Banks smiled sadly. “There you are, then. Keith Rothwell probably had two left feet.”
“Are you saying it wasn’t the same man?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. Just that your memories of Robert Calvert won’t change, shouldn’t change. He’s who he was to you, what he meant to you. Don’t let this poison it for you. On the other hand, I need to know who killed Keith Rothwell, and it looks as if there might be a connection.”
She put her arm in his again and they walked on. There was hardly any breeze at all, but they passed a boy trying to fly a red-and-green kite. He couldn’t seem to get it more than about twenty feet off the ground before it came flopping down again.
“What do you mean, a connection?” Pamela asked, shifting her gaze from the kite back to Banks.
“Maybe something in his life as Robert Calvert spilled over into his life as Keith Rothwell. Are you sure you didn’t know he was married, you didn’t suspect it?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve been a right bloody fool, haven’t I? Muggins again.”
“But you were sure he’d found a new girlfriend?”
“Ninety-nine percent certain, yes.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“What?”
“His new girlfriend. How did you feel about her? On the one hand you tell me you shouldn’t be so upset, you hardly knew Robert Calvert, and your relationship had cooled off anyway. On the other hand, it seems to me from what you say and the way you behave that you were extremely fond of him. Maybe in love with him. What’s the truth? How did you really feel when someone else came along and stole him from you? Surely you must have felt hurt, angry, jealous?”
Pamela pulled back her arm and stepped aside from him, an expression of pain and anger shadowing her face. She dropped her ice-cream. It splattered on the tarmac path. “What’s that got to do with anything? What are you saying? What are you getting at? First you imply that I’m some kind of porn actress, and now you’re implying that I killed Robert out of jealousy?”
“No,” said Banks quickly. “No, nothing like that.”
But she was already backing away from him, hands held up, palms out, as if to ward him off.
“Yes, you are. How could you even…? I thought you… ”
Banks stepped toward her. “That’s not what I mean, Pamela. I’m just-”
But she turned and started to run away.
“Wait!” Banks called after her. “Please, stop.”
One or two people gave him suspicious looks. As he set off walking quickly after her, a child’s colored ball rolled in front of him, and he had to pull up sharply to avoid knocking into its diminutive owner, whose large father, fast approaching from the nearest bench, didn’t seem at all happy about things.
Pamela reached the park exit and dashed across the road, dodging her way through the traffic, back toward the hall. Banks stood there looking after her, the sweat beading on his brow. The remains of his ice-cream had started to melt and drip over the flesh between his thumb and first finger.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath. Then louder, “Shit!”
The little boy looked up, puzzled, and his father loomed closer.
Chapter 7
1
The Merrion Centre was one of the first indoor shopping malls in Britain. Built on the northern edge of Leeds city center in 1964, it now seems something of an antique, a monument to the heady sixties’ days of slum clearance, tower blocks and council estates.
Covered on top, but open to the wind at the sides, it also suffers competition from a number of more recent, fully enclosed, central shopping centers, such as the St. John’s Centre, directly across Merrion Street, and the plush dark green and brass luxury of the Schofields Centre, right on The Headrow.
Still, the Merrion Centre does have a large Morrison’s supermarket, Le Phonographique discotheque – the longest surviving disco in Leeds – a number of small specialty shops, a couple of pubs, a flea market and the Classical Record Shop, which is how Banks had come to know the place quite well. And on a warm, windless May afternoon it can be pleasant enough.
Banks found Clegg’s Wines and Spirits easily enough. He had phoned Melissa Clegg an hour or so earlier, still smarting over his acrimonious parting with Pamela Jeffreys in the park, and she had told him she could spare a little time to talk. It was odd, he thought, that she hadn’t seemed overly curious about his call. He had said that it concerned her husband, yet she had asked for no details.
He opened the door and found himself in a small shop cluttered with bottles and cases. There were a couple of bins of specials on the floor by the door – mostly Bulgarian, Romanian and South African varietals, and some yellow “marked down” cards on a few of the racks that lined the walls to his right and left, including a Rioja, a Côtes du Rhône and a claret.
Banks looked at the racks and thought he might take something home for dinner, assuming that he and Sandra ever got the chance to sit down to dinner together again, and assuming that she wanted to. Perhaps they could have that wine, candlelight and Chopin evening he had had to cancel when the Rothwell enquiry got in the way.
Behind the counter ranged the bottles of single malt Scotch: Knockando, Blair Athol, Talisker, Glendronach. Evocative names, but he mustn’t look too closely. He had a weakness for single malt that Sandra said hit them too hard in the pocket. Besides, he still had a drop of Laphroaig left at home.
The spotty young man behind the counter smiled. “Can I help you, sir?” He wore a candy-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his tie loose at the neck, the way Banks always wore his own when he could get away with it. His black hair had so much gel or mousse on that it looked like an oil slick.
“Boss around?” Banks asked, showing his card.
“In the back.” He lifted up the counter flap and Banks went through. Stepping over and around cases of wine, he walked along a narrow corridor, then saw on his left a tiny office with the door open. A woman sat at the desk talking on the phone. It sounded to Banks as if she were complaining over non-delivery of several cases of Hungarian Pinot Noir.
When she saw him, she waved him in and pointed to a chair piled high with papers. Banks moved them to the edge of the desk and she grinned at him over the mouthpiece. There were no windows, and it was stuffy in the back room, despite the whirring fan. The office smelled of freshly cut wood. Banks took his jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair. He could feel the steady draft of the fan on the left side of his face.