Aftermath (20 page)

‘I know that. But Kimberley Myers was the fifth victim, for God’s sake. The
fifth
. Why did it take Lucy so long to find out? Why did she wake up and go exploring only
this
time? She said she
never
went down in the cellar, that she didn’t dare. What was so different about this time?’

‘Perhaps she didn’t
want
to know before. But, don’t forget, the way it looks is that Payne was escalating, unravelling. I’d guess he was fast becoming highly unstable. Perhaps this time even she couldn’t look away.’

Jenny watched Banks take a contemplative drag on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. ‘You think so?’ he said.

‘It’s possible, isn’t it? Earlier, if her husband was behaving strangely, she might have suspected that he had some sort of horrible secret vice, and she wanted to pretend it wasn’t there, the way most of us do with bad things.’

‘Sweep it under the carpet?’

‘Or play the ostrich. Bury her head in the sand. Yes. Why not?’

‘So we’re both agreed that there are any number of possibilities to explain what happened and that Lucy Payne might be innocent?’

‘Where are you going with this, Alan?’

‘I want you to dig deep into Lucy Payne’s background. I want you to find out all you can about her. I want—’

‘But—’

‘No, let me finish, Jenny. I want you to get to know her inside out, her background, her childhood, her family, her fantasies, her hopes, her fears.’

‘Slow down, Alan. What’s the point of all this?’

‘You might come across something that implicates her.’

‘Or absolves her?’

Banks held his hands out, palms open. ‘If that’s what you find, fine. I’m not asking you to make anything up. Just dig.’

‘Even if I do, I might not come up with anything useful at all.’

‘Doesn’t matter. At least we’ll have tried.’

‘Isn’t this a police job?’

Banks stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Not really. I’m after an evaluation here, an in-depth psychological profile of Lucy Payne. Of course,
we’ll
check out any leads you might stumble across. I don’t expect you to play detective.’

‘Well, I’m grateful for that.’

‘Think about it, Jenny. If she’s guilty, she didn’t just start helping her husband abduct and kill young girls out of the blue on New Year’s Eve. There has to be some pathology, some background of psychological disturbance, some abnormal pattern of behaviour, doesn’t there?’

‘There usually is. But even if I find out she was a bed-wetter, liked to start fires and torture animals, it
still
won’t give you anything you can use against her in court.’

‘It will if someone was hurt in the fire. It will if you find out about any other mysterious events in her life that we can investigate. That’s all I’m asking, Jenny. That you make a start on the psychopathology of Lucy Payne, and if you turn up anything we should investigate further, you let us know and we do it.’

‘And if I turn up nothing?’

‘Then we go nowhere. But we’re already nowhere.’

Jenny sipped some more wine and thought for a moment. Alan seemed so intense about it that she was feeling browbeaten, and she didn’t want to give in just because of that. But she
was
intrigued by his request; she couldn’t deny that the enigma of Lucy Payne interested her both professionally
and
as a woman. She had never had the chance to probe the psychology of a possible serial killer up close before, and Banks was right that if Lucy Payne were complicit in her husband’s acts, then she hadn’t just come from nowhere. If Jenny dug deeply enough, there was a chance that she might find something in Lucy’s past. After that . . . well, Banks had said that was the police’s job, and he was right about that, too.

She topped up their wine glasses. ‘What if I agree?’ she asked. ‘Where do I start?’

‘Right here,’ said Banks, digging out his notebook. ‘There’s a friend from the NatWest branch where Lucy Payne worked. One of our teams went and talked to the employees, and there’s only one of them who knows her well. Name’s Pat Mitchell. Then there’s Clive and Hilary Liversedge. Lucy’s parents. They live out Hull way.’

‘Do they know?’

‘Of course they know. What do you think we are?’

Jenny raised a fine, plucked eyebrow.

‘They know.’

‘How did they react?’

‘Upset, of course. Stunned, even. But according to the DC who interviewed them, they weren’t much help. They hadn’t been in close touch with Lucy since she married Terry.’

‘Have they been to see her in hospital?’

‘No. Seems the mother’s too ill to travel and the father’s a reluctant care-giver.’

‘What about
his
parents? Terry’s.’

‘As far as we’ve been able to work out,’ Banks said, ‘his mother’s in a mental asylum – has been for fifteen years or so.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Schizophrenia.’

‘And the father?’

‘Died two years ago.’

‘What of?’

‘Massive stroke. He was a butcher in Halifax, had a record for minor sex offences – exposing himself, peeping, that sort of thing. Sounds a pretty classic background for someone like Terry Payne, wouldn’t you say?’

‘If there is such a thing.’

‘The miracle is that Terry managed to become a teacher.’

Jenny laughed. ‘Oh, they’ll let anyone in the classroom these days. Besides, that’s not the miracle.’

‘What is?’

‘That he managed to hold on to the job for so long. And that he was married. Usually serial sex offenders such as Terence Payne find it hard to hold down a job and maintain a relationship. Our man did both.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘It’s intriguing. If I’d been pushed for a profile a month or so ago I’d have said you were looking for a man between twenty and thirty, most likely living alone and working at some sort of menial job, or a succession of such jobs. Just shows how wrong one can be, doesn’t it?’

‘Will you do it?’

Jenny toyed with the stem of her glass. The Mozart ended and left only the memory of music. A car passed by and a dog barked on the Green. She had the time to do as Banks asked. She had a lecture to give on Friday morning, but it was one she had given a hundred times, so she didn’t need to prepare. Then she had nothing until a string of tutorials on Monday. That should give her plenty of time. ‘As I said, it’s intriguing. I’ll need to talk to Lucy herself.’

‘That can be arranged. You
are
our official consultant psychologist, after all.’

‘Easy for you to say that now you need me.’

‘I’ve known it all along. Don’t let a few narrow-minded—’

‘All right,’ said Jenny. ‘You’ve made your point. I can take being laughed at behind my back by a bunch of thick plods. I’m a big girl. When can I talk to her?’

‘Best do it as soon as possible, while she’s still only a witness. Believe it or not, but defence lawyers have been known to claim that psychologists have tricked suspects into incriminating themselves. How about tomorrow morning? I’ve got to be down at the hospital for the next post mortem at eleven, anyway.’

‘Lucky you. Okay.’

‘I’ll give you a lift if you like.’

‘No. I’ll go straight over to talk to the parents after I’ve talked to Lucy and her friend. I’ll need my car. Meet you there?’

‘Ten o’clock, then?’

‘Fine.’

Banks told her how to find Lucy’s room. ‘And I’ll let the parents know you’re coming.’ Banks gave her the details. ‘You’ll do it then? What I’m asking?’

‘Doesn’t look as if I have much choice, does it?’

Banks stood up, leaned forward and kissed her swiftly on the cheek. Even though she could smell the wine and smoke on his breath, her heart jumped and she wished his lips had lingered a little longer, moved a little closer to her own. ‘Hey! Any more of that,’ she said, ‘and I’ll have you up on sexual harassment charges.’

Banks and Jenny
walked past the police guard into Lucy Payne’s room just after ten o’clock the following morning. There was no doctor standing over them this time, Banks was happy to note. Lucy lay propped against the pillows reading a fashion magazine. The slats of the blinds let in some of the morning sun, lighting the vase of tulips on the bedside table, forming a pattern of bars over Lucy’s face and the white bedsheets. Her glossy black hair was spread out on the pillow around her hospital-pale face. The colours of her bruises had deepened since the previous day, which meant they were on the mend, and she still wore half her head swathed in bandages. Her good eye, long-lashed, dark and sparkling, gazed up at them. Banks wasn’t sure what he saw in it, but it wasn’t fear. He introduced Jenny as Dr Fuller.

Lucy looked up and gave them a fleeting wisp of a smile. ‘Is there any news?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Banks.

‘He’s going to die, isn’t he?’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I just have this feeling he’s going to die, that’s all.’

‘Would that make a difference, Lucy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. If Terry died, would it make a difference to what you might care to tell us?’

‘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 cheque’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’ façade, 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 re-interview him. Perhaps he went elsewhere to satisfy his more perverse tastes – prostitutes, for example. It was worth looking into.