Friend of the Devil

10

It was almost twenty past twelve when Annie made her way along Church Street to the Black Horse, having escaped the station and the media. She half hoped that Eric would have left by now; it would save her the trouble of dumping him in person. It would have been easier simply not to turn up, of course, but she already had the impression that Eric wasn’t the type to let go easily; he would need a bit of coaxing.

Annie had deliberately dressed down for the occasion in a pair of old trainers, a shapeless knee-length skirt and a black polo-neck jumper under her denim jacket. She had also resisted putting on any makeup. It had been difficult, more so than she would have expected. She wasn’t vain, but in some ways she would have liked to make a stunning entry, turn all the heads in the pub, and then give him his marching orders. But she also wanted to do nothing to encourage him.

As it turned out, such was her natural appeal — or perhaps it was because everyone in the pub was male — that heads turned anyway when she entered the small busy bar. Including Eric’s. Annie’s heart sank as she dredged up a weak smile and sat opposite him. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, pushing her hair back. “Something came up at the office.” It was partly true. Her meeting with Superintendent Brough had gone on longer than expected, mostly because it was hard to convince him that Les Ferris’s information amounted to anything at all. Finally, she had got Brough to agree to let her initiate a limited search for the Australian and for Sarah Bingham, while Les Ferris tried to find the hair samples for comparison.

“That’s all right,” Eric said, smiling. “I’m just glad you came at all. Drink?”

“Slimline tonic, please.” Annie was determined to do this in a civilized way, over lunch, but with a clear head.

“Are you sure?” Eric had a pint of Guinness in front of him, almost finished.

“Yes, thanks,” Annie said. “Tough afternoon ahead. I’ll need all my wits about me.”

“You must have a really demanding job. What are you, a cop or something? I’ll be back in a minute, and you can tell me all about it.”

Eric headed for the bar and Annie studied the menu. She was starving. Given the lack of choice, the veggie panini would have to do. Either that or a cheese-and-onion sandwich. When she looked up, Eric was on his way back with the drinks, smiling at her. His teeth were straight and white, his black hair flopped over one eye, and he hadn’t shaved since she had last seen him, by the looks of it. He handed her the drink and clinked glasses.

“Decided?” he asked.

“What?”

“Food.”

“Oh, yes,” said Annie. “I think I’ll have a panini with mushrooms, mozzarella and roasted red peppers. Tell me what you want, and I’ll go order.”

Eric put his hand on her arm and stood up. “No. I insist. I invited you. As it happens, I’m a vegetarian, so I’ll have the same.” He smiled. “Is that something else we have in common?”

Annie said nothing. She watched him walk away again and found herself thinking that he had a nice bum and wondering what he thought they had in common other than being vegetarians. She chastised herself for the impure thought and steeled herself for what she had to do, faltering for just a moment as to why she had to do it. But she had no place in her life and career for a young marijuana-smoking musician-cum-hairstylist, no matter how nice his bum or his smile.

“It’ll only be a few minutes,” Eric said, as he sat down again and lit a cigarette. He offered Annie one, but she said no.

Annie sipped some Slimline tonic. “That e-mail you sent me last night wasn’t too cool, you know,” she said.

“What? I’m sorry. I just thought it was a laugh, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well… that’s the difference between you and me. I didn’t. If anyone else saw it…”

“Who else is likely to see it? I only sent it to you. Why would you show it to anyone else?”

“That’s not the point. You know what I mean. E-mails are hardly private.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you worked for MI5. Sworn the Official Secrets Act, have you?”

“I don’t, and I haven’t.”

“What exactly do you do?”

“That’s none of your bloody business.”

“You must be a cop, then. Like Prime Suspect? That’s so cool.” He held out his hands. “You’d better cuff me, Officer. It’s a fair cop.”

“Knock it off.”

“Sorry. Don’t you have a sense of humor?”

“That’s neither here nor there.”

“Are we on again?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me. We’ve had our first fight, and we’re over it, so why don’t we make a few plans for some more lovely evenings like the other night?”

“I don’t think so, Eric,” said Annie.

His face dropped. “Why not?”

“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Why I’m here.” She paused again, but not for dramatic effect. Her throat was suddenly dry, and she sipped some more tonic. Why did it come in such small bottles? The serving girl came over with their paninis. Eric tucked in and eyed her expectantly. “I really don’t know how to say this,” Annie went on, not touching her food. “I mean, you seem like a nice guy, and I had a lovely time the other night and all, but I don’t think… I mean, I just don’t think it has to lead anywhere. What I’m saying is that I don’t want it to lead anywhere.”

“A one-night stand?”

“If you like.”

Eric put his panini down and shook his head. A slimy sliver of red pepper with a charred edge hung out of the bread. “I don’t like. I definitely don’t like. I don’t go in for one-night stands.”

What was Annie supposed to say to that? she wondered. That she did? “Look,” she went on, “it’s not something I make a habit of, either. We had a few drinks and a good time and we ended up… well, you know… but that’s it. It was fun. It doesn’t have to go any further. I hope we can still be friends.” Christ, Annie, she thought, that sounded pathetic.

“Friends?” he echoed. “Why would we be friends?”

“Fine,” said Annie, feeling herself redden. “We won’t. I was just trying to be nice.”

“Well, don’t bother on my account. What’s wrong with you?” He had raised his voice so much that some of the other customers were glancing their way.

“What do you mean?” Annie scanned the pub, feeling her panic rise. “And keep your voice down.”

“Why are you saying this? Keep my voice down? I mean, look at you, you’re old enough to be my mother. You should be bloody grateful I picked you up in that pub and gave you a good shag, and here you are trying to work it out so that you’re dumping me. Just how do you get to that, I wonder?”

Annie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her ears buzzed and her breath caught in her throat. She could only sit there with her mouth open and her skin burning, aware of the silence all around them and everyone’s eyes on her.

“Maybe you don’t remember,” Eric went on, “but I do. Christ, you couldn’t get enough of it the other night. You were screaming for it. You should be flattered. I mean, isn’t that just what you older women want, a young stud to give you—”

“You bastard!” Annie stood up and tossed the rest of her Slimline tonic in his face. Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t much left in the bottom of her glass, which undermined the dramatic effect somewhat, but as she shot to her feet, her thighs caught the underside of the table and tipped it over, spilling Eric’s full pint of Guinness and his panini with the slimy red peppers all over his lap. Then, as fast as she could, she dashed out into Church Street and made her way, tears in her eyes, toward the 199 steps up Saint Mary’s Church. Only when she had got to the top and stood in the almost deserted graveyard leaning on a wind-worn tombstone did she stop for breath and start sobbing as the seagulls screeched around her, the wind howled and waves crashed on the rocks below.

“It must mean business if someone of your rank is paying house calls,” said Malcolm Austin as he let Banks and Winsome into his office late Thursday afternoon. Winsome had argued for bringing the professor into the station, but Banks thought it would be a better idea to go at him harder once more on his own territory, where he was surrounded by everything he had to lose.

Banks glanced around at the overflowing bookcases. Sometimes he thought he wouldn’t have minded being an academic, spending his life surrounded by books and eager young minds. But he knew he’d miss the thrill of the chase, and that the young minds were not necessarily as eager or as exciting as he might think. The window was open a few inches, and Banks could smell coffee and fresh bread from the courtyard café below and hear the hum of distant conversations. All morning his mind had been full of Lucy Payne and her crimes, and of Annie’s mysterious behavior, Winsome’s aside in the Queen’s Arms, how he could approach Annie about it, but now he needed to concentrate on the job at hand: finding Hayley Daniels’s killer.

Austin bade them sit and arranged his lanky body, legs crossed, in the swivel chair behind his messy desk. He wore track suit trousers and a red sweatshirt emblazoned with an American basketball team logo. An open laptop sat on the desk in front of him, and as he sat down he closed it. “How can I help you?” he asked.

“Do you remember the last time I talked to you?” Winsome asked.

“Who could forget such—”

“Never mind the bollocks, Mr. Austin,” said Banks. “You told DC Jackman that you weren’t having an affair with Hayley Daniels. Information has come to light that indicates you were lying. What do you have to say about that?”

“What information? I resent the implication.”

“Is it true or not that you were having an affair with Hayley Daniels?”

Austin looked at Winsome, then back at Banks. Finally he compressed his lips, bellowed up his cheeks and let the air out slowly. “All right,” he said. “Hayley and I had been seeing one another for two months. We started about a month or so after my wife left. Which means, strictly speaking, that whatever Hayley and I had, it wasn’t an affair.”

“Semantics,” said Banks. “Teacher shagging student. What do you call it?”

“It wasn’t like that,” said Austin. “You make it sound so sordid. We were in love.”

“Excuse me while I reach for a bucket.”

“Inspector! The woman I love has just been murdered. The least you can do is show some respect.”

“How old are you, Malcolm?”

“Fifty-one.”

“And Hayley Daniels was nineteen.”

“Yes, but she was—”

“That’s an age difference of thirty-two years, according to my calculations. It makes you technically old enough to be her grandfather.”

“I told you, we were in love. Do you think love recognizes such mundane barriers as age?”

“Christ, you’re starting to sound like a bloody pedophile,” said Banks. “If I had a quid for every time I’ve heard that argument.”

Austin flushed with anger. “I resent that remark. Where do you draw the line, Inspector? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-one? You know you don’t have a leg to stand on as far as the law is concerned.” He paused. “Besides, as I was about to tell you, Hayley was much older than her years, very mature for her age.”

“Emotionally?”

“Well, yes…”

“Tell me what emotionally mature young woman goes out drinking with a group of friends on a Saturday night, wearing practically nothing, and drinks so much she gets legless and totters down a dark alley for a piss?” Banks could sense Winsome staring at him, and he knew she was thinking he was acting almost as badly as Templeton. But self-righteous pricks like Austin, who abused their positions of power to indulge their desires for young girls, or boys, always made him angry, and he still felt plenty of residual anger from his interview with Randall the previous evening. He knew he needed to tone it down, though, or Austin would clam up completely, so he indicated subtly to Winsome that he had got her message, knew what he was doing and was easing his foot off the accelerator.

“I think what Mr. Banks means,” said Winsome, “is what sort of shape would Hayley have been in on Saturday night when she got to your house? If you remember, you did indicate last time I talked to you that you didn’t want a drunk and immature teenager in your house. Now you’re saying that Hayley was mature for her years. Maybe you can see our problem? We’re getting a few conflicting remarks here.”

“That’s it exactly,” Banks said. “You see, Malcolm, according to all accounts, Hayley was pretty far gone. I find myself wondering what use she could have possibly been to you in that state.”

Austin glared. “You might not understand this, Mr. Banks,” he said, “but love isn’t always a matter of ‘using,’ of what you can get from someone. If Hayley had come to me on Saturday night and she’d been drinking, I wouldn’t have taken advantage of her. I didn’t need for her to be drunk to make love. I would have made her some coffee, left her to sleep it off, made her as comfortable as possible.”

Banks remembered Annie’s drunken visit of the other night. Is that what he should have done? Settled her down, made her comfortable? “Admirable,” he said. “But were you expecting her?”

Austin paused to examine something on his desk, then he said, “She told me she might come by. Saturday was always a casual arrangement. It was her night.”

“Then why did you lie to DS Jackman the last time she spoke to you?”

Austin looked guiltily at Winsome. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just that I was afraid of exactly the kind of reaction I got from you just now. Our relationship is not easy to explain. People don’t always understand.” He glared at Banks again.

“Look,” said Banks, in his best we’re-men-of-the-world manner, “no man would deny the attractiveness of a lissome nineteen-year-old beauty like Hayley Daniels, and no one could fail to understand why you wanted to bed her. The love bit’s a touch harder to fathom, I will admit, but granted, it happens. People are strange that way. The problem isn’t so much the age difference, but that you’re a teacher and she was your student. What do the college authorities think of this sort of thing?”

Austin looked away. “They don’t know, of course. I doubt that they’d be sympathetic. They frown on teacher-student relationships.”

“So you didn’t want them to know? It could mean your career?”

“That’s one reason I wasn’t completely truthful, yes. I’ve worked very hard for many years to get where I am now.”

“Only one reason?”

“Well, no one wants to be dragged into a murder investigation, do they?”

“But you’re in it now. Up to your neck. Did you really think you could get away with lying about something like that?” Banks shook his head. “It just boggles my mind that people must think we’re so stupid as to overlook the obvious.” A hint of marijuana smoke drifted up from the courtyard.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” said Austin. “I just didn’t think it was that obvious. We tried to be discreet. We were going to go public when she finished her diploma. Now it’s all out in the open, what is it you want to know? I had nothing to do with Hayley’s death. As I told you, I love her. Loved her.”

“Had she dropped by after going out drinking on a Saturday night before?” Banks asked.

“Yes. I can’t honestly say I was too thrilled. I mean, she was usually, as you said, a bit the worse for alcohol. But it was her night out with her friends, and if… well, quite frankly…”

“What?” said Banks.

“Well, if she had to spend the night somewhere, I’d rather she spent it with me.”

“You didn’t trust her?”

“I didn’t say that. But she’s young. Vulnerable.”

“So you were jealous,” said Banks. “Stands to reason. I’d be jealous too if I had a beautiful young girlfriend. A few drinks in her, and she might start shagging someone her own age.” Banks felt Winsome bristle again. Templeton-phobia or no, she had to loosen up, he thought. You sometimes had to shake the tree pretty hard to get the coconut to fall. Austin was an educated type, not without a touch of arrogance, and you weren’t going to get to him by logical argument and civilized banter.

“If, as I am,” Austin said, “you are fortunate enough to have the love of a young woman, you soon learn that you can’t afford to be clinging in the relationship.”

“What did you think when she didn’t turn up?” Winsome asked.

“I didn’t think anything, really. I mean, it was by no means definite that she would.”

“You weren’t worried about her?”

“No.”

“But she wasn’t expected at home,” Banks cut in, “so where did you think she was staying?”

“With friends, I suppose.”

“With someone else? And you were jealous. Did you go out searching for her?”

“I told you, it doesn’t pay to be clinging. Besides, I trusted Hayley. Yes, as I said, I would rather her stop with me, but if she stopped at a friend’s flat, it didn’t mean she would be sleeping with him.” His eyes misted over. “In a way,” he said, “I suppose I hoped she wouldn’t come. I always found it hard to deal with her in that state, and I was tired on Saturday.”

“Hard to handle when she was drunk, was she?” said Banks.

“She could be.”

“What was she like?”

“Irrational, unpredictable, overtalkative.”

“Would Hayley have arrived by one o’clock if she was coming?”

“Usually, yes. Anyway, she had a key.”

“Very trusting of you.”

“It’s called love, Inspector. You really ought to try it.”

“Chance would be a fine thing. Why should we believe you?”

“I don’t follow.”

Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. “You’ve lied to us once or twice, so why should we believe anything you tell us now?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“Easy for you to say. But look at it from my point of view. Hayley makes her way to your house the worse for wear. You’re fed up of her drunken antics and you tell her so, in no uncertain terms. Maybe she teases you, makes fun of your age or something, and you see red. She doesn’t want it, but she’s drunk and you don’t care what she wants. You know what you want. So you do it anyway. She struggles, but that just makes it all the more exciting. Afterward she’s making such a fuss, maybe even threatening to tell the college what you’ve done. You can’t have that, so you strangle her. Then you’re stuck with a body. Best thing you can think of at short notice is to shove it in the boot of your car and dump it in the Maze.” A few of the facts didn’t quite match the story Banks was telling, such as the violence of the rape, the timing, and the CCTV tapes, but Austin wasn’t to know that. “How am I doing?”

“You should write detective fiction,” Austin said. “With an imagination like that, I’m surprised you waste it on being a policeman.”

“You’d be surprised how useful imagination is in my job,” said Banks. “Am I at least close?”

“Miles away.” Austin leaned back in his chair. “Inspector, it would save us all a lot of trouble if you would just believe that I didn’t kill Hayley. Whatever you might think of me, I really did love her, and if I could help you, I would.” He glanced at Winsome. “I’m sorry I lied, but I really didn’t want to lose my job over this and have my name dragged through the mud. Those are the only reasons I did what I did.”

“How well did you know Hayley?” Banks asked.

“Well enough, I suppose. As I said, we’d been together for about two months, but I’d known her for about a year in all. And before you ask, there was nothing between us in that time.” He paused. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. Whatever you might have heard about Hayley’s behavior on Saturday night, it was… youthful high spirits. Just that. She sometimes needed to let off steam. Most of the time, as anyone will tell you, Hayley was an intelligent, sober, quiet-spoken, hardworking and ambitious young woman. That’s what I meant when I referred to her maturity. Mostly she found boys of her own age trivial and obsessed with only one thing.”

“And you weren’t?”

“I’ll admit that knowing Hayley gave me a new lease on life in that direction, but you mustn’t make the mistake of assuming that was what it was all about.”

“What was it all about?”

“Sharing a nice meal. Just being together. Talking. Going for walks. Holding hands. Breakfast in bed. Going to a concert. Listening to classical music. Cuddling. Discussing a book we’d both read. Simple things. I could hardly wait until we were able to come out in the open with it. The secrecy was such agony. I’ll miss her more than you could ever imagine.”

Banks felt jealous. He hadn’t done any of those things with anyone for years, if ever, or felt that way about anyone. He and his ex-wife, Sandra, had had such different tastes and interests that their lives had been parallel rather than joined. And when the parallel lines started to diverge slightly, the end had come quickly. Even with Annie there had been more differences than things in common. Still, he wasn’t going to let sentimentality and sympathy for Austin cloud his vision. “You say you want to help,” he went on. “If you didn’t kill her, have you any idea who did?”

“I don’t know. Some maniac, by the sound of it.”

“The truth could be closer to home,” said Winsome. “What about enemies? Is there anyone in her immediate circle she had problems with?”

“There’s Stuart Kinsey, I suppose. He was always chasing after her.”

“But you told me he wouldn’t harm anyone,” said Winsome.

“I still don’t think he would,” said Austin, “but you asked me, and I can’t think of anyone else. Hayley just wasn’t the sort of person to make enemies.”

“Well, she made one,” said Banks, standing up. “Thanks for your time, Malcolm. And stick around. We might need to talk to you again.”

Intense and rejected in love. That was a very bad combination, Banks knew. A very bad combination indeed. And Stuart Kinsey had admitted to going into the Maze, ostensibly to spy on Hayley, to find out whom she was seeing. That gave him motive and opportunity. Could means be far behind? Time for another word with Mr. Kinsey.

It was a good hour and a half or more from Whitby to Leeds, depending on the traffic, and this was the second time Annie had done it in two days. Her feelings were still smarting from the lunch with Eric. It hadn’t taken him long to show his true colors. Now she worried about what other photos he might still have on his mobile or his computer. What would he do with them? Post them on YouTube? How could she have been so bloody foolish, drunk or not? Her hands gripped the steering wheel tight and her teeth gritted as she thought about it and remembered what he said. He had been lashing out just to be cruel, of course, but was there any truth in it? Had she seemed too desperate, too eager, too grateful?

She drove along Stanningley Road, turned off before Bramley, and found her way to The Hill. The Paynes had lived close to the top, just before the railway bridge, on the right as you drove down, and Claire Toth and her family lived practically over the street, where a row of old detached houses with overgrown gardens stood at the top of a steep rise. It was six years since Annie had last driven by, and then there had been police barriers and crime scene tape all over the place. Now that was all gone, of course, but so was number 35, and in its place stood two new redbrick semis. Well, she supposed no one would want to live in the “House of Payne,” as the newspapers had called it, or next door, for that matter.

As she slowed down, Annie shivered at a sudden memory of the time she went down into the cellar: the obscene poster of the woman with her legs spread; the dank claustrophobic atmosphere with its smell of blood and urine; the occult symbols on the walls. Fortunately for Annie, the body of Kimberley Myers had been removed by the time she got there, along with the bloody mattress.

Annie could imagine the ground haunted by the ghosts of the poor girls who had been raped, tortured and buried down there. And Lucy Payne, the woman in the wheelchair with her throat cut, had definitely been involved in that. Banks had spent a lot of time interviewing Lucy, first as a victim and later as a possible suspect, and she had certainly had an effect on him, no matter what he claimed, but it was clear that even now he hadn’t any more understanding of what really went on in that cellar, or why, than anyone else.

Annie parked at the bottom of the steps in front of Claire’s house and pulled herself together. She knew that she had to get over what happened the other night and talk to Banks. Sober this time. So she had made a fool of herself. So what? It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Explain. He’d understand. God knew, he was understanding enough; he wasn’t going to toss her out on her ear. Was she so afraid of a little embarrassment? That didn’t sound like the woman she thought she was. But was she who she thought she was?

She climbed the steps, noting as she went that the gardens that straggled down to the pavement seemed even more overgrown than ever, especially for the time of year, and a high fence about halfway up blocked the view of the house from below. Annie opened the gate and carried on climbing the last flight of steps.

The front door needed a coat of paint, and a dog or cat had clearly been scratching at the wood. The small lawn was patchy and overgrown with weeds. Annie wasn’t quite sure how she was going to approach Claire. Was the girl a serious suspect? If not, was she likely to know anything that would help? It seemed that all she was doing was going in there to reopen old wounds. Taking a deep breath, she made a fist and knocked on the frosted glass.

After a few moments a woman answered the door in a blue cardigan and gray slacks.

“Mrs. Toth?” Annie said.

“That’s right, love. You must be DI Cabbot. Please come in. Claire’s not back yet but she’ll be here any minute.”

Annie went in. The front room had high ceilings and a bay window looking west, over the tops of the houses opposite. A television set stood in the corner. Daily Cooks had just started, with that dishy French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. Annie bet the French never made a fuss about a one-night stand. Mrs. Toth didn’t make a move to turn the TV off, and when Annie asked her, she turned down the volume a notch or two, but while they made small talk she was watching from the corner of her eye. Finally, she offered a cup of tea, and Annie accepted gratefully. Left to herself in the cavernous living room for a moment, Annie stood at the window and watched the fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky on the horizon. Another beautiful spring day. She fancied she could even see as far as the bulky shapes of the Pennines far in the distance.

Around the same time Mrs. Toth returned with the tray, the front door opened and shut and a young woman walked in wearing a supermarket shift, which she immediately took off and threw over a chair. “Claire!” said her mother. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Hang up your coat.”

Claire gave Annie a long-suffering look and did as she was told. Annie had never seen her before, so she hadn’t really known what to expect. Claire took a packet of Dunhill out of her handbag and lit one with a Bic lighter. Her dirty-blond hair was tied back and she was wearing jeans and a white men’s-style shirt. It wasn’t hard to see that she was overweight: the jeans tight on her, flesh bulging at the hips and waist; and her makeup-free complexion was bad — pasty and spotty chipmunk cheeks, teeth stained yellow from nicotine. She certainly didn’t resemble the slight figure of Mary whom Mel Danvers had seen at Mapston Hall. She was also too young, but as Banks had pointed out, Mel Danvers could have been wrong about the age. Claire certainly seemed old before her time in some of her mannerisms.

As soon as Claire had got the cigarette going she poured herself a glass of wine, without offering any to Annie. Not that she wanted any. Tea was fine.

Mrs. Toth placed herself on an armchair in the corner, and her cup clinked on her saucer every now and then as she took a sip. Daily Cooks continued quietly in the background.

“What do you want?” Claire asked. “Mum told me you’re from the police.”

“Have you been following the news?” Annie asked.

“I don’t really bother.”

“Only Lucy Payne was killed the other day.”

Claire paused, the glass inches from her lips. “She…? But I thought she was in a wheelchair?”

“She was.”

Claire sipped some wine, took a drag on her cigarette and shrugged. “Well, what do you expect me to say? That I’m sorry?”

“Are you?”

“No way. Do you know what that woman did?”

“I know,” said Annie.

“And you lot just let her go.”

“We didn’t just let her go, Claire,” Annie tried to explain.

“You did. They said there wasn’t enough evidence. After what she did. Not enough evidence. Can you believe that?”

“There was no way she could ever harm anyone else, wherever she was,” Annie said. “She couldn’t move a muscle.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, then?”

“An eye for an eye. She shouldn’t have been allowed to live.”

“But we don’t have the death penalty in England anymore.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Terence Payne?”

A shadow flitted in the back of Claire’s eyes. “Yes, him.”

“Yes, he’s dead.”

“Well, then?” Claire stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and drank some more wine. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

“What do you do?”

“Claire’s on the checkout at the local supermarket,” said her mother. “Aren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Mother.” Claire stared defiantly at Annie.

There was nothing to say to that. You could hardly say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” It was a job, and an honest one at that, but Annie felt sad for her. According to all accounts, Claire had been a bright, pretty young girl of fifteen with a good future: GCSEs, A levels, university, a professional career, but something had happened to put paid to all that: Terence and Lucy Payne. Now she had grossly underachieved and she hated her body. Annie had seen the signs before. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find the scars of self-administered burns and cuts under the long sleeves of Claire’s shirt. She wondered if she had been getting psychiatric help, but realized it was none of her business. She wasn’t here as a social worker; she was here for information about a murder.

“Did you know Lucy Payne at all?”

“I’d seen her around, at the shops, like. Everyone knew who she was. The teacher’s wife.”

“But you never talked to her?”

“No. Except to say hello.”

“Do you know where she was living?” she asked.

“The last I heard was that there wasn’t enough of a case against her and she was unfit to stand trial, anyway, so you were letting her go.”

“As I told you,” Annie repeated, “she couldn’t harm anyone ever again. She was in an institution, a place where they take care of people like her.”

“Murderers?”

“Quadriplegics.”

“I suppose they fed her and bathed her and let her watch whatever she wanted on television, didn’t they?”

“They took care of her,” Annie said. “She couldn’t do anything for herself. Claire, I understand your anger. I know it seems—”

“Do you? Do you really?” Claire said. She reached for another cigarette and lit it. “I don’t think you do. Look at me. Do you think I don’t know how ugly and unattractive I am? I’ve seen a shrink. I went for years and it didn’t do me a scrap of good at all. I still can’t bear the thought of a boy touching me.” She laughed harshly. “That’s a laugh, isn’t it. As if any boy would want to touch me, the way I look. And all that’s down to Lucy and Terence Payne.” She glared at Annie. “Well, go on, then!”

“What?”

“Tell me I don’t look so bad. Tell me with just a dab of makeup and the right clothes I’ll be all right. Like they all do. Like all I need is Trinny and fucking Susannah.”

As far as Annie was concerned, nobody needed Trinny and Susannah, but that was another matter. Wave after wave of aggression rolled out of Claire, and Annie just didn’t feel equipped to cope with it. Truth be told, she had enough hang-ups of her own eating away at her.

“Even my dad couldn’t stand it,” Claire said disgustedly, glancing at her mother. “It didn’t take him long to desert the sinking ship. And Kim’s parents moved away right after you let Lucy Payne go. Couldn’t sell their house for years, though. In the end they got practically nothing for it.”

Mrs. Toth reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes, but said nothing. Annie was beginning to feel oppressed by the weight of sadness and loss in the room. Irrationally, she found herself picturing Eric in her mind’s eye for a split second and felt like throttling him. It was all too much for her; her chest felt tight and she was having difficulty breathing. It was too hot in there. Get a grip, Annie, she told herself. Get a bloody grip. Control.

“So you didn’t know where Lucy was?” Annie asked Claire.

“Obviously not, or I’d have probably strangled her myself.”

“What makes you think she was strangled?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Why? Does it matter?”

“No, not really.”

“Where was she?”

“As I told you, she was in a home. It was near Whitby.”

“A home at the seaside. How nice. I haven’t been to the seaside since I was a kid. I suppose she had a nice view?”

“Have you ever been to Whitby?”

“No. We always used to go to Blackpool. Or Llandudno.”

“Do you drive a car?”

“Never learned, did I? No point.”

“Why not?”

“I can walk to work and back. Where else would I go?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Annie. “Out with friends, maybe?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“Surely there must be someone?”

“I used to go and see Maggie up the road, but she went away, too.”

“Where did she go?”

“Back to Canada, I suppose. I don’t know. She wasn’t going to stay around here after what happened, was she?”

“Did you ever write to one another?”

“No.”

“But she was your friend, wasn’t she?”

“She was her friend.”

There didn’t seem much that Annie could say to that. “Do you know where she went in Canada?”

“Ask the Everetts. Ruth and Charles. It’s their house she was living in, and they’re her friends.”

“Thanks,” said Annie, “I will.”

“I never went back to school, you know,” Claire said.

“What?”

“After… you know… Kim. I just couldn’t face going back. I suppose I could have done my exams, maybe gone to university, but… none of it seemed to matter somehow.”

“And now?”

“Well, I’ve got a job. Me and mum are all right, aren’t we?”

Mrs. Toth smiled.

Annie could think of nothing else to ask, and she couldn’t stand being in the room for a moment longer. “Look,” she said to Claire as she stood up and reached for her briefcase, “if you think of anything that might help…” She handed her a card.

“Help with what exactly?”

“I’m investigating Lucy Payne’s murder.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. She ripped the card in pieces and scattered them on the floor. “When hell freezes over,” she said, folding her arms.

The open-air café below Malcolm Austin’s window seemed a reasonable place for a second interview with Stuart Kinsey, Banks thought, as he and Winsome settled down at the flimsy fold-up chairs and rickety table under the shade of a budding plane tree. And as they had found him in the department library working on an essay, it was a short trip for everyone. It was still a bit chilly to sit outside for long, and Banks was glad of his leather jacket. Every now and then a breeze rattled the branches of the tree and ruffled the surface of Banks’s coffee.

“What is it you want now?” Kinsey asked. “I’ve already told you what I know.”

“That wasn’t very much, was it?” Winsome said.

“I can’t help it, can I? I feel awful enough as it is, knowing I was there, so close…”

“What could you have done?” Banks asked.

“I… I don’t—”

“Nothing,” said Banks. It probably wasn’t strictly true. If Kinsey had arrived in Taylor’s Yard at the same time the killer was assaulting Hayley, he might have interrupted things, and the killer might have fled, leaving her alive. But what was the point in letting him believe that? “You had no idea what was going on,” he said, “and besides, it was all over by then. Stop whipping yourself.”

Kinsey said nothing for a few moments, just stared down into his coffee.

“How fond of Hayley were you?” Banks asked.

Kinsey looked at him. He had an angry red spot beside his mouth. “Why are you asking me that? Do you still believe I’d hurt her?”

“Calm down,” Banks said. “Nobody’s saying that. You told us the last time we talked to you that you fancied Hayley, but that she didn’t reciprocate.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m just wondering how that made you feel.”

“How it made me feel? How do you think it made me feel? How does it make you feel when someone you want so much you can’t even sleep doesn’t so much as acknowledge your existence?”

“Surely it wasn’t as bad as that?” Banks said. “You hung out with Hayley, you saw plenty of her, went to the pictures and so on.”

“Yeah, but mostly the whole crew was around. It was rare we were together, just me and her.”

“You had conversations. You admitted you even kissed her once.”

Kinsey gave Banks a withering glance. He felt he probably deserved it. Conversation and a couple of friendly kisses weren’t much compensation when you were walking around with a hard-on that took up so much skin you couldn’t close your eyes.

“Stuart, you’re the only person we can place at the scene of the crime at the right time,” said Winsome, in as matter-of-fact and reasonable a voice as she could manage. “And you’ve got the motive, too: your unrequited infatuation with Hayley. We need some answers.”

“Means, motive and opportunity. How bloody convenient for you. How many more times do I have to tell you that I didn’t do it? For all the frustrations, I cared about Hayley, and I don’t think I could ever kill anyone. I’m a fucking pacifist, for crying out loud. A poet.”

“No need to swear,” said Winsome.

He looked at her, contrite. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. It’s just so unfair, that’s all. I lose a friend and all you do is try to make me into a criminal.”

“What happened in the Maze that night?” Banks asked.

“I’ve already told you.”

“Tell us again. More coffee?”

“No. No, thanks. I’m wired enough already.”

“I wouldn’t mind a cup,” said Banks. Winsome rolled her eyes and went over to the stand.

“Just between you and me,” Banks said, leaning forward, “did you ever get anywhere with Hayley beyond a couple of kisses in the back row at the pictures? Come on, you can tell me the truth.”

Kinsey licked his lips. He seemed on the verge of tears. Finally, he nodded. “Just once,” he said. “That’s what hurts so much.”

“You slept with her?”

“No. Good Lord, no. Not that. We just… you know… kissed and messed about. And then it was like she didn’t want to know me.”

“That would make any man angry,” said Banks, seeing Winsome on her way back with the coffee. “Having her right there, tasting her, then having her taken away forever. Thinking of other people having her.”

“I wasn’t angry. Disappointed, I suppose. It wasn’t as if she made any promises or anything. We’d had a couple of drinks. It just felt so… right… and then it was like it never happened. For her. Now, no matter what, it’ll never happen again.”

Winsome put one coffee down in front of Banks and took one for herself. “Let’s get back to Saturday night in the Maze,” Banks said. “There might be something you’ve forgotten. I know it’s difficult, but try to reimagine it.”

“I’ll try,” said Kinsey.

Banks sipped some hot, weak coffee and blew on the surface. “You all went into the Bar None around twenty past twelve, is that right?”

“That’s right,” said Kinsey. “The music was bloody awful, some sort of the industrial hip-hop subelectronic disco… I don’t know what. It was loud, too. I felt… You know, we’d all been drinking, and it was hot in there. I was thinking about Hayley, just wishing she’d come with us and feeling jealous that, you know, she was off to see some other lucky bloke.”

“So you were upset?” Winsome asked.

“I suppose so. Not really. I mean, I wasn’t in a rage or anything, just more disappointed. I needed a p — I needed to go to the toilet, too, so I went to the back of the club, where the toilets are, and I saw the door. I knew where it went. I’d been out that way before when I…”

“When you what?” Banks asked.

Kinsey managed a rare smile. “When I was under eighteen and the police came.”

Banks smiled back. “I know what you mean.” He’d been drinking in pubs since the age of sixteen. “Go on.”

“I didn’t think she’d have gone far. I know it’s confusing back there, so I figured she’d stick close to the square, just out of sight, maybe round the first corner. I don’t know what I was thinking. Honest. I suppose it was my plan to follow her and see where she went afterward, try to find out who she was seeing. I certainly wasn’t going to hurt her or anything.”

“What happened next?”

“You know what happened next. I didn’t find her. I was quite deep in the Maze before I knew it, and I thought I heard something from back toward the square. I walked closer, but I didn’t hear it again.”

“Can you describe the sound again?”

“It was like a muffled sort of thump, as if you hit a door or something with a pillow round your fist. And there was like a scream… no, not a scream… that would have really made me think there was something wrong, but like a gasp, a cry. I mean, to be honest…”

“What?” Banks asked.

Kinsey shot a sheepish glance at Winsome, then looked back at Banks. “I thought it was, you know, maybe someone having a quick one.”

“Okay, Stuart,” Banks said. “You’re doing fine. Carry on.”

“That’s it, really. I was scared. I scarpered. I didn’t want to interrupt anyone on the job. It can make a bloke pretty violent, that, being interrupted, you know… on the job.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

“There was the music.”

“What music? You didn’t mention that before.”

Kinsey frowned. “I don’t know. I’d forgotten. It was familiar, just a snatch of some sort of rap-type thing, but I just can’t place it, you know, the way it drives you crazy sometimes when you know what something is, it’s like on the tip of your tongue. Anyway, it just came and went, like… just a short burst, as if a door opened and closed, or a car shot by… I don’t know…”

“Like what?” said Banks. “Try to remember. It could be important.”

“Well, it just started and stopped, really short, you know, passing by, like a car going by.”

“Can you remember anything else about it?”

“No,” said Kinsey.

“What did you do next?”

“I went back to the Bar None. I walked down that arcade that leads into Castle Road — I’d gone that far into the Maze and it was the closest exit. Then I had to go back in the club the front way because the back door only opens out unless you wedge it, and I hadn’t. It’s got one of those bars you push down, but only on the inside. I had a stamp on my hand so I could get back in no problem.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it. I’m sorry. Can I go? I really have to finish that essay.”

There was no point keeping him, Banks thought. “Try to remember that music you heard,” he said. “It might help. Here’s my card.”

Kinsey took the card and left.

“Do you really think the music’s important, sir?” Winsome asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “There was a car passing by on the CCTV tape, and Stuart said he thought the music might have been coming from a passing car. But the timing isn’t quite right, and we’re pretty sure the people in the car were going home from an anniversary dinner. They were in their fifties, too, so I doubt they’d have been listening to rap. Still, it’s a new piece of information. Who knows what might come of it?”

“What do you think, sir?” said Winsome. “I mean, in general. Where are we?”

“I think we’re running out of suspects pretty damn quickly,” Banks said. “First Joseph Randall, then Malcolm Austin and now Stuart Kinsey.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

“I doubt it. Oh, I suppose he could be lying. They all could. Hayley Daniels certainly had a knack for turning young men into pale and panting admirers. Talk about la belle dame sans merci. We should certainly check Austin’s alibi, see if anyone saw him the way the neighbor saw Joseph Randall. But I believe Kinsey. I don’t think he’s the sort of person who could rape and murder someone he cared about and then return to a night out with his mates as if nothing had happened. He’s the kind of person who’s affected by things, even little things. Give him a kiss and he’ll be trembling and putting his fingers to his lips all night.”

“No, thank you, sir!”

Banks grinned. “I was speaking metaphorically, Winsome. Stuart Kinsey is a sensitive kid, a romantic. A poet, like he said. He’s not a dissembler, probably not a very good actor, either. Pretty much what you see is what you get. And if something important happened to him, or he did something important, people would know. If he’d killed Hayley, he’d probably have staggered into the station and admitted it.”

“I suppose so,” said Winsome. “Which leaves?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Banks. “Come on, let’s call it a day.”

“What about DI Cabbot, sir?”

“Don’t worry,” Banks said, with that sinking feeling. “I’ll have a word with DI Cabbot.”

Annie was glad she had decided to come home to Harkside after her visit to Claire Toth, rather than go all the way back to Whitby. It would mean an early start in the morning, but she could handle that, especially if she didn’t drink too much. She was feeling as if she had been put through the wringer after her disastrous lunchtime meeting with Eric and her afternoon chat with Claire. A few home comforts might help. Glass of wine, book, bath, lots of bubbles. Heat magazine.

At least Les Ferris had phoned her mobile on her way home and told her he had a line on the hair samples and should be able to get his hands on them before the weekend, so that was one piece of good news.

As darkness fell, Annie closed the curtains and turned on a couple of small shaded table lamps which gave a nice warm glow to the room. She wasn’t very hungry, but she ate some cold leftover pasta and poured herself a healthy glass of Tesco’s Soave from the three-liter box. Banks might have turned into a wine snob since he had inherited his brother’s cellar, but Annie hadn’t. She couldn’t tell a forward leathery nose from a hole in the ground. All she knew was whether she liked it, or if it was off, and usually if it came from a box it wasn’t off.

She picked up the second volume of Hilary Spurling’s Matisse biography, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words for thinking about Claire and the events that had stunted her life so early. She could get beyond it, of course; there was still time, with the right help, but could she ever completely recover from that much damage? When Annie remembered the look Claire gave her when she said she was seeking Lucy’s killer, she felt like giving up. What was the point? Did anyone want the killer of the notorious “Friend of the Devil” brought to justice? Could anyone ever forgive Lucy Payne? Had Maggie Forrest forgiven her? And had she moved beyond?

Annie remembered a TV film about Lord Longford’s campaign to free Myra Hindley she’d seen a few months ago. It had been hard viewing. The Moors Murders were well before her time, but like every other copper, she had heard all about them, and about the tape recording Brady and Hindley had made. On the one hand, religion asked you to forgive, told you that nobody was beyond forgiveness, held the possibility of redemption sacred, but Lord Longford aside, you’d be hard pushed to find anyone Christian enough to forgive Myra Hindley her crimes, even though, as a woman, she had been judged less responsible for the murders than Brady had. It was the same with Lucy Payne, though circumstances had conspired both to deliver her from justice and imprison her in her own body at the same time.

Tommy Naylor and the other members of the team had been out all day in West Yorkshire questioning the Paynes’ victims’ families, while Ginger had been busy trying to come up with leads in the Kirsten Farrow business. Annie had talked to Naylor on her mobile and got the impression that they all felt as depressed as Annie did tonight, if not more so. When you expose yourself to so much accumulated grief and outraged sense of injustice, how can you keep a clear focus on the job you’re supposed to be doing?

Annie was just about to take her bath when she heard a knock at her door. Her heart leaped into her mouth. Her first thought was that Eric had found out where she lived, and she didn’t want to see him now. For a moment, she thought of ignoring it, pretending she wasn’t home. Then whoever was there knocked again. Annie risked tiptoeing over to the window and peeking through the curtain. She couldn’t see very well from that angle in the poor light, but she could tell it wasn’t Eric. Then she saw the Porsche parked just along the street. Banks. Shit, she didn’t really want to see him right now, either, not after the embarrassment of the other night. He wouldn’t give up easily, though. He stood his ground and knocked again. She had the TV on with the sound turned off, and he could probably see the picture flickering.

Finally, Annie answered the door, stood aside and let him enter. He was carrying a bottle of wine in a gift bag. Peace offering? Why would he need that? If anyone needed to offer the olive branch, it was Annie. Ever the bloody tactician, Banks, disarming the enemy before a word was spoken. Or perhaps that was unfair of her.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“Lucky guess, I suppose,” said Banks. “Phil Hartnell said you’d been in Leeds talking to Claire Toth today, and I thought you might decide to come home rather than go all the way back to Whitby.”

“I suppose that’s why you’re a DCI and I’m a mere DI.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson.”

“You could have rung.”

“You would only have told me not to bother coming.”

Annie fidgeted with a strand of hair. He was right. “Well, you might as well sit down, seeing as you’re here.”

Banks handed her the bottle and sat on the sofa. “I assume you want to drink some of this?” she asked.

“I’ll have a glass, please, sure.”

Annie went into the kitchen for the corkscrew. The wine was a Vacqueyros she had drunk with Banks before and enjoyed. Nothing special, but nice. An understated gesture, then. She poured him a glass, filled her own with the cheap Soave and went back and sat in the armchair. Her living room suddenly seemed too small for the two of them. “Music?” she asked, more for a distraction than that she really wanted to listen to anything in particular.

“If you like.”

“You choose.”

Banks got on his knees by her small CD collection and picked Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda. Annie had to applaud his choice. It suited her mood and the swirling harp figures over the slow melodic bass line always soothed her when she was troubled. She remembered that John Coltrane had been playing when she visited Banks the other night, but she found him a lot harder to listen to than his wife, except on the one CD she owned, The Gentle Side.

“How was your interview with Claire Toth?” Banks asked when he had sat down again.

“Bloody awful and not very useful,” said Annie. “I mean, I didn’t think she had anything to do with it, but she… well, she’s angry, but I’m not even sure she’s got left enough in her to go after revenge. What happened to her friend had an appalling effect on her too.”

“She still blames herself?”

“To the point of deliberately making herself unattractive and underselling her brains and ability. The father did a bunk. That probably didn’t help. Mum seems in a bit of a Prozac haze.”

“What about the victims’ families?”

“Nothing yet. The general consensus seems to be that the justice system let them down but God didn’t, and they’re glad she’s dead. It gives them ‘closure.’”

“Covers a multitude of sins, that word,” said Banks, “the way it’s bandied about by everyone these days.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you can blame them,” said Annie.

“So you’re no closer?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I had a quick chat with Charles Everett before I came back here, too. He says he doesn’t know what happened to Maggie Forrest, but if she’s in the country, I’d say we’ll certainly be viewing her as a prime suspect. Lucy Payne befriended her and used her, then betrayed her, and Maggie might have come to see revenge as a way of putting her life back together, of redeeming the past.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “Any idea where she is?”

“Not yet. Ginger’s going to check with the publishers tomorrow. There’s something else come up, too.” Annie explained briefly about Les Ferris’s theory, and Banks seemed to allow it far more credence than she would have expected. Still, Banks had solved his share of crimes spanning different eras, so he was less cynical about these connections than most. “And Ginger tracked down Keith McLaren, the Australian,” Annie added. “He’s back in Sydney working for a firm of solicitors. Seems he made a full recovery, so maybe he’s even got bits of his memory back. He’s not a suspect, of course, but he might be able to help fill in a few blanks.”

“Going over there?”

“You must be joking! He’s supposed to ring sometime this weekend.”

“What about the girl, Kirsten Farrow?”

“Ginger’s been trying to trace her, too. Nothing so far. It’s odd, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. We’ve checked just about every source we can think of, and beyond about 1992 there’s no Kirsten Farrow. Her father’s been dead for ten years, and her mother’s in a home — Alzheimer’s — so she’s not a lot of use. We’re trying to find the old university friend she was staying with in Leeds when she disappeared: Sarah Bingham. Ginger’s discovered that she went on to study law, so we do have a line to follow, but it’s just all so bloody slow and painstaking.”

“The toughest part of the job,” Banks agreed. “Waiting, digging, checking, rechecking. Have you thought that Kirsten may be living abroad?”

“Well, if she is, she’s not the one we want, is she? Les Ferris also says he can come up with the hair samples in the 1988 murders, so we can compare Kirsten’s with the hairs found on Lucy Payne. That should tell us one way or another whether this outlandish theory has any basis in reality at all.”

“Hair matches are often far from perfect,” said Banks, “but in this case I’d say it’s good enough for rock and roll. So what’s your plan?”

“Just keep on searching. For Kirsten and for Maggie. And Sarah Bingham. For a while longer, at any rate, until we can either count them in or rule them out. It’s not as if we’ve got a lot of other lines of inquiry screaming us in the face. Still,” Annie said, after a sip of wine and a harp arpeggio that sent a shiver up her spine, “that’s not what you came all this way to talk about, is it?”

“Not exactly,” said Banks.

“Before you say anything,” Annie began, glancing away, “I’d like to apologize for the other night. I don’t know what… I’d had a couple of drinks with Winsome and then some more at your place, and it just all went to my head for some reason. Maybe because I was tired. I shouldn’t even have been driving. I’d had way too much. It was unforgivable of me to put you in a position like that. I’m sorry.”

For a while, Banks said nothing, and Annie could sense her heart pounding under the music. “That’s not really why I came, either,” he said eventually, “though I daresay it has something to do with it.”

“I don’t understand. What, then?”

“You and I have been finished for a long time,” Banks said, “so I won’t deny it came as a shock when you… anyway… that’s always difficult, that side of whatever we have. I never stopped wanting you, you know, and when you act like that… well… you were right, I mean, there’s not a lot going on in my life that I can afford to turn down an offer as good as that. But it didn’t feel right. It wouldn’t have been right. At least I thought we were friends, however difficult it seems sometimes. That you’d tell me if anything was bothering you.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it’s not every night you come around drunk and practically jump on me. There must be something wrong.”

“Why must there be something wrong?” Annie said. “I’ve told you I was drunk and overtired. Pressure of work. I’m sorry. There’s no point making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“You said some very odd things.”

“What things?” Annie pushed her hair back. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” She remembered perfectly well what she had said to Banks — she hadn’t been as drunk as on that woeful night with Eric — but she was damned if she was going to let him know that.

“About toyboys.”

Annie put her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t, did I?”

“You did.”

“But that’s terrible of me. I shouldn’t tell tales out of school.”

“What do you mean?”

“Another drink?”

“I’d better not. I’m driving.”

“I think I will.”

“It’s your house.”

Annie hurried into the kitchen and refilled her glass. It also gave her a moment to think and let her heart calm down. The last thing she wanted was Banks messing around in her personal life again like some knight in shining armor. She could handle the Eric situation herself, thank you very much. She didn’t need anyone to go and beat him up for her, or warn him off.

She sat down again and said, “What I said the other night. It was just… Look, if you must know, I’d had an argument with my boyfriend and I—”

“I thought you’d been out for dinner with Winsome?”

“Before that. I was angry and upset, that’s all. I said some things I should never have said. I regret them now.”

Banks sipped some wine and Annie could see that he was thinking, the frown line etched in his forehead. “Is that this toyboy you were talking about?” Banks asked. “Your boyfriend?”

“Yes. He’s young. Twenty-two.”

“I see.”

“We had a row, that’s all.”

“I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

“It’s quite recent.”

“And you’re fighting already?”

“Well…”

“Maybe it’s the age difference?”

Annie jerked upright in the armchair. “What age difference are you talking about, Alan? The one between me and Eric, or the one between me and you? Don’t be a hypocrite; it doesn’t suit you.”

“Touché,” said Banks, gently putting his wine down on the glass table. There was a good mouthful left, and smooth legs down the side of the glass, Annie noticed. “So you’re not in any trouble?” he went on.

“No. Of course not. What makes you think that?”

“Everything’s okay? Nobody’s bothering you? Stalking you? Threatening you?”

“No, of course not. Don’t be silly. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Just because I made one bloody silly mistake before, it doesn’t mean I need a big brother or someone looking out for me. I can manage my own life, thank you very much. Boyfriends and all.”

“Right, then.” Banks stood up. “I suppose I’d better go. Busy day tomorrow.”

Annie got up and walked with him to the door. She felt in a daze. Why had she lied to him, misled him so? Why had she spoken so harshly? “Are you sure you won’t stay awhile?” she asked. “Another half glass won’t do you any harm.”

“Better not,” said Banks, opening the door. “Besides, I think we’ve said all there is to say, don’t you? You take care of yourself, Annie. I’ll see you soon.” Then he leaned forward, pecked her on the cheek and was gone.

As she heard his car drive away, Annie wondered why she felt so sad, so much like crying. He hadn’t stayed long. Alice Coltrane was still on the CD player, only now she didn’t sound so calming after all. Annie slammed the door shut and said fuck over and over to herself until she did cry.