After the news, Banks had a sudden urge to play some more music and go outside to sit on the wall beside Gratly Beck. This was one of his favorite spots, and though he didn’t use it as often as he did before, he still enjoyed it when the weather was warm enough. His cottage was isolated, and a little quiet music in the background wouldn’t disturb anyone, even late at night, and it was only half past ten. Before he could pick out a CD from his collection, though, the phone rang again. Thinking it might be Sophia phoning back, Banks hurried and picked it up.
“DCI Banks?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Ravi here. Ravi Kapesh. Technical Support.”
“Oh, Ravi. Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. It’s a bit late for you to be working, isn’t it?”
“Par for the course these days if you want to get ahead,” said Ravi resignedly. “Anyway, I think I might have something for you. You did say to ring as soon as I got anything.”
Banks felt a tremor of excitement. “Absolutely. You do? Great. Look, I know this might sound a bit weird, but can you call me back on my mobile?”
“Sure. When?”
“Right now. I’m hanging up.” Banks didn’t know if his mobile was any more likely to be secure than his landline, but he thought it might be. He would certainly feel a lot less paranoid when he bought the pay-as-you-go. The thing to remember about mobiles was to keep them switched off when you’re not using them, or you might as well stand on the top of the nearest large building and shout, “I’m here!”
“Okay, let’s have it,” he said, when the mobile rang.
“I managed to enhance the street sign enough to get a name,” said Ravi. “It’s a little street called Charles Lane, off the High Street in Saint John’s Wood. Ring any bells?”
“None,” said Banks, “but I can’t say I expected it to. Thanks a lot, Ravi. Got a house number, by the way?”
“Sorry. You can tell which one it is from the photo, though.”
“Of course. Ravi, you’re a genius.”
“Think nothing of it. Talk to you later.”
“What about the phone number? Fenner.”
“Drew a blank. According to all my efforts it’s a number that has never actually been assigned in the U.K. Maybe it’s for somewhere overseas?
“Maybe,” said Banks, “but I doubt it. Just one more favor.”
“Yes?”
“Keep it under your hat, okay?”
“Okay,” said Ravi. “My lips are sealed.”
“Bye.” Banks hung up. Saint John’s Wood. Well, that was a posh enough area. So what was it all about? Banks wondered. A fancy man? One of Kate Moss’s parties? Sharing government secrets with the other side? Whatever it was, Banks felt sure it had contributed to Silbert’s death.
Perhaps Annie was right in that the Iago method couldn’t absolutely guarantee results, but if it didn’t work, the would-be assassin could always try something a bit more direct. If it did work, however, he would have brought off the perfect murder. A murder that wasn’t even murder. And it fit right in with the sneaky, underhanded way he assumed the secret intelligence services of the world worked. After all, who else outside of the realm of fiction would think of using a poisoned umbrella or a radioactive isotope to murder someone?
Banks picked up his wine, put on Sigur Rós’s Hvarf/Heim, then took his drink outside, leaving the door open just a crack so that he could hear the strange, eerie music. It harmonized naturally with the sounds of the beck making its way down the terraced falls, and the occasional cry of a night bird fit right in, almost as if the band had planned for it and left a little space between their notes.
It was after sunset, but there was a still a glow deep in the cloudless western sky, dark orange and indigo. Banks could smell warm grass and manure mingled with something sweet, perhaps flowers that only opened at night. A horse whinnied in a distant field. The stone he sat on was still warm and he could see the lights of Helmthorpe between the trees, down at the bottom of the dale, the outline of the square church tower with its odd round turret dark and heavy against the sky. Low on the western horizon, he could see a planet he took to be Venus, and higher up, toward the north, a red dot he guessed was Mars. Above, the constellations were beginning to become visible. Banks had never been very good at recognizing them. The Big Dipper and Orion were about as far as he got, and he couldn’t see either of them tonight.
Banks thought he heard a sound from the woods, and he had the odd sensation that he was being watched. It was probably just some nocturnal animal, he told himself. After all, he heard them often enough. There were badgers, for a start, and plenty of rabbits around. He mustn’t allow his nerves to get the better of him. He shook off the feeling and sipped some more wine. The water flowed on, here a touch of silver as it parted around a rock, a flurry of white foam as it dropped a few feet over a terrace, and everywhere else shifting shades of inky blue or black.
It was nothing, Banks told himself, nothing but the wind through the trees, the Icelandic music and a sheep, frightened by a fox or a dog, baaing on a distant daleside. Like the streets, the woods were full of shadows and whispers. After a while, even those sounds ended and he was left in a silence so profound that all he could hear was his own heart beating.
9
The fine weather had brought out the crowds by Wednesday lunchtime, and Oxford Street was clogged with the usual array of tourists, street vendors, shop workers and people handing out free newspapers or flyers for language schools. Banks had taken an indirect route to Sophia’s, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed. Not that it mattered. Mr. Browne had known enough about Sophia already.
Banks had parked his car—a Porsche was hardly out of place on a Chelsea side street, and he was also legal there—left his grip in the house, then headed for Tottenham Court Road by tube, stopping to look in a shop window every now and then on his way. There were so many people about, however, that he had soon realized there was no way he would be able to pick out someone who was following him, especially if that person was well trained. Still, it was best to make caution a habit.
He had worked undercover for varying periods in his twenties and early thirties, and he still had the rudiments of tradecraft. Also, one of the reasons he had done so well at it was that most people said he didn’t look like a policeman, whatever that meant. He could blend into the crowd. In Waterstone’s, just down the street from the tube station, he bought an AA street atlas of London, not willing to trust his memory of years ago, then he called in at one of the electronics shops on Tottenham Court Road and bought a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile, paying cash. It would need charging, but that could wait. He wasn’t in a hurry. It was Wednesday afternoon, and he had spent Tuesday gathering most of the information he needed to do what he had to do in London.
As he walked along Tottenham Court Road, he was overwhelmed by memories. The last time he had been in London doing detective work alone had been when his brother Roy disappeared. And look how that had turned out. Still, there was no reason to think that this time would turn into a disaster of similar proportions. He put his hand in his pocket and touched the spare key to Laurence Silbert’s Bloomsbury flat. He knew it was the right one because it had been marked with a neat label when he’d found it in Silbert’s study drawer that morning. He remembered seeing it when he and Annie had carried out their search. The rules called for Banks to get in touch with the local police, let them know he was on their patch and ask permission to visit the house, but he hadn’t done so. No sense inviting trouble, he thought, or paperwork. Besides, he was on holiday.