Aftermath, page 4
“Oh, that sounds fascinating,” said Lucy. “I was terrible at art in school. I can’t even draw a matchstick figure.” She laughed and put her hand over her mouth. “So why are you here?”
Maggie struggled with herself for a moment, stalling. Then a strange thing happened to her, a sense of inner chains and straps loosening, giving her space and a feeling of floating. Sitting there in the Victoria Quarter smoking and drinking cappuccino with Lucy, she felt an immediate and unheralded surge of affection for this young woman she hardly knew. She wanted the two of them to be friends, could see them talking about their problems just like this, giving each other sympathy and advice, just as she had with Alicia back in Toronto. Lucy, with her gaucheness, her naïve charm inspired a sort of emotional confidence in Maggie: this was someone, she felt, with whom she would be safe. More than that; though Maggie may have been the more “sophisticated” of the two, she sensed that they shared more than it appeared. The truth was difficult for her to admit to, but she felt the overwhelming need to tell someone other than her psychologist. And why not Lucy?
“What is it?” Lucy said. “You look so sad.”
“Do I? Oh . . . Nothing. Look, my husband and I,” Maggie said, stumbling over the words as if her tongue were the size of a steak, “I . . . er . . . we split up.” She felt her mouth drying up. Despite the loosened bonds, this was still far more difficult than she had thought it would be. She sipped some more coffee.
Lucy frowned. “I’m sorry. But why move so far away? Lots of people split up and they don’t move countries. Unless he’s . . . oh, my God.” She gave her cheek a little slap. “Lucy, I think you’ve just put your foot in it again.”
Maggie couldn’t help allowing herself a thin smile, even though Lucy had touched upon the painful truth. “It’s all right,” she said. “Yes, he was abusive. Yes, he hit me. You can say I’m running away. It’s true. Certainly for a while I don’t even want to be in the same country as him.” The vehemence of her words when they came out surprised even Maggie herself.
A strange look came into Lucy’s eyes, then she glanced around again, as if looking for someone. Only anonymous shoppers drifted up and down the arcade under the stained-glass roof, packages in hands. Lucy touched Maggie’s arm with her fingertips and Maggie felt a little shiver run through her, almost like a reflex action to pull away. A moment ago, she had thought it would do her good to admit to someone, to share what happened with another woman, but now she wasn’t so sure. She felt too naked, too raw.
“I’m sorry if it embarrasses you,” Maggie said, with a hard edge to her voice. “But you did ask.”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy, grasping Maggie’s wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her hands cool. “Please don’t think that. I asked for it. I always do. It’s my fault. But it doesn’t embarrass me. It’s just . . . I don’t know what to say. I mean . . . you? You seem so bright, so in control.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I thought: How could something like that happen to someone like me? Doesn’t it only happen to other women, poor, less fortunate, uneducated, stupid women?”
“How long?” Lucy asked. “I mean . . . ?”
“How long did I let it go on before I left?”
“Yes.”
“Two years. And don’t ask me how I could let it go on for so long, either. I don’t know. I’m still working on that one with the shrink.”
“I see.” Lucy paused, taking it all in. “What made you leave him in the end?”
Maggie paused a moment, then went on. “One day he just went too far,” she said. “He broke my jaw and two ribs, did some damage to my insides. It put me in hospital. While I was there I filed assault charges. And do you know what? As soon as I’d done it I wanted to drop them, but the police wouldn’t let me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what it’s like over here, but in Canada it’s out of your hands if you bring assault charges. You can’t just change your mind and drop them. Anyway, there was a restraining order against him. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks; then he came around to the house with flowers, wanting to talk.”
“What did you do?”
“I kept the chain on. I wouldn’t let him in. He was in one of his contrite moods, pleading and wheedling, promising on his mother’s grave. He’d done it before.”
“And broken his promise?”
“Every time. Anyway, then he became threatening and abusive. He started hammering at the door and calling me names. I called the police. They arrested him. He came back again, stalking me. Then a friend suggested I move away for a while, the further the better. I knew about the house on The Hill. Ruth and Charles Everett own the place. Do you know them?”
Lucy shook her head. “I’ve seen them around. Not for a while, though.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. Charles was offered a year’s appointment at Columbia University in New York, starting in January. Ruth went with him.”
“How did you know them?”
“Ruth and I are in the same line of work. It’s a fairly small world.”
“But why Leeds?”
Maggie smiled. “Why not? First, there was the house, just waiting for me, and my parents came from Yorkshire. I was born here. Rawdon. But we left when I was a little girl. Anyway, it seemed the ideal solution.”
“So you’re living across the road in that big house all alone?”
“All alone.”
“I thought I hadn’t seen anyone else coming and going.”
“To be honest, Lucy, you’re pretty much the first person I’ve spoken to since I got here—apart from my shrink and my agent, that is. It’s not that people aren’t friendly. I’ve just been . . . well . . . stand-offish, I suppose. A bit distant.” Lucy’s hand still rested on Maggie’s forearm, though she wasn’t gripping at all now.
“That makes sense. After what you’ve been through. Did he follow you over here?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think he knows where I am. I’ve had a few late-night hang-up calls, but I honestly don’t know if they’re from him. I don’t think they are. All my friends back there swore they wouldn’t tell him where I was, and he doesn’t know Ruth and Charles. He had little interest in my career. I doubt that he knows I’m in England, though I wouldn’t put it past him to find out.” Maggie needed to change the subject. She could hear the ringing in her ears, feel the arcade spinning and her jaw aching, the colored-glass roof above her shifting like a kaleidoscope, her neck muscles stiffening, the way they always did when she thought about Bill for too long. Psychosomatic, the shrink said. As if that did her any good. She asked Lucy about herself.
“I don’t really have any friends, either,” Lucy said. She stirred her spoon around the dregs of her cappuccino froth. “I suppose I was always rather shy, even at school. I never know what to say to people.” Then she laughed. “I don’t have much of a life, either. Just work at the bank. Home. Taking care of Terry. We haven’t been married a year yet. He doesn’t like me to go out by myself. Even today, my day off. If he knew . . . That reminds me.” She looked at her watch and seemed to become agitated. “Thank you very much for the coffee, Maggie. I really have to go. I have to get the bus back before school comes out. Terry’s a teacher, you see.”
Now it was Maggie’s turn to grasp Lucy’s arm and stop her from leaving so abruptly. “What is it, Lucy?” she asked.
Lucy just looked away.
“Lucy?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just what you were saying earlier.” She lowered her voice and looked around the arcade before going on. “I know what you mean, but I can’t talk about it now.”
“Terry hits you?”
“No. Not like . . . I mean . . . he’s very strict. It’s for my own good.” She looked Maggie in the eye. “You don’t know me. I’m a wayward child. Terry has to discipline me.”
Wayward, Maggie thought. Discipline. What strange and alarming words to use. “He has to keep you in check? Control you?”
“Yes.” She stood up again. “Look, I must go. It’s been wonderful talking to you. I hope we can be friends.”
“I do, too,” said Maggie. “We really have to talk again. There’s help, you know.”
Lucy flashed her a wan smile and hurried off toward Vicar Lane.
After Lucy had gone, Maggie sat stunned, her hand shaking as she drained her cup. The milky foam was dry and cold against her lips.
Lucy a fellow victim? Maggie couldn’t believe it. This strong, healthy, beautiful woman a victim, just like slight, weak, elfin Maggie? Surely it couldn’t be possible. But hadn’t she sensed something about Lucy? Some kinship, something they had in common. That must be it. That was what she hadn’t wanted to talk to the police about that morning. She knew that she might have to, depending on how serious things were, but she wanted to put off the moment for as long as she could.
Thinking of Lucy, Maggie remembered the one thing she had learned about domestic abuse so far: it doesn’t matter who you are. It can still happen to you. Alicia and all her other close friends back home had expressed their wonder at how such a bright, intelligent, successful, caring, educated woman like Maggie could fall victim to a wife beater like Bill. She had seen the expressions on their faces, noticed their conversations hush and shift when she walked in the room. There must be something wrong with her, they were all saying. And that was what she had thought, too, still thought, to some extent. Because to all intents and purposes Bill, too, was bright, intelligent, caring, educated and successful. Until he got his Monster Face on, that is, but only Maggie saw him like that. And it was odd, she thought, that nobody had thought to ask why an intelligent, wealthy, successful lawyer like Bill should feel the need to hit a woman almost a foot shorter and at least eighty pounds lighter than he was.
Even when the police came that time he was hammering at her door, she could tell they were making excuses for him—he was driven out of his mind by his wife’s unreasonable action in taking out a restraining order against him; he was just upset because his marriage had broken up and his wife wouldn’t give him a chance to make it up. Excuses, excuses. Maggie was the only one who knew what he could be like. Every day she thanked God they had no kids.
Which was what she was thinking about as she drifted back to the present, to feeding the ducks on the pond. Lucy was a fellow sufferer, and now Terry had put her in hospital. Maggie felt responsible, as if she should have done something. Lord knows, she had tried. After Lucy’s subsequent tale of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband had unfolded during their many furtive meetings over coffee and biscuits, with Maggie sworn to absolute secrecy, she should have done something. But unlike most people, Maggie knew exactly what it was like. She knew Lucy’s position, knew that the best she could do was try to persuade her to seek professional help, to leave Terry. Which she did try to do.
But Lucy wouldn’t leave him. She said she had nowhere to go and no one to go to. A common enough excuse. And it made perfect sense. Where do you go when you walk out on your life?
Maggie had been lucky she had the friends to rally around her and come up with at least a temporary solution. Most women in her position were not so fortunate. Lucy also said that her marriage was so new that she felt she had to give it a chance, give it some time; she couldn’t just walk out on it; she wanted to work harder at it. Another common response from women in her position, Maggie knew, but all she could do was point out that it wasn’t going to get any better, no matter what she did, that Terry wasn’t going to change, and that it would come to her leaving sooner or later, so why not leave sooner and spare herself the beatings?
But no. Lucy wanted to stick it out awhile longer. At least a little while. Terry was so nice afterward, so good to her; he bought her presents, flowers, swore he would never do it again, that he would change. It made Maggie sick to hear all this—literally, as she once vomited the minute Lucy left the house—the same damn reasons and excuses she had given herself and those few close friends who knew about her situation all along.
But she listened. What else could she do? Lucy needed a friend, and for better or for worse, Maggie was it.
Now this.
Maggie tossed the last crumbs of bread into the pond. She aimed for the scruffiest, littlest, ugliest duckling of them all, the one way at the back that hadn’t been able to get at the feast so far. It made no difference. The bread landed only inches from his beak, but before he could get to it, the others had paddled over in a ferocious pack and snapped it right from under his mouth.
Banks wanted to get a look at the whole interior of 35 The Hill before the SOCOs started ripping it apart. He didn’t know what it would tell him, but he needed to get the feel of it.
Downstairs, in addition to the kitchen with its small dining area, there was only a living room containing a three-piece suite, stereo system, television, video, and a small bookcase. Though the room was decorated with the same feminine touch as the hallway—frilly lace curtains, coral-pink wallpaper, thick-pile carpet, cream ceiling with ornate cornices—the videos in the cabinet under the TV set reflected masculine tastes: action films, tape after tape of The Simpsons, a collection of horror and science fiction films, including the whole Alien and Scream series, along with some true classics such as The Wicker Man, the original Cat People, Curse of the Demon and a boxed set of David Cronenberg films. Banks poked around but could find no porn, nothing homemade. Maybe the SOCOs would have better luck when they took the house apart. The CDs were an odd mix. There was some classical, mostly classic FM compilations and a best-of-Mozart set, but there were also some rap, heavy metal, and country-and-western CDs. Eclectic tastes.
The books were also mixed: beauty manuals, Reader’s Digest condensed specials, needlecraft techniques, romances, occult and true crime of the more graphic variety, tabloid-style biographies of famous serial killers and mass murderers. The room showed one or two signs of untidiness—yesterday’s evening paper spread over the coffee table, a couple of videos left out of their boxes—but on the whole it was clean and neat. There were also a number of knick-knacks around the place, the sort of things that Banks’s mother wouldn’t have in the house because they made dusting more difficult: porcelain figures of fairy-tale characters and animals. In the dining room, there was a large glass-fronted cabinet filled with Royal Doulton chinaware. Probably a wedding present, Banks guessed.
Upstairs were two bedrooms, the smaller one used as a home office, along with a toilet and bathroom. No shower, just sink and tub. Both toilet and bathroom were spotless, the porcelain shining bright, the air heavy with the scent of lavender. Banks glanced around the plug holes but saw only polished chrome, not a trace of blood or hair.
Their computer expert, David Preece, sat in the office clacking away at the computer keys. A large filing cabinet stood in the corner; it would have to be emptied, its contents transferred to the exhibits room at Millgarth.
“Anything yet, Dave?” Banks asked.
Preece pushed his glasses back up his nose and turned. “Nothing much. Just a few pornographic Web sites bookmarked, chat rooms, that sort of thing. Nothing illegal yet, by the looks of it.”
“Keep at it.”
Banks walked into the master bedroom. The color scheme seemed to continue the ocean theme, but instead of coral it was sea blue. Azure? Cobalt? Cerulean? Annie Cabbot would know the exact shade, her father being an artist, but to Banks it was just blue, like the walls of his living room, though a shade or two darker. The queen-size bed was covered by a fluffed-up black duvet. The bedroom suite was assemble-it-yourself blond Scandinavian pine. Another television set stood on a stand at the bottom of the bed. The cabinet held a collection of soft-core porn, if the labels were to believed, but still nothing illegal or homemade, no kiddie stuff or animals. So the Paynes were into porn videos. So what? So were more than half the households in the country, Banks was willing to bet. But more than half the households in the country didn’t go around abducting and killing young girls. Some lucky young DC was going to have to sit down and watch the lot from start to finish to verify that the contents matched the titles.
Banks poked around in the wardrobe: suits, shirts, dresses, shoes—mostly women’s—nothing he wouldn’t have expected. They would all have to be bagged by the SOCOs and examined in minute detail.
There were plenty of knickknacks in the bedroom, too: Limoges cases, musical jewelry boxes, lacquered, hand-painted boxes. The room took its musky rose and aniseed scent, Banks noticed, from a bowl of potpourri on the laundry hamper under the window.
The bedroom faced The Hill, and when Banks parted the lace curtains and looked out of the window, he could see the houses atop the rise over the street, half hidden by shrubs and trees. He could also see the activity below, on the street. He turned and looked around the room again, finding it somehow depressing in its absolute sterility. It could have been ordered from a color supplement and assembled yesterday. The whole house—except for the cellar, of course—had that feel to it: pretty, contemporary, the sort of place where the up-and-coming young middle-class couple about town should be living. So ordinary, but empty.
With a sigh, he went back downstairs.
3
Kelly Diane Matthews went missing during the New Year’s Eve party in Roundhay Park, Leeds. She was seventeen years old, five feet three inches tall and weighed just seven stones. She lived in Alwoodley and attended Allerton High School. Kelly had two younger sisters: Ashley, age nine, and Nicola, age thirteen.
The call to the local police station came in at 9:11 A.M. on the first of January, 2000. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were worried that their daughter hadn’t come home that night. They had been to a party themselves, and hadn’t arrived back until almost 3 A.M. They noticed that Kelly wasn’t home yet but weren’t too worried because she was with friends, and they knew that these New Year’s parties were likely to go on until the wee hours. They also knew she had plenty of money for a taxi.
