Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“I’m trying to understand all this, Frances,” Bridges said. “Why did you kill your husband?”

Frances looked at Banks, not at Bridges, her eyes burning with tears now. “Because he was going to hurt the boy.”

“He was going to hurt Mark?” It was DI Bridges who spoke, but Frances continued to look at Banks.

“Yes,” she said. “Patrick is a cruel man. You must know that. He was going to hurt the boy. He was tied to the chair.”

“But why did he want to hurt Mark?” Bridges asked.

Slowly, Frances turned to face him, still fiddling with her ring. “Because of Christine,” she said. “The boy took Christine from him. Patrick couldn’t bear to lose.”

Banks felt a chill ripple up his spine. Bridges turned to him, looking confused. “DCI Banks,” he said, “you’re familiar with the background to this case. Is there anything you’d like to ask?”

Banks turned to Frances Aspern. “You’re saying that your husband was going to harm Mark because Mark lived with Christine on the boat, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did Patrick go to the boat last Thursday evening? Did he start the fire?”

Frances looked up sharply, surprised. “No,” she said. “No, we were at home. That much is true.”

“But was your husband sexually abusing Christine?”

The tears spilled over from Frances’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t sob or wail. “Yes,” she said.

“For how long?”

“Since she was twelve. When she… you know, when she started to develop. He couldn’t stop touching her.”

“Why didn’t she stop him? She must have known what was happening, that it was wrong? She could have gone to the authorities.”

Frances wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the sleeve of her overalls and gave Banks a what-do-you-know look. “He was the only father she had ever known,” she said. “He was strict with her when she was growing up. Always. She was terrified of him. She never dared disobey his demands.”

“And you knew about the sexual abuse from the start?”

“Yes. From very early on, at any rate.”

“How did you find out?”

“It’s not hard to recognize the signs, when you’re around all the time. Besides…”

“It happened with you, too?”

“How do you know?”

“I’m just guessing.”

She looked away. “I tried to tell Daddy, but I couldn’t. He wouldn’t have believed me, anyway, and if he had, it would have broken his heart.”

“So you did nothing about Christine, either?”

“How could I? I was terrified of him.”

“Even so, after your experiences, your own daughter…”

She slapped the table with her palm. “You’ve no idea how cruel Patrick could be. No idea.”

“Why? Did he hit you? Did he hit Christine?”

She shook her head. “No. What he did… it was worse than that, much worse. Cold, calculated.”

“What did he do?”

Frances looked away again, at a spot on the wall above Banks’s head, her eyes unfocused. “He… he knew chemicals.” She gave a harsh laugh. “Of course he did, he was a doctor, after all, wasn’t he?”

“What do you mean, Frances?”

She looked directly at Banks, her expression unfathomable. “Patrick knew drugs. Not illegal drugs. Prescriptions. What made you sleep. What made you stay awake. What made your heart beat like a frightened bird inside your chest. What made you sick. What made you have to go to the toilet all the time. What made your skin burn and your mouth dry.”

Banks understood. And wished he didn’t. He looked at Bridges, who seemed to have turned a shade paler. Just when he thought he’d seen and heard it all, dug about as deep as anyone can into the darkness of the human soul and remained sane, something else came along and knocked all his assumptions out of the window.

“Now you understand,” Frances Aspern said, a note of shrill triumph in her voice. “But even that wasn’t it. I could have stood the pain, the cruelty.”

“What was it, Frances?” Banks asked.

“My father. He worshiped Patrick. You know he did. You’ve talked to him. He rang us after you left. How could I tell him? It was like before, like I told you. Even if I could have made him believe, it would have broken his heart.”

“So for the sake of your father’s trust in Patrick Aspern you let your husband abuse both you and your daughter? Is that what you’re saying?”

“What else could I do? Surely you understand? If it came out what kind of man Patrick was, what he did, it would have destroyed my father. He’s not a strong man.”

He had looked healthy enough the other day, Banks thought, though appearances could be deceptive. But there was no point in pursuing this line of questioning. Whatever her reasons, Frances Aspern knew the enormity of what she had done, and she knew she had to live with the consequences.

“What about Paul Ryder?” Banks asked.

“Who?”

“Paul Ryder. Christine’s birth father, remember? We haven’t been able to find him.”

Frances looked down at the scarred tabletop and ran her fingertips over its rough surface.

“There was no Paul Ryder, was there?” Banks said.

She responded with a barely perceptible shake of the head.

“Patrick was Christine’s real father, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said, still looking down at the table.

“Remember when we first met, when Patrick wanted to drive you to Eastvale to identify the body?”

Frances just looked at him.

“You said, ‘She’s my daughter.’ I took it to imply that you were putting him in his place, reminding him that he was only Christine’s stepfather, but that wasn’t it, was it?”

“When you live a lie for long enough,” Frances said, in little more than a whisper, “you come to believe it.”

Banks let the silence stretch, with only the hiss of the tape and muffled sounds from the station in the background, then he looked at Bridges, who shook his head slowly. “Let’s suspend this interview for now,” Banks said. Bridges nodded and turned off the tape machine.

“Alan out again, is he?” asked DS Stefan Nowak, popping his head around the squad room door close to lunchtime that day.

“Another fire,” Annie said. “In Leeds, this time. I’ve just been on the phone with him, and it seems that Mrs. Aspern, the doctor’s wife, has killed her husband and tried to set fire to the body.”

Stefan whistled between his teeth.

“Indeed,” saidAnnie. “Have you got anything new for us?”

“I might have.” Stefan walked into the room and sat down opposite Annie. He looked as handsome and regal as ever, and just as remote and unreadable. Not for the first time, Annie wondered what sort of private life he had. Did he have friends outside the force? Family? Was he gay? She didn’t sense that in him, but she had been wrong before.

Stefan opened the folder he had brought with him. “What do you want first,” he asked, “the good news or the bad news?”

“I don’t care,” Annie said.

“Well,” Stefan went on, “apart from the soil and gravel samples, which do match samples from the lay-by, we drew a blank with the Jeep Cherokee. The car rental company had done a bloody good job of cleaning it, inside and out. We did find some hair, fibers and a partial print under the front seat, but it’s not much more than a smudge. We might be able to do some computer enhancement, but don’t expect too much.”

“That’s pretty well what I figured,” said Annie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if our killer gave it a good going over, too. He seems to be the meticulous type.”

“And we checked a sample of petrol from the fuel tank of Leslie Whitaker’s Jeep Cherokee with the accelerant from the Gardiner fire.”