“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.
“What do you mean, she had nothing to do with it?” Frank said. “She told my father that my mother had gone away, when all the while she was buried up here. She lied. Why would she do that unless she’d killed her, or knew who had?”
“As far as she was concerned,” Banks said, “your mother had gone away. She had spoken about running away often since Matthew got back from the war. He’d been badly hurt by the Japanese. He wasn’t the man she had married. Life was miserable for her. It seemed only natural to everyone who knew her that she’d go, just like she left you and your father in the first place.”
“No!”
Frank’s grip tightened on Vivian’s throat and she gasped. Banks felt his heart lurch. He held his hands out, palms toward Frank.
“Okay, Frank,” he went on. “Calm down. Please. Calm down and listen to me.”
They waited a moment, the four of them, all silent but for the pattering of the rain and the storm disappearing into the distance, the occasional crackle of a police radio from the rim.
Then Banks felt things relax, the same way as when you undo a tight button. “Matthew drove her away,” he went on. “It was only natural for Gwen to assume that was what happened. Your mother’s suitcase was gone. Her things were gone.”
Frank didn’t say anything for at least a minute. Banks could see him processing information, trying to shore up his defenses. The storm passed into the distance now and the rain eased off, leaving the four of them soaked to the skin.
“If it wasn’t her, who was it?” Frank said eventually. “I’ll bet you can’t tell me that, can you?”
“I can, Frank.” Annie stepped forward and spoke. Frank turned to her and blinked the rain out of his eyes.
“Who?” Frank asked. “And don’t you lie to me.”
“His name was Edgar Konig,” Annie said. “He ran the PX at Rowan Woods USAAF base, about a mile from here.”
“PX?” Vivian gasped.
“I don’t believe you,” said Frank.
“It’s true,” said Banks, picking up the thread. He realized that Annie didn’t have the full story yet. “Konig killed your mother. He also killed at least one other woman over here the same way, down at East Anglia. There were others, too, in Europe and America.”
Frank shook his head slowly.
“Listen to me, Frank. Edgar Konig knew your mother and her friends from the dances they went to. He was attracted to her from the start, but he had serious problems with women. He was always tongue-tied around them. He brought her presents, but even then she didn’t offer herself to him, she wouldn’t help him overcome his shyness. She went out with other men. He watched and waited. All the time the pressure was building up in him.”
“You say he killed other women?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“We found a collar button from an American airman’s uniform. We think your mother must have torn it off as they struggled. Then we looked into the unsolved murder in Suffolk and found he had been questioned in connection with that, too. Are you listening, Frank?”
“I’m listening.”
Frank’s grip around Vivian’s throat had loosened a little, and Banks could tell that he had relaxed the hand holding the gun. “Edgar Konig went to Bridge Cottage that night to collect what he thought your mother owed him while her husband Matthew was at the pub as usual. The bomber group was due to move out in a couple of days and that had pushed him to the brink. He didn’t have much time. He’d been torturing himself for over a year. He’d been drinking that night, getting more and more lustful, and he thought he had plucked up the courage, thought he could overcome his inadequacies. Something short-circuited, though. She must have rejected him, maybe laughed at him, and the next thing he knew he’d killed her in a rage. Do you understand what I’m saying, Frank? There was something wrong with him.”
“A psycho?”
“No. Not technically. Not at first, anyway. He became a sex murderer. The two things – sex and murder – became tangled up in his mind. The one demanded the other.”
“If that’s how it happened, why did no one know about it?”
Slowly, Banks reached for his cigarettes and offered Frank one. “Gave them up years back,” he said. “Thanks for the offer, though.”
Banks lit up. Definite progress. Frank seemed less tightly wound, more willing to listen to reason. And he didn’t appear to be drunk or on drugs. Better not cock it up now.
“No one knew about it,” Banks went on, “because Edgar Konig realized what he’d done. That sobered him up fast. He covered his tracks well.” Banks looked at Vivian Elmsley as he spoke. She averted her eyes. “He cleaned up the mess and he buried the body in the outbuilding. Then he packed a few of her clothes and belongings in a suitcase to make it look as though she had run off. He even faked a note. It was wartime. People went missing all the time. Everyone in the village knew Gloria wasn’t happy with Matthew, what a burden she had to bear. Why should they question that she’d just done a moonlight?”
Frank spoke in Vivian’s ear. “Is that right, what he’s saying?”
Banks couldn’t hear her, but he saw her mouth form the word “Yes.”
“Frank,” Banks pressed on, playing his advantage. “The gun. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone, but it’s dangerous. It’s easy to make a wrong move. Nobody’s been hurt yet. No harm’s been done.”