Peter Robinson - Not Dark Yet

‘I’m OK,’ said Charlotte. ‘I want this all over with and I never want to see you again.’

‘That all depends very much on your telling us the truth. You lied to us about your connection with Marnie Sedgwick, and that’s why you’re here. How did she find you in the first place?’

‘The usual way. She applied for her birth certificate when she turned eighteen then tracked me down through one of those online hereditary sites.’

‘When was this?’

‘January. Just after Christmas.’

‘Why did she wait so long?’

‘She told me later that she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She’d been very happy with the Sedgwicks, and she didn’t want them to feel they’d been inadequate or somehow let her down. It’s not unusual for children seeking their birth parents to feel apprehensive, to hesitate.’

‘And she came to see you this January?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the office?’

‘No. She got my home address first.’

‘How did the meeting go?’

Charlotte shifted in her chair. ‘Awkward, as I’m sure you can imagine. But I think she understood finally, how the adoption was best for her, not only me. How I couldn’t possibly have been a fit mother. I think she understood.’

‘Was she angry?’

‘No. She said she had been, at first, but it passed. She was just curious. She didn’t want me to take her in or even develop any kind of maternal relationship. As far as Marnie was concerned, the Sedgwicks were her parents. She just wanted to see me in the flesh, so to speak, and for me to know that she existed.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Later, she came to me at the office. She wanted work. There was no special pleading or anything, she wasn’t after any favours. She wasn’t even asking for special treatment. She knew what I did and thought she could fit in somewhere. Simple as that. She already had a waitressing job at Pizza Express in York, but she wasn’t getting paid very much, and she said she wanted to save to go back to university.’

‘But she’d already dropped out of Nottingham.’

‘Because she didn’t have enough money, and she thought she was wasting her time studying History. She wanted to take on a practical subject like Management Studies or Hospitality.’

‘And you encouraged her?’

‘I told her I’d done fairly practical subjects at uni, that it was a good idea if she hoped to get a good job. That you can always read history and literature in your spare time, but it’s not going to earn you a living unless you teach. I gave her work. It wasn’t much, but she was well enough paid for what she did.’

‘What about your relationship? Did it thrive?’

‘I wouldn’t say it thrived, no. There was always a distance. You’d expect that after so many years. As I told you, the Sedgwicks were her parents, no doubt about that. She made it clear and I accepted it. But it didn’t degenerate, either. We got on well enough.’

‘Why did you give her up for adoption in the first place?’

‘The usual reasons. I was too young, too selfish, too irresponsible.’

‘What about abortion?’

‘I’m from a Catholic family. All right, so my parents were lapsed Catholics, and I’ve never been religious, but I just felt that abortion wasn’t an option at the time.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Annie.

‘I was living a pretty wild life. Free and easy. All the travel, sun and sand and everything. I didn’t want to be lumbered with a child to bring up.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘When I found out I was pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘I went to stay with a friend in Herefordshire, near Hay, where they have the book festival. That was for my... what did they used to call it... lying in ? That’s what I did. I lay in and waited. The baby was born at the nearest hospital, a small one, and I gave her up for adoption. End of story.’

Annie consulted the notes Gerry had made. ‘And after that you put your life back together, got on track, started a career in events planning? Met your husband?’

‘Having a child shook me up. I grew up pretty quickly, I’d say, even though I didn’t have the responsibility of child-rearing. So, yes, I threw myself into a new career. I happen to be a quick learner. The degree helped, too. Or at least, Oxford did. Connections. I also have some facility with languages. French, Spanish, a little Greek.’

‘So what was your reaction when Marnie came to you and told you she’d been raped?’

‘She never... I mean, I...’

‘Come on, Charlotte. Don’t start lying again. We were doing so well. Who else could she go to? Not her own parents. She wanted to protect them. You were probably more like a big sister to her than anyone else.’

Charlotte turned to Jessica Bowen, who leaned forward and whispered in her ear. Charlotte nodded a couple of times and turned back to Annie. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Marnie did come to my house when I got back from Costa Rica, and she told me what had happened. She was in a terrible state, emotionally. I... I did my best to comfort her. She wouldn’t go to the police. I tried to persuade her, honestly, but she didn’t want to go through the humiliation, the victim-blaming. She said she thought she could put it behind her. I wasn’t too sure about that, but I realised my job, my only job, was to give her comfort and support right there and then. Which I did.’

‘And now we come to the big question, Charlotte,’ said Annie. ‘Who did it? Who raped Marnie Sedgwick?’

By five o’clock that afternoon, Banks was sitting in the shade outside La Porte Montmartre, on the corner of the Boulevard Poissonnière and the Boulevard Montmartre, in Paris, with a large glass of excellent red Bordeaux in front of him, watching the world go by. It wouldn’t have been true to say that he hadn’t a care in the world — he had many — but at moments such as these, the cares receded, and it felt good to be alive.

His last-minute hotel, which went under the uninspiring name of Hôtel 34B, turned out to be a gem. For less than one hundred euros he got a comfortable room, decorated all in white, clean and spacious enough. It didn’t have a balcony, but the windows overlooked the street below. The buildings on both sides of Rue Bergère were five storeys high, so it was like looking into a narrow canyon. Cars and motor scooters were parked by the pavements and even though it was only a little side street there was a constant flow of people. He could see three restaurants from his fourth-floor window: Les Diables au Thym, Dr. Auguste , and Bio c’Bon , an ‘organic’ salad bar, on the corner with Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, where there were many more restaurants and cafes, along with a hypermarché . The hotel was no frills and had no restaurant or bar, but Banks didn’t need such luxuries when there were so many places to eat and drink in the neighbourhood. Like the cafe he was in now.

He was waiting for Jean-Claude Meursault, an old friend from the police judiciaire . They had first met at an Interpol conference in Lyon fifteen years previously and had stayed in touch ever since. Jean-Claude had retired the previous year, and Banks had attended his farewell party. If anyone knew anything about Zelda’s time in Paris, and whether she was there at the moment, it was Jean-Claude.

A commissaire at 36 Quai des Orfèvres for many years, Jean-Claude reminded Banks of his hero Maigret, physically as well as in mind and attitude. The Rupert Davies Maigret, of course. As far as Banks was concerned, Gambon was good, Atkinson was execrable, Bruno Cremer was the French choice, but Rupert Davies was Maigret. He was large and burly, and though he didn’t smoke a pipe, one would not have seemed out of place in his hand or mouth. He also had that calm, slow manner of the deep thinker about him, though as Banks had once seen when they encountered some trouble in a bar, he could be remarkably quick on his feet.