All the Colors of Darkness ib-18
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“Hindswell? Oh my God, no. Oh, Mark. That was their favorite 6 0 P E T E R
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spot. They took me to see the bluebells there once, back in April.
They were absolutely gorgeous this year. Grief, Mr. Banks. That would be why he killed himself. Grief.”
“That occurred to us, too,” said Banks. “And your son?”
Edwina hesitated before answering, and Banks sensed that something had crossed her mind, something she wasn’t sure that she wanted to share yet. “A burglar, perhaps?” she said. “Surely an area like this must attract them from time to time?”
“We’re working on it. What we need, though, is a lot more background on your son and Mark. We know so little about them, about their pasts, their work, their life together. We’re hoping you can help us with that.”
“I’ll tell you what I can,” said Edwina. “And I’ll submit to whatever tests you require. But can it wait until tomorrow? Please? I’m feeling suddenly very tired.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any hurry,” said Banks, disappointed but trying not to show it. She was an old woman, after all, and though she had managed to hide that fact for an hour or more, the mask was slipping. He wanted to get home, himself, anyway, so he was quite willing to postpone the rest of the interview until the following day. They should have the blood-typing back from Stefan by then, too, someone would have checked the birthmark, and Derek Wyman might be able to fill them in on some details of Mark’s life.
Edwina got up to leave and Annie stood. “Can I drive you? Honest,”
Annie said, “it’s no bother.”
Edwina touched Annie’s shoulder. “It’s all right, dear,” Edwina said. “I have to get the car there anyway. I might as well do it now. I know the way. I think I’ve got just about enough energy left.”
And she walked away.
“Should she be driving?” Annie asked.
“Probably not,” said Banks. “But I wouldn’t recommend you try to stop her. She didn’t get to run a multimillion-pound retail fashion empire by giving in easily. Sit down. Finish your Coke.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Annie. “She’ll be okay. She barely even touched her second drink.”
Annie shivered, and Banks offered her his jacket to put over her 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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shoulders. He was surprised when she took it. Perhaps she was being polite. Still, he knew that he didn’t feel the cold the way she did.
He could hear people laughing and talking inside the pub, and beyond the low wall, way below in the town center, he could see tiny dots of people crossing the market square, just the way Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles saw from the giant Ferris wheel in The Third Man, one of his favorite films.
“So what do you think about that pied-à-terre?” Banks asked.
“I don’t know,” said Annie. “I suppose it was worth hanging on to if he could afford it, and if he used it often enough.”
“We should probably check the place out. Hardcastle might have stayed there on Thursday night. He might have left some sort of clue behind as to his state of mind.”
“I suppose we should.”
“Do you think Edwina was right about why Hardcastle kept his f lat?”
“Probably,” Annie said. “Though I’d incline more toward the moving-cautiously theory than the competitiveness. He’s got one, so I have to have one, too. I’m not sure I buy that.”
“Some people are like that.”
Annie shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not so unusual, is it? Sophia still has a cottage up here, doesn’t she, as well as a house in London?”
“It’s her family’s,” Banks said.
“Maybe Silbert’s mother bought it for him?” Annie said. “We’ll have to ask her about his finances tomorrow. She’s certainly an interesting woman, though, isn’t she. I gather she’s another of your adolescent fantasies, along with Marianne Faithful and Julie Christie?”
“That’s right,” said Banks. “She was quite beautiful in her day, if a little older than the rest. I remember reading about her at the time, seeing pictures of her in the papers. One of the perks of doing a newspaper round. I think she started Viva around 1965. It was on Porto-bello Road then. It was famous for its reasonable prices, but everyone who was anyone at the time used to shop there, too. Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, Julie Christie, Terry Stamp. She knew them all. All the beautiful people.”
“I didn’t know they were all so cheap,” Annie said.
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“It wasn’t the prices. It was the cachet. She was right in the thick of things, party-going with all the big names, being seen at all the right clubs. She also had a brush with heroin addiction later on, and affairs with all the eligible stars. I didn’t even know that she had a son. She obviously kept him well out of the limelight.”
Annie yawned.
“I’m boring you.”
“Long day.”
“Then let’s call it a night. We’ve got a busy one tomorrow.”
“Good idea,” Annie agreed, handing Banks back his jacket.
“Look, what you said earlier, about my not being there for you . . .”
“You were at first, very much so. I just . . . oh, Alan, I don’t know.
Take no notice of me.”
“It’s just that you seemed to withdraw. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
“I suppose I did,” Annie said. She patted his arm and stood up.
“Difficult times. All behind us now. Let’s just move on and try to get to the bottom of this business as soon as we can.”
“Agreed,” said Banks, finishing off his beer and standing up. They walked to their cars, still parked outside Laurence Silbert’s house, where a few die-hard reporters lingered on, and said good night to PC
Walters, then to each other. Banks watched Annie drive away in her old Astra, then started the Porsche and headed for Gratly. Cameras f lashed in his rearview mirror.
I T F E LT like weeks since Banks had been home, but it had only been a couple of days. One night away, he realized. Only one night with Sophia. Even so, his isolated cottage greeted him with a silence that felt even more profound and oppressive than usual.
He turned on the orange-shaded lamps in the living room. There was only one message on the answer phone: his son Brian informing him that he was back in the London f lat for a couple of weeks if Banks happened to be down there and fancied dropping by. Brian had recently moved into a very nice, if very small, f lat in Tufnell Park with his actress girlfriend Emilia, and Banks often visited them when he 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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was in London with Sophia. He had even taken Sophia there for dinner once, and she and Brian and Emilia had got along well—
mostly because Sophia knew and liked many of the same bands as they did. For a while, Banks had felt a bit old and out of it, like a boring old sixties fart, even though he listened to a lot of new music himself.
Still, as far as he was concerned, for great rock you couldn’t beat Hen-drix. Dylan, Floyd, Led Zep, The Stones and The Who.
A dark turquoise afterglow shot with orange and gold remained in the sky over Gratly Beck and the valley below. Banks gazed at it for a few moments, drinking in the beauty, then closed the curtains and went through to the kitchen for a glass of wine. He realized he was hungry, hadn’t eaten since breakfast, unless he counted that custard cream at the meeting. The only thing remotely resembling a meal in his fridge was a carton of leftover goat vindaloo from the local takeaway, and the remains of a naan wrapped in foil. But curry wouldn’t go with the red wine he was drinking. Besides, it had been in the fridge too long. Instead, he dug out some mature cheddar, checked the bread for green spots and, finding none, made himself a toasted cheese sandwich, which he carried through along with his wine to the entertainment room.
He felt like li
stening to something mellow but sensuous, and, thinking about new music, he put on a Keren Ann CD. The distant, distorted guitars and eerie, hushed vocals of “It’s All a Lie” that filled the room were perfect. Just what he wanted. He lounged back in the armchair and put his feet up, mind ranging over what he knew of the Hardcastle-Silbert case so far.
It resembled a textbook murder-suicide, a crime of passion distin-guished by extreme violence and overwhelming remorse. From what Banks could remember of the study he had read in Geberth’s Practical Homicide Investigation, homosexual murders were often characterized by extreme violence directed toward the throat, chest and abdomen.
In this case, the larynx had been shattered by a powerful blow. Geberth said the throat was a target because of its significance in homosexual lovemaking, and the violence so extreme because both parties are sexual aggressors. That sounded a bit politically incorrect to Banks, but he didn’t really care. He hadn’t invented the theory.
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He wanted to know what Laurence Silbert had been doing in Amsterdam, a place as famous for its Red Light district and permissive attitudes to sex as for anything else. Perhaps Edwina would be able to help tomorrow? Her sadness over the loss of both Laurence and Mark seemed genuine to Banks, as did her absolute shock at the idea that Mark could have had anything to do with it.
Banks also wondered if Mark Hardcastle’s trip to London with Derek Wyman had played a part in the events that followed, however innocent it might have been. Was it so innocent? Had Laurence Silbert found out? Had he f lown into a violent, jealous rage? Was that how the argument that led to both their deaths had started? Banks and Annie would talk to Derek Wyman in the morning and perhaps find some answers to those questions, too. It was Sunday, but there would be no time off for Banks, not when he’d come all this way and given up his weekend with Sophia. A DCI didn’t get paid overtime, nor did Annie, a DI, so the best he could hope for was a little time in lieu, then maybe he and Sophia could manage a long weekend in Rome or Lisbon. That might just make up for missing the dinner party.
It was half past eleven when the phone rang, and Keren Ann had long since given way to Richard Hawley’s Cole’s Corner, another late-evening favorite.
Banks picked up the extension beside his armchair. It was Sophia, and she sounded a little tipsy.
“How did it go?” Banks asked.
“Great,” she said. “I did Thai and everyone seemed to like it. They just left. I thought I’d leave the dishes. I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry I’m not there to help you,” said Banks.
“Me, too. Just sorry you’re not here, I mean. Is that Richard Hawley you’re listening to?”
“It is.”
“Yuk. So that’s what you get up to when I’m not around?”
Sophia didn’t like Richard Hawley, called him a yob from Sheffield with pretensions to easy listening. Banks had once countered by dismissing Panda Bear, one of her new favorites, as watered-down Brian Wilson with cheap sound effects. “A man has to have some vices,” he said.
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“I can think of better ones than Richard Hawley.”
“I was listening to Keren Ann earlier.”
“That’s better.”
“I think I’m in love with her.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“I don’t think so. But I had a drink with Edwina Silbert this evening.”
“Edwina Silbert! From Viva?”
“One and the same.”
“My God, what’s she like?”
“Interesting. She’s definitely got charisma. And she’s still a very beautiful woman.”
“Should I be jealous of her, too?”
“She’s eighty if she’s a day.”
“And you prefer younger women. I know. How did you get to meet her?”
“She’s the mother of one of the victims. Laurence Silbert.”
“Oh dear,” said Sophia. “The poor woman. She must have been absolutely devastated.”
“She managed to put a brave face on it for a while,” Banks said,
“but yes, I think she was.”
“How’s the case going?”
“Slow, but we’re making some progress,” said Banks. “Chances are it might lead in the direction of London before too long.”
“When? I’ve got a really busy week coming up.”
“I’m not sure. It’s only a possibility, but I might have to check out a pied-à-terre in Bloomsbury. At the very least we should be able to manage lunch or something. More important, what about next weekend. Are you still coming?”
“Of course I am. But do promise me you’ll be around.”
“I’ll be around. Don’t forget, I’ve got tickets for Othello next Saturday night. The Eastvale Amateur Dramatic Society.” He didn’t want to tell her that the case was connected to the theater; he had got the tickets well before Mark Hardcastle’s suicide, well before he had ever heard of Hardcastle.
“An amateur production of Othello, ” said Sophia with mock enthu-6 6 P E T E R
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siasm. “Wow! I can hardly wait. You sure know how to treat a girl well, Detective Chief Inspector Banks.”
Banks laughed. “Drinks and dinner before at one of Eastvale’s finest establishments, of course.”
“Of course. The fish and chip shop or the pizza place?”
“Your choice.”
“And after . . . ?”
“Hmm. Remains to be seen.”
“I’m sure we’ll think of something. Don’t forget your handcuffs.”
Banks laughed. “I’m glad you called.”
“Me, too,” Sophia said. “I wish you’d been here, that’s all. It’s just so not fair, you being up there, me down here.”
“I know. Next time. And I’ll do the cooking.”
It was Sophia’s turn to laugh. “Egg and chips all round?”
“What makes you think I can cook an egg? Or make chips?”
“Something more exotic?”
“You haven’t tasted my spag bol yet.”
“I’m going to hang up now,” Sophia said, “before I collapse in an unstoppable fit of giggles. Or is that a fit of unstoppable giggles?
Anyway, I’m tired. Miss you. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Banks. And the last thing he heard was her laughter as she put down the phone. Richard Hawley had finished and Banks drained the last of his wine. He didn’t really feel like listening to anything else as the waves of tiredness rolled over him. The only sounds left were the hum of the stereo and the wind moaning down the chimney. Banks felt more alone and farther away for having just talked to Sophia than he had before her call. But it was always like that—the telephone might bring you together for a few moments, but there’s nothing like it for emphasizing distance. He hadn’t told her missed her, too, and he wished he had. Too late now, he thought, putting the glass down and heading for bed.
4
DEREK WYMAN’S HOUSEHOLD AT HALF PAST TEN ON
Sunday morning reminded Banks of his own before Sandra and the kids had left. It wasn’t far away from his old semi, either, just off Market Street about half a mile south of the town center. In the spacious living and dining area, pop music was blasting out from a radio or stereo, a teenage boy lay on his stomach on the carpet in front of the television playing games that involved killing futuristic armor-clad soldiers with a great deal of noise and gouts of blood, while his shy, skinny sister chatted away on her mobile, face completely hidden by hair. The smell of bacon lingered in the air as Mrs. Wyman cleared away the breakfast table by the bay window. Outside, the wind lashed sheets of rain across the street. On the opposite wall stood a large bookcase full of theatrical texts, an edition of Chekhov’s plays, the RSC Complete Works of Shakespeare, BFI screenplays and big paperback novels in translation—Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Zola, Sartre, Balzac.
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Silbert hadn’t been named, Banks knew, because his body hadn’t been identified. Mark Hardcastle’s had, by Vernon Ross. At least the birthmark Edwina had told them about confirmed Silbert’s identity in Banks’s mind.
“So much for the fine weather,” said Wyman, after Banks and Annie had shown him their warrant cards. He nodded toward the paper. “I suppose this is about Mark?”
“Yes,” said Banks.
“Quite a shock to come home to, I must say. Dreadful business. I’m finding it very hard to take in. I would never have expected anything like that of him. Please, sit down.” Wyman cleared away some magazines and discarded clothes and offered them the sofa. “Dean, Charlie,” he said, “why don’t you go up to your rooms and play. We need to talk. And turn that damn music off.”
With slow, drawn-out movements, both kids gave their father a long-suffering look and dragged themselves upstairs, Dean switching off the radio on his way.
“Teenagers,” Wyman said, rubbing his head. “Who’d have ’em? I spend most of my days with them at school, and then I come home and have to deal with two of my own. Must be a masochist. Or mad.”
Complaining was usually staff-room routine for teachers, Banks knew, a way of fitting in and pretending they didn’t really love what they did and deserve their long holidays. In fact, Wyman seemed like a man with the energy and patience necessary to deal with teenagers on a daily basis. Tall, thin, wiry even, with a closely cropped scalp and an elongated bony face with deep-set, watchful eyes, he taught games as well as drama. Banks remembered that his own English teacher had also been a PE instructor and was particularly good at importing the plimsoll from one class to the other, where he swung it hard and frequently at his pupils’ backsides. At least he didn’t say, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” the way the divinity teacher did every time he slippered someone. Still, there was no slippering in schools these days.