Cole said sharply, "And as far as we're concerned she's not doing it again.”
Maynard nodded. He’d hit a nerve. He said, “The fine line between eliciting an admission and entrapment.”
“I know the difference," she said evasively. “Inspector Wooderson has already pointed it out. It’s done with now so it doesn’t matter.” Cole ground out his cigarette. “Let’s have some background, Geoff. The original sheets leave a lot of holes.”
Maynard paused for a moment while the past flooded back and once again he was looking for links to that mysterious agent that tipped a man toward insanity. He said, “An only child. Until national service his father was a local-authority driver who spent most of his time down the bookies or in the local. When he was posted away John and his mother were left sharing a council-house in South London with another, equally impoverished family. But his mother was the driving force whether his father was there or not and they formed an intense attachment. His father was posted to Cyprus and eventually they joined him there. In the military school in Nicosia Lawrence proved to be an average student, and the only thing that stood him out was his unwillingness or inability to make friends. Classmates and teachers that we traced all mentioned that he was shy and very much a loner.” Maynard smiled and for a moment came back from the past. “It’s become something of a cliche, hasn’t it? Find me the loner and I’ll show you next year’s problem.” He nodded and continued, “He went through his school life without a girlfriend. A-level results earned him a university place. But let’s go back to Cyprus. He was eight when his brother arrived. Massive complications during the pregnancy resulted in his mother coming back to the UK where she was hospitalized for some months. Even after the birth mother and baby were in and out of hospital and this is the first indication we have that the relationship between Lawrence and his mother was under pressure. With children, perceived rejection is even stronger than jealousy. In Lawrence’s case I’m pretty certain that this perceived rejection lit the fuse. Despite two major operations to correct a congenital heart condition, his brother died at the age of two. His mother never got over it. Alcohol, liver disease, premature death at thirty-nine. John was nineteen.” Maynard looked from Anian to Cole, waiting for a response. It was too equivocal for Cole. He shook his head and murmured, “What else?”
“Nothing else. The trauma’s never left.”
Anian’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “I don’t buy it. You don’t go attacking people because of childhood rejection.”
“Some people do. There’s not enough weight given to rejection at a certain age. Think of the crimes of passion in the adult world. The suicides. There is nothing more devastating than rejection.” Cole lit another JPS and through smoke asked, “What became of his father?”
Maynard nodded. “Good question. He left the forces on compassionate grounds, obviously, and a couple of years after Lawrence’s mother died he married again. This was in the mid-sixties when Lawrence was at university. After that they met only a handful of times. His father, complete with new family, emigrated to Australia. He came back for the trial and there were a couple of photographs taken outside the Bailey but that was about it.”
Cole said, “Earlier you mentioned Jesus Christ. What were you getting at?”
“We were discussing motives. I was convinced there was a religious connection.”
“Knifing women?”
“Pregnant women. I was thinking about the massacre of the innocents, one of Herod’s moments of infanticide – and there were many. But that was to do with the death of male children and when Lawrence carried out his attacks he couldn’t have known the sex of the unborn child. Even if he had the medical records back in seventy-six sexing was not the general rule. Even then, he was clever enough to have made the distinction.”
Cole said, “So, you've changed your mind?”
“I still think there's a religious connection.”
“So, religion. What else?”
“Sex, obviously, and its result, pregnancy, and then the slaughter.” Cole said, “But against the child, not the woman?”
“That’s where I was going. But it was a long time ago.” He turned to Anian. “If you meet him again, don’t mention you’re pregnant.” “I'm not.”
“Don't mention it anyway."
She laughed. Then realized Maynard was serious.
Cole said pointedly, “She’s not going to meet him again, Geoff.” Maynard watched them, fascinated by the strange chemistry of attracting opposites.
Cole continued, “She’s going to stay right out of the way.” Maynard smiled as though he knew something that Cole did not. “Of course she is,” he murmured. “It was just speculation.” He glanced again at Anian and in that fleeting exchange, her tell-tale eyes betrayed her.
Geoff Maynard hoped that he was mistaken and that she had indeed called a halt to the sittings, for he knew without a doubt that she wouldn’t stand a chance with Mr John Lawrence.
Chapter 21
Before he slept Cole thought about the woman. He wondered whether there was any truth in the rumour that she had kept Jack Wooderson busy for a few months. Perhaps it was the ambiguity that he found so unsettling, the element of uncertainty, that she could be frivolous and irresponsible and yet, a moment later, quite cold and relentless. Somewhere there, lay the appeal.
In the next room where the windows and curtains were fully opened, where the lights from the traffic came in with the chilled air and skirted over the flower-patterned wallpaper – a reminder that Cole had once been married – Geoff Maynard was thinking about another woman If indeed it was a woman.
She's new in town, he thought, she had to be, and yet her knowledge of the area indicated otherwise. But people didn’t recognize her and, what was more, she had no fear of confrontation with the competition. So if she was local could it mean…
Maynard’s frown became almost painful.
…that she was dressed as the tom no one recognized!
Belle de Jour?
In this case the shrinking violet dressed up like a temptress? Able to go so far but no further and then, out of frustration, attacking the person she actually wanted to be.
Could this be something as simple or as complex as genophobia? Maynard tried to shake the thought from his head.
Start again. People don't start this way. They start in little ways and while they are learning they leave behind a little form. The learning curve. Antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, minor infringements that carried nothing more than a warning. So where did she come from? Where was she staying? The answer lay in the Square, on that kerb of crawlers.
Maynard found sleep difficult at the best of times, but during a case it was almost impossible. He worried it until it was done. That was why after HOPE he had given it up and gone back to therapy. Interaction was where it mattered, where you could rebuild a shattered life. The people who shattered the lives came at you like waves on a spring tide and like Cole had said earlier, he wasn’t King Canute. You could get one or two but there would always be more stacking up behind. They rolled in, wave after wave, bringing with them acts of depravity and wickedness that the civvies – the good citizens of this green and pleasant land – could not even imagine.
We see things that no one should see. We hear things that no one should hear.
Coming back was personal, nothing to do with Cole or Baxter or the closure of HOPE, his old department. If Cole knew why he had come back he would have laughed out loud. Everyone had secrets. Didn’t they just? This wasn’t about the challenge. This was about selfharm. The dawn stole in from an overcast sky and set the day. Sam Butler was well aware that time was running out. What had seemed like crucial breakthroughs were simply not delivering and a sense of panic gnawed at his gut. He said, “They've held on to it since seventy-six?” Anian shrugged and bony shoulders ridged her thin shirt. “It was high profile. And they still use it at Hendon. It was quoted verbatim in one of those true-crime books called…”