‘Mine’s a pint of lager, Banksy,’ said Burgess in the Queen’s Arms a week later.
‘As if I’d forget,’ muttered Banks, heading to the bar to buy the round of drinks. It was the ‘official’ celebration, mainly because the CPS had reviewed the evidence and agreed that there were strong cases against Beddoes, Tanner, Utley, Atherton and Havers. Vic Manson had also managed to get some prints from Spencer’s removal van, and they matched Carl Utley’s. Caleb Ross’s tox screen had come back clean. Banks didn’t think Ross knew it was human remains he was collecting. Atherton, who supplied him with marijuana, probably told him it was the carcass of a sheep or a pig he’d slaughtered and didn’t want to go through official channels.
Cyril was playing his oldies playlist in the background, Amen Corner belting out ‘If Paradise Is Half As Nice’. The whole team was there: Annie, Winsome, Gerry, Doug, Burgess up from London, Stefan Nowak, Vic Manson, even Terry Gilchrist, under special dispensation from AC Gervaise, who had bought the first round. She was looking a bit put out, Banks thought, perhaps because Patricia Beddoes had screamed blue murder at her when her husband was charged, accusing her of being a false friend. Patricia also swore blind she had no idea what John was up to, that he had just, on the spur of the moment, suggested they take another holiday, and she didn’t see why not. That rankled with Gervaise, too. It was patently untrue, but they couldn’t prove her guilt, and none of those who had talked had ever mentioned her name.
The only problem was that Atherton wouldn’t be able to stand trial. His frozen body had been found in the caverns the day after Winsome’s ordeal, when the search parties went in. He had taken the left passage and managed to get himself stuck where the ceiling reached its lowest point. He must have thought he could wriggle under it, because he appeared to have got his head and shoulders through and pushed on, then got stuck around his midriff. In trying to shake his body free, he had managed to wedge himself firmly between the rock bed and the overhang. The doctor who examined the body, once the rescuers had managed to chip away enough rock from above to pull him out, said that he had clearly panicked, as his body was covered in bruises and abrasions, and his back was broken. Nobody could have saved him. He was probably dead by the time Banks and the others arrived on the scene to rescue Winsome.
It was a horrible way to go, Banks thought with a shudder, but so was Morgan Spencer’s death and its aftermath. He couldn’t dredge up a great deal of sympathy for a killer who liked to stub out cigarettes in a pig’s eye. Looking on the bright side, Atherton’s death saved them the expense of making a case against him and keeping him in prison for the rest of his life.
Annie appeared at Banks’s side to help him carry the drinks back as Bobby Vee came on singing ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’.
Back at the table, Burgess was chatting up AC Gervaise, so that ought to take her mind off Patricia Beddoes for a while, Banks thought. The thing about Burgess, Banks knew from experience, was that however crude and blokeish he was with the lads, he was still a handsome devil in his way, and he had the sort of manly charm that many women found attractive. Not exactly a bit of rough – he was too sophisticated for that – but world-weary with a hint of danger and a definite dash of the bad boy.
Banks and Annie handed out the drinks and sat down again. As Banks sipped his pint, he started to feel himself drifting away from the crowd; the voices became distant, blending into one another, just meaningless sounds. It happened often these days. Even Bobby Vee sounded faraway and distorted, fading in and out.
He thought about Oriana. He had phoned her the other night in Sydney, after working out what he thought would be a good time. She hadn’t sounded exactly over the moon to hear from him, had seemed distracted, as if she had somewhere to go, something else on her mind, things to do. She was busy, she said, and still tired from the jet lag. He understood that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she had resented his intrusion into her other life, and in the end he had hung up feeling much worse than when he had dialled the number.
‘Penny for them,’ Annie whispered in his ear.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, snapping back to the giddy world of the group celebration. ‘Just life, you know.’
‘Life, the universe, and everything?’
‘Something like that. You doing OK?’
Annie smiled and clinked glasses. ‘I’m doing OK.’
Burgess had just finished telling a funny story, and everyone was laughing. At that moment Joanna MacDonald walked in and flashed him a quick smile. She’d been invited, but Banks had assumed she wasn’t coming. But there she was, looking lovely as ever with her blonde hair loose, a powder-blue tailored jacket over a crisp white top, and a skirt that ended just above her knees. Everyone moved over and made room for her. Banks asked her what she wanted to drink and she said a gin and tonic. Off he went to the bar again.
As he waited to be served, he looked back at the table, at his team, deservedly wallowing in the feeling of a job well done. Bobby Vee gave way to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Man of the World’. Winsome looked hale and hearty despite her terrifying experience of the previous week. She leaned in close towards Terry Gilchrist, smiling at something he was saying. Banks was pleased for her. It was about time she found someone who recognised her rare and precious qualities, and Gilchrist seemed like a decent, solid bloke. Why Banks felt so protective, he had no idea. Annie, too, deserved someone, but that might take a bit more time, he thought. She was prickly to start with, and there was still some residue left over from the shooting, however well she was doing. He cared about them all, he realised. Sometimes it was a feeling of heart-swelling pride; other times it was a burden. Tonight it was a joy to share their joy, even though he felt distant and more than a little melancholic.
Burgess switched his attentions from AC Gervaise to Joanna MacDonald, turning up the charm a notch. Banks could see Joanna responding, smiling a little flirtatiously, then laughing easily at his jokes. Their shoulders were touching, and it didn’t seem to bother her. Now she was looking serious and nodding, engaged in something Burgess was saying. As Banks walked back to the table with the gin and tonic and a double Laphroaig for himself, he experienced something that, if he were to be honest with himself, felt very much like jealousy. He sat down and shrugged it off, then picked up the whisky and knocked it back in one.
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank Sheila Halladay for reading the manuscript when I thought it was finished and pointing out that there was still work to be done.
At Hodder, my thanks go to Carolyn Mays for such a terrific job on the editing, especially given the time constraints. Also thanks to Katy Rouse for all her assistance and to Justine Taylor for clear and clean copy-editing. At McClelland & Stewart, I would like to thank Ellen Seligman and Kendra Ward for their editing, and at Morrow, Carolyn Marino and Emily Krump.
Thanks to my agents Dominick Abel and David Grossman for their continuing support. Also thanks to the publicists —Kerry Hood at Hodder, Ashley Dunn at McClelland & Stewart and Laurie Connors at Morrow. Thanks are also due to Debby de Groot in Toronto and Jane Acton at Four Colman Getty, London.
A special thank you to Nicholas Reckert for the interesting walks that somehow always seem to suggest a possible crime scene.
Last but not least, thanks to the sales teams who make the deals and set up the special promotions, to the reps who get out on the road and sell the book to the shops, and to the booksellers themselves, without whom you wouldn’t be holding this volume in your hand. And thanks, of course, to you, the reader.