Not Safe After Dark

by Peter Robinson

  “I’m ill, Henri. Dying, in fact. But please sit down. Be my guests. Let’s share some wine. Waiter.”

  Henri looks at Brigitte, who nods, and they sit. She seems a little embarrassed, uncomfortable, though I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Perhaps it is because I told them I am dying. No doubt many people would feel uncomfortable sitting in a café drinking wine with death.

  “Funnily enough,” I tell them, “I was just thinking about you. What are you doing here?”

  Henri beams. “Now I’m the professor,” he says with great pride. “I teach literature at the Sorbonne.”

  “Good for you, Henri. I always believed you’d go far.”

  “It’s a pity you couldn’t have stayed around.”

  “They were difficult times, Henri. Interesting, as the Chinese say.”

  “Still . . . It was a sad business about that girl. What was her name?”

  “April?” I say, and I feel an echo of my old love as I say her name. Ap-reel.

  “April. Yes. That was around the time you went away.”

  “My time here was over,” I tell him. “I had no job, the country was in a state of civil war. It wasn’t my future.”

  Henri frowns. “Yes, I know. Nobody blames you for getting out . . . it’s not that . . .”

  “Blames me for what, Henri?”

  He glances at Brigitte, who looks deep into her glass of wine. “You remember,” he says. “The suicide? I told you about it.”

  “I remember. She killed herself over an American boy the CRS beat to death.”

  “Brad? But that wasn’t . . . I mean . . .” He stares at me, wide-eyed. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “I tried to tell you at the time, but you turned away.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Brigitte looks up slowly from her wine and speaks. “Why did you desert her? Why did you turn your back on her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You rejected her. You broke her heart. The silly girl was in love with you, and you spurned her. That’s why she killed herself.”

  “That’s ridiculous. She killed herself because of the American.”

  Brigitte shakes her head. “No. Believe me, it was you. She told me. She could talk only about you in the days before . . .”

  “But . . . Brad?”

  “Brad was jealous. Don’t you understand? She was never more than a casual girlfriend to him. He wanted more, but she fell for you.”

  I shake my head slowly. I can’t believe this. Can’t allow myself to believe this. The world starts to become indistinct, all shadows and echoes. I can’t breathe. My skin tingles with pins and needles. I feel a touch on my shoulder.

  “Are you all right? Richard? Are you all right?”

  It is Henri. I hear him call for a brandy and someone places a cool glass in my hand. I sip. It burns and seems to dispel the mist a little. Brigitte rests her hand on my arm and leans forward. “You mean you really didn’t know?”

  I shake my head.

  “Henri tried to tell you.”

  “Brad,” I whisper. “Brad told me she just used me, that she thought I was a joke. I believed him.”

  Henri and Brigitte look at one another, then back at me, concern and pity in their eyes. A little more than that in Henri’s, too: suspicion. Maybe everybody wasn’t convinced that the CRS had killed Brad after all.

  “He was jealous,” Brigitte repeats. “He lied.”

  Suddenly I start to laugh, which horrifies them. But I can’t help myself. People turn and look at us. Henri and Brigitte are embarrassed. When the laughter subsides, I am left feeling hollow. I sip more brandy. Henri has placed his cigarettes on the table. Gauloises, I notice.

  “May I?” I ask, reaching for the packet, even though I haven’t smoked in twenty years.

  He nods.

  I light a Gauloise. Cough a little. What does it matter if I get lung cancer now? I’m already as good as dead. After a few puffs, the cigarette even starts to taste good, brings back, as tastes and smells do so well, even more memories of the cafés and nights of 1968. I begin to wonder whatever happened to that silk scarf I left in the drawer at my pension. I wish I could smell her jasmine scent again.

  Outside, the girl’s lover arrives. He is young and handsome and he waves his arms as he apologizes for being late. She is sulky at first, but she brightens and kisses him. He runs his hand down her smooth, olive cheek and I can smell tear gas again.

  The Good Partner

  An Inspector Banks Story

  1

  The louring sky was black as a tax inspector’s heart when Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks pulled up outside 17 Oakley Crescent at eight o’clock one mid-November evening. An icy wind whipped up the leaves and sent them skittering around his feet as he walked up the path to the glass-paneled door.

  Detective Constable Susan Gay was waiting for him inside, and Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy with his new video recorder. Between the glass coffee table and the brick fireplace lay the woman’s body, blood matting the hair around her left temple. Banks put on his latex gloves, then bent and picked up the object beside her. The bronze plaque read eastvale golf club, 1991 tournament. winner: david fosse. There was blood on the base of the trophy. The man Banks assumed to be David Fosse sat on the sofa staring into space.

  A pile of photographs lay on the table. Banks picked them up and flipped through them. Each was dated 11/13/93 across the bottom. The first few showed group scenes—red-eyed people eating, drinking, and dancing at a banquet of some kind—but the last ones told a different story. Two showed a handsome young man in a navy-blue suit, white shirt, and garish tie, smiling lecherously at the photographer from behind a glass of whiskey. Then the scene shifted to a hotel room, where the man had loosened his tie. None of the other diners were to be seen. In the last picture, he had also taken off his jacket. The date had changed to 11/14/93.

  Banks turned to the man on the sofa. “Are you David Fosse?” he asked.

  There was a pause while the man seemed to return from a great distance. “Yes,” he said finally.

  “Can you identify the victim?”

  “It’s my wife, Kim.”

  “What happened?”

  “I . . . I was out taking the dog for a walk. When I got back I found . . .” He gestured toward the floor.

  “When did you go out?”

  “Quarter to seven, as usual. I got back about half past and found her like this.”

  “Was your wife in when you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she expecting any visitors?”

  He shook his head.

  Banks held out the photos. “Have you seen these?”

  Fosse turned away and grunted.

  “Who took them? What do they mean?”

  Fosse stared at the Axminster.

  “Mr. Fosse?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This date, thirteen November. Last Saturday. Is that significant?”

  “My wife was at a business convention in London last weekend. I assume they’re the pictures she took.”

  “What kind of convention?”

  “She’s involved in servicing home offices and small businesses. Servicing,” he sneered. “Now there’s an apt term.”

  Banks singled out the man in the gaudy tie. “Do you know who this is?”

  “No.” Fosse’s face darkened and both his hands curled into fists. “No, but if I ever get hold of him—”

  “Mr. Fosse, did you argue with your wife about the man in these photographs?”

  Fosse’s mouth dropped. “They weren’t here when I left.”

  “How do you explain their presence now?”

  “I don’t know. She must have got them out while I was taking Jasper for a walk.”

  Banks looked around the room and saw a camera on the sideboard, a Canon. It looked like an expensive autofocus model. He picked it up carefully and put
it in a plastic bag. “Is this yours?” he asked Fosse.

  Fosse looked at the camera. “It’s my wife’s. I bought it for her birthday. Why? What are you doing with it?”

  “It may be evidence,” said Banks, pointing at the exposure indicator. “Seven pictures have been taken on a new film. I have to ask you again, Mr. Fosse, did you argue with your wife about the man in these photos?”

  “And I’ll tell you again. How could I? They weren’t there when I went out, and she was dead when I got back.”

  The dog barked from the kitchen. The front door opened and Dr. Glendenning walked in, a tall, imposing figure with white hair and a nicotine-stained mustache.

  Glendenning glanced sourly at Banks and Susan and complained about being dragged out on such a night. Banks apologized. Though Glendenning was a Home Office pathologist, and a lowly police surgeon could pronounce death, Banks knew that Glendenning would never have forgiven them had they not called him.

  As the Scene-of-Crime team arrived, Banks turned to David Fosse and said, “I think we’d better carry on with this down at headquarters.”

  Fosse shrugged and stood up to get his coat. As they left, Banks heard Glendenning mutter, “A golf trophy. A bloody golf trophy! Sacrilege.”

  2

  “Do you think he did it, sir?” Susan Gay asked Banks.

  Banks swirled the inch of Theakston’s XB at the bottom of his glass and watched the patterns it made. “I don’t know. He certainly had means, motive, and opportunity. But something about it makes me uneasy.”

  It was almost closing time, and Banks and Susan sat in the warm glow of the Queen’s Arms having a late dinner of microwaved steak-and-kidney pud, courtesy of Cyril, the landlord, who was used to their unsociable hours. Outside, rain lashed against the red and amber windowpanes.

  Banks pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette. He was tired. The Fosse call had come in just as he was about to go home after a long day of paperwork and boring meetings.

  They had learned little more during a two-hour interrogation at the station. Kim Fosse had left for London on Friday and returned on Monday with her business partner, Norma Cheverel. The convention had been held at the Ludbridge Hotel in Kensington.

  David Fosse maintained his innocence, but sexual jealousy made a strong motive, and now he was languishing in the cells under Eastvale Divisional Headquarters. Languish was perhaps too strong a word, as the cells were as comfortable as many bed-and-breakfasts, and the food and service much better. The only problem was that you couldn’t open the door and go for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales when you felt like it.

  They learned from the house-to-house that Fosse did walk the dog—several people had seen him—and not even Dr. Glendenning could pinpoint time of death to within the forty-five minutes he was out of the house.

  Fosse could have murdered his wife before he left or when he got home. He could also have nipped back around the rear, where a path ran by the river, got into the house unseen the back way, then resumed his walk.

  “Time, ladies and gentlemen, please,” called Cyril, ringing his bell behind the bar. “And that includes coppers.”

  Banks smiled and finished his beer. “There’s not a lot more we can do tonight, anyway,” he said. “I think I’ll go home and get some sleep.”

  “I’ll do the same.” Susan reached for her overcoat.

  “First thing in the morning,” said Banks, “we’ll have a word with Norma Cheverel, see if she can throw any light on what happened in London last weekend.”

  3

  Norma Cheverel was an attractive woman in her early thirties with a tousled mane of red hair, a high freckled forehead, and the greenest eyes Banks had ever seen. Contact lenses, he decided uncharitably, perhaps to diminish the sense of sexual energy he felt emanate from her.

  She sat behind her desk in the large carpeted office, swiveling occasionally in her executive chair. After her assistant had brought coffee, Norma pulled out a long cigarette and lit up. “One of the pleasures of being the boss,” she said. “The buggers can’t make you stop smoking.”

  “You’ve heard about Kim Fosse, I take it?” Banks asked.

  “On the local news last night. Poor Kim.” She shook her head.

  “We’re puzzled about a few things. Maybe you can help us?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Did you notice her taking many photographs at the convention?”

  Norma Cheverel frowned. “I can’t say as I did, really, but there were quite a few people taking photographs there, especially at the banquet. You know how people get silly at conventions. I never could understand this mania for capturing the moment. Can you, Chief Inspector?”

  Banks, whose wife, Sandra, was a photographer, could understand it only too well, though he would have quibbled with “capturing the moment.” A good photographer, a real photographer, Sandra had often said, did much more than that; she transformed the moment. But he let the aesthetics lie.

  Norma Cheverel was right about the photo mania, though. Banks had also noticed that since the advent of cheap, idiot-proof cameras, every Tom, Dick, and Harry had started taking photos indoors. He had been half blinded a number of times by a group of tourists “capturing the moment” in some pub or restaurant. It was almost as bad as the mobile-phone craze, though not quite.

  “Did Kim Fosse share this mania?” he asked.

  “She had a fancy new camera. She took it with her. That’s all I can say, really. Look, I don’t—”

  “Bear with me, Ms. Cheverel.”

  “Norma, please.”

  Banks, who reserved the familiarity of first-name terms to exercise power over suspects, not to interview witnesses, went on. “Do you know if she had affairs?”

  This time Norma Cheverel let the silence stretch. Banks could hear the fan cooling the microchip in her computer. She stubbed out her long cigarette, careful to make sure it wasn’t still smoldering, sipped some coffee, swiveled a little, and said, “Yes. Yes, she did. Though I wouldn’t really describe them as affairs.”

  “How would you describe them?”

  “Just little flings, really. Nothing that really meant anything to her.”

  “Who with?”

  “She didn’t usually mention names.”

  “Did she have a fling in London last weekend?”

  “Yes. She told me about it on the way home. Look, Chief Inspector, Kim wasn’t a bad person. She just needed something David couldn’t give her.”

  Banks took a photograph of the man in the navy-blue suit from his briefcase and slid it across the desk. “Know him?”

  “It’s Michael Bannister. He’s with an office-furnishings company in Preston.”

  “And did Kim Fosse have a fling with him that weekend?”

  Norma swiveled and bit her lip. “She didn’t tell me it was him.”

  “Surprised?”

  She shrugged. “He’s married. Not that that means much these days. I’ve heard he’s very much in love with his wife, but she’s not very strong. Heart condition, or something.” She sniffled, then sneezed and reached for a tissue.

  “What did Kim tell you about last weekend?”

  Norma Cheverel smiled an odd, twisted little smile from the corner of her lips. “Oh, Chief Inspector, do you really want all the details? Girl talk about sex is so much dirtier than men’s, you know.”

  Though he felt himself reddening a little, Banks said, “So I’ve been told. Did she ever express concern about her husband finding out?”

  “Oh yes. She told me under no circumstances to tell David. As if I would. He’s very jealous and he has a temper.”

  “Was he ever violent toward her?”

  “Just once. It was the last time we went to a convention, as a matter of fact. Apparently he tried to phone her in her room after midnight—some emergency to do with the dog—and she wasn’t there. When she got home he lost his temper, called her a whore, and hit her.”

  “How long had they been married?”


  Norma sniffled again and blew her nose. “Four years.”

  “How long have you and Kim Fosse been in business together?”

  “Six years. We started when she was still Kim Church. She’d just got her MBA.”

  “How did the partnership work?”

  “Very well. I’m on the financial side and Kim dealt with sales and marketing.”

  “Are you married?”

  “I don’t see that it’s any of your business, Chief Inspector, but no, I’m not. I guess Mr. Right just hasn’t turned up yet,” she said coldly, then looked at her gold wristwatch. “Are there any more questions?”

  Banks stood up. “No, that’s all for now. Thank you very much for your time.”

  She stood up and walked around the desk to show him to the door. Her handshake on leaving was a little brisker and cooler than it had been when he arrived.

  4

  “So Kim Fosse was discreet, but she took photographs,” said Susan when they met up in Banks’s office later that morning. “Kinky?”

  “Could be. Or just careless. They’re pretty harmless, really.” The seven photographs from the film they had found inside the camera showed the same man in the hotel room on the same date, 11/14/93.

  “Michael Bannister,” Susan read from her notes. “Sales director for Office Comforts Ltd, based in Preston, Lancashire. Lives in Blackpool with his wife, Lucy. No children. His wife suffers from a congenital heart condition, needs constant pills and medicines, lots of attention. His workmates tell me he’s devoted to her.”

  “A momentary lapse, then?” Banks suggested. He walked over to his broken venetian blind and looked out on the rain-swept market square. Only two cars were parked there today. The gold hands on the blue face of the church clock stood at 11:39.

  “It happens, sir. Maybe more often than we think.”

  “I know. Reckon we’d better go easy approaching him?”

  “No sense endangering the wife’s health, is there?”

  “You’re right. See if you can arrange to see him at his office.” Banks looked out of the window and shivered. “I don’t much fancy a trip to the seaside in this miserable weather anyway.”