“No! You cannot do that. I am British citizen.”
Banks looked at Gristhorpe and the two of them laughed. “Well, maybe that’s true,” Banks said. “But you do know who Deborah Harrison’s father is, don’t you? He’s Sir Geoffrey Harrison. A very powerful and influential man when it comes to government affairs. Even you must know something of the way this country’s run, Ive. What would you say for your chances now?”
Jelačić turned pale and started chewing his thumbnail.
“Are you going to co-operate?”
“I know nothing.”
Banks leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Ive. I’ll say this once more and then it’s bye-bye. If you don’t tell us what you know and where you found the diary, then I’ll personally see to it that you’re parachuted right into the middle of the war zone. Clear?”
Jelačić sulked for a moment, then nodded.
“Good. I’m glad we understand one another. And just because you’ve behaved like a total pillock, there’s one more condition.”
Jelačić’s eyes narrowed.
“You drop all charges against Daniel Charters and make a public apology.”
Jelačić bristled at this, but after huffing and puffing for a minute or two, agreed that he had, in fact, misinterpreted the minister’s gesture.
Banks stood up and took Jelačić’s arm. “Right, let’s go.”
They drove him to St. Mary’s, and he led them along the tarmac path, onto the gravel one and into the thick woods behind the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. A good way in, he paused in front of a tree and said, “Here.”
Banks looked at the tree but could see nothing out of the ordinary, no obvious hiding-place. Then Jelačić reached his hand up and seemed to insert it right into the solid wood itself. It was then that Banks noticed something very odd about the yew trees. Not very tall, but often quite wide in circumference, they were hard, strong and enduring. Some of the older ones must have been thirty feet around and had so many clustered columns they looked like a fluted pillar. The one they stood before had probably been around since the seventeenth century. The columns were actually shoots pushing out from the lower part of the bole, growing upwards and appearing to coalesce with the older wood, making the tree look as if it had several trunks all grafted together. It also, he realized, provided innumerable nooks and crannies to hide things. What Deborah had sought out for a hiding-place, and Jelačić had seen her use, was a knot-hole in this old yew, angled in such a way that it was invisible when you looked at it straight on.
Banks moved Jelačić aside and reached his hand inside the tree. All he felt was a bed of leaves and strips of bark that had blown in over the years. But then, when he started to dig down and sweep some of this detritus aside, he was sure his fingers brushed something smooth and hard. Quickly, he reached deeper, estimating that Deborah could have easily done the same with her long arms. At last, he grasped the package and drew it out. Gristhorpe and Jelačić stood beside him, watching.
“Looks like you missed the jackpot, Ive,” Banks said.
It was a small square object wrapped in black bin-liner, folded over several times for good insulation. When Banks unfolded it, he brought out what he had hoped for: a computer diskette.
III
Back at the station, Banks handed the floppy disk to Susan Gay and asked her if she could get a printout of its contents. He hoped it had survived winter in the knot-hole of the yew. It should have done; it had been wrapped in plastic and buried under old leaves, wood chips and scraps of bark, which would have helped preserve it, and the winter hadn’t been very cold.
Ten minutes later, Susan knocked sharply on Banks’s office door and marched in brandishing a sheaf of paper. Her hand was shaking, and she looked pale. “I think you’d better have a look at this, sir.”
“Let’s swap.” Banks pushed the diary towards her and picked up the printout.
De-bo-rah. De-bo-rah. How the syllables of your name trip off my tongue like poetry. When was it I first knew that I loved you? I ask myself, can I pinpoint the exact moment in time and space where that magical transformation took place and I no longer looked at a mere young girl but a shining girl-child upon whose every movement I fed hungrily. When, when did it happen?
Oh, Deborah, my sweet torturer, why did I ever, ever have to see you pass that moment from childhood to the flush of womanhood? Had you remained a mere child I could never have loved you this way. I could never have entertained such thoughts about your straight and hairless child’s body as I do about your woman’s body.
I seek you out; yet I fly from you. On the surface, all appears normal, but if people could see and hear inside me the moment you come into a room or sit beside me, they would see my heart pulling at the reins and hear my blood roaring through my veins. That day you won the dressage and walked towards me in your riding-gear, that moist film of sweat glistening on the exquisite curve of your upper lip…and you kissed me on the cheek and put your arm around me…I felt your small breast press softly against my side and it was all I could do to remain standing let alone furnish the required and conventional praise…well done…well done…wonderful…well done, my love, my Deborah.
The first time I saw you naked as a woman you were standing in the old bath-tub at Montclair looking like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Remember, my love, there were no locks on the doors at Montclair. One simply knew when private rooms were engaged and refrained from entering. Mistakes were made, of course, but honest mistakes. Besides, it was family. They aren’t prudes about such things, the French, Sylvie’s people. I hoped only for a brief glimpse of your nakedness as you bathed. I knew I couldn’t linger, that I must apologize and dash out as if I had a made a mistake before you even realized I had seen you. So fast, so fleeting a glimpse. And even now I wonder what would have happened had I not witnessed you in your full glory.
For you were standing up, reaching for the towel, and your loveliness was on display just for me. Steam hung in the air and the sunlight that slanted through the high window cast rainbows all about you. Droplets of moisture had beaded on your flushed skin; your wet hair clung to your neck and shoulders, long strands pasted over the swellings of your new breasts, where the nipples, pink as opening rosebuds stood erect. Even that early in womanhood your waist curved in and swelled out at the narrow hips. Between your legs a tiny triangle of hair like spun gold lay on the mound of Venus; the paradise I dream of; drops of water had caught among the fine, curled hairs, forming tiny prisms in the sunlight; some just seemed to glitter in clear light like diamonds…
I have other images locked away inside me: the thin black bra strap against your bare shoulder, the insides of your thighs when you cross your legs…
And so it went on. Again, it wasn’t solid evidence, but it was all they had. Banks had no choice but to act on it.
IV
Owen gazed out of the train window into the darkness. Rain streaked the dirty glass and all he could see was reflections of the lights behind him in the carriage. He wished he could get another drink, but he was on the local train now, not the InterCity, and there was no bar service.
As the train rattled through a closed village station on the last leg of his journey, Owen thought again of how he had walked the London streets all night in the rain after killing Michelle, half-hoping the police would pick him up and get it over with, half-afraid of going back to prison, this time forever.