‘What the fuck’s going on?’ were Ray’s first words.
Banks gestured him inside and shut the door. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘You know damn well what I mean,’ said Ray, following him along the corridor to the back door. ‘You and Zelda. I might be an old hippie, but I can still knock you into the middle of next week.’ He stood in the conservatory with his fists clenched.
‘Calm down, Ray. Come on outside and calm down. Tell me what’s up.’
‘Zelda is what’s up. As if you didn’t know. She’s upset. Ever since she came back from her talk with you this afternoon she’s been in a right state. What the fuck did you say to her?’
‘I can’t see how that was anything to do with me,’ Banks said. ‘We talked, yes, but I didn’t say anything to upset her. What did she say to you?’
‘She wouldn’t explain. She just said you interrogated her, humiliated her, as if she was a criminal. We had a row. Then she just went off to her studio and banged around. I’ve got a bloody lecture to give at Leeds Art Gallery tonight, so I left her there to stew. What’s it all about? You must know something.’
‘Ray, sit down.’
Ray sat on one of the spindly chairs around the table on Banks’s lawn. Birdsong filled the brief silence, and Banks hoped it would help to inject an atmosphere of calm. ‘Drink?’ he asked.
Ray shook his head, then said, ‘Go on, then. Just the one won’t do any harm. Got any beer?’
‘I think I might have a couple of bottles of Stella in the fridge.’
‘That’ll have to do, then.’
Banks went and fetched Ray a bottle of Stella and a glass of iced water for himself.
‘Not indulging?’ Ray asked.
‘Just thirsty from messing about in the garden,’ Banks said, then leaned forward. ‘I didn’t interrogate Zelda,’ he said. ‘We talked about some of the things she’s done to help us find Phil Keane and where it led her. And some of the things she hadn’t told me. Maybe I was a bit annoyed that she hadn’t shared this with me before, but I can’t see why it would upset her so much. I’m sorry if it did. She was a bit quiet and jumpy when she left me, but that’s all.’
‘What was it all about?’
Banks sipped some ice water. ‘Believe it or not, Ray, I was trying to help her out. There are some cops down in London who would dearly like to talk to her about various things, but an old mate gave me the chance to get in first. The softer option. Believe me, they wouldn’t have been as easy with her about it all as I was.’
‘About what?’
‘I can’t tell you that. But take it from me — Zelda may have made one or two foolish moves, but as far as I know she hasn’t committed any crimes.’
‘Well, thank the Lord for that.’ Ray buried his face in his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s been having a hard time lately. I’m worried as hell about her.’
‘But why? I thought things were going well for you.’
‘They are. Or so it seemed. I don’t know what it is. That’s why I–I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be blaming you. I just thought you might have an explanation for her moods.’
‘What moods?’
Ray slouched in his chair and guzzled beer from the bottle. Banks listened to a blackbird singing and admired the view of Tetchley Fell while Ray collected his thoughts. He could make out a couple of tiny figures way up on the top of the fell, walking the edge. Banks had been up there on a number of occasions and remembered how pure the air was and how invigorating the exercise. Even a climb as far as the Roman wall, where he had gone that morning with Zelda, was exhilarating.
Ray took some Rizla papers from his pouch of Drum and rolled a cigarette. He glanced up at Banks as he did so and said, ‘Just tobacco.’
Banks shrugged.
Ray lit the cigarette with a disposable lighter. Condensation was forming on his bottle, pooling at its base on the table. Banks hadn’t seen him for a few days and thought he was looking tired. Even so, you’d never think he was in his seventies, despite the straggly grey beard, bandana, and grey hair tied back in a ponytail. He resembled Willie Nelson, but with fewer wrinkles. Normally he had the drive and energy of a man twenty years younger, but not today.
‘Come on, then. Give,’ Banks said. ‘What’s up? What’s the real reason you wanted to see me, apart from the pleasure of knocking me into the middle of next week.’ Banks could hear faint strains of Schubert’s ‘Das Heimweh’ coming from inside the cottage. Ray was clearly too distracted to notice or he would surely have made some comment on the choice of music.
Ray looked sheepish. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Bit of hyperbole. I’m a pacifist at heart.’
‘Not to worry. Is it a police matter?’
‘With Zelda? Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Tell me, then.’
Ray took a drag on his cigarette and a pull on his beer. ‘She’s got something on her mind, Alan,’ he said. ‘This past month or so, ever since I got back from my big American trip. Since she got made redundant. She’s been distracted, paranoid, jumpy, on edge. Anxious. She disappears into her studio for ages.’
‘She said the same about you.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Any idea what the cause is?’
‘Not really. I’ve been thinking it might have something to do with Immigration Enforcement. You know she has to apply for this pre-settled status because she’s been living here under five years? Can you believe it? She has to fill in some long form, and it’s been giving her a lot of grief. They want stuff like P60s or P45s, utility bills, council tax receipts, passport stamps, proof of where she’s been and when, bank statements and so on.’
‘Well, surely that’s not a problem? The NCA would be able to supply details of her employment.’
‘She thinks they’ll just wash their hands of her now the unit’s been shut down.’
‘No. They don’t work like that. Besides, she should still have plenty of evidence to show how long she’s been over here.’
‘Everything’s in my name,’ Ray said. ‘The payments just come out of the bank automatically. Before we met she was practically living on the streets.’
‘Surely they would understand that?’
‘You and I might think so. But she’s been trying to live under the radar.’
‘She said the same thing, but I didn’t understand why.’
‘Circumstances. It’s partly her past, the Soviet legacy. Lists, interrogations, secret police, all that sort of thing. It’s anathema to her. She’s got a dodgy French passport, but she’s from Moldova. I didn’t know it, but Moldova isn’t even a member of the EU. That means she’s not technically an EU citizen. She’s not sure how well her French passport would hold up to scrutiny. She assures me it’s not forged or anything, it’s the genuine article, but she’s still not comfortable about it. I try to talk her down, you know, tell her not to worry, but it’s not easy. She’s convinced they’re looking for a reason to chuck her out of the country, especially now she’s unemployed. And not only because of all this Brexit rubbish. She thinks those two coppers who hassled her about her boss’s death are behind it, took a dislike to her, dug into her past and didn’t like what they found.’
‘Paul Danvers and Deborah Fletcher? Yes, I got an inkling she wasn’t too happy with them when we talked this morning. They’ve got nothing to do with Immigration Enforcement.’
‘Zelda’s got a bee in her bonnet about them. Thinks they’re all in cahoots. Like I said, she’s been acting paranoid. She thinks people are following her. She said they know things about her past, about the sex trafficking and all, and they could make it seem like she was a prostitute, an undesirable alien. She doesn’t like to talk to me about the old days, so I don’t push it. Oh, I know the big picture, what happened to her, and I know something big happened in Paris that changed everything, but I don’t know what. Even when I can get her to talk about the past she’s vague about it. Always skimpy on the details. Croatia, too, and Serbia.’