Aftermath

“How could it?”

“You tell me.”

Lucy paused. Banks could see her frown as she thought about what to say next. “If I were to tell you, you know, what went on. I mean, if I knew… you know… about Terry and those girls and all… what would happen to me?”

“You’ll have to be a bit clearer than that, I’m afraid, Lucy.”

She licked her lips. “I can’t really be any clearer. Not at this point. I have to think of myself. I mean, if I remembered something that didn’t show me in a good light, what would you do?”

“Depends what it is, Lucy.”

Lucy retreated into silence.

Jenny sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her skirt. Banks gave her the go-ahead to pick up the questioning. “Do you remember anything more about what happened?” she asked.

“Are you a psychiatrist?”

“I’m a psychologist.”

Lucy looked at Banks. “They can’t make me have tests, can they?”

“No,” said Banks. “Nobody can force you to undergo testing. That’s not why Dr. Fuller’s here. She just wants to talk to you. She’s here to help.” And the check’s in the post, Banks added silently.

Lucy glanced at Jenny. “I don’t know…”

“You’ve got nothing to hide, have you, Lucy?” Jenny asked.

“No. I’m just worried that they’ll make things up about me.”

“Who’ll make things up?”

“Doctors. The police.”

“Why would they want to do that?”

“I don’t know. Because they think I’m evil.”

“Nobody thinks you’re evil, Lucy.”

“You wonder how I could have lived with him, a man who did what Terry did, don’t you?”

“How could you live with him?” Jenny asked.

“I was frightened of him. He said he’d kill me if I left him.”

“And he abused you, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Physically?”

“Sometimes he hit me. Where the bruises wouldn’t show.”

“Until Monday morning.”

Lucy touched her bandages. “Yes.”

“Why was it different that time, Lucy?”

“I don’t know. I still can’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” Jenny went on. “I’m not here to force you to say anything you don’t want. Just relax. Did your husband abuse you in other ways?”

“What do you mean?”

“Emotionally, for example.”

“Do you mean like putting me down, humiliating me in front of people?”

“That’s the kind of thing I mean.”

“Then the answer’s yes. Like, you know, if something I cooked wasn’t very good or I hadn’t ironed his shirt properly. He was very fussy about his shirts.”

“What did he do if his shirts weren’t ironed properly?”

“He’d make me do them again and again. Once he even burned me with the iron.”

“Where?”

Lucy looked away. “Where it wouldn’t show.”

“I’m curious about the cellar, Lucy. Detective Superintendent Banks here told me you said you never went down there.”

“I might have been there the once… you know… the time he hurt me.”

“On Monday morning?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t remember?”

“No.”

“You never went down there before?”

Lucy’s voice took on a strange keening edge. “No. Never. Not since we first moved in, anyway.”

“How long after that was it that he forbade you to go there?”

“I don’t remember. Not long. When he’d done his conversions.”

“What conversions?”

“He told me he’d made it into a den, his own private place.”

“Were you never curious?”

“Not much. Besides, he always kept it locked and he carried the key with him. He said if he ever thought I’d been down there he’d thrash me to within an inch of my life.”

“And you believed him?”

She turned her dark eye on Jenny. “Oh, yes. It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“Did your husband ever mention pornography to you?”

“Yes. He sometimes brought videos home, things he said he’d borrowed from Geoff, one of the other teachers. Sometimes we watched them together.” She looked at Banks. “You must have seen them. I mean, you’ve probably been in the house, searching and stuff.”

Banks remembered the tapes. “Did Terry have a camcorder?” he asked her. “Did he make his own tapes?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said.

Jenny picked up the thread again. “What sort of videos did he like?” she asked.

“People having sex. Girls together. Sometimes people tied up.”

“You said you watched the videos together sometimes. Did you like them? What effect did they have on you? Did he force you to watch them?”

Lucy shifted under her thin bedsheets. The outline of her body stirred Banks in ways he didn’t want to be stirred by her. “I didn’t really like them much,” she said in a sort of husky little-girl voice. “Sometimes, you know, though, even so… they… they excited me.” She moved again.

“Did your husband abuse you sexually, make you do things you didn’t want to do?” Jenny asked.

“No,” she said. “It was all just normal.”

Banks was beginning to wonder if the marriage to Lucy was just a part of Terence Payne’s “normal” facade, something to make people think twice about his real proclivities. After all, it had worked on DCs Bowmore and Singh, who hadn’t even bothered to reinterview him. Perhaps he went elsewhere to satisfy his more perverse tastes – prostitutes, for example. It was worth looking into.

“Do you know if he went with other women?” Jenny asked, as if reading Banks’s mind.

“He never said.”

“But did you suspect it?”

“I thought he might have done, yes.”

“Prostitutes?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t like to think about it.”

“Did you ever find his behavior bizarre?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he ever shock you, make you wonder what he was up to?”

“Not really. He had a terrible temper… you know… if he didn’t get his own way. And sometimes, during school holidays, I didn’t see him for days.”

“You didn’t know where he was?”

“No.”

“And he never told you?”