"Any idea who this bloke was? One of the others in the group?"

"No. Someone she was keeping secret." He leaned forward on the table. "You see, that's what I meant when I said I was in the Maze because I wanted to see where she went. I was going to follow her, find out who the mystery bloke was."

"But you didn't see her?"

"No. I thought she must have already gone. I mean, it was a good five minutes or so after we left her that I went in. It doesn't take that long to...you know."

"Right," said Banks. Hayley had been sick, he remembered Dr. Burns telling him, which would have kept her there longer. "Did you see or hear anything while you were in there?"

"I...I thought I heard a door bang shut and a sort of...not a scream but a muffled sort of cry. You don't think it could have been her, do you? It creeped me out, I have to tell you."

"What time was this?"

"Just after I went in. I wasn't really aware of the time, but I suppose it was around twenty-five past, something like that."

Just five minutes after Hayley herself had entered the Maze, Banks thought. "Did you see anyone?"

"No, nothing."

"What did you do when you heard the noise? Is that why you were running?"

Kinsey nodded and studied the scratched table. "I got out of there pretty damn quickly," he said. "I figured she must have finished before I got there and left already. You don't really think it was her I heard, do you? Maybe I could have saved her, but I got scared. Oh, God." Kinsey put his head in his hands and started crying.

Banks was almost certain that it was Hayley whom Kinsey had heard, but he wasn't going to tell him that. His own imagination would torture him more than enough as it was. At least the time of the attack could be fixed more accurately now. Hayley's killer had grabbed her about five minutes after she had gone into the Maze, just after she had been sick and finished what she had gone there to do. Perhaps watching her had excited and inflamed him.

The timing made perfect sense, of course. Hayley would hardly have been hanging around there unless she had made an assignation. Again, what Kinsey had said about the mystery boyfriend came back to Banks. Maybe she had made a date with him? Maybe that was who had killed her? But why arrange to meet him in the Maze if she was going to spend the night with him? It would make far more sense to go to his flat or wherever he lived. And why would a boyfriend resort to rape, or murder? Such things did happen, Banks knew. Not long ago West Yorkshire police had arrested a man who regularly drugged and raped three girlfriends who would all have been perfectly happy to have consensual sex with him. Nothing much surprised Banks these days when it came to sexual deviance.

Hayley had carried condoms in her handbag, so she was obviously sexually active. Perhaps Stuart Kinsey had killed her, out of frustration, or out of jealousy. They were powerful emotions, as Banks knew from previous cases. Under the sway of jealousy, a man or a woman was capable of almost anything.

The tea arrived and Kinsey calmed down. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just couldn't bear the thought that I might have been able to do something, but I ran away."

"You didn't know what was happening," Banks said. It wasn't much consolation, but it was some. He leaned forward. "I'm very interested in this idea of yours about Hayley having a secret boyfriend," he went on. "Any ideas who it might be or why she might keep him a secret?"

6.

"It's good to see you again, Alan," said Annie early on Tuesday afternoon in the Horse and Hounds, a quiet pub off the market square where you could get a decent salad and enjoy a pint without Detective Superintendent Catherine Gervaise finding out about it. There was a tiny, windowless, non-smoking bar, all dark gleaming wood and plush red velveteen, with old hunting prints on the wallat least it was still legal to depict scenes of fox huntingwhere it seemed that nobody ever sat. You had to go to the main bar to get drinks, but other than that, it was the ideal place for a private meeting.

Annie was drinking diet bitter lemon, having not touched a drop of alcohol since Saturday night. Banks was well into his pint of Tetley's Cask, and the obvious pleasure he was taking in it was making Annie feel envious. Well, she thought, it wasn't as if she had taken the pledge and was going to stop drinking forever. It was simply a small hiatus to get herself together, review the situation, and maybe lose a little weight. Tomorrow, perhaps, she'd have a pint. Or maybe a glass of wine after work tonight. Fortunately, the burger Banks also seemed to be enjoying held no appeal for her whatsoever.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Banks asked after a few minutes of small talk about mutual friends and acquaintances in Eastern Area.

"I know you're busy with the Maze case," Annie said. "I've heard about it. Poor girl. Any suspects yet?"

"A few. We're waiting on forensics and toxicology results," said Banks. "And there are some more people we need to talk to. Kev Templeton thinks we've got a serial killer on our hands already. He might have a point. Even though there's been only one definite victim so far, it has all the hallmarks of a violent sex crime, and people who do that don't usually stop at one."

"Kevin Templeton's an arsehole," said Annie.

"That may be, but he can be a good copper if he puts his mind to it."

Annie snorted in disbelief. "Anyway," she said, "I think you'll be interested in what's happened out Whitby way."

"Oh?" said Banks. "I'm intrigued. I did hear something about a woman in a wheelchair being killed out there."

"Yes," Annie said. "A woman by the name of Karen Drew."

"It doesn't ring any bells."

"It wouldn't," said Annie. "It's not her real name."

"Oh."

"No. Julia Ford told me what her real name was yesterday."

Banks paused with the burger halfway to his mouth and put it back down on the plate. "Julia Ford. Now there's a blast from the past."

"Starting to ring some bells?"

"Yes, but I don't like the sound they're making. Julia Ford. Woman in a wheelchair. Sounds very dissonant to me."

"It was Lucy Payne."

"Shit," said Banks. "I take it the media don't know yet?"

"No, but they'll find out soon enough. Detective Superintendent Brough's trying to head them off at the pass. He's called a press conference for this afternoon."

"I hope you don't expect me to feel any pity for her," Banks said.

"It always struck me that you had a very complicated relationship with her," said Annie. "That's partly why I've come to you."

"Complicated? With the Friend of the Devil? Ruined a perfectly good Grateful Dead song for me, that's all. Now, whenever I hear it, I see her face, see those bodies in the cellar."

"Alan, it's me, remember. Annie. I'm not Jim Hatchley. You don't have to play the yahoo with me."

Banks sipped some beer. Annie looked at him and tried to figure out what he was thinking. She never could. He thought he was transparent, but he was really as cloudy as an unfiltered pint.

"She was a complicated woman," Banks said. "But she was a killer."

"A young and beautiful killer," Annie added.

"That, too," Banks agreed. "Are you saying that affected my judgment?"

"Oh, come on. I've never known a time when a woman's beauty hasn't affected a man's judgment. You don't even need to go back as far as Helen of Troy to work that one out."

"I wasn't her champion, you'll remember," said Banks. "As far as I was concerned, she was as guilty as her husband, and I wanted her put away for it."

"Yes, I know, but you understood her, didn't you?"

"Not for a moment." Banks paused. "I'm not saying I might not have wanted to, or even tried to, but it wasn't anything to do with her beauty. She was in bandages most times I saw her, anyway. Look below the surface and there was a hell of a lot of darkness. Okay, I'll admit she was a complex and interesting killer. We've both come across those."

"Touche," said Annie, thinking of Phil Keane, who had wreaked so much havoc on her and Banks's lives not much more than a year ago, damage Annie had certainly not yet got over if her recent behaviour was anything to go by. A charming psychopath, Keane had used Annie to monitor the investigation of a crime he had committed, and when he came close to getting caught, he had almost killed Banks.

"But Lucy Payne had a most unusual and deeply troubled childhood," Banks went on. "I'm not saying that excuses anything she did, or even really explains it, but can you really get your head around being kept in a cage and sexually abused by your family day after day, year after year?"

"The abused becomes the abuser?"

"I know it sounds like a cliche, but isn't that often the case? Anyway, you didn't come to me for my theories on Lucy Payne. In a way, death was probably a blessing for her." He raised his glass for a moment, as if in a mock toast, then drank.

"True," said Annie. "What I was thinking was that I have to revisit that case if I want to have a hope in hell of catching her killer."

"And what makes you want to do that?"

"My nature," Annie said. "I can't even believe you'd ask me such a question."

"You thought she was as guilty as I did."

"I know," said Annie. "So what? If anything, that makes me want to solve her murder even more."

"To prove you can overcome your own prejudices?"

"What's so wrong with that? I might never have said it, but I was glad when she ended up paralyzed. Death would have been too easy for her. This way she suffered more, and a part of me thought that was just, given the way she'd made those poor girls suffer. Karma, if you like."

"And the other parts of you?"

"Told me what a load of self-justifying bollocks that was. Whatever she did, whatever she was, Lucy Payne was a human being. As a society, we don't tolerate executing people any more, but someone has taken the law into his or her own hands and slit Lucy Payne's throat as she sat there unable to defend herself. That goes against everything I believe in. No matter what she did, it was nobody's right to take Lucy Payne's life."

"What, they should have let her go on suffering a kind of living death? Someone did her a favour."

"It wasn't a mercy killing."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've never come across anyone who felt she deserved the tiniest drop of mercy, that's why. Except perhaps you."

"Well, I didn't kill her," said Banks.

"Now you're playing silly buggers."

Banks touched the scar beside his right eye. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so sarcastic. All I'm saying is that you have to be sure you want to open that can of worms. You know who the main suspects will be."

"Of course I do," said Annie. "The parents and families and friends of the girls the Paynes raped, abused and killed, for a start. That neighbour, Maggie Forrest, who was taken in by Lucy and then betrayed. Maybe even one of the police officers on the case. A friend or relative of Janet Taylor, who was another victim of the whole business. When you get right down to it, lots of people would want her dead, including publicity seekers. Can you imagine the confessions we'll get?"

"So why do you want to go back there?"

"Because I have to. It's the only place to go, and only by going there can I get where I want to be."

"That sounds a bit too mystical to me, like the sound of one hand clapping."

"Well, you've listened to enough Pink Floyd. You ought to know what that sounds like. The thing is, Alan, why I'm here, what I wanted to ask, is can I count on you?"

Banks sighed, took another bite of his burger and washed it down with Tetley's. Then he stared Annie straight in the eye and gave her one of the most guileless looks she'd ever had from him. "Of course you can," he said softly. "You knew that from the start. I'll see if I can arrange a meeting for us with Phil Hartnell and Ken Blackstone in Leeds tomorrow morning."

Annie threw a chip at him. "Then why did you give me such a bloody hard time about it, then?"

Banks smiled. "You wouldn't have had it any other way. Anyway, now you're here, you can tell me about all the interesting things going on in your life these days."

"That's a laugh," said Annie, turning away and twirling her hair with her fingers.

Winsome had never liked working with Templeton. It wasn't because he beat her to sergeant, though that did rankle, but she didn't like his methods, his callous disregard of people's feelings, or the way he kept ogling her. If she was going to take a boyfriend, which she wasn't, Templeton would be the last on her list. But in the meantime they had to work together, so she tried to keep her feelings in check as he prattled on about clubs and DJs she'd never heard of, and hinted at a sexual prowess she wasn't interested in, as he sneaked glances at her thighs and breasts. She knew she could probably report him for sexual harassment, but that sort of thing had a way of coming back at you, especially if you were a woman. You didn't run to the boss and tell tales; you dealt with it yourself.

Winsome had told Banks that she thought he was taking a big risk in sending Templeton to talk to Hayley Daniels's parents. Banks said he knew that, but they were short-staffed, and it would help to have a different perspective. Sometimes, he added cryptically, Templeton's unsavoury and idiosyncratic methods could result in a breakthrough. Winsome remained unconvinced; she'd seen the bastard in action in ways that Banks hadn't. Annie Cabbot would understand, but she wasn't around.

Winsome pulled up outside the Daniels house in Swainshead, once again drawing curious stares from the old men on the bridge.

"What's up with them?" said Templeton. "They act like they've never seen a black woman before."

"They probably hadn't before I came along," Winsome said.

The reporters had gone and the house looked abandoned. It had been only two days since the news of Hayley's death, and already the place seemed shabbier somehow. When Winsome knocked, Geoff Daniels answered. He averted his eyes and appeared embarrassed to see her, as well he might, but he stood aside and let her and Templeton enter. Donna McCarthy was in the living room sitting on an armchair. She looked as if she hadn't slept since Sunday. There was a strained atmosphere, Winsome sensed, though she couldn't tell whether Templeton felt it. Even if he did, in her experience, he would simply ignore it and do what he wanted anyway.

"Any news?" asked Donna, as her husband slumped down in another armchair by the window. Winsome and Templeton took the sofa, and Winsome automatically pulled her skirt down over her knees. If she'd known she was going to be riding out with Templeton this morning, she would have worn trousers. As it was, she'd gone and put on a business-style pinstriped skirt and matching jacket. Already, she could see him eyeing up Donna McCarthy, assessing his chances there.

"Perhaps," said Templeton. "But we've got a few more questions to ask you."

"Oh?" said Donna.

"You told DC Jackman here that you didn't know of any particular boyfriends Hayley had, but that you thought she was sexually active. Am I right?"

Donna twisted her wedding ring. "Well...I..."

"Is that true, Donna?" Daniels butted in, face red with anger. "You told the police my daughter was some sort of slut?"

"I never said any such thing," said Donna.

"You've got some room to talk," said Templeton to Daniels, "tied to a bed while some young tart bounced up and down on your jollies."

"What's this?" Donna asked, looking at her husband. "What's he talking about?"

"You mean you don't know?" Templeton said, a smirk of disbelief on his face. "He didn't tell you?"

"I didn't think it was" Winsome began.

"No," Templeton went on, waving her down. "I think she should know."