All the Colors of Darkness

11

After a quick burger and chips and a pint of Sam Smith’s at Ye Olde Swiss Cottage, a rambling pub with wooden balconies, which did look rather like a large ski chalet stuck in the cleft of busy traffic between Avenue Road and Finchley Road, Banks made his way to the tube station and negotiated his route to Victoria. The carriage was hot, and several of the people he found himself crushed up against clearly hadn’t bathed that morning. It brought back memories of going to work on hot days in London, the way you’d get all kinds of deodorant and perfume smells in the morning, while the evening rush hour was dominated by sad and wrung-out-looking people smelling of sweat. He gave his underarm a surreptitious sniff as he left the station and was relieved to find that his antiperspirant was still holding its own.

Banks found Wyman’s bed-and-breakfast hotel easily enough about five minutes’ walk from the underground, off Warwick Way. A sign in the window offered vacancies from £35 per night, which sounded remarkably cheap to Banks. He realized how money could be a problem for Wyman, with a wife who only worked part-time and two teenage children with appetites to match. A teacher’s salary was reasonable, but not extravagant. No wonder he stayed in places like this and ate at Zizzi’s.

Inexpensive as it was, the bed-and-breakfast turned out to be quite charming. The entrance was clean and the decor lively and fresh. The man who answered Banks’s ring was a rotund Pakistani with a mustache and a shiny head. He was wearing a pinny and seemed in the midst of vacuuming the hallway. He turned off the vacuum, introduced himself as Mohammed and asked with a smile what he could do for the gentleman. A vague aroma of curry spices wafted from the back and made Banks’s mouth water, despite the hurried burger. Maybe he would suggest to Sophia that they go out for a curry dinner or get a takeaway.

Banks took out his warrant card and Mohammed scrutinized it. “No trouble, I hope?” he said, a worried expression corrugating his brow.

“Not for you,” Banks said. “It’s just information I’m after really.” He described Wyman and the dates he said he had last been staying there. It didn’t take long before Mohammed knew exactly whom Banks was talking about.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Wyman,” he said. “He’s one of my regulars. Very fine gentleman. Educated. He’s a schoolteacher, you know.” Mohammed spoke with a trace of south London accent.

“Yes, I know,” said Banks. “Was he here on the dates I mentioned?”

“It was quite recent, I do remember that. Please, let me check for you.” Mohammed went behind the small reception desk and thumbed through a large book. “Yes, here it is. He arrived on Wednesday afternoon the week before last, and he left on the Saturday.”

“Was he any different than on previous visits?”

“In what way?”

“I’m not sure,” said Banks. “Excited, depressed, on edge, anxious?”

“No, none of those things. Not that I noticed. He seemed quite... pleased with everything, quite happy with life.”

“What time did he leave?”

“Checkout time is eleven o’clock.”

That squared with what Wyman had told them when they talked to him. He said he had gone for a pub lunch then done some book shopping and visited the National Gallery before catching his train home. His wife, Carol, had met him at York station at about a quarter past seven. “Do you have any idea where he went or what he did while he was here?”

Mohammed frowned. “I don’t spy on my guests, Mr. Banks,” he said.

“I understand,” said Banks. “But you must have noticed him coming in or going out at certain times. Did he sleep here every night?”

“As far as I know. His bed was always slept in and he was always down for breakfast.”

“I don’t suppose you know what times he came and went?”

“No. He usually went out after breakfast, about nine o’clock, and he might call back at some point for an hour or so in the middle of the afternoon, perhaps to rest, and then he would go out again at teatime. We don’t do any other meals, you see. Only breakfast. He was just like any other tourist.”

“Was he late back at night?”

“Not that I know of. I saw him come in about eleven a couple of times. I was usually making sure everything was tidy and shipshape for morning by then.”

“Did he have any visitors?”

“We don’t encourage visitors in the rooms. As I told you, I don’t keep a watch on my guests, and I’m not always here, so I suppose he could have sneaked someone in the room if he’d wanted. All I’m saying is that I don’t think he did, and he never had before.”

“Mr. Wyman is a regular here, right?”

“He likes to come down for the theater, the art galleries and the NFT, he told me. But it’s hard for him to get away. Schoolteachers get many holidays, but not always when they want to take them.”

My heart bleeds, thought Banks, who was supposed to be on holiday right now. Still, it was his own fault that he wasn’t.

“Mr. Wyman is a model guest,” Mohammed went on. “He never makes any noise. He never complains. He is always polite.”

“Good,” said Banks. “This might sound like an odd request, but is there any chance I might have a look at the room he stayed in the last time he was here?”

Mohammed stroked his mustache. “That is indeed a very unusual request,” he said. “But as it happens, Mr. Wyman always prefers the same room, if it’s available. The prices of the rooms here vary, you understand, depending on the level of accommodation offered, but he didn’t mind the shared toilet and bathroom, or the noise from the street.”

“Your cheapest room?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“And he always got it?”

“Most times. And you’re in luck. It’s empty now. Though what you hope to find there I have no idea. Other guests have stayed since Mr. Wyman, you know, and everything has been cleaned and washed. I can vouch for that. My wife does the cooking and I take care of the cleaning myself.”

“Did you find anything odd or interesting when you cleaned the room after Mr. Wyman left last time?”

“No. I... Wait a minute,” said Mohammed, stroking his mustache. “It had slipped down the back of the radiator. It’s always difficult to clean behind there. There’s not enough space.”

“What was it?” Banks asked.

“Just a business card. I wouldn’t have noticed, but there’s a special attachment for the vacuum cleaner. The card was too big to go down the tube, so it got stuck over the end by the suction, and I had to remove it by hand. I remember thinking it must have fallen out of the top pocket of his shirt when he took it off to go to bed. Mr. Wyman was usually a most tidy guest.”

“Do you still have it?”

“No. I put it in with the rest of the rubbish.”

“I don’t suppose you can remember what the card said, can you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mohammed. “It was the name, you see.”

“What about it?”

“ ‘Tom Savage.’ Wouldn’t you remember that?”

“I suppose I probably would,” said Banks.

“And,” Mohammed went on, beaming, “you would certainly remember it if it said, ‘Tom Savage Detective Investigations.’ Like Magnum P.I. or Sam Spade. I’m a fan of the American detectives, you see.”

“Could it have been dropped there before Mr. Wyman came to stay?”

“No,” said Mohammed. “I’m most thorough. I clean every nook and cranny between guests.”

“Thank you,” said Banks. “I’m very glad of that. Was there anything else about it?”

“The top left corner was indented, as if it had been attached to something by a paper clip.”

“I don’t suppose you remember an address or telephone number?”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” said Banks. “It should be easy enough to find out.”

“Do you still want to look at the room?”

“Yes, please.”

“Very well. Follow me.”

Mohammed took a key from a hook on the wall and came out from behind the reception desk. He led Banks up three flights of carpeted stairs and opened a door off the landing. Banks’s first impression was of how small the room was, but everything else about it was clean and in order, the striped cream wallpaper giving it a cheerful air. He spotted the radiator. A hard-back chair stood right next to it. It was close to the bed and seemed a natural place to lay out one’s clothes for the morning, or to hang trousers and a casual jacket over the back. Easy for a card to slip out of a pocket and flutter behind the radiator.

There was no television set and only a single bed, but there was a small armchair by the window, which overlooked the street. Banks could hear the traffic and imagined it could be noisy, even at night— there was no double-glazing here to dampen the sound—but Wyman must be a good sleeper. All in all, if Banks found a room so snug and comfortable in London at that price, he would probably stay there himself. Most of the places he had ever stayed in around Victoria had been dives.

“It’s charming,” he said to Mohammed. “I can see why he liked it.”

“It’s very small, but clean and cozy.”

“Is there a telephone?”

“There’s a pay phone in the hall.”

“Mind if I have a look around?”

“Please. There’s nothing here.”

Banks could see what he meant. A quick glance under the bed revealed nothing, not even the dust balls one might usually expect to find there. Mohammed was not lying when he said he was thorough. The wardrobe, too, was bare apart from the coat hangers that rattled when he opened it. On the small desk, there was a note about breakfast times, along with a writing tablet and a ballpoint pen. The ubiquitous Gideon’s Bible lay all alone in the top drawer of the bedside table.

“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” Banks said.

“It’s all right. Have you finished now?”

“Yes, I think so. Thanks a lot for answering my questions and for letting me see the room.”

Banks followed Mohammed down the stairs and stopped at the public telephone on the lower landing. There were no phone numbers scribbled on the wall and no directory. “Do you know if he made or received any phone calls while he was here?” Banks asked.

“I don’t think so. He could have done. I wouldn’t necessarily have known. I do hope Mr. Wyman isn’t in any trouble.”

“So do I,” said Banks, taking Mohammed’s card, smiling and shaking hands as he left. “So do I.”

The detective agency looked like a one-man operation housed in a nondescript sixties office tower on Great Marlborough Street, between Regent Street and Soho. Banks had got the address easily from the yellow pages. A group of casually dressed young men and women stood around outside the building smoking, chatting to bicycle couriers. It was about the only place they could smoke now outside of their own homes.

Banks took the jerky lift up to the fifth floor and found the door marked TOM SAVAGE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATIONS, followed by “Please Press Bell and Enter,” which he ignored. When he walked into the room, he was almost expecting a rumpled, hungover, smart-mouthed tough with a bottle of scotch in his filing cabinet, though he had met plenty of private investigators before and none of them had matched that particular stereotype. Savage had a receptionist, but she wasn’t sitting behind her desk polishing her nails; she was actually stuffing papers in folders in a filing cabinet. She had to bend over to do it, too, and her low-slung tight jeans didn’t leave much to the imagination.

On hearing Banks arrive, she stood up, smoothed her jeans and blushed. She knew exactly what he’d been looking at. “Yes?” she challenged him. “I didn’t hear you ring. Can I help you?”

“I didn’t ring,” said Banks. “Mr. Savage in?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then I’m sorry—”

Banks pulled out his warrant card and showed it to her.

She gave him a sharp glance and said, “Why didn’t you say?”

“I just did,” said Banks. “Does it make any difference?”

She read the card again. “Are you... Alan Banks... You’re not?... Are you Brian Banks’s father?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh my God!” She put her hands to her cheeks. Banks thought she was going to jump up and down. “You are. You’re Brian Banks’s father!”

“I’m sorry,” said Banks. “I don’t—”

“I just love the Blue Lamps. I can’t believe it. I only saw them a couple of weeks ago. Your Brian was terrific. I play a bit of guitar myself and write my own songs. Just an amateur band, like, but... When did he start playing? How often did he practice?”

“In his mid-teens, and way too often, when he should have been doing other things,” said Banks. “Like homework.”

She managed a quick smile. It really lit up her face, which was very pretty, a pale oval with good cheekbones, clear, direct emerald eyes and a smattering of freckles framed by straight blond hair down to her shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “What must you think of me, acting like a silly schoolgirl?” She stuck out her hand. “Tom Savage. Pleased to meet you. Actually it’s Tomasina, but somehow I don’t think that would go down very well in this business, do you?”

Banks tried not to show his surprise. “And the Savage?”

“My real name.”

“Lucky you. How did you know who I was?”

“I read an article about the band, an interview, and your son mentioned that his father was a detective chief inspector in North Yorkshire. There can’t be that many called Banks. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to gush. It was just the shock.”

“That’s okay,” said Banks. “I’m very proud of him.”

“So you should be. Let’s go through to the main office. It’s more comfortable in there.” She gestured around the reception area. “It’s a one-woman show at the moment, I’m afraid. I really do have to do all the filing myself. I don’t have any client appointments today, hence the casual wear. It’s office clean-up day.”

“I know what you mean,” said Banks, following her into the office and sitting opposite her. The walls looked flimsy and thin, and there was no view. There wasn’t even a window. Her desk was uncluttered, and a slim Mac Air sat in front of her.

“My only extravagance,” she said, patting the sleek laptop. “I noticed you looking at it.”

“I wish I could afford one,” said Banks.

“So,” Tomasina said, resting her palms on the desk. “What can I help you with?”

“Maybe nothing. I found your card in a hotel room that may have been used by a murder suspect.” Banks was embellishing the truth, but he thought it might be the best way of getting her to talk.

“And what?” She pointed at her chest and blinked. “You think I... I mean, you think he hired me to kill someone?”

“No doubt he picked you on the basis of your name in the telephone directory. It sounds tough, like the sort of person who’d be capable of anything.”

“But if he’d known I was Tomasina?”

“Exactly,” said Banks. “Anyway, I’m not accusing you of murder.”

“Well, thank the Lord for that.”

“I just want to know if you accepted an assignment from a man called Derek Wyman, and if you did, what exactly it consisted of.”

She picked up a pencil and started doodling. “You know,” she said, looking down as she spoke, “that there are issues of confidentiality involved here. When people come to me, they come to a private investigator, not someone who’ll shout out their business to the world, or the police.”

“I understand that, and I have no intention of shouting out your business to the world.”

“Even so,” she said, “I can’t tell you who my clients are or what they want me to do. None of it is illegal. I can assure you of that.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Banks paused. “Look, you can really help me here. I’m going out on a limb on this and I need to know if I’m right. If I’m not, then... well... I don’t know. But if I am...”

“It could lead to a court case in which you’d expect me to testify for the Crown?”

“It won’t come to that.”

“Yeah, and you’ll still respect me in the morning.”

“You’re very cynical for one so young.”

“I’m only trying to protect my interests.” She gave him a direct look. “As you can see, the place isn’t exactly crawling with clients— despite the tough, sexy name. In fact, I’m hard pushed to make ends meet from one week to the next, if truth be told. Now you expect me to throw away my reputation because of some limb you’re out on.”

“Why not try another career? A more lucrative one?”

“Because I like what I do. And I’m good at it. I started out with a big agency, and I did my ABI training and got my advanced diploma. Then I decided I wanted to go out on my own. I’ve done all the courses. And passed them with flying colors. I’m twenty-seven years old, I’ve got degrees in law and criminology, and I’ve had five years’ on-the-job experience with the big boys before I set up my own firm. Why should I search for another career?”

“Because you don’t have any clients and you can barely pay the rent?”

She glanced away, her cheeks flushed. “They’ll come. It just takes time, that’s all. I’m just starting out.”

“I’m sorry,” said Banks. “I’m not trying to browbeat you or anything. I’m really just asking for your help. To be honest, I’m rather in the same boat as you on this one.”

“You mean this isn’t an official investigation?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re acting on your own? Oh, that’s prize, that is.” She dropped her pencil. “Not only do you come in here pushing me to give you confidential information, but it’s not even part of a sanctioned police investigation. Why don’t you stop wasting my time?”

“Because it seems to me you’ve got plenty to waste. Or would you rather get back to your filing?” Banks could swear he saw her eyes begin to shine with tears, and he felt awful. She was the kind of person you wanted to make happy, wanted good things for. If you could hurt someone like Tomasina, he thought, you really were a shit. Then he told himself not to be such a soft bastard; she had to be tough to be in the business she was in, and if she wasn’t tough enough, it was better she found out sooner rather than later. But she didn’t cry. She was tougher than she looked, and he was glad of that.

“Why?” she said. “So you can have a good ogle at my arse again? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“It’s a very nice arse.”

She glared at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to throw something, the heavy glass paperweight that held down what looked like a heap of bills on her desk, for example, but instead she leaned back in her chair, linked her hands behind her head and started to laugh. “Oh, you’re a prize specimen, you are,” she said.

“Does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I know the rules,” she said. “I know I’m supposed to cooperate with the police if the situation merits it. But I don’t know anything about this situation.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Banks said.

“Try. I’m bright and I’m a good listener.”

“Have you read or seen anything about the two deaths in Eastvale recently?”

“The two gay guys? Sure. Murder-suicide, wasn’t it?”

“So it would appear.”

“But you don’t believe it?”

“Oh, I believe that Mark Hardcastle beat Laurence Silbert to death with a cricket bat and then hanged himself. I just don’t believe he did it without help. A rather unusual form of help.”

“I’m listening.”

Banks tried to explain his Othello theory, aware of how absurd it sounded every time he did so. By the end he was having a hard time believing it himself. Instead of laughing at him or scoffing, though, Tomasina sat with her brow furrowed and her hands meeting in a steeple on the desk for a full minute or so after he’d finished. And that’s a long time.

“Well?” Banks said, when he could wait no longer.

“You really believe that? That that’s how it happened?”

“I think it’s likely, yes.”

“But what evidence do you have?”

“None.” Banks wasn’t going to bring the Secret Intelligence Service into his discussion with her. He had already decided on that.

“Motive?”

“None that I’m aware of right now, other than professional jealousy.”

“So the only thing even approaching evidence you have is that this Wyman character was directing Othello, that he met up with Hard-castle in London the day before the killing, that they had some professional differences and that they had been seen drinking and talking together in a pub a couple of miles out of town?”

“And that he had a memory stick with pictures of Silbert with another man. Neither Hardcastle nor Silbert had a digital camera that took such a card.”

“What about Wyman?”

“He didn’t have one, either. His is a Fuji.”

“And that’s all you’ve got?”

“Yes. I suppose if you put it like that...”

“What other way is there to put it?”

“That when you add it all up together it’s damn suspicious, that’s what. Why go two miles to a grotty teens’ pub when there are plenty of good pubs in Eastvale? A group of his bloody fifteen-year-old pupils was in there, for crying out loud. And how did he get Hard-castle upset and then calm him down? Why?”

“There’s no way anyone could have known what effect playing Iago would have on two people.”

“That’s what Annie said.”

“Annie?”

“DI Cabbot. We were working on it together.”

“And now?”

“Well, officially, we’re off it. Orders from above.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We were just told to drop it. Anyway, aren’t I the one supposed to be asking the questions here?”

She smiled that radiant smile again, the one that made you feel you had to maintain her happiness at all costs. “I told you, I’m good at my job. That was one of my best marks, interviewing techniques. Along with surveillance and research. She’s right, though, your partner.”

“I know that. Maybe it went wrong?”

“Then it wasn’t murder. A very bad practical joke, perhaps. Some sort of malicious trick backfiring. But not murder. I suppose you know that, don’t you? At the most, you’d be able to charge him with harassment or incitement, that’s if you can prove that he did indeed incite anyone to a criminal act.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Banks said. “The result’s the same. Two men are dead. And very nastily, brutally dead, I might add. One beaten to a pulp and the other hanging from a tree near a beauty spot where children were playing.”

“You can’t intimidate me with the graphic horror of it all. I’ve seen dead bodies. I’ve even seen Saw IV and Hostel Part II.”

“Well, what will work with you?”

Tomasina studied him again for what felt like another long time, then she said, “I took those photos.”

“What?”

“The photos you’re talking about. On the memory stick. I took them.”

Banks’s jaw must have dropped. “Just like that?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. I had to stay out of sight.”

“No, I mean, you’re admitting it just like that. I appreciate what you’re doing, really I do.”

Tomasina shrugged. “When a cute man—and the father of my rock hero, no less—says nice things about my arse, I can’t very well hold out on him, can I?”

“I’m sorry about that. It just sort of slipped out.”

She laughed again. “It’s all right. I’m only teasing. But you’d better be careful. Some women might not appreciate it as much as I do.”

“I know. You’re one in a million, Tomasina.” Sophia certainly wouldn’t appreciate it, though she might say, “I know” or “So I’ve been told,” Banks thought. Or Annie. In fact, just about every woman he knew would have given him shit for a comment like that. What the hell had he been thinking of? Sometimes he would just slip from the politically correct world everyone inhabited these days back to the primeval slime without warning. Perhaps age was lowering his guard? But he wasn’t that old, he told himself. And he was cute. “Will you tell me about it?” he asked.

“There’s not much to tell, really.”

“But Derek Wyman did come to you?”

“Yes. And he was surprised, as most people are. But not because I wasn’t some sort of tough guy. He didn’t want me to do any strong-arm work or anything like that. Anyway, I managed to convince him I could do the job.”

“What was this job?”

“Simple surveillance. Well, as simple as surveillance can be if you don’t want to be spotted. I’m sure you’ve been there.”

Over the years, Banks had spent many hours in cold cars with only a water bottle to pee in. But not for a long time. Surveillance was a young man’s job. He wouldn’t have the patience now. And the bottle would fill up a lot faster. “Do you remember when Wyman first came to you?”

“I could find out. Hang on.”

Tomasina got up and walked back out to her filing cabinets. In a moment she was back carrying a buff folder, which she consulted. “It was the beginning of May.”

“That long ago,” Banks mused. “What did he ask for?”

“He gave me an address in Bloomsbury, described a man and asked me if, on certain occasions—he would phone me first—I would watch it, follow the man who left, find out where he went and take photos of him with anyone he met.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted to do this?”

“No.”

“And you just assumed it was all aboveboard?”

“He seemed all right. I thought, you know, maybe he was gay and he thought his lover was having an affair. It’s happened before. All he wanted was photos. It wasn’t as if he was asking me to hurt anyone or anything.”

Images of Silbert and Hardcastle in the mortuary flashed through Banks’s mind. “There’s more than one way of hurting someone.”

Tomasina flushed. “You can’t blame me for what happened. You can’t do that.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying that in the wrong hands, photos can be as deadly as a gun. Maybe they were intended for blackmail? Didn’t you think of that?”

“To be honest, I didn’t. It was just my job to take them. Like I said, he seemed nice enough.”

“You’re right,” said Banks. “It wasn’t your fault. You were simply doing your job.”

She was studying his face, he felt, looking for signs so that she could be certain he was telling the truth and not winding her up. In the end, she reached her decision and relaxed visibly. “It was easy enough,” she said. “In the early evening, seven o’clock, the man in question would walk up to Euston Road, then across Regent’s Park. Always he would stop and sit on a bench by the Boating Lake and another man would join him.”

“How many times did you follow him?”

“Three.”

“He met the same man every time?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“They didn’t talk, but they’d get up and walk together to Saint John’s Wood. You know, the High Street where the cemetery is.”

“I know it,” said Banks. “And from there they would walk to Charles Lane and enter a house together.”

“Yes. You know all about it?”

“We identified the house and street from one of your photos.”

“Of course,” said Tomasina. “My, my, you do have all the resources, don’t you?”

“Taxpayers’ money at work. How long did they stay?”

“Almost two hours every time.”

“And then?”

“When they came out they parted ways. My man usually walked to the tube on Finchley Road.”

“Usually?”

“Yes. Once he walked all the way back to Bloomsbury the same way he came.”

“And the other man?”

“I never followed him. It wasn’t required.”

“But which direction did he head in?”

“North. Toward Hampstead.”

“On foot?”

“Yes.”

“When they got to the house on Charles Lane, who had the key?”

“Nobody,” said Tomasina.

“Do you mean they just walked straight in? The door was open?”

“No. They knocked and someone answered.”

“Did you actually see this person?”

“Not really. She was always in the shadows, back from the open door, and she didn’t really show on the photos.”

“She?”

“Oh, yes, it was definitely a woman. An elderly woman, I’d say. Gray-haired, maybe in her sixties. I could see that much. I just couldn’t describe her features. I had to stand around the corner and use the zoom to avoid being seen. But she was quite small, smartly dressed.”

“Edith Townsend,” said Banks.

“Do you know her?”

“In a way. Did you ever see a man?”

“No. Just the woman.”

Lester was probably sitting in the living room reading his Daily Telegraph, Banks thought. So they had been lying to him, as he suspected, which meant they were something to do with Mr. Browne and the spooks. Or the other side. What had Silbert been up to? It wasn’t an affair, Banks was almost certain of that, but were the photos enough to convince Hardcastle that it was? The friendly hand on the shoulder? With the added Iago-style innuendos and rhetoric, perhaps they were, as Hardcastle was insecure and jealous to begin with. Perhaps Silbert was working part-time, involved in some special project run, or fronted, by the Townsends? “Did your client ask you to investigate further when you gave him the memory stick?”

“No. All he seemed interested in was the photos of the two men together. I mean, I didn’t get the impression that he really cared what they were doing, why they were meeting.”

“When did you give him the memory stick?”

“Wednesday afternoon. The end of May. Two weeks ago.”

“Did you give him prints, too?”

“Yes. Do you know what it’s all about?”

“Not really,” Banks said. “I have a few vague ideas, but that’s all they are.”

“Will you tell me, or is this a one-way street?”

Banks smiled at her. “It’s a one-way street for the moment, a cul-de-sac, too, as far as I can see.”

“So that’s it? You come here and use me up and then simply discard me?”

“ ’Fraid so. Don’t take it so hard, Tomasina. It’s a tough business you’re in. Look on the bright side. You’ve done the right thing. Talked to the police.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve talked to one policeman who’s already been warned off. Okay, forget it. Is this it, then? You walk out of here and I never see you again?”

“This is it.” Banks stood up. “But if you need to get in touch, you can call this number.” He scribbled down his new mobile number on the back of his card, handed it to her and walked over to the door.

“Wait,” she called out behind him. “Will you do just one teeny little thing for me?”

Banks paused at the door. “It depends on what it is.”

“The Blue Lamps. Can you get me a ticket for their next show? And will you introduce me to Brian?”

Banks looked back at her. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.