“What else?”
Ruth stared at the walls again, looking bored. “That my mother was Rosalind Gorwyn and that there was a blank space where my father’s name was supposed to be.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went to seventy-three Launceston Terrace, Tiverton, and found an elderly couple by the name of Gorwyn living there. It’s not a very common name, even in Devon. I knew they couldn’t be my real parents – they were too old – so I pushed them a bit and found out they were her aunt and uncle and that she had stayed with them while she had the baby. Me. Hid away from the world while she gave birth to me.”
“What else did they tell you?”
“That my mother had married a man called Jeremiah Archibald Riddle, an important policeman, that she was a solicitor now, and they lived in North Yorkshire. By then they’d have told me anything to get rid of me. After that it was really easy. A child could have found them.”
“Did you speak to Rosalind’s parents at all?”
“Not right at first. But I found out that they’d retired to Barnstaple. He was a vicar. Which probably explains why my mother let me live.”
“What do you mean?” Annie asked.
Ruth looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. She didn’t seem to mind what she saw. “Well, either way I didn’t have much of a chance, did I?” she said. “She could’ve just got rid of me, had an abortion. That’s what I’d have done in her place. Then I would never have existed at all and none of this would have happened.”
“Or?”
“She could have kept me. Then I’d have been an unwanted baby with a single mother and your chief constable would never have married her. I’d probably have been brought up in some sort of punk commune or something, with people shooting heroin all around my cot, getting high and forgetting me, so I’d have crawled to the edge of the stairs and fallen over and died anyway. So I imagine she thought putting me up for adoption was a better choice for her. Pity it didn’t turn out that way for me. I’ve been told the adoption people are pretty good, very strict in their standards, but some of us slip through the cracks. Like I said, everyone thought the Walkers were the salt of the earth, that they would make wonderful parents, but the Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless them with issue. You’d think they’d take that as a sign, wouldn’t you?”
Banks and Annie paused to take in what she said, then Banks picked up the questioning again. “You went to Rosalind’s law office?”
“Yes. I thought it would be best that way. Turned out I was right.” Ruth gave a mean little giggle. “She was scared shitless I’d say something to her husband. Thought he’d turf her out on her arse if he found out.”
“So you blackmailed her.”
Ruth slammed her fist onto the desk. “It was only my due! I only asked for my due. I’d had nothing from her in all those years. Nothing. And I’d had fat little but misery from the bloody Walkers. Do you know they once made me wear an old pair of shoes that were so small and tight that my toenails came off and my shoes were full of blood when I got home from school? That was what your bloody salt-of-the-earth Walkers were like. I had a right to something from Ros. She owed me. Why should she get it all just because she was born a few years later than me, on the right side of the blanket? Answer me that one. It should all have been mine, but she tossed me away. It was only my due.”
The interview room was starting to feel very claustrophobic. Banks couldn’t quite sort out the she’s; half the time it seemed as if Ruth was referring to Rosalind, the rest to Emily. “Were you abused by your adoptive parents, Ruth?”
Ruth gave a harsh laugh. “Abused? That’s a good one. You at least have to care about someone to abuse them. No, I wasn’t abused, not in the way you mean it. I suppose there’s more than one kind of abuse, though. I mean, I’d call being made to wear those shoes until my toes bled abuse. Wouldn’t you? Mostly, they were just cold. Ironic they should die by fire, isn’t it?”
Again, Banks felt that shiver creep up his spine. He saw Annie frowning. Ruth paid them no attention. “Did you see Rosalind often?” Banks asked.
“Not that often.”
“When you needed something?”
“I only wanted my due.”
“What about Emily? How did you feel toward her?”
“I’d be a liar if I said I liked her.”
“But you befriended her, took her in. At least I assume that’s how it happened and you didn’t just meet her by accident near the station. Is that right?”
Ruth nodded. “When I met her the once in Ros’s office, I made a point of finding out where she went to school. She was a boarding student, so I phoned her there, and visited her. When she started to trust me, when we began to be friends, she used to call me a lot from school, too. She’d complain about her parents, how strict they were. I had to laugh. I mean, she’d complain to me about that. I told her that after she was sixteen she could do what she wanted. It was near the end of the school year and she’d had her birthday, so I said why didn’t she come and stay with me in London for a while if she wanted.”
“You mean you lured her to London? You encouraged her to leave home?”
“I think lured is too strong a word. I had no trouble getting her there. She was only too pleased to come.”
“But you didn’t tell her parents where she was?”
“Why should I? It was her business, and she didn’t want them to know.”
“Do you think Rosalind knew?”
“I doubt it. She didn’t know how close me and Emily had become. I don’t think she even knew where I lived. Didn’t bother to ask. That’s how interested in me she was after all those years.”
“Did you introduce Emily to Craig Newton?” Banks asked.
Ruth’s face clouded. “I thought he was my friend. I thought he loved me. But he was just like all the rest.”
“Did it hurt you when she took up with Craig?”
Ruth shot him a tortured glance. “What do you think?”
“Is that why you killed her?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Come on, Ruth. We’ve got the evidence. We know. You might as well tell us how it happened. I’m sure there were extenuating circumstances. What about Barry Clough? What part did he play in all this, for example?”
Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “I wondered when you’d get around to him.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Plenty.”
“Like what?”
Ruth paused a minute and rubbed her fist over the top of her thigh as if she had an itch. “I bet it’s something you don’t know, clever clogs.”
“Maybe it is. Why don’t you tell me?”
“They didn’t name my father on the birth certificate, as I told you. But I found out. That’s who it was. Barry Clough. My father.” Ruth flopped back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. “I’m tired and I want something to eat. You have to give me something to eat, don’t you?”
“I don’t know about you, Annie,” Banks said when Ruth was back in her cell eating her canteen beefburger and chips, “but I could do with a breath of fresh air.”
“My feelings exactly.”
They left the station and walked across the market square, then they took the narrow, cobbled Castle Wynde past the bare formal gardens down to the riverside. It was a crisp, cold winter day, and their breaths plumed as they walked, crunching over puddles. The hill went down to the river steeply, with small limestone cottages lining both sides, and the cobbles were slippery. Banks could feel the icy wind blowing up from the river. It was just what he needed to get the smell of the interview room out of his system.