“Yeah, yeah. Fine. All right. I’ll try her again.”
“You do that. Anyway, the main reason I’m calling is that I’ll be down in your neck of the woods tomorrow, so I wondered if we could get together and talk about things. Let me buy you a pint.”
“I don’t know, Dad. We’re really busy right now.”
“You can’t be busy all the time.”
“There’s rehearsals, you know…”
“Half an hour?”
Another pause followed. Banks heard Brian say something to Andrew, but he couldn’t catch what it was. Then Brian came back on again. “Look,” he said, “tomorrow and Saturday we’re playing at a pub in Bethnal Green. If you want to come and listen, we can have that pint during the break.”
Banks got the name of the pub and the time and said he’d do his best.
“It’s all right,” said Brian. “I’ll understand if something else comes up and you can’t make it. Wouldn’t be the first time. One of the joys of being a copper’s son.”
“I’ll be there,” said Banks. “Good-bye.”
It was almost dark by now. He took his cigarettes and small whiskey and went outside to sit on the wall. A few remaining streaks of crimson and purple shot the sky to the west and the waning moon shone like polished bone over the valley. The promise of a storm had dissipated and the air was clear and dry again.
Well, Banks thought, at least he had talked to Brian and would get to see him soon. He looked forward to hearing the band. He had heard Brian practicing his guitar when he lived at home, of course, and had been impressed by the way he had picked it up so easily. Unlike Banks.
Way back in the Beatles days, when every kid tried to learn guitar, he had managed about three badly fingered chords before packing it in. He envied Brian his talent, perhaps in the same way he envied him his freedom. There had been a time when Banks had also contemplated the bohemian life. What he would actually have done, he didn’t know; after all, he had no facility for music or writing or painting. He could have been a hanger-on, perhaps, a roadie, or just a real cool guy. It didn’t seem to matter back then. But Jem’s death soured the dream for him and he ended up joining the police. He was living with Sandra, too, by then, wildly in love and thinking seriously, for the first time in his life, of a real future together with someone. Kids. Mortgage. The lot. Besides, deep down, he knew he needed a career with some sort of disciplined structure, or God knew what would happen to him. He didn’t really fancy the armed forces, and with images of the never-to-be-found Graham Marshall in his mind, that left the police. Mysteries to solve; bullies to send down.
Maybe he should have followed his original impulse and dropped out, he thought, looking back and considering all that had happened lately. But no. He wasn’t going to fall into that trap. It would be far too easy. He had chosen the life and the job he had wanted – had two great kids and a slightly shop-soiled career to show for it – and he couldn’t imagine himself doing anything else.
Nobody had ever promised him it was going to be a breeze. The dark moods, depressions that settled upon him like a flock of crows, would disappear eventually; the sense of futility, the feeling that the dark pit of his despair actually had no bottom would also dissipate over time. As Brian had said when Banks had first told him about the separation from Sandra, he just had to hang in there, hang in there and make the best of what he had: the cottage, Annie, a challenging case.
An agitated curlew screeched and shrieked way up the daleside. Some animal threatening its nest, perhaps. Banks heard his phone ring again. Quickly, he stubbed out the cigarette and went back inside.
“Sorry to disturb you at this time of night, sir,” said DS Hatchley, “but I know you’re off to London in the morning.”
“What is it?” Banks looked at his watch. Half past nine. “It’s not like you to be working so late, Jim.”
“I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t. I was just over at the Queen’s Arms with a couple of mates from the rugby club, so I thought I’d pop in the station, like, and see if I’d got any answers to my inquiries.”
“And?”
“Francis Henderson. Like I said, I know you’re off down there tomorrow, so that’s why I’m calling. I’ve got an address.”
“He lives in London?”
“Dulwich.” Hatchley read the address. “What’s interesting, why it came back so quick, is he’s got form.”
Banks’s ears pricked up. “Go on.”
“According to Criminal Intelligence, Francis Henderson started working for one of the East End gangs in the sixties. Not the Krays, exactly, but that sort of thing. Mostly he dug up information for them, found people they were after, watched people they wanted watched. He developed a drug habit and started dealing to support it in the seventies. They say he’s been retired and clean for years now, at least as far as they know.”
“Sure it’s our Francis Henderson?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Thanks a lot for calling, Jim. Get yourself home now.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
“And give another push on that nationwide tomorrow if you can find time.”
“Will do. Bon voyage.”
FOURTEEN
Annie was waiting on the platform at York Station looking very businesslike in a navy mid-length skirt and silver-buttoned blazer over a white blouse. She had tied her hair back so tightly it made a V on her forehead and arched her dark eyebrows. For once, though, Banks didn’t feel underdressed. He wore a lightweight cotton summer suit and, with it, a red-and-gray tie, top shirt button undone.
“Good Lord,” she said, smiling, “I feel like we’re sneaking away for a dirty weekend.”
Banks laughed. “If you play your cards right…”
The station smelled of diesel oil and ancient soot from the days of steam. Gouts of compressed air rushed out from under the trains with a deafening hiss, and pigeons flapped around the high ceiling. Announcements about late arrivals and departures echoed from the public address system.
The London train pulled out of the station only eleven minutes after the advertised departure time. Banks and Annie chatted for a while, lulled by the rattling and rocking rhythm, and Banks ascertained that whatever had been bothering Annie on the phone yesterday was no longer a problem. He had been forgiven.
Annie started reading the Guardian she had bought at the station newsstand and Banks went back to Guilty Secrets. In bed the previous evening, he had given up on The Shadow of Death when the erstwhile DI Niven arrested his first suspect, saying, “You have the right to remain silent. If you don’t have a lawyer, one will be provided for you.” So much for the realistic depiction of police procedures. Allowing that it was one of her early DI Niven books and feeling that she deserved a second chance, he started Guilty Secrets, her most recent non-series book, and had trouble putting it down to get to sleep.
The basic plot device was the kind of thing everyone has seen a dozen times on television. A man on holiday in a foreign country becomes involved in an altercation with another man in a crowded bar. He tries to calm the situation and eventually leaves, but the man pursues him outside and attacks him. Someone else, a stranger, comes to his aid, and together they get carried away and beat the attacker to death. They hide the body, then go their separate ways, and nothing more is heard of the incident.
Back in England, the first man becomes very successful in business and is poised at the edge of what promises to be an equally successful career in politics. Until the inevitable blackmailer turns up. What does he do? Pay up or kill again?