“In what way?”
“It was as if he’d taken a part of himself, cut it off and hidden it away where no one could ever see it. It’s hard to describe, because on the surface he was as charming and funny and witty as ever, but I knew that he couldn’t tell me most of what he’d been doing since I saw him last. And I probably suspected that I didn’t want to know, either.”
“So what did you do?”
“What could I do? I accepted it and life went on. I’d lost part of my son, but not all of him. Whatever they did to him, they didn’t kill his love for his mother.”
“Do you know which branch of the intelligence services he worked for?”
“MI6. His facility for languages sealed it. That’s why he spent a good part of his time undercover overseas. East Germany, Russia. Czechoslovakia. I remember his first real assignment was in Prague in 1968. I don’t know what he was supposed to do there, but I assume he had to mingle with the students and help make things difficult for the Russians, or report on developments there. After that... who knows. I do gather that some of the assignments he handled were not without danger.”
“He never told you any details?”
“One thing Laurence could do better than anybody I have ever known was keep a secret.” She noticed that her glass was almost empty and swirled the dregs around the bottom.
“Want another?” Banks asked, spotting the waiter hovering on the fringes.
“I’ve had enough.”
Banks gestured to the waiter that they didn’t require any more drinks. He went away. “Where was Laurence living during this period?”
“Oh, it varied. We’re talking about quite a long time, you know. 1967 to 2004. Though after the Wall came down, he spent less and less time abroad. He had a beautiful house in Kensington. He lived there for over twenty years, when he was in the country.”
“What happened to it?”
“He sold it when the market was good. That was what enabled him to buy the large house in Yorkshire and the little pied-a-terre in Bloomsbury.”
“I thought you said he had no business acumen?”
“Well,” she said with a hint of a smile, “he did get a lot of help.”
“You?”
“He’s my only son. Money soon came to mean nothing to me. I don’t mean that quite the callous way it sounds, but it just kept on rolling in, and it didn’t seem to matter whether I worked hard or not. What was I going to do with it all? It was one thing I could do for him.”
“What about the Swiss bank accounts?”
“I wouldn’t read too much into all that. I doubt it was a huge amount. Naturally, I don’t know the reality of it, but Dicky once let slip that when you do the sort of job Laurence did, there’s often loose money around—payoffs, bribes, hush money, blackmail, God knows what. Most of it is not recorded in any books or bank accounts, and sometimes it’s just, well, just there at the end of a job, and nobody else knows anything about it. When all one has to look forward to is a government pension, there’s naturally a tendency to feather one’s nest rather than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Hand it over to the government, of course.”
Banks smiled. “I can certainly understand why he wouldn’t want to do that. Anyway, we very much doubt that your son was killed for his money. We’re just curious to know as to how he came to acquire such wealth.”
“Well, that’s how. Me and his job.”
“Did Mark know about his past?”
“I would imagine so. They would have had to have him vetted.”
“Others?”
“I very much doubt it. As I said, Laurence could keep a secret. As far as everyone else was concerned, he simply worked for the Foreign Office. A boring old civil servant.”
Banks finished his lemon tea. It was cold and bitter. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“Hang around here for a couple of days, try to sort out Laurence’s affairs, then head back to Longborough. Have you any idea when I might be able to make plans for the funeral?”
“Not yet,” said Banks. “It depends on the coroner. There can sometimes be delays if there’s likely to be a trial and the defense requests a second postmortem.”
“In this case?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “But I promise I’ll keep you informed.”
Edwina looked at him, a ghost of a smile playing across her lips. “Just give me back twenty years,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Laurence before?” Banks asked.
Edwina looked away. “I don’t know. Habit of secrecy? It didn’t seem relevant?”
“You know that’s not true. You know a hell of a lot more than you’re saying. It was the first thing you thought of when we told you what had happened.”
“Are you a mind reader, too? Maybe your colleague’s better off without you. I’d hate to be living with a man who can read minds.”
“Cut the crap, Edwina.”
Edwina laughed and swallowed the dregs of her drink. “My, my, you are a direct young man, aren’t you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She lowered her head and whispered, “Why are you asking me this when you know what the answer is already?”
“Because I want to hear it from you.”
Edwina paused for a moment, then she looked around the courtyard before she leaned forward and grasped the edge of the table with a talonlike hand. Her voice was dry and sibilant. “Because I’m not convinced that Laurence had completely retired, and because I’m not sure I trust the people he was working for. There, how’s that for you?”
“Thank you,” said Banks, standing up to leave.
“There’s something else,” Edwina said, relaxing in the chair as if she had exhausted all her energy. “If you’re going to proceed with this business, then I’d advise you to be very careful indeed and to watch your back. These are not nice men you’re dealing with, and they don’t play by your rules. Believe me. I know.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Banks. “And I’ll remember that.” He shook her limp hand, said good-bye and left her to stare out at the hills, lost in memories.
6
The East Side Estate had been built in the sixties and steadily declining ever since. Now it could give some of the Leeds or Newcastle estates a run for their money. Certain areas were a wasteland of burned-out cars and abandoned supermarket trolleys, uncontrolled dogs running rife and a population suspicious of all strangers, especially the police. Annie Cabbot had come across plenty of people there who were simply decent folk trying to make an honest living, but she had also met more than her fair share of others—dead-beat, drug-addicted or absentee parents, kids who had had little schooling and no chance of a worthwhile job, who had given up on the future by the age of thirteen or fourteen, searching only for the quick thrill of crystal meth, Ecstasy or whatever new concoction or cocktail the amateur chemists had come up with that week. And, increasingly, the oblivion of heroin.
A row of uniformed police officers held the crowds back at about half past ten on Wednesday evening, just after dark. Nobody was pushing or struggling; they were just curious and perhaps a little frightened. One or two troublemakers were trying to whip up a frenzy by shouting insults at the police, and someone even threw a half-brick at the ambulance crew, but the others mostly just ignored them. They were used to this sort of behavior. The streetlights created rainbow halos in the haze, and the ambulance lights spun blue in the humid night air near the mouth of what the locals called “glue-sniffers’ ginnel.” It was more like “meth poppers’ alley” or “skunk smokers’ snicket,” these days, Annie thought. Solvents were way out of style as the underprivileged had become more affluent and the drug prices had dropped as cheap stuff flooded the market.