Peter Robinson - Aftermath

“What did you do?”

“Well, I talked with the other teachers, and we all agreed there was something odd about the children’s behavior. It turned out the social services already had their concerns, too. They’d been out to the houses once before but never got past the front door. I don’t know if you knew, but Michael Godwin had a particularly vicious rottweiler. Anyway, when Kathleen Murray went absent without any reasonable explanation, they decided to act. The rest is history.”

“You say you’ve kept track of the children,” Jenny said. “I’d really like to talk to some of them. Will you help me?”

Maureen paused a moment. “If you like. But I don’t think you’ll get much out of them.”

“Do you know where they are, how they are?”

“Not all the details, no, but I can give you a general picture.”

Jenny sipped some tea and took out her notebook. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“So what do you think of Lucy Payne?” Banks asked DC Winsome Jackman as they walked along North Market Street on their way to talk to Leanne Wray’s parents.

Winsome paused before answering. Banks noticed several people gawk at her as they walked. She knew she was a token minority, she had told Banks when he interviewed her, brought in to fulfill a quota demanded in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence case. There were to be more police officers from minorities, the ruling stated, even in communities where those minorities were, to all extent, nonexistent, like West Indians in the Yorkshire Dales. But she also told him she didn’t care about the tokenism and she’d do a damn good job anyway. Banks didn’t doubt her for a moment. Winsome was ACC McLaughlin’s golden girl, set for accelerated promotion and all its blessings; she’d probably be a superintendent before she was thirty-five. And Banks liked her. She was easygoing, had a wicked sense of humor, and she didn’t let the race thing get in the way of doing her job, even when other people tried to put it in the way. He knew nothing about her personal life except that she enjoyed both climbing and spelunking – the very thought of which gave Banks a severe case of the heebie-jeebies – and that she lived in a flat on the fringe of the Eastvale student area. Whether she had a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, Banks had no idea.

“I think she might have been protecting her husband,” Winsome said. “She knew, or she suspected, and she kept quiet. Maybe she didn’t even admit it to herself.”

“Do you think she was involved?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think she was attracted to the dark side, especially the sex, but I’d pull up short of assuming she was involved. Weird, yes. But a killer…?”

“Remember, Kathleen Murray died of ligature strangulation,” Banks said.

“But Lucy was only twelve then.”

“Makes you think, though, doesn’t it? Isn’t the house just down here?”

“Yes.”

They turned off North Market on to a grid of narrow streets opposite the community center, where Sandra used to work. Seeing the place and remembering the times he dropped in on her there or waited to pick her up after work to go to a play or a film made Banks feel a pang of loss, but it passed. Sandra was gone now, far, far away from the wife he used to have.

They found the house, not at all far from the Old Ship – maybe ten or fifteen minutes’ walk, and most of it along the busy, well-lit stretch of North Market Street, with its shops and pubs – and Banks knocked at the front door.

The first thing that assailed his senses as Christopher Wray opened the door was the smell of fresh paint. When Banks and Winsome stepped inside, he saw why. The Wrays were redecorating. All the wallpaper in the hallway had been stripped, and Mr. Wray was painting the living-room ceiling cream. The furniture was covered with sheets.

“I’m sorry for the mess,” he apologized. “Shall we go in the kitchen? Have you found Leanne yet?”

“No, not yet,” said Banks.

They followed him through to the small kitchen, where he put the kettle on without even asking if they wanted a cup of tea. They all sat at the small kitchen table, and for the short time it took the kettle to boil, Mr. Wray chatted on about the redecoration as if determined to avoid the real subject of their visit. Finally, tea made and poured, Banks decided it was time to steer things around to the subject of Leanne.

“I must say,” he began, “that we’re at a bit of a loss.”

“Oh?”

“As you know, our men have been working at the Payne house for days now. They’ve recovered six bodies, four of which have been identified, but none of the six is your daughter’s. They’re running out of places to look.”

“Does that mean Leanne might still be alive?” Wray asked, a gleam of hope in his eyes.

“It’s possible,” Banks admitted. “Though I’ve got to say, after all this time without contact, especially given the nationwide appeals on TV and in the press, I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope.”

“Then… what?”

“That’s what we’d like to find out.”

“I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Perhaps you can’t,” Banks said, “but the only thing to do when a case is stalled like this is to go right back to first principles. We’ve got to go over the ground we covered before and hope we see it from a new perspective this time.”

Wray’s wife, Victoria, appeared in the doorway and looked puzzled to see Banks and Winsome enjoying a chat and a cup of tea with her husband. Wray jumped up. “I thought you were resting, dear,” he said, giving her a peck on the cheek.

Victoria wiped the sleep from her eyes, though she looked to Banks as if she had spent at least a few minutes putting on her face before coming down. Her skirt and blouse were pure Harvey Nichols, and her accent was what she thought sounded like upper class, though he could hear traces of Birmingham in it. She was an attractive woman in her early thirties, with a slim figure and a full head of shiny, natural-brown hair that hung over her shoulders. She had a slightly retroussé nose, arched eyebrows and a small mouth, but the effect of the whole was rather more successful than one might imagine from the separate parts. Wray himself was about forty and pretty much medium in whatever category you might describe him, except for the chin, which slid down toward his throat before it even got started. They were an odd couple, Banks remembered thinking from the first time he had met them: he was a rather basic, down-to-earth bus driver, and she was an affected social climber. What had drawn them together in the first place Banks had no idea, except perhaps that people who have suffered a great loss, as Christopher Wray had, might not necessarily be the best judges of their next move.

Victoria stretched, sat down and poured herself a cup of tea.

“How are you feeling?” her husband asked.

“Not bad.”

“You know you’ve got to be careful, in your condition. The doctor said so.”

“I know. I know.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be careful.”

“What condition’s that?” Banks asked.

“My wife’s expecting a baby, Superintendent.” Wray beamed.

Banks looked at Victoria. “Congratulations,” he said.

She inclined her head in a queenly manner. Banks could hardly imagine Victoria Wray going through anything as messy and painful as childbirth, but life was full of surprises.

“How long?” he asked.

She patted her stomach. “Almost four months.”

“So you were pregnant when Leanne went missing?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I’d just found out that morning.”

“What did Leanne think of it?”

Victoria looked down into her teacup. “Leanne could be willful and moody, Superintendent,” she said. “She certainly wasn’t quite as ecstatic as we hoped she would be.”