"Tell me what emotionally mature young woman goes out drinking with a group of friends on a Saturday night, wearing practically nothing, and drinks so much she gets legless and totters down a dark alley for a piss?" Banks could sense Winsome staring at him, and he knew she was thinking he was acting almost as badly as Templeton. But self-righteous pricks like Austin, who abused their positions of power to indulge their desires for young girls, or boys, always made him angry, and he still felt plenty of residual anger from his interview with Randall the previous evening. He knew he needed to tone it down, though, or Austin would clam up completely, so he indicated subtly to Winsome that he had got her message, knew what he was doing and was easing his foot off the accelerator.

"I think what Mr. Banks means," said Winsome, "is what sort of shape would Hayley have been in on Saturday night when she got to your house? If you remember, you did indicate last time I talked to you that you didn't want a drunk and immature teenager in your house. Now you're saying that Hayley was mature for her years. Maybe you can see our problem? We're getting a few conflicting remarks here."

"That's it exactly," Banks said. "You see, Malcolm, according to all accounts, Hayley was pretty far gone. I find myself wondering what use she could have possibly been to you in that state."

Austin glared. "You might not understand this, Mr. Banks," he said, "but love isn't always a matter of 'using,' of what you can get from someone. If Hayley had come to me on Saturday night and she'd been drinking, I wouldn't have taken advantage of her. I didn't need for her to be drunk to make love. I would have made her some coffee, left her to sleep it off, made her as comfortable as possible."

Banks remembered Annie's drunken visit of the other night. Is that what he should have done? Settled her down, made her comfortable? "Admirable," he said. "But were you expecting her?"

Austin paused to examine something on his desk, then he said, "She told me she might come by. Saturday was always a casual arrangement. It was her night."

"Then why did you lie to DC Jackman the last time she spoke to you?"

Austin looked guiltily at Winsome. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was just that I was afraid of exactly the kind of reaction I got from you just now. Our relationship is not easy to explain. People don't always understand." He glared at Banks again.

"Look," said Banks, in his best we're-men-of-the-world manner, "no man would deny the attractiveness of a lissome nineteen-year-old beauty like Hayley Daniels, and no one could fail to understand why you wanted to bed her. The love bit's a touch harder to fathom, I will admit, but granted, it happens. People are strange that way. The problem isn't so much the age difference, but that you're a teacher and she was your student. What do the college authorities think of this sort of thing?"

Austin looked away. "They don't know, of course. I doubt that they'd be sympathetic. They frown on teacher-student relationships."

"So you didn't want them to know? It could mean your career?"

"That's one reason I wasn't completely truthful, yes. I've worked very hard for many years to get where I am now."

"Only one reason?"

"Well, no one wants to be dragged into a murder investigation, do they?"

"But you're in it now. Up to your neck. Did you really think you could get away with lying about something like that?" Banks shook his head. "It just boggles my mind that people must think we're so stupid as to overlook the obvious." A hint of marijuana smoke drifted up from the courtyard.

"I don't think you're stupid," said Austin. "I just didn't think it was that obvious. We tried to be discreet. We were going to go public when she finished her diploma. Now it's all out in the open, what is it you want to know? I had nothing to do with Hayley's death. As I told you, I love her. Loved her."

"Had she dropped by after going out drinking on a Saturday night before?" Banks asked.

"Yes. I can't honestly say I was too thrilled. I mean, she was usually, as you said, a bit the worse for alcohol. But it was her night out with her friends, and if, well, quite frankly..."

"What?" said Banks.

"Well, if she had to spend the night somewhere, I'd rather she spent it with me."

"You didn't trust her?"

"I didn't say that. But she's young. Vulnerable."

"So you were jealous," said Banks. "Stands to reason. I'd be jealous too if I had a beautiful young girlfriend. A few drinks in her, and she might start shagging someone her own age." Banks felt Winsome bristle again. Templeton-phobia or no, she had to loosen up, he thought. You sometimes had to shake the tree pretty hard to get the coconut to fall. Austin was an educated type, not without a touch of arrogance, and you weren't going to get to him by logical argument and civilized banter.

"If, as I am," Austin said, "you are fortunate enough to have the love of a young woman, you soon learn that you can't afford to be clinging in the relationship."

"What did you think when she didn't turn up?" Winsome asked.

"I didn't think anything, really. I mean, it was by no means definite that she would."

"You weren't worried about her?"

"No."

"But she wasn't expected at home," Banks cut in, "so where did you think she was staying?"

"With friends, I suppose."

"With someone else? And you were jealous. Did you go out searching for her?"

"I told you, it doesn't pay to be clinging. Besides, I trusted Hayley. Yes, as I said, I would rather her stop with me, but if she stopped at a friend's flat, it didn't mean she would be sleeping with him." His eyes misted over. "In a way," he said, "I suppose I hoped she wouldn't come. I always found it hard to deal with her in that state, and I was tired on Saturday."

"Hard to handle when she was drunk, was she?" said Banks.

"She could be."

"What was she like?"

"Irrational, unpredictable, overtalkative."

"Would Hayley have arrived by one o'clock if she was coming?"

"Usually, yes. Anyway, she had a key."

"Very trusting of you."

"It's called love, Inspector. You really ought to try it."

"Chance would be a fine thing. Why should we believe you?"

"I don't follow."

Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. "You've lied to us once or twice, so why should we believe anything you tell us now?"

"Because it's the truth."

"Easy for you to say. But look at it from my point of view. Hayley makes her way to your house the worse for wear. You're fed up with her drunken antics and you tell her so, in no uncertain terms. Maybe she teases you, makes fun of your age or something, and you see red. She doesn't want it, but she's drunk and you don't care what she wants. You know what you want. So you do it anyway. She struggles, but that just makes it all the more exciting. Afterwards she's making such a fuss, maybe even threatening to tell the college what you've done. You can't have that, so you strangle her. Then you're stuck with a body. Best thing you can think of at short notice is to shove it in the boot of your car and dump it in the Maze." A few of the facts didn't quite match the story Banks was telling, such as the violence of the rape, the timing, and the CCTV tapes, but Austin wasn't to know that. "How am I doing?"

"You should write detective fiction," Austin said. "With an imagination like that, I'm surprised you waste it on being a policeman."

"You'd be surprised how useful imagination is in my job," said Banks. "Am I at least close?"

"Miles away." Austin leaned back in his chair. "Inspector, it would save us all a lot of trouble if you would just believe that I didn't kill Hayley. Whatever you might think of me, I really did love her, and if I could help you, I would." He glanced at Winsome. "I'm sorry I lied, but I really didn't want to lose my job over this and have my name dragged through the mud. Those are the only reasons I said what I did."

"How well did you know Hayley?" Banks asked.

"Well enough, I suppose. As I said, we'd been together for about two months, but I'd known her for about a year in all. And before you ask, there was nothing between us in that time." He paused. "I don't want you to get the wrong impression. Whatever you might have heard about Hayley's behaviour on Saturday night, it was...youthful high spirits. Just that. She sometimes needed to let off steam. Most of the time, as anyone will tell you, Hayley was an intelligent, sober, quiet-spoken, hard-working and ambitious young woman. That's what I meant when I referred to her maturity. Mostly she found boys of her own age trivial and obsessed with only one thing."

"And you weren't?"

"I'll admit that knowing Hayley gave me a new lease on life in that direction, but you mustn't make the mistake of assuming that was what it was all about."

"What was it all about?"

"Sharing a nice meal. Just being together. Talking. Going for walks. Holding hands. Breakfast in bed. Going to a concert. Listening to classical music. Cuddling. Discussing a book we'd both read. Simple things. I could hardly wait until we were able to come out in the open with it. The secrecy was such agony. I'll miss her more than you could ever imagine."

Banks felt jealous. He hadn't done any of those things with anyone for years, if ever, or felt that way about anyone. He and his ex-wife, Sandra, had had such different tastes and interests that their lives had been parallel rather than joined. And when the parallel lines started to diverge slightly, the end had come quickly. Even with Annie there had been more differences than things in common. Still, he wasn't going to let sentimentality and sympathy for Austin cloud his vision. "You say you want to help," he went on. "If you didn't kill her, have you any idea who did?"

"I don't know. Some maniac by the sound of it."

"The truth could be closer to home," said Winsome. "What about enemies? Is there anyone in her immediate circle she had problems with?"

"There's Stuart Kinsey, I suppose. He was always chasing after her."

"But you told me he wouldn't harm anyone," said Winsome.

"I still don't think he would," said Austin, "but you asked me, and I can't think of anyone else. Hayley just wasn't the sort of person to make enemies."

"Well, she made one," said Banks, standing up. "Thanks for your time, Malcolm. And stick around. We might need to talk to you again."

Intense and rejected in love. That was a very bad combination, Banks knew. A very bad combination indeed. And Stuart Kinsey had admitted to going into the Maze, ostensibly to spy on Hayley, to find out who she was seeing. That gave him motive and opportunity. Could means be far behind? Time for another word with Mr. Kinsey.

It was a good hour and a half or more from Whitby to Leeds, depending on the traffic, and this was the second time Annie had done it in two days. Her feelings were still smarting from the lunch with Eric. It hadn't taken him long to show his true colours. Now she worried about what other photos he might still have on his mobile or his computer. What would he do with them? Post them on the Internet? How could she have been so bloody foolish, drunk or not? Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly and her teeth gritted as she thought about it and remembered what he said. He had been lashing out just to be cruel, of course, but was there any truth in it? Had she seemed too desperate, too eager, too grateful?

She drove along Stanningley Road, turned off before Bramley and found her way to The Hill. The Paynes had lived close to the top, just before the railway bridge, on the right as you drove down, and Claire Toth and her family lived practically over the street, where a row of old, detached houses with overgrown gardens stood at the top of a steep rise. It was six years since Annie had last driven by, and then there had been police barriers and crime scene tape all over the place. Now all that was gone, of course, but so was number 35, and in its place stood two new red-brick semis. Well, she supposed no one would want to live in the House of Payne, as the newspapers had called it, or next door, for that matter.

As she slowed down, Annie shivered at a sudden memory of the time she went down into the cellar: the obscene poster of the woman with her legs spread; the dank, claustrophobic atmosphere with its smell of blood and urine; the occult symbols on the walls. Fortunately for Annie, the body of Kimberley Myers had been removed by the time she got there, along with the bloody mattress.

Annie could imagine the ground haunted by the ghosts of the poor girls who had been raped, tortured and buried down there. And Lucy Payne, the woman in the wheelchair with her throat cut, had definitely been involved in that. Banks had spent a lot of time interviewing Lucy, first as a victim and later as a possible suspect, and she had certainly had an effect on him, no matter what he claimed, but it was clear that even now he hadn't any more understanding of what really went on in that cellar, or why, than anyone else.

Annie parked at the bottom of the steps in front of Claire's house and pulled herself together. She knew that she had to get over what happened the other night and talk to Banks. Sober this time. So she had made a fool of herself. So what? It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. Explain. He'd understand. God knew, he was understanding enough; he wasn't going to toss her out on her ear. Was she so afraid of a little embarrassment? That didn't sound like the woman she thought she was. But was she who she thought she was?

She climbed the steps, noting as she went that the garden that straggled down to the pavement seemed even more overgrown than ever, especially for the time of year, and a high fence about halfway up blocked the view of the house from below. Annie opened the gate and carried on climbing the last flight of steps.

The front door needed a coat of paint, and a dog or cat had clearly been scratching at the wood. The small lawn was patchy and overgrown with weeds. Annie wasn't quite sure how she was going to approach Claire. Was the girl a serious suspect? If not, was she likely to know anything that would help? It seemed that all she was doing was going in there to reopen old wounds. Taking a deep breath, she made a fist and knocked on the frosted glass.

After a few moments a woman answered the door in a blue cardigan and grey slacks.

"Mrs. Toth?" Annie said.

"That's right, love. You must be DI Cabbot. Please come in. Claire's not back yet, but she'll be here any minute."

Annie went in. The front room had high ceilings and a bay window looking west, over the tops of the houses opposite. A television set stood in the corner. Daily Cooks had just started, with that dishy French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. Annie bet the French never made a fuss about a one-night stand. Mrs. Toth didn't make a move to turn the TV off, but when Annie asked her, she turned the volume down a notch or two. While they made small talk, Mrs. Toth was watching from the corner of her eye. Finally, she offered a cup of tea, and Annie accepted gratefully. Left to herself in the cavernous living room for a moment, Annie stood at the window and watched the fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky on the horizon. Another beautiful spring day. She fancied she could even see as far as the bulky shapes of the Pennines in the distance.

Around the same time Mrs. Toth returned with the tray, the front door opened and shut and a young woman walked in wearing a supermarket shift, which she immediately took off and threw over a chair. "Claire!" said her mother. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. Hang up your coat."

Claire gave Annie a long-suffering look and did as she was told. Annie had never seen her before, so she hadn't really known what to expect. Claire took a packet of Dunhills out of her handbag and lit one with a Bic lighter. Her dirty blonde hair was tied back and she was wearing jeans and a white men's-style shirt. It wasn't hard to see that she was overweight, the jeans tight on her, flesh bulging at the hips and waist, and her makeup-free complexion was badpasty and spotty chipmunk cheeks, teeth stained yellow from nicotine. She certainly didn't resemble the slight figure of Mary whom Mel Danvers had seen at Mapston Hall. She was also too young, but as Banks had pointed out, Mel Danvers could have been wrong about the age. Claire certainly seemed old before her time in some of her mannerisms.

As soon as Claire had got the cigarette going, she poured herself a glass of wine without offering any to Annie. Not that she wanted any. Tea was fine.

Mrs. Toth placed herself in an armchair in the corner, and her cup clinked on her saucer every now and then as she took a sip. Daily Cooks continued quietly in the background.

"What do you want?" Claire asked. "Mum told me you're from the police."

"Have you been following the news?" Annie asked.

"I don't really bother."

"Only Lucy Payne was killed the other day."

Claire paused, the glass inches from her lips. "She...? But I thought she was in a wheelchair?"

"She was."

Claire sipped some wine, took a drag on her cigarette and shrugged. "Well, what do you expect me to say? That I'm sorry?"

"Are you?"

"No way. Do you know what that woman did?"

"I know," said Annie.

"And you lot just let her go."

"We didn't just let her go, Claire," Annie tried to explain.

"You did. They said there wasn't enough evidence. After what she did. Not enough evidence. Can you believe that?"

"There was no way she could ever harm anyone else, wherever she was," Annie said. "She couldn't move a muscle."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point, then?"

"An eye for an eye. She shouldn't have been allowed to live."

"But we don't have the death penalty in England any more."

"He's dead, isn't he?"

"Terence Payne?"

A shadow flitted in the back of Claire's eyes. "Yes, him."

"Yes, he's dead."

"Well, then?" Claire stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and drank some more wine. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's been a long day."