Peter Robinson - Aftermath

Banks hadn’t heard about this before. “You’ve no idea what it was?”

“No, it was just like, they were going, ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’ Then a couple of minutes later they left.”

“What time was this?”

“Must have been about a quarter to eleven.”

“And they were all excited about this idea? Including Leanne?”

“I couldn’t honestly separate out the reactions for you,” Shannon said with a frown. “It was just a general sort of thing, as if someone had an idea for something to do and they all thought it would be fun.”

“This great idea, did you get the impression it was something they were going to do right then, after they left here?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. Why?”

Banks finished his drink. “Because Leanne Wray had an eleven-o’clock curfew,” he said. “And according to her parents she never stayed out past her curfew. If she was planning on going off anywhere with them after they’d been here, she’d have missed it. There’s something else, too.”

“What?”

“If they were all planning to do something, it means her friends all lied.”

Shannon thought for a moment. “I see what you mean. But there was no reason to think she wasn’t going home. She might have. I mean, it could have been just the three of them planning something. Look, I’m really sorry… I mean, I never thought, you know, last time. I tried to remember everything that was important.”

“It’s okay,” said Banks, smiling. “Not your fault.” He looked at his watch. Time to head out for Withernsea. “Must dash.”

“Oh. I’m leaving at the end of next week,” said Shannon. “I mean, my last night’s a week next Wednesday, you know, if you’d like to stop by for a drink, say good-bye.”

Banks didn’t know how to take the invitation. Was it a come-on? Surely not. Shannon couldn’t have been a day over twenty-one. Still, it was nice to think there was even the remotest chance that a younger girl fancied him. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it, so in case I don’t, I’ll say bon voyage now.”

Shannon gave a little “whatever” sort of shrug and Banks walked out into the dismal alley.

It was only mid-afternoon, but Annie would have sworn that Janet Taylor was drunk. Not totally, falling-down pissed, but emitting a slight buzz, fuzzy around the edges. She’d had a bit of experience with drunks at the artists’ commune where she had grown up with her father, Ray. There had once, briefly, been an alcoholic writer, she remembered, a big, smelly man with rheumy eyes and a thick, matted beard. He hid bottles all over the place. Her father told her to stay away from him and once, when the man, whose name she couldn’t remember, started talking to her, her father got angry and made him leave the room. It was one of the few times she had ever seen Ray really angry. He liked a drop or two of wine now and then, and no doubt he still smoked a bit of pot, but he wasn’t a drunk or a drug addict. Most of the time he was consumed by his work, whatever painting it happened to be at the time, to the exclusion of pretty much everything, including Annie.

Janet’s flat was a mess, with clothes strewn everywhere and half-full cups of tea on the windowsill and mantelpiece. It also smelled like a drunk’s room, that peculiar mix of stale skin and the sweet-and-sour smell of booze. Gin, in Janet’s case.

Janet slumped on to a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of jeans on the armchair, leaving Annie to fend for herself. She cleared some newspapers off a hard-backed chair and sat.

“So what is it now?” Janet asked. “You come to arrest me?”

“Not yet.”

“What, then? More questions?”

“You’ve heard Terence Payne died?”

“I’ve heard.”

“How are you doing, Janet?”

“How am I doing? Ha. That’s a good one. Well, let me see.” She started counting off on her fingers as she spoke. “Apart from not being able to sleep, apart from pacing the flat and feeling claustrophobic whenever it gets dark, apart from reliving the moment over and over again whenever I close my eyes, apart from the fact that my career’s pretty much fucked, let me see… I feel just fine.”

Annie took a deep breath. She certainly wasn’t there to make Janet feel any better, though in a way she wished she could. “You know, you really should seek some sort of counseling, Janet. The Federation will-”

“No! No, I’m not seeing any shrinks. I’ll not have them messing with my head. Not with all this shit going on. When they’ve done with me, I’ll not know whether I’m coming or going. Imagine how that would look in court.”

Annie held her hands up. “Okay. Okay. It’s your choice.” She took some papers from her briefcase. “I’ve attended Terence Payne’s postmortem, and there’s a couple of things I’d like to go over on your statement.”

“Are you saying I was lying?”

“No, not at all.”

Janet ran her hand through her lifeless, greasy hair, “Because I’m not a liar. I might have been a bit confused about the sequence of events – it all happened so fast – but I told it as I remember it.”

“Okay, Janet, that’s fine. Look, in your statement you say you hit Payne three times on the left temple and once on his wrist, and that one of the blows to the temple was delivered two-handed.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. Is that correct?”

“I couldn’t remember exactly how many times or where I hit him, but that seemed about right, yes. Why?”

“According to Dr. Mackenzie’s postmortem, you hit Payne nine times. Three on the temple, one to the wrist, one on the cheek, two to the base of the skull while he was crouching or kneeling, and two to the top of his head while he was squatting or sitting.”

Janet said nothing, and a jet from the airport streamed into the silence, filling it with the roar of engines and the promise of distant, exotic places. Anywhere but here, Annie was thinking, and she guessed that Janet probably felt the same. “Janet?”

“What? I wasn’t aware you’d asked me a question.”

“How do you respond to what I just said?”

“I don’t know. I told you, I wasn’t counting. I was just trying to save my life.”

“Are you sure you weren’t acting out of revenge for Dennis?”

“What do you mean?”

“The number of blows, the position of the victim, the violence of the blows.”

Janet turned red. “ Victim ! Is that what you call the bastard? Victim . When Dennis was lying there on the floor with his lifeblood pumping away, you call Terence Payne a victim. How dare you?”

“I’m sorry, Janet, but that’s the way a case would be presented in court, and you’d better get used to the idea.”

Janet said nothing.

“Why did you say what you did to the ambulance attendant?”

“What did I say?”

“ ‘Is he dead? Did I kill the bastard?’ What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even remember saying it.”

“It could be construed as meaning you set out to kill him, do you see?”

“I suppose it could be twisted that way, yes.”

“Did you, Janet? Did you intend to kill Terence Payne?”

“No! I told you. I was just trying to save my life. Why can’t you believe me?”

“What about the blows to the back of his head? When might those have occurred in the sequence of events?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try harder. You can do better than that.”

“Maybe when he was bent over reaching for his machete.”

“Okay. But you don’t remember delivering them?”

“No, but I suppose I must have done if you say so.”

“What about those two blows to the top of his head? Dr. Mackenzie tells me they were delivered with a lot of force. They weren’t just random hits.”