‘Come on,’ said Banks. ‘I’m being serious here. I like the woman. And I like that she and Ray make each other happy. If you’re going to take the piss out of me, fair enough, but try to be serious when it comes to her safety.’
‘I don’t know what you expect me to do. Put her under protection? You know as well as I do that we don’t have the resources to provide guard duty.’
Banks ran his hand over his hair. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I only hope you’re wrong about all this.’
‘Take hope, then. I often am.’ Burgess downed the rest of his lager and glanced at his watch. ‘Sorry, I have to love you and leave you,’ he said, groaning as he got to his feet. ‘I’ve got an early morning meeting in Newcastle and a room waiting for me at the Mal.’
When Zelda got back to her hotel, she knew there was no hope of sleep. She undressed, showered again, hot and long, then fell back on the bed trembling, eyes wide open.
Why did Tadić have to open his eyes? If he had just fallen unconscious, as he was supposed to do, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. It had been different with Darius; she had been fighting for her freedom, for her life, and he had been the last thing standing in her way. But this time was different. This time it had been premeditated, cold-blooded murder.
She was a long way from Modesty Blaise now.
Zelda got up, took a vodka from the minibar, downed it in one then poured herself another, which she set down on the bedside table. She picked up the TV remote and turned it on. There was a talk show on with an idiotic host and even more idiotic guests trying to sell their latest movies or shows. But she needed background noise; in the silence she would go mad.
She went over the scene in her mind, the craziness of it all. Even now, so soon after, when she tried to picture herself sitting at the hotel bar waiting for Goran Tadić to come in and pick her up, she could hardly believe what she had done. Or the journey up to his room, the nearness of him in the lift; the cigar smoke on his breath, choking her, bringing back memories of that terrible car journey; his musky deodorant fighting a losing battle against sweat and testosterone; the hurried doctoring of the drink, his greedy slurping it down; then the almost interminable wait, the striptease, ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’ After that came the moment that cut the person she was now off from the person she had been until then. The murder. Brutal, bloody. And perhaps the worst thing of all was that, despite her fear, her hesitations and her protestations to herself, in some deep, dark part of her soul, she had enjoyed it.
She reached for the second vodka and sipped it, feeling it burn all the way down. Had she done everything that needed to be done? She went over her actions again — the clean-up, wiping off her prints, the blood, showering. She knew there was no way she could rid the room or his body of every trace of her, that if a police forensic team went over it, they would find something to point to her. But she also knew it would probably never come to that.
Then she realised with a shock that she had forgotten to do one thing. Get rid of the knife. She had cleaned it, but it was still in her bag. And the rest of the set was still in the drawer. She could keep them all, of course, take them home and use them, in plain view like Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’, but it would be more sensible to get rid of them all.
She jumped up off the bed, dressed quickly in jeans and a cashmere jumper, tied her damp hair at the back of her neck, then took out the knife from her handbag and placed it back with the others in the box the set had come in. As an afterthought, she ripped the cellophane off the cardboard box, so the water would get in and make sure it sank under the weight of the knives. Not that it mattered. Even if they floated out to sea, no one would be able to trace them to her. But best be careful.
It was a mild evening and there were plenty of people strolling along the riverside. Couples holding hands on their way home from restaurants or pubs, parents with grumbling children returning from a long, tiring day of sightseeing. Pleasure boats went by, lit up for the night-time champagne cruises, all the romance of the Thames.
There was nowhere Zelda could be completely free of passers-by, so she chose a dark spot far enough away from any restaurant or bar — and, as far as she could tell, CCTV — and crossed the stretch of grass that separated the path from the wall. There was no one else standing near her, and the path was now a good ten or twelve feet behind. She leaned her elbows on the wall as if contemplating the view. The tide was well in and the water just below her swirled black and oily. Some of the windows in the office buildings across the river were still lit up, and she could see the occasional silhouettes of late workers walking about in the offices. But they were too far away to see what she was doing.
When there were no boats passing in front of her and no one behind, she slipped the box of knives out of her bag and dropped it over the side. It made a satisfying plop, and she felt a sense of relief, seeing it go down, as if by getting rid of the weapon she had shed some of the burden of the crime.
Just then, she heard a voice behind. ‘Is everything all right?’
She turned sharply, hand on her heart and saw a young man in jogging gear standing on the grass in front of her.
‘Only you were looking a bit lost,’ he said, sounding less sure of himself now he could see her at least partially in the city darkness.
‘I’m fine,’ Zelda said, dredging up a polite smile.
‘It’s just... you know, sometimes people... I don’t mean to be...’
‘Honest. I’m fine,’ Zelda reassured him. ‘I wasn’t thinking of jumping. I was just enjoying the peace and the view.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry I interrupted you, then, if everything’s OK.’
‘It’s fine, really. I’m going now, anyway.’
The young man studied her for a moment, as if to make sure she was telling the truth, then he nodded and set off jogging along the path again. Her heart still pounding, Zelda made her way back to her hotel room.
Banks stood at the front door watching the car churn up gravel as it headed down the drive. When the sound of the motor faded, there was silence except for Gratly Beck. It was a warm evening — perhaps the warmest of the year so far — and Banks realised it had been a long time since he had sat by the terraced falls and enjoyed a nightcap al fresco. It was already dark, a clear night, with stars glittering in the sky, so he went back for his wine, then climbed the wall and sat on the grassy bank of Gratly Beck by the terraced waterfalls, looking down on the lights of Helmthorpe in the valley bottom.
Talk of Keane had brought back memories of the night it happened. Much of it was blurred, as he had been drugged, but he remembered the sensation of being unable to move a muscle while also being aware that the flames were rising all around him. He remembered ‘Death and the Maiden’ playing on the stereo and thinking it was the last music he was ever going to hear. He had thought it was all over, then he felt himself being manhandled, and the next thing he knew he was lying on the gravel drive with Annie and Winsome bending over him.
He came back to the present at the sound of a night bird in one of the trees that lined the banks of the beck further down the slope, towards Helmthorpe. He thought of what Burgess had told him and wondered whether Zelda — and therefore Ray — really was in danger. Nobody in the trafficking organisation would know she was doing the job for the NCA, or where she lived, unless there was an informer working there. And if that informer had been Hawkins, he could easily have tipped off Tadić that Zelda was working there, with her special knowledge and skills. But if he had done that, why hadn’t something happened already? Couldn’t they find her? Was it more to their advantage to have her doing that job? The devil you know...