“So what were they doing?”
“They just talkin’, man. Just chillin’ and talkin’.”
“Did you see Mr. Wyman hand Mr. Hardcastle anything?”
“Huh?”
“Did anything exchange hands?”
“Nope. This wasn’t no drug deal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Were they looking at anything? Photographs or anything?”
“You mean, like porn? Pictures of men sucking—”
“Nicky!”
“No, they didn’t look at nothing.”
“And there was nothing on the table in front of them?”
“Only drinks.”
“Was anyone else with them? Or did anyone join them?”
“Nope. Can I have my money?”
Annie gave him the ten-pound note. She wanted to ask if there was anything intimate about the meeting, any closeness, touching, whispering, meaningful glances, that sort of thing, but somehow she didn’t think Nicky would be attuned to such subtleties. She asked anyway.
“Don’t know nothing about all that stuff, man,” Nicky said, “but that Hardcastle, he sure seemed angry. Mr. Wyman had to cool him down.”
“Wyman was calming Hardcastle down?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Did they appear to be arguing?”
“Arguing? No. Like they were friends.”
“What happened next?”
“I got out of there, man. Before he saw me. Like I say, he can bring a whole lotta shit down on a person, Mr. Wyman can.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Haskell waved the ten-pound note at her. “Your time’s up on this, b—.”
Annie spoke between her teeth, with menacing softness. “I said is there anything else?”
Haskell held his hands up. “No. Hey. Chill out. They nothing else. Like I tole you, Mr. Wyman say something and got Hardcastle all upset, then he chill him right down again.”
“Mr. Wyman upset Hardcastle in the first place?”
“The way it look. They was in the other bar, in the corner, so I figure they couldn’t see me, but I wasn’t taking no chances. Plenty more places a dude can get a drink. Why’d I want to hang around a pub where my teacher’s drinking, man?”
“Nicky, the amount of time you spend in school, he probably wouldn’t even recognize you,” Annie said.
“Ain’t no need to be sarcastic. I do okay.”
Annie couldn’t help but laugh, and Winsome laughed with her. They got up to leave. “Back to Jackie Binns and Donny Moore for a minute,” Annie said at the door. “Are you certain you can’t tell us anything more about what happened? Did you see Jackie Binns with a knife?”
“Jackie didn’t have no knife, man. You got that all wrong. Jackie didn’t do nothing. I didn’t see nothing.” He turned away, picked up the remote control and turned up the volume on the television set. “Now look what you gone and done,” he said. “You made me lose track of the plot.”
The lifts hadn’t been working when Annie and Winsome had arrived, and they still weren’t working. It was easier to walk down the six floors, but the smell wasn’t any better. Mostly stale urine with the occasional piece of rotting garbage dropped by a dog or a cat. Around the third floor, a hooded figure came bounding up the stairs and brushed past them, bumping into Annie’s shoulder, knocking her against the wall, and carried on without a word of apology. She caught her breath and checked her handbag and pockets. All there. Even so, she was relieved to get down to the concrete forecourt. She had felt claustrophobic in the stairwell.
When they got to the car, Annie was happy to find it was still there, and that nobody had spray-painted PIG BITCH all over it. She checked her watch. Going on for five o’clock. “How about a drink?” she suggested to Winsome. “On me. The sun’s over the yardarm and I could certainly do with one.”
“Anything to get the taste of this place out of my mouth.”
“How about the Red Rooster?” Annie suggested.
As it was such a beautiful evening, Banks decided to follow Silbert’s route and walk through Regent’s Park to Saint John’s Wood. He took the paved path that paralleled the Outer Circle around the southern edge. There were quite a few people around, mostly joggers and dog walkers. Soon he came to the bench in the photograph, where Silbert had met his boyfriend, or contact, just opposite the boating lake. Soon after, the path ended, and Banks had to walk past the Central Mosque to Park Road and make his way through the crowds on their way to evening prayers. At the roundabout opposite the little church, he turned on to Prince Albert Road and crossed over to walk past the prep school and the graveyard along Saint John’s Wood High Street. The houses opposite were the kind that always made him think of confectioneries, about six stories high, redbrick with lots of fancy white trim like piping on cakes. Some of the flats had balconies with hanging baskets and big plant pots.
He found Charles Lane easily enough. It was a secluded mews, in some ways similar to where his brother had lived in South Kensington. From the High Street, it looked as if it ended at a brick house with a narrow white facade, but that was just a little dog leg, and beyond it he came to the garages in the photograph. He realized this must have been the corner where the photograph was taken from, using the zoom function. The door he wanted was between the sixth and seventh garages along, one painted in green panels with white outlines, the other, white panels with black edging.
Before anyone could find his loitering suspicious, he strolled down the street, crossed to the house in question and looked up to the lace-covered windows above the window box full of red and purple flowers.
There was only one thing to do. Banks took a deep breath, walked up to the front door and rang the bell.
After about thirty seconds, a woman opened the door on its chain and peered at him. He reached for his warrant card. She made him hold it close to the narrow strip that was all the chain allowed and spent so long studying it that he thought she wasn’t going to let him in. Eventually the door closed, and when it opened again, it opened all the way, revealing a neatly dressed gray-haired woman in her sixties.
“You’re a long way from home, young man,” she said to Banks. “You’d better come in and explain yourself over a cup of tea.”
She led him upstairs into a small cluttered living room above the garage, where a man of about her age sat in an armchair reading the newspaper. He was wearing a suit, complete with white shirt and tie. It certainly wasn’t the man in the photograph. He carried on reading his newspaper.
“It’s a policeman,” the woman said to him. “A detective.”
“I’m sorry to intrude like this,” Banks said, feeling awkward.
“No matter,” said the woman. “I’m Mrs. Townsend, by the way. You can call me Edith. And this is my husband, Lester.”
Lester Townsend looked over his newspaper and grunted a quick hello. He seemed less than happy to be disturbed.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Banks.
“Sit yourself down,” Edith said. “I’ll just go and put the kettle on. Lester, put your newspaper away. It’s rude to sit and read when we have guests.”
Edith left the room and Townsend put his newspaper down, staring suspiciously at Banks before reaching for a pipe on the table beside him, stuffing it with shag and lighting it. “What is it we can do for you?” he asked.
Banks sat down. “Can we wait until your wife comes back with the tea?” he said. “I’d like to talk to both of you.”
Townsend grunted around his pipe. For a moment Banks thought he was going to pick up his newspaper again, but he just sat there smoking contemplatively and staring at a spot high on the wall until his wife returned with the tea tray.