“Did you give him any?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“He said if I didn’t give him money, he would keep on seeing Deborah, and that he would get her pregnant, make himself part of the family.” She shuddered. “He was disgusting.”
“And you still didn’t give him anything?”
“No. Then he said if I didn’t give him money he would start spreading the word around that he had deflowered Sir Geoffrey Harrison’s daughter. That she was nothing but a slut. He said he would spread it around St. Mary’s and get her expelled, and he would make sure people in the business community knew so that they would all laugh at Geoffrey behind his back.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was too shocked. Luckily, Michael was here at the time. He handled it.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. I was so upset I went upstairs. All I can say is that I heard nothing more of the matter after that. Spinks disappeared from our lives just as if he had never been there in the first place. Not without leaving some damage, of course.”
“Did he ever threaten to harm Deborah physically?”
Sylvie shook her head. “Not that I heard.”
“But he certainly seemed capable of acting violently?”
She touched her scar again. “Yes. Do you think…?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “But anything’s possible. Did Mr. Clayton know about Spinks from the start?”
“Yes. He dropped by the house that time when they were having the barbecue. He said something to Spinks about the drinking and Spinks was very rude. Michael agreed with me then that Deborah was wasted on the boy. And I told him about…when I found them together in bed. I had to tell someone.”
Clayton seemed to be dropping by Sir Geoffrey’s house an awful lot, Banks thought. Especially when Sir Geoffrey wasn’t there but Sylvie was.
“Does Mr. Clayton have any family of his own?” he asked.
“Michael? No. He and his wife, Gillian, split up three years ago. It was a childless marriage.” She smiled. “I think part of the problem was that Michael is married to his work. Sometimes I think he has his computers wired directly to his brain. He has a girlfriend in Seattle now, and that seems ideal for him. Long-distance romance. He travels there quite often on company business.”
“How long have he and Sir Geoffrey known one another?”
“Since Oxford. They’ve always been inseparable. In fact, Michael was with Geoffrey when we met.”
Banks paused for a moment and sipped some lukewarm tea. “Do you know any of the teachers at St. Mary’s?” he asked.
“Some of them. When you pay as much money to send your child to school as we do, you tend to have some say in the way the place is run.”
“And?”
“And St. Mary’s is an excellent school. Wonderful facilities, good staff, a healthy atmosphere…I could go on.”
“Did you ever get the sense there was anything unpleasant going on there?”
“Unpleasant?”
“I’m sorry I can’t be any more precise than that. But if anyone, or any group, was up to something at school- something illegal, such as drugs-and if Deborah found out about it…She was attacked on her way home from school, after all. Someone could have followed her from there.”
Sylvie shook her head slowly. “The things you policemen dream up. No, I never heard the slightest hint of a rumor of anything wrong at St. Mary’s. And I believe one does hear about these things, if they are going on.”
“Did you have any reason to think John Spinks or anyone else might have introduced Deborah to drugs?”
She sighed. “I can’t say I didn’t worry about it.” Then she shook her head. “But I don’t think so. I never saw any signs. Deborah was a very active girl. She valued her physical health, her athletic prowess, far too much to damage it with drugs.”
“Do you know Patrick Metcalfe?”
“I’ve met him, yes.”
“Did Deborah ever talk about him?”
“No, not that I recall.”
“Did she like him?”
“She didn’t say one way or the other. She did quite well at history, though it wasn’t her best subject. But why do you ask?”
“He’s just part of the tapestry, that’s all. Maybe not an important part. Did Deborah have any contact with the church after you and your husband stopped going?”
“I don’t think so. Geoffrey was quite adamant that we all stay away. But the school and the church remained close. She may have had some contact.” She rubbed her eyes and stood up. “Please excuse me, Chief Inspector, but I’m feeling very tired. I think I’ve told you all I can for the moment. And I hope you’ll be discreet. I’d prefer it if you didn’t let Geoffrey know about what I’ve told you today.”
Banks smiled. “Of course not. Not if you don’t tell him I’ve been here. I’m afraid my boss-”
But before he could get the words out, the front door opened and shut and Sir Geoffrey shouted out, “I’m home, darling. How is everything?”
III
At the back of Eastvale bus station, past the noise of revving engines and the stink of diesel fumes, a pair of heavy glass doors led past the small newsagent’s booth to an escalator that rarely worked.
At the top of the staircase, a shop-lined corridor ended in an open, glass-roofed area with a central fountain surrounded by a few small, tatty trees in wooden planters. The Swainsdale Center.
Several other corridors, leading from other street entrances, also converged like spokes at the hub. There were shops all around-HMV, Boots, W.H. Smith, Curry’s, Dixon’s-but at six-thirty that Wednesday evening, none of them were open. Only the small coffee shop was doing any business at all-if you could call two cups of tea and a Penguin biscuit in the last two hours “business.”
The teenagers hung out around the fountain, usually leaning against the trees or sitting on the benches that had been put up for little old ladies to rest their feet. No little old ladies dared go near them now.
A number of pennies gleamed at the bottom of the pool into which the fountain ran. God knew why people felt they had to chuck coins in water, Banks thought. But the small pool was mostly full of floating cigarette ends, cellophane, Mars bar wrappers, beer tins, plastic bags containing traces of solvent, and the occasional used condom.
Banks experienced a brief flash of anger as he approached, imagining Tracy standing there as one of this motley crowd, smoking, drinking beer, pushing one another playfully, raising their voices in occasional obscenities or sudden whoops, and generally behaving as teenagers do.
Then he reminded himself, as he constantly had to do these days, that he hadn’t been much different himself at their age, and that as often as not, beneath the braggadocio and the rough exteriors, most of them were pretty decent kids at heart.
Except John Spinks.
According to Tracy, Spinks was a hero of sorts among the group because of his oft-recounted but never- detected criminal exploits. She thought he made most of them up, but even she had to admit that he occasionally shared his ill-gotten gains with the others in the form of cigarettes and beer. As he didn’t work and couldn’t have got very much from the dole, he clearly had to supplement his income through criminal activities. And he never seemed short of a few quid for a new leather jacket.
