Aftermath (45 page)

After the chaos of the weekend, the police station was back to its normal level of activity; the reporters had disappeared, just as Lucy Payne had. Banks wasn’t overly concerned about Lucy going missing, he thought as he closed his office door and turned on the radio. She would probably turn up again, and even if she didn’t, there was no real cause for concern. Not unless they came up with some concrete evidence against her. At least in the meantime, they could keep track of her through ATM withdrawals and credit card transactions. No matter where she was, she would need money.

After he had finished the paperwork, Banks went into the squad room. DC Winsome Jackman was sitting at her desk chewing on the end of a pencil.

‘Winsome,’ he said, remembering one of the details that had awoken him so early in the morning, ‘I’ve got another job for you.’

And when he’d told her what he wanted her to do, he left by the back exit and set off for Leeds.

•

It was just after lunch when Annie entered the CPS offices, though she hadn’t managed to grab a bite to eat herself yet. The Crown solicitor appointed to the case, Jack Whitaker, turned out to be younger than she had expected, late twenties or early thirties, she guessed, prematurely balding, and he spoke with a slight lisp. His handshake was firm, his palm just a little damp. His office was certainly far tidier than Stafford Oakes’s in Eastvale, where every file was out of place and stained with an Olympic symbol of coffee rings.

‘Any new developments?’ he asked after Annie had sat down.

‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘PC Taylor changed her statement this morning.’

‘May I?’

Annie handed him Janet Taylor’s revised statement, and Whitaker read it over. When he’d finished, he slid the papers over the desk back towards Annie. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘I think,’ Jack Whitaker said slowly, ‘that we might be charging Janet Taylor with murder.’

‘What?’ Annie couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. ‘She acted as a policewoman in pursuit of her duty. I was thinking justifiable homicide, or at the very most, excusable. But
murder
?’

Whitaker sighed. ‘Oh dear. I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news then?’

‘What news?’ Annie hadn’t turned on the radio when she drove down to Leeds, being far too preoccupied with Janet’s case and her confused feelings about Banks to concentrate on news or chat.

‘The jury came back on the John Hadleigh case just before lunch. You know, the Devon farmer.’

‘I know about the Hadleigh case. What was the verdict?’

‘Guilty of murder.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Annie. ‘But even so, surely that’s different entirely? I mean, Hadleigh was a civilian. He shot a burglar in the back. Janet Taylor—’

Whitaker held his hand up. ‘The point is that it’s a clear message. Given the Hadleigh verdict, we have to be
seen
to be acting fairly towards everyone. We can’t afford to have the press screaming at us for going easy on Janet Taylor just because she’s a policewoman.’

‘So is it political?’

‘Isn’t it always? Justice must be seen to be done.’

‘Justice?’

Whitaker raised his eyebrows. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I can understand your sympathies, believe me, I can. But according to her statement, Janet Taylor handcuffed Terence Payne to a metal pipe
after
she had already subdued him, then she hit him twice with her baton. Hard. Think about it, Annie. That’s deliberate. That’s murder.’

‘She didn’t necessarily mean to kill him. There was no intent.’

‘That’s for a jury to decide. A good prosecutor could argue that she knew damn well what the effect of two more hard blows to the head would be after she’d already given him seven previous blows.’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Annie said.

‘No one’s sorrier than I am,’ said Whitaker.

‘Except Janet Taylor.’

‘Then she shouldn’t have killed Terence Payne.’

‘What the hell do you know? You weren’t there, in that cellar, with your partner bleeding to death on the floor, a dead girl staked out on a mattress. You didn’t have just seconds to react to a man coming at you with a machete. This is a bloody farce! It’s politics, is all it is.’

‘Calm down, Annie,’ said Whitaker.

Annie stood up and paced, arms folded. ‘Why should I? I don’t feel calm. This woman has been going through hell.
I
provoked her into changing her statement because I thought it would go better for her in the long run than saying she couldn’t remember. How does this make me look?’

‘Is that all you’re concerned about? How it makes you look?’

‘Of course it’s not.’ Annie lowered herself slowly back into the chair. She still felt flushed and angry, her breath coming in sharp gasps. ‘But it makes me look like a liar. It makes it look as if I tricked her. I don’t like that.’

‘You were only doing your job.’

‘Only doing my job. Only obeying orders. Right. Thanks. That makes me feel a whole lot better.’

‘Look, we might be able to get a bit of leeway here, Annie, but there’ll have to be a trial. It’ll all have to be a matter of public record. Above board. There’ll be no sweeping it under the table.’

‘That’s not what I had in mind, anyway. What leeway?’

‘I don’t suppose Janet Taylor would plead guilty to murder.’

‘Damn right she wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t advise her to.’

‘It’s not exactly a matter of
advising
. Besides, that’s not your job. What do you think she
would
plead guilty to?’

‘Excusable homicide.’

‘It wasn’t self-defence. Not when she crossed the line and delivered those final blows
after
Payne was rendered incapable of defending himself or of attacking her further.’

‘What, then?’

‘Voluntary manslaughter.’

‘How long would she have to serve?’

‘Between eighteen months and three years.’

‘That’s still a long time, especially for a copper in jail.’

‘Not as long as John Hadleigh.’

‘Hadleigh shot a kid in the back with a shotgun.’

‘Janet Taylor beat a defenceless man about the head with a police baton, causing his death.’

‘He was a serial killer.’

‘She didn’t know that at the time.’

‘But he came at her with a machete!’

‘And after she’d disarmed him, she used more force than necessary to subdue him, causing his death. Annie, it doesn’t matter that he was a serial killer. It wouldn’t matter if he’d been Jack the bloody Ripper.’

‘He’d cut her partner. She was upset.’

‘Well I’m certainly glad to hear she wasn’t calm, cool and collected when she did it.’

‘You know what I mean. There’s no need for sarcasm.’

‘Sorry. I’m sure the judge and jury will take the whole picture into account, her state of mind.’

Annie sighed. She felt sick. As soon as this farce was over she was getting the hell out of Complaints and Discipline, back to real police work, catching the villains.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘What next?’

‘You know what next, Annie. Find Janet Taylor. Arrest her, take her to the police station and charge her with voluntary manslaughter.’

•

‘Someone asking to see you, sir.’

Why was the fresh-faced PC who popped his head around the door of Banks’s temporary office at Millgarth smirking? Banks wondered. ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘You’d better see for yourself, sir.’

‘Can’t someone else deal with it?’

‘She specifically asked to see someone in charge of the missing girls case, sir. Area Commander Hartnell’s in Wakefield with the ACC, and DCI Blackstone’s out. That leaves you, sir.’

Banks sighed. ‘All right. Show her in.’

The PC smirked again and disappeared, leaving a distinct sense of smirk still in the air rather like the Cheshire cat’s smile. A few moments later, Banks saw why.

She tapped very softly on his door and pushed it open so slowly that it creaked on its hinges, then she appeared before him. All five foot nothing of her. She was anorexically thin, and the harsh red of her lipstick and nail polish contrasted with the almost translucent paleness of her skin; her delicate features looked as if they were made out of porcelain carefully glued or painted on her moon-shaped face. Clutching a gold lamé handbag, she was wearing a bright green cropped top, which stopped abruptly just below her breasts – no more than goose pimples despite the push-up bra – and showed a stretch of pale, bare midriff and a belly-button ring, below which came a black PVC micro-skirt. She wore no tights and her pale thin legs stretched bare down to the knee-high and chunky platform heels that made her walk as if she were on stilts. Her expression showed fear and nervousness as her astonishingly lovely cobalt blue eyes roved restlessly about the stark office.

Banks would have put her down for a heroin-addicted prostitute, but he could see no needle tracks on her arms. That didn’t mean she wasn’t addicted to
something
, and it certainly didn’t mean that she
wasn’t
a prostitute. There are more ways of getting drugs into your system than through a needle. Something about her reminded him of Chief Constable Riddle’s daughter, Emily, but it quickly passed. She bore more resemblance to the famous heroin-chic models of a few years ago.

‘Are you the one?’ she asked.

‘What one?’

‘The one in charge. I asked for the one in charge.’

‘That’s me. For my sins,’ said Banks.

‘What?’

‘Never mind. Sit down.’ She sat, slowly and suspiciously, eyes still flicking restlessly around the office, as if she were afraid someone was going to appear and strap her into her chair. It had obviously taken her a lot of courage to come this far. ‘Can I get you some tea or coffee?’ Banks asked.

She looked surprised at the offer. ‘Er . . . yes. Please. Coffee would be nice.’

‘How do you take it?’

‘What?’

‘The coffee? How do you want it?’

‘Milk and plenty of sugar,’ she said, as if unaware that it came any other way.

Banks phoned for two coffees – black for him – and turned back to her. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Candy.’

‘Really?’

‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing. Nothing, Candy. Ever been in a police station before?’

Fear flashed across Candy’s delicate features. ‘Why?’

‘Just asking. You seem ill at ease.’

She managed a weak smile. ‘Well, yes . . . Maybe I am. A little bit.’

‘Relax. I won’t eat you.’

Wrong choice of words, Banks realized, when he saw the lascivious, knowing look in her eye. ‘I mean I won’t harm you,’ he corrected himself.

The coffee arrived, carried in by the same, still smirking PC. Banks was abrupt with him, resenting the kind of smug arrogance that the smirk implied.

‘Okay, Candy,’ said Banks after the first sip. ‘Care to tell me what it’s all about?’

‘Can I smoke?’ She opened her handbag.

‘Sorry,’ said Banks. ‘No smoking anywhere in the station, otherwise I’d have one with you.’

‘Maybe we could go outside?’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ Banks said. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’

‘It’s just that I really like a ciggie with my coffee. I always have a smoke with my coffee.’

‘Not this time. Why have you come to see me, Candy?’

She fidgeted a while longer, a sulky expression on her face, then shut the handbag and crossed her legs, clipping the underside of the desk with her platform and rattling it so much that Banks’s coffee spilled over the rim of his mug and made a gathering stain on the pile of paper before him.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s nothing.’ Banks took out his handkerchief and wiped it up. ‘You were going to tell me why you’re here.’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, look,’ Candy said, leaning forward in her chair. ‘First off, you have to grant me that immunization, or whatever. Or I won’t say a word.’

‘You mean immunity?’

She flushed. ‘If that’s what it’s called. I didn’t go to school much.’

‘Immunity from what?’

‘From prosecution.’

‘But why would I want to prosecute you?’

Her eyes were everywhere but on Banks, hands twisting the bag on her bare lap. ‘Because of what I do,’ she said. ‘You know . . . with men. I’m a prostitute, a tom.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Banks. ‘You could knock me over with a feather.’

Her eyes turned to him, shimmering with angry tears. ‘There’s no need to be sarky. I’m not ashamed of what I am. At least I don’t go around locking up innocent people and letting the guilty go free.’

Banks felt like a shit. Sometimes he just didn’t know when to hold his tongue. He had acted no better than the smirking PC when he insulted her with his sarcasm. ‘I’m sorry, Candy,’ he said. ‘But I’m a very busy man. Can we get to the point? If you’ve got anything to tell me, then say it.’

‘You promise?’

‘Promise what?’

‘You won’t lock me up.’

‘I won’t lock you up. Cross my heart. Not unless you’ve come to confess a serious crime.’

She shot to her feet. ‘I haven’t done nothing!’

‘All right. All right. Sit down, then. Take it easy.’

Candy sat slowly, careful with her platforms this time. ‘I came because you let her go. I wasn’t going to come. I don’t like the police. But you let her go.’

‘Who’s this about, Candy?’

‘It’s about that couple in the papers, the ones who took them young girls.’

‘What about them?’

‘Just that they . . . once . . . you know, they . . .’

‘They picked
you
up?’

She looked down. ‘Yes.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘I was just, you know, out on the street, and they came by in a car. He did the talking and when we’d fixed it up they took me to a house.’

‘When was this, Candy?’

‘Last summer.’

‘Do you remember the month?’

‘August, I think. Late August. It was warm, anyway.’

Banks tried to work out the timing. The Seacroft rapes had stopped around the time the Paynes moved out of the area, about a year or so before Candy’s experience. That left a period of about sixteen months before Payne abducted Kelly Matthews. Perhaps during that period he had been trying to sublimate his urges, relying on prostitutes? And Lucy’s role?