“In what ways?”
“She didn’t understand the way they use women, manipulate them, or the power of their lust. I wanted her to learn to value herself. In sex, when the time came, as much as in everything else. Unless a woman respects her sexual self, she’s going to be every man’s victim all her life. Giving herself away to that…that animal was a bad way for her to start. You men don’t always understand how important that time of a woman’s life is.”
“Was she a virgin before she met Spinks?”
Sylvie nodded and curled her lip in disgust. “She told me all about it that night after the row. He stole a car, like so many youths do these days. They went for a ride out on the moors…” Her fists clenched as she talked. “And he did it to her in the back of the car.”
“Had you met him before that time?”
She nodded. “Just once. It was two or three weeks earlier. Deborah brought him to the house. It was a sunny day. They were out making a barbecue when I got back from shopping in Leeds.”
“What happened?”
“That time? Oh, nothing much. They were drinking. No doubt at the boy’s instigation, Deborah had taken a bottle of my father’s estate wine from the cellar. I was a little angry with them, but not too much. You must remember, Chief Inspector, that I grew up in France. We had wine with every meal, taken with a little water when we were children, so drinking under age hardly seems the great sin it does to you English.”
“What was your impression of John Spinks?”
“He was very much a boy of single syllables. He didn’t have much to say for himself at all. I’ll admit I didn’t like him right from the start. Call me a snob, if you like, but it’s true. After he’d gone, I told her he wasn’t good enough for her and that she should consider breaking off with him.”
“How did she react to that?”
Sylvie smiled sadly. “The way any sixteen-year-old girl would. She told me she’d see who she wanted and that I should mind my own business and stop trying to run her life.”
“Exactly what my daughter said in the same situation,” said Banks. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Spinks?”
Sylvie sipped some tea, then she went to fetch her handbag. She slipped her hand inside and pulled out a packet of Dunhill. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” she asked. “Why I should ask permission in my own house, I don’t know. It’s just, these days…the anti-smoking brigade…they get to you. It’s only in moments of stress I revert to the habit.”
“I know what you mean,” said Banks, pulling his Silk Cut out with a conspiratorial smile. “May I join you?”
“That would be even better. Geoffrey will go spare, of course. He thinks I’ve stopped.”
The phrase “go spare” sounded odd with that sight French lilt to it; such a Yorkshire phrase, Banks thought.
“Your husband told me you’re from Bordeaux,” Banks said, accepting a light from her slim gold lighter.
Sylvie nodded. “My father is in the wine business. A négociant. One of la noblesse du bouchon.”
“I’m afraid my French is very rusty.”
“Literally, it means ‘the bottle-cork nobility.’ It’s a collective term for the négociants of a great wine center, like Bordeaux.”
“I suppose it means he’s rich?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Very. Anyway, I met Geoffrey when he was on a wine-tasting tour of the area. It must have been, oh, seventeen years ago. I was only nineteen at the time. Geoffrey was thirty.”
“And Sir Geoffrey fell in love with the négociant’s daughter? How romantic.”
Sylvie dredged up another sad smile. “Yes, it was romantic.” Then she drew deep on her cigarette and let the smoke out of her nose. “You asked if there was anything else about Spinks, Chief Inspector. Yes, there was. Things had been going missing from the house.”
“Missing? Like what?”
She shrugged. “A silver snuffbox. Not very valuable, though it might look antique to the untrained eye. Some foreign currency. A pair of silver earrings. Little things like that.”
“Since Deborah had been seeing Spinks?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m almost certain of it. Deborah wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m not saying she was a saint-obviously not-but at least she was honest. She was no thief.”
“Did you challenge her about the stolen articles?”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she didn’t know about the missing things but she would talk to him.”
“Did she tell you what he said?”
“She said he denied it.”
“Did Spinks ever bother either of you after that day you threw him out?”
Sylvie frowned and stubbed out her cigarette. She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips as if to get rid of the taste. “He made threats. One day, he came to the house when both Deborah and Geoffrey were out.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. Nothing physical, if that’s what you mean. If he had, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call the police. I tried to close the door on him, but he pushed his way in and asked for money.”
“Did you give him any?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“He said if I didn’t give him money, he would keep on seeing Deborah, and that he would get her pregnant, make himself part of the family.” She shuddered. “He was disgusting.”
“And you still didn’t give him anything?”
“No. Then he said if I didn’t give him money he would start spreading the word around that he had deflowered Sir Geoffrey Harrison’s daughter. That she was nothing but a slut. He said he would spread it around St. Mary’s and get her expelled, and he would make sure people in the business community knew so that they would all laugh at Geoffrey behind his back.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was too shocked. Luckily, Michael was here at the time. He handled it.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. I was so upset I went upstairs. All I can say is that I heard nothing more of the matter after that. Spinks disappeared from our lives just as if he had never been there in the first place. Not without leaving some damage, of course.”
“Did he ever threaten to harm Deborah physically?”
Sylvie shook her head. “Not that I heard.”
“But he certainly seemed capable of acting violently?”
She touched her scar again. “Yes. Do you think…?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “But anything’s possible. Did Mr. Clayton know about Spinks from the start?”
“Yes. He dropped by the house that time when they were having the barbecue. He said something to Spinks about the drinking and Spinks was very rude. Michael agreed with me then that Deborah was wasted on the boy. And I told him about…when I found them together in bed. I had to tell someone.”
Clayton seemed to be dropping by Sir Geoffrey’s house an awful lot, Banks thought. Especially when Sir Geoffrey wasn’t there but Sylvie was.
“Does Mr. Clayton have any family of his own?” he asked.
“Michael? No. He and his wife, Gillian, split up three years ago. It was a childless marriage.” She smiled. “I think part of the problem was that Michael is married to his work. Sometimes I think he has his computers wired directly to his brain. He has a girlfriend in Seattle now, and that seems ideal for him. Long-distance romance. He travels there quite often on company business.”
“How long have he and Sir Geoffrey known one another?”
“Since Oxford. They’ve always been inseparable. In fact, Michael was with Geoffrey when we met.”