Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  But it could get her into trouble. The disjointed meanderings might mean nothing to most people, but some police officers took everything quite literally, made no allowance for wishful thinking and fantasy. It could get Banks into trouble, too. He was beginning to think that taking it might have been the first step on a slippery slope to career suicide. At the very least it was misappropriating evidence. What on earth did he think he was doing? Protecting Zelda? From what? Whatever his rationale, Banks knew he should have left it where it was, let it become an exhibit in whatever followed. But it was too late for that now. There was no way he could explain hanging on to it to his superiors, and he knew as well as anyone that what might seem like a minor transgression could quickly blow up into a full IOPC investigation, meaning at least temporary suspension, and possibly being fired.

  The Hotel Belgrade, Burgess had said, used to be a hangout for Tadić and his cronies until recently. How had Zelda found out about it? From Faye Butler? And had she gone there searching for Keane, only to find Goran Tadić instead? How would she have reacted to that? By fantasising about killing him? What had happened at the Hotel Belgrade? In their talk at the Relton Arms yesterday, Zelda hadn’t mentioned anything about finding the Tadićs in London.

  Just in case, Banks phoned the hotel, identified himself and asked if a woman matching Zelda’s description had checked in recently. The answer was no. Had someone of that description ever stayed at the hotel? They couldn’t possibly remember something like that. Guests came and went, many attractive women. Had she been seen there around a month ago? There was no way of knowing that. CCTV? Overwritten by now. Besides, there had been personnel changes, too, and changes in management. It was a fast turnover business. Tadić? No, they had never heard of anyone by that name.

  Frustrated by the lack of response, Banks considered arranging for a team to search the place, but he had no real evidence for ordering such an action. And what would they find? As Burgess had said, the Hotel Belgrade used to be the Tadićs’ hangout, but they had moved on, and no one there admitted to having heard of them. In any case, they would be unlikely to be keeping Zelda there.

  Blue tits and goldfinches flitted around his shrubbery, ate at the feeder and splashed in the birdbath, until a local cat jumped over the wall, arched its back and mewed at Banks, then loped on. Only a robin, intent on searching the grass for worms at the bottom of the garden, was unflustered and didn’t fly off. The other birds returned, and bees sucked on fuchsia that hung from branches like teardrops of blood.

  Banks yawned. It had been a long day, and he hadn’t had much sleep the previous night at Ray’s. There wasn’t anything more he could do tonight, and if he was going to be of any use in the search for Zelda tomorrow, he was going to have to be on the ball. So instead of pouring another glass of wine, he picked up Ray’s overflowing ashtray from the table and went back inside, where he dumped its contents into the waste bin and went to bed, taking his mobile with him. Some Brian Eno ambient music might see him off to sleep early tonight.

  ZELDA WOKE up with a dry mouth and a terrible headache. When she found the nerve to open her eyes, she thought at first that she was in complete darkness. As her sight adjusted slowly in what little light there was around the boarded-up window, she realised she was in a room, lying on a floor that felt like bare boards. When she tried to move, she found that she was chained by her right ankle to a heavy old iron radiator fixed to the wall. She tried to jerk free a number of times but quickly realised that she couldn’t. Then she shouted out, but her voice merely echoed in the empty room.

  As her eyes adapted further, she came to see that the room she was in was more like an office than anything else. All the furniture had been removed, desk and filing cabinets, and she couldn’t make out the colour of the walls. They seemed to be partially covered in that material with holes in it. She had seen it before in offices. The ceiling seemed high, and there was only the one window. Her hands were tied together with plastic handcuffs that only tightened if she tried to escape from them.

  So what had happened? Zelda tried to piece it all together. Why was it all so vague? She and Raymond had argued and she had shut herself in her studio drinking wine and working on a painting. Angry brushstrokes. Red slashes. Why was she angry? Alan, that was why. He had pushed her into telling him certain things that she hadn’t wanted him to know. Maybe enough for him to find his way to the truth. And Raymond had hardly been sympathetic. Raymond. What happened to him? He had gone out, of course. The Leeds Art Gallery lecture he had been so nervous about. But would they leave someone to wait for him and hurt him when he got back?

  As far as she could tell, she seemed OK in herself, apart from the dry mouth and headache. They had injected her with some sort of anaesthetic, she remembered; that was what was making her feel this way. Nausea, too, perhaps because the room was so hot and stuffy. But there was no pain in any of her limbs, and everything felt intact. She hadn’t been raped or sexually interfered with in any way. She would know.

  She hadn’t heard their car. All she knew was that suddenly the studio door burst open and there stood two men. One of them was Petar Tadić, of that she was certain—she would recognise his stocky body, his near non-existent neck and his beady eyes anywhere, even after all the years—but she didn’t recognise the other one. As far as she could tell, Tadić didn’t recognise her.

  Had they found out what she had done to Goran and tracked her down? That could be the only explanation. It was as she had feared; they had resources, contacts, and methods that the police lacked. Something might have led them to poor innocent Faye Butler, and under torture Faye might have given them enough clues to lead to Zelda. They wouldn’t have reported Goran’s death to the authorities, but would most likely have got rid of the body themselves, perhaps in several pieces. She had thrown her glass at them and struggled when they grabbed her, but the needle went in and its effect was quick. She remembered nothing more, not even how much time had passed, how long she had been out.

  Now here she was, shackled in her prison. What was their plan? What were they going to do to her? If they wanted her dead—an eye for an eye—then surely they would have killed her by now. Or did they intend to kill her slowly? Starvation, perhaps? Just leave her here, chained to the radiator, until she died.

  She hadn’t eaten since her lunch with Banks, and she was starving already. How long ago that seemed. How petty her irritation with him. She wished he would walk through the door right now. She could do with a Willie Garvin to rescue her. What would Modesty Blaise do? Try to escape, obviously. But how? She looked around her in the darkness, but it was hopeless.

  Zelda tugged at the chain again; it was still securely fastened to the radiator. And the iron chain was padlocked tightly around her foot. A heavy, strong lock, by the feel of it. She pulled at it, but it did no good. Though her hands were cuffed in front of her, rather than behind, they still weren’t much use. The cuffs were tight and hurt whenever she tried to reach out. She wasn’t going to escape trussed up like this. Somehow, she had to get free of her chains. But how?

  As she was thinking of possibilities, she heard footsteps coming closer down the hall outside her door.

  10

  BANKS WAS IN HIS OFFICE EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, having made his way past the crews of two TV vans parked in the market square and a knot of reporters on the front steps of Eastvale Regional HQ.

  While Stephen Hough played some late Brahms piano music in the background, Banks pored over Ordnance Survey maps, but he was distracted by mulling over whether he should cancel his outing to see the Blue Lamps’ farewell concert at the Sage that evening. Mark and Tracy could easily get there by themselves. Though he had arranged to have a meal with them beforehand over the river in Newcastle, they would surely understand that he had a crisis on his hands. He also had tickets for Ray and Zelda, but they would have to go unused unless he could find someone in the station who wanted them.

  But if he stayed at the office or
at home, what would he do but worry? He could take his mobile to the concert with him, set on vibrate, even in the hall; he wouldn’t be far away, and he could respond immediately to any breaks in the case. It wasn’t as if he was expected to be out crawling over the moors with a magnifying glass and a deerstalker looking for clues himself. But could he even pay attention to his family and the music if he went? That wasn’t the issue, he realised. He mustn’t let his son down just because leaving the investigation for an evening made him feel as if he were playing truant. This wasn’t about him; it was about Brian. Wherever Banks’s mind was, at least his physical presence should be there in the Sage concert hall while his son played one of his last gigs with the band he’d been with for years.

  Eno’s Reflection had done the trick the previous night, and Banks had slept well. First, he called Ray to find out how he was doing. Ray was hungover and depressed and told him the “bloody forensics blokes” had just turned up again to make his day even worse. Banks told him that the media would probably arrive in Lyndgarth soon, and he could go and hide out at Newhope Cottage if he wanted. But Ray said he was going to lock himself in his studio and try to immerse himself in work and music. It was the only way he thought he had any chance of surviving this whole business. He had just taken delivery of a rare vinyl copy of Jan Dukes de Grey’s 1969 debut album Sorcerers and that should get him through the morning. Even Banks didn’t have that one, only Mice and Rats in the Loft and Strange Terrain.

  Next, Banks phoned Adrian Moss and asked him to organise a press conference for later that morning. Zelda had been missing for a day and two nights now, and they were no closer to finding her, so the more publicity the better. Surely someone had seen something?

  His last call was to the Croatian authorities asking them for help in locating Tadić. It appeared they knew all about Petar and Goran and said they would be only too willing to help if either was foolish enough to return to Croatia any time soon. But they had no idea where the brothers were.

  AC Gervaise had talked to Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin and the chief constable himself, and Zelda’s disappearance was now an official Category-A investigation, with a budget to match. They would need it, too, with the extra men drafted in, then the Swaledale Mountain Rescue Team, based at Catterick Garrison. Banks had heard that it cost around a couple of thousand just to get the SAR helicopter up in the air. Still, with its heat-seeking capabilities, it could help isolate a living human figure in a vast landscape.

  Despite their name, the search team didn’t restrict themselves to Swaledale, but also carried out operations in Wensleydale and Swainsdale. They had worked on the Claudia Lawrence search back in March 2009, when Claudia, a chef at the University of York, had disappeared. Sadly, Claudia still hadn’t been found, though various theories of her murder had been brought forward, including the possibility that she was a victim of the serial killer Christopher Halliwell. The search team had also helped out in recent flood relief efforts, including the collapse of Tadcaster Bridge.

  Frustration began to set in quickly, as it so often did with missing persons cases. Things just weren’t happening fast enough. Every moment Zelda was missing Banks felt the tension in him rack up a notch. It was partly the impotence, of course, and the not knowing, but also the fear of what might be happening to her and, as time went on, the fear that she might already be dead.

  Banks shuffled the papers on his desk. There was a lab report informing him that the cigarette ends found in the hollow near the cottage were Ronhill, a popular Croatian brand, and that they would yield DNA if required. Again, it was all pretty brazen, or careless, on Tadić’s part. DNA tests were expensive, but flushed with his newly approved budget, Banks ordered one.

  Radio 3 was playing Weinberg’s “Kaddish” Symphony, No. 21. It was close to the end when a melancholy keening female voice entered. The strange melody was so moving that Banks stopped what he was doing for a few moments and just listened. He didn’t know the composer’s work well but had read about him recently in Gramophone and liked what he was hearing. Amazing to know there were at least twenty more symphonies out there waiting to be heard. Weinberg had also written quite a lot of music for viola, one of Banks’s favourite instruments, up there with the oboe. He had known a very beautiful violist years ago, and had almost had an affair with her. Almost.

  When the symphony finished, the announcer mentioned that the wordless singing was performed by the conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra herself: Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Even more impressive. Banks only wished he could learn to pronounce her name.

  As his thoughts began to drift, he was struck with an idea he thought might produce some positive results. Zelda, Banks was almost a hundred per cent certain, was being kept somewhere in the area. But where? It seemed unlikely they would keep her in a village or small town, as newcomers would draw too much attention in such places—especially newcomers like Tadić and Zelda—where everyone knew everyone else’s business. But given that Blaydon owned dozens of vacant properties all over Yorkshire, and that Tadić had been connected with Blaydon, wouldn’t these be logical places to search, along with recent holiday cottage lets, Airbnbs, converted barns, and so forth?

  The problem with this line of thinking was that Blaydon was dead. But that didn’t have to be a game-stopper. Tadić had used Blaydon’s properties before as pop-up brothels, so he probably had a good idea of what was available out there. In the same way, Leka Gashi had used them for his county lines operations. The connection might seem obvious, and something to be avoided by a cautious criminal, but as Banks had already seen, Tadić was far from cautious: he was brazen and arrogant. Perhaps he might also be careless or stupid enough to use one of Blaydon’s empty properties to keep Zelda.

  Banks phoned through to the squad room and talked to Gerry, who assured him that their files on the Blaydon murder investigation contained comprehensive lists of all the properties on his books. Ever since he had become more interested in speculation and property development—projects like the Elmet Centre—rather than mere ownership, Blaydon had let many of the places he already owned go to seed, or had simply rented them out and forgotten about them. Now he was dead, his daughter would inherit them, along with everything else, but she had already indicated that she had no interest in her late father’s businesses and would rather just sell the whole kit and caboodle and go live in St. Kitts and Nevis.

  Banks asked Gerry if she could make time to come up with a list of vacant, isolated Blaydon properties within a radius of, say, twenty miles of Windlee Farm, and she said she would.

  “SO CHARLOTTE Westlake is lying about not knowing the girl?”

  “So it would appear,” said Gerry. She was sitting at her desk in the squad room of Eastvale Regional HQ the day after talking with Tamara Collins. “The interesting question is why.”

  “We both felt there was something she wasn’t telling us,” Annie said. “And this is probably it. She’s more involved than we thought.”

  “It’s not much, though, is it? Mistaken identity. Poor photograph. Easy to explain away. Maybe she genuinely didn’t recognise this Marnie from the photo, especially if she didn’t know her well?”

  “It’s a connection. That’s what’s important. And it tells us she’s a liar. You specifically asked her if it might have been someone who worked for her at the parties, and she had every chance to come up with a possibility or two. Remember, she didn’t study the photo closely. She just rejected it out of hand. Fair enough, it’s not a great photo, but if you’d hired the person depicted in it, there’s a reasonable chance you might recognise her from it, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Why should we trust anything she tells us? For all we know she might be in cahoots with Tadić on supplying the girls. Maybe she’s a madam with a ready-made stable.”

  Gerry smiled. “Hang on a minute . . . It is still possible that Charlotte was telling the truth and she didn’t recognise Mar
nie from the picture.”

  “I know. I know,” said Annie. “Maybe I’m exaggerating, making too much of it. But we have to consider that Charlotte Westlake might be lying, out of loyalty to Blaydon, or to cover up some involvement of her own. In exactly what, I don’t know. Remember she said she knew him vaguely before she went to work for him. Maybe he’s the rapist, and Marnie told Charlotte about it, cried on her shoulder? What would Charlotte do about that? At the very least she ought to be able to supply us with the victim’s last name now we can tell her the first one, which is a hell of a lot more than we have right now.”

  “True enough,” Gerry agreed. “But are you also thinking Charlotte might have had something to do with Blaydon’s murder because of what he did to Marnie?”

  “Or Marnie herself,” she said. “But I can’t see either of them going that far. And gutting him . . . ? No. Charlotte’s already told us she was finding Blaydon’s behaviour harder and harder to take. That’s why she left.”

  “If she’s telling us the truth about that.”

  “Fair enough. But Marnie was just another employee. And what about Gashi? Maybe he was the rapist? Maybe he killed Blaydon because he thought he had something on him, or he found out about Roberts filming it? Don’t forget, we’ve always leaned towards the theory that the Albanians killed Blaydon. We just lacked any evidence. Maybe this is it? At least it gives us a clearer motive. Perhaps we should go and have another word with Charlotte, push her a bit harder.”