Clayton looked from Gristhorpe to Banks. “Yes,” he said to the latter. “I told you it was absurd then, and it’s still absurd now.”
“I know.”
Clayton swallowed. “What?”
“I said I know it’s absurd.”
He shook his head. “So you’re not still trying to accuse me of that? Then why…?”
“And remember I suggested that Deborah might have gained access to some sensitive business material, or some government secret?”
“Yes. Again, ridiculous.”
“You’re absolutely right. You weren’t having an affair with Sylvie Harrison,” Banks said slowly, “and Deborah didn’t gain access to any important government secrets. We know that now. I got it all wrong. You were in love with your goddaughter, with Deborah. That’s why you killed her.”
Clayton paled. “This…this is ludicrous.” He twisted around in his chair to look at Riddle. “Look, Jerry, I don’t know what they’re talking about. You’re their superior. Can’t you do something?”
Riddle, who had read both the diary and the computer journal, shook his head slowly. “Best answer the questions truthfully, Michael. That’s best for all of us.”
While Clayton was staring open-mouthed at Riddle’s betrayal, Superintendent Gristhorpe dropped the printed computer journal on the table in front of him. Clayton first glanced at it, then put his glasses on, picked it up and read a few paragraphs. Then he pushed it aside. “What on earth is that?” he asked Banks.
“The product of a sick mind, I’d say,” Banks answered.
“I hope you’re not suggesting it has anything to do with me.”
Banks leaned forward suddenly, snatched back the pages and slapped them down on the table. “Oh, stop mucking us about. It came from your computer. The one John Spinks stole that day he took your car. He’s already told us all about that, about how he saw Deborah make a copy of the files onto a diskette. You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“I…where…?”
“She kept it well hidden. Look, you know it’s your journal. Don’t deny it.”
Even in his shock, Clayton managed a thin smile and rallied his defenses. “Deny it? I most certainly do. And I’m afraid you’ll have a hard job proving a wild accusation like that. Your suggestions are outrageous.” He glanced back at Riddle. “And Jerry knows it, too. There’s absolutely nothing to link that printout with me. It could have been written by anyone.”
“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “Oh, I know that Deborah reformatted your hard drive well beyond anything an ‘unerase’ or ‘undelete’ command could bring back to life, but you must admit the contents of the journal, the circumstances, all point to you. Very damning.”
“Fiction,” said Clayton. “Pure fiction and fantasy. Just some poor lovestruck fool making things up. There’s nothing illegal in that. There’s no law against fantasies; at least not yet.”
“Maybe not,” said Banks. “We never checked Deborah’s clothing for your hairs, you know.”
“So?”
“You might not have left any blood or tissue, but I’m willing to bet that if we went over the hair samples again now, we’d find a positive match. That wouldn’t be fantasy, would it?”
Clayton shrugged. “So what? It wouldn’t surprise me. Deborah was my goddaughter, after all. We spent a lot of time together-as a family. Besides, I was in court for the so-called expert’s testimony. Hairs hardly prove a thing scientifically.”
“What about Ellen Gilchrist?”
“Never heard of-wait a minute, isn’t that the other girl who was killed?”
“Yes. What if we found your hairs on her clothing, too, and hers on yours? Was she family, a friend?”
Clayton licked his lips. “I never saw her in my life. Look, I don’t know what grounds you’ve got for assuming this, but-”
Banks dropped a photocopy of Deborah’s diary in front of him. “Read this,” he said.
Clayton read.
His hands were shaking when he put the diary down. “Fantasy,” he said, straining to keep his voice steady. “That’s not very much to go on, is it? It could be anyone.”
“Come on, Michael,” said Banks. “It’s all over. Admit it. You know what happened. You’ve just read her account. Deborah read your journal and found out you’d been secretly lusting after her since she was twelve. She was both shocked and excited by the idea. But only by the idea. She was flattered, but still too much of a kid to know how serious it all was to you. And she had a bit of a crush on you anyway. So she teased you, made up a bit of romance, flirted a little, the way young girls sometimes do to tease boys they know fancy them. Didn’t she, Michael?”
“This is absurd. You’re not only insulting me you’re also besmirching my goddaughter’s memory.” He looked around at Riddle again. “Sir Geoff-”
But Banks cut him off. “Besmirching? That’s a good word, Michael. I like that. Besmirching. Sounds naughty. Very public school. So let’s talk about besmirching. Eventually, when it became clear you wouldn’t leave her alone, Deborah threatened to tell her father. You knew that if Sir Geoffrey found out he would probably kill you. At the very least it would mean the end of your business relationship. That meant a lot to you, didn’t it, Michael? The two old Oxford boys, still together after all these years. Sir Geoffrey’s friendship meant a lot to you, too, but it didn’t stop you lusting after his twelve-year-old daughter, a girl who wasn’t even born when the two of you first met.”
Clayton glared, the color drained from his face. “You’ll regret this,” he said, glancing at both Gristhorpe and Riddle. “All of you will, if you don’t stop this right now.” Banks could almost hear Clayton’s teeth grinding together. Gristhorpe said nothing. Riddle polished his buttons with a virgin white handkerchief.
“You waited for Deborah in St. Mary’s graveyard,” Banks continued calmly. “In the shrubbery that foggy Monday evening when you knew she would be walking home alone from the chess club. You were going to grab her and drag her into the bushes, but when you saw her take the gravel path, you followed her towards the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, where you snatched her satchel and strangled her with the strap. Maybe she knew it was you, and maybe she didn’t. Maybe you talked first, tried to persuade her not to say anything, or maybe you didn’t. But that’s what happened, isn’t it, Michael?”
“I’m saying nothing.”
“You didn’t know she was going to pick up the diary she’d been keeping and hiding ever since summer, did you? Oh, Michael, but if you’d only been patient, given her a few more seconds, she would have led you straight to it and you probably wouldn’t be here now. Isn’t that how it happened?”
“I won’t even dignify your accusation with a response.”
“When she told you she’d read your computer journal, Deborah didn’t tell you that she’d copied the file about her onto a diskette, did she? But you knew she had a diary at one time. You bought it for her. That’s another irony, isn’t it, Michael? You knew she’d told Sylvie she lost it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had a good look around her room after you killed her. After all, you had your own key to Sir Geoffrey’s house, and he and Lady Harrison were out. Even if they came back and found you there, it wouldn’t have surprised them. And you opened Deborah’s school satchel, too, didn’t you, to see if she kept anything incriminating in there. Just in case. The only place you couldn’t really get access to was her school desk, but you reasoned she’d be unlikely to keep anything important or private there.”
Clayton put his hands over his ears. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t have to listen to this. You’ll never be able to prove anything. I want-”
“Now, I’m only guessing,” Banks went on, “so stop me if I’m wrong, but I also think, as you murdered Deborah, that you found out you liked it. It stimulated you. Maybe you even had an orgasm as you tightened the strap around her neck. I know you were far too clever to actually rape her because you know about DNA and all that, don’t you? But you did mess around with her clothing after you killed her-partly for pure pleasure, I’d guess, and partly to make it look like a genuine sex murder.
“It was the same with Ellen Gilchrist, wasn’t it? You’d been over and over it in your mind all week, planning how you’d kill again, anticipating the intimacy of it all, and when you did it, when you felt the strap tightening, pulling her back against you, feeling her soft flesh rubbing against you, that excited you, didn’t it?”
“Really, Banks,” Chief Constable Riddle cut in from behind. “Don’t you think this is getting a little out of
