‘You really are very rational, aren’t you, doctor?’
‘Why, thank you. I try to be. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’
Banks smiled and stood up, leaned over to shake her hand. ‘Thanks for doing this so promptly,’ he said.
‘You’ll be able to put his daughter’s mind to rest?’
‘I’ll do my best. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try.’
‘If she... I mean, if you think she’s becoming seriously upset... there is help.’
‘I know,’ said Banks. ‘And I’ll make sure that Annie knows, too.’
‘Well, then, I’ll be seeing you.’
‘Not too soon, I hope,’ said Banks, and left. The Unicorn over the road from Eastvale General would be open now, and Banks could do with a pint. Or a double whisky.
On the day of Ray Cabbot’s funeral, Banks drove to Harkside to pick up Annie, and for a while he thought she wouldn’t come. She sat in her chair, still wearing her dressing gown, hair an unruly mass, unmoving, not speaking, her eyes puffy and red from crying, face tear-stained.
Banks sat with her in silence for a while, holding her hand. When he squeezed gently, he felt no return of pressure. What could he do? He couldn’t force her to go. He spoke to her softly, telling her she should get ready. She looked at him, uncomprehending, then all of a sudden seemed to snap out of it.
‘I must get ready,’ she said. ‘Dad’s waiting.’
Banks helped her up and told her he would wait downstairs while she got dressed and ready, and not to worry, there was plenty of time.
It didn’t take her long. In a few minutes Annie had managed to throw on a dark skirt, top, and jacket suitable for a funeral, brush her hair and apply a little make-up to cover the ravages of her grief. She remained quiet as she got in the car and Banks drove to the funeral home in Eastvale. He refrained from playing any music. Annie might think it insensitive, even a requiem, and he honestly couldn’t think of anything to play for the occasion.
Ray had left a will, as it turned out, and it stipulated that he wanted his ashes scattered in the sea below St. Ives. He had also left a substantial amount of his estate to Zelda and the rest — more than adequate, along with the house — to Annie. He hadn’t made any arrangements for his unsold paintings, but Banks imagined his agent would help Annie handle all that. He had left his collection of close to 2,000 vinyl LPs and Marantz turntable to Banks.
When Banks had revisited Windlee Farm a couple of days after Ray’s death to make sure everything was turned off and locked up, at Annie’s request, he had found a postcard among that day’s post. It showed a reproduction of da Vinci’s Annunciation, and on the back, next to Ray’s address, a heart. Banks didn’t think he needed to check the handwriting to know that the postcard was from Zelda. The postmark read Belgrade, but Banks didn’t think that was where she was. She must have got someone to post it for her. He hadn’t told Annie about it.
There was quite a crowd for Ray’s funeral, and the small chapel was bursting at the seams. The arts crowd had come up from London, and most of the people who still lived at the artists’ commune in St. Ives, where Ray had lived for many years, turned up, along with some who had lived there only briefly and left years ago. They all remembered Ray’s generosity and encouragement for young artists.
A vicar who had never even met Ray delivered a few platitudes and a prayer, and then the tears streamed down Annie’s face as she sat through Banks’s short eulogy, which Annie had said there was no way she could do without breaking down, and a reading by Gerry of Christina Rossetti’s ‘When I am dead, my dearest,’ which Banks had last heard at the funeral of his first love, Emily Hargreaves. Ray would have hated it, but funerals are about the living. As the service ended with The Beach Boys’ ‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,’ which Ray had once told Banks was what he wanted to be played at his funeral, there was hardly a dry eye in the chapel.
The funeral tea was held at Windlee Farm, and catered by the Black Bull’s Mick Slater. It was nothing special, just sausage rolls, vol-au-vents, scotch eggs, and slices of pork pie followed by Black Forest gateau, but it was enough. Slater had also brought a couple of kegs of beer, which most of Ray’s friends seemed to prefer to tea. Banks chatted with some of Ray’s old artist friends and also fell into conversation with a young woman who said she was a friend of Zelda’s from her London days, and she had read about the funeral in the paper. She had come in the hopes that Zelda would be there and was disappointed when Banks told her they didn’t know where she was.
Finally, the last guests drove off. It was still light outside, and Banks poured himself another glass of wine and went outside to enjoy the mild evening air and the open views of the moorland. Curlews flew high in the distance, and a lark ascended, singing. Banks thought of the Vaughan Williams music. Annie wandered out a few minutes later and joined him, linking her arm in his. The vast expanse of the moors at the back of the cottage spread out for miles under a thickening cover of dark clouds still in the distance. But there would be rain before long.
‘So she didn’t come after all,’ said Annie.
‘She probably doesn’t know Ray is dead,’ Banks said.
Annie removed her arm from his. ‘There you go, making excuses for her again. I suppose you know it’s all her fault. If he hadn’t got involved with her, none of this would have happened.’
‘Annie, Ray was ill. His arteries were blocked. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He ate too much red meat. He never went to the doctor’s.’
Annie waved her hand dismissively. ‘I know all that. You’re a one to talk. But she’s the one who brought it all on, the straw that broke the camel’s back. You know what terrible shape he’s been in since she disappeared.’
‘It was hardly her fault she was abducted,’ Banks said.
‘I mean after. After the fire. When she saved you and ran away.’
‘She was scared.’
‘So was Ray. And she was supposed to love him. She didn’t even bother to come to his funeral. Did you see that picture he was painting?’
‘Yes,’ said Banks.
‘I hate it. You take it.’
Banks knew there was no point in arguing, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset Annie any further, which defending Zelda would most certainly do. It was one of those moments where he would have loved to light up a cigarette, but he made do with the wine.
Annie would get over it in time. Right now she was grieving and looking for someone to blame, and there was just enough truth in what she said to make that someone Zelda. There were certain aspects of Zelda’s life that made her dangerous company. After all, if she hadn’t become an important part of Ray’s life, it would have saved him a lot of grief. But what about the love? What about the joy she gave him? The happiness they shared? Annie didn’t see that. Banks had seen Ray and Zelda together and heard each speak separately about the other, and there was no doubt in his mind that they loved one another utterly, completely. Perhaps that kind of love can kill you eventually. He watched the distant birds swooping and weaving under the massing rain clouds. He couldn’t make out what they were — lapwings, curlews, swifts — but that didn’t matter. It was glorious just to witness the aerial ballet.
‘We’d better go in,’ he said. ‘It’s going to rain.’
Annie said nothing at first, then she tightened her lips and stalked off ahead of him towards the door. It was going to be a long haul.