‘Or Blaydon’s, if they thought he was behind it?’
‘Goes without saying.’
‘Thanks, Tommy,’ Annie said. ‘You’ve been a great help. And if you remember anything at all about the girl in the photo...’
Kerrigan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why’s she so important?’
‘We’d just like to talk to her. That’s all.’
‘You think she was a witness? That she saw what happened to Connor?’
‘Like I said, we’d just like to talk to her.’
‘It’s those fucking Albanians I’d be after if I was you,’ Kerrigan said as Annie turned to the door. ‘You ask me, that’s who did for Connor. Those fucking Albanians.’
‘Mr. Banks,’ called the landlady Sally Preece when Banks and Zelda entered the Relton Arms. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘You, too, Sally,’ said Banks. ‘Any tables outside?’
‘Take your pick. What would you like to drink? I’ll bring them out to you along with the lunch menus. We’ve got a lovely game pie on special today.’
‘Drink?’ Banks glanced at Zelda.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’
‘Right you are,’ said Banks. ‘That’ll be two pints of Black Sheep bitter, then, Sally.’
‘Can I have some water, too, please?’ Zelda asked.
‘Coming up.’
‘You seem to know her as well,’ Zelda said. ‘What was that, a burglary?’
‘No. It’s just somewhere I come for a quiet drink sometimes on my walks.’
Banks steered Zelda towards the door that led into the back garden, a broad and undulating stretch of grass. Fortunately, there was no bouncy castle; Sally Preece didn’t go in for family fun. They picked a table overlooking the valley, close to the low stone wall and a field full of sheep. The lawn was uneven, but they managed to get their chairs stable enough, and Banks didn’t think their glasses would slide off the wooden table.
They didn’t. Sally Preece arrived soon after they had sat down with the beers, water, and menus on a tray and said to come back to the bar and put in the food order when they were ready.
Banks had thought a great deal about what to say, how to approach questioning Zelda. He hadn’t come to any firm conclusions — a great deal of it had to be played by ear — but he had at least a general approach in mind, and he had already brought up the Hawkins investigation when they had sat on the wall.
‘Why do I feel so nervous?’ Zelda said, fingering her menu.
‘You don’t need to,’ said Banks.
‘Do you think I’m lying about something?’
Banks paused. ‘Let me put it this way: I don’t think you’ve told me everything. There’s something you’re holding back. Or some things.’
‘Like what?’
‘That’s what I want you to tell me.’
Zelda lit a Marlboro Gold, and Banks took a long pull on his pint. It tasted especially good after the exertions of the walk. There’s nothing like a good pint when you feel you deserve it.
Zelda tapped the menu. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Depends,’ said Banks. ‘I’m rather partial to the steak and frites, myself, but I think it’s going to be game pie today. You might want a salad or something.’
‘Don’t mistake me for Annie.’ Zelda put the menu on the table. ‘I don’t like game, but steak and frites is fine with me.’
Banks went and ordered. When he got back, Zelda was stubbing her half-smoked cigarette out in the green ashtray. Her beer was still untouched, but the glass of water was empty.
‘You might as well know,’ Banks began, ‘that I already know you walked past Trevor Hawkins’s burned-out house and questioned the barman at The George and Dragon about him.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Banks said. ‘The point is that you didn’t tell me.’
Zelda turned sulky. ‘I don’t have to report to the police every move I make or conversation I have, do I? It’s not a police state yet.’
Banks smiled. ‘Not yet. But I thought we were supposed to be working together. Like partners. Remember?’
‘I’m not your “partner,” ’ said Zelda. ‘That’s Annie.’
‘You know what I mean. You said you wanted to help us find Phil Keane.’
‘You told me to be careful.’
‘But you weren’t, were you?’
‘Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?’
‘Is survival your only criterion of success?’ Banks immediately noticed the pain in her expression. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe that was insensitive of me after all you’ve survived, but what I mean is, partners are supposed to share. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because it was all so vague,’ Zelda said. ‘I didn’t really find out anything that would help you. What I found only complicated the situation I was in to start with.’
‘Then why don’t you tell me about that now, and we’ll try to make sense of it all? Together.’
Sally Preece walked across the lawn with their meals. They already had the condiments and cutlery on the table. Banks thanked her and she left. ‘Better eat before it goes cold,’ he said.
He immediately felt lucky that Zelda didn’t tell him he sounded just like her mother. Then he realised she probably didn’t remember her mother. Zelda sawed at her steak, head down. Banks took a few mouthfuls of pie and washed them down with beer. It was good, plenty of pheasant and rabbit, and a touch of venison.
‘Let’s go back a while,’ Banks said. ‘Remember that dinner Annie and I had with you and Ray up at your cottage late last year? Remember when you told us you’d seen a photograph of Phil Keane with someone you recognised in connection with your work?’
Zelda finished chewing a piece of steak. ‘I remember.’
‘You were going to keep an eye out for anything else of interest, but you never came up with anything.’
‘That’s right. What did you want me to do, make something up? There was nothing. Just that photograph.’
‘Of Keane with Petar Tadić?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you weren’t even going to tell me about that, were you? I heard it from Superintendent Burgess.’
‘Well, if he’s so all-knowing, why don’t you ask him?’
‘Zelda, stop being petulant. It doesn’t suit you. Talk to me.’
Zelda pushed her half-full plate away and studied a spider spinning its web in the drystone wall beside her. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be angry with me for pursuing it when you said I shouldn’t. OK?’
‘I’m not sure that’s the reason.’
‘What, then?’
‘I think there’s something else you’re not telling me, but I think it shocked you more than you said it did when you saw Keane and Tadić together in the photograph. It was two worlds coming together, or colliding, and one of them was yours. You didn’t want to let me in on that, did you?’
Zelda fingered another cigarette out of her packet and lit up. ‘What if that’s so? What Petar Tadić and his brother did to me is not an experience I care to remember so often.’
‘But why the sudden interest in Hawkins? I didn’t ask you to spy on him. How was he connected with all this?’
Zelda took a deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you. Something happened. I was going to tell you before, at Christmas, but I lost my nerve.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I thought I was on to something, and I thought you’d take it off me and go charging in like a bull in a china shop, scattering all the pieces.’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?’