All the Colors of Darkness ib-18

by Peter Robinson

of f luff and a Selfridges bag, which was almost too big to get through the window. She got out, but she wouldn’t let go of the bag handle, no matter how much Banks tried to pull her away. He feared the taxi might explode at any moment. In the end she pulled the bag free and tottered back into Banks’s arms on her high heels. It only took him a quick glance in the front to see that the driver was dead.

  The woman clung to Banks and her bag with one arm and her dog with the other as they edged their way toward the cleaner air, and for the first time, amid it all, he could smell something other than death: it was her perfume, a subtle musk. He left her sitting by the roadside crying and went back. There was a bendy-bus lying on its side burning, and he wanted to see if he could help people get out. He could hear the woman wail and the dog start to yap behind him as he walked away.

  The next thing he knew the area was full of dark shapes in protective gear, wearing gas masks or heavy breathing equipment, with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, some of them carrying subma-chine guns, and someone was calling over a loudspeaker for everyone to evacuate the area. Banks carried on searching for survivors until a heavy hand rested on his shoulder and pulled him away.

  “Best get out of here, mate, and leave it to us,” said the voice, muff led by breathing apparatus. “You never can tell. There might be another one. Or one of the cars might go up any moment.”

  The strong, steady hand guided him gently but firmly past Oxford Circus and around the corner to Regent Street.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked him.

  “I’m okay,” said Banks. “I’m a policeman. I can help.” He reached for his warrant card.

  The man had a good look at it, and Banks was sure he memorized the name.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the man said, guiding him away. “There’s nothing you can do here without the right equipment. It’s too dangerous.

  Did you see what happened?”

  “No,” said Banks. “I was on Great Marlborough Street. I heard the explosion and came up to see if I could help.”

  “Leave it to the pros now, mate. And as long as you’re sure you’re all 2 6 2 P E T E R

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  right, the best thing you can do is go home, leave the medics for the ones who really need them.”

  Down Regent Street, Banks could see the massed fire engines, police cars, ambulances and armed response vehicles, and the street swarmed with uniforms. The barriers were up already and the whole area had been cordoned off as far down as Conduit Street. He was glad that he could at least breathe now as he stumbled past the barricades into the stunned group of onlookers.

  “What happened, mate?” someone asked.

  “Bomb, innit?” answered someone else. “Stands to reason. Fucking terrorists.”

  Banks just walked on through the crowds, oblivious to the questions, back the way he had come, he couldn’t say how long ago. At first, right in the thick of it with the body parts, the human torches, viscous smoke and walking wounded, time had seemed to slow almost to a halt; but now, when he turned and looked back up Regent Street toward the chaos, he felt as if it had been all over in a f lash, a sublimi-nal moment. The emergency rescue worker had been right; there was nothing more he could do. He would only get in the way. He had never felt so useless in his life, and the last thing he wanted to be here was a voyeur. He wondered how the blind Asian woman was doing, and the young blonde with her lapdog and Selfridges bag.

  The chaos and carnage faded into the background the closer he got to Piccadilly Circus. He didn’t know where he was going now, or care, only that he was moving away from it. His breathing had almost returned to normal, but his eyes still stung. People gawped at him as he passed by, everyone aware now that something serious had happened nearby, even if they hadn’t heard it themselves. You could still see the smoke spiraling up from Oxford Circus beyond the elegant curved facade of Regent Street, its smell polluting the sweet summer air.

  When Banks got past Piccadilly Circus, he knew what he wanted.

  A bloody drink. Or two. He made his way up Shaftesbury Avenue and turned into Soho, his old stomping ground from the early days on the Met, and finally tottered into an old pub on Dean Street he remembered from years back. It hadn’t changed much. The bar was full, and even the smokers had come back inside to watch the breaking 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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  news coverage on the large-screen TV in the back. It had probably only been used to show football before, Banks thought, but now it showed images of the carnage around Oxford Circus, less than a mile away. It was all so unreal to Banks, seeing on the large screen what he had just been a part of only minutes ago. Another world. Another place.

  That was what it usually was, wasn’t it? Didn’t these things happen somewhere else? Darfur. Kenya. Zimbabwe. Iraq. Chechnya. Not just up the bloody road. The barman was watching the television, too, but when he saw Banks, he went back to his position behind the bar.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “What happened to you, mate? You look like you’ve just . . . Oh, bloody hell. You have, haven’t you?”

  Other people were glancing over at Banks now, some pulling their neighbors’ sleeves or tapping their arms and muttering. Banks nodded.

  “Whatever you want, mate, it’s on the house,” said the barman.

  Banks wanted two things. He wanted a pint to slake his thirst and a double brandy to steady his nerves. He said he’d pay for one of them but the barman wouldn’t have any of it.

  “If I was you, mate,” he said, “I’d pay a quick visit to the gents first.

  It’s just behind you. You’ll feel better if you clean yourself up a bit.”

  Banks took a quick gulp of beer and pushed the wooden door. Like most toilets in London pubs, it wasn’t much of a place; the urinals were stained ochre and stank of piss, but there was a mirror above the cracked sink. One look was enough. His face was smudged black with smoke, his eyes two staring holes in the darkness. The front of his white shirt was burned and smeared with blood and God knew what else. Luckily, his wind cheater wasn’t too bad. It was dirty, but then it was navy blue to start with, so it didn’t show the stains too badly, and his jeans were just singed and tarry. He didn’t even want to think what was on the bottom of his shoes.

  About all he could do for the moment, he realized, was a bit of cos-metic work, give his face a good wash and try to cover up his shirt, which he did by zipping up his jacket almost to the collar. He got the water running good and hot, squirted some liquid soap onto his hands and did the best he could. In the end, he managed to get most of the dirt off, but he couldn’t do anything about the look in his eyes.

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  “That’s better, mate,” said the barman.

  Banks thanked him and drained his pint. When he put his glass down and started working, more slowly, on the brandy, the barman filled up his pint glass again without asking. Banks also watched him pour a large whiskey for himself.

  “Suicide car bomber, they think,” the barman said, gesturing over toward the television set, to which the other customers were still glued. “That’s a new one on me. Pulled out of Great Portland Street into Oxford Street, just shy of the Circus. Makes sense. You can’t park around there, and only buses and taxis can drive on Oxford Street.

  Bastards. They always find a way.”

  “How many injured?” Banks asked.

  “They don’t know for sure yet. Twenty-four dead and about the same seriously injured is the latest count. But that’s conservative. You were there, weren’t you?”

  “I was.”

  “Right in the thick of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it like?”

  Banks took a sip of brandy.

  “Sorry. I should know better than to ask,” said the barman. “I’ve seen my share. Ex-para. Northern Ireland. For my sins.” He stuck out his hand. “Joe Geldard’s the name, by the way.”

&
nbsp; Banks shook hands. “Good to meet you, Joe Geldard,” he said.

  “Alan Banks. And thank you for everything.”

  “It’s nothing, mate. How you feeling?”

  Banks drank some more brandy. He noticed that his hand was still shaking. His left hand was slightly burned, he saw for the first time, but he couldn’t feel any pain yet. It didn’t look too bad. “Much better for this,” he said, hoisting his brandy glass. “I’ll be all right.”

  Joe Geldard moved to the end of the bar to keep an eye on the TV

  with the rest. Banks was left alone. For the first time, his mind managed to focus a little, come to grips with what had just happened, un-believable as it still seemed.

  Apparently, a terrorist suicide bomber had set off a car bomb just around the corner from where he’d been walking. And if he hadn’t 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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  decided that the crowds on Regent Street were too much and turned onto Great Marlborough Street at the time he did, he would have walked down Oxford Street, and who knows what might have happened to him. It wasn’t courage that had driven him into the f lames, he knew, just blind instinct, despite nearly dying in a house fire himself not so many years ago.

  He thought about Brian and Tomasina. They would be fine. Both were taking the underground from Piccadilly Circus. They might find themselves unable to get a train if the service had been shut down quickly enough, but apart from that, they’d be fine. He would phone both of them later, when he’d got himself together, just to make sure.

  It also entered his head that they might be worried about him, too.

  And Sophia? Christ, she often worked at Western House, up Great Portland Street, unless she was off in another studio or out somewhere producing live interviews. She might have wandered down to Oxford Street shopping on her lunch break. She never did, though, Banks remembered. Said she hated it, with all the tourists. On a nice day she’d buy a sandwich at Pret and eat it by the gardens in Regent’s Park, or maybe there was a lunchtime concert at the open-air theater. He’d phone her, though, not least because he wanted a chance to put things right between them.

  A wave of nausea came over him and he took a gulp of brandy. It made him cough, but it helped. Glancing over at the TV, he saw helicopter shots of blossoming smoke, and he didn’t know if the sound of sirens came from the scene on the news or from the real street outside.

  A tickertape was running underneath the images detailing breaking news. The death count was up to twenty-seven, injured thirty-two.

  Banks turned to the bar and worked on his second pint. His right hand had almost stopped shaking, and his left hand was starting to throb a bit. When he glanced in the mirror behind the range of spirits and wine bottles, he hardly recognized the face that stared back at him. It was time to make a move.

  He realized that first of all he would need new clothes. He had his wallet and both his mobiles, but nothing else. The rest of his gear was back in his car at the hotel. He knew he could get there bypassing Oxford Circus, but he didn’t want to. Not only didn’t he want to be 2 6 6 P E T E R

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  anywhere near there right now, he also didn’t want to drive back to Eastvale, he realized. He would buy new clothes, then go to King’s Cross and take a train, come back for the car when he felt better.

  Sophia had a key—she sometimes liked to drive the Porsche herself—

  so he could ask her to pick it up and park it outside her house, where it would be safe. Surely she would do that much for him, even if she wasn’t talking to him?

  Then he realized that all the underground and mainline stations would probably be closed for a while. It was all too much to contem-plate; his brain wasn’t fully functioning, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. The alcohol was slowly calming him down and blotting out some of the horrors of the last hour, so he called out for another pint and told Joe Geldard to have one on him.

  15

  ANNIE WONDERED WHY BANKS WANTED HER TO DRIVE

  out to his Gratly cottage early on Saturday morning. She had assumed that he would be staying in London with Sophia, at least for the weekend, but obviously not.

  All her attempts to phone him the previous evening had been frustrated, as he had been unable or unwilling to answer either mobile.

  After work, she had simply gone home and watched in horror the events unfold on television after the Oxford Circus bombing. Special counterterrorist units were already on the move in Dewsbury, Birmingham and Leicester, so it was reported, and there were claims that three people had already been arrested and one mosque in London raided.

  The Muslim community was up in arms about the sanctity of their place of worship, but Annie doubted they had many sympathetic listeners, not after the images from the TV screen had seared themselves on people’s minds and Al Qaeda had already claimed responsibility.

  While Annie tried to respect all faiths, she knew that religion had been used as an excuse for more wars and criminal activities than anything else throughout human history. It was getting harder now, when religious extremism was on the rise, to cling to the sanctity of any system of belief as an excuse for mass murder.

  Still, it was a lovely morning for a drive into the dale, she thought, putting the news images aside as her ancient Astra rounded the curves 2 6 8 P E T E R

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  and bounced over the sudden rises. The Leas lay spread out to her right, f lat wetlands around the river Swain, which meandered slowly through the meadows of buttercups, cranesbill and clover. Beyond, the daleside rose gently at first, crisscrossed with drystone walls, then more steeply to the higher pasture. The green of the grass turned more sere as it rose to the craggy uplands of limestone outcrops that marked the start of the open moorland. She had her window rolled down and a Steely Dan greatest hits CD playing on the stereo, “Bo-dhisattva.” Banks probably wouldn’t approve, but she didn’t give a damn. All was well with the world.

  Almost.

  Winsome had caught a break on the East Side Estate business when one of the local thugs had let slip that there was a new player on the block, “an Albanian or Turk or something” just up from London, and all the kids who had previously had free rein in what petty dealing of drugs went on, were now expected to bow out gracefully, work for him, or . . . perhaps get stabbed. They hadn’t yet been able to find the newcomer, who went by the name of “the Bull,” but Annie knew it was only a matter of time. There were also rumors that he had connections and was planning on importing heroin into Eastvale in a big way. Catching the Bull would definitely be a feather in their caps as far as Superintendent Gervaise was concerned, not to mention ACC

  McLaughlin and the chief constable himself, who would be able to appear on television and say they were winning the war against drugs.

  Annie drove along Helmthorpe High Street, past the church, pubs and walking-gear shops, then turned left at the school and carried on up the hill to Gratly. She drove carefully over the narrow stone bridge, where a couple of old men stood smoking pipes and gabbing, then a few hundred yards farther on, turned right into Banks’s drive, pulling up by the stone wall beside Gratly Beck before the driveway ended at the woods. She was surprised to see that his car wasn’t there.

  Annie had never ceased to marvel at what an isolated and beautiful place Banks had chosen to live after his marriage broke up. The renovations he had made after the fire had given him a lot more space, but it had all been tastefully carried out in the same local limestone, and 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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  the place probably didn’t look that much different than it had when it was built—in 1768, according to the gritstone door head.

  Banks answered her knock and took her through the living room into the kitchen.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  He knew how she liked it, Annie noted. Black and strong. He liked his the same.

&
nbsp; “Let’s go out to the conservatory,” Banks said.

  Annie followed him through the kitchen door. Honeyed sunlight poured in through the glass sides and there was just enough of a breeze through the open windows to keep it from being too hot. That was the problem with conservatories, Annie thought; one warm day and they overheated. In some ways, they were better in winter with an electric fire switched on, f lickering fake coals and a couple of elements. But this early in the morning it was perfect. The view up the daleside to the limestone scar at the top, like a skeleton’s grin, was stunning, and sheep were dotted all over the hillside. The wicker armchairs, she remembered, were so deep and inviting and had cushions so soft that they were difficult to get out of once you sat down. She sat anyway and set her coffee down on the low glass table beside the morning papers, which hadn’t been touched yet. That wasn’t like Banks. He wasn’t so much of a newshound, but he liked to read the music and film reviews and grapple with the crosswords. Perhaps he had slept in. There was some strange orchestral music playing quietly in the background, funereal, discordant in sound, bells and trumpets, timpani, a choir coming and going.

  “What’s the music?” Annie asked, when Banks sat down opposite her.

  “Shostakovich. The Thirteenth Symphony. It’s called ‘Babi Yar.’

  Why? Is it bothering you?”

  “No,” said Annie. “I was just wondering. It’s unusual.” It was hardly Steely Dan, but it was quiet enough to keep to the background.

  “What time did you get back last night?” she asked.

  “Late.”

  “I phoned during the evening.”

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  “Damn battery died on me, and I didn’t have the charger.”

  He seemed more gaunt than usual, his bright blue eyes less full of sparkle. He also had a bandage on his left hand.

  “What did you do to yourself?” she asked.

  He lifted his hand. “Oh, this? Burned it on the cast-iron frying pan.

  The doc always told me my diet would kill me. It’s nothing. I was going to come back into the station this morning, but I’ve changed my mind. That’s why I asked you to come out here instead.”