Outside the pubs, knots of people stood clutching pint glasses, laughing and joking. In Leicester Square, jugglers and fire-eaters entertained the crowds of American tourists in shorts and T-shirts who milled around drinking water from plastic bottles.
It was a sultry evening and the square was bustling with people: long queues for the Odeon, metal barriers up, some premiere or other and everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of a star. Banks remembered doing crowd duty there once as a young PC in the early seventies. One of the Bond films, The Man with the Golden Gun, he thought. But that had been a cold night, not far off Christmas, as he remembered, he and his fellow PCs linking arms to keep back the onlookers as flashbulbs popped (and they were flashbulbs back then) and the stars stepped out of their limos. He thought he saw Roger Moore and Britt Ekland, but he could have been wrong; he never was much of a celebrity spotter.
Banks had loved going to the cinema back then. He and Sandra must have gone twice a week before the kids, if he was on the right shift, and sometimes, if he was on evenings or nights, they’d go to a matinee. Even after Brian was born they got a neighbor to babysit now and then, until undercover work made it too difficult for him.
These days, he hardly ever went at all. The last few times he’d been to see a film, there always seemed to be someone talking, and the place was sickly with the smell of hot buttered popcorn, the floors sticky with spilled Coke. It wasn’t so much like going to the cinema anymore as it was like hanging out in a café where they showed moving pictures on the wall. There was a new multiplex in Eastvale, an extension of the Swainsdale Centre, but he hadn’t been there yet and probably never would go.
Banks made his way into Soho. It was going on for nine now, still daylight, but the sun was low, the light fading, and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since that wretched curry round the corner from Roy’s place. Here the streets were just as crowded, outdoor tables at the restaurants and cafés on Old Compton Street, Greek Street, Dean Street, Frith Street overflowing. A whiff of marijuana drifted on the air, mingling with espresso, roasting garlic, olive oil and Middle Eastern spices. Neons and candlelight took on an unnatural glow in the purple twilight, smudged a little by the faint, lingering heat haze. Boys held hands as they walked down the street, or stood on street corners, leaning in toward each other. Beautiful young women in cool, flimsy clothing walked together laughing or hung on the arms of their dates.
Banks made it to Tottenham Court Road before the electronics shops closed and after little deliberation bought a laptop with a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It was light enough to carry easily in a compartment of his briefcase, and it would do everything he needed it to do and more. It also didn’t break his bank account, still bolstered by the insurance money from the fire. He took out the manual and various extra bits and pieces, put them in his briefcase, too, and left the packaging in the shop, After that, feeling hungry, he headed back to Soho.
On Dean Street, Banks found a restaurant he had eaten at once before, with Annie, and had enjoyed. Like all the others, the outside tables were crowded and the frontage was fully open to the street. Nevertheless, Banks persevered inside and was rewarded with a tiny table in a corner, away from the street and the noise. It was no doubt the least desirable table in the house as far as most people were concerned, but it suited Banks perfectly. It was just as hot inside as out, so location made no difference as far as that was concerned, and a waitress came over almost immediately with the menu. She even smiled at him.
Banks mopped his brow with the serviette and studied the options. The print was small and he reached for his cheap, nonprescription reading glasses. He had found himself relying on them for reading the papers and doing crosswords more often lately.
It didn’t take him long to settle on steak, done medium, chips and a half bottle of Château Musar. He sipped at his first glass of wine while he was waiting for his meal and the rich, complex flavor was every bit as powerful as he remembered it. Annie had liked it, too.
Annie. What was he going to do about her? Why had he been behaving like such a bastard after what she had done for him? She was seriously pissed off at him, he knew, but surely if he really tried… maybe he could break through the barrier of her anger. Truth be told, things had been shaky between them ever since they broke up. He had been jealous of Annie’s relationships, and he knew that she was jealous of his. That was partly what had made his curt dismissal of her in the hospital so unforgivable. But the circumstances had been exceptional, he told himself. He had not been in his right mind.
His steak and chips arrived and Banks turned his thoughts back to Roy. With any luck, he would turn up something from the computer stuff – why would Roy hide it otherwise? – a name, a company, something that would send him in the right direction. The problem was that he would more likely than not turn up too much, and Banks didn’t have a slew of DCs to send out on the streets to filter out the red herrings. Perhaps he could go back and enlist more of Corinne’s help. She had said she would be willing.
For a moment, a shadow of concern for Corinne passed over him with a chill, and he shivered. Had he brought her danger along with Roy’s business secrets? But he was sure he hadn’t been followed to her house, nor was there anyone on his tail now. She would be all right, he assured himself. He would ring her first thing in the morning, just to make sure.
He had only once had dinner with Roy, he realized as he bit into the juicy fillet. They saw each other in passing at family gatherings, of course, though there had been few enough of those over the years, and Banks had been at Roy’s first wedding, but as far as the two them sitting down to dinner together, there had been only the one occasion, and the invitation had come out of the blue, for no particular reason that Banks could gather.
It was in the mid-eighties, when the financial world was reeling under the shock of insider-trading scandals. Whatever he was now, Roy had been a stockbroker then, and in his Armani suit, with his hundred-quid haircut, he looked every inch the successful businessman, apple of his mother’s eye. Banks had been a mess, much as he was now, he thought, aware of the irony. Approaching burnout in London, career and marriage held together by threads, he was waiting to hear if his application for a transfer to North Yorkshire had been approved when Roy rang him one day at the office – he wasn’t even sure his brother knew where he lived at that time – and asked him if he was free for dinner at The Ivy.
The restaurant was packed with entertainment people and Banks thought he recognized a star or two, but he couldn’t put names to faces. They had certainly looked and acted as if they were stars. After a half hour of family chat and polite inquiries into Banks’s career and well-being over a very expensive shepherd’s pie and an even more expensive bottle of Burgundy, Roy had steered the conversation toward the recent scandals. Nothing was said overtly, but Banks went away with the impression that Roy had been pumping him. Not that he knew anything, but his brother had expressed interest in the way such investigations were done, how the police gathered information, what they thought of informers, exactly where the law stood on the issue, and so on. It was done very well, and it continued over the frozen berries and white chocolate sauce he had had for dessert, but it was definitely a fishing expedition.
There was another thing, too. Banks couldn’t be certain, but he had been around drugs enough to recognize the signs, and he was sure Roy was high. Coke, he suspected. After all, that was the drug of choice back then among successful young men about town. At one point in the evening Roy excused himself to go to the toilet and came back slightly flushed and even more animated, sniffling every now and then.