Even so, she stood there for some time, then she walked around the buildings, noting that the back gardens were even more overgrown than the front. An empty clothesline hung suspended between two rusty poles in one of the gardens.
As she was leaving, Jenny almost tripped over something in the undergrowth. At first she thought it was a root, but when she bent down and pulled aside the leaves and twigs, she saw a small teddy bear. It looked so disheveled it could have been out there for years, could even have belonged to one of the Alderthorpe Seven, though Jenny doubted it. The police or the social services would have taken everything like that away, so it had probably been left as a sort of tribute later by a local child. When she picked it up it felt soggy, and a beetle crawled out from a rip in its back on to her hand. Jenny let out a sharp gasp, dropped the teddy bear and headed quickly back to the village. She had intended to knock on a few doors and ask about the Godwins and the Murrays, but Alderthorpe had spooked her so much that she decided instead to head for Easington to talk to Maureen Nesbitt.
“Right, Lucy. Shall we start?”
Banks had turned on the tape recorders and tested them. This time they were in a slightly bigger and more salubrious interview room. In addition to Lucy and Julia Ford, Banks had invited DC Jackman along too, though it wasn’t her case, mostly to get her impressions of Lucy afterward.
“I suppose so,” Lucy said in a resigned, sulky voice. She looked tired and shaken by her night in the cell, Banks thought, even though the cells were the most modern part of the station. The duty officer said she’d asked to have the light left on all night, so she couldn’t have slept much.
“I hope you were comfortable last night,” he asked.
“What do you care?”
“It’s not my intention to cause you discomfort, Lucy.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
Julia Ford tapped her watch. “Can we get on with this, Superintendent Banks?”
Banks paused, then looked at Lucy. “Let’s talk a bit more about your background, shall we?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Julia Ford butted in.
“If you’ll allow me to ask my questions, you might find out.”
“If it distresses my client-”
“Distresses your client! The parents of five young girls are more than distressed.”
“That’s irrelevant,” said Julia. “It’s nothing to do with Lucy.”
Banks ignored the lawyer and turned back to Lucy, who seemed disinterested by the discussion. “Will you describe the cellar at Alderthorpe for me, Lucy?”
“The cellar?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember it?”
“It was just a cellar,” Lucy said. “Dark and cold.”
“Was there anything else down there?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Black candles, incense, a pentagram, robes. Wasn’t there a lot of dancing and chanting down there, Lucy?”
Lucy closed her eyes. “I don’t remember. That wasn’t me. That was Linda.”
“Oh, come on, Lucy. You can do better than that. Why is it that whenever we come to something you don’t want to talk about, you always conveniently lose your memory?”
“Superintendent,” Julia Ford said. “Remember my client has suffered retrograde amnesia due to post-traumatic shock.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. Impressive words.” Banks turned back to Lucy. “You don’t remember going into the cellar at The Hill, and you don’t remember the dancing and chanting in the cellar at Alderthorpe. Do you remember the cage?”
Lucy seemed to draw in on herself.
“Do you?” Banks persisted. “The old Morrison shelter.”
“I remember it,” Lucy whispered. “It was where they put us when we were bad.”
“How were you bad, Lucy?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Why were you in the cage when the police came? You and Tom. What had you done to get yourselves put there?”
“I don’t know. It was never much. You never had to do much. If you didn’t clean your plate – not that there was ever much on it to clean – or if you talked back or said no when they… when they wanted to… It was easy to get locked in the cage.”
“Do you remember Kathleen Murray?”
“I remember Kathleen. She was my cousin.”
“What happened to her?”
“They killed her.”
“Who did?”
“The grown-ups.”
“Why did they kill her?”
“I don’t know. They just… she just died…”
“They said your brother Tom killed her.”
“That’s ridiculous. Tom wouldn’t kill anybody. Tom’s gentle.”
“Do you remember how it happened?”
“I wasn’t there. Just one day they told us Kathleen had gone away and she wouldn’t be coming back. I knew she was dead.”
“How did you know?”
“I just knew. She cried all the time, she said she was going to tell. They always said they’d kill any of us if they thought we were going to tell.”
“Kathleen was strangled, Lucy.”
“Was she?”
“Yes. Just like the girls we found in your cellar. Ligature strangulation. Remember, those yellow fibers we found under you fingernails, along with Kimberley’s blood.”
“Where are you going with this, Superintendent?” Julia Ford asked.
“There are a lot of similarities between the crimes. That’s all.”
“But surely the killers of Kathleen Murray are behind bars?” Julia argued. “It’s got nothing to do with Lucy.”
“She was involved.”
“She was a victim.”
“Always the victim, eh, Lucy? The victim with the bad memory. How does it feel?”
“That’s enough,” said Julia.
“It feels awful,” Lucy said in a small voice.
“What?”
“You asked how it feels, to be a victim with a bad memory. It feels awful. It feels like I have no self, like I’m lost, I have no control, like I don’t count. I can’t even remember the bad things that happened to me.”
“Let me ask you once more, Lucy: Did you ever help your husband to abduct a young girl?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you ever harm any of the girls he brought home?”
“I never knew about them, not until last week.”
“Why did you get up and go down in the cellar on that particular night? Why not on any of the previous occasions when your husband was entertaining a young girl in the cellar of your house?”
“I never heard anything before. He must have drugged me.”
“We found no sleeping tablets in our search of the house, nor do either of you have a prescription for any.”
“He must have got them illegally. He must have run out. That’s why I woke up.”
“Where would he get them?”
“School. There’s all sorts of drugs in schools.”
“Lucy, did you know that your husband was a rapist when you met him?”
“Did I… what?”
“You heard me.” Banks opened the file in front of him. “By our count he had already raped four women we know of before he met you at that pub in Seacroft. Terence Payne was the Seacroft Rapist. His DNA matches that left in the victims.”
“I – I-”
“You don’t know what to say?”
“No.”
“How did you meet him, Lucy? None of your friends remember seeing you talk to him in the pub that night.”
“I told you. I was on my way out. It was a big pub, with lots of rooms. We went into another bar.”
“Why should you be any different, Lucy?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, why didn’t he follow you out into the street and rape you like he did with the others?”
“I don’t know. How should I know?”
“You’ve got to admit it’s strange, though, isn’t it?”
“I told you, I don’t know. He liked me. Loved me.”
“Yet he still continued to rape other young women after he’d met you.” Banks consulted his file again. “At least two more times, according to our account. And they’re only the ones who reported it. Some women don’t report it, you know. Too upset or too ashamed. See, they blame themselves.” Banks thought of Annie Cabbot, and what she’d been through over two years ago.