“Well, it’s a fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” said Jaff when she came back.
“What do you mean?” Tracy asked. “What mess? I haven’t done anything. What’s Erin been up to? What gun are they talking about? What’s going on?”
“You know, technically, one could argue that this is all your fault.” Tracy pointed her thumb at her own chest and laughed. “Moi?
How do you work that out?”
“What happened last week. Thursday night. That’s when it all started.”
It was true that last week was when the trouble had begun, when Erin had left for home. She had always been insanely jealous about Jaff, and she had always suspected that Tracy had her sights set on him, which she hadn’t, really, though she did think he was fit.
They’d been at a club in the city center that Thursday night, wasted on E and hash, and it was really late, nearly time to go home. Erin had gone to the loo, and Tracy was dancing a slow dance with Jaff, feeling his warmth, feeling the sexy, sensual edge of the drugs work on her, the hardness under his trousers pressing against her. She hadn’t even been thinking about it; it had just happened. All of a sudden, it seemed, they were kissing on the dance floor under the disco light, so romantic, tongue and everything; then someone grabbed Tracy’s arm and pulled her away. It was Erin, of course, and she was furious. She yelled at Tracy, hit her across the face, called her a slut and a slag, a slapper and a whore, then ran off.
Jaff dashed after Erin, leaving Tracy alone on the dance floor, people staring at her. She started to feel nervous and paranoid then, her cheek burning, the good rush and the sexy glow all gone. She grabbed her bag and went after them, but they were nowhere in sight. They had disappeared down one of the alleys off Vicar Lane. Tired and disoriented, she had walked to the station and taken a taxi home, then crawled into bed, where she had slept only fitfully. Erin hadn’t been there when she got back, and she wasn’t there in the morning when Tracy got up to go to work, either, but Tracy thought nothing of that at the time. She assumed Erin must have made up with Jaff and stopped the night at his place. But she still wanted to talk to her, wanted to apologize and explain that it had just been the mood, the E, the music; blame it on the bossa nova, on Rio, or whatever.
It was only when Tracy got back from work that Friday evening that Rose told her Erin had been by to pick up some things and had said she was going to stay at her parents’ house for a while. Tracy had rung Erin at home, but she wouldn’t talk to her except to say that she had split up with Jaff, and it was all Tracy’s fault.
“It was only a kiss,” Tracy said to Jaff. “Don’t you think Erin over-reacted a bit?”
“Sure, but that doesn’t help me now, does it? Look what’s happened.”
“What’s wrong?” Tracy asked. “Nobody mentioned you.”
“Well, they wouldn’t, would they? They’d hardly want to tip me off.”
“But what’s wrong? What are you so worried about? What was Erin doing with a gun? Or was it her father’s? It sounds as if he’s been hurt.”
“Pour me some more wine and I’ll tell you all about it.” Tracy poured.
“The gun was mine,” Jaff said. “And now, thanks to dear Erin, the police have got it.”
“What?”
Jaff paused, then said, “The gun was mine. All right? That woman the reporter talked to was right. It was a gun wrapped in an old tea cloth.”
“Was it registered?”
“Of course it wasn’t. You can’t register a handgun in this country these days.”
“But why did Erin take it?”
Jaff ran his hand over his hair and sighed. “I don’t know. To spite me. To hurt me. She must have taken it after that night we had the row, the morning after, when I left her alone in the flat.”
“And you didn’t notice it was gone?”
“It’s not exactly something I look at every day. Besides, I told you, I was away on business all weekend. I only noticed when I checked after that piece we saw on the news back at the flat.”
“But where did you get it from? What do you need a gun for?”
Jaff put his hands to his ears. “Will you stop it with the third degree? Please? Too many questions. That doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know. I was doing a favor for a friend, that’s all. The point is that the police have got it now, and if I know Erin, she’ll be blabbing away to them in no time, if she hasn’t already. Hell hath no fury and all that. Do you think they’d know to look here for you?”
“Nobody’s looking for me, and no, they wouldn’t think to look here even if they were. We’re safe. Don’t worry. Besides, Erin would never tell them your name.”
“How do you know?”
“She just wouldn’t, that’s all.”
“Well, I appreciate your loyalty to her, especially after what happened, but they give out stiff enough penalties just for thinking about a gun these days. What would you do if PC Plod says he can make a nice deal with you if you tell him what you know?”
“She won’t tell. What are you going to do now?”
“I need time to think. I’ve got some contacts down south. Useful contacts, but these things take time. Right now, I’m going to roll another joint. Bring in the Highland Park, will you? The wine’s finished. And a fresh glass. This one’s got lees in it.”
Tracy went into the kitchen. She leaned against the fridge and put her head in her hands. The weed was misting up her brain. She needed to pull herself together. What was going on? What did she think she was doing? Here was good little Tracy, the apple of her daddy’s eye, practically breaking into his house, drinking his best booze, making a mess with a man she barely knew who had just told her that her best friend had stolen his gun and run away with it. How had she got mixed up in all this? It was all so confusing.
But she hadn’t been the apple of her daddy’s eye for quite a while, she realized. For a few years now, ever since she had graduated with a less than desirable 2/2 degree, it had all been about Brian. Brian. Brian. Brian. The Blue Lamps. My son the rock star. And Tracy, with her lousy degree and her dead-end job, could rot in hell as far as he was concerned. That was the truth of it. They exchanged texts occasionally, even phone calls, but she didn’t think he had visited her once since June.
She wouldn’t mind so much, but all the time they had been growing up, she had been the one who worked hard at school, who stayed in night after night to do her homework, who was called a swot by the other kids, who came top of the class, always got great exam results, was expected to go places. Brian was a lazy sod who did everything at the last minute, or copied it from one of his mates, and then dropped out to start a rock band. She had done everything right, so why did her father love Brian more? Well, screw him. She was having her own adventure now, and she was damn well going to see it through. She’d show him. She’d show them all.
Tracy thumped the fridge and picked up the Highland Park from the table where Jaff had left it. She took a long swig from the bottle, and it burned all the way down, then she grabbed two crystal glasses from the cupboard and tottered back into the conservatory.
4
THE WOMAN AT THE WINE TASTING WAS DEFINITELY smiling at Banks. He had seen her there yesterday, too, and had thought she was by herself. Right now she was talking to an elderly couple from Lansing, Michigan—he knew because he’d chatted with them yesterday—but she was definitely looking his way. Perhaps she needed rescuing.
Banks smiled back and walked over.
The man from Lansing, Michigan—Bob, Banks remembered, who worked in farm machinery—saw him coming. “Well, if it isn’t my old buddy, Al. What a pleasure to see you again.”
Banks said hello to Bob and his wife Betsy, waiting for them to introduce the mystery woman, who stood by rather shyly, he thought, eyes cast down, looking into her almost-empty wineglass. She had appeared tall from a distance, but when he got closer Banks saw she was probably only about five feet three or four. She was Asian, but Banks had no idea w
here exactly she might have come from, or what age she was. There was no gray in her glossy black hair, which hung down over her shoulders, and no lines around her almond eyes.
“This here’s Teresa,” said Bob. “All the way from Boston.”
Teresa looked up at Banks and held out her delicate hand. He shook it. Her skin was soft and silky, but her grip was firm and dry. She wore a couple of rings on her fingers and a silver bracelet that matched her hoop earrings.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Banks. “Likewise,” said Teresa.
“Can I get anyone another drink? I need one myself.”
Bob and Betsy declined, but Teresa handed him her glass and said, “Yes, I’ll have a sauvignon blanc, please.” The glass was warm from her palm, and Banks noticed a little semicircle of pink lipstick on the rim.
The hotel called it a wine tasting, but Banks thought it was more of an excuse to get a couple of glasses of alcohol under his belt before dinner, a bit of a social mixer and a cheap promotion for the wine-maker. It wasn’t that you actually had to discuss the wine’s forward leathery nose, or fill out a tasting card. It was definitely a nice gesture on the part of the hotel, as was the tarot reader, who sat poring over an arrangement of cards with a portly, bearded, anxious-looking man in baggy shorts sitting opposite her.
On the whole, Banks had decided, he liked America. Having spent plenty of time back in the pubs in England listening to his mates slag off the USA and its people, he found that while Americans were easy to ridicule and could often appear obnoxious abroad—which is something you could just as easily say about the British and the Germans—at home they were mostly a delight, from the family diners and roadside honky-tonks with local country bands to the city wine bars, hotels and fancy restaurants. And they understood the concept of a service industry. Like now. The woman at the bar collected his glasses, asked him what he wanted and handed him full fresh ones, smiling as she did so, saying she hoped he was enjoying the wine. Maybe she didn’t mean it, but Banks said he was. Sometimes a smile and a little politeness go a long way. Try that in your average English pub, he thought, where the concept of wine runs about as far as red or white and sweet or dry, and a grunt is the most likely response to a hello. He carried a pinot noir and the sauvignon blanc carefully back through the throng.
“Look,” said Bob, glancing at his watch. “I’m afraid we have to skip out now. The show starts in half an hour. You folks have a good time.” And with that, they were gone. Banks handed Teresa her glass, and the two of them stood in rather awkward silence as the conversations buzzed around them. She was wearing a sleeveless flower-print dress which curved in to accentuate her narrow waist and ended just above her knees, cut low enough to show a tantalizing glimpse of smooth cleavage. Around her neck she wore a string of colored glass beads and had fixed some sort of coral pink flower in her hair just above her right ear. Her complexion was flawless and smooth, her nose small and straight, her lips full, curved slightly upward at the edges.
Banks would hazard a guess that she had her origins in Thailand, or perhaps Vietnam, but he didn’t know enough about the differences in the physiognomy of the Far Eastern countries to be of any certainty. She looked as if she smiled a lot, but Banks sensed there was also a seriousness and sadness about her. He probably had an instinct for such things, he thought, given the way his life had been going lately. But it was definitely getting better.
“It’s a nice hotel, isn’t it?” said Teresa after a sip of wine.
“Yes,” Banks agreed, looking around at the Mediterranean-themed decor, with its warm terra cotta glow, shaded table lamps, ornate ceiling and cornices, paintings and gilt-framed mirrors. They were standing near a painting of Earth resting amid a cornucopia of fruit and foliage in what appeared to be a desert landscape. The Monaco was a nice hotel, Banks thought, and it also had the advantage of being in one of the most interesting cities he had visited so far on his two-and-a-half-week odyssey: San Francisco. Banks especially liked cities he could walk around, and San Francisco was one of the best, once you got used to the hills. He had already taken the cable car and strolled along the waterfront to Golden Gate Bridge and halfway across it, all on his first day, finishing the evening with a very expensive martini at the Top of the Mark, looking out on the Bay Area lights way in the distance. Tomorrow he planned to walk along Fisherman’s Wharf, and then perhaps go up Coit Tower for another view.
“How long are you staying?” he asked Teresa. “Just until Wednesday.”
“Me, too,” said Banks. “You’re English, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Banks said. “Thank you for not guessing Australia or New Zealand. Not that I have anything against those places, mind you, but I get it a lot.”
“Oh, I wasn’t guessing. My grandfather was English. From Hull.”
“Really? I know it. In fact, I don’t live all that far away from Hull. If you don’t mind my asking, how on earth did you…you know?”
Teresa laughed. “How does a girl who looks like me have relatives from Hull? Easy. Don’t laugh. They owned a Chinese restaurant.” Banks couldn’t think of anything to say.
“You should see your face,” she said, laughing at him. “I’m joking, of course. I’m not Chinese. My grandfather was a sailor, and somehow or other he found himself on a French merchant ship. He made many visits to the Far East and ended up settling in Vietnam. So, you see, I, too, have English blood in me. Hull blood.”
Banks lowered his voice and leaned closer to her. “It’s not something I’d boast about in public,” he said. “You know what they say about Hell, Hull and Halifax?” He caught of whiff of her perfume, delicate but a little sweet and heady, cut with a hint of jasmine.
“No. Tell me.”
“It was the thieves’ litany. ‘From Hell, Hull and Halifax may the Good Lord deliver us.’ Sixteenth century. There was a particularly nasty jail in Hull and the gallows at Halifax. I think Hell rather speaks for itself.”
Teresa laughed again. “You English people are so strange,” she said. “I’ve never been there, but I’d like to go sometime, just to see it.”
Banks couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to go to see Hull—it wasn’t exactly a major tourist destination—though he enjoyed its rough charm, the docks and its down-to-earth people. Hull also had a Premier League football team, a big plus in the northeast these days. “Maybe one day you will,” he said. “Look, I know this probably sounds a bit forward, but are you here by yourself?”
He thought Teresa blushed before she averted her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I…I…” Then she made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. “I’m sorry. It’s a long story.”
“Maybe you’d like to have dinner with me tonight and tell me? I don’t have any plans, and I’m a good listener.”
Teresa put her hand to her chest. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean, I would, you know, really, but I can’t. I’ve already got…I have to be somewhere.”
“Of course,” said Banks, embarrassed that he had asked. “I understand.”
She rested her hand on his arm. “No, it’s nothing like that,” she said. “Really. I’m going to have dinner with my son and daughter-in-law and their kids. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. In fact, I must hurry. I just felt I needed another drink before facing the little terrors. My grandchildren, that is.”
Banks didn’t think she was old enough to have grandchildren, but he thought it would sound like a terrible come-on line if he told her that. “I see,” he said.
She widened her eyes. “Tomorrow? I mean, that’s if you’re not, you know, you don’t…”
“Tomorrow would be perfect,” said Banks. “My last night here.”
“Mine, too.” Teresa knocked back the rest of her drink, set the glass on a nearby table and took a packet of breath mints from her handbag, or purse, as they called them in America, Banks had learned. She caught Banks looking at her. “It’s all right. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not in the habit of doing this. It�
�s just with the kids, you know, and my daughter-in-law is so disapproving. Religious. Her father’s a Baptist minister. Shall we meet here?”
“Fine,” said Banks. “Same time? Seven? Shall I make a reservation somewhere?”
“Let me do it,” said Teresa. “I know the city.”
“Okay,” said Banks. “See you tomorrow.”
Then Teresa hurried off and Banks was left alone. The tarot reader glanced over at him with a conspirational smile, and for a moment he considered having his fortune told. He quickly dismissed the idea. It would either depress him or give him false hope. He smiled back, finished his drink and headed out to see what the evening had to offer.
The first thing he saw, around the corner on Taylor, was an old street lady being sick in the gutter. After she had staggered away, three pigeons swooped down and started pecking at the chunks. Sadly, it wasn’t such an unusual sight in this area of the city. As Banks walked along Geary, a homeless black man in rags followed him for about half a block raging about how mean people were. It could have been London, Banks thought, until he got to Union Square and saw the cable car go by with people hanging off the sides laughing and whooping, heard the bell clanging, the underground cables thrumming. With no particular destination in mind, he crossed the square and started wandering the downtown streets. Sooner or later, he knew, he would find a friendly-looking bar or restaurant, where he could while away the evening.
THE ROOM on the ground floor of the Western Area Headquarters that the officers always used for their press conferences had a small elevated area that passed for a stage and contained all the wooden chairs they could rustle up. Annie and Superintendent Gervaise had gone over the developments with ACC McLaughlin in regard to what should be mentioned and what they should keep to themselves for the moment. The best they could hope for, Annie thought, was to dispel a few rumors and douse the flames before they roared out of control. Already, she felt, it was getting a bit late for that.
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