At first she thought it was just a porn movie, though why Lucy should be watching something like that and where she had got it from were beyond her, then she noticed the homemade quality, the makeshift lighting. It was some sort of cellar, and there was a girl who appeared to be tied to a bed. A man stood beside her playing with himself and shouting obscenities. Maggie recognized him. A woman lay with her head between the girl’s legs, and in the split second it took Maggie to register all this, the woman turned, licked her lips and grinned mischievously at the camera.
Lucy.
“Oh, no!” Maggie said, turning to Lucy, who was looking at her now with those dark, impenetrable eyes. Maggie put her hand to her mouth. She felt sick. Sick and afraid. She turned to leave but heard a sudden movement behind, then felt a splitting pain at the back of her head, and the world exploded.
The pond was gathering the evening light by the time Banks got there after taking Mick Blair back to Eastvale, making sure Ian Scott and Sarah Francis were under lock and key, and picking up Jenny Fuller on his way out of town. Winsome and Sergeant Hatchley could take care of things at Eastvale until tomorrow morning.
The colors shimmered on the water’s surface like an oil slick, and the ducks, having noticed so much human activity, were keeping a polite and safe distance, and no doubt wondering where the expected chunks of bread had got to. The Panasonic Super 8 camcorder lay, still attached to its tripod, on a piece of cloth on the bank. DS Stefan Nowak and DCI Ken Blackstone had stayed with it until Banks could get there.
“Are you sure it’s the one?” Banks asked Ken Blackstone.
Blackstone nodded. “One of our enterprising young DCs succeeded in tracking down the branch where Payne bought it. He paid cash for it, on the third of March last year. The serial number checks out.”
“Any tapes?”
“One in the camera,” said Stefan. “Ruined.”
“No chance of restoration?”
“All the king’s horses…”
“Only the one? That’s all?”
Stefan nodded. “Believe me, the men went over every inch of the place.” He gestured to take in the area of the pond. “If any tapes had been dumped here, we’d have found them by now.”
“So where are they?” Banks asked nobody in particular.
“If you want my guess,” said Stefan, “I’d say whoever chucked the camcorder in the lake dubbed them on to VHS. There’s some loss of quality, but it’s the only way you can watch them on a regular VCR, without the camcorder.”
Banks nodded. “Makes sense to me. Better take it to Millgarth and lock it up safe in the property room, though what good it’s going to do us now, I don’t know.”
Stefan bent to pick up the camera, wrapping it carefully in the cloth, as if it were a newborn baby. “You never know.”
Banks noticed the pub sign about a hundred yards away: The Woodcutter’s. It was a chain pub, that much he could tell even from a distance, but it was all there was in sight. “It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had my tea yet,” he said to Blackstone and Jenny after Stefan had driven off to Millgarth. “Why don’t we have a drink and toss a few ideas around?”
“You’ll get no objection from me,” said Blackstone.
“Jenny?”
Jenny smiled. “Not much choice, have I? I came in your car, remember? But count me in.”
They were soon settled at a corner table in the almost empty pub, which Banks found to his delight was still serving food. He ordered a beef burger and chips along with a pint of bitter. The jukebox wasn’t so loud that they couldn’t hear themselves talk, but it was loud enough to mask their conversation from any nearby tables.
“So what have we got?” Banks asked when he had his burger in front of him.
“A useless camcorder, by the looks of it,” said Blackstone.
“But what does it mean?”
“It means that someone – Payne, presumably – chucked it away.”
“Why?”
“Search me.”
“Come on, Ken, we can do better than this.”
Blackstone smiled. “Sorry, it’s been a long day for me, too.”
“It’s an interesting question, though,” said Jenny. “Why? And when?”
“Well, it has to have been before PCs Taylor and Morrisey entered the cellar,” said Banks.
“But Payne had a captive, remember,” said Blackstone. “Kimberley Myers. Why on earth would he ditch his camera when he was doing exactly the sort of things we assume he liked to videotape? And what did he do with the dubbed VHS tapes, if Stefan’s right about that?”
“I can’t answer those questions,” Jenny said, “but I can offer another way of looking at them.”
“I think I know what you’re getting at,” said Banks.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh. Lucy Payne.” He took a bite of his beef burger. Not bad, he thought, but he was so hungry he would have eaten just about anything by then.
Jenny nodded slowly. “Why have we still been assuming that this video business was all down to Terence Payne when we’ve been investigating Lucy as a possible partner in crime all along? Especially after what Laura and Keith told me about Lucy’s past, and what that young prostitute told Alan about her sexual proclivities. I mean, doesn’t it make sense, psychologically, that she was just as involved as he was? Remember, the girls were killed in exactly the same way as Kathleen Murray: ligature strangulation.”
“Are you saying that she killed them?” Blackstone asked.
“Not necessarily. But if what Keith and Laura say is true, then Lucy might have seen herself acting as a deliverer, the way it appears she did with Kathleen.”
“A mercy killing? But you said earlier she killed Kathleen out of jealousy.”
“I said that jealousy certainly could have been a motive. One that her sister Laura didn’t want to believe. But Lucy’s motives could have been mixed. Nothing’s simple in a personality like hers.”
“But why?” Blackstone went on. “Even if it was her, why would she throw away the camera?”
Banks speared a chip and thought for a moment before answering: “Lucy’s terrified of jail. If she thought there was any chance of imminent capture – and it must have entered her mind after the first police visit and the connection between Kimberley Myers and Silverhill school – then might she not start making plans for self-preservation?”
“It all seems a bit far-fetched to me.”
“Not to me, Ken,” said Banks. “Look at it from Lucy’s point of view. She’s not stupid. Brighter than her husband, I’d say. Terence Payne kidnaps Kimberley Myers that Friday night – he’s out of control, becoming disorganized – but Lucy’s still organized, she sees the end coming fast. First thing she does is get rid of as much evidence as possible, including the camcorder. Maybe that’s what sets Terry against her, causes the row. Obviously she has no way of knowing that it will end the way it does, at the time it does, so she has to improvise, see which way the wind’s blowing. If we find any traces of her being in the cellar-”
“Which we do.”
“Which we do,” Banks agreed, “then she’s got a believable explanation for that, too. She heard a noise and went to investigate, and surprise, surprise, look what she found. The fact that her husband clobbers her with a vase only helps her case.”
“And the tapes?”
“She wouldn’t throw them away,” Jenny answered. “Not if they were a record of what she – of what they – had done. The camera’s nothing, merely a means to an end. You can buy another camera. But those tapes would be more valuable than diamonds to the Paynes because they’re unique and they can’t be replaced. They’re her trophies. She could watch them over and over again and relive those moments with the victims in the cellar. It’s the next best thing to the reality for her. She wouldn’t throw them away.”