Almost ready at last, Banks stood in front of the mirror and ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. Nothing to write home about, he thought, but it was the best he could do with what nature had given him. He wasn’t a vain man, but today he seemed to take longer than a woman getting ready to go out. He remembered how he had always had to wait for Sandra, no matter how much time he gave her. It had got so bad that when they had to be somewhere for seven-thirty, he told her seven o’clock, just to get an edge.
He thought of Annie. Did he owe her fidelity, or were all bets off after the way she had cut him? He didn’t know. At the very least, he owed her an explanation of the case, given all the hard work she had put in. Late that afternoon, Bill Gilchrist of the FBI had sent him, at Jenny’s request, a six-page fax on Edgar “PX” Konig, and Banks had been gob-smacked by its contents. DS Hatchley had also determined that Konig had been questioned in connection with the Brenda Hamilton murder. He wasn’t a serious suspect, but the two had been friendly. Rationing was in force until 1954, so PX still had his uses among the locals as late as 1952.
Annie wasn’t at the section station when he phoned her. He had tried her at home, too, but either she had already left for St. Ives, or she wasn’t answering her phone. Next he dialed her mobile number but still got no answer. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to him.
Banks went downstairs and lit a cigarette. Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew was playing on the stereo, bringing back more memories of Jem.
During one of those periods when the Met had brought in a new broom, and corruption charges were flying right, left and center, Banks again saw the man he had first seen walking up the stairs on the night of Jem’s death. A dealer. His name was Malcolm, and he had been brought in to give evidence against a certain DS Fallon, who was charged with extorting heroin from importers he busted instead of arresting them. Fallon then set up his own distribution network, which included Malcolm. In Banks’s eyes, that made Malcolm partly responsible for Jem’s death, and when he saw DS Fallon, he recognized immediately the pockmarked face and cynical smile of the cop who had rifled his bed-sit after he’d reported Jem’s death. No wonder no charges had ever been laid.
Fallon was arrested and sentenced. He hadn’t been more than eighteen months in Wormwood Scrubs before a lifer who recognized him stabbed him through the ear with a filed-down length of metal. Karma. After five years or more it was hardly instant, but it was karma nonetheless. Jem would have liked that sense of symmetry.
Banks stubbed out his cigarette and was just heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth when the telephone rang. The sound startled him. He hoped it wasn’t Jenny phoning to cancel. With Annie going all cold on him, he had been entertaining some pleasant fantasies about the forthcoming dinner. As soon as he heard the voice, though, he realized there could be much worse things in the world than Jenny phoning to cancel dinner.
“Why is it, Banks,” growled Chief Constable Riddle, “that you manage to make a pig’s arse out of everything you do?”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“Sir, it’s after six on a Fri -”
“I don’t give a monkey’s toss what bloody time it is, or what day it is. I give you a perfectly simple case to work on. Nothing too urgent. Nothing too exacting. Out of the goodness of my heart. And what happens? All my good intentions blow up in our faces, that’s what happens.”
“Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You might not, but the rest of the bloody country does. Don’t you watch the news?”
“No, sir. I’ve been getting ready to go out.”
“Then you’d better cancel. I’m sure she’ll forgive you. Not that I care about your sex life. Do you know where I’m calling from?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m calling from Thornfield Reservoir. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the rain. And the thunder. Let me fill you in. Shortly over an hour ago, a woman was taken hostage. She had taken a taxi out here and told the driver to wait while she went to look at something. When he thought he’d waited long enough, he went to look for her and saw her standing with a man who appeared to be holding a gun to her head. The man fired a shot in the air and shouted his demand, and the taxi driver ran back to his car and phoned the police. The woman’s name is Vivian Elmsley. Ring any bells?”
Banks’s heart lurched. “Vivian Elmsley? Yes, she’s-”
“I know damn well who she is, Banks. What I don’t know is why some maniac is holding a gun to her head and demanding to talk to the detective in charge of the Gloria Shackleton investigation. Because that’s what he demanded the taxi driver report. Can you fill me in on that?”
“No, sir.”
“‘No, sir.’ Is that all you can say?”
Banks fought back the urge to say, “Yes, sir.” Instead he asked, “What’s his name?”
“He hasn’t said. We, however, have gone into full bloody Hollywood production mode out here, with a big enough budget to bankrupt us well into the millennium. Are you still listening to me, Banks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A hostage negotiator has spoken with him briefly from a distance, and all he says is that he wants to see justice done. He won’t say any more until we get you to the scene. There’s an Armed Response Unit here already, and they’re getting itchy fingers. Apparently one of their marksmen said he can get a clear shot.”
“For crying out loud-”
“Get yourself down here, man. Now! And this time you really will need your wellies. It’s pissing down cats and dogs.”
When Riddle hung up, Banks reached for his raincoat and shot out the door. He had a damn good idea who Vivian Elmsley’s captor might be, and why he was holding her. Behind him, Miles’s mournful trumpet echoed in the empty cottage.
Annie had managed to get away from the station early, before the shit hit the fan, and by six o’clock she was approaching Blackburn on the M65, shuttling from lane to lane to pass the convoys of enormous lorries that seemed to cluster together at regular intervals. It was Friday rush hour, the sky dark with storm clouds that gushed torrential rain over the whole of the North. Lightning forked and flickered over the humped Pennines, and thunder rumbled and crashed like a mad percussionist in the distance. Annie counted the gaps between the lightning and thunder, wondering if that really did tell you how far away the storm was.
What was the gap between her and Banks now? Could it be counted, like that between the thunder and the lightning? She knew she was being a coward, running away, but a little time and distance would give her a clearer perspective and a chance to sort out her feelings.
It was all getting to be too much: First, there was the annoyance she had felt when he went out boozing with his mate in Leeds instead of going to dinner with her; then the time in London he had gone to Bethnal Green to meet his son and made it clear she wasn’t welcome; and then the last straw, Sandra’s appearance at the cottage on Sunday morning. She had made Annie feel about an inch high. And Banks still loved her, that was obvious enough to anyone.
It wasn’t Banks’s fault; it wasn’t because of him she was running, but because of herself. If every little thing like that was going to rub up against her raw nerve ends, then where would she find any peace? She couldn’t blame Banks for making time for friends and family, but nor could she allow herself to be drawn so deeply into his life, tangled up in his past. All she wanted was a simple, no-strings relationship, but there were already too many complications.