Banks had just started attempting to remove the cellophane wrapping when his phone rang. It was Joanna MacDonald.
“Alan, I think I might have something for you.”
Banks put the DVD aside, picked up his wine and sat down. “Fire away. Every little bit helps right now.”
“I can’t be specific about visits to the hangar, or anything like that, but basically we have someone on our radar who’s come off or on the A1 at Scotch Corner or Darlington.”
“It’s a start.”
“He made a visit to the area on the Sunday in question. We’ve had our eye on him for a while—Operation Hawk, that is. He’s involved in international investments, but he’s often seen visiting rural areas. He also has a lot of overseas contacts, Eastern European in particular. Some of them are not entirely wholesome. Frequent traveler to the Balkans and Baltic states. Knows all the palms to grease. He calls himself Montague Havers, but his real name’s Malcolm Hackett.”
“Maybe he’s expecting a knighthood for services to crime?” Banks suggested. “I think the ‘sir’ would go better with Montague, don’t you?”
Joanna laughed. “Much better.”
“What time did he leave the A1 on Sunday?”
There was a pause as Joanna consulted her notes. “He came off at Scotch Corner and took the Richmond road at 2:35 Sunday afternoon. He drives a silver BMW 3 Series. Nice car, but not too ostentatious. Doesn’t attract too much attention. And to be fair, he does have relatives in Richmond.”
“That’s not far north of Eastvale or Drewick, but it’s a bit late for what we’re looking at,” Banks said. “Still, he wouldn’t be the trigger puller. If he’s southern based, the odds are he’s one of the top brass and would want to keep himself as far away as possible from the rough stuff. And if for some reason he had to get there from London in a hurry, maybe he was there for the mopping up. Do you know when he set off back?”
“He entered via the Catterick junction at 3:05 on Tuesday afternoon.”
“Tuesday? That’s just after Caleb Ross’s van went over the pass. Anything definite on Mr. Havers?”
“No. That’s the problem. The NCA are working with us on this, too.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Joanna paused. “Normally we’d say no, in case you scare him off. But Monty doesn’t scare easily. We’ve questioned him on a few occasions, as have agents of the NCA, and he’s always ended up as cocky and squeaky clean as ever. Maybe a fresh face would be a good thing. I doubt he’ll give anything away, though. He’s too canny. And don’t beat him up. He knows his rights.”
Banks laughed. “As if I would. Thanks, Joanna. Can you give me his details?”
“He works out of an office building just off the Euston Road. That dodgy part to the north between St. Pancras and Regent’s Park.” She gave Banks an address. “Apparently he used to be something in the City back when the Conservatives took away all the trading restrictions in the eighties.”
“What a coincidence. Just like John Beddoes. How does rural crime come into it?”
“Through his contacts. They run the routes. But we haven’t been able to pin anything on him. It’s mostly guilt by association. He’s the man standing over the road with his hands in his pockets, whistling when the building on the other side blows up. He’s the one who visits Norfolk or North Yorkshire before or after a big job. It may mean nothing, but you asked, and he’s all we’ve been able to come up with. We don’t have time or the resources to scroll through the list of all the cars that left the A1 at the exit for your airfield, and nothing else has come up that sets off our radar. Sorry.”
“That’s OK,” said Banks. “It was a long shot. But I like the sound of this guy.”
“You’re welcome. Only too glad to help. I’m thinking maybe I should have waited until tomorrow morning to tell you, and I might have got a free lunch out of it.”
Banks laughed. “Maybe I’ll take you to dinner when it’s all over.”
“And pigs will fly.”
When Banks hung up the phone, he realized that he still felt some sort of connection with Joanna. The loneliness she talked about over lunch the other day was in some ways at odds with his own previous contemplation of the joys of solitude, but she made him consider that he really had no friends outside the job, either, and that he neglected the ones he had. He hadn’t been to see ex-Superintendent Gristhorpe in ages, for example; Jim Hatchley had also retired and wasn’t interested in anything but his garden, his kids, darts and Newcastle United; he saw Ken Blackstone only on sporadic visits to Leeds; and even Dirty Dick Burgess only turned up when the shit hit the fan, as a rule. As for his ex-wife, Sandra, she had her new family and her new life. His job had lost her to him. These days, it seemed, it was the job or nothing. He didn’t even see his own grown-up children, Brian and Tracy, all that often.
Why did he seem to be letting everyone go? Why didn’t he make more of an effort to keep in touch with his friends? Sometimes he felt he had nothing to say, nothing to add to the lively company of a boozy evening in the pub. It wasn’t true, though; he always enjoyed himself when he made the effort; it had just got harder to make that effort.
Maybe he should have suggested that Joanna meet him for a drink tonight, he thought. Maybe he should ring her back and ask her. Then he thought of Oriana. They had spoken nothing of fidelity, commitment, or any of those big, difficult subjects. They had made each other no promises, but he knew that if he asked Joanna out and didn’t tell Oriana, he would be cheating in a way, and she would be hurt. Even though she would be off to Australia, fighting away all those virile young journalists who wanted to interview Lady Veronica Chalmers. He also knew that if he rang Joanna back and asked her out for a drink, it wouldn’t end there. The attraction had been obvious even when they had been at odds in Tallinn, and it was still there. With Oriana away for three weeks, there would be too many opportunities for mischief. The last thing he needed at his age was to be a two-timing bastard.
Besides, he needed his sleep if he was to be sharp for an early interview tomorrow.
He finished stripping the cellophane off the Bond movie and slipped it in the player. Easier just to give himself over to a fantasy world. While the preliminaries were showing, he went back into the kitchen and fetched the rest of the bottle of wine.
10
AS THINGS TURNED OUT, THE INTERVIEW WAS DElayed until Alex Preston had picked out Ronald Tanner from the VIPER display, much relieved that she could go through the process on a large TV screen instead of having to stand in front of him again. After that, Tanner requested a second consultation with his lawyer. Banks used the extra time to prepare himself for the interview, gathering all the evidence they had against Tanner in one folder and everything they suspected him of being involved in, in another. Alex’s identification certainly strengthened the case against him, so it was worth the delay. The only new evidence came in the form of a partial fingerprint found in the hangar. There weren’t enough points of comparison to declare that it actually was Tanner’s, but it was something Banks felt he could use as extra ammunition in an interview.
According to his file, Ronald Tanner was forty-six, a car mechanic by trade from Chester-le-Street. After spells in London, Bristol and Birmingham in the 1990s and early 2000s, he had been living in Darlington since 2004. In addition to his arrests for breaking and entering, assault, theft and GBH, the local police were also interested in him as part of a wide-ranging porn and prostitution investigation, linked to some of the places he had worked as a club bouncer. Both Tanner’s prison sentences had been significantly reduced for good behavior. Apparently, he was a model prisoner. As Banks read over the files for the fourth or fifth time, he yawned. He had stayed up too late watching the Bond movie, and even the double hit of espresso from AC Gervaise’s private machine hadn’t given him much of a second wind.