Peter Robinson - Aftermath

“No. We were in love.”

“But he abused you. You admitted this the last time we talked.”

She looked away. “That came later.”

“How much later?”

“I don’t know. Christmas, maybe.”

“Last Christmas?”

“Yes. Around then. But it wasn’t like that all the time. Afterward, he was wonderful. He always felt guilty. He’d buy me presents. Flowers. Bracelets. Necklaces. I really wish I had them with me now to remember him by.”

“In time, Lucy. So he always made up to you after he hit you?”

“Yes, he was wonderful to me for days.”

“Was he drinking more these past few months?”

“Yes. He was out more, too. I didn’t see him as much.”

“Where was he?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t you ever ask him?”

Lucy looked away demurely, turning her bruised side on him. Banks got the message.

“I think we can move on, can’t we, Superintendent,” said Julia Ford. “My client’s clearly getting upset with this line of questioning.”

Pity for her, Banks wanted to say, but he had plenty more ground to cover. “Very well.” He turned to Lucy again. “Did you have anything to do with the abduction, rape and murder of Kimberley Myers?”

Lucy met his gaze, but he couldn’t see anything in her dark eyes; if the eyes were the windows of the soul, then Lucy Payne’s were made of tinted glass and her soul wore sunglasses. “No, I didn’t,” she said.

“What about Melissa Horrocks?”

“No. I had nothing to do with any of them.”

“How many were there, Lucy?”

“You know how many.”

“Tell me.”

“Five. That’s what I read in the papers, anyway.”

“What did you do with Leanne Wray?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Where is she, Lucy? Where’s Leanne Wray? Where did you and Terry bury her? What made her different from the others?”

Lucy looked in consternation at Julia Ford. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “Ask him to stop.”

“Superintendent,” Julia said, “my client has already made it clear she knows nothing about this person. I think you should move on.”

“Did your husband ever mention any of these girls?”

“No, Terry never mentioned any of them.”

“Did you ever go in that cellar, Lucy?”

“You’ve asked me all this before.”

“I’m giving you a chance to change your answer, to go on record.”

“I told you, I don’t remember. I might have done, but I don’t remember. I’ve got retrograde amnesia.”

“Who told you that?”

“My doctor at the hospital.”

“Dr. Landsberg?”

“Yes. It’s part of my post-traumatic shock disorder.”

It was the first Banks had heard of it. Dr. Landsberg had told him she was no expert on the subject. “Well, I’m very glad you can put a name to what’s wrong with you. On how many occasions might you have gone down in the cellar, if you could remember?”

“Just the once.”

“When?”

“The day it happened. When I got put in hospital. Early last Monday morning.”

“So you admit that you may have gone down there?”

“If you say so. I can’t remember. If I ever did go down, it was then.”

“It’s not me who says so, Lucy. It’s the scientific evidence. The lab found traces of Kimberley Myers’s blood on the sleeves of your dressing gown. How did it get there?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“There’s only two ways it could have got there: either before she was in the cellar or after she was in the cellar. Which is it, Lucy?”

“It must be after.”

“Why?”

“Because I never saw her before.”

“But she didn’t live far away. Hadn’t you seen her around?”

“In the street, maybe. Or the shops. Yes. But I never talked to her.”

Banks paused and shuffled some papers in front of him. “So you admit now that you might have been in the cellar?”

“But I don’t remember.”

“What do you think might have happened, hypothetically speaking?”

“Well, I might have heard a noise.”

“What sort of noise?”

“I don’t know.” Lucy paused and put her hand to her throat. “A scream, maybe.”

“The only screams Maggie Forrest heard were yours.”

“Well, maybe you could only hear it if you were inside the house. Maybe it came up from the cellar. When Maggie heard me I was in the hall.”

“You remember that? Being in the hall?”

“Only very vaguely.”

“Go on.”

“So I might have heard a noise and gone down to investigate.”

“Even though you knew it was Terry’s private den and he’d kill you if you did?”

“Yes. Maybe I was disturbed enough.”

“By what?”

“By what I heard.”

“But the cellar was very well soundproofed, Lucy, and the door was closed when the police got there.”

“Then I don’t know. I’m just trying to find a reason.”

“Go on. What might you have found there if you did go down?”

“That girl. I might have gone over to her to see if there was anything I could do.”

“What about the yellow fibers?”

“What about them?”

“They were from the plastic clothesline that was wrapped around Kimberley Myers’s neck. The pathologist determined ligature strangulation by that line as cause of death. Fibers were also embedded in Kimberley’s throat.”

“I must have tried to get it off her.”

“Do you remember doing this?”

“No, I’m still imagining how it might have happened.”

“Go on.”

“Then Terry must have found me and chased me upstairs and then hit me.”

“Why didn’t he drag you back down the cellar and kill you, too?”

“I don’t know. He was my husband. He loved me. He couldn’t just kill me like…”

“Like some teenage girl?”

“Superintendent,” Julia Ford cut in, “I don’t think speculation about what Mr. Payne did or didn’t do is relevant here. My client says she might have gone down in the cellar and surprised her husband at… at whatever he was doing, and thus provoked him. That should explain your findings. It should also be enough.”

“But you said Terry would kill you if you went in the cellar. Why didn’t he?” Banks persisted.

“I don’t know. Maybe he was going to. Maybe he had something else to do first.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kill Kimberley?”

“Maybe.”

“But wasn’t she already dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get rid of her body?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I was unconscious.”

“Oh, come on, Lucy! This is rubbish,” said Banks. “The next thing you’ll be trying to convince me is you did it while you were sleep-walking. You killed Kimberley Myers, didn’t you, Lucy? You went down in the cellar and saw her lying there and you strangled her.”

“I didn’t! Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because you were jealous. Terry wanted Kimberley more than he wanted you. He wanted to keep her.”

Lucy banged the table with her fist. “That’s not true! You’re making it up.”

“Well, why else did he have her staked out there naked on the mattress? To give her a biology lesson? It was quite a biology lesson, Lucy. He raped her repeatedly, both vaginally and anally. He forced her to fellate him. Then he – or someone – strangled her with a length of yellow plastic fiber clothesline.”

Lucy put her head in her hands and sobbed.

“Is this kind of gruesome detail really necessary?” asked Julia Ford.

“What’s wrong?” Banks asked her. “Afraid of the truth?”