Aftermath

She would turn forty that coming December, was still single – had never, in fact, been married – and while a bit shop-soiled, battered and bruised, she was far from down and out for the count. She still had her looks and her figure, though she needed more and more magic potions for the former and had to work harder and harder at the university gym to keep those excess pounds from creeping on, given her taste for good food and wine. She also had a good job, a growing reputation as an offender profiler, publications to her credit.

So why did she sometimes feel so empty? Why did she always feel she was in a hurry to get somewhere she never arrived at? Even now, with the rain lashing against her windscreen, the wipers going as fast as they could go, she was doing ninety kilometers per hour. She slowed down to eighty, but her speed soon started creeping up again, along with the feeling that she was late for something, always late for something.

The shower ended. Elgar’s Enigma Variations was playing on Classic FM. To the north, a power station with its huge corset-shaped cooling towers squatted against the horizon, the steam it spewed almost indistinguishable from the low cloud. She was nearing the end of the motorway now. The east-bound M62 was like so many things in life; it left you just short of your destination.

Well, she told herself, she had come back to Yorkshire because she was ru

After a minor breakdown, Je

The M62 turned into the A63, and soon Je

As soon as she could, Je

Lucy’s parents lived off the A164 to Beverley, so she didn’t have to drive through Hull city center. She pressed on through the straggling western suburbs and soon found the residential area she was looking for. Clive and Hilary Liversedge’s house was a nicely maintained bay-window semi in a quiet crescent of similar houses. Not much of a place for a young girl to grow up, Je

A small plump man with a soft gray mustache answered the door. He was wearing a green cardigan, unbuttoned, and dark brown trousers which hugged the underside of his rounded gut. A belt wouldn’t be much good with a shape like that, Je

“Clive Liversedge?”

“Come in, love,” he said. “You must be Dr. Fuller.”

“That’s me.” Je

She could see what Banks meant about the invalid mother. Pale skin and raccoon eyes, Hilary Liversedge reclined on the sofa, a wool blanket covering her lower half. Her arms were thin and the skin looked puckered and loose. She didn’t move when Je

“How is she?” Clive Liversedge asked, as if Lucy had perhaps suffered a minor fall or car accident. “They said it wasn’t serious. Is she doing all right?”

“I saw her this morning,” Je

“Poor lass,” said Hilary. “To think of what she’s been through. Tell her she’s welcome to come here and stay with us when she gets out of hospital.”

“I just came to get some sense of what Lucy’s like,” Je

The Liversedges looked at each other. “Just ordinary,” said Clive.

“Normal,” said Hilary.

Right, thought Je

“What was she like at school?” Je

“Very bright,” answered Clive.

“She got three A-levels. Good marks, too. As and Bs,” added Hilary.

“She could have gone to university,” Clive added.

“Why didn’t she?”

“She didn’t want to,” said Clive. “She wanted to get out in the world and make a living for herself.”

“Is she ambitious?”

“She’s not greedy, if that’s what you mean,” Hilary answered. “Of course she wants to get on in the world like everyone else, but she doesn’t think she needs a university degree to do it. They’re overrated, anyway, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” said Je

“I wouldn’t really say so,” said Hilary. “She did what she had to do in order to pass, but she wasn’t a swot.”

“Was she popular at school?”

“She seemed to get on all right with the other children. We got no complaints from her, at any rate.”

“No bullying, nothing like that?”

“Well, there was one girl, once, but that came to nothing,” said Clive.

“Someone bullying Lucy?”

“No. Someone complaining she was being bullied by Lucy, accused her of demanding money with threats.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. It was just her word against Lucy’s.”

“And you believed Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“So no action was taken?”

“No. They couldn’t prove anything against her.”

“And nothing else like that occurred?”

“No.”

“Did she take part in any after-school activities?”

“She wasn’t much a one for sports, but she was in a couple of school plays. Very good, too, wasn’t she, love?”