Banks observed the other people at the table: a small slim youth with an earring and a diamond stud in his left ear; a taller thin-faced man with a crewcut and glasses; a soft-spoken man with a hint of an Irish accent. They were all listening to a Welshman telling jokes.
Jack sat down again and ordered another pint of Black Label. The waitress, a nicely tanned blonde with a beautiful smile, took Banks’ order for another Creemore too, and delivered both drinks in no time. Banks paid, leaving her a good tip — one thing he’d soon learned to do on his pub crawl of Toronto.
‘Did you know any of Bernie’s friends?’ he asked.
Jack shook his head. ‘Self-important Brits, for the most part. They tend to pontificate a bit too much for my liking. But Bernie seemed to have transcended the parochial barriers of most English teachers.’
Marilyn Rosenberg, at Toronto Community College, had said much the same thing in a different way. Whether it was a plus or a minus in her eyes, Banks hadn’t been sure.
‘When do they usually come in?’
‘About five, most days.’
Banks looked at his watch; it was just after four.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said. ‘By the way, six across is sculls. “Rows — of heads, we hear!” Head… skull. To row… to scull.’ Jack raised his eyebrows and filled in the answer.
They worked at the crossword together for the next hour as the place filled up. At quarter past five, they were puzzling over ‘Take away notoriety and attack someone (6)’ when two men in white shirts and business suits walked in.
‘That’s them over there,’ Jack said. ‘Excuse me if I don’t join you.’
Banks smiled. ‘Thanks for your help, anyway.’
‘Nice meeting you,’ Jack said, and they shook hands. ‘Defame. Of course!’ he exclaimed just before Banks moved away. ‘“Take away notoriety and attack someone.” Defame. Amazing how you get so much more done when there are two minds working at it.’
Banks agreed. It was the same with police work. He could certainly have done with some help on this trip. Not Sergeant Hatchley — he hadn’t the self-control to separate work from a pub crawl — but DC Richmond would have been fine.
When he got to their table, the two men had already taken the opportunity to loosen their ties, take off their suit jackets and roll up their sleeves. One was tall and skinny with a bony face and fine blond hair plastered flat against his skull to cover the receding hairline; the other, who only came up to his friend’s shoulders, was pudgy and also balding. What little hair he had stood out like a kind of mist or halo around his head. He wore a fixed smile on his lips, and his dark eyes darted everywhere.
Banks walked over to them and told them why he was in Toronto.
‘I’m Ian Grainger,’ said the tall blond one. ‘Sit down.’
‘Barry Clark,’ the other said, still smiling and looking everywhere but at Banks.
‘Glen should be along in a while,’ Ian said. ‘How can we help you?’
‘I’m not sure if you can. I’m looking for Anne Ralston.’
For a moment, both men frowned and looked puzzled.
‘You might know her as Julie.’
‘Oh, Julie. Yes, of course,’ Barry said. ‘You lost me there for a second. Sure we know Julie. But what could she have to do with Bernie’s murder?’ His accent was English, as was Ian’s, but Banks couldn’t place either of them exactly.
‘I don’t honestly know if she had anything to do with it,’ Banks said, ‘but she’s the only real lead we’ve got.’ He explained about her disappearance just after the Addison murder.
The drinks arrived just before Glen Tadworth, a dark-bearded, well padded young man with a pronounced academic stoop and a well developed beer belly, walked over to join them. His red shirt seemed glued to his skin, and there were wet patches under the arms and across the chest. He carried a battered black briefcase stuffed with papers, which he plonked on the floor as he sat down and sighed.
‘Bloody students,’ he said, running his hand through his greasy black hair. ‘“Dover Beach” — a simple enough poem, you’d say, wouldn’t you?’ He looked at Banks as he talked, even though they hadn’t been introduced. ‘One bright spark came up with the theory that it was about Matthew Arnold’s hangover. Quite elaborate, it was too. The “grating roar” was the poet being sick. And as for the “long line of spray”… Well, I suppose one should be grateful for their inventiveness, but really…’ He threw his hands up, then reached over and took a long swig from Ian’s pint.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Barry said, managing to keep his eyes on Banks for a split second as he spoke. ‘He’s always like this. Always complaining.’ And he introduced them.
‘From Swainsdale, eh?’ Glen said. ‘A breath of fresh air from the old country. Lord, what I’d give to be able to live back there again. Not Swainsdale in particular, though it’d do. I’m from the West Country myself — Exeter. The accent’s flattened out a bit over the years here, I’m afraid.’
‘Why can’t you go back if you want to?’ Banks asked, reaching for another cigarette. ‘Surely you weren’t sent into permanent exile?’
‘Metaphorically, my dear Chief Inspector, metaphorically. You know, some people have got hold of the idea that we expatriates, scattered around the ex-colonies and various watering holes of Europe and Asia, are all pipe-puffing Tories enjoying life without income tax.’
‘And aren’t you?’
‘Far from it. Where is that waitress? Ah, Stella, my dear, a pint of Smithwick’s please. Where was I? Exile. Yes. If the government really did seek our proxy votes in the next election, I think they’d bloody well regret it. Most of us feel like exiles. We have skills that no one back home seems to value any more. It’s hard enough getting jobs here, but at least it’s possible. And they pay well. But I, for one, would be perfectly happy to do the same work back home for less money. There’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about going back.’
‘What about Bernie?’
‘He was as bad as Glen, if not worse,’ Barry said. ‘At least recently he was. Full of nostalgia. It’s time-travel they’re after really, you know, not just a flight across the Atlantic. All of us baby boomers are nostalgic when it comes down to it. That’s why we prefer the Beatles to Duran Duran.’
Banks also liked the Beatles better than Duran Duran, a group that his son, Brian, had inflicted on him once or twice before moving on to something new. He thought it was because of the quality of the music, but maybe Barry Clark was right and it was more a matter of nostalgia than anything else. His own father had been just the same, he remembered, going on about Glenn Miller, Nat Gonella and Harry Roy when Banks had wanted to listen to Elvis Presley, The Shadows and Billy Fury.
‘The longer you’re away, the more you idealize the image of home,’ Barry went on, eyes roving the room. The place was packed and noisy now. People stood three deep at the bar. Jack, Banks noticed, had been joined by a small pretty woman with short dark hair laid flat against her skull. The Lancastrian and his friends had left. ‘Of course, what people don’t realize is that the country’s changed beyond all recognition,’ Barry continued. ‘We’d be foreigners there now, but to us home is still the Queen’s Christmas message, the last night of the Proms, Derby Day, a Test Match at Lords, the FA Cup Final — without bloodshed! — leafy lanes, a green and pleasant land. Ordered and changeless. Bloody hell, even the dark Satanic mills have some sort of olde worlde charm for homesick expatriates.’
‘Damn right,’ Glen said. ‘I’d work in a bloody woollen mill in Bingley if it meant being back home. Well, maybe… It’s the wistfulness of the exile, you see, Chief Inspector. You get it a lot in poetry. Especially the Irish.’