“Fine,” said Annie. “I’ll tell him myself.”
“Ponytail might well have killed Jennifer and tried to scare me off, but we know he can’t have killed Roy.”
“So there’s someone else involved.”
“Well, if ponytail is the muscle and prostitution is the business, I’d say there’s a pimp somewhere at the top of it all, wouldn’t you?”
“Possibly,” Annie agreed. “Lambert?”
“Maybe.” Banks stood up. “Anyway, we won’t find out the answer by sitting around here, however pleasant it is. Thanks for breakfast, Annie, and for clearing the air.”
“Where are you going?”
Banks smiled. “Well, if I told you that, you’d really be in trouble, wouldn’t you?”
Annie put her hand on Banks’s arm. “I know I can’t stop you,” she said, “but promise me a few things?”
“Go on.”
“Keep in touch, let me know what you find out.”
“Okay. You, too.”
“Stay away from Dr. Lukas. She’ll come around in her own time. You’ll only freak her out.”
“No problem.”
“And be careful, Alan. This isn’t a game.”
“Believe me, I know that.” Banks bent forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and left. Annie watched him go, then she hurried back up to her room to pack. This morning, after checking in with Brooke, she was going back to Eastvale come hell or high water.
“You wouldn’t believe it. It was like a bloody three-ring circus here the last couple of days,” said Malcolm Farrow as he settled in his armchair with a stiff gin and tonic in his hand. Banks had declined the offer of gin as it was only ten o’clock in the morning, but he accepted the tonic water gratefully. Farrow had looked puzzled but poured it anyway. “As you can see, things have settled down a bit now.”
Banks looked out of Farrow’s window at Roy’s house. The detectives must have finished their search and removed everything they thought pertinent to their investigation, because the place was unguarded.
They would have gone through Roy’s stuff for any evidence related to the crime and also for information about his lifestyle, his habits and his associates that might give them a lead to follow. Banks knew what they would find because he had already made a thorough search himself and handed over everything to Brooke. Now the formalities were done with, the house would be turned over to Roy’s next of kin – his parents.
“I can imagine what it was like,” said Banks. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t ring you straightaway, but I had to go take care of my parents and I didn’t have your number handy.”
“That’s all right. I was really shocked to hear the news. It’s been all over the papers, and the television. We’ve had reporters around. They’ve gone now the police seem to have moved on.”
“There’s nothing left for them here,” said Banks.
“Anyway, it’s nice of you to remember me and drop by.”
“No problem. Did the police want to talk to you?”
“The police? Oh, yes. They were all over the street.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Just what I told you. It’s all I know.”
“What about the reporters?”
His face reddened. “Sent them packing. Bunch of scavengers.”
“Have you thought any more about that photo I showed you?” asked Banks, slipping the envelope out of his briefcase.
Farrow looked at it again through his reading glasses, which were clipped tightly to his bulbous, purple-veined nose. “Look, I’m not going to have to say anything in court, am I?”
“This is just between you and me,” said Banks. As Farrow squinted at the photos. Banks sipped some tonic water. The fizziness made him burp and he could still taste the bacon and eggs he’d eaten for breakfast.
“Well,” said Farrow, “it certainly could be him. The more I look, the more I see the resemblance. As I said, my eyesight’s not so good on detail, but there are streetlights and the man’s size and the gray hair look about right.” He passed the photo back to Banks. “A bit vague, I know, but it’s the best I can do.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Who is he, anyway? He’s surely not the one who…?”
“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “If it really is him, he’s an old business partner of Roy’s.” Someone Roy would probably open the door to and accompany for a drink or whatever, which was the way it seemed to have happened. Someone he trusted.
Banks thanked Farrow for his help, made his excuses and left.
There were no signs of activity around Roy’s house on Wednesday morning, not even a police seal across the door. Banks used his key to open the door and walked inside. The only sound he could hear was the humming of the refrigerator. There was a deep silence at the core of the house, the silence of Roy’s absence, and it felt heavier now than it had when Banks first arrived.
First he checked the kitchen. The laptop computer he had left on the table there was missing, and he assumed the police had taken it. There was nothing he could do about that right now, but he would have to let Brooke know that he wanted it back when they had finished with it.
Next he went up to look at Roy’s office. Whoever had searched the house had made a neat and tidy job of it. Nothing looked out of place.
Banks went into the entertainment room and flopped on the sofa. He thought about the CD he had found. Roy must have known that he was involved in something dodgy by Wednesday, when he buried the photos of Lambert and friend among the pornographic images. And perhaps he knew that the something dodgy – whether it was prostitution or illegal immigrants, or something else – was fast reaching critical mass. Did Roy know that his life was in danger? Banks doubted it. If Roy was used to skirting the edges of the law and mixing with bad company, as he seemed to be, then he was probably cocky enough to think there was nothing he couldn’t handle. But something had changed all that, and it had happened between Wednesday and Friday evening, or even a couple of days earlier, if Jennifer Clewes’s behavior was anything to go by.
What had Roy’s movements been during those crucial days? Where had he been? Whom had he talked to? If Banks could get the answers to those questions, he thought, then he might be able to answer the riddle of Roy’s death. And Jennifer’s.
He thought about what Annie had told him over breakfast, the doctor helping out prostitutes. Had Jennifer Clewes told Roy? Most likely she had. What had his reaction been? Had it anything to do with their deaths? But Banks failed to see how helping out a few unfortunate illegal immigrants could lead to murder. Unless, of course, the people who brought them in were involved and were beginning to feel threatened by something.
Banks also hadn’t forgotten that Burgess had told him Gareth Lambert was a smuggler with a large network of underworld connections. Burgess had also said that Lambert knew the Balkan route like the back of his hand, and now Annie was telling Banks about Eastern European prostitutes using the Berger-Lennox Centre. At least a vague picture was beginning to form in his mind, but he still didn’t know Roy’s place in it, or why he had been killed.
Banks thought back on his chat with Corinne the previous evening. He had found out a lot about his brother through talking to her. Roy loved the Goon Show and Monty Python; he did a hilarious Ministry of Silly Walks impersonation and quite a decent version of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch; New York was still his favorite city, Italy his favorite country; he had recently taken up digital photography and all the photos on his walls were his; he played golf and tennis regularly; he supported Arsenal (typical, Banks thought, who lumped Arsenal in the same category as Manchester United, the best teams money could buy); his favorite color was purple; his favorite food was wild mushroom risotto, his favorite wine Amarone; he loved opera and often took Corinne to Covent Garden (though she admitted that she never quite got opera); and they both enjoyed going to see Hollywood musicals and old foreign films with subtitles – Bergman, Visconti, Renoir, Fellini.