“Please sit down,” she said.
Banks sat on a wooden chair at the kitchen table. Its legs scraped along the terracotta floor.
“Tea? I was just going to make some.”
“Fine,” said Banks.
“Ceylon, Darjeeling, Earl Gray or Lapsang Souchong?”
“Lapsang, if that’s all right.”
She smiled. “Exactly what I was going to have.”
Her movements were listless and Banks noticed that the smile hadn’t reached her eyes. It would probably be a long time before one did.
“Are you sure you’re all right here alone, Lady Harrison?” he asked.
“Yes. Actually, it was my idea. I sent Geoffrey out. He was getting on my nerves. I needed a little quiet time to…to get used to things. What would be the point of us both moping around the house all day? He’s used to action, to doing things. And please,” she added with a fleeting smile, “call me Sylvie.”
“Fine,” he said. “Sylvie it is.”
She measured out the leaves into a warmed pot-a rather squat, ugly piece with blue squiggles and a thick, straight spout-then sat down opposite Banks and let it brew.
“I’m sorry to intrude on your grief,” Banks said. “But there are still a lot of questions need answering.”
“Of course,” said Sylvie. “But Geoffrey told me this morning that you already have a suspect. Is it true?”
Interesting, Banks thought. He hadn’t realized there was a lodge meeting last night. Of course, as soon as Stott had tracked down Owen Pierce and sent his anorak off to the lab for analysis, Banks had let the chief constable know what was happening, and Riddle obviously hadn’t wasted much time in reporting to Sir Geoffrey. Ah, privilege.
“Someone’s helping us with our inquiries, yes,” he said, immediately regretting the trite phrase. “I mean, last night we talked to someone who was seen in the area on Monday evening. Detective Inspector Stott is interviewing him again now.”
“It’s not that man from the church, the one who was fired?”
“We don’t think so, but we’re still keeping an open mind about him.”
“Do you think this other person did it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him yet. We’re playing it very cautiously, very carefully. If he is the one, we want to be certain we don’t make any mistakes that will come back to haunt us when the case goes to court.”
“Sometimes,” mused Sylvie, “it seems that the system favors the criminal rather than the victim. Don’t you think?”
Tell me about it, thought Banks wearily. If they did think they’d got their man, next they would have to convince the Crown Prosecution Service they had a case-not always an easy job-then, after they had jumped through all the hoops, as often as not they could look forward to watching the accused’s lawyer tear the evidence to shreds. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “Did Deborah ever mention anyone called Owen Pierce?”
Sylvie frowned. “No. I’ve never heard the name before.”
Banks described Pierce, but it meant nothing to her.
She poured the tea, tilting her head slightly and biting the end of her tongue as she did so. The Lapsang smelled and tasted good, its smoky flavor a perfect foil for a gray, cold November day. Outside, the wind whistled through the trees and rattled the windows, creating dust devils and gathering the fallen leaves into whirlwinds. Sylvie Harrison put both hands around her mug, as if keeping them warm. “What do you want to know from me?” she asked.
“I’m trying to find out as much as I can about what Deborah was like. There are still a few gaps.”
“Such as?”
“Boyfriends, for example.”
“Ah, boyfriends. But Deborah was far too busy at school for boys. There was plenty of time for that later. After she finished her education.”
“Even so. There was the summer.”
Sylvie held his gaze. “She didn’t have a boyfriend.”
Banks paused, then said slowly, feeling as if he were digging his career grave with every word, “That’s not what I heard. Someone told me she had a boyfriend in August.”
Sylvie paled. She pressed her lips so tight together they almost turned white.
“Did she have a boyfriend?” Banks asked again.
Sylvie sighed, then nodded. “Yes. In the summer. But she finished with him.”
“Was his name John Spinks?”
She raised her eyebrows. “How did you know that?”
“You knew about him?”
She nodded. “Yes. He was a most unpleasant character.”
“Why do you think a bright, pretty girl like Deborah would go out with someone like that?”
A distant look came into her eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose he was good-looking, perhaps exciting in a way. Sometimes one makes mistakes,” she said, with a shrug that Banks thought of as very Gallic. “Sometimes one makes a fool of oneself, does something with the wrong person for all the wrong reasons.”
“What reasons?”
She shrugged again. “A woman’s reasons. A young woman’s reasons.”
“Was Deborah having sex with John Spinks?”
Sylvie paused for a moment, then nodded and said with a sigh, “Yes. One day I came home unexpectedly and I caught them in Deborah’s bedroom. I was crazy with anger. I shouted at him and threw him out of the house and told him never to come back.”
“How did he react?”
She reddened. “He called me names I will not repeat in front of you.”
“Was he violent?”
“He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.” She nodded in the direction of the hall. “There was a vase, not a very valuable vase, but a pretty one, a present from my father, on a stand by the door. He lifted it with both hands and threw it hard against the wall. One small chip of pottery broke off and cut my chin, that’s all.” She fingered the tiny scar.
“Did he leave after that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Sir Geoffrey about him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She paused before answering. “You must understand that Geoffrey can be very Victorian in some ways, especially concerning Deborah. I hadn’t even told him she was seeing the boy in the first place. He would have made things very uncomfortable for her if he’d known, given Spinks’s character and background. I…well…I’m a woman, and I think in some ways I understood what she was going through, more than Geoffrey would have, anyway. I’m not saying I approved, but it was something she had to get out of her system. Stopping her would only have made her more determined. In the long run it would probably have resulted in even more damage. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so. Did Deborah go on seeing Spinks?”
“No. I don’t think so. Not after he threw the vase. She was very upset about what happened and we had a long talk. She said she was really sorry, and she apologized to me. I like to think that she understood what I was telling her, what a waste of time seeing this Spinks boy was. She said she realized now what kind of person he was and she would never go near him again. She’d heard him curse me in the most vile manner. She’d seen him throw the vase at the wall, seen the sliver cut me, draw blood.” Sylvie touched the small scar again. “I think it truly shocked her, made her see him in a new light. Deborah is a good girl inside, Chief Inspector. Stubborn, willful, perhaps, but ultimately sensible too. And like a lot of girls her age, she is very naïve about men.”
“In what ways?”
“She didn’t understand the way they use women, manipulate them, or the power of their lust. I wanted her to learn to value herself. In sex, when the time came, as much as in everything else. Unless a woman respects her sexual self, she’s going to be every man’s victim all her life. Giving herself away to that…that animal was a bad way for her to start. You men don’t always understand how important that time of a woman’s life is.”
“Was she a virgin before she met Spinks?”
&n
bsp; Sylvie nodded and curled her lip in disgust. “She told me all about it that night after the row. He stole a car, like so many youths do these days. They went for a ride out on the moors…” Her fists clenched as she talked. “And he did it to her in the back of the car.”
“Had you met him before that time?”
She nodded. “Just once. It was two or three weeks earlier. Deborah brought him to the house. It was a sunny day. They were out making a barbecue when I got back from shopping in Leeds.”
“What happened?”
“That time? Oh, nothing much. They were drinking. No doubt at the boy’s instigation, Deborah had taken a bottle of my father’s estate wine from the cellar. I was a little angry with them, but not too much. You must remember, Chief Inspector, that I grew up in France. We had wine with every meal, taken with a little water when we were children, so drinking under age hardly seems the great sin it does to you English.”
“What was your impression of John Spinks?”
“He was very much a boy of single syllables. He didn’t have much to say for himself at all. I’ll admit I didn’t like him right from the start. Call me a snob, if you like, but it’s true. After he’d gone, I told her he wasn’t good enough for her and that she should consider breaking off with him.”
“How did she react to that?”
Sylvie smiled sadly. “The way any sixteen-year-old girl would. She told me she’d see who she wanted and that I should mind my own business and stop trying to run her life.”
“Exactly what my daughter said in the same situation,” said Banks. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Spinks?”
Sylvie sipped some tea, then she went to fetch her handbag. She slipped her hand inside and pulled out a packet of Dunhill. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” she asked. “Why I should ask permission in my own house, I don’t know. It’s just, these days…the anti-smoking brigade…they get to you. It’s only in moments of stress I revert to the habit.”
“I know what you mean,” said Banks, pulling his Silk Cut out with a conspiratorial smile. “May I join you?”
“That would be even better. Geoffrey will go spare, of course. He thinks I’ve stopped.”
The phrase “go spare” sounded odd with that sight French lilt to it; such a Yorkshire phrase, Banks thought.
“Your husband told me you’re from Bordeaux,” Banks said, accepting a light from her slim gold lighter.
Sylvie nodded. “My father is in the wine business. A négociant. One of la noblesse du bouchon.”
“I’m afraid my French is very rusty.”
“Literally, it means ‘the bottle-cork nobility.’ It’s a collective term for the négociants of a great wine center, like Bordeaux.”
“I suppose it means he’s rich?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Very. Anyway, I met Geoffrey when he was on a wine-tasting tour of the area. It must have been, oh, seventeen years ago. I was only nineteen at the time. Geoffrey was thirty.”
“And Sir Geoffrey fell in love with the négociant’s daughter? How romantic.”
Sylvie dredged up another sad smile. “Yes, it was romantic.” Then she drew deep on her cigarette and let the smoke out of her nose. “You asked if there was anything else about Spinks, Chief Inspector. Yes, there was. Things had been going missing from the house.”
“Missing? Like what?”
She shrugged. “A silver snuffbox. Not very valuable, though it might look antique to the untrained eye. Some foreign currency. A pair of silver earrings. Little things like that.”
“Since Deborah had been seeing Spinks?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m almost certain of it. Deborah wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m not saying she was a saint-obviously not-but at least she was honest. She was no thief.”
“Did you challenge her about the stolen articles?”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she didn’t know about the missing things but she would talk to him.”
“Did she tell you what he said?”
“She said he denied it.”
“Did Spinks ever bother either of you after that day you threw him out?”
Sylvie frowned and stubbed out her cigarette. She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips as if to get rid of the taste. “He made threats. One day, he came to the house when both Deborah and Geoffrey were out.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. Nothing physical, if that’s what you mean. If he had, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call the police. I tried to close the door on him, but he pushed his way in and asked for money.”
“Did you give him any?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“He said if I didn’t give him money, he would keep on seeing Deborah, and that he would get her pregnant, make himself part of the family.” She shuddered. “He was disgusting.”
“And you still didn’t give him anything?”
“No. Then he said if I didn’t give him money he would start spreading the word around that he had deflowered Sir Geoffrey Harrison’s daughter. That she was nothing but a slut. He said he would spread it around St. Mary’s and get her expelled, and he would make sure people in the business community knew so that they would all laugh at Geoffrey behind his back.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was too shocked. Luckily, Michael was here at the time. He handled it.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. I was so upset I went upstairs. All I can say is that I heard nothing more of the matter after that. Spinks disappeared from our lives just as if he had never been there in the first place. Not without leaving some damage, of course.”
“Did he ever threaten to harm Deborah physically?”
Sylvie shook her head. “Not that I heard.”
“But he certainly seemed capable of acting violently?”
She touched her scar again. “Yes. Do you think…?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “But anything’s possible. Did Mr. Clayton know about Spinks from the start?”
“Yes. He dropped by the house that time when they were having the barbecue. He said something to Spinks about the drinking and Spinks was very rude. Michael agreed with me then that Deborah was wasted on the boy. And I told him about…when I found them together in bed. I had to tell someone.”
Clayton seemed to be dropping by Sir Geoffrey’s house an awful lot, Banks thought. Especially when Sir Geoffrey wasn’t there but Sylvie was.
“Does Mr. Clayton have any family of his own?” he asked.
“Michael? No. He and his wife, Gillian, split up three years ago. It was a childless marriage.” She smiled. “I think part of the problem was that Michael is married to his work. Sometimes I think he has his computers wired directly to his brain. He has a girlfriend in Seattle now, and that seems ideal for him. Long-distance romance. He travels there quite often on company business.”
“How long have he and Sir Geoffrey known one another?”
“Since Oxford. They’ve always been inseparable. In fact, Michael was with Geoffrey when we met.”
Banks paused for a moment and sipped some lukewarm tea. “Do you know any of the teachers at St. Mary’s?” he asked.
“Some of them. When you pay as much money to send your child to school as we do, you tend to have some say in the way the place is run.”
“And?”
“And St. Mary’s is an excellent school. Wonderful facilities, good staff, a healthy atmosphere…I could go on.”
“Did you ever get the sense there was anything unpleasant going on there?”
“Unpleasant?”
“I’m sorry I can’t be any more precise than that. But if anyone, or any group, was up to something at school-something illegal, such as drugs-and if Deborah found out about it…She was attacked on her way home from school, after all. Someone could h
ave followed her from there.”
Sylvie shook her head slowly. “The things you policemen dream up. No, I never heard the slightest hint of a rumor of anything wrong at St. Mary’s. And I believe one does hear about these things, if they are going on.”
“Did you have any reason to think John Spinks or anyone else might have introduced Deborah to drugs?”
She sighed. “I can’t say I didn’t worry about it.” Then she shook her head. “But I don’t think so. I never saw any signs. Deborah was a very active girl. She valued her physical health, her athletic prowess, far too much to damage it with drugs.”
“Do you know Patrick Metcalfe?”
“I’ve met him, yes.”
“Did Deborah ever talk about him?”
“No, not that I recall.”
“Did she like him?”
“She didn’t say one way or the other. She did quite well at history, though it wasn’t her best subject. But why do you ask?”
“He’s just part of the tapestry, that’s all. Maybe not an important part. Did Deborah have any contact with the church after you and your husband stopped going?”
“I don’t think so. Geoffrey was quite adamant that we all stay away. But the school and the church remained close. She may have had some contact.” She rubbed her eyes and stood up. “Please excuse me, Chief Inspector, but I’m feeling very tired. I think I’ve told you all I can for the moment. And I hope you’ll be discreet. I’d prefer it if you didn’t let Geoffrey know about what I’ve told you today.”
Banks smiled. “Of course not. Not if you don’t tell him I’ve been here. I’m afraid my boss-”
But before he could get the words out, the front door opened and shut and Sir Geoffrey shouted out, “I’m home, darling. How is everything?”
III
At the back of Eastvale bus station, past the noise of revving engines and the stink of diesel fumes, a pair of heavy glass doors led past the small newsagent’s booth to an escalator that rarely worked.
Innocent Graves Page 13