Friend of the Devil

6

It’s good to see you again, Alan,” said Annie early on Tuesday afternoon in the Horse and Hounds, a tiny, quiet pub off the market square where you could get a decent salad and enjoy a pint without Detective Superintendent Catherine Gervaise finding out about it. There was a tiny windowless nonsmoking bar, all dark gleaming wood and plush red velveteen, with old hunting prints on the wall — at least it was still legal to depict scenes of foxhunting — where it seemed that nobody ever sat. You had to go to the main bar to get drinks, but other than that, it was the ideal place for a private meeting.

Annie was drinking diet bitter lemon, having not touched a drop of alcohol since Saturday night. Banks was well into his pint of Tetley’s Cask, and the obvious pleasure he was taking in it was making Annie feel envious. Well, she thought, it wasn’t as if she had taken the pledge and was going to stop drinking forever. It was simply a small hiatus to get herself together, review the situation, and maybe lose a little weight. Tomorrow, perhaps, she’d have a pint. Or maybe a glass of wine after work tonight. Fortunately, the burger Banks also seemed to be enjoying held no appeal for her whatsoever.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Banks asked after a few minutes of small talk about mutual friends and acquaintances in Eastern Area.

“I know you’re busy with the Maze case,” Annie said. “I’ve heard about it. Poor girl. Any suspects yet?”

“A few. We’re waiting on forensics and toxicology results,” said Banks. “And there are some more people we need to talk to. Kev Templeton thinks we’ve got a serial killer on our hands already. He might have a point. Even though there’s been only one definite victim so far, it has all the hallmarks of a violent sex crime, and people who do that don’t usually stop at one.”

“Kevin Templeton’s an arsehole,” said Annie.

“That may be, but he can be a good copper if he puts his mind to it.”

Annie snorted in disbelief. “Anyway,” she said, “I think you’ll be interested in what’s happened out Whitby way.”

“Oh?” said Banks. “I’m intrigued. I did hear something about a woman in a wheelchair being killed out there.”

“Yes,” Annie said. “A woman by the name of Karen Drew.”

“It doesn’t ring any bells.”

“It wouldn’t,” said Annie. “It’s not her real name.”

“Oh.”

“No. Julia Ford told me what her real name was yesterday.”

Banks paused with the burger halfway to his mouth and put it back down on the plate. “Julia Ford. Now there’s a blast from the past.”

“Starting to ring some bells?”

“Yes, but I don’t like the sound they’re making. Julia Ford. Woman in a wheelchair. Sounds very dissonant to me.”

“It was Lucy Payne.”

“Shit,” said Banks. “I take it the media don’t know yet?”

“No, but they’ll find out soon enough. Detective Superintendent Brough’s trying to head them off at the pass. He’s called a press conference for this afternoon.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to feel any pity for her,” Banks said.

“It always struck me that you had a very complicated relationship with her,” said Annie. “That’s partly why I’ve come to you.”

“Complicated? With the ‘Friend of the Devil’? Ruined a perfectly good Grateful Dead song for me, that’s all. Now, whenever I hear it, I see her face, see those bodies in the cellar.”

“Come off it, Alan. It’s me, remember. Annie. I’m not Jim Hatchley. You don’t have to play the yahoo with me.”

Banks sipped some beer. Annie looked at him and tried to figure out what he was thinking. She never could. He thought he was transparent, but he was really as cloudy as an unfiltered pint.

“She was a complicated woman,” Banks said. “But she was a killer.”

“A young and beautiful killer,” Annie added.

“That, too,” Banks agreed. “Are you saying that affected my judgment?”

“Oh, come on. I’ve never known a time when a woman’s beauty hasn’t affected a man’s judgment. You don’t even need to go back as far as Helen of Troy to work that one out.”

“I wasn’t her champion, you’ll remember,” said Banks. “As far as I was concerned, she was as guilty as her husband, and I wanted her put away for it.”

“Yes, I know, but you understood her, didn’t you?”

“Not for a moment.” Banks paused. “I’m not saying I might not have wanted to, or even tried to, but it wasn’t anything to do with her beauty. She was in bandages most of the times I saw her, anyway. Look below the surface and there was a hell of a lot of darkness. Okay, I’ll admit she was a complex and interesting killer. We’ve both come across those.”

“Touché,” said Annie, thinking of Phil Keane, who had wreaked so much havoc on her and Banks’s lives not much more than a year ago, damage Annie had certainly not yet got over if her recent behavior was anything to go by. A charming psychopath, Keane had used Annie to monitor the investigation of a crime he had committed, and when he came close to getting caught, he had almost killed Banks.

“But Lucy Payne had a most unusual and deeply troubled childhood,” Banks went on. “I’m not saying that excuses anything she did, or even really explains it, but can you really get your head around being kept in a cage and sexually abused by your family day after day, year after year?”

“The abused becomes the abuser?”

“I know it sounds like a cliché, but isn’t that often the case? Anyway, you didn’t come to me for my theories on Lucy Payne. In a way, death was probably a blessing for her.” He raised his glass for a moment, as if in a mock toast, then drank.

“True,” said Annie. “What I was thinking was that I have to revisit that case if I want to have a hope in hell of catching her killer.”

“And what makes you want to do that?”

“My nature,” Annie said. “I can’t even believe you’d ask me such a question.”

“Come off it, Annie. You thought she was as guilty as I did.”

“I know,” said Annie. “So what? If anything, that makes me want to solve her murder even more.”

“To prove you can overcome your own prejudices?”

“What’s so wrong with that? I might never have said it, but I was glad when she ended up paralyzed. Death would have been too easy for her. This way she suffered more, and a part of me thought that was just, given the way she’d made those poor girls suffer. Karma, if you like.”

“And the other parts of you?”

“Told me what a load of self-justifying bollocks that was. Whatever she did, whatever she was, Lucy Payne was a human being. As a society, we don’t tolerate executing people anymore, but someone has taken the law into his or her own hands and slit Lucy Payne’s throat as she sat there unable to defend herself. That goes against everything I believe in. No matter what she did, it was nobody’s right to take Lucy Payne’s life.”

“What, they should have let her go on suffering a kind of living death? Come on, Annie, someone did her a favor.”

“It wasn’t a mercy killing.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve never come across anyone who felt she deserved the tiniest drop of mercy, that’s why. Except perhaps you.”

“Well, I didn’t kill her,” said Banks.

“Now you’re playing silly buggers.”

Banks touched the scar beside his right eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so sarcastic. All I’m saying is that you have to be sure you want to open that can of worms. You know who the main suspects will be.”

“Of course I do,” said Annie. “The parents and families and friends of the girls the Paynes raped, abused and killed, for a start. That neighbor, Maggie Forrest, who was taken in by Lucy and then betrayed. Maybe even one of the police officers on the case. A friend or relative of Janet Taylor’s, who was another victim of the whole business. When you get right down to it, lots of people would want her dead, including publicity seekers. Can you imagine the confessions we’ll get?”

“So why do you want to go back there?”

“Because I have to. It’s the only place to go, and only by going there can I get where I want to be.”

“That sounds a bit too mystical to me, like the sound of one hand clapping.”

“Well, you’ve listened to enough Pink Floyd. You ought to know what that sounds like. The thing is, Alan, why I’m here, what I wanted to ask, is can I count on you?”

Banks sighed, took another bite of his burger and washed it down with Tetley’s. Then he stared Annie straight in the eye, gave her one of the most guileless looks she’d ever had from him. “Of course you can,” he said softly. “You knew that from the start. I’ll see if I can arrange a meeting for us with Phil Hartnell and Ken Blackstone in Leeds tomorrow morning.”

Annie threw a chip at him. “Then why did you give me such a bloody hard time about it, then?”

Banks smiled. “You wouldn’t have had it any other way. Anyway, now you’re here, you can tell me about all the interesting things going on in your life these days.”

“That’s a laugh,” said Annie, turning away and twirling her hair with her fingers.

Winsome had never liked working with Templeton. It wasn’t because he beat her to sergeant, though that did rankle, but she didn’t like his methods, his callous disregard of people’s feelings, or the way he kept ogling her. If she was going to take a boyfriend, which she wasn’t, Templeton would be the last on her list. But in the meantime they had to work together, so she tried to keep her feelings in check as he prattled on about clubs and DJs she’d never heard of, and hinted at a sexual prowess she wasn’t interested in, as he sneaked glances at her thighs and breasts. She knew she could probably report him for sexual harassment, but that sort of thing had a way of coming back on you, especially if you were a woman. You didn’t run to the boss and tell tales; you dealt with it yourself.

Winsome had told Banks that she thought he was taking a big risk in sending Templeton to talk to Hayley Daniels’s parents. Banks said he knew that, but they were short-staffed, and it would help to have a different perspective. Sometimes, he added cryptically, Templeton’s unsavory and idiosyncratic methods could result in a breakthrough. Winsome remained unconvinced; she’d seen the bastard in action in ways that Banks hadn’t. Annie Cabbot would understand, but she wasn’t around.

Winsome pulled up outside the Daniels house in Swainshead, once again drawing curious stares from the old men on the bridge.

“What’s up with them?” said Templeton. “They act like they’ve never seen a black woman before.”

“They probably hadn’t before I came along,” Winsome said.

The reporters had gone and the house looked abandoned. It had only been two days since the news of Hayley’s death, and already the place seemed shabbier somehow. When Winsome knocked, Geoff Daniels answered. He averted his eyes and appeared embarrassed to see her, as well he might, but he stood aside and let her and Templeton enter. Donna McCarthy was in the living room sitting on an armchair. She looked as if she hadn’t slept since Sunday. There was a strained atmosphere, Winsome sensed, though she couldn’t tell whether Templeton felt it. Even if he did, in her experience, he would simply ignore it and do what he wanted anyway.

“Any news?” asked Donna, as her husband slumped down in another armchair by the window. Winsome and Templeton took the sofa, and Winsome automatically pulled her skirt down over her knees. If she’d known she was going to be riding out with Templeton this morning, she would have worn trousers. As it was, she’d gone and put on a business-style pinstripe skirt and matching jacket. Already, she could see him eyeing up Donna McCarthy, assessing his chances there.

“Perhaps,” said Templeton. “But we’ve got a few more questions to ask you.”

“Oh?” said Donna.

“You told DC Jackman here that you didn’t know of any particular boyfriends Hayley had, but that you thought she was sexually active. Am I right?”

Donna twisted her wedding ring. “Well… I…”

“Is that true, Donna?” Daniels butted in, face red with anger. “You told the police my daughter was some sort of slut?”

“I never said any such thing,” said Donna.

“You’ve got some room to talk,” said Templeton to Daniels, “tied to a bed while some young tart bounced up and down on your jollies.”

“What’s this?” Donna asked, looking at her husband. “What’s he talking about?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Templeton said, a smirk of disbelief on his face. “He didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t think it was—” Winsome began.

“No,” Templeton went on, waving her down. “I think she should know.”

“Know what?” said Donna. “What are you talking about?”

“When we found your husband, he wasn’t at a convention, unless it was a convention of perverts. He was tied to a hotel bed while a naked young lady had her way with him. Our Winsome here got a front-row seat, didn’t you, love?”

“You bastard!” said Daniels. “I’ll bloody have you for that.”

“Is this true, Geoff? Who was she? That little bitch from the office, the one who can’t keep her legs closed?”

Winsome rolled her eyes. “Calm down, everyone,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’ll just have to deal with this between yourselves later. We have more important things to talk about. And no one implied that your daughter was promiscuous, Mr. Daniels.”

“She was innocent,” Daniels said. “Innocent. A victim. Do you both get that?”

Winsome nodded, but she could see that Templeton was rallying for another attack. Not a good sign. “Of course,” Templeton began. “And I’m sorry if I implied in any way that your late daughter was the town bicycle. That wasn’t my intention. The point is that it has come to our attention that she might have had a secret boyfriend. We were wondering if you could shed any light on this.”

“What boyfriend? Who said that?” said Daniels.

“It doesn’t matter who said it,” Templeton replied. “Is it true?”

“How would we know?” said Donna, still glaring at her husband. “If she kept it secret.”

“What do you think?” Templeton asked. “Were there any signs, any unexplained absences, any occasions she wouldn’t say where she was going, any nights she didn’t come home?”

“She sometimes stayed with friends from college if she went into Eastvale for a night out.”

“I know,” said Templeton. “She didn’t want to drive because she set out to get paralytic. Do you know that people can lose all sense of judgment when they’re that pissed?”

“I don’t think Hayley drank that much,” said Donna. “She was just having fun with her mates.”

“Come off it,” said Templeton. “She was so bladdered on Saturday she went off into the Maze alone for a piss. You can’t tell me that’s using good judgment.”

Donna started sobbing and Daniels lurched forward to make a grab for Templeton’s jacket collar, shouting, “How can you talk about our daughter like that, you filthy heartless bastard?”

“Gerroff!” said Templeton, pushing him away and straightening his jacket.

Wonderful, thought Winsome, regretting that Daniels hadn’t managed to land a good punch, another shambles of a Templeton interview. How on earth did such an insensitive pillock make sergeant in this day and age? She stepped into the breach. “Let’s all calm down. DS Templeton might not always be diplomatic in his approach, but he has raised some serious questions, and any answers you give may help us catch Hayley’s killer. Does either of you know anything about a boyfriend?”

They both shook their heads, Daniels glaring at Templeton the whole time and Donna looking as if she were ready to kill both of them.

“Well, somebody must know something,” Templeton said. “Surely you didn’t just let her run wild and do whatever she wanted?”

“She was nineteen, Mr. Templeton,” said Donna. “You can’t control a nineteen-year-old.”

Only with handcuffs in a bed, Winsome bet, making herself blush at the thought. “Did she never let anything slip?” she asked. “Or didn’t you notice any signs, woman-to-woman?”

“You’re making me feel guilty now,” Donna said, reaching for a tissue. “You’re saying I should have paid more attention and it might not have happened.”

“That’s not true,” Winsome said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. There’s only one person responsible for what happened to Hayley, and that’s the killer.”

“But maybe if I’d just… I don’t know… been there…”

“Did you know she carried condoms in her handbag?” Templeton asked.

“No, I didn’t,” said Donna. “I never went through Hayley’s handbag.”

Daniels glanced over at Templeton in disgust.

“Does it surprise you?” Templeton asked.

“No,” said Donna. “She knew if she was going to do anything she had to be careful. They all do these days.”

“If she kept the boyfriend a secret,” Winsome said, “we’re wondering what the reason is. Perhaps he was an older man? Perhaps he was married?”

“I still can’t tell you anything,” said Donna.

Templeton turned to Daniels. “You’ve had some experience in that department, haven’t you?” he said. “Shagging Martina Redfern while Hayley was getting herself killed? Like them young, do you? Maybe it’s you we should be looking at a lot more closely.”

If he expected to get a further rise out of Daniels, Winsome thought, he’d lost that one. Daniels sat there, spent and miserable. “I’ve made my mistakes,” he said. “Plenty of them. And I only hope Donna can find it in her heart to forgive me. But my mistakes aren’t going to help you catch my daughter’s killer. Now, if you can’t do anything except sit there and try to stir things up, why don’t you just get up off your arse and start doing your job?”

“We are trying to do our jobs, sir,” Winsome said, surprising herself that she was coming to Templeton’s defense. But to defend the interview, she had to defend Templeton. She vowed she would never let anyone put her in this position again, no matter what they said. “Did she ever talk about any of her lecturers at college, for example?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” said Donna.

“Was there anyone in particular?”

“Austin,” said Daniels suddenly. “Malcolm Austin. Remember, Donna, that bloke that led the class trip to Paris last April?”

“Yes,” said Donna. “She mentioned him a few times. But that was her favorite class. I don’t think there was… I mean…”

“Have you met him?” Winsome asked.

“No,” said Donna. “We haven’t met any of them. When she was at school we met her teachers, like, but when they’re at college, I mean, you don’t, do you?”

“So you don’t know how old he is, whether he’s married or anything?”

“Sorry,” said Donna. “Can’t help you there. You asked if she ever mentioned anyone and that was the only one.”

“Romantic city, Paris,” said Templeton, buffing his fingernails on his thigh the way a cricketer rubs the ball.

Winsome got to her feet. “Well, thanks,” she said. “It’s a start. We’ll have a word with Mr. Austin.”

Templeton remained seated, and his lack of movement was making Winsome nervous. She knew that he outranked her, so he should be the one to give the signal to leave, but she was so intent on damage control and getting out of there that she hadn’t really thought about that. Finally, he stood up slowly, gave Daniels a long, lingering look and said, “We’ll be talking to you again soon, mate.” Then he took out his card and pointedly handed it to Donna, who was contemplating her husband as a matador contemplates a bull. “If you think of anything else, love,” Templeton said, “don’t hesitate to ring me, day or night.”

When they got outside to the car, he grabbed Winsome’s arm and leaned so close to her that she could smell the spearmint chewing gum on his breath and said, “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

“There won’t be any again,” Winsome said, surprised at her own vehemence. Then she jerked her arm free and surprised herself even more by saying, “And take your fucking hands off me. Sir.”

Banks was glad to get home at a reasonable hour on Tuesday, though he was still preoccupied with what Annie had told him about Lucy Payne’s murder. He had watched Brough’s Eastern Area press conference in the station that afternoon, and now Lucy Payne and the murders at 35 The Hill, or the “House of Payne” as one newspaper had dubbed it at the time, were all over the news again.

Banks put Maria Muldaur’s Heart of Mine on the CD player and peered out of his front window as he tried to decide whether to warm up the lamb korma or try another Marks & Spencer’s chicken Kiev. Maria was singing Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” but the weather had improved considerably. The sun was going down and streaks of vermilion, magenta and crimson shot through the western sky, casting light on the fast-flowing Gratly Beck, so that at moments it seemed like a dark swirling oil slick. Next weekend they would be putting the clocks ahead, and it would be light until late in the evening.

In the end, he made himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich and poured a glass of Peter Lehmann Shiraz. The main sound system was in the extension, along with the plasma TV, but he had set up speakers in the kitchen and in the front room, where he would sometimes sit and read or work on the computer. The couch was comfortable, the shaded lamps cozy, and the peat fire useful on cool winter evenings. He didn’t need it tonight, but he decided to eat his dinner in there, anyway, and read the notes he had brought home with him from the office. He had got both Ken Blackstone and Phil Hartnell to agree to a meeting in Leeds the following morning. Annie was staying over at her cottage in Harkside that night, and he was due to pick her up there at nine-thirty in the morning. But before that, he needed to do his homework.

In a way, though, he already knew his subject. He didn’t have to read the files to know their names: Kimberley Myers, age fifteen, failed to return home from a school dance one Friday night; Kelly Diane Matthews, age seventeen, went missing during a New Year’s Eve party in Roundhay Park, Leeds; Samantha Jane Foster, eighteen years old, disappeared on her way home from a poetry reading at a pub near the University of Bradford; Leanne Wray, sixteen, vanished on a ten-minute walk between a pub and her parents’ house in Eastvale; Melissa Horrocks, aged seventeen, failed to return home from a pop concert in Harrogate. Five young girls, all victims of Terence Payne, who came to be called the “Chameleon” and, many people believed, also of his wife Lucy Payne, who later became the notorious “Friend of the Devil.”

Two police officers on routine patrol had been called to the Payne house in west Leeds after a neighbor reported hearing sounds of an argument. There they had found Lucy Payne unconscious in the hall, the apparent victim of an attack by her husband. In the cellar, Terence Payne had set upon the officers with a machete and killed PC Dennis Morrisey. Morrisey’s partner, PC Janet Taylor, had managed to get in several blows with her nightstick, and she didn’t stop hitting Terence Payne until he was no longer moving, no longer a threat. He subsequently died of his injuries.

Banks was called to the cellar, where the local police had found the body of Kimberley Myers bound naked and dead on a mattress surrounded by candles, her body slashed around the breasts and genitals. The other girls were found dismembered and buried in the next room, and postmortems discovered them to have been similarly tortured. What Banks remembered most, apart from the smell, was the way their toes stuck up through the earth like tiny mushrooms. Sometimes he had nightmares about that time he had spent in the cellar at 35 The Hill.

He thought about his conversation with Annie that afternoon and decided that he had definitely been on the defensive. He remembered Lucy Payne best as she was the first time he had seen her in her hospital bed, when she hadn’t been quite as beautiful as some of the photographs the newspapers printed. Half her face had been covered in bandages, her long raven’s-wing hair had been spread out on the pillow under her head, and the one good eye that stared at him with unnerving directness was as black as her hair.

Naturally, she had denied any involvement in or knowledge of her husband’s crimes. When Banks had talked to her, he had sensed her striding always one step ahead, or aside, anticipating the questions, preparing her answers and the requisite emotions of regret and pain, but never of guilt. She had been, by turns, vulnerable or brazen, victim or willing sexual deviant. Her history, when it came out, recounted a childhood of unimaginable horrors in a remote coastal house, where the children of two families had been subjected to ritual sexual abuse by their parents until the social workers pounced one day amid rumors of Satanic rites.

Banks got up and poured another glass of wine. It was going down far too well. As he drank, he thought of the people he had encountered during the Chameleon investigation, from the parents of the victims to neighbors and schoolfriends of some of the girls. There was even a teacher who had come briefly under suspicion, a friend of Payne’s called Geoffrey Brighouse. It was a large cast, but at least it would give Annie and her team somewhere to start.

Thinking of the Paynes’ victims, Banks’s mind drifted to Hayley Daniels. He couldn’t let this new case of Annie’s interfere with the investigation. He owed Hayley that much. With any luck, by the time he got back from Leeds tomorrow, some of the lab results would have started to trickle in, and between them, Wilson and Templeton would have talked to most of the friends Hayley was with on Saturday night and interviewed the possible boyfriend, Malcolm Austin.

Banks knew he had made a mistake in putting Winsome and Templeton together on the Daniels-McCarthy interview. He could tell from the atmosphere when the two returned to the station that it hadn’t gone well. Neither would talk to him about it, he knew, though he sensed there was obviously more than Templeton’s overactive libido behind it.

The problem was that Banks knew he had been right in what he told Annie: Templeton could be a good copper, and sometimes what made him one was his brusqueness and his disregard of the rules of common decency. But he also knew that when he had had to rethink whether there was room for someone like Templeton on the team, especially with Winsome progressing so well, he had decided that there wasn’t. The transfer, then, was a good idea.

Banks tried to clear Lucy Payne and Hayley Daniels out of his mind. Maria Muldaur came to the end of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” so he went to put on a new CD. He decided on the Bill Evans Half Moon Bay concert, one he had always wished he had attended. After Evans introduced his bass player and drummer came the delightful “Waltz for Debby.” It was still early, and Banks decided to spend the rest of the evening at home listening to the jazz collection that he was slowly rebuilding and reading Postwar. He was deeply into the Cold War and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” by the time he noticed that his glass was empty for the second time.

It seemed like ages since Annie had been to a restaurant in Eastvale, and she was glad that she had accepted Winsome’s invitation, even though she knew it wouldn’t be an entirely work-free evening. The Italian place they had picked above the shops built onto the back of the church in the market square was excellent: plenty of vegetarian choices and decent cheap plonk. She tucked into her pasta primavera and second glass of Chianti — feeling just a little guilty, but not too much, for not lasting longer on the wagon — while Winsome ate cannelloni and went full speed ahead in her verbal assault on Templeton.

“So you told him what you thought?” Annie said, the first opening she got.

“I told him.”

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing. Not a word. I think he was so shocked that I swore at him. I mean, I was so shocked I swore at him. I never swear.” She put her hand over her mouth and laughed. Annie laughed with her.

“Don’t worry,” Annie said. “Insults are like water off a duck’s back with Templeton. He’ll be back to normal tomorrow, or what passes for normal in his case.”

“I’m not sure I want that,” said Winsome. “Really. I mean it this time. One of us has to go. I can’t work with him again, watch the way he tramples all over people’s feelings. I don’t know if I can wait for his transfer to come through.”

“Look,” said Annie, “nobody ever said being a copper was easy. Sometimes you have to play dirty, tough it out. Be patient and hang in there.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Winsome said. “You’re defending him.”

“I’m not bloody defending him,” said Annie. “I’m just trying to tell you that if you want to survive in this job you have to toughen up, that’s all.”

“You don’t think I’m strong enough?”

“You need to develop a thicker skin.”

“You don’t think black skin is thicker than white?”

“What?” said Annie.

“You heard me. How do you think I deal with all the innuendos and outright insults? People either look down on you, or they go out of their way to pretend they don’t notice your color, that you’re really just like anybody else, but they end up talking to you like they talk to children. I don’t know which is worse. Do you know what it’s like to have someone stare at you or insult you like some sort of lesser being, an animal, just because of the color of your skin? Like Hayley Daniels’s father, or those old men on the bridge at Swainshead.”

“I don’t know about Hayley Daniels’s father,” said Annie, “but those old men don’t know any better. I know it’s not an excuse, but they don’t. And I might not know how it feels to have people look at me that way because of the color of my skin, but I do know how it feels when they treat me like a lesser species because I’m a woman.”

“Then double it!” said Winsome.

Annie looked at her, and they both started laughing so loudly an elderly couple sitting nearby frowned at them. “Oh, what the hell,” said Annie, raising her glass. “Here’s to kicking against the pricks.”

They clinked glasses. Annie’s mobile rang and she pulled it out of her handbag. “Yes?”

“Annie? It’s Eric.”

“Eric. What the hell do you want?”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I told you not to ring me on my mobile. I’m having dinner with a colleague.”

“Male or female?”

“That’s none of your bloody business.”

“Okay. Okay. Sorry. Just asking. Look, I was thinking about you, and I thought why wait till Thursday. You’re obviously busy tonight, but what about tomorrow? Wednesday. Lunch?”

“I have to go to Leeds tomorrow,” Annie said, wondering why she was even bothering to tell Eric this. “And I told you I’m not coming on Thursday.”

“Thursday it is, then,” said Eric. “Sorry to bother you.” And he ended the call.

Annie shoved her mobile back in her handbag.

“Something wrong?” asked Winsome.

Annie ground her teeth, then took a deep breath and a swallow of wine. She looked at Winsome, weighed up the pros and cons and said, “Yes, I think there is. With me. Let’s order another bottle of wine and I’ll tell you all the sordid details.”

The waitress came with the Chianti. Winsome finished her cannelloni and rested her elbows on the table. Annie poured them both a generous glass.

“Come on, then,” Winsome said. “Do tell.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Annie said, feeling embarrassed and awkward now the time had come.

“You seemed annoyed enough on the phone. Who was it?”

“It’s just… well, you know, the other night, Saturday night, I went out on the town with some friends.” She touched her hair and laughed. “As much as you can go out on the town in a place like Whitby.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I met this bloke and… one thing led to another. I had way too much to drink and we smoked a couple of joints and to cut a long story short, the next morning I woke up in his bed.”

“You did what?”

“You heard me. I met this bloke and went back to his place.”

“And you slept with him?”

“Well… yes.”

“This was the first time you’d met him?”

“Yes. Winsome… what is it?”

“Nothing.” Winsome shook her head. “Go on.”

Annie took a long swig of wine. “He turned out to be a bit younger than I probably realized at first, and—”

“How young?”

Annie shrugged. “Dunno. Twenty-two, twenty-three, around there.”

Winsome’s eyes widened. “A boy! You picked up a boy in a bar and slept with him?”

“Don’t be so naive. These things do happen, you know.”

“Not to me, they don’t.”

“Well, you’re obviously not going to the right bars.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I’m serious. I would never go home with anyone I met in a bar, and I would certainly never go home with someone so young.”

“But Winsome, you’re only thirty!”

Winsome’s eyes blazed. “And I would still never go to bed with a twenty-two-year-old. And you… how could you do that? It’s sick. You must be old enough to be his mother.”

“Winsome, lighten up. People are starting to look at us. Maybe if I’d had a baby when I was eighteen I could be his mother, okay? But I didn’t, so cut the Oedipus shit.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I never knew you were such a prude.”

“I am not a prude. You don’t have to be a prude to have…”

“To have what? What’s your point?”

“Moral standards. It’s not right.”

“Oh, moral standards, is it now? Not right?” Annie drank more wine. She was starting to feel dizzy, and more than a touch angry. “Well, let me tell you what you can do with your moral standards, little Miss High-and-Mighty! You can shove them—”

“Don’t say that!”

Annie stopped. There was something in Winsome’s tone that caused her to back off. The two of them shuffled in their seats awhile, eyeing each other. Annie poured herself some more wine. “I thought you were my friend,” she said finally. “I didn’t expect you to go all judgmental on me.”

“I’m not being judgmental. I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

“What’s the big deal? That’s not the point of the story, anyway, his age or having a one-night stand or smoking a couple of joints, or whatever it seems to have put that hair up your arse.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

Annie held her hand up. “Fine, fine. I can see this isn’t working. Another bad idea. Let’s just pay the bill and go.”

“You haven’t finished your wine.”

Annie picked up her glass and drained it. “You can have the rest of the bottle,” she said, dropping a twenty-pound note on the table. “And you can keep the fucking change.”

The sound of a car screeching to a halt in front of his cottage around half past nine startled Banks. He wasn’t expecting anyone. The only person who usually dropped by on spec was his son Brian, but he was supposed to be rehearsing in London with his new band. Well, it was the same band, really, the Blue Lamps, but they had replaced Brian’s songwriting partner and fellow guitarist. Their sound had changed a little, but from the couple of demos Brian had played him, Banks thought the new guitarist was better than the one he replaced. The songwriting remained an issue, but Banks was certain Brian would come through, carry the burden.

By the time the knock at the door came, Banks was already there, and when he opened it, he was surprised to see Annie Cabbot standing there.

“Sorry it’s so late,” she said. “Can I come in?”

Banks stood back. “Of course. Anything wrong?”

“Wrong? No, why should there be anything wrong? Can’t I drop in on an old friend when I feel like it?” As she walked in she stumbled against him slightly, and he took her arm. She looked at him and smiled lopsidedly. He let go.

“Of course you can,” said Banks, puzzled by her manner and discomfited from being so jarringly dragged away from his evening alone with the book, wine and music. Bill Evans had given way to John Coltrane some time ago, and the tenor sax improvised away in the background, flinging out those famous sheets of sound. He knew it would take him a few moments to adjust to having company. “Drink?” he said.

“Lovely,” said Annie, flinging off her jacket. It landed on the computer monitor. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

Banks went into the kitchen and filled up a glass of wine for Annie and one more for himself, emptying the bottle. Annie leaned against the doorjamb as he handed her the drink. “Is that all that’s left?” she said.

“I’ve got another bottle.”

“Good.”

She was definitely unsteady on her feet, Banks thought, as he followed her back through to the living room, and she flopped down on the armchair.

“So what brings you here?” he asked.

Annie drank some wine. “That’s nice,” she said. “What? Oh, nothing. Like I said, just a friendly visit. I was having dinner with Winsome in Eastvale and I just thought… you know… it’s not far away.”

“Eastvale’s quite a drive from here.”

“You’re not insinuating I’ve had too much to drink, are you?”

“No. I—”

“Good, then.” Annie held up her glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” said Banks. “What did Winsome have to say?”

“Oh, just stuff. Boring stuff. That arsehole Templeton.”

“I heard that the interview with Hayley’s parents didn’t go well.”

“Well, it wouldn’t, would it? What could you have been thinking of, putting those two together? What can you be thinking of even having him in the station?”

“Annie, I don’t really want to discuss—”

Annie waved her hand in the air. “No. I know. Of course not. I don’t, either. That’s not why I came. Let’s just forget about bloody Templeton and Winsome, shall we?”

“Fine with me.”

“How about you, Alan? How are you doing? Julia Ford asked after you, you know. She’s very attractive in a lawyerly sort of way. Don’t you think?”

“I never really thought about her that way.”

“Liar. What’s the music?”

“John Coltrane?”

“It sounds weird.”

Banks made to get up. “I’ll put something else on if you like.”

“No, no. Sit down. I didn’t say I didn’t like it, just that it sounded weird. I don’t mind weird sometimes. In fact I quite like it.” She gave him an odd smile and emptied her glass. “Oops, it looks as if we might need more wine, after all.”

“That was quick,” said Banks. He went into the kitchen to open another bottle, wondering what the hell he should do about Annie. He shouldn’t really give her any more wine; she had clearly had enough already. But she wouldn’t react well to being told that. There was always the spare room, if that was what it came to. That was what he decided upon.

Back in the living room, Annie had settled in the armchair with her legs tucked under her. It wasn’t often she wore a skirt but she was wearing one today, and the material had creased up, exposing half her thighs. Banks handed her the glass. She smiled at him.

“Do you miss me?” she asked.

“We all miss you,” Banks said. “When are you coming back?”

“No, I don’t mean that, silly. I mean, do you miss me?”

“Of course I do,” said Banks.

“Of course I do,” Annie echoed. “What do you think of toyboys?”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes, but I don’t really know what you mean.”

“Toyboys. You know what they are, don’t you? Toyboys don’t make good lovers, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” Banks tried to remember when he was a young boy. He had probably been a lousy lover. He probably was a lousy lover even now, if truth be told. If he weren’t, maybe he would have more luck finding and keeping a woman. Still, chance would be a fine thing; it would be nice to have the opportunity for more practice now and then.

“Oh, Alan,” she said. “What shall I do with you?”

The next thing he knew, she was beside him on the sofa. He could feel her thighs warm against him and her breath in his ear. He could smell red wine and garlic. She rubbed her breasts against his arm and tried to kiss his lips, but he turned away.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Banks. “It just doesn’t feel right, that’s all.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“You know I want you. I never didn’t want you.”

Annie started fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. “Then take me,” she said, moving close again and breathing fast. “Men always want it, don’t they, no matter what?”

Again, Banks backed off. “Not like this,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“So?” She went back to the buttons. He could see the black lacy line of her bra and soft mounds of flesh beneath. “Not another bloody prude, are you?”

“Look,” Banks said, “it’s not…”

Annie put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

He moved away. She gave him a puzzled glance. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve told you what’s wrong,” he said. “This just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I don’t believe you really want to do this, either. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Annie moved away and quickly tried to fasten up the buttons. Her face was flushed and angry. “What do you mean, it doesn’t feel right?” she said. “What’s wrong with me? Am I too fat? Not pretty enough? Are my breasts not firm enough? Am I not attractive enough? Not good enough for you?”

“It’s not any of those things,” said Banks. “It’s—”

“Or is it you? Because I have to wonder, you know,” Annie went on, getting to her feet and reaching for her jacket and handbag, stumbling as she did so. “I really do have to wonder about a man like you. I mean, do you have so much going on in your miserable little life that you can afford to reject me? Do you, Alan? Do you have some pretty young twenty-two-year-old girl hidden away somewhere? Is that it? Am I too old for you?”

“I told you. It’s not any of those things. I—”

But it was too late. Banks just heard her say, “Oh, fuck you, Alan. Or not, as the case may be.” Then she slammed the door behind her. When he got outside she was already starting the car. He knew he should try to stop her, that she was drunk, but he didn’t know how, short of trying to drag her out of the driver’s seat or throwing himself in front of the wheels. In her mood, she would probably run him over. Instead, he listened to the gears grate and watched her back out in a spray of gravel at an alarming speed. Then he heard the gears screech again, and she was off down the lane through Gratly.

Banks stood there, heart pounding, wondering what the hell was going on. When he went back inside, Coltrane was just getting started on “My Favorite Things.”