All the Colors of Darkness ib-18

by Peter Robinson

  “So if it was murder,” Banks theorized, “it could well have been someone who looked as if he fitted into the community.”

  “I suppose so,” Annie said.

  “I don’t suppose anyone saw a bloody figure in an orange T-shirt getting in a dark green Toyota and driving away from 15 Castleview Heights on Friday morning?” asked Superintendent Gervaise.

  “No,” said Annie. “Nobody saw anything. They don’t want to get involved.”

  “Do you think someone’s lying?”

  “It’s possible,” Annie said. “We’ll be talking to them all again, and there are still a couple we have yet to track down, people who’ve gone away for the weekend. I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. Perhaps the one bright spot is that some of the houses have surveillance cameras, so if we can get hold of the tapes . . . Anyway, one or two reporters were sniffing around this afternoon, too, so word is spreading fast. We’ve tried to delay them by telling them we can’t release the victim’s name until next of kin has been informed—which should have been done by now—but they’ll be able to work out whose house it is easily enough. We’ve left a couple of PCs guarding the gate and another inside.”

  “Good,” said Gervaise. “I’ll handle the press. Do we know anything about the mother?”

  “Not yet,” said Annie. “Not even her name. But it’s something we’ll be following up on. The Gloucestershire police said they’d inform her as soon as Harry Potter phoned them around lunchtime.”

  “Have we found anyone who actually knew Silbert and Hardcastle yet?”

  “We’re still working on that, too,” Annie said, a trace of irritation in her voice. “Certainly no one we’ve talked to so far admits to having them over for drinks or dinner on a regular basis. The closest seem to 4 4 P E T E R

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  be Maria Wolsey and Vernon Ross at the theater, and neither of them knew Silbert well. Judging by the kitchen and dining area at Castleview Heights, Silbert probably did a fair bit of entertaining. He was sophisticated, obviously well-educated, a man of great discernment, and probably quite wealthy, though the suggestion is that his mother’s the one with the money. On the other hand, Mark Hardcastle was the son of a Barnsley coal miner. Also, Hardcastle wasn’t, as far as we’ve been able to gather, at all coy about his sexuality.” Annie glanced at Gervaise. “Did Chief Constable Murray have anything to add about Laurence Silbert?” she asked. “Idle chatter at the nineteenth hole or something?”

  Gervaise pursed her Cupid’s-bow lips. “Not much. He said he found him a bit standoffish. They weren’t close; they simply played golf to make up a foursome from time to time and had a drink at the club. I think the CC would like to maintain a little distance on this matter. But he has other friends on the Heights, so he’ll be watching over our shoulders. What do you think of all this, DCI Banks? You’re the closest we’ve got to fresh eyes.”

  Banks tapped the end of his yellow pencil on the desk.

  “I think we just keep on asking questions while we’re waiting on forensics,” Banks said. “Try to build up a picture of Hardcastle and Silbert’s life. And we work on a detailed plan of everything they did during the last two or three days.”

  “We’ve talked to Hardcastle’s downstairs neighbor at Branwell Court,” Annie added, “and she confirms that Hardcastle was only there from time to time. And one of Silbert’s neighbors says she’s noticed that a green Toyota had become something of a fixture at Silbert’s house lately, too, which seems to confirm the living-together bit. She didn’t sound too pleased about it. The car, that is.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t, would she?” said Banks. “Lowers the tone of the neighborhood.”

  “There speaks a true Porsche owner,” said Annie.

  Banks smiled. “So, you think they were definitely living together?”

  he said.

  “Yes,” said Annie. “More or less. I saw a lot of Hardcastle’s personal stuff when I had a quick look around the house,” she went on.

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  “Clothes, suits hanging in the same wardrobe as Silbert’s; books, a laptop computer, sketch pads, notebooks. He used one of the upstairs rooms as a sort of office.”

  “Why hang on to the f lat, then?” Banks asked. “Hardcastle can’t have been making that much money at the theater. Why waste it on a f lat he only used occasionally? And you said he still got his post there, too. Why not put in a change of address?”

  “Any number of reasons,” said Annie. “Insecurity. A bolt hole. A little private space when he needed it. As for the post, as far as I could see he didn’t get anything but bills and circulars, anyway. We need to do a more thorough search of both places, though, and I suggest we start with Castleview.”

  “You and DCI Banks can have a good poke around the house tomorrow,” Gervaise said. “With DI Nowak’s permission, of course.”

  “All right with me. I’ll probably still have a couple of men working there, but if you don’t get in each other’s way . . .”

  “See what you can dig up,” Gervaise went on. “Personal papers, bankbooks, stuff like that. As you say, we don’t even know what Silbert did for a living yet, do we, or where he got his money? What about Hardcastle? Did he have any family?”

  “A distant aunt in Australia,” Annie said. “A ten-pound pommie.”

  “Phone records?”

  “We’re working on it,” Annie said. “Mark Hardcastle didn’t have a mobile, hated them apparently, but we found one in Silbert’s jacket pocket, along with his wallet. Nothing out of the ordinary on it so far.

  In fact, nothing very much on it at all.”

  “No call log, address book or stored text messages?” Banks asked.

  “None.”

  “But he had an address book?”

  “Yes. Not much in it, though.”

  “That’s a bit odd in itself, isn’t it?” said Gervaise. “I understand you talked to the cleaning lady?”

  “Yes,” said Annie. “Mrs. Blackwell. Highly regarded in the Heights, so we’re told. She wasn’t much help. Said Mr. Hardcastle was around more often than not these days; when Mr. Silbert was at home, at least.

  Apparently he traveled a lot. They were a nice couple, always paid her 4 6 P E T E R

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  on time, sometimes with a nice little bonus, blah, blah, blah. Mostly they went out while she did her work, so they didn’t hang about and chat. If she knew any deep dark secrets, she wasn’t telling. We can talk to her again if we need to.”

  “What brought the two of them together, I wonder?” Banks asked.

  “How did they meet? What on earth did they have in common?”

  Annie shot him a cool glance. “You know what they say. Love is blind.”

  Banks ignored her. “Was it the theater? Silbert didn’t appear to have any real involvement in that world, but you never know. Or could it have simply been money? How rich was Silbert exactly?”

  “We haven’t had time to find and examine his bank accounts and holdings yet,” said Annie. “Partly because it’s the weekend. Maybe we’ll find something on Monday, and maybe his mother will be able to tell us something when she’s got over the shock of her loss. But, like I said, he must have had a bob or two to live where he did and buy some of those paintings. The car’s no old jalopy, either. Which reminds me.” Annie took a slip of paper sheathed in a plastic folder from her file. “We found this in the glove box of the Jag just a short while ago. It’s a parking receipt from Durham Tees Valley Airport timed nine twenty-five a.m. Friday. The car had been parked there for three days.”

  “So wherever he went, he went on Tuesday?” said Banks.

  “So it seems.”

  “Have you checked the f light arrival times?”

  “Not yet,” said Annie. “Haven’t had a chance. But from some of the restaurant receipts we found in his wallet, it looks as if he was in Amsterdam.”

  “In
teresting,” said Banks. “It should be easy enough to check on the f light passenger lists. We’ll get Doug on it. So what did Silbert walk into when he got home on Friday morning? I wonder. How far are we from the airport, about forty-five minutes, an hour?”

  “Forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic on the A1,” said Annie. “And as far I know, they don’t service a lot of destinations directly through Durham Tees Valley. It’s a pretty small airport.”

  “I remember,” said Banks. “We f lew from there to Dublin once not A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

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  long ago. I also think BMI f lies to Heathrow. Anyway, that would fix his arrival at Castleview Heights around quarter past to half past ten.”

  “And by one o’clock he was dead,” added Superintendent Gervaise.

  They all sat in silence for a moment to let that sink in, then Banks said, “And Mark Hardcastle was definitely in London on Wednesday and Thursday?”

  “Yes,” said Annie. “He was there with Derek Wyman, the director of Othello. Hardcastle had a restaurant receipt in his wallet from Wednesday evening, and one for petrol dated Thursday afternoon, two twenty-six p.m. Northbound services, Watford Gap.”

  “On his way home then,” said Banks. “If he was at Watford Gap at two twenty-six p.m. and drove straight home, he’d be here by about half past five, maybe a bit earlier. What’s the restaurant?”

  “One of the Zizzi’s chain, on Charlotte Street. Pizza trentino and a glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. A large one, going by the price.”

  “Hmm,” said Banks. “That would indicate that Hardcastle probably ate alone. Or he and Wyman went Dutch, or shared the pizza. Any idea where Hardcastle stayed on Wednesday night?”

  “No,” said Annie. “We’re hoping Derek Wyman might be able to tell us. He’s not back yet. I was planning on interviewing him first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Any idea what Hardcastle did on Thursday evening after he got back to Eastvale?” Banks asked.

  “Who knows?” Annie said. “He must have stopped in, most likely at Castleview. The downstairs neighbor at Branwell Court says she hasn’t seen him since last week, and most of the letters are postmarked around that time or later. We haven’t been able to find anybody who saw him go out. He wasn’t at the theater. All we know is that the next day around lunchtime, he went into Grainger’s shop, smelling of alcohol, bought a length of clothesline and went and hanged himself in Hindswell Woods. So between late Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, he’d had a few drinks, or a lot of drinks, and he possibly killed Laurence Silbert.”

  “Anything else of interest in Silbert’s wallet?” Banks asked.

  “Credit cards, a little cash, a business card, sales receipts, driving li-4 8 P E T E R

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  cense. He was born in 1946, by the way, which makes him sixty-two.

  Nothing yet to give a hint of his profession or sources of income.”

  “Business card? Whose? His own?”

  “No.” Annie slid the plastic folder over to him.

  “Julian Fenner, Import-Export,” Banks read. “That covers a multi-tude of sins. It’s a London phone number. No address. Mind if I hang on to it?”

  “Okay by me,” said Annie. “Maybe it’s another lover?”

  “More speculation,” said Gervaise. “What we need is solid information.” She rested both her palms on the table as if to push herself up to leave, but she remained seated. “Right,” she said. “We’ll keep at it.

  We still have a lot of questions to answer before we can close the book on this one. Is there much else on in Major Crimes at the moment?”

  “Not much,” said Annie. “Couple of gang-related incidents on the East Side Estate, a spate of shoplifting in the Swainsdale Centre—

  looks organized—and a break-in at the Castle Gift Shop. And the traffic cones, of course. They’re still disappearing. DS Hatchley and CID

  are dealing with most of it.”

  “Good,” said Gervaise. “Then we’ll let DS Hatchley worry about the traffic cones and the shoplifting. Stefan, how long do you think it will take the lab to get the basic blood work done?”

  “We can get the samples typed by tomorrow,” said Nowak. “That’s easy enough. DNA and toxicology will take longer, of course, depending whether we put a rush on it or not, and that costs money. I’d say by midweek, at best.”

  “Any idea when Dr. Glendenning might get around to the postmortems?”

  “I’ve spoken to him,” said Annie. “He wasn’t out playing golf like everyone thought. He was actually in his office at Eastvale General Infirmary catching up on paperwork. I think he’s bored. He’s willing to get started whenever he gets the go-ahead.”

  “Wonderful,” said Gervaise. “He’s got his wish.”

  “It’ll have to be Monday, though,” Annie said. “The rest of his staff ’s away for the weekend.”

  “I don’t suppose we’re in a rush,” said Gervaise. “And it is the Sab-bath tomorrow. First thing Monday morning will do fine.”

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  “Just one point,” said Banks. “Do you think it might make sense if Dr. Glendenning autopsies Laurence Silbert first, rather than Mark Hardcastle? I mean, everyone is pretty sure that Hardcastle hanged himself. There’s no evidence of anyone else having been with him, is there, Stefan?”

  “None at all,” said Nowak. “And everything about that scene, including the knot and the rope marks, is consistent with suicide by hanging. Textbook case. As I’ve said before, it’s difficult to hang someone against his will. The only questions we still have are toxico-logical.”

  “You mean, was he drugged?”

  “It’s a possibility. The shopkeeper said he was calm and subdued, though that’s not terribly strange in someone who has made the decision to take his own life, and we do know that he had been drinking.

  He might have taken pills. Anyway, we’ll be testing the blood samples carefully.”

  “Okay,” Banks said. “Are we working on the assumption that if Hardcastle didn’t kill Silbert himself, then someone else did, and that Hardcastle found the body and hanged himself from grief ?”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Gervaise. “If he didn’t do it himself. Any objections?”

  No one had any.

  “In the meantime, then,” Gervaise went on, “as DCI Banks suggested, we ask more questions. We try to plot out their movements, the hours leading up to their deaths. We dig into their backgrounds, family history, friends, enemies, ambitions, work, finances, previous relationships, travels, the lot. Okay?”

  They all nodded. Superintendent Gervaise gathered up her papers and walked over to the door. Just before she left, she half-turned and said, “I’ll try to keep the media at bay for as long as I can, now they’ve got wind of it. Remember, this is the Heights. Tread carefully. Keep me informed at every stage.”

  AFTER THE meeting, Banks sat in his office listening to Natalie Clein playing the Elgar Cello Concerto and studied his copies of the materi-5 0 P E T E R

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  als gathered from Silbert’s wallet and Hardcastle’s car. It didn’t add up to a hell of a lot. He glanced at his watch. Just after six-fifteen. He wanted to talk to Sophia, see if she had forgiven him, but now would be the worst possible time. The guests were due to arrive at half past seven, and she would be right in the midst of her dinner preparations.

  Idly he dialed the number of Julian Fenner, Import-Export, the card found in Laurence Silbert’s wallet. After only a few rings and several distant clicks and echoes, an automated voice came on the line to tell him that the number had been discontinued and was no longer in service. He tried again, slowly, in case he had misdialed. Same result. After a few attempts to find a matching address through reverse directories, he gave up. It appeared that the number did not exist. He called the squad room and asked Annie to drop by his office.

 
While he waited, he walked to the open window and gazed out on the market square. At that time of evening it was still fairly quiet. The shadows were lengthening, but Banks knew it would stay light until after ten o’clock. The market had packed up and moved on hours ago, leaving a slight whiff of rotting vegetables about the cobbled square.

  Most of the shops were closed, except Somerfield’s and W. H. Smith’s, and the only people around were the ones who wanted an early meal or a drink.

  When Annie came, Banks sat opposite her and moved his computer monitor out of the way so he could see her properly. She was casually dressed in a russet T-shirt and short blue denim skirt, no tights. Her tousled chestnut hair hung over her shoulders, her complexion was smooth and free of all but the lightest of makeup, her almond eyes were clear, and her demeanor seemed calm and controlled. Banks hadn’t had a really good talk with her since he’d taken up with Sophia.

  He knew she had had one or two problems to deal with from their last case together, and he hadn’t exactly been a rock, but she looked as if she had managed it well. A couple of weeks down in Cornwall at her father’s place had obviously done her a lot of good.

  Banks turned the business card to face her. “Did you try this number?” he asked.

  “No time,” Annie said. “I’d no sooner got back from the Heights than Superintendent Gervaise called the meeting. Then you took it.”

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  “It wasn’t meant to be a criticism, Annie. I was just wondering.”

  Annie raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  Banks shifted in his chair. “It’s been disconnected,” he said.

  “Sorry?”

  “The number. Julian Fenner, Import-Export. There’s no such number. And no address. I’ve checked. Discontinued. No longer in service.”

  “Since when?”

  “No idea. We can put technical support on it, if you like.”

  “Probably a good idea. Maybe it’s just really old?” Annie suggested.

  “Then why would Silbert continue to carry the card? It was the only one he had.”