‘I was thinking of putting her on desk duties for a while, until she gets her sea legs back again. What do you think?’
‘For what it’s worth, I think Annie should be given a chance to dive right in. It will do her confidence no end of good to start working on a real case again. Even the doctor says her main hurdles now are psychological. She’s been through a lot. First she gets shot, then she thinks she’s never going to walk again, then she suffers from chronic post-op pain.’
‘I’m simply pointing out that there are a lot of reasons why DI Cabbot, when she comes back next Monday, should keep a low profile on light duties for a little while and catch her breath before attempting to dash off and solve murders.’
‘She can be useful. We need her. Annie’s bright, she’s—’
‘I know all about DI Cabbot’s qualities as a detective, thank you very much.’ Gervaise ran a hand across her brow. ‘Let me think on it,’ she said. ‘I know you need more officers on the case. I’ll have a word with ACC McLaughlin when I talk to him about the personnel issue. I’ll see what he says about DI Cabbot’s future here. It’s the best I can do.’
Banks held her steady gaze. ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Thanks.’
‘Anything else you’d like, while you’re at it?’
‘Well, a twenty per cent pay raise would be nice. And a bigger office.’
‘Out!’ Gervaise picked up a heavy paperweight and threatened to toss it at Banks. ‘Out, before I throw you out.’
Smiling to himself, Banks left the office.
Banks munched on his Greggs sausage roll as he guided the Porsche towards the A1, the fourth movement of Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ symphony playing loudly on the powerful stereo system. It helped that this was a vocal movement. He had always liked Mahler’s lieder, and he had only recently been getting to like the symphonies a lot, having spurned them as boring and bombastic in the past. Was this something that happened when you got older? Failing eyesight, mysterious aches and pains, enjoying Mahler? Would Wagner be next?
The last time Banks had been to Leeds, he remembered, it was to help his daughter Tracy move a few months ago. She had shared a house in Headingley with two other girls, but it hadn’t worked out. Tracy had suffered a number of traumatic events around the time Annie had been shot, and after a brief period of depression and withdrawal, she had decided to change her life.
That first meant moving from Leeds to Newcastle, which was a little further from Eastvale, but not so much as to make a big difference. It also meant leaving a dead-end job and getting back on to a career track again. She had got a part-time administrative position at the university and enrolled in the master’s programme in History, with a view to moving into teaching once she felt a bit more secure in her qualifications.
It was also time to live alone, too, she had told Banks, so she had rented a tiny bedsit close to the converted riverside area, and both Banks and his ex-wife Sandra were helping her with the rent until she got on her feet. Her brother Brian, whose band The Blue Lamps seemed to be going from strength to strength, had also been most generous. In an odd way, Banks thought, they were starting to act like a family again, though he knew that the gap between him and Sandra was unbridgeable. He had visited Tracy once already in Newcastle and had taken her across the river to The Sage to see The Unthanks in concert, then for a drink after. They had had a good time, and he was looking forward to doing it again.
The A1 was a nightmare. Mile after mile of roadworks, down to one lane each way from Leeming to Wetherby, and a 50mph limit, which everyone obeyed because the cameras averaged out your speed over the whole distance. As a result, it took well over an hour and a half before Banks approached the eastern outskirts of Leeds. The Porsche didn’t like it at all; it had never been happy at 50mph. He had been thinking of selling the car ever since he had inherited it from his brother, but for one reason or another he had never got around to it. Now it was getting a bit shabby and starting to feel comfortable, like a favourite old jacket, jeans or a pair of gloves, and the sound system was a corker, so he reckoned he would probably keep it until it bit the dust.
Millgarth was an ugly, redbrick fortress-style building at the bottom of Eastgate in Leeds city centre. DI Ken Blackstone wanted to hang around his tiny, cluttered office no more than Banks did, so they headed out into the spring sunshine, walked up the Headrow as far as Primark, then turned left down Briggate, a pedestrian precinct crowded with shoppers. There used to be a Borders near the intersection, Banks remembered fondly, but it was gone now, and he lamented its passing. There was a Pizza Hut in its place.
Blackstone was a snappy dresser, and today he wore a light wool suit, button-down Oxford shirt and a rather flamboyant tie. With the tufts of hair over his ears, and his wire-rimmed glasses, Blackstone had always reminded Banks more of an academic than a copper. In fact, the older he got, the more he came to resemble some of the photos Banks had seen of the poet Philip Larkin.
Banks and Blackstone decided against the posh Harvey Nichols cafe in the Victoria Quarter and plumped for Whitelocks, an eighteenth-century pub in an alley off Briggate, near Marks & Spencer. The alley was narrow and high, with the pub stretching down one side, much longer than it was deep, and a row of benches down the other side, against the wall, with a few tables and stools where space permitted. Not much light got in at any time of the day, but it was always a popular spot with the city centre workers and the student crowd. It was lunchtime, so they were lucky to get space on the bench next to a group of office girls discussing a wedding one of them had just attended in Cyprus.
‘You hang on to the seats, Alan,’ said Blackstone. ‘I’ll get us a couple of pints in and something to eat.’
‘Make mine a shandy,’ said Banks. ‘I’ve got to drive. And steak and kidney pie and chips.’
He reached for his wallet, but Blackstone brushed the gesture aside and headed into the pub. He had to stoop to get through the old, low door. People were much shorter in the eighteenth century. Banks remembered that the food was served canteen-style behind an area of the counter beside the bar, so when Blackstone came back he carried the drinks first, then went back for the plates of steaming pie and chips.
‘And Josie got so drunk we had to take her to hospital,’ one of the office girls said. ‘She nearly died of alcohol poisoning.’ The others laughed.
‘It’s terrible news,’ said Blackstone, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘First Sonia, then Bill. I can hardly bloody believe it. Not only one of us, but Bill.’
‘Sonia was his wife, right?’
‘Twenty-five years. I was at their silver wedding anniversary do last December.’
‘How old was Bill, exactly?’
‘Just turned forty-nine.’
‘How did he take her death?’
‘How do you think? He was devoted to her. He was devastated, naturally. This neck business that got him into St Peter’s was a bit of an excuse, if you ask me. Not that he hadn’t been having problems on and off for years. But I’d have said he was on the verge of a breakdown. Depressed, too. Couldn’t sleep.’
‘Winsome said it was a massive stroke.’
‘Sonia was always a bit frail. Heart problems. I think that was why Bill was especially protective of her. Some people said he was too much under her thumb, but it wasn’t really like that. He adored her. It was sudden, a stroke, yes.’
They both paused for a moment. Banks didn’t know about Ken, but he often felt a brief stab of worry about his own mortality these days. He contemplated his steak and kidney pie. He’d already eaten a sausage roll for breakfast. Not one vegetable all day, unless you counted the chips. Hardly the healthy diet he’d been promising himself since his last visit to the doctor. Still, he had stopped smoking years ago, had cut down on his drinking a bit recently, and he hardly ever put on any weight. Surely that had to be a good thing?