All the Colors of Darkness

12

By late Thursday afternoon, Annie had had quite enough of Eastvale Comprehensive and the East Side Estate’s problems. She didn’t want a drink, but she did want a bit of peace and quiet, so she bought a Britvic Orange and hid herself away in the back room of the Horse and Hounds. As usual, there was no one else around but she. It was dim and cool, the perfect place to collect her thoughts and perhaps have another quiet chat with Banks on her mobile.

Though she still wasn’t convinced by Banks’s wild theories, she was beginning to believe that there was something odd about Derek Wyman and his whole relationship with Mark Hardcastle. What had he got out of it? Was it really just a matter of two film and theater buffs having a drink and a chat every now and then? A couple of anoraks together? Or was there something more ominous behind it? If Wyman really was concerned about Hardcastle’s plan for a professional acting group, then why did he act as if they were the best of friends?

It might be worth having a word with Carol Wyman alone, Annie thought. Better not get caught, though. Superintendent Gervaise wouldn’t take kindly to her moonlighting for Banks. They’d be tarred by the same brush, if they weren’t already. And for what? A half-baked theory based on a Shakespeare play that, even if it was true, couldn’t lead to any criminal charges that she was aware of. Still, Annie had to admit that she was intrigued by the whole business, and there were enough niggling doubts in her mind to make her willing to take the occasional risk.

The first item on the agenda, though, was to phone Banks, if he was available. Annie found his last call in the log and pressed the call button. It rang. When Banks answered, she could hear traffic in the background.

“Where are you?” she asked. “Are you driving? Can you talk?”

“I can talk,” said Banks. “I’m just entering Soho Square. Hang on a minute. I’ll sit on the grass.” There was a short pause, then he came back on the line. “That’s better. Okay, what is it?”

“I just thought we should get up to date, that’s all. I talked to Derek Wyman in the school staff room. We were asking him about Nicky Haskell and the stabbing, but on the way out I let him know he’d been seen with Mark Hardcastle in the Red Rooster.”

“And?”

“He got very stroppy indeed. Told me I should mind my own business and he had a right to drink anywhere and with anyone he wanted. Well, words to that effect.”

“The strain’s showing?”

“I’d say that, yes. Assuming you’re right about this, the Iago business and all that—and I’m not saying you are right—but let’s say something along those lines did happen.”

“I’m still with you. I think.”

“Well, have you thought how it changes things?”

“In what way?”

“If Derek Wyman did poison Mark Hardcastle against Laurence Silbert—”

“There’s no ‘if’ about it, Annie. He did. I just found the private detective he hired to follow Silbert and take the photos.”

Annie practically dropped her phone. “He did what?”

“He hired a private detective. Which is quite a luxury on his part, because he wasn’t exactly rolling in money. You should have seen the B-and-B he stayed at in Victoria. Definitely cheap and cheerful. But I imagine he had no choice. With school duties and everything, he couldn’t get down to London as often as he would have liked. And I’ll bet he didn’t want to be recognized, either. Remember, he had met Silbert once or twice at dinners.”

“So what happened?”

“This woman followed Silbert from the Bloomsbury pied-a-terre to Regent’s Park, where he met a bloke on a bench, then the two of them carried on to the house in Saint John’s Wood. Wyman wasn’t interested in what they were doing together, apparently, or in anything other than the photos. That’s all he wanted, Annie. Photos of Silbert with another man. Evidence.”

“So it could have been completely innocent?”

“I doubt it. The pictures are ambiguous, to say the least. They meet on a park bench, walk and go into a house. There’s no hand holding or anything. The only time they touch is when Silbert precedes the other man into the house. But I’d say with Iago’s powers of persuasion they made pretty good icing on the cake.”

“So what were Silbert and his pal up to?”

“My guess is that they were probably working on something together. Some intelligence service project or other. I’ve been to that house and the old couple who own it are definitely dodgy. The sweet little old lady lied to me through her teeth, which leads me to believe she’s one of them, too, rather than the madam of a posh shag pad.”

“So he was still spying? He hadn’t retired?”

“Something like that. Or he was working for the other side, whoever that is. But imagine what it would seem like to Hardcastle, Annie, especially with the help of Wyman’s sly innuendos and graphic images.”

“The point I was trying to make,” Annie went on, “was that if¹—or because—Wyman poisoned Hardcastle against Silbert, there’s no reason to believe that Silbert was the intended victim. Wyman hardly knew him. He did know Hardcastle quite well, though.”

“So you’re saying Mark Hardcastle was the victim?”

“I’m saying he could have been. And you still have to consider the simple but significant fact that Wyman could not have been certain of the effects of his actions.”

“I agree he couldn’t have known that Hardcastle would kill Silbert, then himself.”

“Well, thank the Lord for that.”

“But he did know he was stirring up a volatile situation, and that someone might get hurt.”

“True. Even if only emotionally, even if his only intention was to split them up.”

“Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Isn’t it what you’d expect if you convinced someone his partner was being unfaithful, rather than bloody murder and suicide? And Wyman had plenty of reason to be upset with Hardcastle over developments at the theater. Not enough to kill him, obviously, but perhaps enough to want to do a bit of mischief.”

“Perhaps,” said Banks.

“In which case,” Annie went on, “all this spooks business is beside the point. What happened wasn’t anything to do with the security of the realm, terrorists, the Russian Mafia, or any of that claptrap.”

“What about Mr. Browne?”

“You pissed in his swimming pool, Alan. For God’s sake, we’d be swarming around quickly enough if it was one of our blokes died that way.”

“Julian Fenner, Import-Export, the mysterious phone number that doesn’t ring?”

“Tradecraft? Part of what Silbert was up to when he was in London? How he contacted the man in the photo? I don’t know.”

“And us being warned off?”

“They don’t want publicity. It does so happen that Silbert was a member of MI6, and he’d probably been involved in a fair bit of dirty business over the years. Probably still was, judging by what you were telling me. They don’t want to take the slightest chance that any of that might come out in the press or in the courts. They don’t want their dirty laundry washing in public. It was all neatly wrapped up. Murder-suicide. Sad but simple. No need for any further messy investigations. And then you come along sticking your chest out and waving your fist in the air crying foul.”

“Is that how you see me?”

Annie laughed. “A bit, I suppose.”

“Charming. I thought I was more of a knight on a white charger tilting against windmills and throwing a spanner in the works.”

“Now you’re really mixing your metaphors. Oh, you know what I mean, Alan. Bloke stuff. Pissing contest.”

“I’m still not convinced.”

“But you admit that I could be right, that it was all about Hard-castle, not Silbert?”

“It could be. Why don’t you nose around into Wyman’s and Hard-castle’s backgrounds a bit more deeply, see if you can find anything? Who knows, maybe you’ll find the missing link somewhere in all that? It’s also possible that someone else was involved, that someone put Wyman up to it. Paid him, even. And I know you don’t like to consider the spook stuff, but it’s also possible that someone in that line of work who wanted to hurt Silbert put Wyman up to it, too. Not as likely, I admit, because the outcome was far from certain, but not entirely out of the question.”

“But we concentrate on the Wyman-Hardcastle angle for the time being rather than... Oh, shit!”

“What is it, Annie?”

Annie looked up at the slight but commanding figure of Detective Superintendent Gervaise standing in the doorway, a pint in her hand. “Ah, DI Cabbot,” Gervaise said. “So this is your little hideaway. Mind if I join you?”

“No problem, ma’am,” Annie said loudly enough for Banks to hear, then she pressed the end-call button.

Banks wondered how Annie would talk herself out of being caught in the Horse and Hounds by Superintendent Gervaise, who had probably also heard that remark about following the Wyman-Hardcastle angle. No doubt she would tell him as soon as she could. He got up and brushed the grass off his trousers. It was a fine evening, and the little park in the center of Soho Square was filling up: a couple lying together on the grass stroking and kissing, a student sitting by her backpack reading a book, a shabby old man eating sandwiches out of greaseproof paper. Office workers cut through on their way to or from Oxford Street and the Tottenham Court Road tube station. Already a few young people had gathered around the fringes of the park to prepare for that night’s concert at the Astoria—tight jeans, straight dyed hair and T-shirts bearing band logos. Banks remembered he had been to see Brian’s band there a couple of years ago and had felt very ancient and out of it. He passed the odd little gardener’s hut at the park’s center, and the statue of King Charles II, then crossed Oxford Street and continued on Rathbone.

The pubs were filling up, smokers crowding the pavements outside. On Charlotte Street the patios were mostly full already—Bertorelli’s, Pizza Express, Zizzi’s—the streets packed with people searching for somewhere to eat. The high-end restaurants with their discreet facades, like Pied-a-Terre, would be filling up later, but for now, in the early-evening light, people wanted to be seen. Most of them were tourists, and Banks heard American accents along with couples speaking German and French.

Not quite sure what he was going to do, Banks made a quick dash when he saw someone leaving one of the outside tables at Zizzi’s, getting there before a couple of Americans, who had also had their eye on it. The woman glared at him, but her husband tugged her sleeve and they walked away.

Banks hadn’t made any firm arrangements for dinner with Sophia, wasn’t even sure what time she’d be home or whether she would have stopped off for a bite, so he decided he was hungry and he might as well have a pizza and a glass of wine, rather than the curry he had been fancying earlier. He was only taking up a table for two, so he didn’t get such a dirty look from the waitress when she finally arrived and took his order. The wine soon arrived, a nice large glass, and Banks settled back to sip and watch the pageant.

This was much what Derek Wyman and Mark Hardcastle must have seen when they sat out here about two weeks ago, Banks thought. Mostly pedestrians, some just walking back and forth until they found somewhere to eat, a few beautiful people in evening dress piling out of taxis and limos to some special event in the club next door. Pale pretty blond girls in jeans and T-shirts carrying backpacks. Gray-haired men wearing powder-blue polo shirts and white trousers walking next to impossibly skinny, tanned women with faces sewn and stretched tight over their skulls, and angry, restless eyes.

What had they been talking about? By then, Banks now guessed, Derek Wyman would have picked up the memory stick and prints of the digital photographs it contained from Tom Savage. Had he given them to Hardcastle here? Perhaps even at this very table? And what had Hardcastle’s reaction been? Had they simply gone off to the cinema as planned, or was that another lie? Hardcastle had probably gone and got pissed that night. Banks would have. He knew that Silbert was away in Amsterdam and wouldn’t be back until Friday, so he had been in no hurry to get back to Castleview Heights. He had driven up the next day, no doubt drank some more, examined the photos again, brooded over them, got angry, and by the time Silbert got home he had reached breaking point.

Tom Savage had told Banks that she gave Wyman the memory stick on the Wednesday afternoon at about four o’clock, so it would have been fresh in his possession around six when he met Hardcastle here for an early pizza before the film. He must have removed Tomasina’s business card, which was probably paper-clipped to the photos, and put it in the top pocket of his shirt and forgotten about it. Perhaps he didn’t want Hardcastle to know the source of the photos so he wouldn’t be able to go around asking questions himself.

When the waitress reappeared with his pizza diavolo, Banks asked her if she had a spare moment. She was clearly busy, but the sight of his warrant card, discreetly shown, drew a curt nod, and she leaned closer.

“Do you work here regularly?” Banks asked.

“Every day.”

“Were you working on Wednesday two weeks ago? This same shift?”

“Yes. I work every day same shift.”

“Did you notice two men sitting outside at one of these tables about six o’clock?”

“There were many people,” she said. “Very busy. Long time ago.” Banks thought he detected an Eastern European accent. She glanced over her shoulder, apparently worried that her boss was watching her.

Banks hurried on. “Two men together. One gave something to the other. There might have been an argument or a fuss of some sort.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “The man who tear the photographs?”

“What?” Banks said.

“I was delivering order to other table, over there, and this man—I think he dye his hair blond—he look at some photographs and then he get angry and tear them up.”

“Did you see the other man give him the photos?”

“No. Very busy. I just notice he tear them.”

“Was this two weeks ago today?”

“I no know. Not sure. Maybe. I must go.”

It was hardly likely, Banks thought, that two such incidents had occurred in the past couple of weeks. “Did they leave then?” he asked.

“They pay me. Separate bills. Very strange. Then he leave, the one who tear the photographs.”

“And the other?”

“He gather up the pieces and stay longer. I must go.”

“Thank you, “ Banks said. “Thank you very much.”

The waitress scurried away and Banks sipped some more wine and began to eat his pizza. So Wyman had given Hardcastle the photos at the restaurant, and he had reacted by tearing them up. Which was why they hadn’t been found at Castleview Heights. Hardcastle had taken the memory stick, though. Wyman must have asked for two separate bills. No doubt he didn’t want to seem so friendly that he had bought dinner for Mark Hardcastle, even at Zizzi’s. So it was all a tissue of lies. Banks very much doubted that Hardcastle had rejoined Wyman to go to the National Film Theatre after seeing the photographs. More likely, he went off in a state and got drunk, slept at the Bloomsbury fl at, where he had probably polished off the whiskey, then drove home the next day to brood and drink until Silbert came back from Amsterdam.

Banks thought further on his conversation with Annie and realized that she could very well be right in that Hardcastle, not Silbert, had been the intended victim, and that left the whole espionage business on the sideline. He also realized that he had wanted to be right, wanted it to be something to do with gray men doing dark deeds in the shadows, with or without government approval. He had probably watched and read far too many fictional espionage tales—from The Sandbaggers and Spooks on television to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Ipcress File between the covers of a book. Not to mention James Bond. No doubt the reality wasn’t like that at all.

On the other hand, one heard rumors. Assassinations had certainly been carried out, elected governments undermined, not only by the CIA in South America, and rival spies or double agents had been murdered in the street. You couldn’t forget Philby, or Burgess and Maclean, if you had grown up when Banks had. The Profumo Affair, too, had its own very definite whiff of the Cold War in the form of Ivanov, the naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, despite the pleasurable distractions of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis. More recently, there were the Bulgarian killed by the poisoned umbrella and Litvinenko poisoned with a radioactive isotope that left a trail halfway across London.

No, it was a shady and much misunderstood world, but it existed, all right, and Banks had apparently become fixed on its radar. The real problem was that, while they could always find you when they wanted to, you could never find them. He could hardly go knocking at the door of Thames House or Vauxhall Cross and ask for Mr. Browne. There was one person he could talk to, though. Detective Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess had been working with some elite counterterrorism liaison squad for a while now. Even their acronym was so secret that if you heard it you had to die, he had joked. Burgess was a cunning old bastard, but he and Banks went back a long time, and there was a chance he might know some of the people involved, let slip a morsel or two. Phoning him was an option, at any rate.

As Banks finished his wine and decided to leave the last slice of pizza, he was convinced that the young couple who had just passed by again on the opposite side of the street had not had to walk up and down Charlotte Street six times in the past hour, as they had done, simply to find an outside table at a restaurant. Who was it who said that paranoia simply means being in possession of all the facts? Banks gestured to the waitress and reached for his wallet.

"Drink, DI Cabbot?” said Superintendent Gervaise as she plunked her pint down on Annie’s table.

Annie glanced at her watch. Just after six.

“You’re officially off duty, aren’t you? Besides, a senior officer is asking you to have a drink with her.”

“Okay. Thank you, ma’am,” said Annie. “I’ll have a pint of Black Sheep, please.”

“Good choice. And there’s no need to call me ma’am. We’re just a couple of colleagues having a drink after work.”

Somehow, that sounded more ominous to Annie than Gervaise had probably intended, though she wasn’t sure about that. She still hadn’t quite got a grasp on the superintendent yet. Gervaise was tricky. You had to be careful. One minute she could come on like your best friend, and the next she was all business again, the boss. Then just when you started to think she was a careerist, straight from university and training school to a desk upstairs, she would surprise you with a story from her past, or take a course of action that could only be described as reckless. Annie decided it was best to remain as passive as possible and let Gervaise lead the way. You never quite knew where you were with her. The woman was unpredictable, which was an admirable quality in some, but not in a superintendent, and sometimes when you went away from a meeting with her, you weren’t quite sure what had transpired or what you had agreed to do.

Gervaise came back with the Black Sheep and sat opposite Annie. After raising her glass for a toast, she looked around the small room, its dark varnished paneling glowing in the soft light, and said, “Nice here, isn’t it? I always think the Queen’s Arms is just a little too noisy and busy at times, don’t you? I can’t say I blame you for coming here instead.”

“Yes, m— Yes,” said Annie, just remembering herself in time. Two colleagues having a drink after work. So the game was up. Gervaise knew about the Horse and Hounds. Pity. Annie liked the place, and the beer was good. Even the Britvic Orange was good.

“Was that DCI Banks you were talking to just now?”

“I... er... yes,” said Annie.

“Having a nice holiday, is he?”

“So he says.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“London, I think.”

“Still? So he hasn’t got as far as Devon or Cornwall yet?”

“Apparently not.”

“But he does have his mobile with him?”

Annie shrugged.

“Funny, that, because I can’t seem to get hold of him at all.”

“I don’t suppose he has it turned on all the time. He is on holiday, after all.”

“Ah, that must be it. Anyway, did I hear a mention of some sort of Wyman-Hardcastle connection?”

“You might have done, yes. Just a bit of harmless theorizing, you know... as one does...”

Gervaise put on a puzzled expression. “But that can’t be, surely? According to my files, there is no Hardcastle case. And I’m supposed to be in charge, aren’t I? I believe the coroner even filed a verdict of suicide.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I told you. Skip the formalities. It is all right if I call you Annie, isn’t it?”

It felt odd, but Annie wasn’t going to argue at the moment. She needed to find out where Gervaise was going, and you could never tell from her opening gambits. “Of course,” she said.

“Look here, Annie,” Gervaise went on. “I like you. You’re a good copper. You appear to have your head screwed on the right way, and at a guess I’d say you’re fairly ambitious, am I right?”

“I like to do a good job and be recognized for it,” said Annie.

“Exactly. Now nobody can fault you on that last business you were involved in on detachment to Eastern Area. One might argue that you acted rather hastily at the end, went off half-cocked, but there was no way you could predict the way things were going to turn out. As it happened, you acquitted yourself very well. It’s always a pity when blood is shed, but it could have been worse, a lot worse, if you hadn’t kept your head and your wits about you.”

Annie didn’t feel that she had kept her head at all, but you didn’t throw such praise back in the face of the person who gave it to you. Especially Superintendent Gervaise. “Thank you,” she said. “It was a difficult time.”

“I can well imagine. Anyway, that’s behind us now. As, I thought, was the Hardcastle and Silbert business.”

“It’s just a few loose ends,” Annie said. “You know, dotting i’s, crossing t’s.”

“I see. And just what, once you’ve done all that, does it spell out?” “Murder-suicide?”

“Exactly. Now the chief constable himself has taken a personal interest in this whole business, and he thinks it’s in the best interests of all concerned—his very words—that we toss the file in the solved cabinet—he really thinks we have such a thing, you know—and put it out of our minds, deal with the situation on the East Side Estate before it escalates. This is tourist season, you know.”

“And let’s not forget the traffic cones,” said Annie.

Gervaise gave her a disappointed look. “Yes, well. My point is that if you were doing your job, if you were following instructions, if you were—”

“I am working on the Donny Moore stabbing.”

“I know you’re working on it, Annie, but I’m not convinced you’re giving it your full attention. Now I catch the tail end of a telephone conversation you’re having with DCI Banks, who’s supposed to be on holiday, about a business that not only I, but also our chief constable, want to forget about. What am I to think? You tell me.”

“Think what you like,” said Annie. “He just wants to tidy up a few loose ends, that’s all.”

“But there aren’t any loose ends. The chief constable says so.”

“And who told him?”

Gervaise paused and regarded Annie coolly for a moment before replying, “Someone even higher up the tree than he is, no doubt.” “But don’t you feel used when the intelligence services start muscling in on our territory?” Annie asked.

“Tut-tut,” said Gervaise. “That’s not the way to think of it. Not the way at all. This is cooperation. We’re all fighting a common battle here, a united front against the forces of evil. They’re not ‘muscling in,’ they’re offering us their expertise and helping us find our direction, and in this case they’ve directed us to a brick wall.”

“Like my satnav usually does,” said Annie.

Gervaise laughed. They both drank more beer. “Let me tell you a story,” she went on. “A few years ago, when I was working on the Met, we sometimes had to work a lot more closely than we would have chosen with Special Branch and MI5. You’re right, Annie, they can be arrogant and devious bastards, and they usually have the ultimate argument-crusher on their side, don’t they, whether it’s 9/11 or the July bombings. There’s not much you can say when someone brings that up. Fancy another drink?”

“I shouldn’t,” said Annie.

“Oh, come on.”

“Okay. But it’s my shout.” Annie got up and went to the bar. Where the hell was Gervaise going with all this? she wondered as she ordered two more pints of Black Sheep. The pub was filling up now with its usual mix of locals and tourists, some of the latter carrying large rucksacks and walking gear, enjoying their first pint after a ten-mile hike. The pub music system was playing 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love.” Annie had always liked the song. One of her old boyfriends, an English graduate, had used it to point out to her the difference between irony and sarcasm. She still hadn’t gone to bed with him, and when she had quoted “I Get Along Without You Very Well” back at him, she hadn’t meant it ironically at all.

Ready for the next installment, she carried the drinks back to the old snug.

The tube was hot and crowded again, and Banks was relieved to get off at Sloane Square. He walked down King’s Road in the evening light past the big drab Peter Jones department store and Habitat to where the street narrowed and the posh boutiques and jewelry shops took over. As he walked, instinctively slowing down every now and then to look in a shop window and check for anyone who might be following him, he mulled over everything he had discovered that day, from Tomasina’s revelation about the photos and Hardcastle’s behavior at Zizzi’s to what Annie had told him about Nicky Haskell seeing Wyman arguing, or remonstrating, with Hardcastle at the Red Rooster, and Wyman’s reaction to her mention of it.

He hoped Annie was okay. She was usually pretty good at talking herself out of difficult situations, but Gervaise could be tenacious, not to mention wily. There was a part of him that wanted to tell the superintendent that the evidence was bearing out his theory about the Hardcastle-Silbert case, and that Derek Wyman was in it up to his neck, but he didn’t trust her that much. There was no glory to be got from this one, and it had already been made perfectly clear to him that MI5, MI6 and Special Branch didn’t want him anywhere near the Silbert case.

Sometimes Banks longed for the old days with Gristhorpe in charge. You knew where you were with Gristhorpe, as plain-speaking a York-shireman as you could find. There was also a chance that he would have stood up to the powers-that-be. Gristhorpe had been nobody’s puppet, always his own man. Which was perhaps why he had got no higher than detective superintendent. That reminded Banks that he hadn’t visited his old boss and mentor in quite some time. Another thing to put on his must-do-soon list.

He turned into Sophia’s street and tried to put the case out of his mind. If Sophia was home, perhaps they would have a glass of wine and then go to the cinema, or to a concert, as they had the other night. Even spending the evening at home together would be perfect as far as Banks was concerned. If she wasn’t home, then she would probably have left a phone message arranging to meet him somewhere later. When he got to the steps he noticed that the living room light was on, which meant she was in.

Banks and Sophia had agreed that each should come and go from the other’s house as if it were their own, so he put his key in the lock and was surprised when the door opened at his touch. It hadn’t been locked. That wasn’t like Sophia. He checked the handle and lock for any signs of forced entry and found none. The alarm system should have taken care of anything like that, anyway.

Calling out Sophia’s name, Banks turned right from the hall into the living room and stopped dead on the threshold. She was so still, with her head hanging on her chest, that at first he feared she was dead. But when he called her name again, she lifted up a tear-stained face to him and he could see that she was physically unharmed.

She was sitting on the floor leaning back against the sofa, her long legs stretched out into the heap of broken things piled at the center of the carpet. Her things. Banks couldn’t tell exactly what was there. It looked like a random selection of her cherished possessions taken from various places in the room: a slashed landscape painting that had hung on the wall above the stereo; an antique table on which she had displayed various objects, its spindly legs splintered, mother-of pearl inlay smashed; a broken Eskimo soapstone sculpture; a shattered ceramic mask; scattered beads from broken strings; a cracked painted Easter egg; dried ferns and flowers tossed willy-nilly over the whole mess like a parody of a funeral.

Sophia sat clutching a piece of exquisite gold-rimmed pottery in her hand, palm bleeding from how tightly she had clutched it. She held it out to Banks. “This belonged to my mother. Her grandmother gave it to her. God knows how long she’d had it or where she got it.” Then she suddenly flung the shard of pottery at Banks. It hit the doorjamb. “You bastard!” she screamed. “How could you?”

Banks made to move over to her but she held up her hands, palms out. “Don’t come near me,” she said. “Don’t come near me or I don’t know what I’ll do.”

She had her mother’s eyes when she was angry, Banks noticed. “Sophia, what is it?” he asked. “What happened?”

“You know damn well what happened. Can’t you see? You forgot to set the alarm and...” She gestured around the room. “This happened.”

Banks crouched across the heap from her. His knees cracked. “I didn’t forget to set the alarm,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten to set it.”

“You must have. There’s no other explanation. The alarm never went off. I came home as usual. The door hadn’t been broken open or anything. And this was what I found. How else could it have happened? You forgot to set the alarm. Someone just walked in.”

Banks didn’t see the point in questioning her logic—on how anyone might have known if he hadn’t set the alarm, for example—because she was clearly in no state for that sort of thing. “Did you check the back?” he asked.

Sophia shook her head.

Banks walked down the passage to where the back door opened off the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of forced entry, no sign of any kind of entry. For good measure, he went out into the garden and saw nothing had been disturbed there, either. The back gate was padlocked, as usual, though anyone could have climbed over it. They would still have had the alarm system to reckon with, though, as it covered the whole house.

He went back to the living room. Sophia hadn’t moved. “Have you called the police?” he asked.

“I don’t want the bloody police. What can the bloody police do? Oh, just go away. Why don’t you just go away?”

“Sophia, I’m sorry, but this isn’t my fault. I set the alarm as usual this morning.”

“So how do you explain all this?”

“Was anything taken?”

“How should I know?”

“It could be important. You should make a list for the police.”

“I told you I don’t want the police here. What can they do?”

“Well, the insurance company—”

“Bugger the sodding insurance company! They can’t replace any of this.”

Banks stared at the heap of broken treasures and knew she was right. Everything here was personal, none of it worth a great deal of money. He knew that he should call the police, but he also knew that he wouldn’t. And not only because Sophia didn’t want him to. There was only one explanation for all this, Banks knew, and in a way it did make him guilty. There was no point calling the police. The people who had done this were shadows, wills-o’-the-wisp, to whom fancy alarm systems were child’s play. Mr. Browne had known where Sophia lived, all right. Banks knelt down beside the wreckage. Sophia wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Come on,” he said, sighing, “I’ll help you clean up.”

“Thank you,” said Gervaise when Annie came back with the drinks. “Where was I?”

“9/11 and the London bombings.”

“Ah, yes. My little digression. Anyway, I’m sure you get the picture. Work around these people long enough and you get to think like them. One of the lads on our team, let’s call him Aziz, was a Muslim. His family came from Saudi Arabia, and he’d grown up here, spoke like an Eastender, but they still went to the local mosque, said their prayers, the whole thing. This was all in the wake of the July London bombings and the unfortunate shooting of that Brazilian on the tube. Tempers were a little frazzled all round, as you can imagine. Anyway, Aziz made some criticism of the way our local Special Branch-MI5 liaison officer handled a situation at a mosque, said something to indicate that he thought we were all being a bit heavy-handed about it all, and the next thing you know he’s got a file as thick as your wrist. They’d fitted him up with a legend. It was all in there, the training camps in Pakistan, the meetings with terrorist cell leaders, all documented, photographs, the lot. Personal friend of Osama bin Laden. I’m sure you get the picture, anyway. And every word, every image of it, was a lie. Aziz had never left England in his life. Hardly even left London. But there it was, in glorious Technicolor, the life of a terrorist. We all knew it was crap. Even MI5 knew it was crap. But they had a point to make and they made it.”

Gervaise paused to drink some beer. “They talk about giving their field agents legends,” she went on. “Aliases, alternative life histories, complete with all the proof and documentary evidence anyone could ask for. Well, they gave Aziz this, without his even asking for it or needing it. Of course, they searched his flat, interrogated him, told him they’d be back, pestered his friends and colleagues. This was something that could happen to any one of us who stepped out of line, they were saying. Aziz just happened to be dark-skinned, happened to be a Muslim, but we weren’t immune just because we were white police officers. You might think I was being paranoid, Annie, but you weren’t there.”

“What happened to Aziz?”

“His career was over. They took back all the files about training camps and stuff, of course—that was all for effect—but they’d made their point as to what they could do. A week later Aziz jumped off an overpass on the M1. I mean, I don’t suppose it’s fair to blame MI5 for that. They couldn’t have predicted how deeply unstable he was. Or could they?”

“What are you saying?”

Gervaise sipped more beer. “I’m just telling you a story, Annie, that’s all.”

“You’re warning me off.”

“Warning you off what? You’re reading too much into what I’m saying. If I’m doing anything at all, Annie, I’m telling you to be very careful, and you can pass that on to DCI Banks the next time you talk to him.”

“There’s something else,” Annie went on. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something else. Don’t you believe there’s something odd about the Hardcastle-Silbert business, something that doesn’t quite fit, that doesn’t make sense? You do, don’t you?”

“You know as well as I do there are always things that don’t quite add up. But I would like to point out that, whatever baroque theories you and DCI Banks might have dreamed up, scientific evidence, combined with a thorough police investigation, proved beyond all reasonable doubt that Mark Hardcastle killed Laurence Silbert and then hanged himself. You’re not arguing with that, are you. With the facts?”

“No. I’m—”

“Then there is no case to pursue.” Gervaise regarded Annie. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, talking of baroque theories, that DCI Banks had some outlandish idea about someone putting Hard-castle up to it. Showing him fake photos, putting ideas in his head, making innuendos, getting him all riled up, that sort of thing. I went to see Othello the other night, and I understand DCI Banks took his girlfriend last weekend. Maybe he got it from there. I knew the play from school, of course, but I hadn’t seen it or thought about it for years. It’s really quite a powerful story. Interesting, don’t you think? Of course, Iago turned a man against his wife, but there’s no reason that shouldn’t translate into homosexual terms, is there, especially given the element of overkill we sometimes find in gay killings?”

“What?” said Annie. She knew she was on dangerous ground now. She hadn’t wanted to reveal the Othello theory to Gervaise for fear of being mocked, but now here the woman was quoting it to her. No doubt in order to demolish it in due course.

Gervaise gave her a sideways glance and smiled. “Oh, don’t be so disingenuous, Annie. I’m not so green as I’m cabbage-looking, as I believe they say around these parts. Can you think of any other reason why you, or DCI Banks, should think it a case worth pursuing other than that you thought someone put Hardcastle up to it? I’m sure the two of you know as well as I do that our security services have any number of psychological tricks up their sleeves. I mean, even you two don’t usually fly in the face of scientific evidence and flaunt fact. You must have a reason for doing what you’re doing, and my guess is that that’s it. And as for DCI Banks, well, you probably know as well as I do that if you tell him to do something, he does the opposite. I just hope he realizes what happens to spies who go on missions behind enemy lines. Well, am I right? What’s wrong, Annie? Lost your voice?”

Banks was in a quandary when he left Sophia’s. What should he do? he wondered as he sat in the Porsche down the street, his heart still pounding, hands still shaking. He supposed he could stay at Sophia’s house, though it would be unbearable sleeping there on his own after what had just occurred. It was late, but he could also just head home. He’d only had the one glass of wine, and that was some time ago, so he wasn’t over the limit. He didn’t even feel too tired to drive, though he knew he was distracted. There was always Brian’s fl at, too, or a hotel.

Sophia had been inconsolable. No matter what he said, she couldn’t let go of the idea that he had forgotten to set the alarm and someone had been watching and had taken advantage. He supposed, in a way, that was preferable to the truth—that someone from their own intelligence services had done this, perhaps to give Banks a stern message. He also couldn’t entirely ignore the fact that he had talked to Victor Morton, Sophia’s father, about Silbert, and that Victor had spent his working life in the various British consulates and embassies of the world. There had been that strange man at the bar of The Bridge, and all the other strange faces Banks had seen in the street lately. Paranoid? Perhaps. But there was no denying what had happened tonight. Someone with enough gadgetry or know-how to bypass a sophisticated alarm system had walked into Sophia’s house and calmly smashed a number of her most treasured possessions and left them in a heap on the living room floor. Messages didn’t get much clearer than that. From what Banks had been able to gather from a cursory look around the whole house, nothing had been taken and no other room had been disturbed; there was just the mess on the living room carpet. But it was enough. It was more than enough.

Sophia had kept insisting that he go, but he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone. In the end, he had persuaded her to phone her best friend Amy and spend at least the one night at her place. Reluctantly, Sophia had agreed and Amy had driven over to pick her up. Banks was glad of that. He wouldn’t have trusted Sophia not to tell a taxi driver to turn back. But Amy was sensible and strong, and a quick, quiet word in her ear while Sophia was packing her overnight bag was all it took. Banks felt he need have no worries that Sophia would do anything foolish tonight. His dilemma was whether he should stay in London to be around for her tomorrow, in case she had changed her mind about him. For the moment, though, he was about as far in the doghouse as a man could get. Not even his feet were sticking out.

The woman across the street, he remembered, was a bit of a nosy parker, always at her window, lingering a little too long when she closed them at night or opened them in the morning. He got out of the car and went to knock on her door. If she was up to form, she would have seen him coming.

The door opened shortly after his knock. “Yes?” she said.

She was younger than he had imagined from the vague figure he had seen from a distance, and there was an air of loneliness about her, like the shapeless brown cardigan she’d wrapped around herself, despite the heat.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Banks said, “but it’s just that we were expecting someone to come and service the computer across the street. I wonder...”

“The man and the woman?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“They’ve already been.”

“What time, do you remember?”

“Just after four o’clock. I hadn’t seen them before, so I was just a bit suspicious.”

“Did they knock?”

“Yes. Then one of them took out a key and they just walked in. It did appear odd, but they didn’t act suspiciously at all. They just opened the door and walked in.”

“That’s all right,” Banks lied. “We did leave a key with their company in case we were both out. It was important. They just didn’t leave an invoice, that’s all.”

The woman looked at him as if to say he must be insane leaving keys with strangers. “Maybe they’ll post it?”

“Probably. Can you describe the couple for me?”

“Why does that matter?”

“I just want to know if they’re the ones I’ve dealt with before.” Banks could tell she was getting suspicious, that his subterfuge was as full of holes as a political manifesto. “I’d like to put in a good word for them.”

“Just a man and a woman,” she said. “Nicely dressed. The kind of people you’d expect calling in a street like this. Though I must say she seems to go in more for the long-hair crowd. Present company excepted, of course.”

“Long hair never suited me,” said Banks. “Young or old?”

“Young, I’d say. Or youngish. Late thirties, perhaps. About her age. They didn’t seem like service people to me. More like debt collectors. Or bailiffs. Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing at all,” said Banks, who had never seen a bailiff in his life. He wasn’t even sure if they still existed. At least it wasn’t Mr. Browne. But then, he wouldn’t do something like this himself; he would send operatives. “It’s just computers,” he said. “You know... How long were they in there?”

“Less than an hour, so don’t let them overbill you. I hope they did a good job.”

“I don’t suppose you’d ever seen them before, had you?”

“No. Why? Look, I’m sorry, but my dinner’s in the oven and the cat wants feeding.” She started to close the door. Banks muttered good night and went back to his car.

Just as he had sat down, his new mobile rang. He had given the number only to Annie, Tomasina and Dirty Dick Burgess. It was Annie calling, he saw, and he owed it to her to answer. She was a part of it all, putting herself on the line for his half-cocked private investigation. He answered the call.

“Alan?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Don’t ask me how, but she found me in the Horse and Hounds.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t really know. She told me a story about a young Muslim police officer drummed out of the force after pissing off the spooks. She told me the chief constable in particular wanted an end to this business. She told me there was no case to be investigated.”

“All to be expected,” said Banks. “Anything else?”

“Plenty. She said she’d been to see Othello and thought you might have based some theory of events on it.”

“She what?”

“My reaction exactly.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t need to tell her anything. She was a step ahead of me the whole time.”

“Did you tell her about the evidence? Tom Savage? The photos? The Red Rooster?”

“Of course not. But she’s no fool, Alan. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Does she know where I am?”

“I told her you were in London. She’s suspicious that she can’t get hold of you on your mobile.”

“Damn.”

“I had no choice, Alan.”

“I know. I know. It’s not your fault. I just didn’t think it would all turn to shit so soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Just be careful, Annie.”

“That’s what she said, too. And she told me to pass on the same warning to you. She also said you’re the sort of person who does the opposite of what he’s told.”

“So she knew I’d continue the investigation on my own time. She planned on it all along.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Annie said. “But she’s not surprised.”

“I don’t like what’s happening.”

“There was one more thing.”

“What?”

“When she’d finished, Gervaise seemed interested, seemed to think we’d actually got something. She even mentioned that the spooks knew how to use all sorts of psychological weaponry against people.”

“Jesus Christ. She didn’t tell you to lay off, then?”

“Well, she sort of did. Rather she told me the chief constable had said to lay off. But in the end she just started rambling on about spies getting caught behind enemy lines. You know what she’s like. I think she was just telling us—you specifically—not to expect any mercy if we get caught.”

“Annie, you can get out of this right now,” said Banks. “Just back off and be seen to throw all your energies into the East End Estate business.”

“You must be joking.”

“I’ve never been more serious.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Come home, maybe. You know, what I could really do with right now is a cigarette.”

Annie laughed. “Well, it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you. I’m on my third pint of Black Sheep all alone in the snug of the Horse and Hounds.”

“I don’t know what your plans are,” Banks said, “but why don’t you call Winsome, stay at her place tonight?”

“You know, I might do just that,” said Annie. “I’ve certainly had too much to drink to drive home, and it would be nice to have the company, if she’ll have me.”

“I’m sure she will,” said Banks. “Give her a ring.”

“Okay, boss.”

“I’m serious. Remember, be careful. Good night.”

Annie started to say something, but Banks pressed the end-call button. He thought about turning off the phone altogether, then he realized it probably didn’t matter with the new pay-as-you-go. It didn’t really matter with anything, when it came down to it, he realized. If they wanted to find him, they would find him. Or anyone else he came into contact with. They obviously knew he was still working on the case against their orders, and the mess at Sophia’s was a subtle attempt to warn him off. He couldn’t even call Brian. They obviously must know that he had a son and a daughter and an ex-wife, just as they knew about Sophia, but there was no sense in bringing Brian openly into the thick of things. Going to see him tonight would simply be marking him out for special attention.

Banks sat with his hands on the wheel. He didn’t think he had ever felt so alone in his life. He was beyond even music. There wasn’t a song in the world that could alleviate or accompany the way he felt right now. Drink was a possibility. Oblivion. But even that somehow seemed pointless. In the end, he started the car and drove. He had no idea where he was going, only that he had to move on. Bad things happened when you stood still for too long in this game.