“I realize this is a bit of a cheeky question, “ Annie said, “and please don’t take it the wrong way, but didn’t it ever worry you, your husband being close to a gay man?”
“Why should it?”
“Well, some people... you know...”
“Perhaps if I didn’t feel secure with Derek it might have done,” she admitted.
“But... ?”
Carol reddened and turned away. “Well,” she said, “let’s just say I have no worries on that score.”
“I’m sorry for asking,” said Annie. “How is Derek doing now?”
“Oh, he’s all right. I mean, he’s still a bit upset about Mark, a bit quiet and moody. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? It’s not every day a good friend and colleague goes and hangs himself like that. I mean, someone you’ve had over to dinner and all.”
“How did they go? The dinners?”
“Fine. Except, when we had them over to our house, I overcooked the roast beef the way my mother always used to do.”
“Mine, too,” said Annie, with a smile, though she couldn’t really dredge up a memory of her mother roasting beef. “I meant the conversation. What did you talk about? What did Mark and Laurence talk about?”
“Oh, you know, after a couple of bottles of wine, the ice gets broken, it starts to flow. And Mr... Laurence told all sorts of stories.”
“About what, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t mind. I just don’t see why it matters. About faraway places. I haven’t traveled much—oh, we’ve been to the usual places—Majorca, Benidorm, Lanzarote, even Tunisia once, but he’d been everywhere. Russia. Iran. Iraq. Chile. Australia. New Zealand. South Africa. It must have been so exciting.”
“Yes,” said Annie. “I heard he was a well-traveled man. Did he mention Afghanistan at all?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. It came up when we were talking about... you know, Rick.”
“Of course. What did he say about it?”
“Just that he’d been there.”
“Did he say when?”
“No. I got the impression that he didn’t like it very much.”
“Dangerous place, I suppose,” said Annie. “Is everything else okay with your husband?”
“Yes, of course. Except I think this gang business is getting him down, too.”
“It must be,” said Annie. “I talked to him yesterday about a couple of his lads involved in that East Side Estate stabbing.”
“Did you? He didn’t say.”
Well, he wouldn’t, thought Annie. “It wasn’t important.”
“Anyway, like I said, you do it because you think you can make a difference, but sometimes...” She ran her finger around the rim of her cup. The nail was chipped and bitten, Annie noticed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe Rick was right. What a world to bring children into.”
“But yours are doing all right, aren’t they?”
Carol’s face brightened. “Oh, yes. They’re a handful, I can tell you that. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She glanced at her watch. “Ooh, is that the time? I really must be getting back now or Sue will be going ballistic.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Annie.
Tomasina was sitting behind her desk when Banks arrived. She had clearly been crying, as he had heard over the telephone, but she had stopped now. A box of tissues lay on the desk by her hand next to a large mug of milky tea. The mug was white and had little red hearts all over it.
On a cursory glance, the office looked the same as it had on his last visit, as did the reception area. Either Tomasina had already done a good job of tidying up, or her visitors had been very neat.
“I’m sorry for being such a blubberer on the phone,” she said. “I could have kicked myself when I hung up.”
“That’s all right,” said Banks. He sat opposite her.
“No, it isn’t. But you wouldn’t understand.”
She was full of contradictions, this one, Banks thought. A young beauty, tough as nails, vulnerable, but with another hard center inside the soft one. And he hadn’t spent more than half an hour with her, all told. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he said.
She drank some tea, holding the mug with both hands. Her hands were shaking. “They came just after I got here, about nine.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Four. Two of them searched through everything while the other two... well, they called it an interview.”
“Did they treat you roughly at all?”
“Not physically, no.”
“Did they say who they were?”
“They just said they were from the government.”
“Did they show any identification?”
“I didn’t get a good look. It was all too fast.”
“Names?”
She shook her head. “Maybe Carson or Carstairs, one of them. And the woman was Harmon or Harlan. I’m sorry. It was all so fast, like they didn’t want it to register. I should have been paying closer attention, but I was too stunned. They took me by surprise.”
“Don’t blame yourself. They’re well trained in that sort of thing. One of them was a woman?”
“Yes, one of the interrogators. It was interesting, really, because she played the bad cop.”
“What were they like, the two who questioned you?”
“Oh, very proper. Nicely dressed. Trendy. He was wearing a dark silk suit and a fifty-quid haircut. Handsome in a Hugh Grantish sort of way. She wasn’t exactly dressed by Primark, either. Early thirties, I’d guess. The sort of woman Agatha Christie would describe as healthy and blond. Both a bit posh-sounding.”
“What did they want to know?”
“Why you came to see me yesterday.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing.”
“You must have said something.”
She blushed. “Well, I said you were my boyfriend’s father, and you were in town on business, so you just dropped by to say hello. It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment.”
“Did they ask if you knew I was a policeman?”
“Yes. And I said that I did, but I didn’t hold it against you.”
“What did they say to that?”
“They didn’t believe me, so they asked all their questions again. Then they asked me my life story—where I was born, what schools I went to, university, boyfriends, girlfriends, where I used to work, how I got into the business and all that sort of stuff. Quite chatty, really. Then they got back to the nitty-gritty, and when I stuck to my story, blondie started threatening me with prosecution, and when I asked what for she said it didn’t matter and they could shut down my business as easy as swatting a fly. Is that true, by the way?”
“Yes. They can do anything they want. But they won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ve no reason to, and those things usually cause more trouble than they’re worth. Publicity. They’re like bats. They don’t like the daylight. They probably thought you’d make a fuss about it.”
“Damn right I would! What about my rights?”
“You don’t have any. Didn’t you know, the baddies have won?” “And just who are they?”
“Well, there’s a question. These people are ruthless and powerful, make no mistake about it, but their real weakness is their need for secrecy. You’re no threat to them. They won’t harm you. They just want to know what you were up to, why I visited you.”
“How did they know?”
“They must have followed me. That’s my fault. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to be careful, but it’s a crowded city.”
“Tell me about it. I know enough about that to know how difficult it can be to spot a tail, particularly a professional team.”