“It’s not that man from the church, the one who was fired?”

“We don’t think so, but we’re still keeping an open mind about him.”

“Do you think this other person did it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him yet. We’re playing it very cautiously, very carefully. If he is the one, we want to be certain we don’t make any mistakes that will come back to haunt us when the case goes to court.”

“Sometimes,” mused Sylvie, “it seems that the system favors the criminal rather than the victim. Don’t you think?”

Tell me about it, thought Banks wearily. If they did think they’d got their man, next they would have to convince the Crown Prosecution Service they had a case-not always an easy job-then, after they had jumped through all the hoops, as often as not they could look forward to watching the accused’s lawyer tear the evidence to shreds. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “Did Deborah ever mention anyone called Owen Pierce?”

Sylvie frowned. “No. I’ve never heard the name before.”

Banks described Pierce, but it meant nothing to her.

She poured the tea, tilting her head slightly and biting the end of her tongue as she did so. The Lapsang smelled and tasted good, its smoky flavor a perfect foil for a gray, cold November day. Outside, the wind whistled through the trees and rattled the windows, creating dust devils and gathering the fallen leaves into whirlwinds. Sylvie Harrison put both hands around her mug, as if keeping them warm. “What do you want to know from me?” she asked.

“I’m trying to find out as much as I can about what Deborah was like. There are still a few gaps.”

“Such as?”

“Boyfriends, for example.”

“Ah, boyfriends. But Deborah was far too busy at school for boys. There was plenty of time for that later. After she finished her education.”

“Even so. There was the summer.”

Sylvie held his gaze. “She didn’t have a boyfriend.”

Banks paused, then said slowly, feeling as if he were digging his career grave with every word, “That’s not what I heard. Someone told me she had a boyfriend in August.”

Sylvie paled. She pressed her lips so tight together they almost turned white.

“Did she have a boyfriend?” Banks asked again.

Sylvie sighed, then nodded. “Yes. In the summer. But she finished with him.”

“Was his name John Spinks?”

She raised her eyebrows. “How did you know that?”

“You knew about him?”

She nodded. “Yes. He was a most unpleasant character.”

“Why do you think a bright, pretty girl like Deborah would go out with someone like that?”

A distant look came into her eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose he was good-looking, perhaps exciting in a way. Sometimes one makes mistakes,” she said, with a shrug that Banks thought of as very Gallic. “Sometimes one makes a fool of oneself, does something with the wrong person for all the wrong reasons.”

“What reasons?”

She shrugged again. “A woman’s reasons. A young woman’s reasons.”

“Was Deborah having sex with John Spinks?”

Sylvie paused for a moment, then nodded and said with a sigh, “Yes. One day I came home unexpectedly and I caught them in Deborah’s bedroom. I was crazy with anger. I shouted at him and threw him out of the house and told him never to come back.”

“How did he react?”

She reddened. “He called me names I will not repeat in front of you.”

“Was he violent?”

“He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.” She nodded in the direction of the hall. “There was a vase, not a very valuable vase, but a pretty one, a present from my father, on a stand by the door. He lifted it with both hands and threw it hard against the wall. One small chip of pottery broke off and cut my chin, that’s all.” She fingered the tiny scar.

“Did he leave after that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Sir Geoffrey about him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She paused before answering. “You must understand that Geoffrey can be very Victorian in some ways, especially concerning Deborah. I hadn’t even told him she was seeing the boy in the first place. He would have made things very uncomfortable for her if he’d known, given Spinks’s character and background. I…well…I’m a woman, and I think in some ways I understood what she was going through, more than Geoffrey would have, anyway. I’m not saying I approved, but it was something she had to get out of her system. Stopping her would only have made her more determined. In the long run it would probably have resulted in even more damage. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so. Did Deborah go on seeing Spinks?”

“No. I don’t think so. Not after he threw the vase. She was very upset about what happened and we had a long talk. She said she was really sorry, and she apologized to me. I like to think that she understood what I was telling her, what a waste of time seeing this Spinks boy was. She said she realized now what kind of person he was and she would never go near him again. She’d heard him curse me in the most vile manner. She’d seen him throw the vase at the wall, seen the sliver cut me, draw blood.” Sylvie touched the small scar again. “I think it truly shocked her, made her see him in a new light. Deborah is a good girl inside, Chief Inspector. Stubborn, willful, perhaps, but ultimately sensible too. And like a lot of girls her age, she is very naïve about men.”

“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?”