“I understand,” said Banks. “What do you want from me?”
“I’ll tell you that when you get here. You’re wasting time. Get going.” And the connection broke.
Banks popped quickly back into the boardroom and said that one of his informants had called, and he had to go out for a while. Gervaise nodded, and everyone got back to the conversation. For a moment he was in two minds whether to tell Gervaise the truth, as he knew he should, and let her organize the cavalry, but he also knew from experience what the red tape was like, the necessary levels of approval, documents in triplicate. He also had the recent example of the Patrick Doyle fiasco if he needed any concrete reminder of what could go wrong. His daughter’s life was at stake this time. He remembered Jaff’s warning and believed it. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, dashed down the stairs and out back.
He had no trouble signing a car out of the pool. It was just after nine o’clock in the morning, and what passed for rush hour in Eastvale was already beginning to abate by the time he had negotiated the one-way streets and joined York Road. The weather was fine, the traffic running smoothly, and he made it to the Leeds Ringroad in about forty minutes. He didn’t even put any music on. He didn’t want any distractions. He needed a plan, needed to think.
Banks knew the general Harehills area, but not the back streets, and it was one of those rare occasions when the satnav actually proved its worth. This time he didn’t end up facing a brick wall while being told he had arrived at his destination, nor was he in Guiseborough when he had set the thing for Northallerton. The boarded-up school came into view on his right, about a hundred feet ahead, as he turned into the street, and opposite it stood the out-of-business garage and a greasy spoon. It was an odd place to arrange a meeting, and Banks guessed that Jaff had come to the area looking for something he had expected but hadn’t found. The garage was the most obvious clue. If it came to it, he could find the owner’s name and see if he had any links to McCready or Fanthorpe. For now, though, he wanted to see for himself that Tracy was unharmed.
Banks came to a halt outside the garage, as instructed. He scanned the street in both directions but saw nothing out of place. A few men in traditional costume coming in or out of the mosque. A couple of women in black burkas chatting as they walked down the street carrying their shopping. A normal day in a normal street.
There were plenty of parked cars, facing all directions, and most of them were in need of rust treatment and a new tire here and there, but nothing stood out. A silver Honda hatchback had pulled into the street after Banks and parked on the other side, behind a yellow Fiesta with a dented door, but a youth in a dark blue hoodie and black tracksuit bottoms got out and went into the sewing-machine repair shop without so much as glancing in Banks’s direction.
In his rearview mirror, Banks saw two figures emerge from the greasy spoon, huddled close together like lovers, one of them carrying a bulky hold-all, the other a leather shoulder bag. The slighter one was Tracy, and his heart lurched in his chest at the sight of her. They got in the back door of his car and the voice from the telephone said, “Drive.”
Banks drove.
“Give me your mobile,” Jaff said when they were on the main road. Banks took it out of his pocket and passed it back. He noticed Jaff switch it off. He was a tall, good-looking kid with long eyelashes, a burnished gold complexion and big brown eyes. Banks could see why women found him attractive. Tracy sat huddled as far away from him as she could get, at the far edge of the seat, hunched in on herself, pale and frightened-looking. Banks wanted to tell her it was all right, Daddy was here, everything would be fine, but he couldn’t force out the words in Jaff’s presence. It had to be enough for him just to know that she was still alive and, apparently, unharmed.
Seeing her like this reminded him of the time she was twelve and finally confessed to him in tears that one of the girls at school had been bullying her and extorting her dinner money from her. Banks wanted to hug her, as he had then, and make all her pain go away.
“We’re heading for London,” Jaff said. “I suppose you know the way?”
Banks nodded. He also knew there was no point in going to London, that Martina Varakova was dead and Justin Peverell’s reason had taken a hike, maybe forever. And the fake documents were in the hands of the Metropolitan Police. But he wasn’t about to tell Jaff that. Everything depended on Jaff believing he was on his way to freedom.
“Whereabouts?”
“King’s Cross. You can drop us there, and I’ll let her go in half an hour.”
Banks didn’t like the sound of that, but now was far too early to negotiate. By the time they got to King’s Cross the balance of power might have shifted a little in his favor. They were probably not meeting at the Highgate house, Banks thought. That was why Ciaran and Darren had left after they had finished with Justin and Martina. They were going to lie in wait for Jaff and Tracy, but they hadn’t said where. “You’ve been causing us quite a bit of trouble, Jaff,” he said, without turning his head.
“It’s Mr. McCready to you. And you’ve only got yourselves to blame for that. Live and let live, that’s what I say.”
“That what you said to Annie when you shot her?”
A sly smile spread over Jaff’s face. “She your girl, was she? I know it’s a waste, a tasty morsel like that, but needs must. Just drive. I’m not in the mood for conversation.”
“Are you okay, Tracy? Are you comf-”
“I said just drive.” Banks felt a hard metallic circle push against the back of his neck, and he knew it was the Baikal’s silencer.
“Shooting me right now wouldn’t be a great idea,” he said. “That’s just to let you know that I’m still in charge. Besides, I could shoot her, not you. Maybe just in the leg or something. Or the gut. I said just shut up and drive. And don’t draw attention to us by your driving, or you’ll regret it.”
Banks drove east to the Ring Road, then turned right and followed it down through Seacroft, Killingbeck and Cross Gates to the M1 at Selby Road. He knew that he would show up on dozens of CCTV cameras but that no one would take the slightest bit of notice because his papers were all in order, the car wasn’t stolen, and he wasn’t a wanted man. Unless someone flagged him as a stray and questioned Western Area as to where he was going, which wasn’t very likely. The police drove all over the place in unmarked cars all the time.
“Put some music on,” said Jaff.
“What’s to your taste?”
“Got any Beatles?”
“I do.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t stand them. What about some jazz?”
Banks didn’t often listen to jazz when he was driving, but he had plenty on his iPod. “Anything in particular?”
“Kind of Blue.”
“No problem.”
“One of my mother’s boyfriends in Mumbai used to play Kind of Blue all the time,” Jaff said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself. “Every time I saw him, I used to say, ‘Play Miles for me, play Miles for me.’ My mother had a lot of boyfriends. I learned all sorts of things from them.” Then he lapsed into silence as Bill Evans’s piano intro to “So What?” started up, followed by the bass, and soon the music filled the car, Miles’s trumpet, Coltrane’s tenor…It was surreal, Banks thought. Here he was hurtling toward the M1, and only God knew what fate, a desperate man with a gun holding him and his daughter hostage, and one of his favorite jazz albums of all time blasting out of the speakers. Not a word was spoken. Banks chipped away at the edge of the speed limit, but never went so much beyond it that he would raise any unwanted interest. Occasionally he would look in the rearview mirror and see Tracy sucking her thumb with her eyes closed as she did when she was a little child, clearly not asleep, the tension still tight around her mouth, eyelids twitching now and again. Jaff was just staring out of the window looking grim.