‘It was long enough,’ Zelda said. ‘I had a deprived childhood.’
Oops. Nervous humour. Big mistake. But he simply failed to react. ‘How long are you staying here this time?’
‘For ever, I hope,’ she answered, sounding as cheery and confident as possible. ‘I mean, I live here.’
He didn’t smile. He simply handed her passport back to her and said, ‘Have a nice day.’ She was going to inform him that there wasn’t much of it left, but again her common sense kicked in before she opened her mouth, and she remembered that it was more sensible not to engage an immigration officer in conversation. Just get out of there. Fortunately, she had no checked luggage, so she could head straight for the taxi rank.
Not much more than an hour and a half later, she was settling into a first-class seat on a train heading north. Finally, she was on her way, though she was too tense to read. She still felt unsettled by her experience at immigration. Why had that happened? Was her passport flagged? Had Danvers and Deborah spread the word? Would the immigration police soon be knocking on her door in the small hours? Or would it be someone else, someone far more dangerous, who didn’t even bother to knock?
She had got the passport quickly in Paris because her lover Emile had sway in the government, and because the powers that be had wanted both to reward her and get rid of her. So maybe it was dodgy, even though Emile had assured her it was genuine. But Emile was dead now, and she didn’t think she could count on any further support from the French government. She had given them what they wanted, and they had no more use for her. She should count herself lucky that she had come out of it smelling of roses. There were times when she thought she was also lucky that they hadn’t decided to have her eliminated instead. It must have been an option. And she clearly couldn’t count on the British for anything, the way things were heading. But why now? She had used the passport several times since she had been living in England without any trouble at all.
Most of the journey she stared out of her window at the slowly darkening summer evening and listened to one of her three favourite symphonies. This time it was Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, and as she listened and rocked gently to the train’s rhythm she thought about William Buckley, Vasile Lupescu, and her immigration fears. When the train arrived at York, she felt better. It still wasn’t quite dark. Midsummer evenings. The longest day wasn’t too far off. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped on to the platform and walked to the taxi rank. Home, Raymond, and peace at last, she thought, as the taxi made its way along the A59 past Kirk Hammerton towards the A1.
5
Over the weekend, Banks had given a great deal of thought as to how he might get Zelda to ‘loosen up.’ First of all, he ruled out an interview room, or even his office, as too formal. Moving on from there, he counted out the entire police station, which reeked of authority. She could never relax in such a place, and nor could he. In addition to the personal trauma Zelda had been through, Banks thought she was, like many Eastern Europeans since Stalin’s days, genetically terrified of the knock on the door in the middle of the night. And of the police in general. To them all cops were the FSB, KGB or Stasi, whatever, but Banks thought he had forged a bond with Zelda and that if he approached her in the right way, she would feel more at ease.
Finally he decided on a long walk interrupted by lunch at the Relton Arms with its spectacular views of Swainsdale below its spacious beer garden, and Zelda had agreed over the phone. There was plenty of room in the beer garden to get an isolated table, and perhaps with a little strenuous walking, the heat of the sun and a cold drink, Zelda might let her guard down. As Burgess had said, if they believed she had done something illegal they would have her in like a shot and interrogate her as long as the PACE rules allowed. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t a criminal, as far as Banks knew, but a victim, and perhaps a witness — to something, at any rate.
Zelda arrived in Banks’s driveway at the appointed time. He had taken that Monday off, leaving Annie and Gerry to deal with the Blaydon murder and its assorted spin-offs. He had watched the rape video once more over the weekend, still searching for the telling detail, something he might have missed, and all that had happened was that it had sickened him all over again. How on earth, he found himself wondering, could one human being do something like that to another? But he knew he was being naive; he, of all people, ought to have some idea. The thing was, he knew that men did it, but he had no idea why. Unless it was, as one serial rapist had told him: ‘Because I want to. And because I can.’ Could it be as simple as that?
Human beings did far worse things to one another than what he had just watched. Men routinely raped women during war, as a strategy to unman and humiliate their opponents and signal superiority. It had been going on ever since man climbed out of the primordial swamps, and it would probably go on until his presence on the planet was nothing but a vague memory lingering like an unpleasant smell with no one to smell it. But such thoughts were not for a day like today, and he tried to push them aside, knowing that they only led to that one dark and lonely place he had found himself inhabiting too often lately.
It was another glorious, sunny day, and a light, cooling breeze alleviated the heat to some extent, which was a godsend to walking in such weather. He hadn’t seen Zelda in a while, so there would be plenty to catch up on. She was wearing shorts, showing off her smooth tanned and tapered thighs, and a white shirt tied at her waist, sunglasses hooked over the top fastened button. Her dark hair hung in a ponytail down her back.
‘Will I do?’ she asked.
Banks looked at her feet and saw she was wearing short white socks and a sturdy pair of trainers. ‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘Stylish but road ready.’
They walked through to the back of the house, where Banks strapped on his small rucksack.
‘What have you got in there?’ Zelda asked.
‘Just essentials. Chocolate, apples, bottled water, mobile, Ordnance Survey map, compass, Bluetooth headphones, a book, portable first aid kit.’
‘Which book?’
‘Flashman at the Charge.’
‘We had a Flashman book at the orphanage once. Not that one. It was about the Indian mutiny. It was very funny. What’s this one about?’
‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’
‘ “Onward, onward, rode the six hundred.” ’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Is it dangerous, this walk?’
‘Of course not.’
‘We are not likely to get lost?’
‘No. I’ve done it dozens of times before.’
‘Are you going to ignore me and listen to music or read your book?’
Banks laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I realise it might seem odd to be carrying these things, but I usually walk alone, and I always pack the same stuff. Fresh water and chocolate, of course, but the rest is automatic. Just habit. Sometimes I listen to music, but mostly I prefer the sounds of nature when I’m walking. And sometimes I like to have a rest and sit on the grass and read for a while.’
Zelda put on her sunglasses. ‘OK. Lead on.’ They headed out of the gate and over the stile on to the footpath up the slope to Tetchley Fell. Single file, with Banks leading the way.
Tetchley Fell could be a daunting climb, deceptively easy at first, but soon getting tougher with every step as the incline steepened. To get to the top, beyond about twenty-five feet of almost sheer limestone, you needed a few mountaineering skills and some basic equipment. But they weren’t going that far.
‘What did Ray have to say when you told him we were going for a walk?’ Banks asked over his shoulder.