They finished their coffees, paid and set off back across Market Street. Annie had no sooner got inside the station doorway than her mobile rang. She gestured for Templeton to go on ahead of her.
“Detective Inspector Cabbot?” a familiar voice asked.
“Yes, Dr. Lukas.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Not on the telephone. Can we meet?”
Well, thought Annie, there went her evening at home relaxing in the tub with a good book. It had better be worth it. “I’m up north,” she said, glancing at her watch. “It’s twenty to four now. Depending on the trains, I should be able to get down there by about eight.”
“That will be fine.”
“At the house, then?”
“No.” Dr. Lukas named a French restaurant in Covent Garden. “I will wait for you there,” she said, and hung up.
After his talk with Gareth Lambert, Banks took the tube to Charing Cross and headed for the Albion Club. It didn’t open until late evening and the doors were locked. He tried knocking a few times, then he rattled them, but no one answered. A few passersby gave him disapproving glances, as if he were an alcoholic desperate for a drink. In the end he gave the door a hard kick, then walked to Trafalgar Square and wandered among the hordes of tourists for a while, trying to rid himself of the sense of frustration and anxiety that had been building up in him ever since he had seen Roy’s body laid out on the shingle bank.
It was mid-afternoon, and Banks felt hungry despite the full English breakfast at Annie’s hotel that morning. He found an American-style burger joint near the top of Old Compton Street, just across from a body-piercing studio, and ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke.
As he sat eating and watching the world go by outside, he thought about his talk with Gareth Lambert: the theatrics with the cigar, the joke about Carmen Electra, the reference to Roy’s being interested in arms deals again, the garbled warning as he was leaving – none of these things had been necessary, but Lambert hadn’t been able to resist. Innocence? Arrogance? It wasn’t always easy to tell them apart.
But there was something else that left him feeling very unsatisfied indeed. Banks, perhaps more than anybody, felt that Roy might have been less than legal in his business dealings over the years, and as Corinne had pointed out, Banks had always been ready to think the worst of his brother. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but he thought he was right.
After the talk with the Reverend Ian Hunt, though, not to mention after looking a bit deeper into Roy’s life, he had come to believe that Roy really had learned a lesson from the foolhardy arms deal he had been involved in once. What he had seen in New York on the eleventh of September, 2001, had shaken him to the core and had brought home to him the stark reality of terrorism. It was no longer a busful of strangers in Basra or Tel Aviv on a television screen, but people just like him going about their daily routine, some of whom he knew, dying right in front of his eyes.
Banks was starting to think that perhaps Gareth Lambert had overplayed his hand. He didn’t believe that Roy wanted to get into arms dealing again and had been asking Lambert about old contacts. Unless he intended to seek retribution, which was unlikely at this late stage in the game. If Roy had any old scores he wanted to settle, he would have done so years ago in the white heat of his rage after 9/11. But he hadn’t. Which made Banks think that Lambert was lying. And there was only one clear explanation of that – to put Banks off the scent, divert him from the real business. More and more he was beginning to believe that that had something to do with the goings-on at the Berger-Lennox Centre, with Jennifer Clewes and Roy, with Dr. Lukas, with the mysterious Carmen Petri and the late girls. But how Lambert himself fit in, Banks still didn’t know. So what was the missing piece?
He doubted that Lambert would give it up. He was far too shrewd for that. He had enjoyed toying with Banks, telling him he had seen Roy on Friday when he already knew from the newspapers that was the day Roy disappeared. But he had done that because he knew Banks had got a description from Malcolm Farrow and because he thought there was nothing in his actions that night to incriminate him. No doubt it was true that Roy had left the Albion Club between half past twelve and one o’clock, and that Roy hadn’t left till three. Banks would go back to the club and check later that evening.
He finished his burger and took the tube back to South Kensington with a view to nosing around Roy’s files again to see if there was anything there relating to the Albion Club or any of the members’ names Lambert had given him. Perhaps he could phone some of them and see if they would verify Lambert’s story. He also wanted to get in touch with his parents and the Peterborough police again and make sure everything was all right.
All was still quiet inside Roy’s house. Banks locked the door behind him, slipped the keys in his pocket and headed for the kitchen. When he got there, he was surprised to see a man sitting at the kitchen table. He was even more surprised when the man turned and pointed a gun at him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Sit down slowly,” the man said, “and keep your hands in sight.”
Banks did as he was told.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“I might well ask the same.”
“I asked first. And I’ve got the gun.”
“My name’s Alan Banks.”
“Do you have any identification?”
Banks put his hand slowly in his inside pocket and brought out his warrant card. He shoved it across the table to the man, who examined it carefully, then pushed it back and slipped his gun inside a shoulder holster hidden by his jacket.
“What the fuck was all that about?” said Banks, feeling a rush of anger as the adrenaline surged back.
“I had to be sure,” said the man. “Dieter Ganz, Interpol.” He offered his own card, which Banks studied, then stuck out his hand. Banks didn’t feel like shaking it; he felt more like thumping him. Ganz shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he went on. “Detective Superintendent Burgess told me you might be here, but I had to make certain.” He didn’t have much of an accent, but it was there, if you listened, in his speech patterns and careful diction.
“How did you get in?”
“It wasn’t difficult,” said Ganz, glancing toward the back window. Banks saw that a circle of glass about the size of a man’s fist had been cut out of it just below the catch.
“Well, I don’t know about you,” said Banks, “but after that little scare I could do with a drink.”
“No, thank you,” said Ganz. “Nothing for me.”
“Suit yourself.” Banks opened a bottle of Roy’s Côte de Nuits and poured himself a generous glass. His hand was still shaking. “So Burgess sent you, did he?”
Ganz nodded. “He told me where you would be. I’m sorry it took so long but he had a little difficulty finding me. I’ve been out of the country. It seems that we have interests in common.”
“First of all, you’d better tell me what yours are.”
“At the moment, my interest is in people smuggling, more specifically, the smuggling of young women for the purposes of sexual exploitation.”
Ganz looked undercover, Banks thought. He was young, early thirties at most. His blond hair was a bit too long and greasy, and he clearly hadn’t shaved for four or five days. The linen jacket he wore over his shirt was creased and stained, and his jeans needed a wash.
“And what interests do we have in common?” Banks asked.
Ganz took a piece of paper from his side pocket and unfolded it on the table. It was a copy of the photo Banks had given to Burgess. “You’ve been asking questions about who this man with Gareth Lambert is,” he said.
“Lambert told me his name is Max Broda.”
“That is correct,” said Ganz. “Max Broda. He’s an Albanian traveling on an Israeli passport.”