Aftermath

“Are you sure there’s nothing else?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re not jealous of anyone, are you?”

“Jealous? Of whom? Why should I be?”

“Je

“Oh, for crying out loud, Alan. No, I’m not jealous of Je

“That’s not true. Not anymore.” But Banks remembered the letter, his feelings when he read the cold, business-like words. “Is there someone else? Is that it?” he went on quickly.

“Alan, there’s nobody else. Believe me. I’ve told you. I don’t have room for anyone in my life right now. I can’t cope with anyone else’s emotional demands.”

“What about sexual demands?”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t have to be emotional, sex, does it? I mean, if it’s too much trouble to sleep with someone who actually cares a bit about you, maybe it’d be easier to pick up some stud in a bar for a quick anonymous fuck. No demands. You don’t even have to tell one another your names. Is that what you want?”

“Alan, I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I’d like you to stop right there.”

Banks rubbed his temples. “I’m just upset, A

“I’m sorry about that. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

He looked her in the eye. “Then don’t. No matter who you get involved with, you’ll have to face things you want to avoid.”

He noticed the tears in her eyes. The only time he’d seen her cry before was when she told him about her rape. He reached out to touch her hand on the table, but she jerked it away. “No. Don’t.”

“A

“No.”

She stood up so abruptly that she banged the table hard and her drink spilled right on to Banks’s lap, then she ran out of the pub before he could say another word. All he could do was sit there feeling the cold liquid seep through his trousers, aware of everyone’s eyes on him, thankful only that they hadn’t been in the Queen’s Arms, where everyone knew him. And he’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse.

17

After taking her last tutorial group and clearing up some paperwork, Je

After talking to Keith Murray – if he agreed to talk to her – Je

She still wasn’t certain whether The Girlfriend had been jealous when she came over to them in the Queen’s Arms. She must certainly have seen Banks touch Je

A white van sped by on her outside lane just as she was turning off, and still lost in thought, she almost hit it. Luckily, instinct kicked in and she had time to swing back abruptly into her own lane without causing anyone else great distress, but she missed the turnoff she wanted. She honked her horn and cursed him out loud – impotent gestures, but all she could come up with – and drove on to the next junction.

When she had got off the A1, she switched the radio cha

Durham was on odd sort of place, Je

She had found from her map that Keith Murray lived out by the university sports grounds, so she was able to bypass the central maze around the cathedral and colleges, the city’s main tourist area. Even so, she still managed to get lost on a couple of occasions. There was a chance that Keith might be out at lectures, Je

She pulled over into a small car park in front of some shops and consulted the map again. Not far away now. She just had to watch out for the one-way streets or she would end up back where she started.

On the second try, she got it right and pulled off the arterial road into an area of narrow streets. She was concentrating so much on finding the right street and the right house number that she almost didn’t see the car she parked behind until the last moment. When she did, her heart jumped into her throat. It was a blue Citroën.

Je

What should she do? Go ahead anyway? If the Citroën belonged to Keith Murray, what had he been doing at Alderthorpe and Spurn Head, and why had he followed her? Was he dangerous?

As Je

Well, she thought, you’ve well and truly done it now, this time, haven’t you, Je

There were no new developments at Millgarth, according to Ken Blackstone on the phone that morning. The SOCOs were getting to the point where there wasn’t much left of the Payne house to take apart. Both gardens had been dug up to a depth of between six and ten feet and searched in a grid system. The concrete floors in the cellar and the garage had been ripped up by pneumatic drills. Almost a thousand exhibits had been bagged and labeled. The entire contents of the house had been stripped and taken away. The walls had been punched open at regular intervals. In addition to the crime scene specialists going over all the collected material, forensic mechanics had taken Payne’s car apart looking for traces of the abducted girls. Payne might be dead, but a case still had to be answered, and Lucy’s role had still to be determined.