As Banks walked out of the underground station on to Holland Park Avenue, he was grateful for yet another mild evening after the previous night’s cold snap, and thankful that he had been in Leeds when he got Burgess’s message. He was also lucky that both the trains and the tube were running on time that day. As a result, it was a little over two and a half hours since his train had pulled out of Leeds City Station, and now he was heading for Helen Keane’s flat – the one she shared with her art researcher husband, Phil (now short for “philanderer” in Banks’s mind) Keane – in one of the residential streets across the main road, overlooking the park itself. Maybe it wasn’t Mayfair or Belgravia, but you didn’t live around here if you couldn’t afford the high rents.
Banks didn’t know what to expect when he pressed the buzzer. For obvious reasons, he hadn’t rung ahead, so he didn’t even know if Keane himself would be there. He hoped not, but it didn’t really matter. He needed to know what the hell was going on. It wasn’t just a question of Annie’s feelings being hurt, but of someone being not exactly the sort of person he presented himself as. It probably meant nothing, but coming hot on the heels of the lie about not knowing McMahon, Banks wanted some answers.
A cautious voice came over the intercom. “Yes?”
Banks introduced himself and said he wanted to speak to Helen Keane. Naturally, she was suspicious and nervous – people always are when the police come to call – but he managed to convince her that it was information he wanted, nothing more. She agreed to let him in but said she would keep her chain on until she had seen his identification. Fair enough, Banks thought, climbing the plushly carpeted stairs. Foyers, halls and stairs said a lot about the quality, and cost, of the place you were visiting, Banks always thought, the way bath towels and toilet paper said a lot about the hotel you were staying in.
As promised, she kept the chain on while she examined his warrant card, then she let him in.
The flat was an interior designer’s paradise, all sharp angles and reflective surfaces, colors named after rare plants and southwest American states. There was no clutter. The stereo was state-of-the-art, brushed steel, hanging on the wall next to the large plasma wide-screen TV, and if the Keanes owned any books or CDs, they were stored elsewhere or hidden well out of sight. A couple of artfully placed art and design magazines were the only reading materials in plain view. At the far end of the high-ceilinged room stood a narrow black chair with a fan-shaped back. When he looked more closely, Banks couldn’t be sure whether it was a chair or a work of art. At any rate, he wouldn’t want to try sitting on it.
The woman who came with the flat was every bit as much of an expensive package and a designer’s wet dream – beautiful, chic, petite, dark-haired, thirty at most, with intense blue eyes and a pale, flawless complexion. She was wearing ivory silk combats, high-heeled sandals and a delicate lace top that didn’t quite obscure her skimpy black bra.
She bade Banks sit on the modular sofa and sat opposite, on a matching armchair, the color of which Banks couldn’t name. Pink, or coral, came closest, but even they were a long way off.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Keane,” said Banks. “There’s no need to be nervous. As far as I know, nobody’s done anything criminal. I’d just like a bit of background information, if you don’t mind.”
“About what?”
“Your husband.”
She seemed to relax a bit at that. “Philip? What about him? I’m afraid I don’t know where he is right now.”
Banks noticed a trace of an accent. It sounded vaguely Eastern European to his untrained ear. “How long have you been married?” he asked.
“Three years now.”
“How did you meet?”
“At a club.”
“Where?”
“In the West End. I was working there. It was a gambling club. A casino. Philip used to come there to play cards. We talked once… he asked me to dinner… you know…”
“Where are you from?” Banks asked.
“Where from?”
“Yes. Your accent.”
“Ah. Kosovo,” she said. “But everything is legal.”
“Because of the marriage?”
“Yes. I have a British passport now. Everything is legal. Philip did that for me.”
“But when you met?”
She smiled. “You know… I was Jelena Pavelich then, just another poor refugee from a war-torn country trying to make a simple living.” She gestured around the room. “Now I am Helen Keane.”
“It’s a nice flat,” Banks said.
“Thank you. I designed it myself.”
“Is that what you did? In Kosovo?”
“No. I studied at university there. Languages. To be a translator. Then the fighting came. My parents were killed. I had to leave.”
“How did you escape?”
“People helped me. It was a long journey. One I want to forget. I saw many terrible things. I had to do many bad things. But you said you wanted to know about Philip?”
“Yes,” said Banks. “Do you know what he was doing before you met?”
“He said he was working abroad. In galleries and museums, in Italy, Spain, Russia, America. Philip is very clever. He has traveled all over the world.”
“Yes, I know that,” said Banks.
Helen’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. “Has he taken your girlfriend? Is that why you want to ask me about him?”
Banks felt himself blush. “Why do you say that?”
She smiled the way women do when they think they’ve gained the upper edge, put their finger on your weakness. “Because Philip is a very attractive man, no?”
“I suppose so,” said Banks. “But what makes you think he would have another woman? Has he been unfaithful before?”
She laughed. It was a deep, hoarse, almost crude kind of laugh, not at all the sort of sound he would have expected from such an exquisitely petite woman, but more like the way you’d laugh at a dirty joke in a smoky pub. Banks liked it. It made her seem more human to him, less of an ethereal beauty. “Philip always has other women,” she said.
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
She made a little moue, then answered, “Ours is not that kind of marriage. We do what we want.”
“Why stay together, then?”
“Because we like one another. We are friends. And because, well…”
“Go on.”
She looked around the flat and ran her hand over her lace top, all the way down over the rise and fall of her small breasts. “I like nice things. Do you not think I’m pretty?”
“Very.”
“I think for Philip I am a business asset also, no? He likes to be seen with his pretty young wife on his arm. All his friends and colleagues envy him. They all want to go to bed with me. I can tell by the way they look at me.”
“And Philip enjoys that?”
“Yes. We go to openings and dinners and galas together. All sorts of official functions with many important people. And all of them look at me the same way. Young men. Old men. Some wives. It is good to be married when you have a business, yes?”
Banks agreed that it was. For some reason, marriage gave the semblance of both conservatism and stability that people require from a business. Potential clients were much more inclined to be suspicious of a bachelor of Phil’s or Banks’s age than they were of a married man. And the fact that his wife was a mysterious Eastern European beauty would certainly do no harm in the circles he moved in. If anything, it might make him seem a little more daring than most. Not too much, but just enough of a risk-taker to be worth running with.
Yes, if Phil Keane wanted everyone to think he was a traditional, solid and dependable sort of fellow, he could do a lot worse than step out with Helen on his arm. And for her part, she had already indicated that she loved the trappings of wealth, the opulent lifestyle. Perhaps she had lovers, too? It seemed to be an open sort of marriage, according to what she had said, so no doubt she had plenty of freedom. Banks felt a little uncomfortable now as his eyes strayed to the outline of her skimpy bra under the lace top, and the exposed black strap against her pale shoulder. He found himself wondering just how much Phil Keane’s lifestyle cost him, and whether ArtSearch made enough to support it.