Aftermath

instituting a curfew, you can’t force people to be careful.

“What happened, Claire? Did you lose sight of her?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I mean, not really. You don’t understand.”

“Help us to understand, Claire,” said Maggie, holding her hand. “We want to. Help us.”

“I should have been with her.”

“Why weren’t you?” Banks asked. “Did you have an argument?”

Claire paused and looked away. “It was a boy,” she said finally.

“Kim was with a boy?”

“No, me. I was with a boy.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she pressed on. “Nicky Gallagher. I’d fancied him for weeks and he asked me to dance. Then he said he wanted to walk me home. Kim wanted to leave just before eleven, she had a curfew, and normally I’d have gone with her, but Nicky… he wanted to stay for a slow dance… I thought there would be lots of people around… I…” Then she broke down in tears again and buried her head in Maggie’s shoulder.

Banks took a deep breath. Claire’s pain and guilt and grief were so real they broke over him in waves and made his breath catch in his chest. Maggie stroked her hair and muttered words of comfort, but still Claire let it all pour out. Finally, she came to the end of her tears and blew her nose in a tissue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am. I’d give anything to live that night over again and do it differently. I hate Nicky Gallagher!”

“Claire,” said Banks, who was no stranger to guilt himself. “It’s not his fault. And it’s certainly not yours.”

“I’m a selfish bitch. I had Nicky to walk me home. I thought he might kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. See? I’m a slut, too.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Maggie. “The superintendent is right. It’s not your fault.”

“But if I’d only-”

“If. If. If,” said Banks.

“But it’s true! Kim had no one, so she had to walk home by herself and Mr. Payne got her. I bet he did awful things to her before he killed her, didn’t he? I’ve read about people like him.”

“Whatever happened that night,” said Banks, “is not your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“Nobody’s. Kim was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been-” Banks stopped. Not a good idea. He hoped Claire hadn’t picked up on the implication, but she had.

“Me? Yes, I know that. I wish it had been.”

“You don’t mean that, Claire,” said Maggie.

“Yes, I do. Then I wouldn’t have to live with it. It was because of me. Because she didn’t want to be a gooseberry.” Claire started crying again.

Banks wondered if it could have been Claire. She was the right type: blond and long- legged, as so many young northern girls were. Was it as random as that? Or had Payne had his eyes on Kimberley Myers all along? Jenny might have some theories on that.

He tried to picture what had happened. Payne parked in his car, near the youth club, perhaps; knowing there was a dance on that night, knowing the one he’d had his eye on would be there. He couldn’t count on her going home alone, of course, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. There was always a chance. A risk, of course, but it would have been worth it to him. His heart’s desire. All the others were practice. This was the real thing, the one he had wanted right from the start, there at school under his very eyes, tormenting him, day after day.

Terence Payne would also have known, as Banks did, that Kimberley lived about two hundred yards farther down The Hill than her friend Claire Toth, under the railway bridge, and that there was a dark, desolate stretch of road there, nothing but a wasteland on one side and a Wesleyan chapel on the other, which would have been in darkness at that hour, Wesleyans not being noted for their wild late-night parties. When Banks had walked down there on Saturday afternoon, the day after Kimberley had disappeared, following the route she would have taken home from the dance, he had thought it would have made an ideal pickup place.

Payne would have parked his car a little ahead of Kimberley and either jumped her or said hello, the familiar, safe Mr. Payne from school, somehow maneuvered her inside, then chloroformed her and taken her back through the garage to the cellar.

Perhaps, Banks realized now, Payne couldn’t believe his luck when Kimberley started walking home alone. He would have expected her to be with her friend Claire, if not with others, and could only hope that the others would live closer to the school than Kimberley did and that she would end up alone for that final short but desolate stretch. But with her being alone right from the start, if he was careful and made sure that nobody could see, he could even have offered her a lift. She trusted him. Perhaps he had even, being the good, kind neighbor, given her a lift before.

“Get in the van, Kimberley, you know it’s not safe for a girl your age to be walking the streets alone at this hour. I’ll take you home.”

“Yes, Mr. Payne. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne.”

“You’re lucky I happened by.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now fasten your seat belt.”

“Superintendent?”

“I’m sorry,” said Banks, who had been lost in his imaginings.

“Is it all right if Claire goes home? Her mother should be back by now.”

Banks looked at the child. Her world had shattered into pieces around her. All weekend she must have been terrified that something like this had happened, dreading the moment when the shadow of her guilt was made substance, when her nightmares proved to be reality. There was no reason to keep her here. Let her go to her mother. He knew where she was if he needed to talk to her again. “Just one more thing, Claire,” he said. “Did you see Mr. Payne at all on the evening of the dance?”

“No.”

“He wasn’t at the dance?”

“No.”

“He wasn’t parked outside the youth club?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Did you notice anyone at all hanging around?”

“No. But I wasn’t really looking.”

“Did you see Mrs. Payne at all?”

“Mrs. Payne? No. Why?”

“All right, Claire. You can go home now.”

“Is there any more news of Lucy?” Maggie asked after Claire had left.

“She’s comfortable. She’ll be fine.”

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Just a few loose ends from this morning’s interview, that’s all.”

“Oh?” Maggie fingered the neck of her T-shirt.

“Nothing important, I shouldn’t think.”

“What is it?”

“One of the officers who interviewed you gave me the impression that he thought you weren’t telling the full story about your relationship with Lucy Payne.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. “I see.”

“Would you describe the two of you as close friends?”

“Friends, yes, but close, no. I haven’t known Lucy long.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Yesterday. She dropped by in the afternoon.”

“What did you talk about?”

Maggie looked down at her hands on her lap. “Nothing, really. You know, the weather, work, that sort of thing.”

Kimberley Myers was tied naked in the cellar of the Payne house, and Lucy had dropped by to talk about the