Sometimes one makes mistakes,” she said, with a shrug that Banks thought of as very Gallic. “Sometimes one makes a fool of oneself, does something with the wrong person for all the wrong reasons.”
“What reasons?”
She shrugged again. “A woman’s reasons. A young woman’s reasons.”
“Was Deborah having sex with John Spinks?”
Sylvie paused for a moment, then nodded and said with a sigh, “Yes. One day I came home unexpectedly and I caught them in Deborah’s bedroom. I was crazy with anger. I shouted at him and threw him out of the house and told him never to come back.”
“How did he react?”
She reddened. “He called me names I will not repeat in front of you.”
“Was he violent?”
“He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.” She nodded in the direction of the hall. “There was a vase, not a very valuable vase, but a pretty one, a present from my father, on a stand by the door. He lifted it with both hands and threw it hard against the wall. One small chip of pottery broke off and cut my chin, that’s all.” She fingered the tiny scar.
“Did he leave after that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Sir Geoffrey about him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She paused before answering. “You must understand that Geoffrey can be very Victorian in some ways, especially concerning Deborah. I hadn’t even told him she was seeing the boy in the first place. He would have made things very uncomfortable for her if he’d known, given Spinks’s character and background. I…well…I’m a woman, and I think in some ways I understood what she was going through, more than Geoffrey would have, anyway. I’m not saying I approved, but it was something she had to get out of her system. Stopping her would only have made her more determined. In the long run it would probably have resulted in even more damage. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so. Did Deborah go on seeing Spinks?”
“No. I don’t think so. Not after he threw the vase. She was very upset about what happened and we had a long talk. She said she was really sorry, and she apologized to me. I like to think that she understood what I was telling her, what a waste of time seeing this Spinks boy was. She said she realized now what kind of person he was and she would never go near him again. She’d heard him curse me in the most vile manner. She’d seen him throw the vase at the wall, seen the sliver cut me, draw blood.” Sylvie touched the small scar again. “I think it truly shocked her, made her see him in a new light. Deborah is a good girl inside, Chief Inspector. Stubborn, willful, perhaps, but ultimately sensible too. And like a lot of girls her age, she is very naive about men.”
“In what ways?”
“She didn’t understand the way they use women, manipulate them, or the power of their lust. I wanted her to learn to value herself. In sex, when the time came, as much as in everything else. Unless a woman respects her sexual self, she’s going to be every man’s victim all her life. Giving herself away to that…that animal was a bad way for her to start. You men don’t always understand how important that time of a woman’s life is.”
“Was she a virgin before she met Spinks?”
Sylvie nodded and curled her lip in disgust. “She told me all about it that night after the row. He stole a car, like so many youths do these days. They went for a ride out on the moors…” Her fists clenched as she talked. “And he did it to her in the back of the car.”
“Had you met him before that time?”
She nodded. “Just once. It was two or three weeks earlier. Deborah brought him to the house. It was a sunny day. They were out making a barbecue when I got back from shopping in Leeds.”
“What happened?”
“That time? Oh, nothing much. They were drinking. No doubt at the boy’s instigation, Deborah had taken a bottle of my father’s estate wine from the cellar. I was a little angry with them, but not too much. You must remember, Chief Inspector, that I grew up in France. We had wine with every meal, taken with a little water when we were children, so drinking under age hardly seems the great sin it does to you English.”
“What was your impression of John Spinks?”
“He was very much a boy of single syllables. He didn’t have much to say for himself at all. I’ll admit I didn’t like him right from the start. Call me a snob, if you like, but it’s true. After he’d gone, I told her he wasn’t good enough for her and that she should consider breaking off with him.”
“How did she react to that?”
Sylvie smiled sadly. “The way any sixteen-year-old girl would. She told me she’d see who she wanted and that I should mind my own business and stop trying to run her life.”
“Exactly what my daughter said in the same situation,” said Banks. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Spinks?”
Sylvie sipped some tea, then she went to fetch her handbag. She slipped her hand inside and pulled out a packet of Dunhill. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” she asked. “Why I should ask permission in my own house, I don’t know. It’s just, these days…the anti-smoking brigade…they get to you. It’s only in moments of stress I revert to the habit.”
“I know what you mean,” said Banks, pulling his Silk Cut out with a conspiratorial smile. “May I join you?”
“That would be even better. Geoffrey will go spare, of course. He thinks I’ve stopped.”
The phrase “go spare” sounded odd with that sight French lilt to it; such a Yorkshire phrase, Banks thought.
“Your husband told me you’re from Bordeaux,” Banks said, accepting a light from her slim gold lighter.
Sylvie nodded. “My father is in the wine business. A negociant. One of la noblesse du bouchon.”
“I’m afraid my French is very rusty.”
“Literally, it means ‘the bottle-cork nobility.’ It’s a collective term for the negociants of a great wine center, like Bordeaux.”
“I suppose it means he’s rich?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Very. Anyway, I met Geoffrey when he was on a wine-tasting tour of the area. It must have been, oh, seventeen years ago. I was only nineteen at the time. Geoffrey was thirty.”
“And Sir Geoffrey fell in love with the negociant’s daughter? How romantic.”
Sylvie dredged up another sad smile. “Yes, it was romantic.” Then she drew deep on her cigarette and let the smoke out of her nose. “You asked if there was anything else about Spinks, Chief Inspector. Yes, there was. Things had been going missing from the house.”
“Missing? Like what?”
She shrugged. “A silver snuffbox. Not very valuable, though it might look antique to the untrained eye. Some foreign currency. A pair of silver earrings. Little things like that.”
“Since Deborah had been seeing Spinks?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m almost certain of it. Deborah wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m not saying she was a saint-obviously not-but at least she was honest. She was no thief.”
“Did you challenge her about the stolen articles?”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she didn’t know about the missing things but she would talk to him.”
“Did she tell you what he said?”
“She said he denied it.”
“Did Spinks ever bother either of you after that day you threw him out?”
Sylvie frowned and stubbed out her cigarette. She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips as if to get rid of the taste. “He made threats. One day, he came to the house when both Deborah and Geoffrey were out.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. Nothing physical, if that’s what you mean. If he had, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call the police. I tried to close the door on him, but he pushed his way in and asked for money.”
