Final Account

by Peter Robinson

  “Any luck?”

  “Well, yes and no.”

  “Come on, then. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “We’ve found out who she is. Her name’s Julia Marshall and she lives in Adel. That’s in north Leeds. She’s a schoolteacher. We got a couple of phone calls from colleagues. Apparently, she was a quiet person, shy and private.”

  “Was?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t say that, really, sir, but it’s just that she’s disappeared. That’s all we know so far. I just think we should find her, that’s all,” she said. “Talk to her friends. I don’t really know why. It’s just a feeling. She might know something.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Banks. “It’s a loose end I’d like to see tied up as well. There are too many bloody disappearances in this case for my liking. Is there anything else?”

  “No. But it’s not over yet, is it, sir?”

  “No, Susan, I don’t think it is. Thanks for telling me. We’ll follow up on it first thing tomorrow. For now, we’d better get back to the party or Phil will think we don’t love him.”

  Banks walked back to the bar and lit a cigarette. The music had changed; now it was the Swinging Blue Jeans doing “Hippy, Hippy Shake” and some of the younger members of the department were dancing.

  Banks thought about Tom Rothwell and his father. Susan had been sharp to pick up on that. It didn’t make sense, given Rothwell’s other interests, that he should be so genuinely upset that his son didn’t want to be an accountant or a lawyer. On the other hand, perhaps nothing was more of an anathema, an insult, to a confirmed heterosexual philanderer than a gay son.

  “Penny for them?” Sandra said.

  “What? Oh, nothing. Just thinking, that’s all.”

  “It’s over, Alan. Leave it be. It’s another feather in your cap. You can’t solve the whole world’s problems.”

  “It feels more like a lead weight than a feather. I think I’ll have another drink.” He turned and ordered another pint. Sandra had a gin and tonic. “You’re right, of course,” he said, standing the drink on the bar. “We’ve done the best we can.”

  “You’ve done all you can. It’s being pipped at the post by Dirty Dick that really gets your goat, isn’t it?” Sandra taunted. “You two have got some kind of macho personal vendetta going, haven’t you?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I won’t say it’s a good feeling, knowing the bastard’s got his way.”

  “You did what you could, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you still think Burgess has won this time, and it pisses you off, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Yes. Yes, it bloody well does. Sandra, the man had someone shot.”

  “A cold-blooded murderer. Besides, you don’t know that.”

  “You mean I can’t prove it. And we’re not here to play vigilantes. If Burgess had Jameson shot, you can be damn sure it wasn’t just an eye for an eye. He was making certain he didn’t talk.”

  “Men,” said Sandra, turning to her drink with a long-suffering sigh.

  Gristhorpe, who had been listening from the other side, laughed and nudged Banks in the ribs. “Better listen to her,” he said. “I can understand how you feel, but there’s no more you can do, and there’s no point making some kind of competition out of it.”

  “I know that. It’s not that. It’s … oh, maybe Sandra’s right and it is macho stuff. I don’t know.”

  At that moment, Sergeant Rowe, who had been manning the front desk across the street, pushed through the crowd of drinkers and said to Banks, “Phone call, sir. He says it’s important. Must talk to you in person.”

  Banks put his pint glass back on the bar. “Shit. Did he say who?”

  “No.”

  “All right.” He turned to Sandra and pointed at his pint. “Guard that drink with your life. Back in a few minutes.”

  He couldn’t ignore the call; it might be an informer with important information. Irritated, nonetheless, he crossed Market Street and went into the Tudor-fronted police station.

  “You can take it in here, sir,” said Rowe, pointing to an empty ground-floor office.

  Banks went in and picked up the receiver. “Hello. Banks here.”

  “Ah, Banks,” said the familiar voice. “It’s Superintendent Burgess here. Remember me? What do you want first, the good news or the bad?”

  Speak of the devil. Banks felt his jaw clench and his stomach start to churn. “Just tell me,” he said as calmly as he could.

  “Okay. You know those two goons, the ones that beat up the tart of colour?”

  “Yes. Have you got them?”

  “We-ell, not exactly.”

  “What then?”

  “They got away, slipped through our net. That’s the bad news.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Back home, of course. St Corona. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s so good about that?”

  “Seems they didn’t realize they’d become persona non grata there, or whatever the plural of that is.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I have it on good authority that they’ve both been eating glass.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “Of course they’re bloody dead. I doubt they’d survive a diet like that.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I told you. Good authority. It’s the real McCoy. No reason to doubt the source.”

  “Why?”

  “Ours is not to reason why, Banks. Let’s just say that their bungling around England drawing attention to themselves didn’t help much. Things are in a delicate balance.”

  “Did you know in advance that they were out of favour? Did you let them slip out of the country, knowing what would happen? Did you even try to find them?”

  “Oh, Banks. You disappoint me. How could you even think something like that of me?”

  “Easy. The same way I think you sent Spike and Shandy down to Kensington to make damn sure Arthur Jameson didn’t survive to say anything embarrassing in court.”

  “I told you, Jameson wasn’t in my brief.”

  “I know what you told me. I also know what happened in that hotel room. They shot the bastard down, Burgess, and you’re responsible.”

  “Superintendent Burgess, to you. And he shot first is what I heard. That’s the official version, at any rate, and I don’t see any reason not to believe it. As our cousins over the pond would say, it was a ‘righteous shoot.’”

  “Bollocks. They shot him twice then fired off a round from his gun to make it look like he fired first. Apart from the shots, do you know what gave them away?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “They left the gun in his hand for me to see. Procedure is that you disarm a suspect first thing, whether you think he’s dead or not.”

  “Well, hurray for you, Sherlock. Don’t you think they might have got careless in the heat of the moment?”

  “No. Not with their training.”

  “But it doesn’t matter, does it? You weren’t there, officially, were you? In fact you were ordered to stay on the ground floor. Anyway, I don’t think we need to go into all that tiresome stuff, do we? Do you really want me to have to pull rank? Believe it or not, I like you, Banks. Life would be a lot duller without you. I wouldn’t want to see you throw your career down the tubes over this. Take my word for it, nobody will take kindly to your rocking the boat. The official verdict is the only one that counts.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Leave it alone, Banks. It’s over.”

  “Why does everyone keep telling me that?”

  “Because it’s true. One more thing. And don’t interrupt me. We found an address book in Jameson’s stuff and it led us to an old ex-army crony of his called Donald Pembroke. Ring any bells?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, it seems this Pembroke just inherited a lot of money, according to his neighbour. The first thing he did was buy
a fast sports car, cash down according to the salesman. Two days later he lost control on a B road in Kent—doing eighty or ninety by all accounts—and ran it into a tree.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s dead, isn’t he? What’s more, there’s no way you can put it down to me. So don’t say there’s no justice in the world, Banks. Goodbye. Have a good life.” Burgess hung up abruptly, leaving Banks to glare into the receiver. He slammed it down so hard that Sergeant Rowe popped his head around the door. “Everything all right, sir?”

  “Yes, fine,” said Banks. He took a deep breath and ran his hand through his short hair. “Everything’s just bloody fine and dandy.” He sat in the empty office gaining control of his breathing. Susan’s words echoed in his mind. “It’s not over yet, is it, sir?” No, it bloody well wasn’t.

  SEVENTEEN

  I

  Banks sat at a tavérna by the quayside sipping an ice-cold Beck’s and smoking a duty-free Benson and Hedges Special Mild. When he had finished his cigarette, he popped a dolmáde into his mouth and followed it with a black olive. One or two of the locals, mostly mustachioed and sun-leathered fishermen, occasionally glanced his way during a pause in their conversation.

  It was a small island, just one village built up the central hillside, and though it got its share of tourists in season, none of the big cruise ships came. Banks had arrived half an hour ago on a regular ferry service from Piraeus and he needed a while to collect his thoughts and get his land-legs back again. He had a difficult interview ahead of him, he suspected. He had already contacted the Greek police. Help had been offered, and the legal machinery was ready to grind into action at a word. But Banks had something else he wanted to try first.

  By Christ, it was hot, even in the shade. The sun beat down from a clear sky, a more intense, more saturated blue than Banks had ever seen, especially in contrast to the white houses, shops and tavérnas along the quayside. A couple of sailboats and a few fishing craft were moored in the small harbour, bobbing gently on the calm water. It was hard to describe the sea’s colour; certainly there were shades of green and blue in it, aquamarine, ultramarine, but in places it was a kind of inky blue, too, almost purple. Maybe Homer was right when he called it “wine-dark,” Banks thought, remembering his conversation with Superintendent Gristhorpe before the trip. Banks had never read The Odyssey, but he probably would when he got back.

  He paid for his food and drink and walked out into the sun. On his way, he popped into the local police station in the square near the harbour, as promised, then set off along the dirt track up the hill.

  The main street itself was narrow enough, but every few yards a side-street branched off, narrower still, all white, cubist, flat-roofed houses with painted shutters, mostly blue. Some of the houses had red pantile roofs, like the ones in Whitby. Many people had put hanging baskets of flowers out on the small balconies, a profusion of purple, pink, red and blue, and lines of washing hung over the narrow streets. By the roadside were poppies and delicate lavender flowers that looked like morning glories.

  Mingled with the scents of the flowers were the smells of tobacco and wild herbs. Banks thought he recognized thyme and rosemary. Insects with red bodies and transparent wings flew around him. The sun beat relentlessly. Before Banks had walked twenty yards, his white cotton shirt stuck to his back. He wished he had worn shorts instead of jeans.

  Banks looked ahead. Where the white houses ended halfway up the hillside, scrub and rocky outcrops took over. The house he wanted, he had been told, was on his right, a large one with a high-gated white wall and a shaded courtyard. It wasn’t difficult to spot, now about fifty yards ahead, almost three-quarters of the length of the road.

  He finally made it. The ochre gate was unlocked, and beyond it, Banks found a courtyard full of saplings, pots of herbs and hanging plants by a krokalia pathway of black and white pebbles winding up to the door. Expensive, definitely. The door was slightly ajar, and he could hear voices inside. By the plummy tones, it sounded like the BBC World Service news. He paused a moment for breath, then walked up to the door and knocked.

  He heard a movement inside, the voices stopped, and in a few seconds someone opened the door. Banks looked into the face that he had thought for so long had been blown to smithereens.

  “Mr Rothwell?” he said, slipping his card out of his wallet and holding it up. “Mr Keith Rothwell?”

  II

  “You’ve come, then?” Rothwell said simply.

  “Yes.”

  He looked over Banks’s shoulder. “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better come in.”

  Banks followed Rothwell into a bright room where a ceiling fan spun and a light breeze blew through the open blue shutters. It was sparsely furnished. The walls were plastered white, the floor was flagged, covered here and there by rugs, and the ceiling was panelled with dark wood. Outside, he could hear birds singing; he didn’t know what kind.

  He sat down in the wicker chair Rothwell offered, surprised to be able to see the sea down below through the window. Now he was at the end of his journey, he felt bone weary and more than a little dizzy. It had been a long way from Eastvale and a long uphill walk in the sun. Sweat dribbled from his eyebrows into his eyes and made them sting. He wiped it away with his forearm. At least it was cooler inside the room.

  Rothwell noticed his discomfort. “Hot, isn’t it?” he said. “Can I get you something?”

  Banks nodded. “Thanks. Anything as long as it’s cold.”

  Rothwell went to the kitchen door and turned, with a smile, just as he opened it. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t run away.”

  “There’s nowhere to run,” replied Banks.

  A minute or so later he came back with a glass of ice water and a bottle of Grolsch lager. “I’d drink the water first,” he advised. “You look a bit dehydrated.”

  Banks drained the glass then opened the metal gizmo on the beer. It tasted good. Imported, of course. But Rothwell could afford it. Banks looked at him. The receding sandy hair, forming a slight widow’s peak, had bleached in the sun. He had a good tan for such a fair-skinned person. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his steady grey eyes looked out calmly, not giving away any indication as to his state of mind. He had a slightly prissy mouth, a girl’s mouth, and his lips were pale pink. He looked nothing at all like the photograph of Daniel Clegg.

  He wore a peach short-sleeve shirt, white shorts and brown leather sandals. His toenails need cutting. He was an inch or so taller than Banks, slim and in good shape—about all he did have in common with Clegg, apart from the colour of his hair, his blood group and the appendicitis scar. When he went to get the drinks, Banks noticed, he moved with an athlete’s grace and economy. There was nothing of the sedentary pen-pusher about his bearing.

  “Anyone else here?” Banks asked.

  “Julia’s gone to the shops,” he said, glancing at his watch. “She shouldn’t be long.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “How did you find me?” Rothwell asked, sitting opposite, opening a tin of Pepsi. The gas hissed out and liquid frothed over the edge. Rothwell held it at arm’s length until it had stopped fizzing, then wiped the tin with a tissue from a box on the table beside him.

  “It wasn’t that difficult,” said Banks. “Once I knew who I was looking for. We found you partly through Julia.” He shrugged. “After that it was a matter of routine police work, mostly boring footwork. We checked travel agents, then we contacted the local police through Interpol. It didn’t take that long to get word back about two English strangers who resembled your descriptions taking a lease on a captain’s house here. Did you really believe we wouldn’t find you eventually?”

  “I suppose I must have,” said Rothwell. “Foolish of me, but there it is. There are always variables, loose ends, but I thought I’d left enough red herrings and covered my tracks pretty well. I planned it all very carefully.”

  “Do you have any idea what
you’ve done to your family?”

  Rothwell’s lips tightened. “It wasn’t a family. It was a sham. A lie. A façade. We played at happy families. I couldn’t stand it any more. There was no love in the house. Mary and I hadn’t slept together in years and Tom … well …”

  Banks let Tom pass for the moment. “Why not get a divorce like anyone else? Why this elaborate scheme?”

  “I assume, seeing as you’re here, you know most of it?”

  “Humour me.”

  Rothwell squinted at Banks. “Look,” he said. “I can’t see where you’d have any room to hide one, but you’re not ‘wired’ as the Americans say, are you?”

  Banks shook his head. “You have my word on that.”

  “This is just between you and me? Off the record?”

  “For the moment. I am here officially, though.”

  Rothwell sipped some Pepsi then rubbed the can between his palms. “I might have asked Mary for a divorce eventually,” he said, “but it was still all very new to me, the freedom, the taste of another life. I’m not even sure she would have let me go that easily. The way things turned out, though, I had to appear dead. If he thinks I’m alive, there’ll be no peace, no escape anywhere.”

  “Martin Churchill?”

  “Yes. He found out I was taking rather more than I was entitled to.”

  “How did you find out he knew?”

  “A close source. When you play the kind of games I did, Mr Banks, it pays to have as much information as you can get. Let’s say someone on the island tipped me that Churchill knew and that he was pressuring Daniel Clegg to do something about it.”

  “Is that how it happened?”

  “Yes. And it made sense. I’d noticed that Daniel had been behaving oddly lately. He was nervous about something. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. Now I had an explanation. The bastard was planning to have me executed.”

  “So you had him killed instead?”