A Necessary End

by Peter Robinson

  At the third door, a man who had been nipping out to the off-licence at about a quarter to eight said he’d seen two men walking along the corridor on his way back. They had seen him, too, but had made no move to run off or turn away. The description was average—most people are about as observant as a brick wall, Banks had discovered over the years—but it helped.

  They were both tall and burly, and they both wore dark-blue pants, a bit shiny, probably the bottom part of a suit; one had on a black overcoat, fake leather, while the other wore a light trench coat; one had black hair, the other none at all; and neither wore a hat or glasses. About facial features, the man remembered nothing except that both men had two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and two ears. They had walked confidently and purposefully, as if they knew where they were going and what they were about, not furtively, as he imagined crimi-nals would have done. So, no, he hadn’t seen any need to call the police. He was sorry now, of course. His speech was slurred, as if he’d already drunk most of what he’d bought at the off-licence. Banks thanked him and left.

  Over the next four doors, Banks found himself told to piss off by a writer whose concentration he had disturbed and asked in for a cup of tea by a lonely military-type who wanted to show off his medals. As yet, there had been no temptress in a négligé.

  It wasn’t until the ninth door that he found anyone else who knew anything. Beth Cameron wore tight, checked slacks, which hardly flattered her plump hips and thighs, and a maroon cardigan over a shiny white blouse. Her curly brown hair showed traces of a recent perm, and she had the most animated face that Banks had ever seen. Every comment, every word, was accompanied by a curled lip, a raised eyebrow, a wrinkled nose, a deep frown or a mock pout. She was like one of those sponge hand-puppets he remembered from his childhood. When you put your hand inside it, you could wrench the face into the most remarkable contortions.

  “Did you see anyone coming in or out of Mr Osmond’s flat this evening?” Banks asked.

  “No, no, I can’t say I did. Wait a minute, though, I did notice something odd. Not up here but down in the garage. It struck me as a bit strange at the time, you know, but I just brushed it off. You do, don’t you?”

  “What did you see?”

  “A blue Escort. And it was parked in Mr Handley’s spot. He’s often out during the evening—he’s the entertainment reporter for the Eastvale Gazette—but still, I thought, that’s no reason to steal the man’s parking spot, is it? See, there’s places for visitors outside. We don’t encourage non-residents to park underground. It could lead to all sorts of trouble, couldn’t it?”

  “What time was this?” Banks asked.

  “Oh, about eight o’clock. I was just bringing Lesley—that’s my daughter—back from her piano lesson.”

  “Did you see if there was anyone in the car?”

  “Two men, I think. Sitting in the front.”

  “Did you get a good look at them?”

  “No, I’m sorry. They looked big, but I mean, you just don’t look at people, do you? Especially not in places like that. It doesn’t do to make eye contact with strangers in an underground garage, does it?”

  “No,” Banks said, “I don’t suppose it does. You didn’t recognize either of the men, then?”

  “No. Whatever happened, anyway?” Mrs Cameron suddenly frowned. “There wasn’t nobody assaulted, was there? I’ve been saying all along that place is too dark. Just asking for trouble it is.”

  “Nobody was hurt,” Banks assured her. “I’m just interested in that Escort. Have you ever noticed it before?”

  “No, never. I did think of calling the police, you know. It did cross my mind they might be up to no good. But you don’t want to cause a fuss, do you? It might all be perfectly innocent and there you’d be with egg on your face looking a proper fool. But I’d never forgive myself if someone got hurt.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. You didn’t get the number, by any chance?”

  “No.” She laughed, then put her hand to her mouth. Her fingernails were painted pale green. “I’m sorry, Mr Banks, but I always think it’s so funny when the police go asking people that on telly. I mean, you don’t go around collecting car numbers, do you? I don’t think I even know my own.”

  “Is there anything else you can think of?” Banks asked, without much hope.

  Beth Cameron chewed her lower lip and frowned for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Not a sausage. I didn’t pay it much mind, really. They weren’t doing nothing. Just sitting there like they were waiting to leave. . . . Wait a minute!” Her eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. “I think one of them was bald. There was a light on the pillar by the car, you see. Dim as can be, but I could swear I saw a bald head reflecting the light.” Then her lips curved down at the edges. “I don’t suppose that’s much help, though, is it?”

  “Everything helps.” Banks closed his notebook and put it back into his inside pocket. At least he was certain now that the two men in the blue Escort were the same two who had been seen in the corridor near Osmond’s flat. “If you see the car again,” he said, handing her a card, “would you please let me know?”

  “Yes, of course I will, Mr Banks,” she said. “Glad to be of use. Good night.”

  At the last door Banks turned up nothing new. It had been a long time since he’d made door-to-door enquiries himself, and he had enjoyed it, but now it was going on for half-past eleven and he was tired. Outside, the crisp, cold air woke him up a bit. He stood by his car for a few moments and smoked a cigarette, thinking over what had happened that evening.

  However much he had ridiculed the man’s pretensions, he had to admit that Osmond was the type who made waves politically. Banks had a lot of sympathy for the CND and its goals, but he knew that, like so many peace-loving, well-meaning groups, it sometimes acted as a magnet for dangerous opportunists. Where there was organization there was politics, and where there was politics there was the aphrodisiac of power. Maybe Osmond had been involved in a plot to do with the demonstration. Perhaps his masters didn’t trust him to keep his trap shut, and what had happened this evening had been intended as a kind of warning.

  Banks found it hard to swallow all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, but the mere possibility of it was enough to send a shiver of apprehension up his spine. If there really was anything in the conspiracy theory, then it looked like these people—Russian spies, agents provocateurs, or whoever they were—meant business.

  If that was true, Osmond might get hurt. That didn’t concern Banks very much, but it did cause him to worry about Jenny. It was bad enough her being involved with a man who had beat up a previous girl-friend, but much worse now there was a strong possibility that some very dangerous and cold-blooded people were after him too. None of it concerned Jenny directly, of course; she was merely an innocent bystander. But since when did governments or terrorists ever give a damn about innocent bystanders?

  THIRTEEN

  I

  Maybe it was the spring weather, but the toasted teacakes in the Golden Grill tasted exceptionally good to Banks on Sunday morning. Burgess chose a doughnut filled with raspberry purée and dusted with icing sugar, which he dipped into his coffee. “A taste I developed in America,” he explained, as Banks watched, horrified. “They’ve got a place there called Dunkin’ Donuts. Great.”

  “What’s happening with Boyd?” Banks asked.

  “I had another chat with him. Got nowhere. Like you said, I let him go this morning, so we’ll see what turns up now.”

  “What did you do? Torture him again?”

  “Well, there’s not many can keep on lying when faced with their greatest fear. The way things stand now, I think we could get a conviction on Boyd, no problem, but we’d probably get chucked out of court if we tried to fit one of the others up—Osmond, for example. I say if we turn up nothing more in a couple of days, let’s just charge Boyd with murder and I’ll bugger off back to the Smoke a happy man.”

  “What about the tru
th?”

  Burgess treated Banks to a slit-eyed glance. “We don’t know Boyd didn’t do it, do we? The Burgess Test notwithstanding. It’s not infallible, you know. Anyway, I’m getting a bit sick of your moralizing about the truth all the bloody time. The truth’s relative. It depends on your perspective. Remember, we’re not judge and jury. It’s up to them to decide who’s guilty and who’s not. We just present the evidence.”

  “Fair enough, but it’s up to us to make a charge that sticks, if only to stop us looking like prize berks in court.”

  “I think we’re solid on Boyd if we need to be. Like I say, give it a couple of days. Find anything interesting on the funny-farm lot?”

  “No.”

  “Those students puzzled me. They’re only bloody kids—cheeky bastards, mind you—but their little minds are crammed full of Marx, Trotsky, Marcuse and the rest. They even have a poster of Che Guevara on the wall. I ask you—Che fucking Guevara, a vicious, murdering, mercenary thug got up to look like Jesus Christ. I can’t understand what they’re on about half the time, honest I can’t. And I don’t think they’ve got a clue, either. Pretty gutless pair, though. I can’t see either of them having the bottle to stick a knife between Gill’s ribs. Still, the girl’s not bad. Bit chubby around the waist, but a lovely set of knockers.”

  “Osmond’s place was broken into yesterday evening,” Banks said. “Oh?”

  “He didn’t report it officially.”

  “He should have done. You talked to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should have made a report. You know the rules.” He grinned. “Unless, of course, you think rules are only for people like me to follow and for Jack-the-lads like you to ignore?”

  “Listen,” Banks said, leaning forward, “I don’t like your methods. I don’t like violence. I’ll use it if I have to, but there are plenty more subtle and effective ways of getting answers from people.” He sat back and reached for a cigarette. “That aside, I never said I was any less ruthless than you are.”

  Burgess laughed and spluttered over a mouthful of recently dunked doughnut.

  “Anyway,” Banks went on, “Osmond didn’t seem to give a damn. Well, maybe that’s too strong. At least, he didn’t think we would do anything about it.”

  “He’s probably right. What did you do?”

  “Told him to change his lock. Nothing was stolen.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Only a book. They’d searched the place, but apparently they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

  “What was that?”

  “Osmond thinks they might have been after some papers, files to do with his CND stuff. He’s got a touch of the cloak-and-dagger about him. Anyway, he keeps most of his files at the local office, and Tim and Abha have all the stuff on the demo. It seems they’re having a meeting up at the farm this afternoon to plan their complaint strategy. It looks like the thieves wasted their time, whoever they were.”

  “Who does he think it was? KGB? MI5? CIA?”

  Banks laughed. “Something along those lines, yes. Thinks he’s a very important fellow does Mr Osmond.”

  “He’s a pain in the ass,” Burgess said, getting up. “But I’ll trip the bastard up before I’m done. Right now I’m off to catch up on some paperwork. They want everything in bloody quadruplicate down at the Yard.”

  Banks sat over the rest of his coffee wondering why so many people came back from America, where Burgess had been to a conference a few years ago, full of strange eating habits and odd turns of phrase—“pain in the ass” indeed!

  Outside on Market Street tourists browsed outside shop windows full of polished antiques and knitted woollen wear. The bell of the Golden Grill jangled as people dropped in for a quick cup of tea.

  Banks had arranged to meet Jenny for lunch in the Queen’s Arms at one o’clock, which left him well over an hour to kill. He finished his drink and nipped over to the station. First, he had to enlist Richmond’s aid on a very delicate matter.

  II

  Mara was busy making scones for the afternoon meeting when Paul walked into the kitchen. Her hands were covered with flour and she waved them about to show she’d embrace him if she could. Seth immediately threw his arms around Paul and hugged him. Mara could see his face over Paul’s shoulder, and noticed tears in his eyes. Rick slapped Paul on the back and Zoe kissed his cheek. “I did the cards,” she told him. “I knew you were innocent and they’d have to let you go.” Even Julian and Luna, caught up in the adults’ excitement, did a little dance around him and chanted his name.

  “Sit down,” Seth said. “Tell us about it.”

  “Hey! Let me finish this first.” Mara gestured at the half-made scones. “It won’t take a minute. And it was your idea in the first place.”

  “I tell you what,” Paul said. “I could do with a cup of tea. That prison stuff’s piss-awful.”

  “I’ll make it.” Seth reached for the kettle. “Then we’ll all go in the front room.”

  Mara carried on with the scones, readying them for the oven, and Seth put the kettle on. The others all wandered into the front room except for Paul, who stood nervously behind Mara.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You know . . .”

  She turned and smiled at him. “Forget it. I’m just glad you’re back.

  I should never have doubted you in the first place.”

  “I was a bit . . . well, I did lie. Thanks for tipping me off, anyway. At least I had a chance.”

  The kettle started boiling, and Seth hurried back in to make tea. Mara put the tray of scones in the oven and washed her hands.

  “Right,” she said, drying them on her apron. “I’m ready.” They sat down in the living-room and Seth poured tea.

  “Come on, then,” he urged Paul.

  “Come on, what?”

  “Tell us what happened.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Where did you go?”

  Paul lit a Player’s and spat a strand of loose tobacco from his upper lip. “Edinburgh,” he said. “Went to see an old mate, didn’t I?”

  “Did he help you?” Mara asked.

  Paul snorted. “Did he fuck. Bastard’s changed a lot. I found the building easy enough. It used to be one of those grotty old tenements, but it’s all been tarted up now. Potted plants in the stairwell and all that. Anyway, Ray answers the door, and he doesn’t recognize me at first—at least he pretends he doesn’t. I hardly knew him, either. Wearing a bloody suit, he was. We say hello and then this bird comes out—hair piled up on top of her head and a black dress slit right down the front to her belly button. She’s carrying one of those long-stemmed wineglasses full of white wine, just for the effect. ‘Who’s this, Raymond?’ she says, right lah-de-dah, like, and I head for the stairs.”

  “You didn’t stay?” Mara said.

  “Are you joking?”

  “Do you mean your old friend wouldn’t let you in?”

  “Gone up in the world has old Raymond. Seems he was entertaining the boss and the wife—he’s in computers—and he didn’t want any reminders of his past. Used to be a real wild boy, but... Anyway, I left. Oh, I reckon he might have let me in if I’d pushed hard enough, stuck me in the cupboard or somewhere out of the way. But I wasn’t having any.”

  “So where did you go?” Seth asked.

  “Just walked around for a while till I found a pub.”

  “You didn’t walk the streets all night, did you?” Mara asked.

  “Like hell. It was colder than a witch’s tit up there. This is bloody Scotland we’re talking about. First thing the next morning I bought myself a duffle coat just to keep from freezing to death.”

  “What did you do then, after you left the pub?”

  “I met this bloke there,” Paul said, reddening. “He said I could go back to his place with him. Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m not a fucking queer. But when you’re on the streets, just trying to survive, you do what you have t
o, right? He was a nice enough bloke, anyway, and he didn’t ask no awkward questions. Careful, he was, too, if you know what I mean.

  “Next day I was going to head for Glasgow and look up another old mate, but I thought fuck that for a lark, best thing to do is get straight to Ireland. I’ve got mates there, and I don’t think they’ve changed. If I’d got to Belfast, nobody would have found me.”

  “So what went wrong?” Seth asked.

  Paul laughed harshly. “Bloody ferry dock. I goes up to this shop-bloke to buy some fags and when I walk away he shouts after me. I can’t understand a bleeding word he’s saying on account of the Jock accent, like, but this copper sees us and gives me the look. I get nervous and take off and the bastards catch me.”

  “Did the shopkeeper recognize you?” Mara asked. “Your picture was in the papers, you know.”

  “Nah. I’d just given him too much bloody money, that’s all. He was shouting he wanted to give me my fucking change.” Paul laughed and the others laughed with him. “It wasn’t so funny at the time,” he added.

  “What did the police do?” asked Rick.

  “They’ve charged me with being an accessory. I’ll have to go to court.”

  “Then what?” Mara asked.

  Paul shrugged. “With my record I’ll probably end up doing porridge again. That copper with the scar seems to think I might get off if they get a sympathetic jury. I mean, sometimes you respect people for standing by their mates, right? He says he might be able to get the charge reduced to giving false information and wasting police time. I’d only get six months max, then. But the other bloke tells me I’m looking at ten years. Who do you believe?”

  “If you’re lucky,” Mara said, “Burgess might be gone by then and Banks’ll take it easy on you.”

  “What’s wrong with him? He soft or something?”