Peter Robinson - Aftermath

“The problem is, Elizabeth-”

“Call me Liz, please. Everyone does.”

“Okay. Liz. The problem is that we just don’t know what Lucy’s role in all this is. She claims amnesia, and she was certainly abused by her husband. We’re trying to find out whether she knew anything about his other activities, or to what degree she might have been involved.”

“You can’t be serious! Lucy involved in something like that? Surely her own experiences-”

“I know it sounds crazy, Liz, but the abused often become the abusers. It’s all they know. Power, pain, withholding, tormenting. It’s a familiar cycle. Studies have shown that abused children as young as eight or ten have gone on to abuse their younger siblings or neighbors.”

“But not Lucy, surely?”

“We don’t know. That’s why I’m asking questions, trying to fit the psychology together, build a profile of her. Is there anything more you can tell me?”

“Well, as I said, she was quiet, resilient, and the other children, the younger ones, seemed to defer to her.”

“Were they afraid of her?”

“I can’t say I got that impression.”

“But they took notice of her?”

“Yes. She was definitely the boss.”

“What else can you tell me about Lucy’s personality then?”

“Let me think… not much, really. She was a very private person. She’d only let you see what she wanted you to see. You have to realize that these children were probably as much, if not more, shaken up by the raid, by being taken from their parents so abruptly. That was all they knew, after all. It might have been hell, but it was a familiar hell. Lucy always seemed gentle, but like most children she could be cruel on occasion.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t mean torturing animals or that sort of thing,” said Elizabeth. “I assume that is the sort of thing you’re looking for, isn’t it?”

“Such early patterns of behavior can be a useful guide, but I’ve always thought they were overrated, myself. To be honest, I once pulled the wings off a fly myself. No, I just want to know about her. How could she be cruel, for example?”

“When we were arranging for foster parents, for example, you realize it was impossible to keep the siblings together, so they had to be split up. It was more important at the time that each child have a stable, possibly long-term caring environment. Anyway, I remember Laura, in particular – Lucy’s younger sister – was upset, but all Lucy said was she’d just have to get used to it. The poor girl just wouldn’t stop crying.”

“Where did she end up?”

“Laura? With a family in Hull, I believe. It’s a long time ago, so forgive me if I don’t remember all the details.”

“Of course. Can you tell me what happened to any of the other children at all?”

“I’m afraid I left there shortly after, so I never got to keep track of them. I often wish I had, but…”

“Is there anything more you can tell me?”

Elizabeth stood up and went back to her ironing. “Not that I can think of.”

Jenny stood up, took her card from her purse and handed it over. “If you think of anything at all…”

Elizabeth peered at the card and set it on the edge of the ironing board. “Yes, of course. I’m only too glad to have been of help.”

But she didn’t look it, Jenny thought as she maneuvered her car out of the tiny parking spot. Elizabeth Bell had looked like a woman forced to confront memories she would sooner forget. And Jenny didn’t blame her. She didn’t know if she’d learned anything much of value except confirmation that satanic paraphernalia had been found in the cellar. Banks would certainly be interested in that. Tomorrow, she would go all the way to Alderthorpe and see if she could find anyone who knew the families before the investigation, and, as Elizabeth had suggested, to “get the feel of the place.”

Banks hadn’t had a break all day, had even missed his lunch interviewing Lucy Payne, so with no real plan in mind, around three o’clock that afternoon, he found himself wandering down an alley off North Market Street toward the Old Ship Inn, heavy with the recent news that the second body discovered in the back garden of 35 The Hill was definitely not Leanne Wray’s.

Lucy Payne was being held in a cell in the basement of police headquarters and Julia Ford had booked herself in at The Burgundy, Eastvale’s best, most expensive hotel. The task force and forensics people were working as fast and as hard as they could, and Jenny Fuller was probing Lucy’s past – all looking for that one little chink in her armor, that one little piece of hard evidence that she was more involved with the killings than she let on. Banks knew that if they unearthed nothing more by noon tomorrow, he’d have to let her go. He had one more visit to make today: to talk to George Woodward, the detective inspector who had done most of the legwork on the Alderthorpe investigation, now retired and running a B amp;B in Withernsea. Banks glanced at his watch. It would take him about two hours: plenty of time to head out there after a drink and a bite to eat and still get back before too late.

The Old Ship was a shabby, undistinguished Victorian watering hole with a few benches scattered in the cobbled alley out front. Not much light got in, as the buildings all around were dark and high. Its claim to fame was that it was well-hidden and known to be tolerant of underage drinkers. Many an Eastvale lad, so Banks had heard, had sipped his first pint at the Old Ship well before his eighteenth birthday. The sign showed an old clipper ship, and the windows were of smoked, etched glass.

It wasn’t very busy at that time of day, between the lunch-hour and the after-work crowd. Indeed, the Old Ship wasn’t busy very often at all, as few tourists liked the look of it, and most locals knew better places to drink. The interior was dim and the air stale and acrid with more than a hundred years’ accumulated smoke and beer spills. Which made it all the more surprising that the barmaid was a pretty young girl with short, dyed red hair and an oval face, a smooth complexion, a bright smile and a cheerful disposition.

Banks leaned against the bar. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cheese-and-onion sandwich, is there?”

“Sorry,” she said. “We don’t serve food after two. Packet of chips – sorry, crisps – okay?”

“Better than nothing,” said Banks.

“What flavor?”

“Plain will do fine. And a pint of bitter shandy, too, please.”

As she was pouring the drink and Banks was dipping into a packet of rather soggy potato crisps, she kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye and finally said, “Aren’t you the policeman who was here about that girl who disappeared a month or so ago?”

“Leanne Wray,” said Banks. “Yes.”

“I thought so. I saw you here. You weren’t the policeman I talked to, but you were here. Have you found her yet?”

“It’s Shannon, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “You remember my name and you never even talked to me. I’m impressed.”

Shannon, Banks remembered from the statement taken by DC Winsome Jackman, was an American student taking a year off from her studies. She had already traveled around most of Europe, and through relatives and, Banks suspected, a boyfriend, she had ended up spending a few months in Yorkshire, which she seemed to like. Banks guessed that she was working at the Old Ship, perhaps, because the manager wasn’t concerned about visas and permits, and paid cash in hand. Probably not much of it, either.

Banks lit a cigarette and looked around. A couple of old men sat smoking pipes by the window, not speaking, not even looking at one another. They seemed as if they might have been there since the place first opened in the nineteenth century. The floor was worn stone and the tables scored and wobbly. A watercolor of a huge sailing ship hung crookedly on one wall, and on the opposite one, a series of framed charcoal sketches of seagoing scenes, quite good to Banks’s untrained eye.