Matthew wasn’t any trouble; he just wasn’t there. He did, however, get into the habit of going to the Shoulder of Mutton every night and sitting alone in a corner drinking until closing time. Friends and neighbors who knew him would approach at first and ask how he was doing, but soon even those who remembered him most fondly left him alone. Once in a while he would have an angry outburst and smash a glass or kick a chair. But these were infrequent and soon passed over.
Gloria gave me a key, so I was able to pop in and out of Bridge Cottage whenever I could. She took as much time off from the farm as possible, of course, but she needed the income, and I don’t think she could have borne the pain and the heartbreak of being with him twenty-four hours a day.
It was hard to believe that the war was almost over after all this time, even though you could smell victory in the air. The Americans had crossed the Rhine, and so had Monty’s men. The Russians had Berlin surrounded. In April and May we started hearing the first rumors about concentration camps and human atrocities on a scale that had only been hinted at in the reports about Lublin the previous year. All the newspapers seemed at a loss as to how to describe what the liberating armies had found at places such as Belsen and Buchenwald. In addition to reading about Japanese cannibalism and the appalling tortures inflicted on prisoners like Matthew, I also read about the German camps where hundreds of thousands of people, or so we thought at the time, were shot, starved, beaten or made the subject of medical experiments.
Along with all our personal losses, such as Charlie, and Matthew’s ruined health, it was impossible to take it all in. I don’t think we even tried. We had suffered five years of fear and hardship and we were damned if we were going to be cheated out of the big party when it was all over.
Banks walked into the cavernous Victorian pub, all smoked and etched glass, brass fittings and mirrors. Somehow, it had survived the Blitz, as much of east London hadn’t. Years of cigarette smoke had turned the high ceiling and the walls brown.
It wasn’t far from Mile End, where Gloria Shackleton had been born. She may have even been here, Banks fancied, though he doubted it. People tended to stick very close to home, hardly venturing more than a street or two away except on emergencies or special occasions.
He and Annie had just been to Dulwich to see Francis Henderson, only to find him out. A neighbor told them she thought he had most likely gone on holiday, as he had canceled his newspapers and milk. Banks slipped his card with a note through the letter box and left it at that. What more could he do? As far as he was concerned, Francis Henderson wasn’t guilty of any crime – or if he was, it was nothing to do with the Gloria Shackleton case. He wanted to meet Francis, mostly out of curiosity, to see what he was like and find out what he knew, if anything, but he could hardly justify the expense of a manhunt. The DNA would be helpful, but not essential.
It was half past five, and the band was due to start at six to draw in the after-work crowd. Not that anyone Banks could see in the audience looked as if they had been at work, unless they were all students or bicycle couriers. Brian stood on the low wooden stage along with the others, setting their equipment up. Maybe they were making money, but they clearly couldn’t afford a crew of roadies yet. The mountain of speakers made Banks a little nervous. He loved music, and he knew that rock sometimes benefited from being played loud, but he feared deafness perhaps even more than blindness. Back in his Notting Hill days, he had been to see just about all the major bands live – The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors – and more than once he had woken up the next day with ringing ears.
Brian waved him over. He looked a little nervous, but that was only to be expected; after all, he was with his mates and here was his old man coming to a gig. They would no doubt tease him about that. He introduced Banks to Andy, the keyboard player, Jamisse, the bassist, who was from Mozambique, and the percussionist, Ali. Banks didn’t know if Brian had told them he was a detective. Probably not, he guessed. There might be a bit of pot around, and Brian wouldn’t want to alienate himself from his friends.
“I’ve just got to tune up,” said Brian, “then I’ll come over. Okay?”
“Fine. Pint?”
“Sure.”
Banks bought a couple of pints at the bar and found an empty table about halfway down the room. Occasionally, feedback screeched from the amps, Ali hit a snare drum or Jamisse plucked at a bass string. It was a quarter to six when Brian, apparently satisfied with the sound, detached himself from the others and came over. Banks hadn’t realized until now how much his son had changed. Brian wore threadbare jeans, trainers and a plain red T-shirt. His dark hair was long and straight, and he had a three or four days’ growth around his chin. He was tall, maybe a couple of inches more than Banks’s five foot nine and, being skinny, he looked even taller.
He sat down and scratched his cheek, avoiding Banks’s eyes. Banks didn’t want to launch right into the midst of things. The last thing he wanted was another row. “I’m looking forward to this,” he said, nodding toward the stage. “I haven’t heard you play since you used to practice at home.”
Brian looked surprised. “That was a long time ago, Dad. I hope I’ve got better since then.”
“Me, too.” Banks smiled. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses, then Banks lit a cigarette.
“Still got that filthy habit, then?” said Brian.
Banks nodded. “’Fraid so. I’ve cut down a lot, though. What kind of music do you play?”
“You’ll have to wait and hear it for yourself. I can’t describe it.”
“Blues?”
“Not straight blues, no. That was the band I was with a couple of years ago. We broke up. Ego problems. Lead singer thought he was Robert Plant.”
“Robert Plant? I wouldn’t have thought you’d have heard of him.”
“Why wouldn’t I have? You were always playing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ when you weren’t playing bloody operas. The long version.” He smiled.
“I don’t remember doing that,” Banks complained. “Anyway, who writes the songs?”
“All of us, really. I do most of the lyrics, Jamisse does most of the music. Andy can read music, so he arranges and stuff. We do some cover versions, too.”
“Anything an old fogy like me would recognize?”
Brian grinned. “You might be surprised. Got to go now. Will you be around after?”
“How long’s the set?”
“Forty-five minutes, give or take.”
Banks looked at his watch. Six. Plenty of time. He was a short walk from the Central Line and it wouldn’t take him more than an hour to get to Leicester Square. “I don’t have to leave until about eight,” he said.
“Great.”
Brian walked back up to the stage where the others looked ready to begin. The pub was filling up quickly now, and Banks was joined at his table by a young couple. The girl had jet-black hair, pale makeup and a stud in her upper lip. Was she a Goth? he wondered. But her boyfriend looked like a beatnik with his beret and goatee, and Brian’s band didn’t play Goth music.
Matching the fashions with the music used to be easy: parkas and motor scooters with The Who and The Kinks; Brylcreem, leather and motorbikes with Eddie Cochran and Elvis; mop-tops and black polo-necks with The Beatles. And later, tie-dye and long hair with Pink Floyd and The Nice; skinheads, braces and bovver-boots with The Specials; torn clothes and spiky hair with the Sex Pistols and The Clash. These days, though, all the fashions seemed to coexist. Banks had seen kids with tie-dye and skinhead haircuts, leather jackets and long hair. He was definitely overdressed in his suit, even though he had put his tie in his pocket long ago, but he hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Maybe he was just getting old.