All the Colors of Darkness

19

“So just what the bloody hell is going on?” Superintendent Gervaise asked Banks in her office on Tuesday morning at an “informal” meeting over coffee. The rain was still pouring down, Derek Wyman was still missing, and Banks’s head was pounding. Oblivion had finally come to him in the wee hours of the morning, but not before he had downed enough red wine to give him a headache even extra-strength paracetamol couldn’t touch.

“We think Wyman might have made it to a town,” said Banks. “Harrogate, Ripon. York, even. Maybe hitched a lift or caught a bus. From one of those places he could have gone anywhere. Could even be abroad. Anyway, Annie and Winsome are concentrating on checking the bus and train stations. We’ve also got his picture in the paper and it’s coming up on the local TV news this evening. We’ve got uniforms canvassing supermarkets and men’s outfitters within a thirty-mile radius in case he needed a change of clothes. His credit and debit cards are covered, too. If he uses them, we’ll know where.”

“It’s the best we can do, I suppose,” said Gervaise.

Banks finished his coffee and poured himself another cup from the carafe.

“Rough night?” Gervaise asked.

“Just tired.”

“Okay. What are your thoughts?”

“Something obviously put the wind up him,” said Banks. “Maybe Mr. Browne got the thumbscrews out.”

“There’s no call for flippancy. It was expressly to avoid something like this happening that I told you to lay off over a week ago.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” said Banks, “that wasn’t the reason. You told me to lay off because MI6 told the chief constable, and he passed the message on to you. Your hands were tied. But I’d hazard a guess that you knew damn well that the best way to get me asking questions on my own time was to tell me to lay off. Just like MI6 did eventually, you let me do the dirty work for you while keeping me at arm’s length. The only thing you didn’t expect was for Wyman to do a runner.”

Gervaise said nothing for a moment, then she allowed a brief smile to flicker across her features. “Think you’re clever, don’t you?” she said.

“Well, isn’t it true?”

“You may think that, but I can’t possibly comment.” She waved her hand. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. For better or worse, we’re here. The point is what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to find Derek Wyman first,” said Banks, “and then we’ll work on calming everyone down. I know it sounds impossible, but I think we should just sit down and thrash it out with MI6, or whoever we can get to talk to us and settle the matter one way or another. It doesn’t matter whether Wyman upset the applecart because of his brother or because he was angry with Hardcastle. He still hasn’t broken any laws, and it’s about time everyone knew that.”

“You think it’s that easy?”

“I don’t know why it shouldn’t be. Get the chief constable to invite his pals to the table. He’s in with them, isn’t he?”

Gervaise ignored his barb. “I don’t think they’re concerned right now about why Wyman stirred up Hardcastle and Silbert,” she said, “but about how much and what he knows about matters of a top-secret nature.”

“I don’t think he knows anything,” said Banks.

“You’ve changed your tune.”

“Not particularly. I wondered before, speculated, perhaps, but I’ve had a chance to think it through. I’ve got a contact who does know about these things, and he told me that Silbert had nothing to do with Afghanistan except for some joint mission with the CIA in 1985, and that his recent work involved the activities of the Russian Mafia.”

“You believe him?”

“About as much as I believe anyone in this business. I’ve known him for years. He’s got no reason to lie. He would have simply told me he didn’t know or couldn’t find out.” Or, knowing Burgess, to fuck off, Banks thought.

“Unless someone fed him misinformation.”

“Who’s paranoid now?”

Gervaise smiled. “Touché.”

“What I’m saying,” Banks went on, “is that we might never know for certain, just the way Edwina Silbert doesn’t know for certain that MI6 killed her husband. But she thinks they might have. They might also have had a hand in Laurence Silbert’s murder. Maybe he was a double agent and that’s why they wanted rid of him? We’ll probably never know. Despite all the scientific evidence, I still don’t think it’s beyond the realm of reason that someone in their dirty-tricks brigade got in the house and killed him. You saw as well as I did how useless those local CCTV cameras were when it came to covering the area we were interested in. But if that is the case, there’s no evidence and there never will be. I’m sick of the whole damn business. The point now is to stop all this before it gets worse. If Wyman hasn’t found shelter, a change of clothes, food and water, do you realize that the poor bastard could die of exposure out there? It’s got cold as well as wet. And for what? Because a couple of jumped-up Boy Scouts in suits have ransacked his home and scared the shit out of him the way they did with Tomasina Savage?”

“But what if Wyman’s working for the other side?” Gervaise asked.

“The Russian Mafia? Oh, come off it,” said Banks. “What use would a puny school teacher like Derek Wyman be to a bunch of neckless ex-KGB agents? And why would he hire a private detective if he was in with them? They’d have their own surveillance people to follow Silbert. Besides, if they were involved, they would have broken Silbert’s neck or pushed him in front of a car. Shot him, even. They don’t care. I will admit that what happened smacks of British secret service silliness, or the Americans, with their exploding cigars for Castro—it’s all a bit Pythonesque—but the Russian Mafia...? I don’t think so.”

“When did you become an expert all of a sudden?”

“I’m not an expert,” said Banks, straining to rise above the pounding in his head. “I don’t pretend to be. It’s just common sense, that’s all. I think we all left a little bit of our common sense at home on this one, including me.”

“Perhaps,” said Gervaise. She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a meeting with the chief constable in half an hour. I’ll put your idea to him. I doubt that he’ll go for it, but I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” said Banks. He topped up his coffee and carried his cup and saucer back to his own office, where he stood by the window looking down on the market square for a while. His head pounded and waves of nausea drifted through his stomach. His own fault. He still could hardly believe it. When he thought about it, yesterday evening on the King’s Road had the same surreal dreamlike quality as the Oxford Circus. But perhaps he could do more about last night. At the very least he could stop running and confront Sophia. Maybe she would have an explanation. Maybe he would believe it.

Rain slanted across the square and bounced on the cobbles. Deep puddles straddled all the intersections and people skirted them to avoid getting their feet wet. The sky was an unrelenting grit-gray and none of the forecasters could see an end in sight to the dreadful weather. Banks thought of Wyman, alone and frightened out there somewhere, hoped he was dry and sheltered in some cozy bed-and-breakfast, despite all the trouble he had caused. This business had started with a suicide; he hoped it wouldn’t end with one. When his phone rang, he hoped it might be Sophia calling to explain or apologize. Instead, it was Tomasina.

“Hello,” she said. “I had a hard job tracking you down. That phone number you gave me doesn’t work anymore.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Banks. “It was only temporary. I never thought... It’s at the bottom of the Thames.”

“That’s wasteful. Lucky I know where you work.”

“Lucky I’m actually here,” said Banks. “What can I do for you? No more problems, I hope?”

“No, nothing like that. They haven’t returned my files yet, though.”

“Give them time. So what is it?”

“Well, actually, it’s a bit awkward,” Tomasina said.

“Go on.”

“Well, you know about that concert, the Blue Lamps at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire?”

“Yes.” It had slipped Banks’s mind momentarily, but now that she mentioned it, he remembered. It was a big gig for Brian, and he knew he should try to be there. “Friday, isn’t it?” he said.

“That’s right.”

Banks had been intending to spend the weekend with Sophia, but now he realized he probably wouldn’t be doing that, barring some sort of miracle. Still, he could always find somewhere to stay. Brian and Emilia had a pull-out sofa. “You can still make it, I hope?” he said.

“Oh, yes. It’s just that, well, I was in the pub last night, and I ran into this old friend from uni. He’s really crazy about the Lamps and, well, we’d had a few drinks, you know how it is, and I said why didn’t he come with me, you know, to the concert, because I had tickets. You don’t really mind, do you, only I thought you’d be able to get another ticket from Brian easily enough, and we could still meet up for a drink and get together backstage later and all that. I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, slow down,” Banks said. “You’re calling off our date, is that it?”

Tomasina laughed nervously. “It wasn’t really a date. Was it?”

“What else?”

“Well, it’s not as if you don’t have a girlfriend or anything. I mean, look, if you really insist, I know I promised you first and I can tell him—”

“It’s all right,” said Banks. “I’m only teasing. Of course you should take your friend. I might not even be able to make it, anyway.”

“Pressure of work?”

“Something like that,” said Banks. “Anyway, the two of you have a great time, okay? And if I’m not there, say hello to Brian from me.”

“I will. And thank you.”

Banks put down the phone and looked out of the window at the rain again. He could hardly see the dalesides beyond the castle.

Darkness came early that night, and by ten o’clock it was pitch black outside Banks’s Gratly cottage, and still raining. There would be no sitting on the wall by the beck tonight, Banks thought, tidying away the remains of his takeaway vindaloo. He had eaten it in front of the TV, drinking beer and watching No Country for Old Men on DVD, and the movie was about as bleak as he felt. He knew he was feeling sorry for himself when even the memory of Tomasina ringing to cancel their trip to Brian’s concert felt like a betrayal.

There had been no progress in the search for Wyman that day. Annie had rung from Harrogate to say she had got nowhere there, and Winsome had reported the same from Ripon. The local forces were helping all they could, but resources were still limited. If they didn’t find him soon, it would be time to concentrate on the moors again, maybe drag Hallam Tarn.

Several times over the course of the evening Banks had been on the verge of ringing Sophia, but every time, he had backed off. She wanted time, she had said, and she also seemed to have another relationship she wanted to pursue. Often the two went together. When a couple split up, Banks knew, the odds were that one of the partners had found someone else, even if that someone was only the excuse to leave, and the new relationship didn’t last. It had happened with Sandra, and she had married the bastard and had a child with him. It hadn’t been like that with Annie, though. She hadn’t left him for someone else; she had just left him.

Had he misinterpreted the situation last night? Had it really been perfectly innocent? How would he ever know if he didn’t ask her?

He switched to red wine, poured himself a generous glass and went through to the conservatory. He was just about to go ahead and ring her when he thought he heard a noise out in the back garden. It sounded like the click of the sneck on the gate. He held his breath. There it was again. Something, or someone, out there in the bushes. He was about to pick up a kitchen knife and go outside to see what was happening when he heard a light tapping at the conservatory door. He couldn’t see any sort of shape through the frosted glass because it was so dark, but there was definitely someone there. The tapping persisted. Eventually, Banks walked over and put his hand on the handle.

“Who is it?” he asked. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” a familiar voice whispered back. “Derek Wyman. You’ve got to let me in. Please.”

Banks opened the door and Wyman half-stumbled in. Even in the darkness, it was clear that he was soaked to the skin.

“Bloody hell,” said Banks, switching on the table lamp. “Look at the state of you. The spy who came in from the cold.”

Wyman was shivering. He just stood there in the doorway dripping.

“Come in,” said Banks. “I ought to put you over my knee and give you a bloody good spanking, but I think I can find you a towel and some dry clothing. Drink?”

“A large whiskey wouldn’t go amiss,” Wyman said through chattering teeth.

They went through to the kitchen, where Banks poured him a healthy shot of Bell’s, then they went upstairs and Wyman dried himself off in the bathroom while Banks dug out some old jeans and a work shirt. The shirt was fine and the jeans were a bit short, but they fit around the waist all right. Finally they went back to the conservatory. Banks refilled his wineglass.

“Where’ve you been hiding?” he asked, when they were sitting down.

Wyman kept the towel around his neck, as if he had just run a race or finished a football game and come out of the shower. “Moors,” he said. “I used to do a lot of walking and caving around here. I know all the spots.”

“We thought you’d gone to Harrogate and taken the train to distant parts.”

“It crossed my mind, but in the end it was too risky. Too open. I thought they’d be looking for me at the stations.” Wyman held the glass to his mouth and gulped. His hand was shaking.

“Steady on,” said Banks. “Slow down. Take it easy. Have you eaten anything?”

Wyman shook his head.

“I’ve got some leftover vindaloo,” Banks said. “At least it’s fresh.” “Thanks.”

Banks went into the kitchen, warmed up the vindaloo and half a naan in the microwave and put it on a plate for Wyman. He ate fast, much faster than anyone should eat vindaloo, but it didn’t seem to have any adverse effects.

“You said ‘they,’ ” Banks said.

“Pardon?”

“You said you thought ‘they’ would be watching the stations—not us, not the police.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Would you like to tell me why you ran?” Banks asked. “The full story.”

“I saw them at my house,” Wyman said. “The spooks. I was on my way back for tea after the Sunday matinee. They were carrying stuff out. The computer. Papers. Boxes. They don’t do that for nothing.”

“How did you know who they were? It might have been us.”

“No. They’d already talked to me once. Warned me what to expect.”

“When?”

“The day before, Saturday, just after I left the police station after talking to you. They were waiting in the square in a car. Put me in the backseat between them. Man and a woman. They wanted to know why you were talking to me, what connection I had to Laurence Silbert’s murder. They think I’m hooked up with the Russian Mafia, for God’s sake. When I saw them at the house, I just panicked.”

“They must have got to Tomasina’s file on you,” Banks said.

“Tom Savage? What do you mean?”

“They raided her office on Friday morning, took most of her files. They obviously had to read through them all, and you’re a W. It must have taken them until Sunday, then they came back for you, but you weren’t there.”

“How did they find her?”

“Through me, I’m afraid. You dropped her card down the back of the radiator at Mohammed’s, and he found it.”

“You went to Mohammed’s? You didn’t tell me this before, when you interviewed me.”

“There’s a lot I didn’t tell you. You didn’t need to know.”

“And now?”

“It might help you to understand what’s going on and why.”

Wyman paused to digest this. He sipped some more whiskey. His hand seemed to have stopped shaking. “They knew I’d been to Russia.”

“That wouldn’t be hard to find out. As soon as they knew I was interested in you, they’d check you out, but Tomasina came into the picture later. When were you in Russia?”

“Four years ago. Moscow and Saint Petersburg. I was a bloody tourist, for crying out loud. I saved up for years for that trip. Went by myself. Carol wasn’t interested. She’d rather lie on a beach in Majorca. But I love Russian culture. I love Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich—”

“All right,” said Banks. “You can spare me the cultural catalog. I get the picture.”

“They told me they knew about my visit,” Wyman went on. “They wanted a list of people I’d met and talked to while I was there.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth. That I couldn’t remember. I didn’t meet anyone. Well, I did, but no one... you know... I went to museums, galleries, the Bolshoi, the Kremlin, walked the streets.”

“And?”

“They didn’t believe me. They said they’d be back. Warned me about some of the things they could do to me if they thought I was lying. Lose me my job. Turn my family against me. It was awful. When I saw them at the house on Sunday, I just panicked and took off. But I ran out of petrol. I had a drink or two and tried to think what to do. I realized they’d be searching for my car, so I set out on foot. I’ve been living rough, up on the moors, ever since. Then I thought of you. You seemed a decent enough bloke when we talked. I thought if anyone could sort this mess out, you could. I haven’t done anything, Mr. Banks. I’m innocent.”

“I’d hardly call you innocent,” said Banks. “How did you know where I live?”

“The fire a while back. It was in the local paper. I remembered the place from my walks, when the old lady lived here.”

“So what do you think I can do for you?”

“Get it sorted. Tell them the truth, with a solicitor and other people present, in the police station. I don’t trust them. I don’t want to be alone with them again.”

Nor did Banks. And he had told Gervaise that he wanted to set up a meeting. Perhaps it would be best to take Wyman in. It might give MI6 an extra reason to turn up at the table. With any hope, the matter could be settled once and for all. “Why don’t you tell me how it really happened first?” Banks said. “All that about Hardcastle asking you to spy on Silbert, it was crap, wasn’t it?”

Wyman hung his head. “Yes. Mark never asked me to check up on Laurence. He never suspected for a moment that he might be seeing someone else. It was me who suggested that. It was all me.”

“Why did you lie when we interviewed you?”

“It seemed the easiest way to explain it without making myself look too bad. There was no way you could prove I was lying. There was no one to contradict me.”

“But you’re telling me the truth now?”

“Yes. I’ve got nothing left to lose, have I?”

Banks poured Wyman another tumbler of whiskey and himself some more wine. The rain continued to slither down the windows of the conservatory, and a drainpipe gurgled by the door. “Why did you do it, then, if it wasn’t Hardcastle’s idea?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me, especially if it was nothing to do with the Russian Mafia or your brother’s death, either.”

“Rick? I told you before, I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t even know what Laurence did for a living. How could it have been anything to do with Rick?”

“Never mind,” said Banks. “Carry on.”

“I wasn’t interested in Laurence Silbert. I knew nothing about him, really, just that he was some rich bloke who’d taken a shine to Mark. He was just a means to an end. Mark loved him. That was who I wanted to hurt, the smug bastard. Mark.”

“Are you telling me this was all about the bloody theater, after all? Your directing career?”

“You don’t understand. He was going to wipe out my job. With a professional acting troupe there, he was going to end up artistic director of the whole bloody show, and getting well paid for it in the bargain, and I was going to be stuck teaching the likes of Nicky Haskell and his mates for the rest of my bloody days. And he delighted in letting me know. He even used to bloody tease me about it. I put hours of work into those plays. They were my life. Do you think I was just going to stand around and have it all taken away from me by some Johnny-come-lately?”

“I don’t believe this,” said Banks, shaking his head. “For that you destroyed two lives?”

Wyman drank some whiskey. “I never intended for anyone to be destroyed. I just wanted to cause a rift, so maybe Hardcastle would bugger off back to Barnsley or wherever and leave us all alone. It started as a bit of a lark, really, thinking about Othello. Then I wondered if you really could do that, you know, drive someone around the bend through innuendo and images. Mark was a bit jealous about Laurence’s frequent trips to London or Amsterdam, whether they were supposed to be business trips or not. I thought I could use that. Mark told me about the fl at in Bloomsbury, and one time I was in London at the same time Laurence was there on a business trip I went and watched the flat. That was when I saw Laurence come out. I don’t know why, but I followed him, saw him meet a man on a park bench and go to a house in Saint John’s Wood. I didn’t have my camera with me. You know the rest.”

“And you hired Tom Savage because you couldn’t get down there as often as Laurence Silbert did?”

“That’s right. I told her I’d ring her and give her an address when I wanted her to follow someone and take photographs. She did a terrific job. Mark went spare when I showed him them at Zizzi’s. I didn’t expect him to tear them up, but he did. Naturally, the photos weren’t enough in themselves, I had to embellish a bit on the sort of things I thought they were going to do to one another when they got upstairs. But the hand on the back was a lovely touch. If it hadn’t been for that, it might have looked innocent.”

A harmless gesture. Again, Banks wondered about Sophia. Was that all her friend’s gesture had been last night? And was he doing his own embellishment? He put her out of his mind. That was for later.

“I never expected what happened next. You have to believe me. I’ve been a wreck ever since. Ask Carol. Poor Carol. Is she all right?”

“You should ring her,” Banks said. “She’s worried sick about you.”

“I can’t face that just now,” said Wyman. “Give me a bit of time to get myself together.”

Banks finished his wine. “Look,” he said, “as far as I can tell, technically, you’ve created a hell of a mess, caused two deaths and wasted a lot of police time, but you haven’t committed any crime. It’s down to the CPS to make the final decision on that, of course, but I honestly can’t see what the charge would be.”

“You’ve got to take me in,” said Wyman. “We’ve got to get it sorted before I can go home again. I don’t want them coming to my house again. Carol. The kids. I’m willing to accept whatever punishment you think I should have, but I want you to help me get them off my back. Will you do that?”

Banks thought for a moment. “If I can,” he said.

Wyman put his tumbler down and got to his feet. “Now?”

“We’ll ring your wife from the station,” Banks said.

As they walked out front to the car, Banks thought he had probably had too much to drink to be driving—a can of beer with dinner and a couple glasses of wine in the fairly short time Wyman had been there. He was also in a pretty shaky emotional state. But it was almost midnight, and he didn’t feel at all impaired. What else was he going to do? Send Wyman back to wander the moors in the rain? Give him a bed for the night? The last thing Banks wanted was Derek Wyman skulking around the house in the morning. He could do that perfectly well himself. He knew he wasn’t destined for sleep tonight, anyway, so he might as well take the silly bugger to the station, get him off his hands for good and go back to nursing his broken heart over another bottle of wine. It was unlikely that MI6 would turn out for a meeting in the middle of the night, but if Wyman was too nervous to go home, Banks would be more than happy to put him in a cell for a night, then arrange for a solicitor to attend in the morning to thrash it all out.

There were no streetlights on the road to Eastvale, and only Banks’s headlights cut through the darkness and the steady curtain of rain ahead, the windscreen wipers beating time.

Then he noticed the distorted glare of someone’s headlights in his rear-view mirror, too close and too bright for comfort. They started flashing.

“Shit,” said Banks. He realized that they must have been watching his place, either hoping he would lead them to Wyman, or that Wyman would fetch up there looking for help after they’d put the wind up him. Parasites.

“What is it?” Wyman asked.

“I think it’s them,” Banks said. “I think they were staking out my house.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It seems as if they want us to stop.” Banks readied himself to pull over at the next lay-by, which he knew was a good half mile ahead. He was still driving quite fast, definitely over the speed limit, but the car behind was still gaining, still flashing its headlights.

“Don’t stop,” Wyman said. “Not till we get to town.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t trust them, that’s all. Like I said, I want a solicitor present the next time I talk to them.”

Banks sensed Wyman’s anxiety and felt a little surge of paranoia himself. He remembered the callous brutality these people had shown at Sophia’s, a brutality that he was certain had led to what happened between him and her. He also remembered stories he had heard, things Burgess had said, how they had frightened Tomasina and Wyman, and that it was still possible they could have been responsible for Silbert’s murder. He remembered Mr. Browne’s veiled threats. And he didn’t like the way they had tried to warn him off one minute and then use him the next.

Call me paranoid, Banks thought, but I don’t want a confrontation with MI6 out here in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with no witnesses. If they wanted to have it out, they could bloody well follow him to Eastvale and have a nice cozy chat in the security of the police station, with a mug of cocoa and a solicitor present, just the way he and Wyman wanted it.

But they had other ideas. As soon as Banks overshot the lay-by and put his foot down, they did the same, and this time they started to overtake him on the narrow road. The Porsche was powerful enough, but they were driving a BMW, Banks noticed, and weren’t lacking in power themselves. There was a corner coming up, but they obviously didn’t know about that when they started to edge to their left, about half a car length ahead. No doubt they intended to bring Banks to a smooth halt, but either because of the rain or not knowing the bends in the road, or both, they misjudged terribly, and Banks had to turn the wheel sharply to avoid a collision. He knew this part of the road well, so he braced himself as the Porsche broke through a section of drystone wall and flew over the steep edge.

Banks was strapped in the driver’s seat, and he felt the jolt of the seat belt as it absorbed the impact. Wyman, in his distracted state, had forgotten to fasten his belt, and he shot forward through the windscreen, so he lay half on the bonnet, his lower half still in the car. For some reason, the air bags hadn’t released. Banks unbuckled his seat belt and staggered out to see what had happened.

Wyman’s neck was twisted at an awkward angle, and blood pumped all over the bonnet from where a large sliver of glass had embedded itself in his throat. Banks left it there and tried to hold the wound closed around it, but he was too late. Wyman shuddered a couple of times and gave up the ghost. Banks could feel him die right there in front of him, feel the life go out of him, his hand resting on the dead man’s neck.

Banks fell back against the car’s warm bonnet, slick with blood, looked up to the heavens and let the rain fall on his face. His head throbbed. Disturbed by the noise, a few sheep baaed out in the field.

Two people were walking down the slope toward him, a young man and a young woman carrying torches, the slanting rain caught in their beams of light.

“Bit of a mess, isn’t it?” the young man said when they got to the Porsche. “Nice car, too. Not quite what we had in mind at all. We only wanted to talk to him again. Find out what he was doing putting a tail on one of our men. You should have stopped when we flashed you.”

“He couldn’t tell you anything,” said Banks. “He was just a bloody schoolteacher.”

The man shone his torch on the bonnet of the Porsche. “Dead, is he? We’ll never know what he was up to now, will we?”

Banks could think of nothing to say to that. He just shook his head. He felt dizzy and weak at the knees.

“You all right?” the young woman asked. “You’ve got blood on your forehead.”

“I’m fine,” said Banks.

“We’ll take it from here,” she went on. “This is what we’ll do. My friend is going to phone some people. They’re used to cleaning up situations like this. We’ll have your car back outside your cottage again by tomorrow morning, as good as new.” She paused and looked at the Porsche. “Make that the day after tomorrow,” she said. “It can sometimes be hard to get replacement parts for foreign cars. We’ll make sure they fix the air bags, too.”

Banks gestured toward Wyman. “What about him?”

“Well, there’s nothing anybody can do for him now, is there? Best let us take care of it. He was distraught over what he’d done. He went walkabout and either he jumped or he fell off a cliff. We don’t want any fuss, do we? I’d just go home if I were you. Walk away.”

Banks stared at her. She was pretty in a slightly hard-faced sort of way, but her eyes didn’t flinch; there was no milk of human kindness in them. “But he didn’t do anything,” said Banks.

“Maybe not,” the woman said. “Mistakes get made sometimes. It doesn’t matter. Let us deal with it now.”

“But you killed him.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said the young man, squaring up to Banks. “That rather depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? From what I could see, you were driving way too fast. You’ve obviously been drinking. And he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. You should have had your air bags checked, too. They malfunctioned.”

“And you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If we wanted you both dead, you’d be dead in much easier circumstances to clean up than this. It was an accident. Besides, don’t forget he was responsible for the death of one of our best men, and if you’d had your way he’d have simply walked away. Hard-castle never asked him to put a tail on Silbert. The whole thing was his own twisted, crazy plan.”

“How do you know?”

“What?”

“I can understand you probably got the transcripts of the interview. The chief constable would have given you those. But how did you know that was all a lie, that Wyman...?” Banks paused as the truth dawned on him. “You bugged my cottage, didn’t you? You bastards.”

The man shrugged. “You’re away a lot. Access isn’t a problem.”

Banks looked toward Wyman’s body again. “So this is your idea of justice?”

“I’ll admit it’s sloppy,” the man said, “but it’s justice of a kind. Look, Silbert helped us bring down some pretty big players—sex traffickers, drug dealers, killers for hire. He even helped us put some terrorists behind bars. And this piece of scum you’re defending so eloquently basically killed him.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still not convinced,” Banks said. “Oh, Wyman stirred Hard-castle up all right, but you lot could still have killed Silbert. Wyman just makes a good scapegoat because he was so full of guilt.”

“Why would we do that? I’ve already told you Silbert was one of our best men.”

“Maybe he was a double agent. What about those Swiss bank accounts? People led me to believe that agents feather their nests when they’re in the field, but who knows? Maybe he was playing for both sides.”

“Then maybe the other side killed him. Whatever happened, you’ll never know, will you? Anyway, this is ridiculous, and it’s getting us nowhere. We need to move fast.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What do you suggest?”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Believe it. The best thing you can do is—”

But he never got to end the sentence. Banks felt the urge begin in his solar plexus, and the next thing he knew his fist was connecting with the man’s jaw. It happened so quickly the man never had a chance, no matter what fancy martial arts he had been trained in. Banks heard a satisfying crunch and felt the jolt run all the way up to his shoulder. He could also sense that he’d probably broken a knuckle, maybe two, but the pain was worth it to vent some of his anger—anger about Wyman, about Sophia, the bombing, Hardcastle, Silbert, the Secret Intelligence Service. The man crumpled and fell like a sandbag to the earth. Banks cradled his right hand in his left and bent double with pain.

“Carson,” the woman said, bending over him. “Carson? Are you all right?”

Carson groaned and rolled over in the mud. Banks kicked him hard in the ribs. He groaned again and spat out a tooth.

Banks was just about to kick him in the stomach when he realized that the woman was pointing a gun at him. “Stop it,” she said. “I don’t want to use this, but I will if I have to.”

Banks glared at her, realized that she meant what she said, then took a few deep breaths. He looked at Carson again and felt no desire to inflict any more pain. He leaned back on the car and caught his breath, still cradling his right hand.

“The truth is that none of this happened,” the woman went on. “We weren’t even here. You’ll get your car back as good as new. His body will be found at the bottom of a cliff, and nothing changes. You can tell all the stories you want, but I guarantee you that nobody will believe a word you say. If necessary, we’ll give you a legend that will land you in jail for the rest of your days. When we’ve finished with you, even your family and your closest friends will never want to talk to you again. Do I make myself clear?”

Banks said nothing. What was there to say? Any insults and threats of retribution he might want to make would just be empty bluster in the face of the power these people had. He knew he’d had all the satisfaction he was going to get from the punch he’d landed. Carson was still groaning through his broken jaw. Banks’s knuckles were throbbing in synchronization with his head.

The woman held her gun in one hand and her mobile in the other. Both hands were perfectly steady. “Walk away,” she said. “Do it. Now.”

Banks’s legs were still a bit wobbly, but they worked. He didn’t say anything, just made his way up the slope to the road. The night was a dark wet cloak around him. There was only one place he wanted to be now, only one place left for him to go. A little unsteady at first, but gaining strength and momentum as he went, Banks started the long walk home. He wasn’t sure whether the wetness he felt on his face was rain, blood or tears.