Peter Robinson - Aftermath

Banks sighed. “All right. Show her in.”

The PC smirked again and disappeared, leaving a distinct sense of smirk still in the air, rather like the Cheshire cat’s smile. A few moments later, Banks saw why.

She tapped very softly on his door and pushed it open so slowly that it creaked on its hinges, then she appeared before him. All five feet nothing of her. She was anorexically thin, and the harsh red of her lipstick and nail polish contrasted with the almost translucent paleness of her skin; her delicate features looked as if they were made out of porcelain carefully glued or painted on her moon-shaped face. Clutching a gold-lamé handbag, she was wearing a bright green crop top, which stopped abruptly just below her breasts – no more than goose pimples despite the push-up bra – and showed a stretch of pale, bare midriff and a belly-button ring, below which came a black PVS micro-skirt. She wore no tights, and her pale thin legs stretched bare down to the knee-highs and chunky platform heels that made her walk as if she were on stilts. Her expression showed fear and nervousness as her astonishingly lovely cobalt-blue eyes roved restlessly about the stark office.

Banks would have put her down for a heroin-addicted prostitute, but he could see no needle tracks on her arms. That didn’t mean she wasn’t addicted to something , and it certainly didn’t mean that she wasn’t a prostitute. There are more ways of getting drugs into your system than through a needle. Something about her reminded him of Chief Constable Riddle’s daughter, Emily, but it quickly passed. She bore more resemblance to the famous heroin-chic models of a few years ago.

“Are you the one?” she asked.

“What one?”

“The one in charge. I asked for the one in charge.”

“That’s me. For my sins,” said Banks.

“What?”

“Never mind. Sit down.” She sat, slowly and suspiciously, eyes still flicking restlessly around the office, as if she were afraid someone was going to appear and strap her into her chair. It had obviously taken her a lot of courage to come this far. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?” Banks asked.

She looked surprised at the offer. “Er… yes. Please. Coffee would be nice.”

“How do you take it?”

“What?”

“The coffee? How do you want it?”

“Milk and plenty of sugar,” she said, as if unaware that it came any other way.

Banks phoned for two coffees – black for him – and turned back to her. “What’s your name?”

“Candy.”

“Really?”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Candy. Ever been in a police station before?”

Fear flashed across Candy’s delicate features. “Why?”

“Just asking. You seem ill at ease.”

She managed a weak smile. “Well, yes… Maybe I am. A little bit.”

“Relax. I won’t eat you.”

Wrong choice of words, Banks realized, when he saw the lascivious, knowing look in her eye. “I mean I won’t harm you,” he corrected himself.

The coffee arrived, carried in by the same, still-smirking PC. Banks was abrupt with him, resenting the kind of smug arrogance that the smirk implied.

“Okay, Candy,” said Banks after the first sip. “Care to tell me what it’s all about?”

“Can I smoke?” She opened her handbag.

“Sorry,” said Banks. “No smoking anywhere in the station; otherwise I’d have one with you.”

“Maybe we could go outside?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Banks said. “Let’s just get on with it.”

“It’s just that I really like a ciggie with my coffee. I always have a smoke with my coffee.”

“Not this time. Why have you come to see me, Candy?”

She fidgeted awhile longer, a sulky expression on her face, then shut the handbag and crossed her legs, clipping the underside of the desk with her platform and rattling it so much that Banks’s coffee spilled over the rim of his mug and made a gathering stain on the pile of papers before him.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s nothing.” Banks took out his handkerchief and wiped it up. “You were going to tell me why you’re here.”

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“Well, look,” Candy said, leaning forward in her chair. “First off, you have to grant me that immunization, or whatever. Or I won’t say a word.”

“You mean immunity?”

She flushed. “If that’s what it’s called. I didn’t go to school much.”

“Immunity from what?”

“From prosecution.”

“But why would I want to prosecute you?”

Her eyes were everywhere but on Banks, hands twisting the bag on her bare lap. “Because of what I do,” she said. “You know… with men. I’m a prostitute, a tom.”

“Bloody hell,” said Banks. “You could knock me over with a feather.”

Her eyes turned to him, shimmering with angry tears. “There’s no need to be snarky. I’m not ashamed of what I am. At least I don’t go around locking up innocent people and letting the guilty go free.”

Banks felt like a shit. Sometimes he just didn’t know when to hold his tongue. He had acted no better than the smirking PC when he insulted her with his sarcasm. “I’m sorry, Candy,” he said. “But I’m a very busy man. Can we get to the point? If you’ve got anything to tell me, then say it.”

“You promise?”

“Promise what?”

“You won’t lock me up.”

“I won’t lock you up. Cross my heart. Not unless you’ve come to confess a serious crime.”

She shot to her feet. “I haven’t done nothing!”

“All right. All right. Sit down, then. Take it easy.”

Candy sat slowly, careful with her platforms this time. “I came because you let her go. I wasn’t going to come. I don’t like the police. But you let her go.”

“Who’s this about, Candy?”

“It’s about that couple in the papers, the ones who took them young girls.”

“What about them?”

“Just that they… once… you know, they…”

“They picked you up?”

She looked down. “Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was just, you know, out on the street, and they came by in a car. He did the talking, and when we’d fixed it up they took me to a house.”

“When was this, Candy?”

“Last summer.”

“Do you remember the month?”

“August, I think. Late August. It was warm, anyway.”

Banks tried to work out the timing. The Seacroft rapes had stopped around the time the Paynes moved out of the area, about a year or so before Candy’s experience. That left a period of about sixteen months before Payne abducted Kelly Matthews. Perhaps during that period he had been trying to sublimate his urges, relying on prostitutes? And Lucy’s role?

“Where was the house?”

“The Hill. It’s the same one that’s in all the papers. I’ve been there.”

“Okay. What happened next?”

“Well, first we had a drink and they chatted to me, putting me at ease, like. They seemed a really nice couple.”

“And then?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d still like you to tell me.”

“He said let’s go upstairs.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yes. That’s what I thought he meant at first.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we went up to the bedroom and I… you know… I got undressed. Well, partly. He wanted me to keep certain things on. Jewelry. My underwear. At first, anyway.”

“What happened next?”

“It was dark in there and you could only make out shadows. He made me lie down on the bed, and the next thing I knew she was there, too.”

“Lucy Payne?”

“Yes.”