“How did you know he wouldn’t just run off with your camera?” Banks asked as they went down the steps beside the tunnel.
“Oh, don’t be such a cynic. You have to have a bit of trust in people sometimes or it’s hardly worth living.”
“I suppose so,” said Banks.
“Besides, they were walking along hand in hand. People like that aren’t usually petty thieves.”
Banks laughed. “Maybe you’d make a good cop after all,” he said. Teresa smiled. “Surely it’s just common sense.”
They continued down Stockton Street, crossed Union Square and walked along Geary back to the hotel. A cable car bell dinged up Powell toward the Mark Hopkins, where Banks had drunk his martini on his first night in the city, and a crowd was coming out of the Geary Street theater as they passed. They were staging Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, Banks noticed. There were a few of the regular street people around—Banks recognized the black man in rags and the old woman—but nobody bothered them.
When they got to the Monaco, Banks asked, “How about a quick nightcap in the bar?”
Teresa paused, still holding on to his arm. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Too many people. They would spoil the mood. Too noisy. I’ve got a bottle of good Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon in my room. Why don’t you come up with me and we’ll have that nightcap?”
There was no mistaking the promise in her eyes. Banks swallowed. “Well,” he said. “That would just about make the perfect end to the perfect last day of a perfect holiday.”
7
JAFF?”
“Yeah, babe, what is it?”
“What exactly is going on?” Tracy asked. “I mean, why are we doing this? Why are we on the run? Why do you want to go to London and get across the Channel so badly?”
“It’s better you don’t know too much,” Jaff said. “Like I said, it’s my problem, not yours. I’m only grateful you’ve found me a place to lie low for a few days while I get things in motion down there.”
“But it’s my problem, too, now,” said Tracy. “Besides, I won’t say anything to anyone. I won’t talk. We’re in it together now, aren’t we? I’ve helped you so far, but I’m still in the dark. Sometimes you make me feel like a prisoner. Maybe I can do more to help.”
“You’re not a prisoner. We just have to be extra careful, that’s all, and I know how to do it. It’s better if you listen to me. You’ve already been a great help, Fran. Don’t think I’m not grateful. That’s why I don’t want to burden you with too much knowledge. You know what curiosity did, don’t you? Just believe me. It’s safer this way. Okay? Now come on, babe…”
“Oh, Jaff, no, not now, Jaff. Not again. We just—”
But before Tracy could say another word, Jaff had pulled her toward him and clamped his lips firmly on hers. She offered only token resistance. He was a good kisser; she had to admit that. And the rest of their lovemaking was pretty spectacular, too.
When they had finished, Jaff seemed to drift off to sleep again, and Tracy found herself returning to her growing concerns. This was the start of their second day in her father’s house, and she was beginning to feel a little uneasy about being there. She was hoping that Jaff would get bored with being in the country and decide they should leave for London soon. He had already made a number of long phone calls and seemed to sound pleased with the way things were going down there. Whatever those “things” were.
It had been okay at first, just a bit of harmless fun and a chance to vent her spleen against her absentee father, but now every moment longer they stayed, the more uncomfortable she began to feel. What had yesterday seemed like a mildly exciting lark was now turning out to be something more serious, and Tracy wasn’t sure if she could get out of it. Jaff needed her to get rid of any unwelcome callers, for one thing, though he said she wasn’t a prisoner. She could just walk away, she supposed, and leave Jaff to his fate, but for some reason she didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t only the thought of leaving him in her father’s house alone, she really wanted to be with him, wanted the adventure, so see it through, whatever it was. She did care about him. She just hated being kept in the dark. She wanted a bigger part in his plans. And she felt cut off from the world without her mobile. It scared her.
The cottage was also a total mess already, with empty wine bottles all over the place, stains on the carpets and furniture, and those CDs and DVDs scattered all over the entertainment room floor. Tracy wasn’t by nature a vandal, or even a messy person, and this chaos disturbed her. She had tried to clean up a bit last night, but had been too stoned to make much of a dent.
She was probably a fugitive, too, now. Or at least people might start to think so. Rose, for example. The police knew all about Erin and the gun, certainly, though there had been nothing on the news yet to indicate that they had found out it belonged to Jaff, or that they were even aware of his existence. But Tracy knew from her dad’s work that they often kept things back from the public. It doesn’t always do to put your sirens on at full volume when you want to sneak up on someone and catch them unawares.
They could be closing the net at this very moment, Tracy thought; the cottage might already be surrounded. Then she admonished herself for being paranoid. Most likely, Erin had gone into one of her long silences, and the police couldn’t be too hard on her because they’d just killed her father, which had been on the news late yesterday.
That had knocked Tracy for a six. Mr. Doyle was a nice man, she remembered. He always gave her and Erin money for ice cream when they were kids playing in the street and the Mr. Whippy van came around. He’d taken them both to the Easter Fair in Helmthorpe once, Tracy remembered, when her dad had to work, as usual, and Mr. Doyle had let Tracy and Erin go on rides like the waltzers, the dodgems and the speedway. Her dad would never have let her go on them at her age then, just the boring swings or the merry-go-round with all the little kids.
Jaff stirred, threw the sheets back and got out of bed. It was almost midday, but then it had been another late night of wine, joints and movies. And sex. “I’m hungry,” he announced. “Why don’t you go down and make us some breakfast while I have a shower?”
“What did your last servant die of?” Tracy muttered as she dragged herself out of bed.
“What?” said Jaff. “What was that you said?”
“Nothing,” Tracy replied.
“Yes, it was.” Jaff held her chin. “You made some remark about servants. You think I should be a servant or something? Is that what you mean? Because my mother’s from Bangladesh? Because of the color of my skin?”
Tracy shook herself free. “Jaff, that wasn’t what I meant at all, and you know it wasn’t! It’s just a saying we have here when people ask you to do things they could easily do for themselves. For crying out loud, get a grip.”
“I know what fucking sayings you have here,” said Jaff, pointing his thumb at his own chest. “Where the fuck do you think I come from? Straight off the boat? I fucking grew up here.”
“All right, Jaff! I didn’t mean—”
“People never do. They just assume. All my life people have assumed things about me.” He pointed at her. “Don’t assume.”
Tracy held her hands up in mock surrender. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Sorr-ee.”
“And don’t take the piss.” Jaff glared at her. Tracy could hardly believe at that moment that she had once thought his eyes gentle and beautiful. They were cold and hard now, his mouth sulky. “You’d better mean it, Francesca,” he said at last, his voice a little softer but still not without a trace of menace. “I hate people who make assumptions about me. You don’t know what I am. Who I am. You know nothing about me.”
“Fine,” said Tracy, beginning to wish she’d never brought Jaff to her father’s house, wishing she’d never met him, never fancied him, never kissed him on the dance floor, never made love with him all night. She felt like crying. “I’ll just go and make some breakfast, shall I? Bacon and eggs do you okay?”
Tracy stood there slowly shaking her head. She would have liked to have used the bathroom to clean herself up a bit first, but it was a small cottage, and there was only one. Instead she went downstairs and washed her hands and face in the kitchen sink. She realized she was still trembling a little. Jaff could be cruel without knowing it.
Tracy could hear the shower running upstairs as she gathered together the food for breakfast. A fry-up was the easiest option, she thought, if not healthiest, so she dug out a couple of frying pans and put them on the rings, adding liberal dollops of cooking oil. Cooking wasn’t exactly one of Tracy’s fortes, but she did know how to fry eggs and bacon, and you needed plenty of hot oil to splash over the eggs to get the tops done properly. First she put the coffee on, then she got the bacon crackling and turned her attention to the eggs. But before she put them in the pan, she fed two slices of toast into the toaster, then glanced toward the breakfast nook.
Tracy bit her lower lip as she thought about what to do. Jaff’s hold-all was on the bench behind the breakfast table. If she wanted her mobile back, which she did, now was probably the best chance she was going to get. He probably wouldn’t even notice it was missing. The bacon was spitting and sizzling and the coffee pot making its usual gurgling sounds as it turned water into black gold. Tracy hoisted the hold-all onto the table and unzipped it.
What she saw inside took her breath away, but not so much that she didn’t first reach in and rescue her mobile, slipping it into a zipped pocket of her new shoulderbag. Then she went back to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. But no. There it all was, laid out for her to see. Wad after wad of twenty- and ten-pound notes, fastened with rubber bands. And mixed in with them, several brick-sized packages of white powder wrapped in plastic. She counted four altogether. Cocaine, Tracy thought. Or heroin. Four kilos, probably. She delved deeper, thrusting her hand between the wads of cash until, underneath everything, it touched something cool, hard and metallic.
It was only when she had her hand around the handle of the gun, still deep inside the hold-all, that she noticed Jaff leaning against the doorjamb, a white towel wrapped around his waist and a sheet of paper in his hand, head cocked to one side, watching her, a curious smile on his lips, but not in his eyes, she noticed, not by a long chalk. Christ, she thought, I should have trusted my instincts and run while I had the chance.
AS ANNIE had expected, Western Area Headquarters was starting to feel like the main concourse at King’s Cross by early afternoon on Wednesday. Chambers was skulking around with his imported Mancunian sidekicks, whom Annie had christened Dumb and Dumber, and several AFOs were wandering around the corridors aimlessly, or cluttering up the small canteen, including Nerys Powell, who gave Annie a conspiratorial smile, then blushed and lowered her gaze as they passed each other on the stairs. Just what she needed.
Banks had once told Annie that Chambers reminded him of the Vincent Price character in Witchfinder General, and when Annie had watched the film with him later, she had seen what he meant. There was no great physical resemblance, of course, but he had that same air about him, the barely controlled pious zeal that hinted he was satisfying unsavory personal appetites through his work, as well as serving public morality.
Annie would catch him staring at her now and then with a strange hungry look in his eyes that was only partly sexual, and occasionally he would go into a whispered conference with Dumb and Dumber, who would scribble notes, all calculated to cause maximum anxiety and paranoia, which it did. She knew that she and Chambers had parted on bad terms after she had told him exactly what she thought of his handling of the Janet Taylor case, and now she was beginning to think that he was the sort who bore a grudge. More than that, he was the type of person in whom slights and grudges fester for years, ultimately bursting out into vengeance.
Superintendent Gervaise had sent around a memo announcing a meeting of all the senior Serious Crimes staff at three o’clock in the boardroom, when they could expect a visit from the ballistics expert who had been working on the gun. Before that, Annie thought, she would take the opportunity to slip away for a quiet lunch and a pint—knowing that it might be her last chance for some time—and she would take Winsome with her. They had a lot to talk about. Winsome had been concluding the paperwork on her investigation into the hit and run, and she needed to be brought up to speed.
The Queen’s Arms was out of the question, as was the Hare and Hounds. Superintendent Gervaise had proved to be rather adept at tracking down the various watering holes Annie and Banks had started using. But with Winsome driving—she refused to drink a drop on duty, and hardly drank much at any other time—the whole of Swainsdale was their oyster. Well, within reason, Annie thought. But at least they could get out of the town center and find a little village pub with tables outside and a nice view. So many had closed down recently, after the smoking ban, the floundering economy, cheap booze shops and easy trips to fill up the boot in Calais. Some of the best pubs in Swainsdale opened for lunch only on weekends, but there were still a few good ones left.
They found a suitable place halfway up a hillside in a tiny village off the Fortford Road. It faced a small triangular green of well-kept grass with a couple of park benches under an old elm tree. The pub had picnic tables out front, where Annie sipped her pint of Dalesman bitter and Winsome her Diet Pepsi as they waited for their food. If any of the other lunchtime customers were astonished at the sight of a six-foot black woman, long legs stretched out, encased in blue denim, they were much too polite to show it, which indicated to Annie that they must be tourists. Locals usually gawped at Winsome.
It was a fine enough day, warm and sunny again, though a few dark clouds were gathering in the west, and the only nuisances were the flies and the occasional persistent wasp. The swallows were still gathering.
Annie admired the pattern of drystone walls that straggled up the hillside to the sere reaches where the limestone outcrops began. To her right, she could see the lush green valley bottom, and the village of Fortford itself a couple of miles away, near the meandering tree-lined river. She could also see the flagstone roofs and the whitewashed facade of the Rose and Crown beside the mound of the old Roman settlement. The Roman road cut diagonally up the daleside and disappeared in the far distance. The air smelled of fresh-mown hay tinged with a hint of manure and smoke from a gardener’s fire. Despite the activity at the police station and the harbingers it brought, Annie nevertheless felt this was a good day to be alive as she breathed the late summer air. All mists and mellow fruitfulness. The kind of day that sticks in your memory. It made her think of the final lines of the Keats poem she had had to memorize at school: “Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft / The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; / And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
“Zoo time back at the station, I see,” said Winsome.
“That’s why I wanted to get away for a while,” Annie said. “That and…”
Winsome raised a finely plucked eyebrow. “Come on. Give. I was thinking things have been dull around the place for a while now,” she said.
“Ever since you drop-kicked that drug dealer over a fourth-floor balcony?”
“It wasn’t a dropkick. And it was only the third floor.”
Annie took a sip of beer. Winsome had got quite a bit of press out of that escapade, which was probably the main reason why the locals knew who she was, and gawped at her. “There’s actually been quite a lot going on,” Annie said.
“Only I haven’t been in the loop. Doug and I have been investigating that hit-and-run on the Lyndgarth Road.”
“And?”
“Case closed. Witness got a partial number plate and it was easy sailing from there. Course, it didn’t help that our two victims weren’t talking.”
&
nbsp; “Oh? Why not?”
“Up to no good. Off their faces on drugs, weren’t they?” Winsome said with a smile.
“Well, it’s time to get you in the loop now. How’s Harry, I mean Doug, coming on?”
“All right,” said Winsome. “Yeah, he’s all right. Maybe he lacks the killer instinct and that extra edge you need if you want to be a good detective.” She shrugged and grinned. “In some ways he’s like a little brother. I try to keep him out of trouble.”
“I never took you for the maternal type, Winsome. Anyway, you can’t play nursemaid forever.”
“I know. I know. He’s a good detail man, though, memory like a steel trap. And let’s face it, how often does the job get physical around here?”
“We can’t all be fearless warriors, I suppose,” said Annie.
“It’s my heritage. My ancestors were fearless warriors. It’s in my genes. I’m thinking of investing in a spear.”
Annie laughed. “You’re scary enough without.” She drank some more beer. “Besides, I’d love to see Madame Gervaise’s face if you did walk in carrying a spear.”
“It would certainly give her something to think about.”
A pale skinny young girl who looked as if she ought to be in school came with their food: burger and chips for Winsome and cheese and tomato sandwich for Annie.
“So what should I know?” Winsome asked after the first bite. “It’s hard to know where to begin,” Annie said.
“What does the boss think?”
“Madame Gervaise? She’s being cagey. Wants to see which way the wind’s blowing. I can’t say I blame her with Matthew Hopkins running around like a man on a divine mission.”
“Matthew who?”
“Hopkins. The witch-hunter general. Chambers. It’s a pet name.”
“I wouldn’t have him as a pet. Or even name one after him.”
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