Aftermath (40 page)

‘No.’

‘You should. He’s quite good. For a science-fiction writer, that is. Believe it or not, I encouraged my pupils to read just about anything they enjoyed, so long as they read
something. Anyway, Wyndham wrote a book called
The Midwich Cuckoos
about a group of strange children fathered by aliens on an unsuspecting village.’

‘That sounds vaguely familiar,’ Jenny said.

‘Perhaps you saw the film? It was called
Village of the Damned
.’

‘That’s it,’ said Jenny. ‘That one where the teacher planted a bomb to destroy the children and had to concentrate on a brick wall so they couldn’t read his
thoughts?’

‘Yes. Well, it wasn’t quite like that with the Godwins and the Murrays, but it still gave you that sort of feeling, the way they looked at you, waited in the corridor till
you’d gone by before talking again. And they always seemed to speak in whispers. Linda, I remember, was very distressed when she had to leave and go to the comprehensive before the others,
but I gather from her teacher there that she quickly got used to it. She has a strong personality, that girl, despite what happened to her, and she’s adaptable.’

‘Did she show any unusual preoccupations?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Anything particularly morbid. Death? Mutilation?’

‘Not so far as I noticed. She was . . . how shall I put this . . . an early developer and rather sexually aware for a girl of her age. On average girls peak in puberty at about twelve, but
Lucy was beyond prepubescence at eleven. Her breasts were developing, for example.’

‘Sexually active?’

‘No. Well, as we now know she was being sexually abused in the home. But, no, not in the way you’re suggesting. She was just sexually
there
. It was something people noticed
about her and she wasn’t above playing the little coquette.’

‘I see.’ Jenny made a note. ‘And it was Kathleen’s absence that led you to call in the authorities?’

‘Yes.’ Maureen looked away, towards the window, but she didn’t look as if she was admiring the view. ‘Not my finest moment,’ she said, bending to pour the tea.
‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Yes, please. Thank you. Why?’

‘I should have done something sooner, shouldn’t I? It wasn’t the first time I’d had my suspicions something was terribly wrong in those households. Though I never saw any
bruises or clear outward signs of abuse, the children often looked undernourished and seemed timid. Sometimes – I know this is terrible – but they smelled, as if they hadn’t
bathed in days. Other children would stay away from them. They’d jump if you touched them, no matter how gently. I should have known.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Well, I talked with the other teachers, and we all agreed there was something odd about the children’s behaviour. 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 know, 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 gawp at her as they walked. She knew she was a token minority, she had told Banks when he interviewed her, brought in to fulfil 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 extents, 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 easy-going, had a wicked sense of humour, 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 Street onto a grid of narrow streets opposite the community centre, 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 towards 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 wilful and moody, Superintendent,’ she said. ‘She certainly wasn’t quite as ecstatic as we hoped she would be.’

‘Now, come on, love, that’s not fair,’ said Mr Wray. ‘She’d have got used to it in time. I’m certain she would.’

Banks thought about the situation: Leanne’s mother dies a slow and painful death from cancer. Shortly afterwards, her father remarries – to a woman Leanne clearly can’t stand. Not long after that, the stepmother announces she’s pregnant. You didn’t need to be a psychologist to see that there was a situation ripe for disaster. It was a bit close to the bone for Banks, too, though he had hardly been in Leanne’s position. Still, whether it’s your father having a baby with your new stepmother or your estranged wife having one with the bearded Sean, the resulting feelings could be similar, perhaps even more intense in Leanne’s case, given her age and her grief over her mother.

‘So she wasn’t happy with the news?’

‘Not really,’ Mr Wray admitted. ‘But it takes time to get used to things like that.’

‘You have to be at least willing to try first,’ said Victoria. ‘Leanne’s too selfish for that.’

‘Leanne was willing,’ Mr Wray insisted.

‘When did you tell her?’ Banks asked.

‘The morning of the day she disappeared.’

He sighed. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this when we interviewed you after Leanne’s disappearance?’

Mr Wray looked surprised. ‘Nobody asked. It didn’t seem important. I mean it was a private family matter.’

‘Besides,’ said Victoria, ‘it’s bad luck to tell strangers until after three months.’

Were they really so thick or were they just playing at it? Banks wondered. Trying to keep his tone as calm and neutral as possible, reminding himself that they were the parents of a missing girl, he asked, ‘What did she say?’

The Wrays looked at one another. ‘Say? Nothing, really, did she, dear?’ said Mr Wray.

‘Acted up, is what she did,’ said Victoria.

‘Was she angry?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Mr Wray.

‘Angry enough to punish you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Listen, Mr Wray,’ Banks said, ‘when you told us that Leanne was missing and we couldn’t find her within a day or two, we were all of us willing to think the worst. Now, what you’ve just told us puts a different light on things.’

‘It does?’

‘If she was angry at you over her stepmother’s pregnancy, then she might easily have run away to strike back.’

‘But Leanne wouldn’t run away,’ Mr Wray said, slack-jawed. ‘She loved me.’

‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ Banks said. He didn’t know if it was called the Electra complex, but he was thinking of the female version of the Oedipus complex: girl loves her father, then her mother dies, but instead of devoting himself to her, the father finds a new woman, and to make things worse, he makes her pregnant, threatening the entire stability of their relationship. He could easily see Leanne doing a bunk under circumstances like that. But the problem still remained that she would have to be a very uncaring child indeed not to let them know she was still alive after all the hue and cry about the missing girls, and she wouldn’t have got far without her money and her inhaler.

‘I think she’d probably be capable of it,’ said Victoria. ‘She could be cruel. Remember that time when she put castor oil in the coffee, the evening of my first book club meeting? Caroline Opley was sick all over her Margaret Atwood.’

‘But that was early days, love,’ Mr Wray protested. ‘It all took a bit of getting used to for her.’

‘I know. I’m only saying. And she didn’t value things as she should have. She lost that silver—’

‘Do you think she might have at least been angry enough to disobey her curfew?’ Banks asked.

‘Certainly,’ answered Victoria without missing a beat. ‘It’s that boy you should be talking to. That Ian Scott. He’s a drug dealer, you know.’

‘Did Leanne take drugs?’

‘Not to our knowledge,’ said Mr Wray.

‘But she could have done, Chris,’ his wife went on. ‘She obviously didn’t tell us everything, did she? Who knows what she got up to when she was with those sorts of people.’