Not Dark Yet

20

Banks got back to Newhope Cottage around six-thirty that evening, had a quick shower, and changed clothes. He picked up a bottle of Cahors from the rack, then he was ready to set off for Ray’s.

After ringing Jean-Claude and finding out that there hadn’t been a hint or whisper about Zelda visiting Paris recently, he had spent the morning wandering the bookstalls beside the Seine on the Left Bank, where he had bought a hefty copy of À la recherche du temps perdu in the original French. He didn’t know why, as he hadn’t been able to get very far with it in English, but it had just seemed the thing to do. And it wasn’t very expensive. He also bought what he guessed was a reproduction of a sixties poster for Francoise Hardy’s debut studio album, Tous les garçons et les filles, the picture with the umbrella. She looked just like the woman he had seen on the Rue Montmartre with the four long-stemmed roses.

He had no real news to give Ray, but at least he could try to keep his friend’s mind off his worries for a few hours. He sometimes felt a little guilty for contributing to Ray’s optimism about Zelda, when he had no definite idea where she was or what she was doing, but then he also believed that she might turn up one day, when things had blown over.

He also had a vague idea where she might be, gleaned from the Moleskine notebook, and he thought he could probably track her down if he wanted to. But he would give her time to make the first move, if that was what she wanted to do. She would either return in her own time, or she wouldn’t. He had no idea if it was fear of arrest that was keeping her away. The file was still open on the two corpses in the burned-out treatment plant, but given the lack of solid evidence, even that investigation would soon slow to a crawl.

The weather was changing and it was a windy evening when Banks drove over to Lyndgarth listening to Rhiannon Giddens on the car stereo. He pulled up outside Windlee Farm halfway through ‘Little Margaret.’ All seemed quiet there, except for the wind whistling around the buildings — no sixties rock blaring out of the open windows — but Ray’s car was in the drive, and it was unlikely he had gone anywhere without it. Banks walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Nothing. He knocked hard. Still nothing. Next, he walked around the property to see if Ray was in one of the outbuildings, Zelda’s studio, or even sitting on the edge of the moor contemplating sketching, as he often did. But he wasn’t there, either.

He went back and tried the front door. It creaked open. Ray never was much of a one for security, he remembered, and without Zelda’s recent paranoia to drive him, he had reverted to old habits. However, Banks was certain that even Ray would have locked up if he had gone out. There was no smell of food cooking, which was also odd. Banks decided that Ray was either in a deep, alcohol-induced sleep or he was so lost in his work he wasn’t paying attention to anything else. He put the wine bottle down and prowled around the downstairs rooms, kitchen, den, living room. Where was Ray? Banks suddenly felt a chill of fear run up his spine. Had they come back? Whoever was left of the gang that had taken Zelda. Had they come back to take revenge on Ray for her escape? But there were no signs of any disruption. At least, not downstairs.

Banks called out Ray’s name but got only silence in return. There were no lights on and the downstairs was in shadow. Banks opened the cellar door, flicked on the light switch and went down. Nothing there. Next, he headed for the staircase. As soon as he got to the bottom, he froze. He could see a shape there, a bulk, right at the top, and there was a hand hanging over the first step.

He took the stairs two at a time and knelt by Ray’s motionless body, laid two fingers on the carotid artery in his neck. No pulse. The skin was cold, and when he turned on the light he could see discoloration already beginning to affect the flesh. Banks fell back against the wall and slid down, knees together, and held his head in his hands. It couldn’t be. Ray dead? Just like that.

But there was no mistake. Banks glanced over the body but could see no signs of physical violence. That didn’t mean anything, of course; even a fatal knife wound might not be visible to the naked eye. The only thing to do was not to disturb the scene further and to call in the police. They would need a doctor and a mortuary van, but there was no sense in asking for an ambulance. Ray was beyond ambulances.

Following his copper’s instinct, Banks checked out all the other rooms upstairs. Nobody. Ray’s studio door was open and soft gold evening light flooded through the large skylight and back windows, illuminating the canvas that stood on its easel. It was Zelda, Banks could see. When he walked closer he saw all sorts of details and realised that it was a sort of optical illusion — one large image incorporating many smaller ones, also of Zelda, or so it appeared. It seemed somehow unfinished, and it would always remain that way now. On his way out he noticed Forever Changes on another easel and the cover of The Nice’s The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack leaning against the turntable.

With a heavy heart, Banks stepped carefully over Ray’s body, made his way back downstairs on shaky legs, then went outside for some fresh air and punched in the familiar numbers on his mobile.

Neither Banks nor Annie had any interest in attending Dr. Galway’s post-mortem examination. Annie had gone down to the mortuary with Banks to identify the body, and then she had gone home, said she wanted to be by herself for a while. Gerry, too, was devastated. She and Ray had started out on the wrong track, Banks knew, because Ray had teased her mercilessly about her being a nubile pre-Raphaelite beauty and said how he wanted her to pose for him in the nude. But after she had almost died taking down a murder suspect, he had presented her with a beautiful head and shoulders sketch of her that he had drawn from memory. She had it framed and hung it in the pride of place on the wall of her small flat. Since then, they had been the best of friends, and she had given as good as she got in the teasing department.

When it was all over, Banks was the one who walked down that tiled corridor to the doctor’s office alone and found himself again sitting under ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ while he listened to Dr. Galway’s interpretations of the post-mortem results.

‘I can state categorically,’ she said, ‘that there are absolutely no signs of foul play. Your friend died a sad but most natural death.’

‘Heart?’ Banks said. He had already heard from the CSIs that there was no evidence of a break-in or of any struggle at Windlee Farm, and his own brief examination had told him there was nothing missing, so robbery was not likely to be the motive. The people responsible for Zelda’s abduction and his own near demise were all dead — Phil Keane, Petar, and Goran Tadić. Leka Gashi, the Albanian whom Annie had discovered was responsible for the Connor Clive Blaydon and Neville Roberts murders was still on the loose somewhere, but he had no connection with Ray or Zelda.

‘Myocardial infarction. A massive heart attack. It would have been quick. He would hardly have known what hit him. A few moments of pain, perhaps, then...’

‘ “The anaesthetic from which none come round.” ’

She frowned. ‘Quite. Well, I suppose you could put it like that, if you happened to be of a poetic turn of mind. What I’m trying to say is that he wouldn’t have suffered greatly.’

‘Thank you. But would he have known what was happening? It looked as if he was trying to get downstairs to his phone.’

‘He would certainly have known something was happening. But not for long.’ She paused. ‘His arteries were in a bad way. The blood supply to the heart was cut off. The damage was so extensive that he must have had at least some chest pain and shortness of breath over the past few months to warn him that something was seriously wrong.’

Banks knew that Ray would simply ignore something like that, not think it worth mentioning. ‘I do remember once or twice he complained of chest pains,’ he said. ‘Not that I don’t have plenty of aches and pains myself.’

‘It’s probably just your age. We often don’t recognise symptoms.’

‘And when we do, it often turns out that they’re not symptoms at all but simply a result of sitting in the wrong position for too long. Or indigestion, heartburn.’

‘There is that. But if you’re worried about anything, maybe you should see your doctor and have a full physical?’

‘Maybe. It’s been a while. But I’m not worried. So a heart attack, then?’

‘Yes.’

A heart attack. Pure and simple. Banks was glad it was a natural death. If Ray had been murdered, it would create a whole new set of problems, some for which he might even bear a modicum of blame. ‘And the cause?’

‘Hard to say exactly.’

‘I know he didn’t get much exercise.’

‘That was quite obvious. He also drank and smoked too much and ate far too much fatty food,’ Dr. Galway added, with a pointed look in Banks’s direction.

‘I don’t smoke,’ Banks said, and she just smiled.

‘I’m sorry about your friend, Superintendent Banks,’ said Dr. Galway. ‘Sincerely sorry. But he was in his late seventies and he didn’t take very good care of himself. Annie Cabbot’s his daughter, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘How is she doing?’

‘About as well as you’d expect, which is not very well.’

‘They were close?’

‘I’d say so,’ said Banks. ‘Her mother died when she was very young, and he pretty much brought her up single-handedly. He just moved up here from Cornwall a year or so back.’

‘With that young woman who disappeared, is that right?’ Dr. Galway asked.

‘Nelia Melnic. Right.’

‘He was upset about her?’

‘Very.’

‘That kind of stress won’t have helped his condition much.’

‘Can people really die of a broken heart?’

Dr. Galway snorted. ‘Only if you take a very poetic view of death, as you seem to do. Stress is a factor, yes, as can be depression, worry, anxiety, and any number of mental conditions we don’t fully understand yet. All those things put a strain on the heart and its function, but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that it breaks. A heart attack involves a kind of paroxysm rather than a snap. The human body is a complex mechanism, interdependent in so many ways. All I can give you is the doctor’s viewpoint — the pathologist’s, at that. I deal with the dead.’

‘You really are very rational, aren’t you, doctor?’

‘Why, thank you. I try to be. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

Banks smiled and stood up, leaned over to shake her hand. ‘Thanks for doing this so promptly,’ he said.

‘You’ll be able to put his daughter’s mind to rest?’

‘I’ll do my best. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try.’

‘If she... I mean, if you think she’s becoming seriously upset... there is help.’

‘I know,’ said Banks. ‘And I’ll make sure that Annie knows, too.’

‘Well, then, I’ll be seeing you.’

‘Not too soon, I hope,’ said Banks, and left. The Unicorn over the road from Eastvale General would be open now, and Banks could do with a pint. Or a double whisky.

On the day of Ray Cabbot’s funeral, Banks drove to Harkside to pick up Annie, and for a while he thought she wouldn’t come. She sat in her chair, still wearing her dressing gown, hair an unruly mass, unmoving, not speaking, her eyes puffy and red from crying, face tear-stained.

Banks sat with her in silence for a while, holding her hand. When he squeezed gently, he felt no return of pressure. What could he do? He couldn’t force her to go. He spoke to her softly, telling her she should get ready. She looked at him, uncomprehending, then all of a sudden seemed to snap out of it.

‘I must get ready,’ she said. ‘Dad’s waiting.’

Banks helped her up and told her he would wait downstairs while she got dressed and ready, and not to worry, there was plenty of time.

It didn’t take her long. In a few minutes Annie had managed to throw on a dark skirt, top, and jacket suitable for a funeral, brush her hair and apply a little make-up to cover the ravages of her grief. She remained quiet as she got in the car and Banks drove to the funeral home in Eastvale. He refrained from playing any music. Annie might think it insensitive, even a requiem, and he honestly couldn’t think of anything to play for the occasion.

Ray had left a will, as it turned out, and it stipulated that he wanted his ashes scattered in the sea below St. Ives. He had also left a substantial amount of his estate to Zelda and the rest — more than adequate, along with the house — to Annie. He hadn’t made any arrangements for his unsold paintings, but Banks imagined his agent would help Annie handle all that. He had left his collection of close to 2,000 vinyl LPs and Marantz turntable to Banks.

When Banks had revisited Windlee Farm a couple of days after Ray’s death to make sure everything was turned off and locked up, at Annie’s request, he had found a postcard among that day’s post. It showed a reproduction of da Vinci’s Annunciation, and on the back, next to Ray’s address, a heart. Banks didn’t think he needed to check the handwriting to know that the postcard was from Zelda. The postmark read Belgrade, but Banks didn’t think that was where she was. She must have got someone to post it for her. He hadn’t told Annie about it.

There was quite a crowd for Ray’s funeral, and the small chapel was bursting at the seams. The arts crowd had come up from London, and most of the people who still lived at the artists’ commune in St. Ives, where Ray had lived for many years, turned up, along with some who had lived there only briefly and left years ago. They all remembered Ray’s generosity and encouragement for young artists.

A vicar who had never even met Ray delivered a few platitudes and a prayer, and then the tears streamed down Annie’s face as she sat through Banks’s short eulogy, which Annie had said there was no way she could do without breaking down, and a reading by Gerry of Christina Rossetti’s ‘When I am dead, my dearest,’ which Banks had last heard at the funeral of his first love, Emily Hargreaves. Ray would have hated it, but funerals are about the living. As the service ended with The Beach Boys’ ‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,’ which Ray had once told Banks was what he wanted to be played at his funeral, there was hardly a dry eye in the chapel.

The funeral tea was held at Windlee Farm, and catered by the Black Bull’s Mick Slater. It was nothing special, just sausage rolls, vol-au-vents, scotch eggs, and slices of pork pie followed by Black Forest gateau, but it was enough. Slater had also brought a couple of kegs of beer, which most of Ray’s friends seemed to prefer to tea. Banks chatted with some of Ray’s old artist friends and also fell into conversation with a young woman who said she was a friend of Zelda’s from her London days, and she had read about the funeral in the paper. She had come in the hopes that Zelda would be there and was disappointed when Banks told her they didn’t know where she was.

Finally, the last guests drove off. It was still light outside, and Banks poured himself another glass of wine and went outside to enjoy the mild evening air and the open views of the moorland. Curlews flew high in the distance, and a lark ascended, singing. Banks thought of the Vaughan Williams music. Annie wandered out a few minutes later and joined him, linking her arm in his. The vast expanse of the moors at the back of the cottage spread out for miles under a thickening cover of dark clouds still in the distance. But there would be rain before long.

‘So she didn’t come after all,’ said Annie.

‘She probably doesn’t know Ray is dead,’ Banks said.

Annie removed her arm from his. ‘There you go, making excuses for her again. I suppose you know it’s all her fault. If he hadn’t got involved with her, none of this would have happened.’

‘Annie, Ray was ill. His arteries were blocked. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He ate too much red meat. He never went to the doctor’s.’

Annie waved her hand dismissively. ‘I know all that. You’re a one to talk. But she’s the one who brought it all on, the straw that broke the camel’s back. You know what terrible shape he’s been in since she disappeared.’

‘It was hardly her fault she was abducted,’ Banks said.

‘I mean after. After the fire. When she saved you and ran away.’

‘She was scared.’

‘So was Ray. And she was supposed to love him. She didn’t even bother to come to his funeral. Did you see that picture he was painting?’

‘Yes,’ said Banks.

‘I hate it. You take it.’

Banks knew there was no point in arguing, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset Annie any further, which defending Zelda would most certainly do. It was one of those moments where he would have loved to light up a cigarette, but he made do with the wine.

Annie would get over it in time. Right now she was grieving and looking for someone to blame, and there was just enough truth in what she said to make that someone Zelda. There were certain aspects of Zelda’s life that made her dangerous company. After all, if she hadn’t become an important part of Ray’s life, it would have saved him a lot of grief. But what about the love? What about the joy she gave him? The happiness they shared? Annie didn’t see that. Banks had seen Ray and Zelda together and heard each speak separately about the other, and there was no doubt in his mind that they loved one another utterly, completely. Perhaps that kind of love can kill you eventually. He watched the distant birds swooping and weaving under the massing rain clouds. He couldn’t make out what they were — lapwings, curlews, swifts — but that didn’t matter. It was glorious just to witness the aerial ballet.

‘We’d better go in,’ he said. ‘It’s going to rain.’

Annie said nothing at first, then she tightened her lips and stalked off ahead of him towards the door. It was going to be a long haul.