“You remember that? Being in the hall?”

“Only very vaguely.”

“Go on.”

“So I might have heard a noise and gone down to investigate.”

“Even though you knew it was Terry’s private den and he’d kill you if you did?”

“Yes. Maybe I was disturbed enough.”

“By what?”

“By what I heard.”

“But the cellar was very well soundproofed, Lucy, and the door was closed when the police got there.”

“Then I don’t know. I’m just trying to find a reason.”

“Go on. What might you have found there if you did go down?”

“That girl. I might have gone over to her to see if there was anything I could do.”

“What about the yellow fibers?”

“What about them?”

“They were from the plastic clothesline that was wrapped around Kimberley Myers’s neck. The pathologist determined ligature strangulation by that line as cause of death. Fibers were also embedded in Kimberley’s throat.”

“I must have tried to get it off her.”

“Do you remember doing this?”

“No, I’m still imagining how it might have happened.”

“Go on.”

“Then Terry must have found me and chased me upstairs and then hit me.”

“Why didn’t he drag you back down the cellar and kill you, too?”

“I don’t know. He was my husband. He loved me. He couldn’t just kill me like…”

“Like some teenage girl?”

“Superintendent,” Julia Ford cut in, “I don’t think speculation about what Mr. Payne did or didn’t do is relevant here. My client says she might have gone down in the cellar and surprised her husband at… at whatever he was doing, and thus provoked him. That should explain your findings. It should also be enough.”

“But you said Terry would kill you if you went in the cellar. Why didn’t he?” Banks persisted.

“I don’t know. Maybe he was going to. Maybe he had something else to do first.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kill Kimberley?”

“Maybe.”

“But wasn’t she already dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get rid of her body?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I was unconscious.”

“Oh, come on, Lucy! This is rubbish,” said Banks. “The next thing you’ll be trying to convince me is you did it while you were sleep-walking. You killed Kimberley Myers, didn’t you, Lucy? You went down in the cellar and saw her lying there and you strangled her.”

“I didn’t! Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because you were jealous. Terry wanted Kimberley more than he wanted you. He wanted to keep her.”

Lucy banged the table with her fist. “That’s not true! You’re making it up.”

“Well, why else did he have her staked out there naked on the mattress? To give her a biology lesson? It was quite a biology lesson, Lucy. He raped her repeatedly, both vaginally and anally. He forced her to fellate him. Then he – or someone – strangled her with a length of yellow plastic fiber clothesline.”

Lucy put her head in her hands and sobbed.

“Is this kind of gruesome detail really necessary?” asked Julia Ford.

“What’s wrong?” Banks asked her. “Afraid of the truth?”

“It’s just a bit over-the-top, that’s all.”

“Over-the-top? I’ll tell you what’s over the bloody top.” Banks pointed at Lucy. “Kimberley’s blood on the sleeves of her dressing gown. Yellow fibers under her fingernails. She killed Kimberley Myers.”

“It’s all circumstantial,” said Julia Ford. “Lucy’s already explained to you how it might have happened. She doesn’t remember. That’s not her fault. The poor woman was traumatized.”

“Either that or she’s a damn good actress,” said Banks.

“Superintendent!”

Banks turned back to Lucy. “Who are the other girls, Lucy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve found two unidentified bodies in the back garden. Skeletal remains, at any rate. That makes six altogether, including Kimberley. We were only looking into five disappearances, and we haven’t even found all of those yet. We don’t know these two. Who are they?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Did you ever go out in the car with your husband and pick up a teenage girl?”

The change of direction seemed to shock Lucy into silence, but she soon found her voice and regained her composure. “No, I did not.”

“So you knew nothing about the missing girls?”

“No. Only what I read in the papers. I told you. I didn’t go in the cellar and Terry certainly didn’t tell me. So how could I know?”

“How indeed?” Banks scratched the little scar beside his right eye. “I’m more concerned with how you could possibly not have known. The man you’re living with – your own husband – abducts and brings home six young girls that we know of so far, keeps them in the cellar for… God knows how long… while he rapes and tortures them, then he buries them either in the garden or in the cellar. And all this time you’re living in the house, only one floor away, two at the most, and you expect me to believe you didn’t know anything, didn’t even smell anything? Do I look as if was born yesterday, Lucy? I don’t see how you could fail to know.”

“I told you I never went down there.”

“Didn’t you notice when your husband was missing in the middle of the night?”

“No. I always sleep very heavily. I think Terry must have been giving me sleeping pills with my cocoa. That’s why I never noticed anything.”

“We didn’t find any sleeping pills at the house, Lucy.”

“He must have run out. That must be why I woke up on Monday morning and thought something was wrong. Or he forgot.”

“Did either of you have a prescription for sleeping tablets?”

“I didn’t. I don’t know if Terry did. Maybe he got them from a drug pusher.”

Banks made a note to look into the matter of sleeping tablets. “Why do you think he might have forgotten to drug you this time? Why did you go down to the cellar this time?” he went on. “What was so different about this time, about Kimberley? Was it because she was too close to home for comfort? Terry must have known he was taking a huge risk in abducting Kimberley, mustn’t he? Was he obsessed with her, Lucy? Was that it? Were the others merely practice, substitutes until he could no longer stop himself from taking the one he really wanted? How did you feel about that, Lucy? That Terry wanted Kimberley more than you, more than life itself, more than freedom?”

Lucy put her hands to her ears. “Stop it! It’s lies, all lies! I don’t know what you mean. I don’t understand what’s going on. Why are you persecuting me like this?” She turned to Julia Ford. “Get me out of here now. Please! I don’t have to stay and listen to any more of this, do I?”

“No,” said Julia Ford, standing up. “You can leave whenever you like.”

“I don’t think so.” Banks stood up and took a deep breath. “Lucy Payne, I’m arresting you as an accessory in the murder of Kimberley Myers.”

“This is ludicrous,” shot Julia Ford. “It’s a travesty.”

“I don’t believe your client’s story,” said Banks. He turned to Lucy again. “You don’t have to say anything, Lucy, but if you fail to say something now that you later rely on in court, it might be held against you. Do you understand?”

Banks opened the door and got two uniformed officers to take her down to the custody officer. When they came toward her she turned pale.

“Please,” she said. “I’ll come back whenever you want. Please, I’m begging you, don’t lock me all alone in a dark cell!”

For the first time in his dealings with her, Banks got the sense that Lucy Payne was genuinely afraid. He remembered what Jenny had told him about the Alderthorpe Seven. Kept in cages without food for days. He almost faltered, but there was no going back now. He forced himself to remember Kimberley Myers spread-eagled on the bed in Lucy Payne’s dark cellar. Nobody had given her a chance. “The cells aren’t dark, Lucy,” he said. “They’re well-lit and very comfortable. They regularly get four stars in the police accommodation guide.”