“May I come in?” Keane asked.
Banks stood aside. Keane thrust the bottle toward him. “A little present,” he said. “I heard you like a good single malt.”
Banks looked at the label. Glenlivet. Not one of his favorites. “Thanks,” he said, gesturing toward his glass. “I’ll stick with this for now, if you don’t mind.” No matter how paranoid it seemed, he felt oddly disinclined to drink anything this man offered him until he knew once and for all that he was who and what he claimed to be. “Would you like some?” he asked. “It’s an Islay, cask strength.”
Keane took off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair, then he sat down in the armchair opposite Banks’s sofa. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t like the peaty stuff, and cask strength is way too strong for me. I’m driving, after all.” He tapped the bottle he’d brought. “I’ll have a nip of this, though, if that’s all right?”
“Fine with me.” Banks brought a glass, topping up his own with Laphroaig while he was in the kitchen, and bringing the bottle with him. If he was going to have a heart-to-heart with Keane, he might need it.
“You know,” said Keane, sipping the Glenlivet and relaxing into the armchair, “when it comes right down to it, we’re a lot alike, you and me.”
“How do you get that?” Banks asked.
Keane looked around the room, blue walls and a ceiling the color of ripe Brie, dimly lit by a shaded table lamp. “We both have a taste for the good things in life,” he said. “Fine whiskey, Schubert, the English countryside. I wonder how you manage it all on a policeman’s salary?”
“I do without the bad things in life.”
Keane smiled. “I see. Very good. Anyway, however you work it, we have a lot in common. Beautiful women, too.”
“I assume you mean Annie? Or Helen?”
“Annie told me about you and her. I didn’t know I was poaching.”
“You weren’t.”
“But you’re not happy about it. I can see that. Are you going to tell her?”
“About Helen?”
“Yes. She told me about your little visit yesterday.”
“Charming woman,” Banks said.
“Are you?”
“Don’t you think it would be better coming from you?”
“So you haven’t told Annie yet?”
“No. I haven’t told her anything. I’ve been trying to decide. Maybe you can help me.”
“How?”
“Convince me you’re not a lying, cheating bastard.”
Keane laughed. “Well, I am a bastard, quite literally. I admit to that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Look,” Keane went on, “the relationship Helen and I have is more like that of friends. We’re of use to one another. She doesn’t mind if I have other women. Surely she told you that?”
“But you are married.”
“Yes. We had to get married. I mean, she was an illegal immigrant. They’d have sent her back to Kosovo. I did it for her sake.”
“That’s big of you. You don’t love her?”
“Love? What’s that?”
“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”
“It’s not something I’ve ever experienced,” Keane said, studying the whiskey in his glass. “All my life I’ve had to live by my wits, sink or swim. I haven’t had time for love. Sure you won’t have a drop of this?” He proffered the bottle.
Banks shook his head. He realized his glass was empty and poured a little more Laphroaig. He was already feeling its effects, he noticed when he moved, and decided to make this one his last, and to drink it slowly. “Anyway,” he went on, “it’s not a matter of whether Helen minds if you have other women or not; it’s how Annie feels.”
“Still her champion, are you? Her knight in shining armor?”
“Her friend.” Banks felt as if he was slurring his words a bit now, but he hadn’t drunk much more since he’d poured the third glass. There was also an irritating buzzing in his ears, and he was starting to feel really tired. He shook it off. Fatigue.
Keane’s mobile played a tune.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Banks asked.
“Probably work. Whoever it is, they can leave a message. Look, Alan, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll explain the situation to Annie,” said Keane. “She’s broad-minded. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“I wouldn’t be too certain of that.”
“Oh, why? Know something I don’t?”
“I know Annie, and deep down she’s a lot more traditional than you think. If she’s got strong feelings for you, she’s not going to play second fiddle to your wife, no matter how convenient the marriage, or how Platonic the relationship.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
“When?”
“The next time I see her. I promise. How’s the case going?”
Banks wasn’t willing to talk about the case to Keane, even though he had assisted as a consultant on the art forgery side. He just shrugged. It felt as if he were hoisting the weight of the world on his shoulders. He took another sip of whiskey – the glass was heavy, too – and when he put it down on the arm of the sofa he felt himself sliding sideways, so he was lying on his side, and he couldn’t raise himself to a sitting position again. He heard his own telephone ringing in the distance but couldn’t for the life of him drag himself off the sofa to answer it.
“What about this identity parade you mentioned?” Keane said, his voice now sounding far away. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”
Banks couldn’t speak.
“It was very clever of you,” Keane said. “You thought your witness would identify me, not Whitaker, didn’t you?”
Banks still couldn’t make his tongue move.
“What’s the problem?” Keane asked. “A bit too much to drink?”
“Go now,” Banks managed to say, though it probably sounded more like a grunt.
“I don’t think so,” said Keane. “You’re just starting to feel the effects. See if you can stand up now. Just try it.”
Banks tried. He couldn’t move more than an inch or two. Too heavy.
“Eventually, you’ll go to sleep,” Keane said, his voice an echoing monotone now, like a hypnotist’s. “And when you wake in the morning, you won’t remember a thing. At least you wouldn’t remember a thing if you were to wake up in the morning. But you won’t be doing that. I’m really surprised you don’t have more security in this place, you being a policeman and all. It was child’s play to get in through the kitchen window just after dark and add a little flunitrazepam to your cask-strength malt. Plenty of strong taste to cover up any residual bitterness in the drug, too. Perfect. They call it the ‘date rape’ drug, you know, but don’t worry, I’m not going to rape you.”
“What’s wrong, Guv?” Winsome asked, leaning over her.
“This number.” Annie pointed. “I know it. It’s Phil’s BMW.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I don’t know why. I just remember these things. There’s no mistake. He got a parking ticket two streets away from Kirk’s Garage on the seventeenth of September.”
Winsome checked with her file. “That’s one of the times Masefield rented the Jeep Cherokee,” she said. “Look, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe the bloke who wrote the ticket made a mistake?”
“Maybe,” said Annie, as the thing that had been bothering her rose to the surface of her mind. Banks had said during their argument that morning that he had met Phil a couple of times, but later Phil had said he only met Banks once. The three of them had met the previous weekend, several days ago, but Banks had also said he hadn’t seen Phil for a couple of days. Why was that? Had he been to see him since? And if so, what was it about? What were they keeping from her?