“She didn’t confide in you about anything that was bothering her?”
“No.”
“What about Victor Parsons?”
“That waste of space. What about him?”
“I heard he caused a bit of trouble here at the center.”
“Yes, but he’s all bluster. I mean, he’s obnoxious enough, but I can’t imagine him doing… you know.”
“What happened between them?”
“Search me. I think Jenn wanted to settle down, have a family, but he wasn’t interested. To be quite honest, from what I could gather he’s a bit of a layabout, a sponger. She was well shut of him.”
“Do you know if he ever hit her?”
“I don’t think so. At least she never said, and I never saw any evidence of it. The breakup hit her hard, though. She didn’t say a lot, but you could tell she was under a lot of stress, poor thing. She lost weight, let herself go, as you do.”
“But this was before Roy Banks?”
“Oh, yes. She’d bounced back by then. Even tried one or two dates. They didn’t lead anywhere.”
“But Victor Parsons turned up again, as recently as two weeks ago, I understand?”
“Yes, made a terrible scene. I was down in reception at the time.”
“What did he say?”
“He begged her to go back with him. Said he couldn’t live without her.” Georgina’s lip curled in distaste. “Pathetic little shit.”
“Did he and Roy Banks ever bump into one another?”
“Not that I know of.”
“But you think that’s what might have been upsetting Jennifer this last week? Victor? Or Roy?”
“Maybe they’d had a row or something. Bear in mind, though, I’m only guessing. It could have been something else entirely.”
“You said she had a tendency for getting involved, trying to help people.”
“Yes.”
“Did she have any particular causes lately?”
“I don’t think so. None that she mentioned to me, anyway.”
“Did she ever mention someone called Carmen Petri?”
“No, not to my knowledge.”
“What about the ‘late girls’? Do you know what that means?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. What was the context?”
“It was just something Jennifer said to a friend, to describe this Carmen person. ‘One of the late girls.’ It still doesn’t ring a bell?”
“No, not at all. I mean, it could be someone late with her period, or late in her pregnancy. As you know, the law only allows abortions up to the twenty-fourth week.”
“Yes,” said Annie, “I’d thought of that. Apart from Roy Banks and this Victor, did Jennifer have any other visitors here, or any other friends you know about?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Do you know anyone who drives a dark Mondeo, either black or navy blue?”
“My father does, but I doubt it’s him you’re interested in.”
Annie smiled. “I doubt it. No one else?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Do you think Jennifer would have confided in you if there was anything seriously wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“Say at the center. Something going on.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean, but she might have done. The things is, though, if there was anything untoward going on here, Jenn would have been in the best position to know about it as she practically ran the place single-handed. Her and Alex Lukas, at any rate.”
“Dr. Lukas?”
“Alex doesn’t stand on ceremony.”
“Is he in today?”
“She. It’s Alexandra. You might have noticed that the center prefers to employ women. It’s not some sort of positive discrimination thing. It’s just that we’ve noticed that the kind of clients we get here respond better to dealing with another woman.”
Annie understood. She had felt the same when she went for her abortion. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted a man asking her questions or poking about inside her.
“Look,” Georgina went on, leaning forward so her ample bosom rested on the desk. “I can’t imagine who would want to kill Jennifer, or why, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think it was anything to do with this place. She had no enemies here.”
“I’m just trying to cover all the angles. That’s all a lot of police work is, Ms. Roberts, covering the angles so you don’t look stupid for missing something obvious.”
“A bit like counseling.”
“How?”
“Well, it seems a bit of a cliché asking people how they get on with their parents, how they feel about their father, but if it turned out there was an incestuous relationship you’d look pretty damn silly for not even probing the area, wouldn’t you?”
“I see what you mean. Can you think of anything else that might help me?”
“I’m sorry, no.” Georgina paused. “Look, Jenn wasn’t raped or anything, was she?”
“No.”
“Because I thought that might be something the police were holding back, like they do.”
“Sometimes it’s important to keep key pieces of information from the public, but not that. Jennifer was shot in the head, pure and simple.” Annie noticed Georgina flinch at the brutality of the remark.
“But what I can’t understand,” Georgina said, “is why on earth someone would want to kill her like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for her it was quick. It’s just that I might be able to get my head around some pervert raping her and killing her to gratify his own filthy lust, but this…? It doesn’t make sense. It’s almost as if someone actually had a reason for killing her.”
“We’ll do our best to make sense of it,” said Annie, standing up to leave. “In the meantime, if you can think of anything else at all – and I do mean anything, something Jennifer might have said, done, not done, whatever – then please get in touch with me. Here’s my card.”
“Thank you.” Georgina took the card and looked at it.
On her way to Dr. Lukas’s office, Annie’s mobile rang. She went into the stairwell, took it out of her pocket and put it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Annie, it’s Dave here. Dave Brooke.”
“What is it, Dave? Have you got something for me?”
“In a way,” Brooke said. “Brace yourself. It’s not good news.”
“Go on.”
“We found Roy Banks’s body last night. Pulled him out of the Thames near the Eye.”
“My God. That story in the paper this morning? That was Roy Banks?”
“Yes. Shot. A twenty-two, by the looks of it.”
“Alan…?”
“He identified the body. Asked us to sit on the identity until he told his parents. He was pretty shaken up.”
“I can imagine. Poor Alan,” said Annie. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Not right now. He’s gone off to Peterborough. I just heard from him. He’s going to stay with his parents for a while. I just thought you should know.”
“Yes. Thanks, Dave. Bloody hell, what’s going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Banks family had been seeing Dr. Grenville down at the local health center for more than twenty years, since back when he had his own practice, and he was only too willing to pay a house call when Banks rang him and told him what had happened. A fussily neat man near retirement age, with salt-and-pepper hair and a matching mustache, he tut-tutted over Ida Banks before giving her a sedative and issuing a prescription for more, which Banks rushed down to the chemist’s to fill. He felt like taking one or two himself on his way back but resisted the temptation. He’d need a clear head over the next few days.
Ida Banks lay on the sofa, a small, lost figure covered with a blanket. She was mumbling, but she wasn’t making much sense, and after a while she drifted off. Banks offered a pill to his father, who gave him a look of distaste and declined. It had always been his way to face life’s harshness head-on, without a mask, and he wasn’t going to change.
“What do we do now?” he asked Banks. “I mean, aren’t there forms to fill in and such like?”