‘And you call jeans, sunglasses and red wellies suitable attire for detective sergeant?’ Banks countered.
‘It was muddy,’ Annie said. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘we almost had a fight on the bridge, like Robin Hood and Little John.’
‘I know that story,’ said Zelda, laughing.
‘And you?’ Banks asked.
Zelda beamed at Ray. ‘You tell it, my love. Your English is so much better than mine.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re one of the most articulate people I know. Nevertheless...’ Ray swigged some burgundy and smacked his lips. ‘It was a John and Yoko moment,’ he said. ‘You might not know this, but the lovely Zelda here was a pavement artist in London when we met. An excellent pavement artist,’ he added. ‘What she couldn’t do with a piece of coloured chalk... Though I must say she dressed far more like a tomboy than she does today. Her hair was short and shaggy, she wore a man’s shirt and baggy jeans. Red wellies would have been a real treat.’
Banks imagined it was a sort of protective colouration, the way some women wear wedding rings at work so their colleagues don’t make assumptions that they are available.
‘Anyway,’ Ray went on, ‘she was doing the Annunciation. You know it? The da Vinci?’
Banks and Annie nodded.
‘Well, something about the way the Angel Gabriel’s robe fell just didn’t seem right to me, so I took a piece of cloth, bent over, rubbed it out and put in my own correction.’
‘I’d have belted you one,’ said Annie.
Zelda seemed surprised. ‘Then I suppose you are not made for John and Yoko moments, Annie. More Robin Hood and Little John for you?’
‘What did you do?’ Banks asked Zelda. He had noticed Annie’s expression darken and wanted to deflect the conversation.
‘Do? I didn’t do anything. I just stood there with my mouth open. I was too angry to do anything.’
Ray looked at her. ‘Angry? But you said—’
Zelda smiled. ‘That was later. My anger passed. Very quickly. I saw, of course, that you were a genius and that you knew exactly the way to depict the creases of robes in chalk, and I fell immediately madly deeply and truly in love with you right there and then, on the spot. Is that right? Will that do?’
‘It’ll do,’ said Ray. Banks could have sworn he was blushing. ‘Everybody finished?’
They had. Banks noticed how clean Zelda’s plate was; not a scrap of food nor a blob of sauce remained to smear its pristine surface. It was as if it hadn’t been used at all. Ray collected all the plates and put them in the dishwasher, then he disappeared into the living room and turned the record over. Banks heard the strains of ‘Season of the Witch’.
Zelda lit a cigarette. Banks felt the craving, after all those years, ripple through him, but it passed quickly. Ray brought out a runny French Brie, a well-aged Colton Basset Stilton and a nutty Manchego and served them with water crackers, grapes, figs and dried apricots. He poured more wine, claret this time. ‘Sainsbury’s best, don’t you know,’ he said in a posh accent, winking at Banks. ‘And maybe we’ll have a drop of port, too, later. Us gentlemen, that is. Send the ladies to the drawing room to practise their accomplishments, what ho? I’ve got a couple of nice Cubans hidden away for a special occasion. Cigars, that is.’
Annie elbowed him. ‘Behave.’
Ray just laughed and moved to pour her some more wine.
Annie put her hand over the top of her glass before he could manage it.
They settled back to enjoy the cheese and wine, then Ray cleared his throat and said, ‘There’s something we’ve been meaning to bring up with you two. We just haven’t been quite sure how or when to do it, what with one thing and another. It was a matter of waiting for the right time. And Zelda said we shouldn’t get your hopes up too much.’
Banks and Annie exchanged glances and both spoke at once, ‘Yes?’
Ray turned to Annie. ‘Do you remember that time when you visited me in Cornwall, and you asked me if I knew anything about a man who had taken advantage of you?’ he asked. Then he turned to Banks. ‘And set fire to your cottage, Alan, almost killing you? An art forger. You gave me a photograph of him taken in a pub somewhere. You thought I might have come across him somewhere in the art world.’
Banks felt his skin crawl at the memory. He remembered the one photograph they had, which Annie had snapped with her mobile during their early days.
‘I remember,’ Annie said.
‘Phil Keane,’ said Banks. ‘Not a forger, exactly. He was the one who got into the archives and forged the provenances for the fake paintings.’
‘Yes.’
‘But that was years ago. We’ve had a few trusted colleagues on the Met and various other forces keeping their eyes and ears open, but so far, not a sausage. Phil Keane is long gone. The last sighting we had was in America, Philadelphia, but the follow-up drew a blank. Why mention him now?’
‘Raymond described this man to me when we were talking about remembering faces one evening last week,’ said Zelda. ‘Then he showed me the photograph Annie gave him. I recognised him.’
‘You... what?’ Banks couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘I recognised the man. But not from the art world.’
‘Where had you see him before?’
‘His photograph was in a file I saw at work. They wanted to know if I had ever seen him before. If I knew who he was.’
‘Had you? Did you?’
‘No.’
‘What sort of work is it you do?’ Banks asked.
Zelda glanced at Ray, who gave her a brief nod. She lit another cigarette before continuing. ‘I can’t tell you very much, but I work part of the time for an international organisation that tracks and prosecutes sex-traffickers.’
‘Phil Keane is involved in sex-trafficking?’
Zelda held Banks’s gaze and nodded. ‘I think he must be. They didn’t tell me his name. They just showed me the photograph. But after what Raymond has told me, and what you have just said, your Phil Keane must be a documents man. He knows how to get access to archives, to change the past, and he knows how to find new identities, how to get the correct certificates and fake papers. That is all I know about him. He must be someone who provides documents and false backgrounds for some of the people I encounter in my work.’
‘Who are these people?’
‘The people we monitor and hunt — the bosses, couriers, fixers, runners, even the girls — they sometimes need believable new histories and convincing papers, “legends”, as the spy writers call them, or provenance, as it is in the art world. Also, because the people who commit these crimes belong to criminal gangs, they often operate in more than one area of criminal enterprise. Documents have become an important part of their existence and survival. As I understand it, your man’s skill is definitely transferrable.’
‘When did they show you this photograph?’
‘Two weeks ago. Maybe three.’
‘Could you tell where it was taken?’
‘It was in London. On the embankment. I recognised a fragment of Tower Bridge in the background. He was with another man. A man I did recognise. He was a very bad person. A big man in one of the trafficking gangs. Evil. He likes to hurt the girls, you know what I mean?’
‘Do you know where Keane is now?’
‘No. I am sorry. I never did know. I’ve never met him, only seen the photograph, but I am sure it is him. I’m sorry I... that was what we meant about not wanting to get your hopes up. It is just a little thing. Raymond said I should tell you. I did not want to disappoint you.’
‘You haven’t seen or heard of him since you saw the photograph?’
‘No. Only that once, in the file my supervisor showed me, someone they wanted me to identify. I had never seen him before, but I remembered the photograph when Raymond showed me the one you gave him. It is him. I do not forget faces. Not even when the hair is changed. And the people he works for are not the kind to let anyone like him walk away. As long as he behaves himself, he will be too valuable for them to kill him. If what you say is right, he has a rare talent. These people move around very much and recruit new people. Many are wanted by the police and need new identities. It is all the more important now with Brexit. The borders will change, became more difficult. It will be harder to move the girls around.’