Friend of the Devil

by Peter Robinson

“Sharing a nice meal. Just being together. Talking. Going for walks. Holding hands. Breakfast in bed. Going to a concert. Listening to classical music. Cuddling. Discussing a book we’d both read. Simple things. I could hardly wait until we were able to come out in the open with it. The secrecy was such agony. I’ll miss her more than you could ever imagine.”

  Banks felt jealous. He hadn’t done any of those things with anyone for years, if ever, or felt that way about anyone. He and his ex-wife, Sandra, had had such different tastes and interests that their lives had been parallel rather than joined. And when the parallel lines started to diverge slightly, the end had come quickly. Even with Annie there had been more differences than things in common. Still, he wasn’t going to let sentimentality and sympathy for Austin cloud his vision. “You say you want to help,” he went on. “If you didn’t kill her, have you any idea who did?”

  “I don’t know. Some maniac, by the sound of it.”

  “The truth could be closer to home,” said Winsome. “What about enemies? Is there anyone in her immediate circle she had problems with?”

  “There’s Stuart Kinsey, I suppose. He was always chasing after her.”

  “But you told me he wouldn’t harm anyone,” said Winsome.

  “I still don’t think he would,” said Austin, “but you asked me, and I can’t think of anyone else. Hayley just wasn’t the sort of person to make enemies.”

  “Well, she made one,” said Banks, standing up. “Thanks for your time, Malcolm. And stick around. We might need to talk to you again.”

  Intense and rejected in love. That was a very bad combination, Banks knew. A very bad combination indeed. And Stuart Kinsey had admitted to going into The Maze, ostensibly to spy on Hayley, to find out whom she was seeing. That gave him motive and opportunity. Could means be far behind? Time for another word with Mr. Kinsey.

  IT WAS a good hour and a half or more from Whitby to Leeds, depending on the traffic, and this was the second time Annie had done it in two days. Her feelings were still smarting from the lunch with Eric. It hadn’t taken him long to show his true colors. Now she worried about what other photos he might still have on his mobile or his computer. What would he do with them? Post them on YouTube? How could she have been so bloody foolish, drunk or not? Her hands gripped the steering wheel tight and her teeth gritted as she thought about it and remembered what he said. He had been lashing out just to be cruel, of course, but was there any truth in it? Had she seemed too desperate, too eager, too grateful?

  She drove along Stanningley Road, turned off before Bramley, and found her way to The Hill. The Paynes had lived close to the top, just before the railway bridge, on the right as you drove down, and Claire Toth and her family lived practically over the street, where a row of old detached houses with overgrown gardens stood at the top of a steep rise. It was six years since Annie had last driven by, and then there had been police barriers and crime scene tape all over the place. Now that was all gone, of course, but so was number 35, and in its place stood two new redbrick semis. Well, she supposed no one would want to live in the “House of Payne,” as the newspapers had called it, or next door, for that matter.

  As she slowed down, Annie shivered at a sudden memory of the time she went down into the cellar: the obscene poster of the woman with her legs spread; the dank claustrophobic atmosphere with its smell of blood and urine; the occult symbols on the walls. Fortunately for Annie, the body of Kimberley Myers had been removed by the time she got there, along with the bloody mattress.

  Annie could imagine the ground haunted by the ghosts of the poor girls who had been raped, tortured and buried down there. And Lucy Payne, the woman in the wheelchair with her throat cut, had definitely been involved in that. Banks had spent a lot of time interviewing Lucy, first as a victim and later as a possible suspect, and she had certainly had an effect on him, no matter what he claimed, but it was clear that even now he hadn’t any more understanding of what really went on in that cellar, or why, than anyone else.

  Annie parked at the bottom of the steps in front of Claire’s house and pulled herself together. She knew that she had to get over what happened the other night and talk to Banks. Sober this time. So she had made a fool of herself. So what? It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Explain. He’d understand. God knew, he was understanding enough; he wasn’t going to toss her out on her ear. Was she so afraid of a little embarrassment? That didn’t sound like the woman she thought she was. But was she who she thought she was?

  She climbed the steps, noting as she went that the gardens that straggled down to the pavement seemed even more overgrown than ever, especially for the time of year, and a high fence about halfway up blocked the view of the house from below. Annie opened the gate and carried on climbing the last flight of steps.

  The front door needed a coat of paint, and a dog or cat had clearly been scratching at the wood. The small lawn was patchy and overgrown with weeds. Annie wasn’t quite sure how she was going to approach Claire. Was the girl a serious suspect? If not, was she likely to know anything that would help? It seemed that all she was doing was going in there to reopen old wounds. Taking a deep breath, she made a fist and knocked on the frosted glass.

  After a few moments a woman answered the door in a blue cardigan and gray slacks.

  “Mrs. Toth?” Annie said.

  “That’s right, love. You must be DI Cabbot. Please come in. Claire’s not back yet but she’ll be here any minute.”

  Annie went in. The front room had high ceilings and a bay window looking west, over the tops of the houses opposite. A television set stood in the corner. Daily Cooks had just started, with that dishy French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. Annie bet the French never made a fuss about a one-night stand. Mrs. Toth didn’t make a move to turn the TV off, and when Annie asked her, she turned down the volume a notch or two, but while they made small talk she was watching from the corner of her eye. Finally, she offered a cup of tea, and Annie accepted gratefully. Left to herself in the cavernous living room for a moment, Annie stood at the window and watched the fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky on the horizon. Another beautiful spring day. She fancied she could even see as far as the bulky shapes of the Pennines far in the distance.

  Around the same time Mrs. Toth returned with the tray, the front door opened and shut and a young woman walked in wearing a supermarket shift, which she immediately took off and threw over a chair. “Claire!” said her mother. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Hang up your coat.”

  Claire gave Annie a long-suffering look and did as she was told. Annie had never seen her before, so she hadn’t really known what to expect. Claire took a packet of Dunhill out of her handbag and lit one with a Bic lighter. Her dirty-blond hair was tied back and she was wearing jeans and a white men’s-style shirt. It wasn’t hard to see that she was overweight: the jeans tight on her, flesh bulging at the hips and waist; and her makeup-free complexion was bad—pasty and spotty chipmunk cheeks, teeth stained yellow from nicotine. She certainly didn’t resemble the slight figure of Mary whom Mel Danvers had seen at Mapston Hall. She was also too young, but as Banks had pointed out, Mel Danvers could have been wrong about the age. Claire certainly seemed old before her time in some of her mannerisms.

  As soon as Claire had got the cigarette going she poured herself a glass of wine, without offering any to Annie. Not that she wanted any. Tea was fine.

  Mrs. Toth placed herself on an armchair in the corner, and her cup clinked on her saucer every now and then as she took a sip. Daily Cooks continued quietly in the background.

  “What do you want?” Claire asked. “Mum told me you’re from the police.”

  “Have you been following the news?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t really bother.”

  “Only Lucy Payne was killed the other day.”

  Claire paused, the glass inches from her lips. “She…? But I thought she was in a wheelchair?”

 
“She was.”

  Claire sipped some wine, took a drag on her cigarette and shrugged. “Well, what do you expect me to say? That I’m sorry?”

  “Are you?”

  “No way. Do you know what that woman did?”

  “I know,” said Annie.

  “And you lot just let her go.”

  “We didn’t just let her go, Claire,” Annie tried to explain.

  “You did. They said there wasn’t enough evidence. After what she did. Not enough evidence. Can you believe that?”

  “There was no way she could ever harm anyone else, wherever she was,” Annie said. “She couldn’t move a muscle.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point, then?”

  “An eye for an eye. She shouldn’t have been allowed to live.”

  “But we don’t have the death penalty in England anymore.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Terence Payne?”

  A shadow flitted in the back of Claire’s eyes. “Yes, him.”

  “Yes, he’s dead.”

  “Well, then?” Claire stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and drank some more wine. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Claire’s on the checkout at the local supermarket,” said her mother. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, Mother.” Claire stared defiantly at Annie.

  There was nothing to say to that. You could hardly say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” It was a job, and an honest one at that, but Annie felt sad for her. According to all accounts, Claire had been a bright, pretty young girl of fifteen with a good future: GCSEs, A levels, university, a professional career, but something had happened to put paid to all that: Terence and Lucy Payne. Now she had grossly underachieved and she hated her body. Annie had seen the signs before. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find the scars of self-administered burns and cuts under the long sleeves of Claire’s shirt. She wondered if she had been getting psychiatric help, but realized it was none of her business. She wasn’t here as a social worker; she was here for information about a murder.

  “Did you know Lucy Payne at all?”

  “I’d seen her around, at the shops, like. Everyone knew who she was. The teacher’s wife.”

  “But you never talked to her?”

  “No. Except to say hello.”

  “Do you know where she was living?” she asked.

  “The last I heard was that there wasn’t enough of a case against her and she was unfit to stand trial, anyway, so you were letting her go.”

  “As I told you,” Annie repeated, “she couldn’t harm anyone ever again. She was in an institution, a place where they take care of people like her.”

  “Murderers?”

  “Quadriplegics.”

  “I suppose they fed her and bathed her and let her watch whatever she wanted on television, didn’t they?”

  “They took care of her,” Annie said. “She couldn’t do anything for herself. Claire, I understand your anger. I know it seems—”

  “Do you? Do you really?” Claire said. She reached for another cigarette and lit it. “I don’t think you do. Look at me. Do you think I don’t know how ugly and unattractive I am? I’ve seen a shrink. I went for years and it didn’t do me a scrap of good at all. I still can’t bear the thought of a boy touching me.” She laughed harshly. “That’s a laugh, isn’t it. As if any boy would want to touch me, the way I look. And all that’s down to Lucy and Terence Payne.” She glared at Annie. “Well, go on, then!”

  “What?”

  “Tell me I don’t look so bad. Tell me with just a dab of makeup and the right clothes I’ll be all right. Like they all do. Like all I need is Trinny and fucking Susannah.”

  As far as Annie was concerned, nobody needed Trinny and Susannah, but that was another matter. Wave after wave of aggression rolled out of Claire, and Annie just didn’t feel equipped to cope with it. Truth be told, she had enough hang-ups of her own eating away at her.

  “Even my dad couldn’t stand it,” Claire said disgustedly, glancing at her mother. “It didn’t take him long to desert the sinking ship. And Kim’s parents moved away right after you let Lucy Payne go. Couldn’t sell their house for years, though. In the end they got practically nothing for it.”

  Mrs. Toth reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes, but said nothing. Annie was beginning to feel oppressed by the weight of sadness and loss in the room. Irrationally, she found herself picturing Eric in her mind’s eye for a split second and felt like throttling him. It was all too much for her; her chest felt tight and she was having difficulty breathing. It was too hot in there. Get a grip, Annie, she told herself. Get a bloody grip. Control.

  “So you didn’t know where Lucy was?” Annie asked Claire.

  “Obviously not, or I’d have probably strangled her myself.”

  “What makes you think she was strangled?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. Why? Does it matter?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Where was she?”

  “As I told you, she was in a home. It was near Whitby.”

  “A home at the seaside. How nice. I haven’t been to the seaside since I was a kid. I suppose she had a nice view?”

  “Have you ever been to Whitby?”

  “No. We always used to go to Blackpool. Or Llandudno.”

  “Do you drive a car?”

  “Never learned, did I? No point.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can walk to work and back. Where else would I go?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Annie. “Out with friends, maybe?”

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  “Surely there must be someone?”

  “I used to go and see Maggie up the road, but she went away, too.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Back to Canada, I suppose. I don’t know. She wasn’t going to stay around here after what happened, was she?”

  “Did you ever write to one another?”

  “No.”

  “But she was your friend, wasn’t she?”

  “She was her friend.”

  There didn’t seem much that Annie could say to that. “Do you know where she went in Canada?”

  “Ask the Everetts. Ruth and Charles. It’s their house she was living in, and they’re her friends.”

  “Thanks,” said Annie, “I will.”

  “I never went back to school, you know,” Claire said.

  “What?”

  “After…you know…Kim. I just couldn’t face going back. I suppose I could have done my exams, maybe gone to university, but…none of it seemed to matter somehow.”

  “And now?”

  “Well, I’ve got a job. Me and mum are all right, aren’t we?”

  Mrs. Toth smiled.

  Annie could think of nothing else to ask, and she couldn’t stand being in the room for a moment longer. “Look,” she said to Claire as she stood up and reached for her briefcase, “if you think of anything that might help…” She handed her a card.

  “Help with what exactly?”

  “I’m investigating Lucy Payne’s murder.”

  Claire’s brow furrowed. She ripped the card in pieces and scattered them on the floor. “When hell freezes over,” she said, folding her arms.

  THE OPEN-AIR café below Malcolm Austin’s window seemed a reasonable place for a second interview with Stuart Kinsey, Banks thought, as he and Winsome settled down at the flimsy fold-up chairs and rickety table under the shade of a budding plane tree. And as they had found him in the department library working on an essay, it was a short trip for everyone. It was still a bit chilly to sit outside for long, and Banks was glad of his leather jacket. Every now and then a breeze rattled the branches of the tree and ruffled the surface of Banks’s coffee.

  “What is it you want now?” Kinsey asked. “I’ve already told you what I know.”

  “That wa
sn’t very much, was it?” Winsome said.

  “I can’t help it, can I? I feel awful enough as it is, knowing I was there, so close…”

  “What could you have done?” Banks asked.

  “I…I don’t—”

  “Nothing,” said Banks. It probably wasn’t strictly true. If Kinsey had arrived in Taylor’s Yard at the same time the killer was assaulting Hayley, he might have interrupted things, and the killer might have fled, leaving her alive. But what was the point in letting him believe that? “You had no idea what was going on,” he said, “and besides, it was all over by then. Stop whipping yourself.”

  Kinsey said nothing for a few moments, just stared down into his coffee.

  “How fond of Hayley were you?” Banks asked.

  Kinsey looked at him. He had an angry red spot beside his mouth. “Why are you asking me that? Do you still believe I’d hurt her?”

  “Calm down,” Banks said. “Nobody’s saying that. You told us the last time we talked to you that you fancied Hayley, but that she didn’t reciprocate.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m just wondering how that made you feel.”

  “How it made me feel? How do you think it made me feel? How does it make you feel when someone you want so much you can’t even sleep doesn’t so much as acknowledge your existence?”

  “Surely it wasn’t as bad as that?” Banks said. “You hung out with Hayley, you saw plenty of her, went to the pictures and so on.”

  “Yeah, but mostly the whole crew was around. It was rare we were together, just me and her.”

  “You had conversations. You admitted you even kissed her once.”

  Kinsey gave Banks a withering glance. He felt he probably deserved it. Conversation and a couple of friendly kisses weren’t much compensation when you were walking around with a hard-on that took up so much skin you couldn’t close your eyes.

  “Stuart, you’re the only person we can place at the scene of the crime at the right time,” said Winsome, in as matter-of-fact and reasonable a voice as she could manage. “And you’ve got the motive, too: your unrequited infatuation with Hayley. We need some answers.”

  “Means, motive and opportunity. How bloody convenient for you. How many more times do I have to tell you that I didn’t do it? For all the frustrations, I cared about Hayley, and I don’t think I could ever kill anyone. I’m a fucking pacifist, for crying out loud. A poet.”