“She’s a weird one, all right.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

Jenny grinned. “Let me think about it. I’ll talk to you after I’ve talked to her coworker and her parents. Bye.” They arrived at the ground floor and she hurried off toward the car park. Banks took a deep breath and pressed the “down” button.

Rapunzel was going much better today, Maggie decided as she stood back and examined her work, tip of her tongue between her small white teeth. She didn’t look as if one good yank on her hair would rip her head from her shoulders, and she didn’t look a bit like Claire Toth.

Claire hadn’t turned up as usual yesterday after school, and Maggie wondered why not. Perhaps it was only to be expected that she didn’t feel very sociable after what had happened. Maybe she just wanted to be alone to sort out her feelings. Maggie decided she would talk to her psychiatrist, Dr. Simms, about Claire, see if there was something that ought to be done. She had an appointment tomorrow which, despite the events of the week, she was determined to keep.

Lorraine Temple’s story hadn’t turned up in the morning newspaper, as Maggie had expected it to, and she had felt disappointed when she had searched through every page and not found it. She assumed that the journalist needed more time to check her facts and put the story together. After all, it had only been yesterday when they talked. Perhaps it would be a long article focusing on the plight of abused women, a feature in the weekend paper.

She bent over the drawing board and got back to work on the Rapunzel sketch. She had to turn her desk light on as the morning had turned overcast and muggy.

A couple of minutes later, her phone rang. Maggie put her pencil aside and answered it.

“Maggie?”

She recognized the soft, husky voice. “Lucy? How are you?”

“I’m feeling much better now, really.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say at first. She felt awkward. Despite her sending the flowers and defending Lucy to the police and with Lorraine Temple, she realized they didn’t know each other well and came from very different worlds. “It’s good to hear from you,” she said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I just wanted to thank you for the flowers,” Lucy went on. “They’re lovely. They make all the difference. It was a nice thought.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“You know, you’re the only person who’s bothered with me. Everyone else has written me off.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Lucy.”

“Oh, but it is. Even my friends from work.”

Though Maggie could hardly bring herself to ask, it was only polite. “How’s Terry?”

“They won’t even tell me that, but I think he’s very badly hurt. I think he’s going to die. I think the police are going to try to blame me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have they been to talk to you?”

“Twice. Just now there were two of them. One was a psychologist. She asked me all sorts of questions.”

“About what?”

“About things Terry did to me. About our sex life. I felt like such a fool. Maggie, I just feel so frightened and alone.”

“Look, Lucy, if I can help in any way…”

“Thank you.”

“Have you got a solicitor?”

“No. I don’t even know any.”

“Look, Lucy. If the police come bothering you again, don’t say anything to them. I know how they can twist your words, make something out of nothing. Will you at least let me try to get you someone? One of Ruth and Charles’s friends is a solicitor in town. Julia Ford. I’ve met her, and she seems nice enough. She’ll know what to do.”

“But I don’t have that much money, Maggie.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out with her somehow. Will you let me call her for you?”

“I suppose so. I mean, if you think it’s for the best.”

“I do. I’ll call her right now and ask her to drop by and talk to you, shall I?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do for you?”

Maggie heard a defeated laugh over the line. “Pray for me, perhaps. I don’t know, Maggie. I don’t know what they’re going to do to me. For the moment, I’d just like to know there’s someone on my side.”

“Count on it, Lucy, there is.”

“Thank you. I’m tired. I have to go now.”

And Lucy hung up the phone.

After attending Dr. Mackenzie’s postmortem on the sad pile of bones and decaying flesh that had once been a young and vibrant girl with hopes and dreams and secrets, Banks felt twenty years older but none the wiser. First on the slab was the freshest because Dr. Mackenzie said it might tell him more, which seemed logical to Banks. Even so, the body had been partially buried under a thin layer of soil in Payne’s cellar for about three weeks, Dr. Mackenzie estimated, which was why the skin, hair and nails were loose and easy to pull off. Insects had been at work, and much of the flesh was gone. Where skin remained, it had burst open in places, revealing the glistening muscle and fat beneath. Not much fat, because this was Melissa Horrocks, weighing just a little under seven stone, whose T-shirt bore symbols to ward off evil spirits.

Banks left before Dr. Mackenzie had finished, not because it was too gruesome for him, but because these postmortems were going to go on for some time yet, and he had other business to attend to. It would be more than a day or two, Dr. Mackenzie said, before he would be able to get down to a report, as the other two bodies were in an even worse state of decomposition. Someone from the team had to sit through the postmortems, but this was one job Banks was happy to delegate.

After the sights, sounds and smells of Mackenzie’s postmortem, the bland headmaster’s office at Silverhill Comprehensive came as a relief. There was nothing about the uncluttered and nondescript room that indicated it had anything to do with education, or anything else, for that matter; it was much the same as any anonymous office in any anonymous building, and it didn’t even smell of much except a faint whiff of lemon-scented furniture polish. The head was called John Knight: early forties, balding, stoop-shouldered, dandruff on his jacket collar.

After getting a few general details about Payne’s employment history, Banks asked Knight if there had been any problems with Payne.

“There have been a few complaints, now that you mention it,” Knight admitted.

Banks raised his eyebrows. “From pupils?”

Knight reddened. “Good Lord, no. Nothing like that. Have you any idea what happens at the merest hint of something like that these days?”

“No,” said Banks. “When I was at school the teachers used to thrash us with just about anything they could lay their hands on. Some of them enjoyed it, too.”

“Well, those days are over, thank the Lord.”

“Or the law.”

“Not a believer?”

“My job makes it difficult.”

“Yes, I can understand that.” Knight glanced toward the window. “Mine, too, sometimes. That’s one of the great challenges of faith, don’t you think?”

“So what sort of problems were you having with Terence Payne?”

Knight brought himself back from a long way away and sighed. “Oh, just little things. Nothing important in themselves, but they all add up.”

“For example?”

“Tardiness. Too many days off without a valid reason. Teachers may get generous holidays, Superintendent, but they are expected to be here during term time, barring some serious illness, of course.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Just a general sort of sloppiness. Exams not marked on time. Projects left unsupervised. Terry has a bit of temper, and he can get quite stroppy if you call him on anything.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“According to head of science, only since the new year.”

“And before that?”

“No problems at all. Terence Payne is a good teacher – knows his stuff – and he seemed popular with the pupils. None of us can believe what’s happened. We’re stunned. Just absolutely stunned.”