When he got to the bottom of the embankment, he heard a curse behind him and turned to see Annie Cabbot come sliding down after him, also on her bum, feet in the air. At the bottom, she got to her feet and flashed him a grin. “Sorry. It was the only way I could give them the slip.”
“I take it you don’t have a bulletproof vest?”
“No.”
“I could be gallant and give you mine, but we’re a little too close to the scene now. Just stay back, behind me. We don’t want to scare him.”
They approached the fairy bridge. Banks told the man who he was. He indicated that it was okay and told the two of them to stop at the far side. They faced one another over the bridge. Vivian Elmsley looked frightened but otherwise unhurt as far as Banks could see. The gun looked like a.32 automatic.
“This is DS Cabbot,” Banks said. “She’s been working on the case with me. Is it okay for her to be here?”
The man looked at Annie and nodded. “I know who she is,” he said. “I saw her on television the day you found the skeleton, then down here that night a week or so ago.”
“So it was you,” Annie said. “What were you doing? Surely you weren’t looking for anything after all this time?”
“Perhaps I was. Not the sort of thing you mean. But perhaps I was looking for something. I’ve been here a lot at night. Thinking.”
“Why did you run?”
“I recognized you from the television. You walked right past me and didn’t even see me. But I saw you. I couldn’t risk being caught, having to explain myself, before I’d finished what I had to do.”
Banks decided it was time to take charge. He held his hands up and gestured for Annie to do the same. Rain dripped down the back of his neck. “We’re not armed, Francis,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to talk. Let Ms. Elmsley go.”
“So you know who I am?”
“Francis Henderson.”
“Clever. But my name’s Stringer now. Frank Stringer.” He licked his lips. So he had adopted his mother’s maiden name. Strange. That told Banks something about the situation they were dealing with. Frank looked twitchy, and Banks wondered if he had been drinking or if he was on drugs again. If it’s hard to make an imprecise situation precise, he thought, then it’s a bloody sight harder to make a hallucinatory situation real.
“Anyway,” Frank went on, “I’m not ready to let anyone go yet. I want to hear it all first. I want to hear her confess to you, then I’ll decide whether to kill her or not. It makes no odds to me.”
“Okay, Frank. What do you want to hear?”
“She killed my mother. I want to hear her say so, and I want to know why.”
“She didn’t kill anyone, Frank.”
“What are you talking about? You’re lying. You’re trying to protect her.”
His grip tightened on Vivian. Banks caught her sudden intake of breath and saw the gun barrel pushed into the flesh under her ear.
“Listen to me, Frank,” he said. “It’s important you listen to me. You asked for me to come here. You want the truth, don’t you?”
“I already know the truth. I want to hear it from your mouth. I want to hear her confess in front of you. I want to hear what she did to my mother.”
“It didn’t happen the way you think it did, Frank. It didn’t happen the way any of us thought it did. We were all wrong.”
“My mother was murdered.”
“Yes, she was murdered.”
“And this… this bitch here lied to my father and me when we went and asked about her.”
“No,” said Banks. “She didn’t lie. She thought she was telling you the truth.” He noticed the look of confusion in Vivian’s eyes.
“All those years,” Frank went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “Do you know he worshiped her, my father? Even though she left us. He said she was a dreamer, a free spirit, a beautiful butterfly who just had to spread her wings and fly away. But I hated her for leaving us. For depriving us of all that beauty. Why couldn’t she share it with us? Why couldn’t we be part of her dreams? We were never good enough for her. I hated her and I loved her. All my life dominated and blighted by a mother I never even knew. What do you think Mr. Freud would make of that? Don’t you think that’s funny?”
Banks looked away. He didn’t want to tell Frank the truth, that his mother had turned her back on him at birth. All those years, George had fed him on illusions. Gloria certainly had been wrong about the father of her child; he hadn’t turned out so bad after all. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it’s funny at all, Frank.”
“My father used to tell me how she always wanted to be one of those Hollywood actresses. Used to spend hours in front of the mirror practicing her makeup and the way they talked. Even before I was born it was no-go for them. She was too young, he said. Made just one mistake, that’s all. Me. It was enough.”
“She was very young, Frank. When she got pregnant, she was frightened. She didn’t know what to do.”
“So she had to run away and leave us?”
“For some people it seems like the only solution. She obviously wanted the child, you, to live. She didn’t have an abortion. She must have told your father where she was going? Did she keep in touch?”
He sniffed. “A postcard every now and then, telling him she was doing fine and not to worry. When my dad came home on leave once, he took me up to Hobb’s End to see her. It was the only time I… the only time I really remember seeing her, being with her, hearing her voice. She told me I was a fine-looking boy. I loved her then. She was a magical creature to me. Dazzling. Like someone from a dream. She seemed to move in a haze of light. So beautiful and so tender. But they argued. He couldn’t help asking her to come back when he saw her, but she wouldn’t. She told him she was married now and had a new life and we should leave her alone if we wanted her to be happy.”
“What did your father do?”
“What she asked. He was devastated. I think he’d always hoped that one day, perhaps, she would come back. We tried once more, when it was all over.” He turned so he was speaking into Vivian’s ear. “But this lying bitch here told us she had run away and she didn’t know where. All my life I believed that, believed my mother had run away and abandoned us forever. I tried to find her. I’m good at finding people, but I got nowhere. Now I find out she was dead all the time. Murdered and buried right here.”
“Let her go, Frank!” Banks shouted over a peal of thunder. “She didn’t know.”
“What do you mean, she didn’t know? She must have known.” Frank tore his attention away from Vivian and glared at Banks. His eyes were wild, his lank hair was plastered to his skull and rain dripped from his eyes like tears. “I want to hear it all. I want to hear her admit it to you. I want the truth.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Frank. Vivian didn’t kill Gloria. Listen to me.”
“Even if she didn’t do the actual killing, she was involved. She covered for somebody. Who was it?”
“Nobody.”
“What do you take me for?”
“Vivian had nothing to do with your mother’s death.” As he spoke, Banks noticed Vivian’s eyes fill with curiosity, despite the gun at her neck. Annie stood beside him now, and Frank didn’t seem to care about her presence. Banks was aware of the activity in the background, but he didn’t think anyone would make a move yet. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. His raincoat and trousers stuck to his skin and rain stung his eyes.