“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 postmortem.”

“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 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 good-byes, 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 proved 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 the 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 other 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 blond 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 makeup 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 program. 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.