The doctor also suggested that it might be a good idea to get someone to stay with him for the first forty-eight hours to watch out for any danger signs that may be more easily spotted by an outside observer, such as personality changes. As far as Banks was concerned, that was a no-no. He had had enough being woken up at regular intervals during his two nights in hospital. Besides, he didn’t know anyone who would do it, or who he wanted to do it. Ray Cabbot probably would, but Banks knew that Ray was in no shape to play babysitter with Zelda gone. And Ray’s presence would just make him feel edgy and guilty about not having found her.
It would be too awkward having Annie around, even if she wasn’t away in Dorset. They had ended their relationship some years ago, mostly because they worked together, and he was of higher rank, but there were enough sparks remaining to make both wary of too close contact. Talk about stress. Anyone else, like Ken Blackstone in Leeds and Burgess in London, was simply too far away. Family was out of the question, too. He wasn’t going to burden Brian with his problems when he only had two or three more gigs to play with the band, or intrude on Tracy’s newly-wedded bliss with Mark. He figured he could probably keep an eye on himself.
Getting home was another matter, though, as his car was still in the drive outside Newhope Cottage. He had no qualms about asking a local constable to drop him off.
When he got there, three CSIs were still puttering around the front, and they gave Banks an embarrassing round of applause when he got out of the car. Wonderful, he thought, now even his home was a crime scene. He thanked the constable, and she drove off back to Northallerton.
‘Found anything yet?’ Banks asked Stefan Nowak, the Crime Scene Manager.
‘Tyre tracks,’ answered Nowak. ‘Fingerprints on your door frame. Most of them probably yours. A few drops of blood, also probably yours, but hardly enough to cause anyone great concern. And cigarette ends. Whoever did it must have had a long boring wait. They’re similar to the ones we found near Ray Cabbot’s cottage a few days ago. Ronhill. Croatian. Go ahead and get some rest. You look terrible. We’re done now. We’ve got all there is to find. Oh, and maybe you should check your valuables, you know, just to make sure they didn’t take anything. There’s no evidence they even entered the house, but just to be on the safe side.’
‘Thanks, Stefan. I will,’ said Banks, trying to think exactly what his valuables might be. ‘Though I very much doubt that was what it was about.’
‘Seeing as it’s not a serious crime scene, and the house wasn’t broken into, you can go in. We won’t seal the place up with tape.’
‘You mean me getting bashed on the head and abducted isn’t serious?’
‘Well, if you put it that way. John! Bring that crime scene tape over here.’
‘Away with you,’ said Banks, smiling. ‘On your way.’
Nowak walked towards the CSI van, grinned back over his shoulder and waved.
It was strange, Banks felt, that he could understand all the events Stefan was talking about — fingerprints, Croatian cigarettes, blood — but he still couldn’t remember a thing about what happened to him two nights ago. Apart from a flickering image of flames and a voice — Zelda’s voice? — telling him to run, it was still a blank.
He went into the cottage and saw that nothing appeared to have been disturbed in the front room. His computer was still intact. The entertainment room and kitchen were also untouched. Nothing was missing or out of place. They had come for him, not his possessions.
Besides, what other people might call valuables were just things as far as Banks was concerned: electronic equipment, books, CDs, DVDs, and so on could all be replaced. Most of them, at any rate. The only true valuables he owned consisted of mementos of his own and his children’s growing up: letters, old photographs, certificates, newspaper cuttings, and odds and ends from his grandparents, like a World War One bullet, a fragment of shrapnel, and a tarnished cigarette lighter with a dent in it, which his grandfather had said saved him from a German bullet. Banks smiled. Everyone in the family knew that was a tall tale, but they all pretended they believed it for the sake of the old man’s pride. After all, he had fought at the Somme and survived.
Thieves often took or destroyed things like this, with sentimental value for only the owner, but in this case, the box in which Banks stored them still nestled securely beside a similar box of his old Beano and Dandy annuals on top of his wardrobe.
Feeling tired, Banks thought he would go into the conservatory, have a glass of wine, and maybe doze for a while. He remembered Dr. Chowdhury’s strictures against alcohol, but doctors were always saying things like that. One glass wouldn’t do any harm. He opened a bottle of Languedoc and put on an old Bill Evans CD, the Half Moon Bay concert, then settled down in his favourite wicker chair, feet up on a low stool. He wasn’t supposed to watch TV or work on his computer, or even play games on his iPhone, but he didn’t feel like doing any of those things, anyway. Surely a little cool jazz wouldn’t do any harm? It was good for the soul, as was the wine. Dr. Chowdhury had cleared him for sleep, and the tests showed no serious damage. Which was just as well, as he started drifting off during ‘Autumn Leaves.’
‘Unfortunately, it’s not the right time of day for one of our famous cream teas,’ said Trevelyan, ‘but if you’re still around this afternoon, may I recommend that you sample one here?’
Annie wasn’t hungry so soon after breakfast, but she thought they might stick around another night, as they had to go to Wool to talk to the Sedgwicks later. Tea time would be very late to set off on such a long drive back up north if the weather remained so bad. Was there anything in a cream tea she wasn’t supposed to eat? Only calories, she thought. She wondered how Alan and Ray were doing back up in Eastvale. She didn’t want to phone and spoil Banks’s rest, if that was what he was doing, and she trusted AC Gervaise to call if there were any developments.
The three of them sat at a window table in a twee cafe in West Lulworth watching the passers-by hurry past, heads down, umbrellas up. The inside of the window was slightly steamed up, and along with the splattering of rain, it gave the view an Impressionist effect. And it was too hot in the cafe. Why did everyone have to turn the heating up when it rained? Annie sipped some tea and turned her mind back to the place they had just visited. Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. Again, her heart weighed heavy at the thought of Marnie standing there, her life in pieces, then falling. No, jumping. And not standing. Running.
‘It was a lovely day,’ Trevelyan said.
Annie thought she might have missed something as she had been so lost in reverie. ‘What? When?’
‘The day Marnie Sedgwick died.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘It wasn’t like this. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, the water was all blue around the cove from the minerals in the rocks. There were boats out.’
‘It was daylight?’
‘Mid-afternoon.’
‘I meant to ask you this before,’ Annie said, ‘but can you be absolutely certain that Marnie took her own life? There was no one else around?’
‘There were lots of people around for a weekday,’ said Trevelyan. ‘That’s why we can be sure. More eyewitnesses than you could shake a stick at. There was one group of Japanese tourists saw the whole thing. In shock, they were. We had to get an interpreter. They were on some sort of Hardy tour — Thomas, that is, our local celeb. One of his characters goes for a swim in the sea at Lulworth in Far from the Madding Crowd, and they all come by the coachload to see the spot. Can’t understand it myself, as it never happened, it was all just made up.’