Cold Is The Grave

18

Ruth Walker arrived with her police escort shortly after lunch the following day. Wearing baggy jeans and a shapeless mauve sweatshirt with sleeves that fell long past her hands, she looked both nervous and defiant as she took her seat in the gloomy interview room. She held her head high, but her eyes were all over the place, everywhere but on the person speaking to her. A sprinkling of acne lay over her pale cheeks, and her skin looked pasty and dry.

Unlike Barry Clough, who was now back at his Little Venice villa, Ruth didn’t have an expensive lawyer in tow. They had offered to bring in a duty solicitor for her, but she said she didn’t need anyone. Banks set the tape recorders going, gave details of the session and began. Annie sat beside him. He had the answers to most of his previous day’s questions – including two calls from Darren’s mobile, only one of which had been to Banks – in a buff folder on the desk in front of him, and he didn’t like the story they told one bit.

“I suppose you know why you’re here, don’t you, Ruth?” Banks began.

Ruth stared at a squashed fly high on the opposite wall.

“We’ve been doing a bit of digging.”

“Not really the season for that, is it?” Ruth said.

“This isn’t a joking matter,” Banks said. “So drop it, Ruth. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Whatever.”

“You’ve told me a lot of lies.”

“Lies? Pork pies. They’re what I’ve been living. What else have I got to tell you?”

“It’s my job to try and sort out a few truths. Let’s start with the fire.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“With what?”

“With why I’m here.”

“I told you, I’m trying to get at some truths.”

“There was a fire. I woke up and my room was full of smoke. I had to jump out of the window. I broke my ankle really badly. You might have noticed I’ve still got a limp.”

“What else can you tell us about the fire?”

“What’s to tell? It was an accident. I couldn’t walk for weeks.”

“What caused the fire?”

“They said it was a cigarette. It can’t have been mine. I put it out. I remember.”

“Whose was it then?”

Ruth shrugged. “Dunno. It wasn’t mine.”

“Ruth, it must have been your cigarette. Your parents died in that fire, and all you can think about is your broken ankle. What’s wrong with this picture?”

“You tell me. And they weren’t my parents. Everyone says I was the lucky one, so I suppose they must be right.”

“Did you feel lucky?”

“‘Do you feel lucky today, punk?’ Sorry. Bad joke again. Blame it on being deprived of humor throughout my childhood and adolescence.”

“Were you deprived of humor?”

“It wasn’t part of the deal.”

“What deal?”

“You know. The one where you’re not supposed to dance, sing, laugh, cry, love, fuck. The religious deal. I sometimes think the reason they had to adopt a child was that they thought it was a sin to do what they had to do to produce one naturally.”

“How did you feel toward your parents?”

“I told you, they weren’t my parents. They were my adoptive parents. Believe me, it does make a difference. Do you know, they never even told me I was adopted?”

“How did you find out?”

“The papers.”

“But surely they must have been destroyed by the fire?”

“They were kept in a safety deposit box at the bank. I only found out after they died and I had to open it. That’s where they kept me. In a box.”

“But they were the only parents who brought you up.”

“Oh, yes. Everyone says they were decent, honest, God-fearing folk. Salt of the earth.”

“What do you say?”

“They were stupid imbeciles, too brainwashed to make their own decisions about anything. They were scared of everything except the chapel. Their bodies. The world beyond the street. Their lives. They inflicted all that on me. And more. They made my life miserable, made me a laughingstock at school. I had no friends. I had no one to talk to. They didn’t like me hanging around with the other kids. They said God ought to be enough of a friend for anyone. What do you expect me to say about them?”

“Were you glad they died?”

“Yes.” Ruth’s left hand shot out of the end of her sleeve and scratched the side of her nose. Her grubby fingernails were bitten to the quick.

“What about your birth mother?”

“Ros? I call her that, you know. It’s a bit late to be calling her ‘Mother,’ don’t you think? And Mrs. Riddle seems just a wee bit too formal.”

“How did you find her?”

The edges of Ruth’s lips curled in an ugly smirk. “You ought to know that, if you’ve done so much digging. My degree’s in information technology. You can find out anything these days if you know where to look. The telephone directory is usually pretty reliable, you know. A good place to start. But there’s the Internet, too. Lots of information out on that superhighway.”

“Where did you begin?”

“With the Registrar General’s office. They’ll let you see your original birth certificate if you ask them nicely. From there it’s pretty easy.”

“What did the birth certificate tell you?”

“That I was born at seventy-three Launceston Terrace, Tiverton, on the twenty-third of February, 1977.”

“What else?”

Ruth stared at the walls again, looking bored. “That my mother was Rosalind Gorwyn and that there was a blank space where my father’s name was supposed to be.”

“What did you do next?”

“I went to seventy-three Launceston Terrace, Tiverton, and found an elderly couple by the name of Gorwyn living there. It’s not a very common name, even in Devon. I knew they couldn’t be my real parents – they were too old – so I pushed them a bit and found out they were her aunt and uncle and that she had stayed with them while she had the baby. Me. Hid away from the world while she gave birth to me.”

“What else did they tell you?”

“That my mother had married a man called Jeremiah Archibald Riddle, an important policeman, that she was a solicitor now, and they lived in North Yorkshire. By then they’d have told me anything to get rid of me. After that it was really easy. A child could have found them.”

“Did you speak to Rosalind’s parents at all?”

“Not right at first. But I found out that they’d retired to Barnstaple. He was a vicar. Which probably explains why my mother let me live.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked.

Ruth looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. She didn’t seem to mind what she saw. “Well, either way I didn’t have much of a chance, did I?” she said. “She could’ve just got rid of me, had an abortion. That’s what I’d have done in her place. Then I would never have existed at all and none of this would have happened.”

“Or?”

“She could have kept me. Then I’d have been an unwanted baby with a single mother and your chief constable would never have married her. I’d probably have been brought up in some sort of punk commune or something, with people shooting heroin all around my cot, getting high and forgetting me, so I’d have crawled to the edge of the stairs and fallen over and died anyway. So I imagine she thought putting me up for adoption was a better choice for her. Pity it didn’t turn out that way for me. I’ve been told the adoption people are pretty good, very strict in their standards, but some of us slip through the cracks. Like I said, everyone thought the Walkers were the salt of the earth, that they would make wonderful parents, but the Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless them with issue. You’d think they’d take that as a sign, wouldn’t you?”

Banks and Annie paused to take in what she said, then Banks picked up the questioning again. “You went to Rosalind’s law office?”

“Yes. I thought it would be best that way. Turned out I was right.” Ruth gave a mean little giggle. “She was scared shitless I’d say something to her husband. Thought he’d turf her out on her arse if he found out.”

“So you blackmailed her.”

Ruth slammed her fist onto the desk. “It was only my due! I only asked for my due. I’d had nothing from her in all those years. Nothing. And I’d had fat little but misery from the bloody Walkers. Do you know they once made me wear an old pair of shoes that were so small and tight that my toenails came off and my shoes were full of blood when I got home from school? That was what your bloody salt-of-the-earth Walkers were like. I had a right to something from Ros. She owed me. Why should she get it all just because she was born a few years later than me, on the right side of the blanket? Answer me that one. It should all have been mine, but she tossed me away. It was only my due.”

The interview room was starting to feel very claustrophobic. Banks couldn’t quite sort out the she’s; half the time it seemed as if Ruth was referring to Rosalind, the rest to Emily. “Were you abused by your adoptive parents, Ruth?”

Ruth gave a harsh laugh. “Abused? That’s a good one. You at least have to care about someone to abuse them. No, I wasn’t abused, not in the way you mean it. I suppose there’s more than one kind of abuse, though. I mean, I’d call being made to wear those shoes until my toes bled abuse. Wouldn’t you? Mostly, they were just cold. Ironic they should die by fire, isn’t it?”

Again, Banks felt that shiver creep up his spine. He saw Annie frowning. Ruth paid them no attention. “Did you see Rosalind often?” Banks asked.

“Not that often.”

“When you needed something?”

“I only wanted my due.”

“What about Emily? How did you feel toward her?”

“I’d be a liar if I said I liked her.”

“But you befriended her, took her in. At least I assume that’s how it happened and you didn’t just meet her by accident near the station. Is that right?”

Ruth nodded. “When I met her the once in Ros’s office, I made a point of finding out where she went to school. She was a boarding student, so I phoned her there, and visited her. When she started to trust me, when we began to be friends, she used to call me a lot from school, too. She’d complain about her parents, how strict they were. I had to laugh. I mean, she’d complain to me about that. I told her that after she was sixteen she could do what she wanted. It was near the end of the school year and she’d had her birthday, so I said why didn’t she come and stay with me in London for a while if she wanted.”

“You mean you lured her to London? You encouraged her to leave home?”

“I think lured is too strong a word. I had no trouble getting her there. She was only too pleased to come.”

“But you didn’t tell her parents where she was?”

“Why should I? It was her business, and she didn’t want them to know.”

“Do you think Rosalind knew?”

“I doubt it. She didn’t know how close me and Emily had become. I don’t think she even knew where I lived. Didn’t bother to ask. That’s how interested in me she was after all those years.”

“Did you introduce Emily to Craig Newton?” Banks asked.

Ruth’s face clouded. “I thought he was my friend. I thought he loved me. But he was just like all the rest.”

“Did it hurt you when she took up with Craig?”

Ruth shot him a tortured glance. “What do you think?”

“Is that why you killed her?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Come on, Ruth. We’ve got the evidence. We know. You might as well tell us how it happened. I’m sure there were extenuating circumstances. What about Barry Clough? What part did he play in all this, for example?”

Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “I wondered when you’d get around to him.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Plenty.”

“Like what?”

Ruth paused a minute and rubbed her fist over the top of her thigh as if she had an itch. “I bet it’s something you don’t know, clever clogs.”

“Maybe it is. Why don’t you tell me?”

“They didn’t name my father on the birth certificate, as I told you. But I found out. That’s who it was. Barry Clough. My father.” Ruth flopped back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’m tired and I want something to eat. You have to give me something to eat, don’t you?”

“I don’t know about you, Annie,” Banks said when Ruth was back in her cell eating her canteen beefburger and chips, “but I could do with a breath of fresh air.”

“My feelings exactly.”

They left the station and walked across the market square, then they took the narrow, cobbled Castle Wynde past the bare formal gardens down to the riverside. It was a crisp, cold winter day, and their breaths plumed as they walked, crunching over puddles. The hill went down to the river steeply, with small limestone cottages lining both sides, and the cobbles were slippery. Banks could feel the icy wind blowing up from the river. It was just what he needed to get the smell of the interview room out of his system.

“What do you make of all that, then?” Annie asked when they were halfway down.

Banks didn’t know what to make of Ruth’s bombshell. He didn’t even know if it was true; after all, she had told plenty of lies already. But why lie about something like that? “It raises more questions than it answers,” he said.

“Such as: Did anyone else know, and did it have anything to do with Emily’s murder?”

“For a start. If Rosalind Riddle knew, she kept it well hidden. I hadn’t thought her that good an actress.”

“Do you think Ruth killed Emily?”

“If she didn’t, she knows what happened, she knows who did. She’s a part of it, I’m certain of that.”

They arrived at the river and paused for a while by the waist-high stone wall that ran along its bank. The falls rushed and foamed along the shallows, huge moss-covered slabs of ancient rock jutting out here and there, the result of a geological fault millions of years ago. banks could feel the icy spray on his cheeks and in his hair. If the cold spell continued for much longer, even the falls would freeze. Above them, the dark mass of the ruined castle keep and towers lay heavy against a pewter sky; it was a black-and-white world, or like the world of a black-and-white photograph with all its subtle variations of gray. Annie slipped her arm in his. It was a good feeling, the only good feeling he’d had that morning.

They walked along the riverside path, past the terraced gardens, no more than a small park dotted with trees, to their left. There weren’t many people around, just a young couple walking their Airedale and an old age pensioner in a flat cap taking his daily constitutional. Banks had often considered buying a flat cap himself. All these years in Yorkshire and he still didn’t have one. But he didn’t like wearing hats, even in winter.

Across the river, to the right, bare trees lined the opposite bank. Beyond them, Banks could make out the shapes of the large houses facing The Green, beyond which lay the notorious East Side Estate, which pretty much kept the Eastvale police in business year-round.

In one of those big houses lived Jenny Fuller, a psychologist Banks had worked with on a number of cases. A friend, too, and a one-time potential lover. Jenny had been polite but cool toward him ever since he stood her up on a date three months ago through no fault of his own. It was more than just that, though; it was as if Jenny had put too much of herself on the line, exposed her feelings for him, and the seeming rejection had grazed a raw nerve, made her curl in on herself. She was on the rebound from a sour relationship with an American professor at the time, Banks already knew, so she was hurting to start with. He wished he could do something to bridge the distance, rekindle the friendship. It had been important to him over the years.

But there was Annie, too. Banks was no expert, but he knew enough of women to realize that Annie wouldn’t appreciate his spending time with someone other than her now that he felt free from his marriage.

“Sandra wants a divorce,” he suddenly said to Annie. He felt her arm stiffen in his, but she didn’t remove it. First good sign. This was one thing he hadn’t told her the other night, one thing he had found too difficult to put into words. It still was, but he knew he would have to try if he and Annie were to go any further. It might put her more at ease or it might scare her off; that was the risk he would have to take.

“I’m sorry,” she said, without looking at him.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I’m glad.”

Annie slowed down and turned slowly to face him. “You’re what?”

They started walking again, and he tried to explain to her what he had felt in London, after he first heard the news. He wasn’t sure whether he did a good job or not, but Annie nodded here and there and seemed to contemplate what he’d said after he’d finished. Finally, she said, “That’s all right, then.”

“It is?”

“Time to let go.”

Second good sign. “I suppose so.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore. Oh, there are memories, always will be, and some residual feelings – anger, disappointment, whatever. But no, it doesn’t hurt. In fact, I feel better than I have in years.”

“Good.”

“Look, do you fancy coming over to the cottage for Christmas dinner? Tracy will be there. Just the three of us.”

“I can’t. Really, I’m sorry, Alan, but I always go home for Christmas. Ray would never forgive me if I missed it.”

“I understand.”

Annie gave his arm a little squeeze. “I mean it, Alan. It’s not an excuse. I’d love to meet Tracy. Maybe some other time?”

Banks knew she was telling the truth. Annie wasn’t a very good liar, as he had discovered. Lying made her all grumpy and withdrawn. “We’ll have a drink together sometime, then,” he said.

“Do you think she’ll hate me?”

“Why should she?”

Annie smiled. “Sometimes you can be pretty damn thick when it comes to women, Alan Banks.”

“I’m not being thick,” Banks said. “Mothers, daughters, fathers, it can all get pretty complicated. I know that. But Tracy’s not a hater. I know my daughter. I wouldn’t expect her to rush up to you and hug you – no doubt she’ll be a little hesitant, checking you out, as they say – but she’s not a hater, and she doesn’t see me as the villain in all this. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“Unlike Ruth Walker.”

“Indeed. Did you feel the atmosphere in that room?”

Annie nodded.

“I felt something like it before, the times I talked to her in London,” Banks said, “but it wasn’t as powerful. I think it’s because she senses she’s near the end. She’s given up. She’s unraveling.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. I think she wants us to know it all now, so we can see her point of view. So we can understand her. Forgive her.”

Annie shook her head. “I don’t think she wants forgiveness, Alan. At least, not the way I’m reading her. I don’t think she sees there’s anything to forgive.”

“Perhaps not. I should have known.”

“Should have known what?”

“That something was wrong there.”

“But you’ve only just found out Ruth was Emily’s half-sister. How could you have known that?”

“I don’t know. I should have dug deeper sooner.”

“Why do you have to take the burden on yourself like this? Why is everything your fault? Why do you think if you only acted differently you could prevent people being killed?”

Banks stopped and looked out over the swirling river; it was the color of a pint of bitter, an intruder in the black-and-white world. “Do I?”

“You know you do.”

Banks lit a cigarette. “It must be something to do with Graham Marshall.”

“Graham Marshall? Who’s he?”

“A boy at school. I won’t say a friend because I didn’t know him very well. He was a quiet kid, bright, shy.”

“What happened?”

“One day he simply disappeared.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody knows. He was never found. Dead or alive.”

“What did the police think?”

“The general consensus was that he’d been abducted by a child molester who’d murdered him after he’d had his way. This would probably have been around the time of the Moors Murders, though in a different part of the country, so people were especially sensitive to the disappearance of children.”

“That’s sad.” Annie rested her elbows on the wall beside Banks. “But I still don’t see what it’s got to do with you.”

“About three or four months before Graham Marshall’s disappearance I was playing with some friends down by the river. We were throwing stones in, just having a bit of harmless fun, the way kids do…”

As he spoke, Banks remembered the day vividly. It was spitting and the raindrops pitted the murky water. A man approached along the riverbank. All Banks could remember now was that he was tall – but then every adult was tall to him then – and thin, with greasy dark hair and a rough, pockmarked complexion. Banks smiled and politely paused before dropping in a large stone, one he had to hold in both hands, to let the stranger pass by without splashing him.

The next thing he knew, the man had grabbed him by the arms and was pushing him toward the river, the stone forgotten at their feet. He could smell beer on the man’s breath, the same smell he remembered from his father, and something else – sweat, a wet-dog smell, body odor, like the smell of his socks after a long rugby game, as he struggled for his life. He called out and looked around for his friends, but they were running down to the gap in the fence where they had got in.

The struggle seemed to go on forever. Banks managed to wedge his heels at the edge of the riverbank and push back with all his might, but the grass was wet, and the soil under it was fast turning to mud. He didn’t think he could keep his grip much longer.

His smallness and wiriness were his only advantages, he knew, and he wriggled as hard as an eel to slip out of the man’s strong grasp. He knew that if he didn’t escape he would drown. He tried to bite the man’s arm, but all he got was a mouthful of vile-tasting cloth, so he gave up.

The man was breathing hard now, as if the effort was becoming too much for him. Banks drew on his last reserves of energy and wriggled as hard and fast as he could. He managed to get one arm free. The man held him by the other arm and punched him at the side of his right eye. He felt something sharp, like a ring, cut his skin. He flinched with pain and pulled away, succeeding in freeing his other arm. He didn’t wait to see if he was being pursued, but ran like the clappers to the hole in the fence.

Only when he caught up with his friends at the edge of the park did he dare risk looking back. Nobody in sight. His friends seemed sheepish as they asked him how he was, but he toughed it out. No problem. Inside, though, he was terribly shaken. They made a pact not to say anything. None of them was supposed to be playing down by the river in the first place. Their parents said it was dangerous. Banks didn’t dare tell his parents what had happened, explaining the cut by his eye by saying he had fallen and cut it on a piece of glass, and he had never relied on anyone to help him out of trouble again in his life.

“I was wrong. I should have told my parents, Annie. They would have made me report it to the police, and they might have caught him before he did any more harm. There was a dangerous man out there, and my fear and shame left him free to do as he pleased.”

“You blamed yourself for what happened to Graham Marshall? For the acts of a child molester?”

Banks turned away from the beer-colored water to face Annie. “When he went missing, all I could think of was the tall man with the greasy dark hair and the body odor.” Banks shivered. Sometimes he still woke in the night gagging on the taste of the dirty cloth of the man’s sleeve, and in the dream, when he looked at the river, it was full of dead boys all floating in the same direction, in perfectly matched rows, and Graham Marshall was the only one he recognized. So much guilt.

“But you don’t know that it was the same man.”

“Doesn’t matter. I still took the guilt on myself. I’d been attacked by an older man, possibly a pervert, and I didn’t report it. Then a boy was abducted, possibly by a pervert. Of course I blamed myself. And I certainly couldn’t say anything about it later.”

Annie put her hand on his arm. “So you made a mistake. So you should have reported it. You can’t spend your life sulking over all the mistakes you’ve made. You’d never bother getting out of bed in the morning.”

Banks smiled. “You’re right. I try not to let it get me down too much. It’s only when something like this happens, something I think I could have prevented.”

Annie started walking again. “You’re not God,” she said over her shoulder. “You can’t change the way things are.”

Banks flicked his cigarette in the river and followed her. Annie was right, he knew; he only wished he could feel better about it.

They turned left at the main road by the pre-Roman site, a sort of barrow where ancient graves had been discovered, and then left again, back toward the station, toward whatever other horrors Ruth Walker had in store for them.

Banks started the tape recorders again. “All right, Ruth,” he said, “you’ve had some food and rest. Ready to talk to us again?”

Ruth nodded and retracted her hands deep into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

“For the record,” Banks said, “Ms. Walker nodded to indicate that she is ready to resume the interview.”

Ruth stared down at her lap.

“Before the break, Ruth, you told us that Barry Clough is your father. I’m sure you know that gives rise to a lot more questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“First of all, is it true?”

“Of course it is. Why should I lie about it?”

“You’ve lied before. Remember, right at the beginning you told me your life has been a lie?”

“This is true. He’s my father. You can check.”

“How did you find out about this if it wasn’t on the birth certificate?”

“I talked to Ros’s parents.”

“And they told you, just like that?”

“It wasn’t as easy as that.”

“How easy was it, then?”

“It was a matter of finding out what name he was using now.”

“What do you mean?”

“All they could tell me was that Ros got herself made pregnant by some punk. He hung around with bands, worked as a roadie, played bass a bit, something like that. Ros had told them his name, but he was long gone by the time she even found out she was pregnant. He was in America, they told me. And she didn’t want anything to do with him anyway. Neither did her parents. Everybody just did their best to forget him, and it seems as if that was pretty easy.”

“What was his name?”

Ruth laughed. “You know what they were like back then, all using silly names, thinking they sounded tough? Rat Scabies. Sid Vicious. Johnny Rotten.”

“I remember,” said Banks.

“Well, this bloke was going by the name of Mal Licious. I ask you. Mal Licious.”

What an apt name for Barry Clough, Banks thought. “So nobody knew his real name?”

“Ros’s parents and uncle and aunt didn’t.”

“Did you ask Rosalind herself?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She didn’t know, either. Mal Licious was all he went by. She just called him Mal. Seems she hadn’t known him that well. I think it was a one-night stand. She didn’t really want to talk about it.”

“How did you find out, then?”

Ruth shifted in her chair. “Easy. Information technology. I know a bit about the music scene, I’ve been to a lot of clubs and raves and stuff, and Craig had a few contacts, he’d taken band photos, that sort of thing. I asked around. It seemed a logical way to start. There was always a chance that this Mal Licious was still on the scene somewhere. A lot of these people never grow up. Look at Rod Stewart, for Christ’s sake. Clough was a pretty well-known name on the scene, partly because of his trendy bar and partly because of the bands he promoted. There were still people around who’d known him way back, and someone told me he used to be called Mal Licious. Thought it was a bit of a laugh. Well, there can’t have been two of them, can there? Stands to reason.”

Indeed it did, thought Banks. Bright girl. Or woman. A lot of things were starting to make sense now. “So none of what happened since Emily went to London was coincidence, then?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Emily shacking up with Barry Clough, Clough finding out about Riddle, the article in the newspaper linking them together.”

A look of triumph filled Ruth’s eyes. “No,” she said. “None of it was coincidence. It was all me. I set things in motion. Beyond that, they took on a life of their own. I soon found out that Clough liked young girls, and it wasn’t hard to get an invitation to one of his parties. What happened next was up to nature, not me. It really pissed off Craig.”

“Did you ever approach Clough? He’s a wealthy man. Wealthier than Rosalind, I should imagine.”

Ruth frowned at him. “It’s not all about money, you know. No, I didn’t approach him. What was he going to say? Probably didn’t even remember Ros’s name, let alone that he’d shagged her. They were probably stoned out of their minds.”

“Did you tell Rosalind about Emily and Clough?”

“No.”

“Why on earth not? He was her…” Banks had to pause and think for a moment. No matter how terrible it seemed for Rosalind’s daughter to be sleeping with a man her mother had slept with, and whose child she had given birth to, Emily wasn’t any relation to Clough whatsoever. “Emily was your half-sister,” was all he could manage.

Ruth smiled. “Information management. Knowledge is power, as I’m sure you know. If you use it only a little at a time, it can go a long way. I might have had a use for that information eventually. But I was enjoying myself plenty with what I already had. I think if I’d told Ros about them, everything would have come tumbling down, and it wasn’t time for that yet.”

You’re damn right the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down, Banks thought. Before he could respond, Annie eased in. “You said you were enjoying yourself, Ruth. In what way?”

Ruth faced her for a moment before her eyes went off in another direction. “Why shouldn’t I enjoy myself? I’ve had little enough fun in my life. Why not have a bit for a change?”

“Fun?” repeated Annie. “Ruth, two people have died because of all this. Emily and her father. A family’s been torn apart. And you think it’s fun?”

“I didn’t mean to kill her.”

Annie glanced at Banks and indicated he should pick up the thread. It was the first hint of a confession they’d heard from Ruth so far. Banks didn’t want to lose her now, but at the same time he wanted no problems over PACE. “We’re heading into dangerous ground, Ruth,” he said. “I’m telling you again that you’re entitled to have a solicitor present, and I’m asking you if you want us to provide one for you.”

“I’ve told you before,” Ruth shouted directly into the microphone. “I don’t want any fucking solicitor. Is that clear enough for you?”

“It’ll do,” said Banks. “Let me get this straight, then. You discovered that Barry Clough was your father and you didn’t tell either him or Rosalind this. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Emily?”

“Of course not.”

“But you introduced them at a party.”

“That was all I needed to do.” Ruth’s eyes shone. “That was the beauty of it, you see. I knew Clough liked young girls, and you didn’t have to talk to Emily for long before you found out what a twisted little Electra complex she had. She wanted to fuck her daddy. Well, I couldn’t arrange that, but at least I could give her a chance to fuck mine. It was perfect.”

“Why?”

“Because I was the only one who knew the truth. The joke was on them, on someone else, for a change, not on me.”

“What about Barry Clough and Emily’s father?”

“That was just a bonus. I know a young reporter. It was a big story, probably made his career. I just gave him one of those photos of Emily all dressed up for a party and I told him that she was fucking Barry Clough and her father was a chief constable. He was off to Yorkshire like a shot. Did the rest of the footwork himself.”

“What about Barry Clough, after Emily had left? Did you tell him who she was, where she lived, who her father was?”

“Yes. I thought it would probably interest him. He struck me as the kind of man who liked to own others. I just thought it would be interesting to put the two of them together when neither of them knew how close they really were.”

“So he doesn’t know that you’re his daughter or that Emily’s your half-sister?”

“Of course not. It wasn’t time to go that far yet.”

“Again, why?”

“They all thought they were so cool, so beautiful, so powerful, so in control. But all the time it was me pulling the strings. Me. They were just running around like headless chickens.”

“And this amused you?”

“Yes. I’m not mad, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not looking to get off on some insanity plea or anything like that. I would like a little recognition for all the work I put in, though.”

“What about Emily? You told her she was your half-sister, didn’t you?”

“I had to, otherwise she would never have trusted me or come to live with me. She’d have thought I was after her or something. This way it made more sense. It was our little secret.”

Banks paused before going on, knowing he had reached a crucial stage. “Ruth, we know you were working for a pharmaceutical company and had access to strychnine. Cocaine’s easy enough to get. Did you give Emily the lethal mixture?”

“It wasn’t meant to be lethal.”

“What did you intend it to do to her?”

“Give her a scare. Give her the jitters. I didn’t mean for it to kill her. Honest. I’m not a murderer.”

“What are you, then?”

Ruth tugged at a frayed edge on her sweatshirt. “Maybe I’ve got some problems. People don’t like me. But I’m not a murderer.” There were tears in her eyes.

“All right, Ruth. What happened?”

“We’d talked on the telephone a few times and she kept saying she was off the stuff. First, I just wanted to see if I could get her back on again. I mean, people say all sorts of things, don’t they, like they’ve given up smoking, but if you offer them a cigarette, if you put just a little temptation their way…”

“And that’s what you did?”

“Yes. Dangled a carrot. Well, a gram of coke, actually. She could probably have scored some up north if she’d asked around, but that was a bit too close to her father’s territory. I mean, you never know if your dealer is an undercover cop, do you? I even offered to deliver it. Said I had to visit some relatives in Durham and I’d stop by on the way.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she’d ring me back. I knew she was thinking seriously about it. Anyway, the day before, I was working late… she phoned me at work on some lad’s mobile and said she was getting bored and she wouldn’t mind some for the next day. She was going clubbing with some mates. I knew I could get a couple of days off, say I had a cold or something. Anyway, just after I talked to her and said I’d see her the next day, I had to go into the controlled area to do some product coding, and that’s when I got the idea of the strychnine. I didn’t know how much to put in. I’d heard they sometimes used it as a base in some street drugs and it makes your jaw and your neck stiff. I just wanted to give her a scare, that’s all. It was only a little bit. I didn’t think it was enough to kill her, but it might make her twitch a bit in public, maybe even puke and piss herself.”

“That was what you wanted to do to her? Humiliate her in public?”

“It was a start.”

“Even though you wouldn’t be there to witness it?”

“But I’d know, wouldn’t I? Being there would be too dangerous. Don’t you see the point? I mean, I didn’t actually see her doing it, but I knew she was fucking my father. If you have a bit of imagination you can amuse yourself easily enough.”

“It has to be more than that, Ruth,” Annie chipped in.

Ruth looked away. “Why?”

“It just does. Why did you hate Emily so much? What did she ever do to you?”

“She had my life, didn’t she? What should have been mine.”

“Why did you want her to suffer?”

“Because she had it all. She took Craig from me.”

“Craig was never with you that way,” Banks said, picking up on Annie’s rhythm. “He was never your lover.”

Ruth jutted her chin out. “That’s what he says now.”

“Why should he lie?”

“He’s against me. She poisoned him against me.”

“That’s not enough, Ruth,” Annie chimed in again.

Ruth gave her a sharp glance. “What do you want? Blood?”

“No. That seems to be what you wanted. We want some answers.”

“It was all so bloody easy for her. Everything just fell into her lap. Craig. Barry Clough. My own father, for Christ’s sake, was running his hands over her thighs ten minutes after they met.”

“But that was part of your plan, you said,” Annie went on.

“You can’t always arrange things so they don’t hurt you at least just a little bit. She got everything she wanted, just like that.”

“Then why did she want to run away from home, Ruth?”

“Uh? What do you mean?”

“If everything was so perfect in Emily’s life, why did she want to run away from her parents?”

“They wouldn’t let her do what she wanted. They were strict.”

“Like yours?”

“Nowhere near as bad as mine. You don’t know the half of it.”

“Then why didn’t you sympathize with her?”

“I did. At first. Then she just… she got everything she wanted. Craig started ignoring me. Even Emily deserted me.”

Banks took over again. “Why did you kill her, Ruth?”

Ruth didn’t know whom to look at. She looked at the squashed fly again. “I didn’t. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“But you did kill her,” Banks pressed on. “Why?”

Ruth paused and her face seemed to go through the kind of contortions as Emily’s must have when the strychnine hit.

“Why did you kill her, Ruth?” Banks persisted, his voice hardly above a whisper. “Why?”

“Because they took her back!” Ruth blurted out. “After all that happened. After everything she did to them. She broke their hearts and they took her back. She threw me out, but she took her back. They took her back! They took her back!” Ruth started crying, fat tears rolling down her acned cheeks.

There was nothing more to say. Banks called in the uniformed officers to take Ruth back to her cell. Now it was time to charge her and bring on the lawyers.

Banks drove out to the Old Mill that night with a heavy heart. He knew he had to be the one to tell Rosalind what had happened, what Ruth had done, just as he had had to break the news about Emily’s murder, but it wasn’t a task he cherished.

The lights were on in the front room. He parked out front, glancing toward the garage as he pulled up his collar against the wind and rain, and rang the doorbell.

Rosalind answered and invited him in. She was wearing a short skirt and a cashmere jumper. He followed her into the living room. Her legs looked good, and it didn’t seem as if she was wearing any tights. He thought he noticed something different about the smell of the place, but he dismissed it; there were far more serious matters on his mind.

“Drink?” Rosalind asked.

“Small whiskey, please.”

“You might as well have a large one. I don’t like the stuff, and there’s no one else to drink it.”

“I have to drive.”

She raised her eyebrow as she poured. “Really?”

“Really.” Christ, Banks thought, she was flirting. He would have to tread carefully. He accepted the crystal glass and sat down in the only uncovered armchair. The room was as sterile as ever, and a couple of packing crates sat on the floor. The baby grand was covered by a white sheet, as was most of the other furniture. He took a sip of whiskey. It was Glenfiddich, not one of his favorites. At the moment, though, anything would do.

“I was just doing some packing,” Rosalind said. “Do you know how remarkably little I have to show for all these years?” She poured herself a large gin and tonic, clearly not her first of the evening, pulled a sheet off one of the armchairs and sat down opposite Banks. As she did so, he caught a glimpse of black silk between her legs. He looked away.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“First?”

“That’s a start.”

“I’m going down to Barnstaple after the funeral to be with Benjamin. We’ll be staying with my parents for a while. I can’t stand hanging about up here any longer. I feel like some crazy old woman all alone in a Gothic mansion. It’s too big to be here alone in. I’ve even started talking to the furniture and the creaks in the woodwork.”

Banks smiled. “And then, after Barnstaple?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to reinvent myself, won’t I? I rather fancy the coast. A little Devon fishing village, for example. I can become the mysterious woman who paces the widow’s walk in a long black cloak.”

“That was Lyme Regis,” Banks said. “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

“I know. I saw the film. But this is my version.”

“What about your job?”

“That’s not important. It never has been. Jerry’s was the only important career in the family, and now that’s gone, none of it really matters.”

“And Benjamin?”

“He can walk with me. It would make me more mysterious. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be flippant. It’s just…” She ran her hand across her brow. “I’ve probably had too much to drink.” She frowned. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

Her eyes widened. “Have you caught him? Emily’s killer?”

Banks swallowed. This was going to be harder than he had imagined. “Yes,” he said. “We’ve got a confession.”

“Clough?”

That was another bridge he’d have to cross: Mal Licious. “No. Not Clough.” He leaned forward and cupped his drink in both hands, staring into the pale liquid and catching a whiff of it. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this.”

“What?”

“It was Ruth.”

“Ruth? But… she can’t… I mean…”

“She confessed. She said she didn’t mean to kill Emily, just to give her a scare.”

“Is that true?”

“I honestly don’t know. She’s contradicted herself quite a bit.”

“Ruth.” Rosalind fell silent and Banks let it stretch. Wind lashed the rain against the windowpanes the way it had the first night he came to the Riddle house. It seemed like years ago.

“Do you want to hear what happened?” Banks asked.

Rosalind looked at him. There was fear in her large blue eyes. “I suppose I’d better,” she said. “Look, do smoke if you want to. I know you’re a smoker.”

“It’s all right.”

“Suit yourself.” Rosalind got up a little unsteadily and pulled a packet of Dunhills and a box of matches from her handbag. She lit up, refreshed her gin and tonic and sat down again.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” said Banks.

“I didn’t. Not for twenty years. But I’ve started again.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Banks lit up too. “It’s bad for you.”

“So’s life.”

There was no answer to that. Slowly, Banks told her the whole story about Ruth Walker’s twisted, private campaign of hatred and revenge against the Riddle family. First he told her about Ruth’s less-than-perfect life with the overzealous Walkers and about the fire that killed them. Then he told her how Ruth had discovered that Barry Clough was her father and had hooked him up with Emily out of spite, then put the tabloid on the scent of a scandal, and he told her how Ruth arranged to meet Emily and give her the poisoned cocaine, how she didn’t even need to be there, that it was enough for her simply to imagine Emily’s pain and shame as she humiliated herself. As he spoke, what little color there had been left Rosalind Riddle’s face and her eyes filled with tears. They didn’t fall, just gathered there at the rims, waiting, magnifying her despair. Rosalind left her drink and her cigarette untouched as she listened. A long column of ash gathered and fell onto the hardwood floor when a slight tremor passed through her fingers.

When Banks had finished, Rosalind sat in silence for a while, taking it all in, digesting it as best she could, shaking her head slowly as if disagreeing with some inner voice. Then she knocked back the rest of her drink and whispered, “But why? Why did she do it? Can you answer me that one?”

“She’s ill.”

“That’s no reason. Why? Why did she do it? Why did she hate us so much? Didn’t I do my best for her? I didn’t have an abortion. I gave her life. How the hell was I to know her adoptive parents would turn out to be religious fanatics?”

“You weren’t.”

“So why does she blame me?”

Ruth’s last words still echoed in Banks’s mind from that afternoon: Because they took her back. She broke their hearts and they took her back. “Because Ruth sees everything from her own point of view, and only that,” he said. “All she knows is how things affect her, how things hurt her, how she was deprived. In her way of looking at the world, everything was either done for her or against her. Mostly it was against her. She doesn’t know any different, doesn’t recognize people’s normal feelings.”

Rosalind laughed harshly. “My daughter the psychopath?”

“No. No, I don’t think so. Not as simple as that. She enjoyed exercising power over people, inflicting pain, yes, but she didn’t have the detachment of a psychopath. She was obsessed, yes, but not psychopathic. And she knows the difference between right and wrong. You’d have to ask a psychiatrist, of course, but that’s my opinion.”

Rosalind got up and fixed herself another drink. She offered Banks one, but he refused. He still had a quarter inch in the bottom of his glass, and that would do him nicely.

“Will she be put in a mental hospital?” Rosalind asked.

“She’ll be sent for psychiatric evaluation, for what it’s worth. They’ll determine what’s best done with her.”

“There’ll be a trial? Prison?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Rosalind shook her head. “Emily’s dead. Jerry’s dead. Ruth’s a murderer. Before Emily died she lived with the man who left me pregnant with Ruth more than twenty years ago. Then I find out that my daughter, my abandoned daughter Ruth, led her into it on purpose, just to humiliate us all in her eyes, so that she could be the only one to know we were all living a lie. Then she killed her. I had two daughters, and one murdered the other. How do you expect me to put all that together? How can I possibly make sense of it all?” She took a long sip of gin and tonic.

Banks shook his head. “I don’t know. In time, perhaps.”

“Remember the first time we met,” Rosalind said, crossing her long legs and leaning back in her chair so that a smooth white stretch of thigh showed. Her voice was a little slurred.

“Yes.”

“I was obnoxious, wasn’t I?”

“You were upset.”

“No, that’s not it at all. I was obnoxious. Jerry was upset. If anything, I was annoyed, irritated by Emily’s irresponsible behavior, worried what impact it might have on Jerry’s political ambitions, on my future. I didn’t want Emily back. I couldn’t handle her.”

“You wanted to protect the world you’d made.”

“And what a world that was. All style and no substance. All glitter and no gold.” She waved her arm in a gesture at the room and spilled some gin and tonic on her jumper. She didn’t bother to wipe it off. “All this. It’s strange, but I was thinking about it when you arrived, while I was packing. Funny, it doesn’t mean very much now. None of it does. You were right to despise me.”

“I didn’t despise you.”

“Yes, you did. Admit it.”

“Maybe I resented you a little.”

“And now?”

“Now?”

“Do you despise me now? Resent me?”

“No.”

“Why not? I’m the same person.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How profound. But you’re right. I’m not. All the money, the status, the power, the thrill of political ambition, the whiff of Westminster… it all used to mean so much. It means nothing now. Less than nothing. Dust.”

“What does have meaning for you now?”

Rosalind paused, sipped some more gin and tonic and stared at him, her eyes slightly unfocused. Outside, the wind continued to howl and rain lashed against the windowpanes. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Not yet. I have to find out. But I won’t give up until I do. I’m not like Jerry.” She got unsteadily to her feet. “Stay and have another drink with me?”

“No. Really. I must be going.”

“Please. Where do you have to go to that’s so important? Who do you have to go to?”

She had a point. There was Annie, of course, but he wouldn’t be going to Annie so late. Another small drink couldn’t do any harm. “All right.”

The drink, when it came, wasn’t small, but he didn’t have to drink all of it, he told himself.

“I’m sorry there’s no music,” Rosalind said. “We never did have music in the house. I remember your little cottage, how cozy it is with the fire, the music playing. Maybe I’ll find somewhere like that.” She looked around bleakly. “There was nothing like that here.”

Banks wanted to point out the grand piano, but he had a feeling it was just for show. Emily had been forced to take piano lessons, he remembered, because it was part and parcel of the Riddle lifestyle, along with the pony, the proper schools and the rest. Some people managed to be happy with those things for their entire lives, then there were people like Rosalind, who caught Tragedy’s wandering eye and got to watch it all come toppling down around them.

“I should never have put her up for adoption.”

“What else could you do?”

“I could have had an abortion, and then Emily’s killer would never have been born.”

“If we all knew the consequences of every decision we made, we’d probably never make any,” said Banks. “Besides, it wasn’t your fault that you had to give Ruth up for adoption. Your parents played a part in that. Does that make them responsible for Emily’s death, too?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense, Rosalind. You were young. You couldn’t have cared for a child properly, especially without the father’s help. You thought she would have a better life. It wasn’t your fault that the adoption agency thought they had found Ruth a home with decent people who turned out to be strict religious types. And it wasn’t even the Walkers’s fault that Ruth turned out the way she did. I’m sure they did their best in many ways. From what I’ve gathered, they weren’t intentionally cruel, just thoughtless and strict and cold. No. You can keep on assigning blame here, there and everywhere, but when it comes right down to it, we’re responsible for what we do ourselves.”

Rosalind stubbed out her cigarette and tossed back the rest of her drink. “Oh, you’re right. I know. It’ll pass. Everything’s just too overwhelming at the moment. I can’t seem to take it all in.” She went to refill her glass and bumped her hip against the corner of the cocktail cabinet. Glasses and bottles rattled.

“I’d really better be going,” Banks said. “It’s getting late.”

Rosalind turned and walked toward him, swaying a little. “No, you can’t go yet. I don’t want to be alone.”

“I can’t help you anymore,” said Banks.

Rosalind pouted. “Please?”

“There’s nothing more I can do.”

“There must be. You’re a nice man. You’ve been good to me. You’re the only person who has.”

Banks walked toward the front door and opened it. He felt the cold wind around his hands and bare head. Rosalind leaned against the wall, drink in her hand, tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Banks, then he pulled the door shut behind him and dashed toward his car. Sorry as he felt for Rosalind Riddle, he didn’t want to be part of her life any longer. He wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. Gratly would do for a start, and Barnstaple would be even better.

Before he could get into his car, he heard the crystal tumbler shatter against the door behind him.