burners, test tubes, pipettes and beakers; the glass-fronted cabinet on the wall full of stoppered bottles containing sulfuric acid, potassium, sodium phosphate and such. What memories. It even smelled the same: slightly acrid, slightly rotten.
Banks remembered the first chemistry set his parents bought him for Christmas when he was thirteen, remembered the fine powdered alum, the blue copper sulfate and bright purple crystals of potassium permanganate. He liked to mix them all up and see what happened, paying no regard to the instructions or the safety precautions. Once he was heating some odd concoction over a candle at the kitchen table when the test tube cracked, making a mess all over the place. His mother went spare.
Brighouse, wearing a lightweight jacket and gray flannel trousers, not a lab coat, came forward and shook hands. He was a fresh-faced lad, about Payne’s age, with pale blue eyes, fair hair and a lobster complexion, as if he’d been able to find some sun and stayed out in it too long. His handshake was firm, dry and short. He noticed Banks looking around the lab.
“Bring back memories, does it?” he asked.
“A few.”
“Good ones, I hope?”
Banks nodded. He had enjoyed chemistry, but his teacher, “Titch” Barker, was one of the worst, most brutal bastards in the school. He used the rubber connecting lines of the Bunsen burners in his thrashings. Once he held Banks’s hand over a burner and made as if to light it, but he backed off at the last moment. Banks had seen the sadistic gleam in his eye, how much effort it had cost him not to strike the match. Banks hadn’t given him the satisfaction of a plea for mercy or an outward expression of fear, but he had been shaking inside.
“Anyway, it’s sodium today,” said Brighouse.
“Pardon?”
“Sodium. The way it’s so unstable in air. Always goes down well. The kids these days don’t have much of an attention span, so you have to give them pyrotechnics to keep them interested. Luckily, there’s plenty of scope for that in chemistry.”
“Ah.”
“Sit down.” He pointed toward a tall stool by the nearest bench. Banks sat in front of a rack of test tubes and a Bunsen burner. Brighouse sat opposite.
“I’m not sure I can help you in any way,” Brighouse began. “I know Terry, of course. We’re colleagues, and good mates to some extent. But I can’t say I know him well. He’s a very private person in many ways.”
“Stands to reason,” said Banks. “Look at what he was doing in private.”
Brighouse blinked. “Er… quite.”
“Mr. Brighouse-”
“Geoff. Please. Call me Geoff.”
“Right, Geoff,” said Banks, who always preferred the first name, as it gave him an odd sort of power over a suspect, which Geoff Brighouse certainly was in his eyes. “How long have you known Mr. Payne?”
“Since he first came here nearly two years ago.”
“He was teaching in Seacroft before then. Is that right?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“You didn’t know him then?”
“No. Look, if you don’t mind my asking, how is he, by the way?”
“He’s still in intensive care, but he’s hanging on.”
“Good. I mean… oh, shit, this is so difficult. I still can’t believe it. What am I supposed to say? The man’s a friend of mine, after all, no matter…” Brighouse put his fist to his mouth and chewed on a knuckle. He seemed suddenly close to tears.
“No matter what he’s done?”
“I was going to say that, but… I’m just confused. Forgive me.”
“It’ll take time. I understand. But in the meantime I need to find out all I can about Terence Payne. What sorts of things did you do together?”
“Mostly went to pubs. We never drank a lot. At least I didn’t.”
“Payne’s a heavy drinker?”
“Not until recently.”
“Did you say anything to him?”
“A couple of times. You know, when he was in his car.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried to take his keys away.”
“What happened?”
“He got angry. Even hit me once.”
“Terence Payne hit you?”
“Yeah. But he was pissed. He’s got a temper when he’s pissed.”
“Did he give you any reason why he was drinking so much?”
“No.”
“He didn’t talk about any personal problems he might be having?”
“No.”
“Did you know of any problems other than the drinking?”
“He was letting his work slip a bit.”
The same thing Knight had said. Like the drinking, it was probably more of a symptom than the problem itself. Jenny Fuller would perhaps be able to confirm it, but Banks thought it made sense that a man who was doing, who felt
“Did he ever talk about Kimberley Myers?” Banks asked.
“No. Never.”
“Did he ever talk about young girls in general?”
“He talked about girls, not particularly young ones.”
“How did he talk about women? With affection? With disgust? With lust? With anger?”
Brighouse thought for a moment. “Come to think of it,” he said, “I always thought Terry sounded a bit sort of domineering, the way he talked about women.”
“How so?”
“Well, he’d spot a girl he fancied, in a pub, say, and go on about, you know, how he’d like to fuck her, tie her to the bed and fuck her brains out. That sort of thing. I… I mean, I’m not a prude, but sometimes it was a bit over- the-top.”
“But that’s just male crudeness, isn’t it?”
Brighouse raised an eyebrow. “Is it? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what it means. I’m just saying he sounded rough and domineering when he talked about women.”
“Talking about male crudeness, did you ever lend Terry any videos?”
Brighouse looked away. “What do you mean? What sort of videos?”
“Pornographic videos.”
It wasn’t possible for someone as red as Brighouse to blush, but for moment Banks could almost have sworn that he did.
“Just some soft stuff. Nothing under the counter. Nothing you can’t rent at the corner shop. I lent him other videos, too. War films, horror, science fiction. Terry’s a film buff.”
“No homemade videos?”
“Of course not. What do you think I am?”
“The jury’s still out on that one, Geoff. Does Terry own a camcorder?”
