smiled wickedly. “Doubt it very much, sir.”

Banks looked at his watch. “When you’ve talked to Gardner and the car’s safe in our care, have Mick Blair brought in. I think a little chat with him in one of the interview rooms might be very productive.”

“Right you are.”

“And have Sarah Francis brought in at the same time.”

“Okay.”

“And, Winsome.”

“Sir?”

“Make sure they see one another in passing, would you?”

“My pleasure, sir.” Winsome smiled, stood up and left the office.

“Look,” said Jenny, “I haven’t had any lunch yet. Instead of standing around here in the street, is there anywhere nearby we can go?” Though her immediate fears had dispersed somewhat when the young man simply asked her who she was and what she wanted, without showing any particular inclination toward aggression, she still wanted to be with them in a public place, not up in the flat.

“There’s a café down the road,” he said. “We can go there if you want.”

“Fine.”

Jenny followed them back to the arterial road, crossed at the zebra and went into a corner café that smelled of bacon. She was supposed to be slimming – she was always supposed to be slimming – but she couldn’t resist the smell and ordered a bacon butty and a mug of tea. The other two asked for the same and Jenny paid. Nobody objected. Poor students never do. Now that they were closer, sitting at an isolated table near the window, Jenny could she that she was mistaken. While the girl definitely resembled Lucy, had her eyes and mouth and the same shiny black hair, it wasn’t her. There was something softer, more fragile, more human about this young woman, and her eyes weren’t quite so black and impenetrable; they were intelligent and sensitive, though their depths flickered with horrors and fears Jenny could barely imagine.

“Laura, isn’t it?” she said when they’d settled.

The young woman raised her eyebrows. “Why, yes. How did you know?”

“It wasn’t difficult,” Jenny said. “You resemble your sister, and you’re with your cousin.”

Laura blushed. “I’m only visiting him. It’s not… I mean, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jenny. “I don’t jump to conclusions.” Well, not many, she said to herself.

“Let’s get back to my original question,” Keith Murray cut in. He was more hard-edged than Laura and not one for small talk. “That’s who are you and why you’re here. You might as well tell me what you were doing at Alderthorpe, too, while you’re at it.”

Laura looked surprised. “She was in Alderthorpe?”

“On Saturday. I followed her to Easington and then to Spurn Head. I turned back when she got to the M62.” He looked at Jenny again. “Well?”

He was a good-looking young man, brown hair a little over his ears and collar, but professionally layered, slightly better-dressed than most of the students she taught, in a light sports jacket and gray chinos, highly polished shoes. Clean-shaven. Clearly a young lad who took some pride in his rather conservative appearance. Laura, in contrast, wore a shapeless sort of shift that hung around her in a haze of material and hid any claims she might have had to the kind of figure men like. There was a reticence and tentativeness about her that made Jenny want to reach out and tell her everything was fine, not to worry, she didn’t bite. Keith also seemed very protective of her, and Jenny wondered how their relationship had developed since Alderthorpe.

She told them who she was and what she was doing, about her forays into Lucy Payne’s past, looking for answers to her present, and both Laura and Keith listened intently. When she had finished, they looked at each other, and she could tell they were communicating in some way that was beyond her. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, and she didn’t believe it was some sort of telepathic trick, just that whatever they had been through all those years ago had created a bond so strong and deep that it went beyond words.

“What makes you think you’ll find any answers there?” Keith asked.

“I’m a psychologist,” Jenny said, “not a psychiatrist, certainly not a Freudian, but I do believe that our past shapes us, makes us what we are.”

“And what is Linda, or Lucy, as she calls herself now?”

Jenny spread her hands. “That’s just it. I don’t know. I was hoping you might be able to help.”

“Why should we help you?”

“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “Maybe there are some issues back there you still have to deal with yourselves.”

Keith laughed. “If we lived to be a hundred, we’d still have issues to deal with from back then,” he said. “But what’s that got to do with Linda?”

“She was with you, wasn’t she? One of you.”

Keith and Laura looked at each other again and Jenny wished she knew what they were thinking. Finally, as if they had come to a decision, Laura said, “Yes, she was with us, but in a way she was apart.”

“What do you mean, Laura?”

“Linda was the eldest, so she took care of us.”

Keith snorted.

“She did, Keith.”

“All right.”

Laura’s lower lip trembled, and for a moment Jenny thought she was going to cry. “Go on, Laura,” she said. “Please.”

“I know Linda was my sister,” Laura said, rubbing one hand against the top of her thigh, “but there’s three years between us, and that’s an awful lot when you’re younger.”

“Tell me about it. My brother’s three years older than me.”

“Well, you’ll know what I mean, then. So I didn’t really know Linda. In some ways, she was as distant as an adult to me, and just as incomprehensible. We played together when we were little, but the older we got, the more we drifted apart, especially with… you know… the way things were.”

“What was she like, though?”

“Linda? She was strange. Very distant. Very self-absorbed, even then. She liked to play games, and she could be cruel.”

“In what way?”

“If she didn’t get her own way, or if you didn’t do what she wanted, she could lie and get you in trouble with the adults. Get you put in the cage.”

“She did that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Keith. “All of us got on her bad side at one time or another.”

“Sometimes we just didn’t know if she was with us or them,” said Laura. “But she could be kind. I remember her treating a cut I had once, putting some TCP on so it didn’t get infected. She was very gentle. And sometimes she even stuck up for us against them.”

“In what ways?”

“Little ways. If we were, you know, too weak to… or just… sometimes they listened to her. And she saved the kittens.”

“What kittens?”

“Our cat had kittens and D-d-dad wanted to drown them but Linda took them and found them all homes.”

“She liked animals, then?”

“She adored them. She wanted to be a vet when she grew up.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t clever enough. Or maybe she changed her mind.”

“But she was also their victim, too? The adults.”

“Oh, yes,” said Keith. “We all were.”

“She was their favorite for a long time,” Laura added. “That is, until she…”

“She what, Laura? Take your time.”

Laura blushed and looked away. “Until she became a woman. When she was twelve. Then they weren’t interested in her anymore. Kathleen became their favorite then. She was only nine, like me, but they liked her better.”

“What was Kathleen like?”

Laura’s eyes shone. “She was… like a saint. She bore it all without complaining, everything those… those people did to us. Kathleen had some sort of inner light, some, I don’t know, some spiritual quality that just shone out, but she was very f-f-fragile, very weak, and she was always ill. She couldn’t take the kind of punishments and beatings they dished out.”

“Like what?”

“The cage. And no food for days. She was too weak and frail to begin with.”

“Tell me,” said Jenny, “why did none of you tell the authorities what was going on?”

Keith and Laura looked at each other in that intense way again. “We didn’t dare,” Keith said. “They said they’d kill us if we ever told a soul.”

“And they were… they were family,” Laura added. “I mean, you wanted your mummy and daddy to love you, didn’t you, so you had to do, you know, what they wanted, you had to do what the grown-ups said or your d-d-daddy wouldn’t love you anymore.”

Jenny sipped some tea to cover her face for a moment. She wasn’t sure whether anger or pity had brought the tears to her eyes but she didn’t want Laura to see them.

“Besides,” Keith went on, “we didn’t know any different. How could we know life was different for other kids?”

“What about at school? You must have kept yourselves apart, been aware that you were different?”

“We kept apart, yes. We were told not to talk about what happened. It was family, and nobody else’s business.”

“What were you doing in Alderthorpe?”

“I’m writing a book,” Keith said. “A book about what happened. It’s partly therapeutic and partly because I think people should know what goes on, so maybe it can be prevented from happening again.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“I thought you might be a reporter or something, poking about the place like that.”

“You’d better get used to that idea, Keith. It won’t take them long to find out about Alderthorpe. I’m surprised they’re not swarming around already.”

“I know.”

“So you thought I was a reporter. What were you going to do about me?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see where you were going, make sure you were gone.”

“And what if I’d come back?”

Keith spread his hands, palms up. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Did you realize it was Linda as soon as the news about the Paynes broke?”

“I did, yes,” said Laura. “It wasn’t a good photo, but I knew she’d married Terry. I knew where she lived.”

“Did you ever get together, keep in touch?”

“Not often. We did, until Susan committed suicide and Tom went to Australia. And Keith and I visit Dianne as often as we can. But as I said, Linda was always distant, older. I mean, we met up sometimes, for birthdays, that sort of thing, but I thought she was weird.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. It was an evil thought. I mean, she’d suffered the same as we had.”

“But it seemed to have affected her in a different way,” Keith added.

“What way?”

“I didn’t see her nearly as often as Laura did,” he went on, “but she always gave me the impression that she was up to something bad, something deliciously evil. It was just the way she spoke, the hint of sin. She was secretive, so she never told us exactly what she was doing, but…”

“She was into some pretty weird stuff,” Laura said, blushing. “S and M. That sort of thing.”

“She told you?”

“Once. Yes. She only did it to embarrass me. I’m not comfortable talking about sex.” She hugged herself and avoided Jenny’s eyes.

“And Linda liked to embarrass you?”

“Yes. Tease me, I suppose.”

“Wasn’t it a shock to you, what Terry had done, with Linda so close by, especially after the events of your childhood?”

“Of course it was,” said Keith. “It still is. We’re still trying to come to terms with it.”

“That’s partly why I’m here,” said Laura. “I needed to be with Keith. To talk. To decide what to do.”

“What do you mean, what to do?”

“But we didn’t want to be rushed,” said Keith.

Jenny leaned forward “What is it?” she asked. “What is it you need to do?”

They looked at each other again, and Jenny waited what seemed like ages before Keith spoke. “We’d better tell her, don’t you think?” he said.

“I suppose so.”

“Tell me what?”

“About what happened. That’s what we’ve been trying to decide, you see. Whether we should tell.”

“But I’m sure you can understand,” Keith said, “that we don’t want the limelight anymore. We don’t want it all raked up again.”

“Your book will do that,” Jenny said.

“I’ll deal with that when and if it happens.” He leaned forward. “Anyway, you’ve sort of forced our hand, haven’t you? We would probably have told someone soon, anyway, so it might as well be you, now.”

“I’m still not sure what you want to tell me,” she said.

Laura looked at her, tears in her eyes. “It’s about Kathleen. Our parents didn’t kill her, Tom didn’t kill her. Linda killed her. Linda killed Kathleen.”

Mick Blair was surly when Banks and Winsome entered the interview room at three thirty-five that afternoon. As well he might be, Banks thought. He had been dragged away from his job as a clerk in the Tandy shop in the Swainsdale Centre by two uniformed police officers and left waiting in the dingy room for over an hour. It was a wonder he wasn’t screaming for his brief. Banks would have been.

“Just another little chat, Mick,” said Banks, smiling as he turned on the tape recorders. “But we’ll get it on record this time. That way you can be certain there’s no funny business from us.”

“Very grateful, I’m sure,” said Blair. “And why the hell did you have to keep me waiting so long?”

“Important police business,” said Banks. “The bad guys just never stop.”

“What’s Sarah doing here?”

“Sarah?”

“You know who I mean. Sarah Francis. Ian’s girlfriend. I saw her in the corridor. What’s she doing here?”

“Just answering our questions, Mick, the way I hope you will.”

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on me. I can’t tell you anything you don’t know already.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Mick.”

“What’s it about this time, then?” He eyed Winsome suspiciously.

“It’s about the night Leanne Wray disappeared.”

“Again? But we’ve been over and over all that.”

“Yes, I know, but we haven’t got to the truth yet. See, it’s like peeling off the layers of an onion, Mick. All we’ve got so far is layer after layer of lies.”

“It’s the truth. She left us outside the Old Ship and we went our separate ways. We didn’t see her again. What else can I tell you?”

“The truth. Where the four of you went.”

“I’ve told you all I know.”

“You see, Mick,” Banks went on, “Leanne was upset that day. She’d just heard some bad news. Her stepmother was going to have a baby. You might not understand why, but believe me, that upset her. So I should think that night she was in a rebellious mood, ready to say to hell with the curfew, and let’s have some fun. Make her parents suffer a bit at the same time. I don’t know whose suggestion it was, maybe yours, but you decided to steal a car-”

“Now, wait a minute-”

“A car belonging to Mr. Samuel Gardner, a blue Fiat Brava, to be exact, which was parked just around the corner from the pub.”

“That’s ridiculous! We never stole no car. You can’t pin that on us.”

“Shut up and listen, Mick,” said Winsome. Blair looked at her, then swallowed and shut up. Winsome’s expression was hard and unflinching, her eyes full of scorn and disgust.

“Where did you go on your little joyride, Mick?” Banks asked. “What happened? What happened to Leanne? Was she giving you the come-on? Did you think it was going to be your lucky night? Did you try it on with her and she changed her mind? Did you get a bit rough? Were you on drugs, Mick?”

“No! It’s not true. None of it’s true. She left us outside the pub.”

“You sound like a drowning man clinging to a bit of wood, Mick. Pretty soon you’ll have to let go.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then prove it.”

“Listen, Mick,” said Winsome, standing up and pacing the small room. “We’ve got Mr. Gardner’s car in the police garage right now and our forensics people are going over it inch by inch. Are you trying to tell us that they won’t find anything?”

“I don’t know what they’ll find,” said Mick. “How can I? I’ve never even seen the fucking car.”

Winsome stopped pacing and sat down. “They’re the best in the business, our forensics team. They don’t even need fingerprints. If there’s just one hair, they’ll find it. And if it belongs to you, Ian, Sarah or Leanne, we’ve got you.” She held a finger up. “One hair. Think about it, Mick.”

“She’s right, you know,” said Banks. “They are very good, these scientists. Me, I know bugger-all about DNA and hair follicles, but these lads could find the exact spot on your head the hair came from.”

“We didn’t steal no car.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Banks said.

“Mind reader, too, are you?”

Banks laughed. “It doesn’t take much. You’re thinking how long ago was it we took that car? It was the thirty-first of March. And what’s today’s date? It’s the sixteenth of May. That’s a month and a half. Surely there can’t be any traces left by now? Surely the car must have been washed, the interior vacuumed? Isn’t that what you’re thinking, Mick?”

“I’ve told you. I don’t know nothing about a stolen car.” He folded his arms and tried to look defiant. Winsome gave a grunt of disgust and impatience.

“DC Jackman’s getting restless,” said Banks. “And I wouldn’t want to push her too far, if I were you.”

“You can’t touch me. It’s all on tape.”

“Touch you? Who said anything about touching you?”

“You’re threatening me.”

“No. You’ve got it wrong, Mick. See, I want to get this all settled, get you back off to work, home in time for the evening news. Nothing I’d like better. But DC Jackman here is, well, let’s just say that she’d be more than happy to see you in detention.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the cells, Mick. Downstairs. Overnight.”

“But I haven’t done anything. You can’t do that.”

“Was it Ian? Is that whose idea it was?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What happened to Leanne?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet Sarah tells us it was all your fault.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“She’ll want to protect her boyfriend, won’t she, Mick? I’ll bet she doesn’t give a damn about you when the chips are down.”

“Stop it!”

Winsome looked at her watch. “Let’s just lock him up and go home,” she said. “I’m getting fed up of this.”

“What do you think, Mick?”

“I’ve told you all I know.”

Banks looked at Winsome before turning back to Mick. “I’m afraid, then, we’re going to have to hold you on suspicion.”

“Suspicion of what?”

“Suspicion of the murder of Leanne Wray.”

Mick jumped to his feet. “That’s absurd. I didn’t kill anyone. Nobody murdered Leanne.”

“How do you know that?”

“I mean I didn’t murder Leanne. I don’t know what happened to her. It’s not my fault if somebody else killed her.”

“It is if you were there.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Then tell us the truth, Mick. Tell us what happened.”

“I’ve told you.”

Banks stood up and gathered his file folders together. “All right. We’ll see what Sarah has to say. In the meantime, I want you to think about two things while you’re in the cells for the night, Mick. Time can drag down there, especially in the wee hours, when all you’ve got for company is the drunk next door singing ‘Your Cheating Heart’ over and over again; so it’s nice to have something to think about, something to distract you.”

“What things?”

“First off, if you come clean with us, if you tell us the truth, if it was all Ian Scott’s idea and if whatever happened to Leanne was down to Ian, then it’ll go a lot easier with you.” He looked at Winsome. “I could even see him walking away from this with little more than a reprimand, failing to report, or something minor like that, can’t you, DC Jackman?”

Winsome grimaced, as if the idea of Mick Blair’s getting off with less than murder appalled her.

“What’s the other thing?” Mick asked.

“The other thing? Oh, yes. It’s about Samuel Gardner.”

“Who?”

“The owner of the stolen car.”

“What about him?”

“Man’s a slob, Mick. He never cleans his car. Inside or out.”

Jenny couldn’t think of anything to say after what Keith and Laura had just told her. She sat with her mouth half open and an astonished expression on her face until her brain processed the information and she was able to continue. “How do you know?” she asked.

“We saw her,” Keith said. “We were with her. In a way, it was all of us. She was doing it for all of us but she was the only one had the guts to do it.”

“Are you certain about this?”

“Yes,” they said.

“This isn’t something you’ve just remembered?” Like many of her colleagues, Jenny distrusted repressed memory syndrome, and she wanted to make certain that was not what she was dealing with. Linda Godwin might have been kind to animals and never wet the bed or set a fire, but if she had killed when she was twelve, there was something seriously, pathologically wrong with her, and she could have killed again.

“No,” said Laura. “We always knew. We just lost it for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like when you put something away where you can find it again easily, but then you don’t remember where you put it,” said Keith.

Jenny understood that; it happened to her all the time.

“Or when you’re carrying something and you remember you have to do something else, so you put it down on your way, and then you can’t find it again,” Laura added.

“You say you were there?”

“Yes,” said Keith. “We were in the room with her. We saw her do it.”

“And you’ve said nothing all these years?”

Laura and Keith just looked at her and she understood that they couldn’t have said anything. How could they? They were too used to silence. And why would they? They were all victims of the Godwins and the Murrays. Why should Linda be singled out for more suffering?

“Is that why she was in the cage when the police came?”

“No. Linda was in the cage because it was her period,” Keith said. Laura blushed and turned away. “Tom was in the cage with her because they thought he did it. They never suspected Linda.”

“But why?” asked Jenny.

“Because Kathleen just couldn’t take any more,” said Laura. “She was so weak, her spirit was almost gone. Linda killed her to s-s-save her. She knew what it was like to be in that position, and she knew that Kathleen couldn’t handle it. She killed her to save her further suffering.”

“Are you sure?” Jenny asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you certain that’s why Linda killed her?”

“Why else?”

“Didn’t you think it might have been because she was jealous? Because Kathleen was usurping her place?”

“No!” said Linda, scraping back her chair. “That’s horrible. How could you say something like that? She killed her to save her more suffering. She killed her out of k-k-kindness.”

One or two people in the café had noticed Laura’s outburst and were looking over curiously at the table.

“Okay,” Jenny said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Laura looked at her and a note of defiant desperation came into her tone. “She could be kind, you know. Linda could be kind.”

The old house was certainly full of noises, Maggie thought, and she was beginning to jump at almost every one: wood creaking as the temperature dropped after dark, a whistle of wind rattling at the windows, dishes shifting in the rack as they dried. It was Bill’s phone call, of course, she told herself, and she tried the routines she used to calm herself – deep breathing, positive visualization – but the ordinary noises of the house continued to distract her from her work.

She put a CD compilation of Baroque classics in the stereo Ruth had set up in the studio, and that both cut out the disturbing sounds and helped her to relax.

She was working late on some sketches for “Hänsel and Gretel” because the following day she had to go to London to meet with her art director and discuss the project so far. She also had an interview at Broadcasting House: a Radio Four program about domestic violence, naturally, but she was beginning to warm to being a spokesperson, and if anything she said could help anyone at all, then all the minor irritations, such as ignorant interviewers and provocative fellow guests, were worthwhile.

Bill already knew where she was, so she had no reason to worry about giving that away now. She wasn’t going to run away. Not again. Despite his call, and the way it had shaken her, she was determined to continue in her new role.

While she was in London, she would also try to get a ticket for a West End play she wanted to see and stay overnight at the modest little hotel her art director had recommended several visits ago. One of the joys of a country with a decent train service, Maggie thought, was that London was only a couple of hours away from Leeds, a couple of hours that could be spent in reasonable comfort reading a book as the landscape sped by. One thing that amused and intrigued Maggie was the way that the English always complained about their train service, no matter how good it seemed to someone from Canada, where trains were regarded as something of a necessary evil, tolerated but not encouraged. Maggie thought complaining about trains was probably a British institution that had begun long before the days of British Rail, let alone Virgin and Railtrack.

Maggie turned back to her sketch. She was trying to capture the expression on the faces of Hänsel and Gretel when they realized in the moonlight that the trail of crumbs they had left to lead them from the dangers of the forest to the safety of home had been eaten by birds. She liked the eerie effect she had created with the tree trunks, branches and shadows, which with just a little imagination could take the shapes of wild beasts and demons, but Hänsel and Gretel’s expressions still weren’t quite right. They were only children, Maggie reminded herself, not adults, and their fear would be simple and natural, a look of abandonment and eyes on the verge of tears, not as complex as adult fear, which would include components of anger and the determination to find a way out. Very different facial expressions indeed.

In an earlier version of the sketch, Hänsel and Gretel had come out looking a bit like younger versions of Terry and Lucy, Maggie thought, just as Rapunzel had resembled Claire, so she scrapped it. Now they were anonymous, faces she had probably once spotted in a crowd which, for whatever mysterious reason, had lodged in her unconscious.

Claire. The poor girl. That afternoon Maggie had talked with both Claire and her mother together, and they had agreed that Claire would try the psychologist Dr. Simms had recommended. That was a start, at least, Maggie thought, though it might take Claire years to work through the psychological disturbance brought on by Terry Payne’s acts, her friend’s murder and her own sense of guilt and responsibility.

Pachelbel’s “Canon” played in the background, and Maggie concentrated on her drawing, adding a little chiaroscuro effect here and a silvering of moonlight there. No need to make it too elaborate, as it would only serve as the model for a painting, but she needed these little notes to herself to show her the way when she came to the final version. That would be different in some ways, of course, but would also retain many of the little visual ideas she was having now.

When she heard the tapping over the music, she thought it was another noise the old house had come up with to scare her.

But when it stopped for a few seconds, then resumed at a slightly higher volume and faster rhythm, she turned off the stereo and listened.

Someone was knocking at the back door.

Nobody ever used the back door. It only led into a mean little latticework of gennels and snickets that connected with the council estate behind The Hill.

Not Bill, surely?

No, Maggie reassured herself. Bill was in Toronto. Besides, the door was deadlocked, bolted and chained. She wondered if she should dial 999 right away, but then realized how silly she would look in the eyes of the police if it was Claire, or Claire’s mother. Or even the police themselves. She couldn’t bear the idea of Banks hearing she had been such a fool.

Instead, she moved very slowly and quietly. Despite the anonymous creaks, the staircase was relatively silent underfoot, partly because of the thick pile carpet. She picked out one of Charles’s golf clubs from the hall cupboard and, brandishing it ready to use, edged toward the kitchen door.

The knocking continued.

It was only when Maggie had got to within a few feet away that she heard the familiar woman’s voice: “Maggie, is that you? Are you there? Please let me in.”

She abandoned the golf club, turned on the kitchen light and fiddled with the various locks. When she finally got the door open, she was confused by what she saw. Appearance and voice didn’t match. The woman had short, spiky blond hair, was wearing a T-shirt under a soft black leather jacket and a pair of close-fitting blue jeans. She was carrying a small holdall. Only the slight bruising by one eye, and the impenetrable darkness of the eyes themselves, told Maggie who it was, though it took several moments to process the information.

“Lucy. My God, it is you!”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Maggie held the door open and Lucy Payne stepped into the kitchen.

“Only I’ve got nowhere to go and I wondered if you could put me up. Just for a couple of days or so, while I think of something.”

“Yes,” said Maggie, still feeling stunned. “Yes, of course. Stay as long as you like. It’s quite a new look. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Lucy gave a little twirl. “Do you like it?”

“It’s certainly different.”

Lucy laughed. “Good,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to know I’m here. Believe it or not, Maggie, but not everyone around here is as sympathetic toward me as you are.”

“I suppose not,” said Maggie, then she locked, bolted and put the chain on the door, turned out the kitchen light and led Lucy Payne into the living room.