Free When the Music's Over by Peter Robinson Page B

tried to find it again?”
    â€œNo. I just wanted things to get better, to feel better, and when they started to, when the anxiety decreased and it felt like a heavy weight was lifting from me, I moved on, tried to forget.”
    â€œWould you recognize the man if you saw the picture again?”
    â€œPerhaps. I couldn’t describe him, but I think I might recognize that photo if I saw it again. Memory’s a strange thing. But I can’t say for sure.”
    â€œSo you didn’t ever go back and tell the police you’d seen a photo of the man who was with Caxton, a man who had also raped you and perhaps taken photos of you with Caxton?”
    â€œNo. They’d dropped the case by then. I don’t know that it would have changed anything.”
    â€œYou have to let the police decide things like that, Linda,” said Banks. “People don’t always know what matters and what doesn’t, what’s important and what isn’t.”
    â€œBut doesn’t having every little thing thrown at you clutter up your investigations?”
    Banks smiled. “We’ve got a special unclutter gadget that separates the wheat from the chaff.” He paused. “No, seriously, please tell me everything that comes to you. Don’t self-censor.”
    â€œOK. But I don’t think I can remember anything more right now. I’m exhausted.”
    Banks handed her his card. “Ring me anytime if you do. And I mean anytime.”
    She took the card and read it, then shifted her eyes back to Banks. They seemed filled with a kind of dreamy wistfulness, or it could have been tears. “That’s very kind of you.”
    â€œWould you be willing to repeat all you’ve told me in court, if it came to that?”
    â€œYes, I think so.”
    â€œYou’d better be certain. The defense counsel won’t make things easy for you.”
    â€œThey’d do their job, I suppose. I’d be more comfortable doing it if I wasn’t alone. If there were others.”
    â€œI think you can count on that.”
    â€œYou know, sometimes I feel a bit like a phony in all this.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She gestured around her. “My life wasn’t ruined. I’ve made a successful life for myself. Oh, I get jumpy sometimes, I have panic attacks and I still have bad dreams—long winding corridors, something nasty behind the door, rooms beyond rooms, but they’re just typical nightmares.”
    â€œDrugs? Drink?”
    Her eyes narrowed, with a glint of humor. “Are you asking me if I’m a junkie or an alcoholic?”
    â€œNot at all.” Banks felt himself blush. “It’s just that sometimes people who’ve experienced . . . you know, they reach for . . .”
    â€œOblivion?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œI had my moments. I was seventeen, eighteen in the late sixties, early seventies. People were experimenting. I was deep into that scene, the poetry, the music, the Eastern philosophy, the clothes, and, yes, the drugs. It took a while for the psychedelic drug culture to work its way up to Leeds, but my friends and I tried pot and acid, mescaline, speed, mandies. Never the hard stuff, though. No coke or heroin.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œI got bored with it all, like watching the same cartoon show over again and again at the News Theatre. So I went to university to study English literature.”
    â€œAnd drink?”
    â€œAt university? Who didn’t?”
    â€œIn general. Now.”
    â€œThe occasional glass of wine. Hell, the occasional bottle of wine. So what?”
    Banks smiled. “So nothing.” Thinking he wouldn’t mind sharing abottle with her as they talked right now, in the summer garden by the riverside with Beethoven’s calm after the storm playing. But he pushed such thoughts out of his mind. The garden had cast its own special spell made of bee drone, blackbird song, the