Not Dark Yet

3

Zelda got up early to prepare herself for her journey to Purcari. She had never been in the far south-east of Moldova before, though she knew of its reputation for fine wines and beautiful landscapes. As she sat over her breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, she looked at the map she had bought the previous day and checked it against the Google Maps on her laptop. It wouldn’t be an arduous journey. The fastest route would take her straight south-east and should take no longer than a couple of hours. Moldova wasn’t a big country. She also had to check out of her hotel before she left and arrange to leave the rental car at the airport.

Her visits to the derelict orphanage and to William Buckley had thrown her askew, brought back feelings and memories she hadn’t known she had, but she had enjoyed a good night’s sleep — no nightmares or sweats, for once — and she felt ready to go on and bring her quest to an end. Lupescu would be the last one; she was almost certain of that.

She finished her breakfast and refilled her coffee cup. Her room was fine, but there wasn’t much of a view except the car park below, so she sat cross-legged on the unmade bed and watched the BBC World News on TV. There was nothing new, and certainly nothing pleasant. She checked her email and sent Raymond a quick upbeat message.

The address she wanted was on the northern edge of Purcari, which wasn’t a big place. Zelda still had no idea how she would play the confrontation with Vasile Lupescu, and every time she tried to imagine it, it turned out differently. She hadn’t done a great deal of forward planning, and she couldn’t do much now. Nor had she planned any sort of fail-safe escape. If all went well, she would have no problem doing what needed to be done and getting to the airport in Chișinău in time to drop off the car and make her flight to London. If all went well.

But the best-laid plans, in her experience, often went wrong. She had learned from her past that murder was an unpredictable business. There were too many variables. What if he wasn’t in? What if he was surrounded by family? What if he simply refused to see her, shut the door in her face? What if he lived on a busy street and there were lots of people around? In these circumstances, Zelda realised, she might well have to abort. Or at least postpone. If things went smoothly, then she simply had to make sure that there was no chance of discovery before she was well on the way to London. With a little judicious cleaning up and a certain amount of care in not appearing too conspicuous, or being seen by too many people, that should be easy enough.

She worried a little about William Buckley. If he heard about anything happening to Lupescu, he would no doubt remember Zelda’s visit. He might tell the police if they asked him, but why would they? And the odds were that he most likely wouldn’t hear about it anyway. Besides, there was nothing she could do about it now. She didn’t know how good the detectives were in Moldova, but she doubted they were up to the same level as Alan Banks and his team; there was surely no way they could trace and arrest her within a couple of hours. They had done nothing to find or help her when she was abducted.

Zelda showered and dressed, amazed at how calm she was feeling. She held her hands out. No shakes. She didn’t want to get caught. She wanted more than anything for it all to be over so she could get back to Raymond and get on with their life together in Yorkshire. Explore the world of painting and sculpture in more depth. Cook dinners for friends. Learn to enjoy that dreadful sixties music Raymond played. Try to persuade his daughter Annie that she wasn’t such a monster. But then, she realised, she was a monster, wasn’t she? How could she fool herself into believing otherwise? She shrugged off the thought. Lupescu would be the last one. Then she would put it all behind her. But she had to do this. Until she did, the past would keep growing, like a cancer inside her, consuming or blotting out all that was good in her life.

One thing she had to make sure she didn’t forget, she thought, as she packed her bags ready for checkout, was the knife she had bought in the shopping mall yesterday after her meeting with William Buckley. She held it in her hand, saw the blade glint in the sunlight through the window, then slipped it into her handbag.

That following morning on the train, Banks relaxed in his seat, his mild hangover fading under the ministrations of two extra-strength paracetamol. He listened to Abdullah Ibrahim’s Dream Time as he watched the summer landscape of the English heartland flash by: bright-coloured canal boats, anglers casting their lines from the grassy banks of large tree-lined ponds, farmers out working the fields, distant green woodlands, squat church towers with gold weathervanes catching the light. It could be another age, he thought, another country, not the troubled and troubling one he was living in. He succeeded in relaxing to such an extent that he drifted off to sleep before the music ended, and the sudden arrival at King’s Cross came as a shock to his system.

Banks took off his headphones as the train disgorged its passengers, and merged with the rushing river of humanity. Unintelligible messages crackled over the loudspeakers, and travellers dashed for connections, dragging enormous wheeled suitcases behind them, running over toes and bumping thighs, oblivious to everyone else. Others stood and stared at signs and noticeboards as if lost.

Banks threaded his way through the crowds and took the escalator down to the Underground, where it got hotter and more humid the deeper he went. He found the right platform and took the Victoria Line to Vauxhall, standing all the way, and walked up behind the MI6 building, famous from the James Bond movies, to The Rose on the Albert Embankment, where Burgess had arranged to meet him. It was a Victorian pub, or gastro-pub, as it was called now, with a view of the Houses of Parliament, warm gold in the early afternoon sun, over the river beyond Lambeth Bridge.

Burgess was already waiting in a booth, and Banks joined him, glancing around at the chandeliers and vintage furniture. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘At least the decor beats Pret’s.’

Burgess passed Banks a menu. ‘The food’s supposed to be good,’ he said. ‘And not too expensive. Let’s order first. I’m having the homemade fish-finger sandwich.’

Banks scanned the menu and settled on a roast beef burger with smoky chipotle mayo.

‘Drink?’ Burgess asked.

‘What are you drinking?’

‘Krombacher Pils.’

Again, Banks glanced at the menu. ‘Brixton pale ale, please.’ Hair of the dog.

Burgess went up to the bar. The pub was crowded, obviously a popular lunch spot for both local office workers and tourists walking along the riverside. And what a day for it. Banks glanced out of the window at the throng of people walking up and down the Embankment in the heat of the midday sun. Most wore sunglasses, shorts, sandals, and T-shirts. Many carried cameras, pushed prams or held hands with small children. He found himself thinking how quickly things could change if a terrorist with a knife ran into the crowd and started stabbing people. Or a speeding van suddenly veered off the road on to the pavement. It was the police officer’s curse, he told himself, to be so often imagining the worst. But things like that did happen. Had happened not so long ago, not so far away, and would certainly happen again. Relish every moment, as his poet friend Linda Palmer had told him.

Burgess returned quickly with the drinks. Banks remembered how good he was at bars; not for him any worries about who was first in line. It was all to do with who could push hardest and shout loudest. Banks sipped. It tasted good. They chatted briefly about Burgess’s morning of meetings up the road at NCA headquarters and Banks’s journey through the heartland. Now, though, he was back in the present in the thriving capital, just upriver from the centre of power. He tried not to think about what nefarious business might be going on in there. Backstabbing and prevarication, for the most part, he guessed. Perhaps politics had always been like that, but it seemed to him to have taken a turn for the worse over the last three or four years.

‘So what is it?’ he asked. ‘You said you were working on something that might concern me.’

Burgess leaned back. ‘Don’t get your hopes up too high. But, yes, I think it might.’

‘In what way?’

‘In two ways. That bloke you’ve been after for so long. The one who tried to kill you, set fire to your house.’

‘Phil Keane.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘And the other?’

‘That young woman you’ve got a thing for. Zelda.’

‘I’m intrigued,’ said Banks. ‘Do go on.’

‘It’s a bit complicated. I’ve been trying to put it all in order while I was waiting for you.’

‘Give it a try. I’m sure I’ll be able to follow.’

Burgess took a deep breath, then a few gulps of beer. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You know about Zelda’s boss?’

‘Trevor Hawkins, the one who burned to death in a chip-pan fire?’

‘That’s the one. Well, the two officers who’ve been investigating his death, Deborah Fletcher and Paul Danvers, haven’t found any evidence of foul play, but there are one or two anomalies, and Danvers isn’t quite convinced that it was an accident. It seems that your friend Zelda visited the street where Hawkins lived a couple of days after the fire.’

‘I know that,’ said Banks. ‘You told me all about it the last time we talked.’

‘Hear me out. Allow me my preamble. It’s difficult enough as it is.’

‘OK.’

Their food came, and they took a few bites in silence then carried on talking while they ate. ‘Paul Danvers was suspicious enough to widen his inquiry a bit, ask questions around the street and so on,’ Burgess went on. ‘They talked to Zelda again, for example, but she was about as helpful as the first time. Mmm, this fish is good. How about your burger?’

‘It’s fine,’ Banks said. ‘Zelda couldn’t be helpful because she didn’t know anything.’

Burgess raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s not forget how important Hawkins was. He was an agent of the NCA, running a special bureau compiling a database and facial recognition data of known sex traffickers. Your friend Zelda worked for him as a civilian consultant, using her special skills as a super-recogniser and her experience of the trafficking world to put names to faces. That way, they could track the movements of major players, keep an eye on who was climbing up the ladder, who was in, who was out, and so on. The long and the short of it is that a young bartender down the road in Hawkins’s local pub, The George and Dragon, recalls a woman coming in one lunchtime shortly after the fire and asking questions about Hawkins.’

‘Like what?’

‘Whether he was a regular. Whether he had ever met anyone there.’

‘And what did he tell her?’

‘That Hawkins was a regular, but that he usually only dropped in for a quick half and the Times crossword after work.’

‘Usually?’

Burgess took a bite of his sandwich before answering. ‘He said he did once, quite recently, see Hawkins meet and talk with another man in the pub. Said it appeared as if they knew one another and the meeting was prearranged. Apparently, the woman showed Chris — that’s the bartender — a photograph, and he recognised the man from it.’

‘Who was he?’

‘That we don’t know. And Chris wasn’t able to give us a clear description. You know — medium, medium, light brown hair, ordinary. He had a beard, too. One of those artsy type thingies. Van Dyke or goatee, whatever they call it. He didn’t know the man’s name, either.’

‘Pity.’

‘There was one tiny pinprick of light.’

‘Yes?’

‘He certainly remembered the woman, and he gave us a very detailed description of her. Sounded as if he was more than a little smitten, so Danvers told me. And I have to say, Banksy, that she sounds remarkably like your Zelda.’

‘What if it was her?’ Banks asked, spearing a fat chip. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

‘I disagree. Where’s your copper’s instinct? Don’t you think it’s odd? I mean, I can just about swallow that she visited her dead boss’s burned-out house because she was curious. But asking questions in his local about who he’d been meeting is going a bit too far. Don’t you think so? Why? And who was it in the photograph she showed Chris the barman?’

‘So you think Zelda’s involved?’

‘We know that she didn’t kill Trevor Hawkins. She was out of the country at the time of the fire. And neither Danvers nor I can accept that she somehow paid for it or arranged to have it done.’

‘Which leaves?’

‘Danvers’s theory is that she was suspicious of Hawkins’s activities. For some reason, she suspected him of being in the pay of the enemy, the traffickers, or somehow in thrall to them. Does that make any sense to you?’

Banks drank some beer and thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it does,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But what of it?’

‘Surely it’s significant if she had some reason to suspect him of being bent? She may have been watching him, observing him at work, even following him. Maybe his trafficker paymasters found out, and he started to become a liability?’

‘Are you saying Zelda was responsible for Hawkins’s death?’

‘I’m saying that she was sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. The outcome was unpredictable. Though anyone with half a brain could probably have worked out it would end in tears.’

‘But we don’t know any of this. It’s mere speculation on your part.’

‘As is so much of our job. And you know that, too. Come on, Banksy. Are you so pussy-whipped you can’t see the wood for the trees?’

Banks bristled, but he knew Burgess was right. Up to a point. There was nothing sexual between him and Zelda. She was Ray Cabbot’s partner, and he respected that. Even if he believed he was in with a chance, which he didn’t, he wouldn’t make a move on her. He didn’t do things like that to his friends. Not that she had given the slightest inclination of interest. But, yes, he liked her company, and yes, he lusted after her. What man wouldn’t?

‘I’m not pussy-whipped, as you so delicately put it.’

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Burgess. ‘Maybe that was below the belt. But I need my Banksy back, not some mealy-mouthed apologist.’

Banks tried to think rationally. He had to get beyond his bias and see things straight. At worst, Zelda could be involved in something dodgy, and at best she could be on the side of the good guys and in danger from the same people who had hurt Hawkins. And it would always be a good thing to keep in mind that Phil Keane was a killer, and that his preferred weapon was fire. But quite where Keane came into all this, Banks still had no idea, except that Zelda had said she had spotted him in a photo with Petar Tadić, a known sex trafficker. And that also connected with Blaydon’s murder. The police knew that Tadić had supplied Blaydon with girls for his parties. What did it all mean? Did Hawkins know that Zelda had seen the photo and recognised Keane? How was he connected with Keane? Was Keane the man he had met in The George and Dragon?

‘As far as I can see,’ Banks said, ‘even if Zelda did do everything you say, she’s done nothing illegal.’

Burgess sighed. ‘Hardly the point. Nobody’s saying she’s bent.’

‘Then what?’

‘She is involved, and you know it. She’s up to her neck in it. Whatever it is. If just for her sake, try and focus that laser-sharp mind of yours on all that. I’m trying to help you save her from herself, not getting you to convict her.’ He finished his plate of food, pushed it aside, gulped down some lager, and burped. ‘Besides, that’s not all. It gets even more interesting.’

The drive to Purcari was easier than Zelda had expected, and she was passing a winery on the outskirts of the village before noon. It was a journey of low hills, soft greens and yellows, opening occasionally on distant panoramas; a journey of small villages, mostly neat and tidy and colourful, and with no one about except roaming cats and the occasional barking dog. Here and there, geese and chickens wandered the roadsides, and in some places, old women in traditional garb paused and eyed her sternly as she drove slowly by. Sometimes she imagined they knew what she was going to do. It was more like travelling back in time than in distance. The sun shone all the way, and she kept the windows of the old Skoda rolled down. Off the main highway, the paved roads were of variable quality, and she saw signs on them now and then that said, ‘PAID FOR BY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.’

At last, the chateau came into view, with its tower, white walls and orange roof against a backdrop of hillsides planted with rows of vines. Beyond the hills, Zelda knew, lay the River Dniester and Ukraine. She paused at a crossroads to breathe the sweet air, and a gentle breeze wafted through the open car windows. She could smell manure and fresh-mown grass.

Lupescu’s house, at some distance from any neighbours, was a contemporary construction in the Art Deco style, all white cubes and curves, topped with a large dome, like an observatory, and shiny, as if it were made out of plastic. It was hard to find a point of entry, but Zelda thought she discerned a door somewhere in the whiteness. There was no doorbell, so she knocked. She had realised a while ago that there was no point in trying to sneak up on Lupescu as he wouldn’t know her from Eve. The last time he had seen her, she had been an excited seventeen-year-old girl on the verge of making her own way in the world.

At first, she thought there was no one home. Everything was silent except for the birdsong and someone hammering far in the distance. Perhaps Lupescu was old and slow, like William Buckley. Then the door opened abruptly and she found herself looking at the man himself. He was probably about five years younger than Buckley, she guessed, and had been retired for around ten years, which made him roughly mid-seventies. His skin was sallow, and the flesh on his cheeks and throat sagged into wattles and jowls. His hooded eyes, buried deep above the bruise-coloured bags, were pale and glaucous. He had very little hair, and what he had he wore in an absurd comb-over across his liver-spotted skull. But it was Vasile Lupescu, no doubt about it.

He spoke to her in Russian. ‘Yes? Can I help you? What is it you want?’

‘I was just speaking with William Buckley in Suruceni,’ she said, also in Russian, hoping the speech she had rehearsed on her way came out right. ‘He said if I was heading down south I should say hello. So here I am.’

‘And you are?’

‘You knew me as Nelia Melnic. One of the beneficiaries of Claude Bremner’s largesse. And your hard work, of course.’

Lupescu frowned.

‘The books,’ Zelda explained. ‘At St. George’s Orphanage.’

Lupescu’s thin lips twitched in a smile. ‘Ah, yes. The books. Please, do come in. Forgive my bad manners. I’m an old man and not much used to visitors.’

‘Not at all.’ Zelda stepped inside. In contrast to its bright exterior, she found the interior dark and dull, lightened only by abstract paintings sharing the walls with knock-off old masters and surrealist sculptures in nooks adjacent to ancient religious icons. Other than that, with its sepia and grey tones, it felt more like a tomb. She also got the impression that Lupescu’s cleaning lady didn’t come nearly as often as William Buckley’s. How could anyone live here? she found herself wondering. Then she realised that it was probably more an indication of status than aesthetic pleasure, and that made sense. This was a man who wanted to show the world that he had made money.

Lupescu himself was wearing red carpet slippers, baggy grey trousers and a button-up maroon cardigan over his white shirt, despite the temperature, and he looked like nothing more than an old man near the end of his time who had no idea what to do or how to go about it. The cardigan was open and Zelda noticed a reddish stain down the front. Pasta sauce, she guessed.

‘Would you care to sit down?’ he asked, gesturing to a leather-upholstered armchair. Zelda sat and felt immediately as if she were falling backwards down a bottomless pit. The seat sagged under her, and she was sure she felt the prick of a spring where she least wanted it. She shuffled around a bit, rested her arms on the scuffed leather and managed to acquire a modicum of comfort. Lupescu sat opposite her in a similar chair. He didn’t offer refreshments.

Zelda glanced around at the paintings. Most of the abstracts were probably original works. Some of them were quite good, she thought, though she would have been the first to admit she wasn’t exactly the best judge of abstract art. For the most part they looked as if someone had stood near the canvas and flicked brushes dipped in various coloured paints in random patterns, which is probably exactly what had happened.

Zelda found herself wondering whether Lupescu liked this stuff or whether it was merely another instance of fortune-signalling. They made quite a contrast to the madonnas and classical scenes hung adjacent to many of them. The sculptures were better, she thought. Smooth, round, curving objects with surprising holes and twists in them, mostly made of wood, crying out to be stroked, though a couple seemed to be cast from brass. She ran her hand over a small wooden infinity figure within reach that seemed to languish over its base like Dali’s watches melted over their surfaces.

‘So you’re a St. George’s girl?’ Lupescu said.

‘I was,’ Zelda replied. ‘A long time ago.’

‘Yes,’ Lupescu said. ‘The old place has been closed for ten years or more now. A great loss. I was sorry to see it go. I was there right from the beginning, you know.’

‘So I heard. Tell me, were you selling girls to sex traffickers right from the start, or did that come later?’ She hadn’t planned for it to come out that way, or so soon, but it did.

Lupescu seemed to freeze. He might have turned pale, but Zelda couldn’t tell, as he was so ashen to start with. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he said, a quiver in his voice.

‘Well, when I left St. George’s, two men were waiting for me at the street corner. They hit me and bundled me into a car and drove me across Romania, raping me all the way, until they dropped me off at a breaking house in Serbia. Do you know what a breaking house is?’

‘But that’s got nothing to do with me,’ Lupescu spluttered. ‘How can you assume I had anything to do with that?’

‘It’s a house where they break in the new girls. That means rape, day and night, beatings, humiliation, starvation, until you toe the line.’

‘No!’ said Lupescu, shaking his head so that his jowls wobbled, and half rising from his chair. ‘I won’t listen to this. That wasn’t me. You can’t blame that on me.’

‘I’m not saying you’re the one who did it, just that you’re the one responsible. You’re the one who made all the arrangements, who knew all the details, the one who spotted the pretty girls. I met others over the years, you know. In Pristina. In Zagreb. In Ljubljana. In Sarajevo. Girls who suffered the same fate in the same way as I did. Girls from the orphanage who were marked, chosen. One of them even saw you out on the street, watching as it happened. But you didn’t call the police. You did nothing. That was Iuliana. Do you remember her? She killed herself. Slit her wrists. Nobody ever came looking for any of us.’

Lupescu shrank back into his chair. ‘What could I do?’ he said. ‘These men were powerful gangsters. They had guns. You have no idea. You had a good life at the orphanage, didn’t you? You were well taken care of. Taught. Fed. Coddled.’

‘I suppose we were,’ Zelda agreed. ‘Like free-range chickens being fed and readied for the slaughter.’

‘But what could I do?’

Zelda sat up and leaned towards him, half standing, her palms on the arms of the chair. ‘You could have stopped it! You could have gone to the police. You...’ She shook her fist at him. Then she made an effort and calmed herself down, subsided deep into the armchair again. ‘I think it would be better if you confessed before your punishment, don’t you?’

‘Why? What punishment? What are you going to do to me? I’m an old man. I’m sick. I’ve got health problems. Heart. Diabetes.’ Lupescu’s eyes darted about the room, as if searching for a way out or for someone to come to his aid.

‘You should have thought about your health problems back then,’ said Zelda. ‘Though I doubt anybody could have done anything about your heart, however hard they tried.’

Lupescu tried to get to his feet, but age had slowed him. In one smooth movement Zelda stood up, picked up the infinity sculpture from the table beside her and hit him on the side of the head. He sagged back in his chair, then slid to the floor, a trail of blood spoiling the symmetry of his comb-over.

‘If there’s more,’ said Banks, ‘I think I’ll need another pint. You, too? My shout.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Burgess. ‘You’ve twisted my arm. It’s just a bloody boring security roster meeting this afternoon. I can easily sleep through that and nobody will notice.’

Banks went to the bar, his head still whirling with Burgess’s story, connections spinning like plates on sticks. He wasn’t quite as brash as Dirty Dick, but the bar wasn’t too crowded, and he managed to get served quickly enough. As usual in London, he was gobsmacked at the price of two pints.

‘You realise that we’ve probably consumed our entire weekly allowance of alcohol units this one lunchtime,’ Burgess said when Banks got back. Then he contemplated the remains of the roast beef burger. ‘Not to mention you being responsible for a few more icebergs melting in Antarctica.’

‘It always puzzled me, that,’ said Banks.

‘What?’

‘If cow farts are bad for the environment, how would stopping eating beef help?’

‘If we didn’t eat beef, we wouldn’t need cows, stupid.’

‘So what would we do with them to stop cow farts for ever? Kill them all and burn their bodies?’

‘Well, no. Burning that many cows might cause environmental problems, too. Carbon emissions.’

‘Not to mention that we’d be guilty of the genocide of a species. Bovicide. That can’t be good, surely?’

‘Talk to David Attenborough. I’m sure he’d put you right on the matter.’

‘Or perhaps we should put them all in a big building where they can fart to their hearts’ content, and we can use the gas to run the country.’

‘We’ve already done that,’ said Burgess. ‘It’s over there.’ He pointed out of the window towards the Houses of Parliament.

Banks laughed.

‘As I was saying,’ Burgess went on, ‘there’s more. But first off, remember, I’m trying to do you a favour.’

‘What’s that?’

Burgess sighed and ran his hand over his lank hair. ‘Danvers and Debs don’t trust your Zelda for a number of reasons. You have to admit, she has a very shady past.’

‘Shady?’ said Banks. ‘She was snatched off the street at the age of seventeen and forced to work as a prostitute for nearly ten years before she escaped the life.’

‘I know that. But do you know how she escaped?’

‘It’s all a bit vague,’ Banks admitted. ‘Something happened in Paris, something big, something to do with the government, and it was hushed up. She obviously helped some very influential people with a problem. That’s how she got her freedom and her French passport.’

‘No details?’

‘No.’

‘Me, neither,’ said Burgess. ‘But don’t you think it all sounds as fishy as that sandwich I just finished? Maybe she didn’t help anyone; maybe she blackmailed them. You have to see it from the NCA’s point of view. And from that of immigration. She has lived a nomadic life — she’s never filled in any appropriate immigration or residence forms, she’s filed no tax returns, her passport was not exactly official issue, and she spent most of her working life as a prostitute, which could reasonably be conceived as criminal. All in all, she’s not the kind of person Britannia Unchained wants. We have plenty of prostitutes of our own without importing them from Europe, or anywhere else, thank you very much.’

‘That’s not her fault,’ Banks argued. ‘You make it sound as if it was her choice. She wasn’t working as a prostitute, she was a sex slave, subject to rape, to violent beatings. Ever since she was abducted outside that orphanage, her life hasn’t been her own. Until she came here. And now you’re trying to take that life away from her.’

‘I know all that, Banksy. And I’m not trying to take anything away from her. I’m just telling you how Danvers and Debs and their mates at the NCA and Immigration Enforcement might view things differently. She’s on their radar now. I’m trying to keep her out of their hands and let you deal with it. I’m trying to do you both a favour, mate. But we need some answers from somewhere.’

‘OK, so now I know. What am I supposed to do?’

‘It’s awkward,’ Burgess said. ‘And getting more so. They want to bring her in for questioning.’

‘Danvers and Debs?’

‘Yes. And someone else. There’s more.’

Banks frowned. ‘All right. Go on.’

‘Ever heard the name Faye Butler?’

‘I can’t say as I have.’

‘No reason why you should have. It’s a case I took an interest in recently. It wasn’t one of ours to start with. It was a Met case, and a Commander Barclay was in charge. I’ve known Ted Barclay for years, and after a few days he called me in. It’s a strange one, all right. Disturbing, too. About a week ago, some young lads playing near the river down Woolwich way found a young woman’s body snagged on a tree branch half out of the water. She hadn’t been in there more than a day or two. At the post-mortem, it was discovered that she had died by drowning, but not in the river. The water in her lungs was tap water, not the Thames variety. It also turned out that she had been tortured. There was evidence of burn marks, as if from electrodes, of cuts, and significant bruising. Three of her teeth were missing and two fingernails. It was also clear to the pathologist that she had been sexually assaulted.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Banks. ‘The poor girl.’

‘Indeed. Her name was Faye Butler, and she worked at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, in the art section. She was twenty-eight years old. Her body was found on 23 May. That was a Thursday.’ Banks remembered. It was the same day he and Gerry Masterson had found Blaydon’s body in the pool. ‘Her flatmate in Camden Town had reported her missing.’ Burgess paused to drink some pilsner. ‘You know as well as I do, Banksy, what it’s like with missing persons. You do your best to reassure the family or friends that nothing bad’s happened, that it’s perfectly normal for a young woman not to come home one night without phoning or anything. But it fucking isn’t. We know it isn’t. And from the moment you take the first call, you get that cramped feeling in your gut, and you just know that something’s wrong.’

Banks knew the feeling. Missing persons were some of the hardest cases to handle if you let your imagination run away with you. Especially young girls. You could picture terrible things happening while you were reassuring the rest of the world that she would probably come walking in full of apologies at any moment, tell you that she’d stopped at her boyfriend’s and just forgot to mention it to anyone. ‘What happened next?’ he asked.

‘We made inquiries, but they didn’t lead us anywhere. Naturally, the boyfriend came in for a bit of grief. Bloke called Grant Varney. They’d been together about three months. He said he hadn’t arranged to see her that night and that she hadn’t called around at his place. There were some of her things there — clothes, books, cosmetics, toothbrush — and apparently, she spent a fair bit of time there with him. They hadn’t made any final commitment to live together or anything, but he said he was hoping she would agree to a more permanent arrangement. He knew she was still on the rebound at the moment, he said, and he was willing to wait. Varney was devastated. Ted said he thought he was a decent kid, and he was cleared pretty quickly. We did reconstructions of her route home, talked to people who took the same route, had seen her on occasion, but nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary.’

‘How did she travel?’

‘Faye usually walked home as long as it wasn’t pissing down. She’d head up Tottenham Court Road, then Hampstead Road, and on a nice evening she’d cut through St. Martin’s Gardens on Camden Street. One witness thought she saw her talking with a man in the gardens, walking towards the road. She didn’t get a good look at him, so we have no description except that he was stocky and was wearing a black T-shirt and ice blue jeans, but she did say that Faye seemed quite at ease, as if she knew him. You know, she didn’t appear uncomfortable or scared, wasn’t trying to get away. And the man wasn’t in physical contact with her. He didn’t grab her or anything. As far as our witness could tell she was just walking along chatting with a friend.’

‘And that was the last time she was seen alive?’

‘Yes. Except by her killer, of course. And he must have had transport of some kind. Her body was found some distance away from Camden. But nobody saw her getting into a car. We’ve had appeals out and done reconstructions, but no one’s come forward with any new information and we got nothing from CCTV. It was as if she just disappeared into space.’

‘He must have had a car waiting nearby,’ said Banks. ‘And maybe an accomplice.’

‘We thought of that. I think you’re probably right, but nobody remembers anything. It’s also likely she got in the car willingly, if it was someone she knew.’

‘I agree it’s a nasty one,’ said Banks, ‘but where do I come in? And Zelda?’

‘When we made inquiries at Faye’s place of work, one of her colleagues told us that she was working the third floor about a week before the disappearance, and this woman came around asking for Faye. The colleague said she sent her to the ground floor, where we found out that she asked a lad called Lee Wong about Faye. Lee went and fetched her. The two of them chatted, then went upstairs to the cafe. Lee said he didn’t know Faye well, but we talked to some more of her workmates, and they all said the usual. You know, what a fine person she was — nice girl, always cheerful, helpful, and so on. Ask about the dead and you’d think we were all saints. It was the flatmate, Agnes Hall, who told us that Faye had been a bit down in the dumps for a while after splitting up with her previous boyfriend. Apparently, she found him in flagrante with another girl.’

‘Any idea who he was?’

‘We couldn’t get any further questioning Agnes or Faye’s friends at work. No one remembered the ex enough to give more than the vaguest of descriptions. As far as Agnes knew, Faye had never invited him back to the flat. At least not while she was there. Medium height, good-looking, light brown hair, small beard, no particular accent. Rather like the barman’s description from The George and Dragon, I thought. Only she added she thought the hair was maybe just a bit too light brown.’

‘Dye job?’

‘Sounds like it. He’d been in the shop a couple of times, apparently, chasing after an art book, and that’s how he and Faye first met. All her workmates knew was that his first name was Hugh. A couple of them told us they thought he was too old for Faye, despite the hair. Naturally, he became a person of interest very quickly.’

‘Any luck?’

‘No. Not at first. But when we searched Faye’s flat, we found some printed selfies of her with a bloke taken in Regent’s Park, and it wasn’t Grant Varney. This bloke was medium height, good-looking, light brown hair, little beard.’

‘Age?’

‘In his mid-forties, maybe, but well preserved. Could’ve been older. Fifty, even.’

‘Hugh?’

‘The roommate confirmed it. The dates matched, too. They’d been taken around Christmas — you could tell by the lights and decorations — a few months after she took up with him, and not too long before they split up. Her mobile went missing with her, but we found her laptop in the flat, and there were emails from a bloke called Hugh Foley. We couldn’t trace him from them, though, and the email address is no longer in use. There was no entry for him in her contacts list.’

‘Anything in the emails?’

‘Plenty,’ said Burgess. ‘All along the lines of, “I can’t wait to suck your throbbing—” ’

‘I catch the drift,’ said Banks.

‘That’s from her, by the way. The ones from him seem to involve agricultural metaphors, mostly to do with ploughing and irrigation. No addresses, mobile numbers, or arrangements to meet.’

‘I assume they did all that through texts, or maybe even over the phone. Again, I’m having a bit of trouble working out how I could be involved. Unless you’ve got something up your sleeve. Something you’re not telling me.’

‘Just two things,’ Burgess said. ‘First, the description of the woman asking about Faye Butler in Foyles bears a remarkable similarity to Chris the barman’s description of Zelda, right down to the faint accent, and secondly, well, see for yourself.’ Burgess dropped a photograph on the table in front of Banks.

Banks stared at it and his jaw dropped. Despite a few minor cosmetic changes — hairline and colour, the addition of a light beard — the man in the selfies with Faye Butler, the man who went by the name of Hugh Foley, was a ringer for Phil Keane.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Banks muttered, pushing the photograph aside. ‘And what’s the link with Zelda?’

‘Ted Barclay would like to have her brought in to talk to her, too, and maybe find out the answer to that. Which is where you come in. I managed to persuade Ted to let you have a go first, told him you were familiar with aspects of her background and so on. I also lied a bit. Told him you were an excellent detective, and as you already knew her, and she trusted you, you’d be far more likely to get something out of her. He didn’t like it, but he agreed to give us some leeway.’

‘Why did you do that? Why are you being so helpful to Zelda?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Banksy. I might not be as soft-hearted as you — or maybe I am getting soft in my old age — but I’m not the cold and calculating bastard you sometimes paint me as. I don’t know this Zelda. I’ve never met her. But a woman like her, what she’s been through, what she’s suffered, it almost beggars the imagination. You’ve met her, and you know her. And I trust your judgement, even if I do think it’s a little biased by female pulchritude. God knows, I’ve made enough errors in that direction myself, over the years. But can you imagine the effect that being interrogated might have on her, not to mention any detention and imprisonment that might result? Does it sound so strange that I don’t particularly want her put through the ringer with Danvers and Debs and Ted Barclay? If she’s as fragile as many of the women who’ve been through what she’s been through, it could do her permanent damage. I don’t think she’s killed anyone. Not Hawkins. Not Faye Butler. If I thought she had, I’d have her in before her feet could touch the street. But she knows something. It’s all connected. I’m giving you the chance to find out what that is. And now Keane’s involved, too. You know he is. And don’t forget that photograph of him with Petar Tadić. Petar is certainly a person of interest, along with his brother Goran. These are people from Zelda’s past, and now they’re starting to figure in our present. It’s all tangled up in a knot, and until we manage to sort out one or two threads, your lady friend is going to be a target. You can help her, Banksy. I’m giving you the chance. Talk to her. Loosen her up a bit. Are you going to take it?’

He was right, Banks knew. Zelda affected a tough veneer, but he had seen beyond that to the seething fears, anxieties and conflicting emotions underneath; the guilt and self-loathing, shame, despair, and depression that she tried to suppress and overcome. He saw something else, too, a sort of steely purpose, a sense of quest or mission, perhaps.

Banks shook his head slowly, reached for his glass and murmured, ‘Of course I’m going to bloody well take it. Of course I am.’