“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.