‘Whatever. But no.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I saw the phone, too. It wasn’t anything like his. He’s always got the latest most expensive iPhone or Samsung or whatever, but this was one of those really old types, like just a phone. Probably didn’t even get email.’
‘Do you know what kind it was?’
‘Nah. Just that it wasn’t his.’
‘Who was ringing?’
‘I don’t know. He went away to have his conversation. Excused himself. Seemed a bit embarrassed.’
‘Why would he be like that?’
‘It was a woman.’
‘How do you know.’
‘I heard her voice. At first, when she said his name. Just over the line. I could tell it was a woman’s voice even though I couldn’t hear what she said.’
‘You didn’t catch her name?’
Annie heard a buzzing in the background. ‘No. Sorry. Look, gotta go, sweetie. Someone’s at the door. Party time! Catch you later.’
And the line went dead.
Banks’s head was still spinning when he got home that evening, and he was keen to forget the whole wretched business for the rest of the night. Over the years, he had found that it often helped to stand back and clear his mind, let the unconscious do its work. It sounded like gobbledygook, and he had never awoken the following morning with the solution glaringly obvious to him, but there did come a point when overthinking only complicated the issues.
His recipe for escape was much the same as his recipe for mulling over a puzzle. Music and wine. Sometimes a movie or television and wine worked better if he wanted to let his mind roam freely over a tough problem. There was something about watching TV that numbed a part of the brain and let the thinking bit do its work almost unhindered by having to pay attention. Of course, Banks wasn’t thinking about Bergman or Kurosawa here, not even David Lean, but something more like a mindless action film — Bond or Bourne — or a silly comedy — old Norman Wisdom or a Carry On. But it was escape from thought he wanted tonight, not working on a problem, so it would have to be wine and music.
The wine was easy. All he had left on his rack was a bottle of Languedoc he’d bought on sale at M&S the previous week. He opened it, poured a generous glass, and went into the conservatory. Music was a little more difficult than wine, and in the end he chose one of his favourite oldies: Debussy’s Orchestral Music by Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw. He turned up the volume, then settled back and let ‘Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune’ work its magic.
It did. Soon he was drifting far away from Adrienne Munro, Sarah Chen, Laurence Hadfield and Anthony Randall, passing through thoughts and images of Emily Hargreaves, his parents, his ex-wife Sandra, his son away touring in America, Tracy, pursuing her academic career in Newcastle, and of all the choices and accidents that had brought him here, to this place at this time. Alone.
He had nothing to complain about; he knew that. He had chosen his path, and on the whole it had worked out well for him. He was good at his job, had been a reasonably good, though too frequently absent, father, a not-so-good husband, and hopeless at sustaining, or even igniting, relationships since his marriage had fallen apart. But that was just life, wasn’t it? If Sandra hadn’t left him, he would never have been romantically involved with Annie, Sophia or Oriana. And no matter how much grief those relationships had caused him in the end, he wouldn’t have done without any of them.
On the other hand, if he had remained with Emily in London, if she hadn’t chucked him, perhaps she would have persuaded him to forego the police for some other path, and who knew where that would have led him? But then neither Brian nor Tracy would have been born, and that didn’t bear thinking about. Even if it wasn’t all for the best in the best of all possible worlds, it would have to do, and there was no point indulging in these speculative pasts and futures. He didn’t feel sad, just lonely sometimes. But it was true that much of the time he enjoyed being alone. Like now.
He thought of Ray and Zelda and their new lease of life. Old Ray couldn’t believe his luck. Even that old goat Picasso hadn’t done as well as he had in the female department. And after everything Zelda had been through, to be loved so much and to have the freedom to live a creative and fulfilling life had to be good for her. Banks wondered if she wanted children. That would be a bit of a problem with the prospective father being already over seventy. But who could say? Ray might live to be ninety or a hundred and see his children grow up.
Banks refilled his wine glass and put on a recent disc called Voyages, various settings of Baudelaire’s poems by such composers as Debussy, Duparc and Fauré, sung beautifully by Mary Bevan. Banks had talked with Linda Palmer about Baudelaire at one of their sessions, and he had bought Anthony Mortimer’s dual-text translation so he could follow along with the words. His school French wasn’t good enough, and besides, no matter how clearly the singer enunciated, it was hard to translate from simply hearing the poems sung in French.
He had set his mobile down on the table beside him, just in case anything came up, and no sooner had ‘L’invitation au voyage’ begun than it rang. Curious, he picked it up and felt his chest tighten when he saw the picture of Phil Keane downloading. It was him, no doubt about it, accompanied by a simple message:
‘Best I could do. For now.
XX
Z’
Keane’s hair was a little longer and refreshed by applications of Grecian Formula, by the looks of it. But it was him, all right, and it seemed very much as if he was standing on the embankment somewhere near Tower Bridge talking to someone out of the picture.
As Banks studied Keane’s familiar face, he thought again of that near fatal evening in his cottage, at least what he could remember of it. The taste of the whisky — which had put him off Laphroaig for years — the sudden drowsiness, the distant smell of smoke, crackling sounds, then voices, cool air, darkness. And as he looked again at the face of the man who had caused all that, he felt a desire for revenge burn inside him. If he did find Keane, if this picture led him to the man, then he didn’t know whether he could trust himself not to cross the line.
He texted a thank you back to Zelda, refilled his glass and listened to Mary Bevan sing ‘Chant d’Automne’.
13
The following afternoon, a mizzling Thursday, Banks sat in his office reading through witness statements, HOLMES printouts, interviews and forensic reports, trying once again to make sense of recent events. There had been plenty of activity, it seemed, but very little progress.
The one interesting titbit that HOLMES had thrown up was that the amounts of the cash deposits into Adrienne Munro’s bank account matched withdrawals from one of Laurence Hadfield’s chequing accounts. It was another confirmation that the two were linked, and that Hadfield was probably paying for the pleasure of Adrienne’s company. It was sad, he felt, that she had been brought so low. Everyone said she was a shy, bright, hard-working young woman with a desire to eradicate poverty and make the world a better place. It was easy to be cynical about the naivety of the young, but without it nothing would ever change very much. And there she was, cavorting with an old man like Laurence Hadfield. Banks thought of Zelda, who had no choice in the men who had used her and abused her.
Banks got up, stretched and looked out through his rain-spattered window down on the cobbled market square. The festive lights were on in the square, the market cross lit up. It reminded him he would have to do his Christmas shopping soon. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do over the holiday period this year, but spending Christmas alone at Newhope Cottage with a plentiful supply of food and wine, didn’t seem like a bad option. Unless Tracy or Brian turned up, which would be even better.