Aftermath (36 page)

‘Lucy’s sister.’

‘Yes. Dianne Murray, the second eldest child was curled up safe and sound in a room with her brother Keith, but their sister, Susan, was sandwiched between the other two adults.’ He swallowed. ‘The place was a pigsty – both of them were – smelled terrible. Someone had knocked a hole through the living-room wall so they could travel back and forth without going outside and being seen.’ He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘It’s hard to get across the sense of squalor, of depravity you could feel there, but it was tangible, something you could touch and taste. I don’t just mean the dirt, the stains, the smells, but more than that. A sort of spiritual squalor, if you catch my drift. Everyone was terrified, of course, especially the kids.’ He shook his head. ‘Sometimes, looking back, I wonder if we couldn’t have done it some other way, some gentler way. I don’t know. Too late for that now, anyroad.’

‘I understand you found evidence of Satanic rituals?’

‘In the cellar of the Godwin house, yes.’

‘What did you find?’

‘The usual. Incense, robes, books, pentagram, an altar – no doubt on which the virgin would be penetrated. Other occult paraphernalia. You know what my theory is?’

‘No. What?’

‘These people weren’t witches or Satanists; they were just sick and cruel perverts. I’m sure they used the Satanism as an excuse to take drugs and dance and chant themselves into a frenzy. All that Satanic rigmarole, the candles, magic circles, robes, music, chanting and whatnot, it was just something to make it all seem like a game to the children. It was just something that played with their minds, like, didn’t let the poor buggers know whether what they were doing was what was supposed to be happening – playing with Mummy and Daddy even if it hurt sometimes and they punished you when you were bad – or something way out, way over the top. It was both, of course. No wonder they couldn’t understand. And all those trappings, they just helped turn it into a kid’s game, ring around the roses, that’s all.’

Satanic paraphernalia had also been found in the Paynes’s cellar. Banks wondered if there was a connection. ‘Did any of them profess any sort of belief in Satan at any time?’

‘Oliver and Pamela tried to confuse the jury with some sort of gobbledygook about the Great Horned God and 666 at their trial, but nobody took a blind bit of notice of them. Trappings, that’s all it were. A kid’s game. Let’s all go down in the cellar and dress up and play.’

‘Where was Lucy?’

‘Locked in a cage – we later found out it was a genuine Morrison shelter left over from the war – in the cellar of the Murray house along with her brother, Tom. It was where you got put if you misbehaved or disobeyed, we found out later. We never did find out what the two of them had done to get put there, though, because they wouldn’t talk.’

‘Wouldn’t or couldn’t?’

‘Wouldn’t. They wouldn’t talk out against the adults, their parents. They’d been abused and messed up in their minds too long to dare put it into words.’ He paused a moment. ‘Sometimes, I don’t think they could have expressed it all anyway, no matter how much they tried. I mean, where does a nine-year-old or an eleven-year-old find the language and points of reference she needs to explain something like that? They weren’t just protecting their parents or shutting up in fear of them – it went deeper than that. Anyway, Tom and Linda . . . They were both naked and dirty, crawling in their own filth, looked as if they hadn’t eaten for a couple of days – I mean, most of the children were malnourished and neglected, but they were worse. There was a bucket in the cage, and the smell . . . And Linda, well, she was twelve, and it showed. She was . . . I mean they’d made no provisions for . . . you know . . . time of the month. I’ll never forget the look of shame and fear and defiance on that little kid’s face when Baz and I walked in on them and turned the light on.’

Banks took a sip of Bell’s, waited until it had burned all the way down, then asked, ‘What did you do?’

‘First off, we found some blankets for them, as much for warmth’s sake as modesty’s, because there wasn’t much heat in the place, either.’

‘After that?’

‘We handed them over to the social workers.’ He gave a little shudder. ‘One of them couldn’t handle it. Well-meaning young lass, thought she was tough, but she didn’t have the stomach.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Went back to the car and wouldn’t get out. Just sat there hunched up, shivering and crying. There was no one to pay her much mind as we all had our hands full. Me and Baz were mostly occupied with the adults.’

‘Did they have much to say?’

‘Nah. Surly lot. And Pamela Godwin – well there was clearly summat wrong with her. In the head. She didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. Kept on smiling and asking us if we wanted a cup of tea. Her husband, though, Michael, I’ll never forget him. Greasy hair, straggly beard and that look in his dark eyes. You ever seen pictures of that American killer, Charles Manson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like him. That’s who Michael Godwin reminded me of: Charles Manson.’

‘What did you do with them?’

‘We arrested them all under the Protection of Children Act, to be going on with. They resisted arrest, of course. Picked up a few lumps and bruises.’ He gave Banks a challenge-me-on-that-one-if-you-dare look. Banks didn’t. ‘Later, of course, we came up with a list of charges as long as your arm.’

‘Including murder.’

‘That was later, after we found Kathleen Murray’s body.’

‘When did you find her?’

‘Later that day.’

‘Where?’

‘Out back in an old sack in the dustbin. I reckon they’d dumped her there until the ground softened a bit and they could bury her. You could see where someone had tried to dig a hole, but they’d given up, the earth was so hard. She’d been doubled over and been there long enough to freeze solid, so the pathologist had to wait till she thawed out before he could do the post mortem.’

‘Were they all charged?’

‘Yes. We charged all four adults with conspiracy.’

‘And?’

‘They were all committed for trial. Michael Godwin topped himself in his cell, and Pamela was found unfit to stand trial. The jury convicted the other two after a morning’s deliberation.’

‘What evidence did you have?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Could anyone else have killed Kathleen?’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. One of the other kids, maybe?’

Woodward’s jaw tightened. ‘You didn’t see them,’ he said. ‘If you had, you wouldn’t be making suggestions like that.’

‘Did anyone suggest it at the time?’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Believe it or not, yes. The adults had the gall to try and pin it on the boy, Tom. But nobody fell for that one, thank the Lord.’

‘What about the evidence? How was she killed, for example?’

‘Ligature strangulation.’

Banks held his breath. Another coincidence. ‘With what?’

Woodward smiled as if laying down his trump card. ‘Oliver Murray’s belt. The pathologist matched it to the wound. He also found traces of Murray’s semen in the girl’s vagina and anus, not to mention unusual tearing. It looks as if they went too far that once. Maybe she was bleeding to death, I don’t know, but they killed her –
he
killed her, with the knowledge and consent of the others, maybe even with their help, I don’t know.’

‘How did they plead? The Murrays?’

‘What would you expect? Not guilty.’

‘They never confessed?’

‘No. People like that never do. They don’t even think they’ve done anything wrong, they’re so beyond the law, beyond what’s normal for the rest of us folks. In the end, they got less than they deserved, in that they’re still alive, but at least they’re still locked up, out of harm’s way. And that, Mr Banks, is the story of the Alderthorpe Seven.’ Woodward put his palms on the table and stood up. He seemed less dapper and more weary than when Banks had first arrived. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got the rooms to do before the missus comes back.’

It seemed like an odd time to be doing the rooms, Banks thought, especially as they were all probably vacant, but he sensed that Woodward had had enough, wanted to be alone and wanted, if he could, to get rid of the bad taste of his memories before his wife came home. Good luck to him. Banks couldn’t think of anything more to ask, so he said his goodbyes, buttoned up and walked out into the rain. He could have sworn he felt a few lumps of hail stinging his bare head before he got into his car.

•

Maggie began to have doubts the moment she got in the taxi to the local television studio. Truth be told, she had been vacillating ever since she first got the call early that afternoon inviting her to participate in a discussion on domestic violence on the evening magazine show at six o’clock, after the news. A researcher had seen the article in the newspaper and thought Maggie would make a valuable guest. This was not about Terence and Lucy Payne, the researcher had stressed, and their deeds were not to be discussed. It was an odd legal situation, she explained, that no one had yet been charged with the murders of the girls, and the main suspect was dead, but not proven guilty. Could you charge a dead man with murder? Maggie wondered.

As the taxi wound down Canal Road, over the bridge and under the viaduct to Kirkstall Road, where the rush-hour traffic was slow and heavy, Maggie felt the butterflies begin to flutter in her stomach. She remembered the newspaper article, how Lorraine Temple had twisted everything, and wondered again if she was doing the right thing or if she was simply walking back into the lions’ den.

But she
did
have very good, strong reasons for doing it, she assured herself. In the first place, she wanted to atone for, even correct, the image the newspaper had given of Lucy Payne as being evil and manipulative, if she could slip it in somehow. Lucy was a
victim
, and the public should be made to realize that. Secondly, she wanted to rid herself of the mousy, nervous image Lorraine Temple had lumbered her with, both for her own sake and in order to get people to take her seriously. She didn’t like being thought of as mousy and nervous, and she was damn well going to do something about it.

Finally, and this was the reason that pushed her to say yes, was the way that policeman, Banks, had come to the house shouting at her, insulting her intelligence and telling her what she could and couldn’t do.
Damn him
. She’d show him. She’d show them all. She was feeling empowered now, and if it was her lot to become a spokeswoman for battered wives, then so be it; she was up to the task. Lorraine Temple had let the cat out of the bag about her past, anyway, so there was nothing more to hide; she might as well speak out and hope she could do some good for others in her position. No more mousy and nervous.

Julia Ford had phoned her that afternoon to tell her that Lucy was being detained in Eastvale for further questioning and would probably be kept there overnight. Maggie was outraged. What had Lucy done to deserve such treatment? Something was very much out of kilter in the whole business.

Maggie paid the taxi driver and kept the receipt. The TV people would reimburse her, they had said. She introduced herself at reception and the woman behind the desk called the researcher, Tina Driscoll, who turned out to be a cheerful slip of a lass in her early twenties with short bleached blonde hair and pale skin stretched tight over her high cheekbones. Like most of the other people Maggie saw as she followed Tina through the obligatory television studio maze, she was dressed in jeans and a white blouse.

‘You’re on after the poodle groomer,’ Tina said, glancing at her watch. ‘Should be about twenty past. Here’s makeup.’

Tina ushered Maggie into a tiny room with chairs and mirrors and a whole array of powders, brushes and potions. ‘Just here, love, that’s right,’ said the make-up artist, who introduced herself as Charley. ‘Won’t take a minute.’ And she started dabbing and brushing away at Maggie’s face. Finally, satisfied with the result, she said, ‘Drop by when you’ve finished and I’ll wipe it off in a jiffy.’

Maggie didn’t see a great deal of difference, though she knew from her previous television experience that the studio lighting and cameras would pick up the subtle nuances. ‘David will be conducting the interview,’ said Tina, consulting her clipboard on their way to the green room. ‘David’, Maggie knew, was David Hartford, half of the male-female team that hosted the programme. The woman was called Emma Larson, and Maggie had been hoping that
she
would have been asking the questions. Emma had always come across as sympathetic on women’s issues, but David Hartford, Maggie thought, had a cynical and derogatory tone to his questioning of anyone who was passionate about anything. He was also known to be provocative. Still, the way Maggie was feeling, she was quite willing to be provoked.

Maggie’s fellow guests were waiting in the green room: the grave, bearded Dr James Bletchley, from the local hospital, DC Kathy Proctor of the domestic violence unit, and Michael Groves, a rather shaggy-looking social worker. Maggie realized she was the only ‘victim’ on the programme, Well, so be it. She could tell them what it was like to be on the receiving end.

They all introduced themselves and then a sort of nervous silence fell over the room, broken only when the poodle emitted a short yap at the entry of the producer, there to check that everyone was present and accounted for. For the remainder of the wait, Maggie chatted briefly with her fellow guests about things in general and watched the hubbub as people came and went and shouted questions at one another in the corridors outside. Like the other TV studio she had been in, this one also seemed to be in a state of perpetual chaos.

There was a monitor in the room, and they were able to watch the show’s opening, the light banter of David and Emma and a recap of the day’s main local news stories, including the death of a revered councillor, a proposed new roundabout for the city centre and a ‘neighbours from hell’ story from the Poplar Estate. During the commercial break after the poodle groomer, a set worker got them all in position on the armchairs and sofas, designed to give the feel of a cosy, intimate living room, complete with fake fireplace, wired up their mikes and disappeared. David Hartford made himself comfortable, in a position where he could see the guests without having to move too much, and where the cameras would show him to best advantage.