Peter Robinson - Aftermath

“She was a mate, that’s all. But it’s nothing to do with us. We don’t know what happened to her. Besides, I’d’ve got around to it eventually. My brain’s not working properly yet.”

“Does it ever? Anyway, I’m beginning to think you do.”

“Do what?”

“Know something about what happened to Leanne.”

“That’s rubbish.”

“Is it, really? Let’s back up a bit. First off, we’re pretty certain now that Leanne Wray wasn’t one of the Chameleon’s victims, as we had first thought.”

“Your mistake, isn’t it?” said Ian. “Don’t come looking to us to bail you out.”

“Now, if that’s not the case, then it stands to reason that something else happened to her.”

“You don’t need to be a Sherlock to figure that one out.”

“Which, discounting the possibility of another stranger killing, leaves three possibilities.”

“Oh, yeah? And what are those?”

Banks counted off on his fingers. “One, that she ran away from home. Two, that she did go home on time and her parents did something to her. And three, the main reason I’m here, that she didn’t, in fact, go home after you left the Old Ship. That the three of you stayed together and you did something to her.”

Ian Scott showed no expression but scorn as he listened, and Sarah started sucking on her thumb. “We told you what happened,” Ian said. “We told you what we did.”

“Yes,” said Banks. “But The Riverboat was so busy, the people we talked to were very vague about seeing you. They certainly weren’t sure about the time and weren’t even sure it was that Friday night.”

“But you’ve got the CCTV. For fuck’s sake, what’s Big Brother watching for if you can’t believe what you see?”

“Oh, we believe what we see all right,” said Banks. “But all we see is you, Sarah here and Mick Blair entering the Bar None shortly after half-past twelve.”

“Well, there’s no point going earlier. Things don’t start to warm up till after midnight.”

“Yes, Ian, but that leaves over two hours unaccounted for. A lot can happen in two hours.”

“How was I to know I’d have to account for my every minute?”

“Two hours.”

“I told you. We walked around town a bit, dropped in at The Riverboat, then went to the Bar None. I don’t know what fucking time it was.”

“Sarah?”

Sarah took her thumb from her mouth. “What he says.”

“Is that how it usually goes?” Banks asked. “What Ian says. Haven’t you got a mind of your own?”

“What he says. We went to The Riverboat, then to the Bar None. Leanne left us just before half-past ten outside the Old Ship. We don’t know what happened to her after that.”

“And Mick Blair went with you?”

“Yeah.”

“How did Leanne seem that night, Sarah?”

“Uh?”

“What sort of mood was she in?”

“All right, I suppose.”

“She wasn’t upset about anything?”

“No. We were having a good time.”

“Leanne didn’t confide anything in you?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some problem with her stepmother, perhaps?”

“She was always having problems with that stuck-up bitch. I was sick of hearing about them.”

“Did she ever talk about running off?”

“Not to me. Not that I remember. Ian?”

“Nah. She just whined about the old cow, that’s all. She hadn’t the bottle to run away. If I was looking at somebody for it, I’d look at the stepmother first.”

“Somebody for what?”

“You know. If you think someone did something to Leanne, like.”

“I see. What was the idea that excited you all before you left the Old Ship?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Ian.

“Oh, come on. We know you seemed excited by something you were going to do. What was it? Did it include Leanne?”

“We talked about going to the Bar None, but Leanne knew she couldn’t come with us.”

“That’s all?”

“What else could there be?”

“She didn’t give you any hint that she might not be going straight home?”

“No.”

“Or that she might run off, teach her stepmother a lesson?”

“Dunno. Who can tell what’s in a bitch’s mind when it comes right down to it, hey?”

“Tut-tut, such language. You’ve been listening to too much hip-hop, Ian,” said Banks, standing to leave. “Nice choice of partner, Sarah,” he said on his way out, noticing that Sarah Francis looked distinctly put out and, more to the point, even a little frightened. That might come in useful before too long, he thought.

“I just had to get out of the flat, that’s all,” said Janet Taylor. “I mean, I didn’t want to drag you halfway across Yorkshire.”

“That’s all right,” said Annie, with a smile. “I don’t live that far away. Besides, I like it here.”

Here was a rambling old pub on the edge of the moorland above Wensleydale, not far from Banks’s cottage, with a solid reputation for Sunday lunch. Janet’s call had come shortly after ten o’clock that morning, just as Annie was having a nap to make up for her lack of sleep at Banks’s place. Their conversation had bothered her, kept her awake well into the small hours; she didn’t like talking about babies.

Trust Banks to hit a nerve. What she also didn’t like and didn’t seem able to tell him about these personal revelations of his was that they pushed her into examining her own past and her own feelings far more than she felt ready to do right now. She wished he would just lighten up and take it easy.

Anyway, an open-air lunch was just the ticket. The air was pure, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. From where they sat she could see the lush green dalesides crisscrossed with drystone walls, sheep wandering all over, baaing like crazy if any ramblers passed by. Down in the valley bottom, the river meandered and a group of cottages huddled around a village green, the square-towered church a little to one side, gray limestone bright in the midday sun. She thought she could see the tiny silhouettes of four people walking along the top of the high limestone scar over the dale. Christ, it would be good to be up there, all alone, not a care in the world.

But if the setting was ideal, she might have chosen a different companion. Despite the change of environment, Janet seemed distracted, forever flicking back the lock of hair that fell over her tired brown eyes. There was an unhealthy pallor about her that Annie guessed would take more than a lunch on the moors to dispel. Already Janet was on her second pint of lager and lime, and Annie had to bite her tongue not to say something about drink driving. She was on her first half of bitter, might have another half, then coffee after lunch. Annie, who was a vegetarian, had ordered quiche and a salad, but she was pleased to see that Janet had ordered roast lamb; she looked as if she needed some meat on her bones.

“How are you doing?” Annie asked.

Janet laughed. “Oh, about as well as can be expected.” She rubbed her forehead. “I still can’t get the sleep thing sorted out. You know, I keep replaying it, but I’m not sure if I’m seeing it the way it really happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in the replays I see his face.”

“Terry Payne’s?”

“Yes, all twisted and contorted. Fearsome. But I don’t think I remember seeing him clearly at the time. My mind must be filling in details.”

“Possibly.” Annie thought of her own ordeal, the rape carried out by three colleagues after celebrating her passing her sergeant’s boards. At the time, she could have sworn she would remember every grunt and groan, every obscene facial expression and every sensation of him – the one who actually succeeded in penetrating her while the others held her down – forcing himself inside her as she struggled, tearing at her clothes, every drop of sweat that dripped from his face on to her skin, but she was surprised to find that much of it had faded, and it wasn’t a memory she felt compelled to rerun for herself night after night. Perhaps she was tougher than she thought, or maybe she was compartmentalizing it, as someone had once told her she did, shutting out the pain and humiliation.