Banks called out Ray’s name but got only silence in return. There were no lights on and the downstairs was in shadow. Banks opened the cellar door, flicked on the light switch and went down. Nothing there. Next, he headed for the staircase. As soon as he got to the bottom, he froze. He could see a shape there, a bulk, right at the top, and there was a hand hanging over the first step.
He took the stairs two at a time and knelt by Ray’s motionless body, laid two fingers on the carotid artery in his neck. No pulse. The skin was cold, and when he turned on the light he could see discoloration already beginning to affect the flesh. Banks fell back against the wall and slid down, knees together, and held his head in his hands. It couldn’t be. Ray dead? Just like that.
But there was no mistake. Banks glanced over the body but could see no signs of physical violence. That didn’t mean anything, of course; even a fatal knife wound might not be visible to the naked eye. The only thing to do was not to disturb the scene further and to call in the police. They would need a doctor and a mortuary van, but there was no sense in asking for an ambulance. Ray was beyond ambulances.
Following his copper’s instinct, Banks checked out all the other rooms upstairs. Nobody. Ray’s studio door was open and soft gold evening light flooded through the large skylight and back windows, illuminating the canvas that stood on its easel. It was Zelda, Banks could see. When he walked closer he saw all sorts of details and realised that it was a sort of optical illusion — one large image incorporating many smaller ones, also of Zelda, or so it appeared. It seemed somehow unfinished, and it would always remain that way now. On his way out he noticed Forever Changes on another easel and the cover of The Nice’s The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack leaning against the turntable.
With a heavy heart, Banks stepped carefully over Ray’s body, made his way back downstairs on shaky legs, then went outside for some fresh air and punched in the familiar numbers on his mobile.
Neither Banks nor Annie had any interest in attending Dr. Galway’s post-mortem examination. Annie had gone down to the mortuary with Banks to identify the body, and then she had gone home, said she wanted to be by herself for a while. Gerry, too, was devastated. She and Ray had started out on the wrong track, Banks knew, because Ray had teased her mercilessly about her being a nubile pre-Raphaelite beauty and said how he wanted her to pose for him in the nude. But after she had almost died taking down a murder suspect, he had presented her with a beautiful head and shoulders sketch of her that he had drawn from memory. She had it framed and hung it in the pride of place on the wall of her small flat. Since then, they had been the best of friends, and she had given as good as she got in the teasing department.
When it was all over, Banks was the one who walked down that tiled corridor to the doctor’s office alone and found himself again sitting under ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ while he listened to Dr. Galway’s interpretations of the post-mortem results.
‘I can state categorically,’ she said, ‘that there are absolutely no signs of foul play. Your friend died a sad but most natural death.’
‘Heart?’ Banks said. He had already heard from the CSIs that there was no evidence of a break-in or of any struggle at Windlee Farm, and his own brief examination had told him there was nothing missing, so robbery was not likely to be the motive. The people responsible for Zelda’s abduction and his own near demise were all dead — Phil Keane, Petar, and Goran Tadić. Leka Gashi, the Albanian whom Annie had discovered was responsible for the Connor Clive Blaydon and Neville Roberts murders was still on the loose somewhere, but he had no connection with Ray or Zelda.
‘Myocardial infarction. A massive heart attack. It would have been quick. He would hardly have known what hit him. A few moments of pain, perhaps, then...’
‘ “The anaesthetic from which none come round.” ’
She frowned. ‘Quite. Well, I suppose you could put it like that, if you happened to be of a poetic turn of mind. What I’m trying to say is that he wouldn’t have suffered greatly.’
‘Thank you. But would he have known what was happening? It looked as if he was trying to get downstairs to his phone.’
‘He would certainly have known something was happening. But not for long.’ She paused. ‘His arteries were in a bad way. The blood supply to the heart was cut off. The damage was so extensive that he must have had at least some chest pain and shortness of breath over the past few months to warn him that something was seriously wrong.’
Banks knew that Ray would simply ignore something like that, not think it worth mentioning. ‘I do remember once or twice he complained of chest pains,’ he said. ‘Not that I don’t have plenty of aches and pains myself.’
‘It’s probably just your age. We often don’t recognise symptoms.’
‘And when we do, it often turns out that they’re not symptoms at all but simply a result of sitting in the wrong position for too long. Or indigestion, heartburn.’
‘There is that. But if you’re worried about anything, maybe you should see your doctor and have a full physical?’
‘Maybe. It’s been a while. But I’m not worried. So a heart attack, then?’
‘Yes.’
A heart attack. Pure and simple. Banks was glad it was a natural death. If Ray had been murdered, it would create a whole new set of problems, some for which he might even bear a modicum of blame. ‘And the cause?’
‘Hard to say exactly.’
‘I know he didn’t get much exercise.’
‘That was quite obvious. He also drank and smoked too much and ate far too much fatty food,’ Dr. Galway added, with a pointed look in Banks’s direction.
‘I don’t smoke,’ Banks said, and she just smiled.
‘I’m sorry about your friend, Superintendent Banks,’ said Dr. Galway. ‘Sincerely sorry. But he was in his late seventies and he didn’t take very good care of himself. Annie Cabbot’s his daughter, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is she doing?’
‘About as well as you’d expect, which is not very well.’
‘They were close?’
‘I’d say so,’ said Banks. ‘Her mother died when she was very young, and he pretty much brought her up single-handedly. He just moved up here from Cornwall a year or so back.’
‘With that young woman who disappeared, is that right?’ Dr. Galway asked.
‘Nelia Melnic. Right.’
‘He was upset about her?’
‘Very.’
‘That kind of stress won’t have helped his condition much.’
‘Can people really die of a broken heart?’
Dr. Galway snorted. ‘Only if you take a very poetic view of death, as you seem to do. Stress is a factor, yes, as can be depression, worry, anxiety, and any number of mental conditions we don’t fully understand yet. All those things put a strain on the heart and its function, but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that it breaks. A heart attack involves a kind of paroxysm rather than a snap. The human body is a complex mechanism, interdependent in so many ways. All I can give you is the doctor’s viewpoint — the pathologist’s, at that. I deal with the dead.’