All the Colors of Darkness

7

“So what do you think?”

It was hot and crowded in the theater bar at intermission. Banks felt the sweat prickle on his scalp as he stood by the plate-glass window with Sophia looking out at the evening light on the shops across Market Street. A young couple walked by holding hands, a man walking his dachshund stopped to pick up its leavings in a plastic Co-op bag, three girls in miniskirts wearing Mickey Mouse ears and carrying balloons teetered on high heels on their way to a hen night. Banks glanced at Sophia. She was wearing her hair loose tonight, over her shoulders, and its luster framed her oval face, the olive skin and dark eyes showing her Greek heritage. Not for the first time in the past few months he felt like a very lucky man.

“Well,” said Sophia, taking a sip of red wine, “it’s hardly Olivier, is it?”

“What did you expect?”

“The lighting’s good, all that chiaroscuro and whatnot, but I’m not convinced about the whole German Expressionist idea.”

“Me neither,” said Banks. “I keep expecting Nosferatu to jump out from behind one of those big curved screens and flash his fingernails.”

Sophia laughed. “And I still think those Georgians must have been tiny.”

“With well-padded bums,” Banks added.

“Lord, they must have looked funny waddling around the place. Seriously, though, I am enjoying it. It’s a long time since I’ve seen Othello. Come to think of it, it’s a long time since I’ve seen any Shakespeare play onstage. It takes me back to my student days.”

“You studied Shakespeare?”

“Long and hard.”

“We did Othello for O-Level English.”

“Pretty tough when you’re only sixteen. It’s a very grown-up play.” “Oh, I don’t know. I think I could understand jealousy even then.” Banks thought of the other night, down in Chelsea: Sophia saying, “So I’ve been told.”

“But that’s not what it’s really—oops, damn!”

Someone had accidentally jogged Sophia’s arm, and she spilled a little red wine on her roll-neck top. Luckily, it was a dark color.

“Sorry,” the man said, turning to her and smiling. “There is a bit of a crush in here, isn’t there?”

“Good evening, Mr. Wyman,” said Banks. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

Derek Wyman turned and noticed Banks for the first time. It might have been Banks’s imagination, but he sensed a cautious expression come into Wyman’s eyes. Still, that often happened when people found themselves confronted with a policeman. We’ve all got some guilty secret we don’t want the law to know about, Banks thought—a motoring offense, a couple of joints at uni, a touch of adultery, a false income tax return, an adolescent shoplifting spree. They were all the same in the mind of the guilty. He wondered what Wyman’s was. A bout of buggery?

“It’s all right,” Sophia was saying.

“No, let me get some soda,” Wyman said. “I insist.”

“Really, it’s all right. It was only a drop. And you can’t even see it now.”

Banks wasn’t sure he appreciated the way Wyman was staring at Sophia’s chest, almost as if he were going to pull out a handkerchief and start dabbing at the barely visible wine stain. “I’m surprised you’ve got time to mingle with the punters,” Banks said. “I would have thought you’d be backstage giving the cast a pep talk.”

“Its not like a football match, you know.” Wyman laughed. “I don’t go in the dressing rooms and yell at them during halftime. Anyway, why should I? Do you think they need one? I thought they were doing a fine job.” He turned to Sophia again and held his hand out. “I’m Derek Wyman, by the way, director of this modest little effort. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Sophia took his hand. “Sophia Morton,” she said. “We were just talking about how much we’re enjoying the play.”

“Thank you. Inspector Banks, you didn’t tell me you had such a charming and beautiful... er... companion.”

“It just never came up,” said Banks. “How are the wife and children?”

“Thriving, thank you, thriving. Look, I must dash. I—”

“Just a minute, while you’re here,” Banks said, pulling out the photograph that had become a fixture in his pockets. “We haven’t been able to track you down during the week. Teaching duties, they told me. Do you recognize the man with Laurence Silbert, or the street where this was taken?”

Wyman studied the photograph and frowned. “No idea, he said. “I wouldn’t know why you’d expect that I should.” He seemed anxious to get away.

“Just that you were in London with Mark Hardcastle, that’s all.”

“I’ve already explained all about that.”

“When were you there previously? London.”

“About a month ago. It isn’t easy to get time off school. Look, I—”

“Do you own a digital camera?”

“Yes.”

“What make?”

“It’s a Fuji. Why?”

“A computer?”

“Dell desktop. Again, why?”

“Did you have any idea that Laurence Silbert had worked for MI6?”

“Good Lord, no. Of course not. Mark never said. Now I really must go. They’ll be starting again in a minute.”

“Certainly,” said Banks, edging back as much as he could to let Wyman by. “The pep talk, after all?”

Wyman brushed past him without a word.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” said Sophia.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the poor man was only trying to be nice. You didn’t have to interrogate him in the theater bar.”

“You call that interrogation? You should see me when I really get going.”

“You know what I mean.”

“He was flirting.”

“So what? Don’t you ever flirt?”

“I never really thought about it.”

“Of course you do. I’ve seen you.”

“With whom?”

“That blond Australian barmaid in the wine bar, for one.”

“I wasn’t flirting. I was just... buying drinks.”

“Well, it took you an awfully long time, and it seemed to involve a lot of back-and-forth chat and a few saucy smiles. I hardly think you were talking about rugby prospects, or the Ashes.”

Banks laughed. “Point taken. I’m sorry. About Wyman, I mean.”

“Are you always working?”

“These things have a way of getting their hooks into you.”

Sophia glanced at Wyman’s retreating back. “I think he’s rather attractive,” she said.

“For crying out loud,” said Banks, “he’s wearing an earring, and he’s got a red bandanna tied around his neck.”

“Still...”

“There’s no accounting for taste.”

Sophia looked at him. “Obviously not. You don’t think he’s guilty of something, do you? A murderer?”

“I doubt it,” said Banks. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he was mixed up in it somehow.”

“Mixed up in what? I thought there was no case. You said they’d dragged you back from London for nothing.”

“That’s what they say,” said Banks. “That’s how they want it to appear. Only I’m not so sure.”

“But officially?”

“The matter has been dropped.”

“Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

The bell started ringing to announce that the performance was due to recommence. Banks and Sophia knocked back the rest of their wine and headed for the theater entrance.

"There’s something funny about that new bookcase you’ve got your CDs in,” said Sophia, relaxing on the sofa in Banks’s entertainment room while he flipped through his collection trying to find something suitable for the late hour and the post-Othello mood. The rule was that when they were in his house, he chose the music, and when they were in Chelsea, Sophia chose. It seemed to work, for the most part. He enjoyed the music she played and had discovered all kinds of new singers and bands; she was a bit more finicky, and there were things he knew he had to avoid, such as Richard Hawley, Dylan, opera and anything that sounded too folksy, though she was happy to attend the occasional folk concert at the theater. She said she liked music that pushed at the boundaries. She liked his sixties collection, though, and most of the classical stuff, along with Coltrane, Miles, Monk and Bill Evans, so that usually gave him plenty of leeway. In the end, he decided that Mazzy Star would do nicely and put on So Tonight That I Might See. Sophia said nothing, so he assumed that she approved.

“The bookcase, yes,” he said. “I messed it up. It’s the top. It’s the wrong way around. I can’t get the damn flimsy back off without ruining it, so I thought I might stain the edge. I just haven’t got around to it yet.”

Sophia put her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“What?” Banks said.

“Just the thought of you on your knees with an Allen key in your hand cursing to high heaven.”

“Yes, well, that’s when Mr. Browne turned up.”

“Your mysterious visitor?”

“That’s the one.”

“Forget him. From what you said, I very much doubt that he’ll be back. Surely you’ve got real criminals to catch, not just spooks and shadows?”

“Plenty,” said Banks, thinking of the East Side Estate. “Trouble is, most of them are underage. Anyway, enough of that. Enjoy this evening?”

“It’s not over yet, is it?”

“Certainly not.” Banks bent over and kissed her. A taste of things to come.

Sophia held her glass out. “I’ll have one more glass of that spectacular Amarone before you sit down,” she said, “then I think it’ll be bedtime.” Banks poured the wine from the bottle on the low table and passed her the glass. “Hungry?” he asked.

“For what? Leftover chicken chow mein?”

“I’ve got some nice Brie,” said Banks. “And a slab of farmhouse cheddar. Extra old.”

“No, thanks. It’s a bit late for me to start eating cheese.” Sophia pushed back a stray lock of hair from her cheek. “Actually, I was thinking about the play.”

“What about it?” Banks asked, filling his own glass and sitting beside her.

Sophia turned to face him. “Well, what do you think it’s about?”

“Othello? Oh, jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revenge. The usual stuff of Shakespearean tragedies. All the colors of darkness.” Sophia shook her head. “No. I mean, well, yes, it is about all those themes, but there’s something else, a subtext, if you like, another level.”

“Too deep for me.”

Sophia slapped his knee. “No, it’s not. Listen. Do you remember at the very beginning, when Iago and Rodrigo wake up Desdemona’s father and tell him what’s going on?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“Well, did you notice anything about the language Iago uses?”

“It’s very crude, what you might expect from a soldier, and a racist, something about a black ram tupping a white ewe and making the beast with two backs. Which, by the way—”

“Stop it.” She brushed his hand away from her knee. “It’s also very powerful language, very visual. It plants images in the hearer’s imagination. Remember, he also talks about Desdemona being covered by a Barbary horse. That’s the language of the stud farm. Just imagine what sort of images it must have put into her father’s mind, how unbearable it must have been to think of, to see, his daughter that way.”

“That’s how Iago works,” said Banks. “He plants ideas, pictures, lets them grow, bides his time.” Banks thought of Sophia saying, “So I’ve been told,” and the images it created in his mind.

“Exactly. And why?”

“Because he feels slighted in his career and he thinks Othello has slept with his wife.”

“So most of the poison comes from within himself. Thwarted ambition, cuckoldry?”

“Yes, but he spews it out on others.”

“How?”

“Mostly in words.”

“Exactly.”

“I know what you mean,” Banks said, “but I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Just what we’ve been saying. That it’s a play about the power of language, about the power of words and images to make people see, and what they see can drive them insane. Iago uses exactly the same technique on Othello later as he did on Desdemona’s father. He presents him with unbearable images of Desdemona’s sexual activities with another man. Not just the idea of it, but images of it, too. He paints pictures in Othello’s mind of Cassio fucking Desdemona. I mean, what real evidence does Othello have of his wife’s unfaithfulness?”

“There’s the handkerchief,” said Banks. “But that was fabricated, planted evidence. Verdi made rather a lot of it, too, mind you. And Scarpio does the same thing with the fan in Tosca.”

Sophia gave him a look. Verdi and Puccini were out of her purview. “Other than the damn handkerchief?”

“Iago tells him that Cassio had a dream about Desdemona, said things in his sleep. Did things.”

“Yes, and that in this dream, he—Cassio—tried to kiss Iago, and get his leg over, thought he was Desdemona. Othello’s already half-crazed with jealousy by then, and bit by bit Iago feeds him even more unbearable images until he’s over the edge. And he kills her.”

“Of course,” Banks said, “you could also argue that Othello did the same thing with Desdemona, too. He even admits to winning her over by telling her stories of battles and exotic places and creatures. Putting pictures in her mind. Cannibals. Anthropophagi. Those things with their heads below their shoulders. Real life and soul of the party.” Sophia laughed. “It worked, though, didn’t it? It got Desdemona all steamed up. And you’re right. Othello benefited by the same technique. As chat-up lines go it can’t have been such a bad one. It works both ways. Language can impress and it can inflame the passions. In this case jealousy. Othello must have been a man who was used to possessing things. Even women. It’s a play about the power of stories, language, imagery.”

“For good or for evil.”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that.”

“Well, it did get Othello laid.”

Mazzy Star were singing “So Tonight That I Might See” now, the last track on the CD, with its slow, hypnotic beat and distorted guitars. Banks sipped the last of his rich, silky amarone. “And in the end,” he said, almost to himself, “Iago succeeds in talking Othello into murdering Desdemona and killing himself.”

“Yes. What is it, Alan?”

“What?” Banks put his glass down. “Just a glimmer of an idea, that’s all.” He reached out for her. “But then a better one came along. How would you like to hear a story about a particularly grisly murder I solved once?”

“Well, you certainly know how to get a girl in the mood, don’t you?” Sophia said, and came into his arms.

Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny, the sky as blue as the grass was green, a perfect late-spring day. After an early breakfast, Banks and Sophia drove to Reeth in the Porsche, parked on the village green, then headed past the Buck Inn and the bakery toward the old school and turned up Skelgate. At the top, they went through the gate onto open moorland and walked high along the daleside below Calver Hill. Curlews soared above the moors, making their curious piping calls. There were rabbits everywhere. Families of grouse bobbed in and out of the tufted grass. Once in a while, Banks or Sophia would approach too close to a tewit’s ground nest, and the birds would start to panic, twittering and flying nervously back and forth, defending their territory. Across the dale, on the rising green slopes of the other side, pale gray drystone walls formed the shapes of milk churns and teacups. The path was muddy in places, but the ground was drying quickly.

They turned a sharp bend and walked down a steep curving hill, hand in hand, then passed through the hamlet of Healaugh, the limestone cottages with their tiny well-tended gardens of bright-colored flowers a profusion of red, yellow, purple and blue, where bees droned lazily, and then back along the riverside, under the shade of the alders, to the small swing bridge, which they crossed and continued by the riverside, turning onto the old Corpse Way into Grinton.

They didn’t see another human being until they passed the Saint Andrew’s Church on the lane, where a woman in a red polka-dot summer dress and a white broad-brimmed hat was putting flowers on a grave.

Banks had a sudden and ominous feeling of apprehension, of impending disaster, that this would be the last good day for a long time and that they should go back to Reeth, start the walk again. This time they should make sure that they savored every moment even more than they had the first time, store up the beauty and tranquillity they felt against future loss and adversity. In days to come, he thought, he might cherish and cling to the memory of that morning. Was it T. S. Eliot who said something about shoring fragments against his ruins? Sophia would know. The feeling passed, and they crossed the road to The Bridge.

Sophia’s parents were already waiting in the bar when they got there. They had taken a table by the window, settling themselves on the comfortable padded bench. Banks and Sophia sat in the cushioned chairs opposite them, and they could see Saint Andrew’s across the road through the low bay window. The woman in the hat was just leaving through the lych-gate. Saint Andrew’s, a beautiful, small twelfth-century Norman church with its square tower and arched door porch, was where the Corpse Way ended, Banks remembered.

Before Muker Church was built in 1580, Saint Andrew’s had the only consecrated ground in Upper Swaledale, and people had to carry their dead in large baskets all the way from Muker or Keld sometimes, along the Corpse Way to Grinton. At some of the bridges on the way, there were old flat stones that used to act as resting places, where you could put down the coffin for a few moments and have a bite to eat and a spot of ale. Some of the travelers were no doubt drunk in charge of a coffin when they finally got to Grinton, and perhaps even one or two coffins got dropped along the way. There was a famous book about a journey with a coffin, but he couldn’t remember its title. Another question for Sophia. He asked her, and she did know. It was Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Banks made a mental note to read it. She also knew about the T. S. Eliot quote. It was from The Wasteland, she told him. She had written a long essay about it at university.

“We haven’t ordered yet,” said Victor Morton, Sophia’s father. “Just got here ourselves. Thought we’d wait for you.” He was a fit, slim man in his early seventies, not an ounce of fat on him, and judging by the fancy adjustable, sprung walking sticks by the table—more like ski poles than walking sticks, Banks thought—the Mortons had also been for a walk before lunch. Victor’s face glowed from exercise.

“Let me order,” said Banks. “Everyone know what they want?”

The choices were fairly predictable for a Sunday pub lunch—roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Banks and Victor, roast lamb for Sophia and pork for her mother, Helena. It was easy to see where Sophia got her looks, Banks thought, glancing at Helena as he went to the bar to order. She must have been quite a beauty in her day, and Victor had no doubt been a dashing, handsome young diplomatic attaché. Banks wondered how much parental resistance they had encountered. After all, a Greek waitress in a taverna and a young Englishman with a shining civil service career ahead of him... It can’t have been easy. Banks got along perfectly well with Helena, but he sensed Victor’s disapproval and suspicion of him. He wasn’t sure if it was the age difference, his job, background, the fact that he was divorced, or simple paternal possessiveness, but he felt it.

Sophia helped him carry the drinks back. Beer for Victor and himself, white wine for the women. At least they had some fairly decent wine at The Bridge, and the young landlord was also a keen fisherman who sometimes put his catch of the day on the dinner menu.

Banks sat back and enjoyed his drink through the small talk. Somehow, nothing tasted quite as good as a pint of well-kept ale after a long walk. Victor and Helena had walked west along the river to Marrick Priory and back, and they were also ready for a hearty lunch.

When the food came, they all ate in silence for a few moments, then Victor looked up at Banks and said, “Very good meal. Nasty business, that Hindswell Woods and Castleview Heights. You involved?”

“I was,” said Banks, with a sideways glance at Sophia, who had told him exactly what she thought of his pursuit of chimeras.

“Funny chap, Laurence Silbert.”

Banks paused, glass halfway to his mouth. “You knew him?”

“Well, yes, sort of. Not in Eastvale, of course. Didn’t even know he lived there. Years ago. Bonn. Back in the old days, before the Wall came down.” He nodded toward Sophia. “She was still at school,” he said, then turned back to Banks as if his words were some sort of accusation or challenge.

Banks said nothing.

Sophia looked at her mother, who said something in Greek. The two of them started chatting quietly.

Victor cleared his throat and went on between mouthfuls of food. “Anyway, I say I knew him, but it was more by reputation than anything. I believe I only met him the once, in passing. But you hear things, you know, and things happen. Embassies, consulates, pieces of home ground abroad, a sort of sanctuary, hallowed ground. The soil in the vampire’s coffin, so to speak. People come and go at all times of the night and day, in a hell of a state, some of them. I often wondered why we didn’t employ a full-time doctor. We didn’t like it, of course. All that cloak-and-dagger sort of thing is supposed to be kept out of sight. Not supposed to be happening at all, most of it, but... what can you do? A fellow countryman in pain, trouble or danger? And there were documents, of course. Diplomatic bags. Sometimes you couldn’t help but see their contents. Why people feel compelled to keep written records of even the worst things they do is beyond me. Lucky for you they do, I suppose, though, isn’t it?” He went back to his meal.

“Sometimes,” said Banks, who had often wondered the same thing himself. “When did you meet him? Do you remember?”

“Remember, of course I do. I might be going a bit deaf, but I’m not senile yet, you know.”

“I wasn’t—”

Victor waved his fork. “It was the eighties, eighty-six or eighty-seven. Not too long before the Wall came down, at any rate. The embassy was in Bonn then, of course, not West Berlin. Bonn was the capital. Interesting times.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward to catch Banks’s ear as he spoke. He needn’t have worried about people overhearing, Banks thought; the pub was noisy with family conversations, laughter and the shrieks of children. There was a man at the bar, Banks had noticed, who looked out of place and kept glancing over, but he wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation.

“Were you involved in intelligence work?” Banks asked.

“No, not at all. And I’m not just saying that because it’s classified or anything. We weren’t all spies, you know. A lot of us were just your basic office workers. Some of us were genuine diplomats, attaches, consuls, vice-consuls, undersecretaries, what have you, not like the Russians. Spies to a man, that lot. No, in fact I tried to keep as much distance as possible... you know. But one hears things, sees things, especially in heady times like those. I mean, we didn’t stand around with our heads buried in the sand. There was gossip. The lifeblood of the diplomatic service, I sometimes thought, gossip.”

Banks slipped the photograph out of his pocket and discreetly showed it to Victor. “Do you recognize this man with Silbert?” he asked.

Sophia shot him an annoyed glance, but he ignored it and she went back to talking to her mother.

Victor studied the photo and finally shook his head. “No, I’ve no idea who he is,” he said.

Banks hadn’t expected him to know, really. It had been a long shot, a reflex action. “Why do you remember Laurence Silbert in particular?” he asked.

“Well, it’s funny you should mention that. His reputation, I suppose. I was just thinking about him a little while ago when all that stuff about Litvinenko hit the fan. Plus ça change and all that. We used to call Silbert 007 around the office, just between ourselves, you understand. A little joke. Bit of a James Bond. Not the girls, of course, he never was interested in that direction, but he had the good looks, the coldness, ruthlessness, and he was tough as nails.”

“He killed people?”

“Oh, I’m sure he did. Not that I ever had any evidence, mind you. Just rumor. But he worked on the other side a lot, so he’s bound to have faced danger and... well... I’m sure you can imagine what it was like.”

“Yes,” said Banks.

Sophia kept glancing at Banks sideways, and he could tell from her expression that she was half annoyed and perplexed that he was talking shop with her father, but also pleased that they were getting along, not reduced to the usual monosyllabic grunts that had become their excuse for conversation lately. He turned and smiled at her while Victor was cutting off another lump of Yorkshire pudding, and she smiled back. “Shall I get more drinks?” she asked.

“I’ll have one, please,” Banks said. “Victor?”

Victor picked up his empty glass. “Please, dear.”

Sophia went up to the bar to get another round. Victor watched her go and turned his watery gray eyes back on Banks. He seemed on the verge of saying something about the relationship, but first Banks asked, “How long were you in contact with Silbert?”

Victor gave Banks the kind of look that indicated he might have headed trouble off at the pass for the moment, but there’d be another pass and another opportunity later, and next time he might not be so lucky. “Oh, it wasn’t real contact,” he said. “As I told you earlier, I had nothing to do with that sort of thing. Then the Wall came down and things changed. We moved to Berlin, for a start. Ninety-one, I think that was. Of course that was never quite the real end of things, as some people think, more the symbolic one, which was the face presented to the world.”

“But did you know anything about what Silbert did, what operations he was involved in?”

“No, nothing like that. As I said, I only knew him by reputation, really.”

Sophia came back with two of the drinks. Banks apologized for not going to help her with the rest, but she said she was fine and went back to the bar for the other two. They had all finished their meals by now, and Sophia and her mother were studying the list of sweets.

“Now then, Helena, dear,” said Victor, “would you be so kind as to pass me the dessert list. I rather fancy something hot and sticky with lashings of custard.”

Banks could read an “end of discussion” signal as well as the next man, and he turned to Sophia, asking her if had she enjoyed her meal and was she going to have a sweet. Then Helena joined in, and the conversation moved on to her and Victor’s travel plans for the winter, which included a three-month visit to Australia. Soon it was well into the afternoon and the lunchtime crowd was thinning out. Time to go. Sophia had to drive back to London that evening for a full day of work the next day, and Helena and Victor were staying in the Eastvale flat. Banks had no plans other than to stay in and perhaps see about staining the top edge of the bookcase.

Victor said he would drop them off at their car in Reeth village green. As they picked up their bags and walking sticks, Banks couldn’t get Victor’s story out of his mind. It was a bygone age, or so it seemed to him, the world he knew about only from reading Le Carre and Deighton. But Laurence Silbert had lived it. James Bond. 007. He wished Victor had known more details. Banks remembered the mysterious Mr. Browne telling him that there were now as many Russian spies in the U.K. as there were during the height of the Cold War, and he wondered whom they were spying on, what they wanted to know. Of course, the Americans were still here; there were early warning systems and satellite spy stations at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill and countless other places. No doubt there were still places like Porton Down, conducting their scientific experiments into germ and chemical warfare. Could Laurence Silbert’s, and by extension Mark Hard-castle’s, death be in any way connected with that clandestine world? And if so, how on earth could Banks find out about it? It seemed he not only had the secret intelligence services against him in this, but also his own organization. He was convinced that Superintendent Gervaise had been got at.

Before they left through the back door to cross the little beck over to the car park, Banks glanced at the man at the bar reading a Mail on Sunday and sipping a half-pint of ale. The man looked up as they passed and gave them a vague smile. Banks went to The Bridge fairly often and knew most of the regulars, but he hadn’t seen this man before. Still, that didn’t mean much. He didn’t know everyone, and lots of tourists dropped in on Sundays, but not usually alone, and not wearing a suit. There was just something about him. He certainly wasn’t dressed for walking, and he wasn’t one of the local farmers. Banks put it out of his mind as Victor drove them the half mile or so to Reeth, back to the car, and he and Sophia said good-bye to her parents.

“Well,” said Sophia, as she settled into the Porsche. “Even a simple family lunch becomes quite an adventure with you.”

“Anything to stop him getting on to the age difference and my job prospects.”

“I was doing my A levels.”

“What?”

“The period Dad was talking about. I was at an English school in Bonn doing my A levels. Sometimes we used to go to Berlin and I’d hang out in underground bars dressed in black, with transvestites and coke dealers listening to David Bowie and New Order clones.”

“What a checkered life you’ve led.”

She gave him an enigmatic smile. “If only you knew the half of it.” They took the back roads home, winding south over the moors back to Gratly, Cherry Ghost singing “Thirst for Love” on the iPod. It was an unfenced road crossing high moorland of gorse and heather, beautiful and wild, where the sheep roamed freely. Only the occasional burned patch of ground and warning signs to watch out for red flags and slow-moving tanks reminded Banks that the landscape they were driving across was part of a vast military training range.