Aftermath

court, but I’m not against you.”

Janet gave her a twisted smile. “Yeah, I know,” she said, reaching for the gin again. “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” Annie smiled back. “Then you die.”

“Claire! It’s so nice to see you again. Come in.”

Claire Toth walked into Maggie’s hall and followed her through to the front room, where she slouched on the sofa.

The first things Maggie noticed about her were how pale she was and that she had cut off all her beautiful long blond hair. What was left lay jaggedly over her skull in such a manner as to suggest that she had cut it herself. She wasn’t wearing her school uniform but a pair of baggy jeans and a baggy sweatshirt that hid all signs that she was an attractive young woman. She wore no makeup, and her face was dotted with acne. Maggie remembered what Dr. Simms had said about the possible reactions of Kimberley’s close friends, that some might suppress their sexuality because they thought that would protect them from predators such as Terence Payne. It looked as if Claire was trying to do just that. Maggie wondered if she should comment, but decided not to.

“Milk and cookies?” she asked.

Claire shook her head.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Maggie asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Claire. “I can’t sleep. I just keep thinking of her. I just lie awake all night with it going through my head – what must have happened to her, what she must have felt like… I can’t bear it. It’s awful.”

“What do your parents say?”

Claire looked away. “I can’t talk to them. I… I thought, you know, you might understand better.”

“Let me get those cookies, anyway. I could do with one myself.” Maggie fetched two glasses of milk and a plate of chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen and put them down on the coffee table. Claire picked up her milk and sipped at it, then reached out and picked up a cookie.

“You read about me in the papers, then?” Maggie said.

Claire nodded.

“And what did you think?”

“At first I couldn’t believe it. Not you. Then I realized it could be anybody, that you didn’t have to be poor or stupid to be abused. Then I felt sorry for you.”

“Well, please don’t do that,” said Maggie, trying on a smile. “I stopped feeling sorry for myself a long time ago, and now I’m just getting on with life. All right?”

“Okay.”

“What sort of things do you think about? Do you want to tell me?”

“How terrible it must have been for Kimberley, with Mr. Payne, you know, doing things to her. Sex. The police didn’t say anything to the papers about it, but I know he did horrible things to her. I can just picture him there, doing it, hurting her, and Kimberley so helpless.”

“It’s no use imagining what it was like, Claire. It won’t do any good.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I do it on purpose?” She shook her head slowly. “And I keep going over the details of that night in my mind. How I just said I was staying for a slow dance with Nicky and Kimberley said that was okay, she’d probably find somebody to walk home with but it wasn’t very far anyway and the road was well-lit. I should have known something would happen to her.”

“You couldn’t know, Claire. How could you possibly know?”

“I should have. We knew about those girls, the ones who’d gone missing. We should have stuck together, been more careful.”

“Claire, listen to me: it’s not your fault. And I know this sounds harsh, but if anyone should have been more careful, perhaps it’s Kimberley. You can’t be blamed for dancing with a boy. If she was concerned, then she should have made sure she had someone to walk home with her and not gone off alone.”

“Maybe she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe Mr. Payne gave her a lift.”

“You told the police you didn’t see him. You didn’t, did you?”

“No. But he could have been waiting outside, couldn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” Maggie admitted.

“I hate him. I’m glad he’s dead. And I hate Nicky Gallagher. I hate all men.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. She could tell Claire that she’d get over it in time, but a fat lot of good that would do. The best thing she could do, she decided, was have a talk with Mrs. Toth and see if they could persuade Claire to go for counseling before things got worse. At least she seemed to want to talk about her thoughts and feelings, which was a good start.

“Was she conscious all the time he was doing stuff with her?” she asked. “I mean, was she aware of him doing it to her?”

“Claire, stop it.” But Maggie was spared further debate by the phone. She listened, frowning, said a few words and then turned back to Claire, who managed to pull herself out of her absorption with Kimberley’s ordeal for a moment and ask her who it was.

“It was the local television station,” Maggie said, wondering if she sounded as stunned as she felt.

A flicker of interest. “What did they want?”

“They want me to go on the local news show tonight.”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes,” said Maggie, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself.

“Cool,” said Claire, squeezing out a tiny smile.

There are many English seaside resorts that look as if they have seen better days. Withernsea looked as if it had never seen any good days at all. The sun was shining over the rest of the island, but you wouldn’t know it at Withernsea. A vicious cold rain slanted in from the iron sky, and waves from a North Sea the color of stained underwear churned up dirty sand and pebbles on the beach. Set back from the front was a strip of gift shops, amusement arcades and bingo halls, their bright-colored lights garish and lurid in the gloomy afternoon, the bingo caller’s amplified “Number nine, doctor’s orders!” pathetic as it sounded along the deserted promenade.

The whole thing reminded Banks of long ago childhood holidays at Great Yarmouth, Blackpool or Scarborough. July or August days when it seemed to rain nonstop for two weeks, and all he could do was wander around the amusement arcades losing pennies in the one-armed bandits and watching the mechanical claw drop the shiny cigarette lighter just before it reached the winner’s chute. He had never played bingo, but had often watched the hard-faced peroxide women sit there game after game, chain-smoking and staring down at the little numbers on their cards.

On better days, and when he reached his teens, Banks would spend his time searching through the secondhand bookshops for the old Pan books of horror stories or steamy bestsellers such as The Carpetbaggers and Peyton Place. When he was thirteen or fourteen, feeling way too grown-up to be on holiday with his parents, he would wander off alone for the day, hanging around in coffee bars and browsing through the latest singles in Woolworth’s or a local record shop. Sometimes he would meet a girl in the same predicament, and he had had his first adolescent kisses and tentative gropings on these holidays.

Banks parked by the seafront and, without even stopping for a look at the water, hurried to the house directly across from him, where retired DI George Woodward now ran his B amp;B. The VACANCIES sign swung in the wind and creaked like a shutter on a haunted house. By the time Banks rang the front doorbell he was cold and soaked to the skin.

George Woodward was a dapper man with gray hair, bristly mustache and the watchful eyes of an ex-copper. There was also an aura of the hangdog about him, most noticeable as he looked over Banks’s shoulder at the weather and shook his head slowly. “I did suggest Torquay,” he said, “but the wife’s mother lives here in Withernsea.” He ushered Banks in. “Ah, well, it’s not that bad. You’ve just come on a miserable day, that’s all. Early