Down the Headrow towards Westgate, Banks could see past the art gallery, set back behind its paved forecourt, to the great columns, lions and dome of the Victorian town hall, where the clock said it was twenty to six. Still ten minutes to wait. Annie had told him about the frustrating interview with Lisa Gray, and her sense that there had to be more to the story, but he still felt more focused on Lady Veronica Chalmers and her interesting past in the warm afterglow of his lunch with Oriana. In turn, he told Annie about his interview with Kyle McClusky, and how it had confirmed that the charges against Miller were a sham.
Gerry Masterson had gone to Stockton to talk to someone who remembered Veronica Bellamy from the old University of Essex days, so she might be able to pick up a connection with Gavin Miller. The Gray girl certainly hadn’t killed him, thought Banks. Neither had Veronica Chalmers. The connections still felt just beyond his grasp, like the networks of veins and arteries in the human body that needed special dyes to bring their problems to light. He felt the need for more information, for a special dye. Each new fact changed the whole pattern, and he knew from experience that, somewhere out there, was one as yet unforeseen change that would finally make it all make sense.
He ended the call with Annie and decided to go and wait for Ken inside the brasserie. The place was already bustling, but it was large enough, and he got a table by the Cookridge Street side, from where he could see the same scene through the window that he had just been watching from outside. He got menus and ordered a glass of Rioja. He would be driving back to Eastvale tonight, so that would have to be his only drink of the evening. Browns was a chain, but a relatively good one as these things went. Banks glanced over the menu. Whatever he ordered, it would be his second full meal of the day. Most days, all he got was a cup of coffee, a sandwich or a Greggs pasty and a warmed-up takeaway. This was living high off the hog by comparison.
DCI Ken Blackstone arrived five minutes late. He didn’t offer an apology, any more than Banks expected him to. A copper’s life was unpredictable, and being late was part of the burden. Only five minutes late was pretty damn good, actually. Ever the snappy dresser, under his raincoat Ken wore a light wool suit, shirt and tie. The shirt was crisp white linen, and the tie was rather flamboyant for Banks’s taste. Banks felt shabby, in contrast, in his old Marks & Spencer suit and open-neck shirt. He had worn a tie with it for lunch with Oriana but had taken it off as soon as he got in his car to set off for Armley Jail. 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 had known Ken Blackstone for years, and considered him perhaps his closest friend, as well as a trusted colleague and a police officer he respected. He had spent many a drunken night on Blackstone’s sofa after his split from Sandra, working his way through the massive collection of torch songs on vinyl — Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Blossom Dearie, Keely Smith, Thelma Grayson — usually waking up with a massive hangover and somebody or other singing ‘It’s De-Lovely’. It was a lost half year, more or less, but he had come through it in the end.
A while later, he had found Annie — or rather, she had come to work with him on a case that started near her home village of Harkside — and they had become lovers for a while, until work got in the way, and Annie felt that it was no longer appropriate to be sleeping with her boss. She was ambitious, but cautious, and he didn’t blame her, but he did miss their intimate times together. No matter how well they worked together, and how well they got along off duty, there was always a hint of awkwardness about their relationship after that. As people do, Banks and Blackstone had drifted apart a little over the years, and he hadn’t done any crying on his friend’s shoulder over his recent split with Sophia, had hardly told him anything about her. He also realised that he knew nothing of Blackstone’s love life since the divorce years ago. Still, it was good to have dinner with an old friend, do some catching up and cover a bit of work ground at the same time. He had always found Blackstone good to bounce ideas off; he could listen and help Banks articulate half-formed notions, bring them to light. He was the dye.
‘This is the life, eh, Alan?’ said Blackstone, sipping a gin and tonic. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we bother with the rest of it. We’ve both done our thirty, and more. Why don’t we just retire and keep bees or something?’
‘Because we’d get bored?’
‘Mm. Sometimes I think I could handle that,’ Blackstone said seriously, crossing his legs after pulling at the creases in his suit trousers. ‘Especially when I look in the eyes of another dead teenage junky, or a butchered prostitute, a seventy-year-old rape victim, another stab victim, or some unlucky passer-by caught in gang crossfire.’
‘The joys of city life. But seriously, Ken, what would you do? Wouldn’t you miss it all? Retirement terrifies me. I’m frightened I’d drop dead within a year.’
‘I’d find plenty to do. So would you. Maybe I’d get an allotment, for a start, take up growing marrows. Win prizes. You’ve got your music, books, travel, long country walks. Learn an instrument, a foreign language. Maybe you could work on your memoirs?’
‘About the only positive thing I can see in retirement is not having to write any more bloody reports,’ he said. ‘I’d never write another word as long as I live if I didn’t have to.’
‘Well, it’ll happen eventually, old mate. Bound to. I suppose if you think you’ll miss it so much, you could always get a job as a security guard.’
‘Sure. Lots of detection skills required for that.’
‘In a few years we’ll have no choice.’
The waiter came and took their orders. Banks went for the chicken, leek and mushroom pie, and Blackstone ordered the baked salmon, no sauce, and a salad.
‘Health kick?’ Banks asked.
‘Blood pressure and cholesterol.’
‘Take the statins. You can eat anything then. Except grapefruit.’
‘I’d rather stay off the pills. Doc says I can control it with exercise and diet.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Try not to sound so positive.’
‘Maybe I’ll go on a world cruise when they kick me out,’ Banks said. ‘Meet a rich widow. Just keep on sailing, round and round the world.’
‘There’s nobody in your affections right now?’
Banks immediately saw an image of Oriana in his mind, but he banished it at once. ‘Not at the moment. You?’
‘I’ve been seeing an admin assistant from the uni for a couple of months. We met online. I don’t know how serious it is.’
‘The kids must be all grown up now.’
‘I knew there was something I meant to tell you. Jackie’s pregnant. I’m going to be a grandfather. Can you believe it? Kevin’s still a waste of space. “Looking for his place in the world”, he calls it, but sponging off his dad and narrowly avoiding nick is about all it amounts to, really. But Jackie’s going great guns. Marriage, career, now kids.’