Banks took off his headphones and arranged the tray in front of him. The main course appeared to be a small shrivelled chicken leg with pale wrinkled skin, accompanied by tiny potatoes and carrots covered in gravy. On further inspection, Banks discovered that one half of the meal was piping hot and the other still frozen solid. He called the attendant, who apologized profusely and took it away. When she delivered it again, the frozen side was warm and the other overcooked. Banks took a few mouthfuls and gave up in disgust. He also felt no inclination to investigate the mound of jelly-like substance with a swirl of cream on its top, or the limp lettuce leaves that passed for a salad. Instead, he turned to his cheese and biscuits which, being wrapped in cellophane, were at least fresh, and washed them down with a small plastic bottle of harsh red wine.
Feeling the onset of heartburn, Banks declined the offer of coffee and lit a cigarette. After the trays had been cleared, more drinks came. They really were very generous, Banks thought, and wondered what havoc a plane full of drunks might wreak — especially if the booze ran out. But it didn’t. He was kept well supplied with Johnnie Walker Red — a kind of sedation, he supposed, insurance against restless and troublesome passengers — and soon people were asked to pull down their blinds against the blazing sunlight in preparation for the movie. This turned out to be a dreadful cops-and-robbers affair full of car chases and shoot-outs in shopping precincts. After about ten minutes, Banks put his headset aside, closed his eyes and went over in his mind the questions he wanted to ask Anne Ralston. The jet engines were humming, the Scotch warmed his veins, and soon he fell into a deep sleep. The last thing he remembered was the crackly voice of the pilot saying they were soon going to reach the tip of Newfoundland and would then fly along the St Lawrence River.
While Banks was asleep somewhere over Quebec City, Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe sat hunched over a pint of Theakston’s bitter and a veal and egg pie in the Queen’s Arms, waiting for Sergeant Hatchley.
Frowning, he looked at his watch. He’d told Hatchley to arrive no later than seven thirty. He glanced out of the window at the market square, but saw no sign of the sergeant. It was still raining. That very morning the clouds had closed in again, draining the valley sides of their lush greens and flattening the majestic perspective of fells and moors.
At last Hatchley burst in and looked anxiously around for the superintendent. His hair was slicked down by the rain, emphasizing the bullet shape of his head, and the shoulders of his beige trench coat were splotched dark with wet patches.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he apologized, sitting opposite Gristhorpe. ‘The damn weather’s slowing down traffic all along the dale.’
Gristhorpe could smell the beer on his breath and guessed that he’d probably stopped for a quick one in Helmthorpe on his way, or maybe he had even made a minor diversion to the Black Sheep in Relton, where the landlord brewed his own prize-winning beer on the premises. He said nothing though. Without Banks around, Hatchley and Richmond were all he had, and he had no wish to alienate the sergeant before putting his plan into action.
Gristhorpe accepted Hatchley’s offer of another pint and leaned back in his seat to avoid the drift of smoke when the sergeant lit a cigarette.
‘Did you tell them?’ Gristhorpe asked.
‘Aye, sir. Found them all in the White Rose.’
‘I hope you weren’t too obvious.’
Hatchley looked offended. ‘No, sir. I did it just like you said. When Freddie Metcalfe started probing and prodding about why I was there, I just told him it was a few loose ends I had to tie up, that’s all.’
‘And then?’
‘Ah, well. Then, sir, I got myself invited over to the table. It was all very casual, like, chatting about the cricket and the local markets as if we was old mates. Then Sam Greenock asked me where my boss was.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Just what you told me, sir. I said he’d gone off to Toronto to talk to Anne Ralston.’
‘And?’
‘And what, sir?’
‘What happened next, man? How did they react?’
Hatchley took a long pull at his beer and wiped his lips with the back of his hairy hand. ‘Oh, they just looked at one another and raised their eyebrows a bit.’
‘Can you be a bit more specific, Sergeant? What did Sam Greenock say?’
‘He didn’t really say anything. Seemed excited to hear the news. I got the impression it made him a bit angry. And Stephen Collier went distinctly pale. That poncy brother of his just looked down his nose like I was something the cat dragged in.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘Only John Fletcher.’
‘Did he react in any way?’
Hatchley scratched his ear. ‘I’d say he got a bit tight-lipped. You wouldn’t really say he reacted, but it was as if it rang a bell somewhere and sent him off in his own world. More puzzled and worried than anything else.’
Gristhorpe thought over the information and filed it away in his mind. ‘Good work, Sergeant,’ he said finally. ‘You did well.’
Hatchley nodded and started casually rocking his empty pint glass on the table. ‘What now, sir?’ he asked.
‘We keep an eye on them. Tomorrow I’m going to send DC Richmond to stay at the Greenock Guest House for a few days. I don’t think his face is well known in Swainshead.’ Gristhorpe turned up his nose and leaned forward to grind out Hatchley’s cigarette butt, which still smouldered in the ashtray. ‘We keep an eye on them,’ he repeated. ‘And we watch very carefully for one of them to make a slip or try and make a run for it. All right, Sergeant. You don’t have to break the bloody glass on the table. I know it’s my round. Same again?’
Somewhere, with maddening metronomic regularity, a bell was ringing. Banks rubbed his eyes and saw the seat-belt sign was lit up. The no smoking sign was still out, so he lit a cigarette immediately to clear his head. Looking out of the window, he saw a vast urban area below. It was too far down to distinguish details, but he could make out the grid system of roads and fancied he could see cars flash in the sun.
The attendant said something over the PA system about a final descent, and passengers were then asked to extinguish their cigarettes. Banks’s ears felt funny. He swallowed and yawned to clear them, and the noise of the plane roared in again. All the way down he had to keep repeating the process every few seconds.
The plane banked to the left and now individual buildings and moving vehicles stood out quite clearly. After a long turn, a great expanse of water came into sight on the right and a cluster of tall buildings appeared on the waterside. The plane was dropping quickly now, and within moments it touched the runway smoothly. The loud retro-jets kicked in. They felt like ropes tied to the back of the plane, dragging it to a halt. Several nervous passengers applauded.
After some delay, the doors slid open and the slow line of people left the aircraft, running a gauntlet of fixed smiles from the attendants. Banks negotiated the stairs and corridors, then found himself in a long queue at Immigration. After that, there was another wait until the baggage came round on the carousel. Clutching his small suitcase, duty-free Scotch and cigarettes, he walked past the customs officers, who paid him no attention, and out into the throng of people waiting to welcome friends and relatives. As Gristhorpe suggested, he stood to one side and looked lost. It was easy.
Soon he noticed an Adam’s apple the size of a tennis ball stuck in a long skinny neck below a head covered with long brown hair making its way through the crowd. As the head also wore a pair of ridiculously old-fashioned granny glasses, Banks risked a wave of recognition.