Peter Robinson - Aftermath

Thinking of Lucy, Maggie remembered the one thing she had learned about domestic abuse so far: it doesn’t matter who you are. It can still happen to you. Alicia and all her other close friends back home had expressed their wonder at how such a bright, intelligent, successful, caring, educated woman like Maggie could fall victim to a wife beater like Bill. She had seen the expressions on their faces, noticed their conversations hush and shift when she walked in the room. There must be something wrong with her, they were all saying. And that was what she had thought, too, still thought, to some extent. Because to all intents and purposes Bill, too, was bright, intelligent, caring, educated and successful. Until he got his Monster Face on, that is, but only Maggie saw him like that. And it was odd, she thought, that nobody had thought to ask why an intelligent, wealthy, successful lawyer like Bill should feel the need to hit a woman almost a foot shorter and at least eighty pounds lighter than he was.

Even when the police came that time he was hammering at her door, she could tell they were making excuses for him – he was driven out of his mind by his wife’s unreasonable action in taking out a restraining order against him; he was just upset because his marriage had broken up and his wife wouldn’t give him a chance to make it up. Excuses, excuses. Maggie was the only one who knew what he could be like. Every day she thanked God they had no kids.

Which was what she was thinking about as she drifted back to the present, to feeding the ducks on the pond. Lucy was a fellow sufferer, and now Terry had put her in hospital. Maggie felt responsible, as if she should have done something. Lord knows, she had tried. After Lucy’s subsequent tale of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband had unfolded during their many furtive meetings over coffee and biscuits, with Maggie sworn to absolute secrecy, she should have done something . But unlike most people, Maggie knew exactly what it was like. She knew Lucy’s position, knew that the best she could do was try to persuade her to seek professional help, to leave Terry. Which she did try to do.

But Lucy wouldn’t leave him. She said she had nowhere to go and no one to go to. A common enough excuse. And it made perfect sense. Where do you go when you walk out on your life?

Maggie had been lucky she had the friends to rally around her and come up with at least a temporary solution. Most women in her position were not so fortunate. Lucy also said that her marriage was so new that she felt she had to give it a chance, give it some time; she couldn’t just walk out on it; she wanted to work harder at it. Another common response from women in her position, Maggie knew, but all she could do was point out that it wasn’t going to get any better, no matter what she did, that Terry wasn’t going to change, and that it would come to her leaving sooner or later, so why not leave sooner and spare herself the beatings?

But no. Lucy wanted to stick it out awhile longer. At least a little while. Terry was so nice afterward, so good to her; he bought her presents, flowers, swore he would never do it again, that he would change. It made Maggie sick to hear all this – literally, as she once vomited the minute Lucy left the house – the same damn reasons and excuses she had given herself and those few close friends who knew about her situation all along.

But she listened. What else could she do? Lucy needed a friend, and for better or for worse, Maggie was it.

Now this.

Maggie tossed the last crumbs of bread into the pond. She aimed for the scruffiest, littlest, ugliest duckling of them all, the one way at the back that hadn’t been able to get at the feast so far. It made no difference. The bread landed only inches from his beak, but before he could get to it, the others had paddled over in a ferocious pack and snapped it right from under his mouth.

Banks wanted to get a look at the whole interior of 35 The Hill before the SOCOs started ripping it apart. He didn’t know what it would tell him, but he needed to get the feel of it.

Downstairs, in addition to the kitchen with its small dining area, there was only a living room containing a three-piece suite, stereo system, television, video, and a small bookcase. Though the room was decorated with the same feminine touch as the hallway – frilly lace curtains, coral-pink wallpaper, thick-pile carpet, cream ceiling with ornate cornices – the videos in the cabinet under the TV set reflected masculine tastes: action films, tape after tape of The Simpsons , a collection of horror and science fiction films, including the whole Alien and Scream series, along with some true classics such as The Wicker Man , the original Cat People, Curse of the Demon and a boxed set of David Cronenberg films. Banks poked around but could find no porn, nothing homemade. Maybe the SOCOs would have better luck when they took the house apart. The CDs were an odd mix. There was some classical, mostly classic FM compilations and a best-of-Mozart set, but there were also some rap, heavy metal, and country-and-western CDs. Eclectic tastes.

The books were also mixed: beauty manuals, Reader’s Digest condensed specials, needlecraft techniques, romances, occult and true crime of the more graphic variety, tabloid-style biographies of famous serial killers and mass murderers. The room showed one or two signs of untidiness – yesterday’s evening paper spread over the coffee table, a couple of videos left out of their boxes – but on the whole it was clean and neat. There were also a number of knick-knacks around the place, the sort of things that Banks’s mother wouldn’t have in the house because they made dusting more difficult: porcelain figures of fairy-tale characters and animals. In the dining room, there was a large glass-fronted cabinet filled with Royal Doulton chinaware. Probably a wedding present, Banks guessed.

Upstairs were two bedrooms, the smaller one used as a home office, along with a toilet and bathroom. No shower, just sink and tub. Both toilet and bathroom were spotless, the porcelain shining bright, the air heavy with the scent of lavender. Banks glanced around the plug holes but saw only polished chrome, not a trace of blood or hair.

Their computer expert, David Preece, sat in the office clacking away at the computer keys. A large filing cabinet stood in the corner; it would have to be emptied, its contents transferred to the exhibits room at Millgarth.

“Anything yet, Dave?” Banks asked.

Preece pushed his glasses back up his nose and turned. “Nothing much. Just a few pornographic Web sites bookmarked, chat rooms, that sort of thing. Nothing illegal yet, by the looks of it.”

“Keep at it.”

Banks walked into the master bedroom. The color scheme seemed to continue the ocean theme, but instead of coral it was sea blue. Azure? Cobalt? Cerulean? Annie Cabbot would know the exact shade, her father being an artist, but to Banks it was just blue, like the walls of his living room, though a shade or two darker. The queen-size bed was covered by a fluffed-up black duvet. The bedroom suite was assemble-it-yourself blond Scandinavian pine. Another television set stood on a stand at the bottom of the bed. The cabinet held a collection of soft-core porn, if the labels were to believed, but still nothing illegal or homemade, no kiddie stuff or animals. So the Paynes were into porn videos. So what? So were more than half the households in the country, Banks was willing to bet. But more than half the households in the country didn’t go around abducting and killing young girls. Some lucky young DC was going to have to sit down and watch the lot from start to finish to verify that the contents matched the titles.