Not Dark Yet
Page 34
They sat, and Banks poured the wine. “So,” he said, raising his glass. “Here you are.”
“Here I am. How did you find me?”
“It’s my job. Don’t you remember what a great detective I am?”
Zelda managed a smile. “Of course.”
“There were clues. Your past. Your books—the stories of abused women. The time you mentioned visiting an old friend in Croatia who ran a hostel for girls who had escaped sexual slavery. And this.” Banks handed her the Moleskine notebook.
“You read it?”
“Yes.”
Zelda flushed and set it down on the table.
“Keep it,” Banks said.
Zelda slipped the notebook in a pocket in her shift. “So now you know all my secrets.”
“Hardly.”
Zelda hung her head. “At least you know the very worst.”
Banks leaned forward and took her hand. She seemed surprised but didn’t snatch it back. “Zelda,” he said. “I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but it’s Ray. I’m afraid—”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know. But I had a strange dream. What happened?”
“His heart. It happened quickly. There was nothing to be done.”
“The stubborn old fool,” she said. “He would never go to the doctor. I told him many times. Those pains in his chest. The short breath. The coughing. He . . .” But the tears pouring down her face got in the way of talking, and soon her whole body was wracked with sobs. Banks let her cry. He had come forearmed and handed her a clean white handkerchief.
After a while, the sobbing ebbed away and she seemed to compose herself. She gulped down some wine. “What’s that package you brought?” she asked.
Banks handed her the tube. She opened it and unrolled Ray’s last painting, the portrait of her. “Annie wanted you to have it,” he said.
“Thank you.” Zelda studied the picture and put it aside, a strange sad smile on her face. “How is she?”
“Surviving. It’s hard.”
“Yes. I imagine so.” Zelda paused. “I was going to go back, you know,” she said. “One way or another. I didn’t know when. But I was going to go back.”
Banks squeezed her hand. “I know you were. It’s one of those things beyond our control, Zelda. There was nothing to be done. Ray was Ray. He lived his life the way he wanted, and none of us would have changed him for anything. He was lucky to know you in these last few years. Lucky to know such happiness at the end. He knew that.”
Zelda regarded him with her damp eyes. “I was lucky to know him,” she said. “You might think we had a strange relationship, that he was too old for me, but it worked. For both of us. We didn’t . . . you know . . . I’m no use that way. But Raymond understood.”
“I don’t judge you, Zelda, or your relationship. You know better than that.”
She gently disengaged her hand from his and patted his wrist to assure him it wasn’t an angry gesture. “I should do,” she said. “And I’m Nelia now.” Then they both took a long sip of wine. It seemed to go straight to Banks’s head, which was either something to do with its extraordinary strength, or the sun and sea. “But you read the notebook,” she went on. “You know about Darius and Goran. And later Petar and your enemy Keane. That’s four people I’ve killed, Alan. I’m cursed. Bad to know.”
“I preferred to believe the notebook was a work of the imagination. Wishful thinking.”
Nelia gave him a sad smile. “You’re not that much of a fool. It was true. All of it. I killed them.”
“I went to Paris,” Banks said. “A friend there told me about what happened with Darius.”
Nelia gave her head a slight shake. “It was bad. I was stealing his blackmail material. Emile had asked me to. Promised me a French passport. He was going to join me later wherever I went. Darius came in and caught me. He started beating me. There was a knife on the bar, one of those little ones you use to cut limes and lemons for drinks. I stabbed him, but it didn’t penetrate very far, and he still kept coming, so I cut his throat. They almost had a scandal, made a quick cover-up, rushed me out of the country fast with a French passport. I think some of them wanted to kill me, but that didn’t happen. I like to think Emile spoke up for me. He was true to his word. Later the Sûreté got me an interview for the job with the NCA. So they could keep an eye on me, I suppose. And Darius’s musclemen killed Emile. That’s what happened in Paris.”
“And London?”
“Goran Tadić? I drugged him in a hotel room and stabbed him to death. I assume his brother and colleagues got rid of the body. I never heard anything more about it until they abducted me from the cottage. They tracked me down through the Hotel Belgrade CCTV and taxi drivers. They also tortured Faye Butler, Keane’s ex-girlfriend, until she told them what she knew. Then they killed her. But even when he took me, Petar Tadić didn’t know who I was. He didn’t remember that he had raped me when I was seventeen. I reminded him before I killed him. I don’t know what you want me to say, but you won’t get any apologies out of me. I have no regrets. Do what you wish, but I’m glad I killed them, all of them, and I’m glad they’re dead. Raymond was worth more than all of them put together.”
“I can’t say I disagree,” said Banks.
“And you a policeman.”
“Tell me, what happened at the treatment plant.”
“They kept me chained to the radiator upstairs, in a bare room. It looked like a disused office. It was always dark until they came to see me with their light.”
“How did you escape?”
“It doesn’t matter. Petar Tadić made a mistake, and I took advantage. Then I took his keys after I killed him. I came down and saw Keane splashing petrol over you. You know the rest. I crept up on him and stabbed him and cut you free. Then I turned to fight him for the lighter, but he lit it. Pouff. It was so strange. This man, with the last movement in his life, he struck a cigarette lighter and started a big fire.”
“And afterwards?”
“There was a car parked outside the side entrance. Keane’s car. The keys were still in the ignition. Tadić had told me that he had come back with my new passport and some money for the journey. They were taking me to a brothel in Dhaka. A terrible place. They told me I would die there slowly of disease and beatings. After I made sure you ran for the main exit, I went out of the side and drove away. I found the passport and money in the glove compartment. I drove to Newcastle and left the car at the airport, then I flew from there to Amsterdam. The passport was in the name of Frieda Mannheim, so I didn’t expect any trouble, or run into any. That man Keane was a good forger. After that . . . I came here. It was easy to disappear, to lie low. Until now.”
“But why didn’t you leave with me, the same way?”
“I think you know the answer to that. I had just killed two men, and you’re a policeman.”
“Surely you know me better than that, Nelia? And it was self-defence.”
“Perhaps.” Nelia smiled. “But I was hardly thinking any more clearly than you were.”
She stood up and walked to the edge of the promontory, carrying her wine. She made such a slight and vulnerable figure against the vast expanse of the darkening sea beyond that Banks found it hard to believe she had wreaked such havoc among the men who had stolen her youth. He knocked back the last of his wine and stood up. “Raymond left you something else in his will,” he said.
“I don’t want anything.”
Banks gestured to the house. “It might help. With all your work here.”
Nelia nodded, her back to him.
“I’ll see to it,” Banks said. “I’ll go now.”
Nelia turned to face him. “Must you go so soon?” she said. “It’s not dark yet.”
“It’s a long drive to Zagreb.”
“Are you going to arrest me?”
Banks looked at her for a long time, then shook his head. “No,” he s
aid. “I’ve had enough of all that. More than enough.”
Then he turned away and walked back down the hill to his car.
Acknowledgements
There are many people to thank for helping me get this book ready for publication, starting with my wife, Sheila Halladay, who read the first draft and sent me back to the manuscript with many helpful suggestions. At Hodder & Stoughton, I would especially like to thank my editor Carolyn Mays, her assistant Sorcha Rose, and copy editor Sharona. At McClelland and Stewart in Canada, thanks to Kelly Joseph and Jared Bland, and at William Morrow in the U.S.A., Emily Krump and Julia Elliott. It is also important to recognize the efforts of those whose work is yet to be done, especially publicists and sales reps, who will have a far more difficult task this time, for obvious reasons. Thank you in advance.
Also thanks to my agents Dominick Abel, David Grossman, and Rosie and Jessica Buckman. I would also like to thank those overseas publishers, editors, and translators who have stuck with me over the years. They know who they are. There are many others who contribute, including cover artists, book designers, proofreaders, booksellers, and librarians, and I would like to thank all those people. Finally, thanks to my readers, without whom all our efforts would be pointless.
About the Author
One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, PETER ROBINSON is the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series; he has also written two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes are the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award.
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Also By Peter Robinson
INSPECTOR BANKS SERIES
GALLOWS VIEW
A DEDICATED MAN
A NECESSARY END
THE HANGING VALLEY
PAST REASON HATED
WEDNESDAY’S CHILD
FINAL ACCOUNT
INNOCENT GRAVES
BLOOD AT THE ROOT
IN A DRY SEASON
COLD IS THE GRAVE
AFTERMATH
CLOSE TO HOME
PLAYING WITH FIRE
STRANGE AFFAIR
PIECE OF MY HEART
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL
ALL THE COLORS OF DARKNESS
BAD BOY
WATCHING THE DARK
CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
IN THE DARK PLACES
WHEN THE MUSIC’S OVER
SLEEPING IN THE GROUND
CARELESS LOVE
MANY RIVERS TO CROSS
OTHER WORKS
THE FIRST CUT
NO CURE FOR LOVE
BEFORE THE POISON
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NOT DARK YET. Copyright © 2021 by Eastvale Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Published in the U.K. in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photograph © Tracy Collyer/Arcangel Images
Digital Edition MARCH 2021
Version 01312021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-299495-0
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