“Jealousy got the better of him?”
“Hmm,” said Banks. “Let’s go have a look down the hall.”
The room was clearly Hardcastle’s study, and it was much less tidy than Silbert’s. Most of what they found related to Hardcastle’s work at the theater and his interest in set and costume design. There were notes, sketches, books and working scripts marked up with different-colored inks. On his laptop was a computer program for generating various screenplay formats, along with the beginnings of one or two stories. It appeared as if Hardcastle himself had also been interested in writing a movie script, a ghost story set in Victorian England, judging by the first page.
In the top drawer of the desk, on the latest copy of Sight & Sound, lay a memory stick of the type most commonly used in a digital camera.
“That’s odd,” Annie said, when Banks pointed it out to her.
“Why?”
“Hardcastle has a digital camera. It’s over here on the bottom bookshelf.” She picked up the small silver object and carried it over to Banks.
“So?” said Banks.
“Don’t be such a Luddite,” Annie said. “Can’t you see?”
“Yes, I can see. Digital camera, memory card. I still say, ‘So what?’ And I’m not a bloody Luddite. I’ve got a digital camera of my own. I know what memory cards are for.”
Annie sighed. “This is a Canon camera,” she said, as if explaining to a five-year-old. Though a five-year-old, Banks thought, would probably have known what she was talking about already. “It takes a compact flash card.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” said Banks. “This thing here isn’t a compact flash card.”
“Bingo. It’s a memory stick.”
“Won’t it fit in that camera?”
“No. It’s for Sony digital cameras.”
“Isn’t there an adaptor?”
“No. Not for the camera. I mean, technically I suppose someone could probably do it, but you just wouldn’t. You’d buy the right kind of memory. You can get card readers, and a lot of computers will accept different kinds of cards—Hardcastle’s laptop there does, by the way—but you can’t put a Sony memory stick in a Canon Sure Shot camera.”
“Maybe it was just meant for the computer, not the camera? You said most computers have card readers.”
“Possibly,” Annie said. “But I still think that’s unlikely. Mostly people buy those cheaper USB smart drives when they want portable computer memory. These little thingies are made for cameras.”
“So the question is, what’s it doing here?”
“Exactly,” said Annie. “And where did it come from? Silbert didn’t have a Sony, either. He’s just got an old Olympic. I saw it in his study.”
“Interesting,” said Banks, eyeing the small, wafer-thin stick. “Should we check it out?”
“Fingerprints?”
“Damn.” Banks went to the landing and called one of the SOCOs, who came up, examined and dusted the stick, then shook his head. “Everything’s too blurred,” he said. “It’s almost always the case with things like that. You might get something from the memory stick itself, if you’re lucky, but usually people tend to hold them by the edges.”
“This isn’t the stick?” Banks said, puzzled.
“I forgot to explain,” said Annie. “The stick fits into an adaptor, a kind of sheath, so you can slot it in the computer.”
“Okay. I see.” Banks thanked the SOCO, who went back downstairs. “Let’s have a look at it, then,” Banks went on. “If it’s protected by the sheath, we can’t do it any harm, can we?”
“I suppose not,” said Annie, sitting down at the laptop. Banks watched her slip the stick into a slot in the side of the computer and heard it click into place. A series of dialogue boxes flashed across the screen. Within seconds, he was looking at a photograph showing Laurence Silbert with another man sitting on a park bench. In the background was a magnificent cream-colored, two-domed building. Banks thought they were in Regent’s Park, but he couldn’t be certain.
Next the two men were pictured from behind walking down a narrow street past a row of garages on the right, each a different color painted in a series of distinctive white-bordered square panels, like a chessboard. Above the garages were gabled houses, or apartments, with white stucco fronts.
The final shot showed them entering through a door between two of the garages, which clearly led to the living space above, the unknown man in profile, his hand resting lightly on Silbert’s shoulder. It could have been a simple gesture of courtesy, the man ushering Silbert into the house first. To a jealous lover, though, it could conceivably have appeared as a sign of affection, especially if the lover knew nothing about such a meeting.
Whoever the man was, he certainly wasn’t Mark Hardcastle. Maybe he was Leo Westwood, Banks thought. Whoever he was, he looked about the same age as Silbert, perhaps a year or two younger, given the former’s access to the elixir of youth, and about the same height. Judging by the light and shadows, it was early evening, and beyond the garages, the rest of the houses on the street were brick with cream stucco ground floors and steps leading down to basement entrances. The photos were dated a week ago last Wednesday.
“Okay,” said Banks. “Can we get these printed up back at the station?”
“No, problem,” said Annie. “I can do it myself.”
“Let’s call back there first, then. We’ll show them to the people we’ve already talked to, starting with Edwina Silbert. And I’ve got a pal in technical support who might just be able to identify the street name if he can enhance the image enough. You can see the sign on the wall in the far background. There’s obviously a damn good reason that memory stick was there. It didn’t belong to either Silbert or Hard-castle, and you tell me that neither could have used it in their cameras. I don’t think it was there by coincidence. Do you?”
“No,” said Annie.
Banks pocketed the letters and Annie took the memory stick out of the slot and turned off the laptop. They were just about to head back to the station when Annie’s mobile rang. She answered it immediately. Banks glanced around the room again as she dealt with the call, but saw nothing he thought of any significance.
“Interesting,” said Annie, putting her phone away.
“Who was it?”
“Maria Wolsey, from the theater. She worked with Mark Hardcastle.”
“What does she want?”
“Wants to talk to me.”
“About what?”
“She didn’t say. Just that she’d like to talk to me.”
“And?”
“I said I’d drop by her flat.”
“Okay,” said Banks. “Why don’t we go get the photos printed first, then you can talk to her while I have another chat with Edwina Silbert.”
Annie smiled. “Alan Banks, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you fancied her.”
5
The morning's rain was long gone by the time Banks got to the Burgundy Hotel, and Edwina Silbert was taking a gin and tonic and a cigarette in the small quiet courtyard, once the stables, at the back of the building. Banks got the impression that it wasn’t her first drink of the day. She had one of the Sunday newspaper style supplements open before her, photos of skinny models in clothes you never saw anyone wearing, but it was clear that she wasn’t really paying attention to it; her gaze was fixed on the line of distant hills framed by a gap in the buildings.
Banks pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. “Comfortable night?” he asked.
“As well as could be expected,” she said. “Do you know, there’s absolutely no smoking anywhere in the hotel? Not even in my own room. Can you believe it?”
“Sign of the times, I’m afraid,” said Banks, ordering a lemon tea from the hovering white-coated waiter. Edwina was looking her age this morning, he thought. Or closer to it. She was wearing a black woolen shawl over her shoulders, a sign of mourning, an indication that she felt cold, or perhaps both. Her gray-white hair and pale, dry skin stood out in stark contrast.