“Like what if Lucy was involved in the Alderthorpe abuse herself? I remember reading at the time that there were cases of some of the older victims abusing their own younger siblings.”
“But what would it mean even if we
“I don’t know, Jenny. I’m just thinking out aloud. What’s your next step?”
“I’m going to talk to someone from the social services tomorrow, see if I can get the names of any of the social workers involved.”
“Good. I’ll work it from the police angle when I get a spare moment. There are bound to be records, files. Then what?”
“I want to go to Alderthorpe, nose around, talk to people who remember.”
“Be careful, Jenny. It’s bound to be a very raw nerve still out there, even after all this time.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“And don’t forget, there might still be someone who escaped prosecution worried about new revelations.”
“That makes me feel really safe and secure.”
“The other kids…”
“Yes?”
“What do you know about them?”
“Nothing, really, except they were aged between eight and twelve.”
“Any idea where they are?”
“No. The Liversedges don’t know. And I
“Don’t be defensive. We’ll make a detective of you yet.”
“No, thanks.”
“Let’s see if we can find them, shall we? They might be able to tell us a lot more about Lucy Payne than anyone else.”
“Okay. I’ll see how much the social workers are willing to tell me.”
“Not much, I’ll bet. Your best chance will be if one of them’s retired or moved on to some other line of work. Then spilling the beans won’t seem like such a betrayal.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the psychologist. Leave that sort of thinking to me.”
Banks laughed over the phone. “It’s a blurred line sometimes, isn’t it? Detective work and psychology.”
“Try and tell some of your oafish colleagues that.”
“Thanks, Jenny. You’ve done a great job.”
“And I’ve only just begun.”
“Keep in touch.”
“Promise.”
When Banks put the phone down, Mahalia Jackson was singing “Come Sunday.” He turned up the volume and took his drink outside to his little balcony over Gratly Falls. The rain had stopped, but the downpour had been heavy enough to swell the sound of the falls. It was just after sunset and the deep vermilions, purples and oranges were dying in the western sky, streaked with dark ribs of cloud, while the darkening east went from pale to inky blue. Just across the falls was a field of grazing sheep. In it stood a clump of huge old trees where rooks nested and often woke him early in the morning with their noisy squabbling. Such ill-tempered birds, they seemed. Beyond the field, the daleside sloped down to the river Swain and Banks could see the opposite hillside a mile or more away, darkening in the evening, rising to the long, grinning skeleton’s mouth of Crow Scar. The runic patterns of the drystone walls seemed to stand out in relief as the light faded. Just a little to his right, he could see the Helmthorpe Church tower poking up from the valley bottom.
Banks looked at his watch. Still early enough to stroll down there and have a pint or two in the Dog and Gun, maybe chat with one or two of the locals he’d become friendly with since his move. But he decided he didn’t fancy company; he had too much on his mind, what with Terence Payne’s death, the mystery of Leanne Wray, and the revelations Jenny Fuller had just come through with as regards Lucy’s past. Since taking on the Chameleon investigation, he realized, he had become more and more of a loner, less inclined to make small talk at the bar. Partly, he supposed, it was the burden of command, but it was also something more; the proximity to such evil, perhaps, that tainted him somehow and made small talk seem like a completely inadequate response to what was happening.
The news of Sandra’s pregnancy was also still weighing on his mind, bringing back some memories he had hoped to forget. He knew he wouldn’t be good company, but nor would he be able to get to sleep so early. He nipped inside and poured another shot of whiskey, then picked up his cigarettes and went back outside to lean against the damp wall and enjoy the last of the evening light. A curlew piped up on the distant moors and Mahalia Jackson sang on, humming the tune long after she had run out of words.
10
Friday morning started badly for Maggie. She had spent a night disturbed by vague and frightening nightmares that scuttled away into the shadows the minute she awoke screaming and tried to grasp them. Getting back to sleep was difficult not only because of the bad dreams, but also because of the eerie noises and voices she could hear from across the road. Didn’t the police ever sleep?
Once, getting up to go for a glass of water, she looked out of her bedroom window and saw some uniformed police officers carrying cardboard boxes into a van waiting with its engine running. Then some men carried what looked like electronic equipment through the front door, and a short while later Maggie fancied she could see a strange ghostly light sweeping the living room of number 35 behind the drawn curtains. The digging continued in the front garden, surrounded by a canvas screen and lit on the inside, so that all Maggie could see was enlarged and deformed shadows of men silhouetted against the canvas. These figures carried over into her next nightmare, and in the end she didn’t know whether she was asleep or awake.
She got up a little after seven o’clock and headed for the kitchen, where a cup of tea helped soothe her frayed nerves. This was one English habit that she had slipped into easily. She planned to spend the day working on Grimm again, perhaps “Hansel and Gretel,” now that she had satisfactory sketches for “Rapunzel,” and trying to put the business of number 35 out of her head for a few hours at least.
Then she heard the paperboy arrive and the newspaper slip through her letter box on to the hall mat. She hurried out and carried it back to the kitchen, where she spread it on the table.
Lorraine Temple’s story was prominent on the front page, beside the bigger headline story about Terence Payne’s dying without recovering consciousness. There was even a photograph of Maggie, taken without her knowledge, standing just outside her front gate. It must have been taken when she was going down to the pub to talk with Lorraine, she realized, as she was wearing the same jeans and light cotton jacket as she had worn on Tuesday.
HOUSE OF PAYNE: NEIGHBOR SPEAKS OUT, ran the headline, and the article went on to detail how Maggie had heard suspicious sounds coming from across The Hill and called the police. Afterward, calling Maggie Lucy’s “friend,” Lorraine Temple reported what Maggie had said about Lucy’s being a victim of domestic abuse, and how she was scared of her husband. All of which was fine and accurate enough, as far as it went. But then came the sting in the tail. According to sources in Toronto, Lorraine Temple went on to report, Maggie Forrest herself was on the run from an abusive husband: Toronto lawyer, William Burke. The article detailed the time Maggie had spent in hospital and all the fruitless court orders issued to stop Bill’s going near her. Describing Maggie as a nervous, mousy sort of woman, Lorraine Temple also mentioned that she was seeing a local psychiatrist called Dr. Simms, who “declined to comment.”
Lorraine ended by suggesting that, perhaps because of Maggie’s own psychological problems, Maggie had been gullible, and that her identification with Lucy’s plight may have blinded her to the truth. Lorraine couldn’t come out and say that she thought Lucy was guilty of anything – the laws of libel forbade that – but she did have a very good stab at making her readers think Lucy might just be the sort of manipulative and deceitful person who could twist a weak woman like Maggie around her little finger. It was rubbish, of course, but effective rubbish, nonetheless.
How could she
Every time Maggie walked down the street to go to the shops or catch the bus into town, the neighbors and
