Strange Affair

by Peter Robinson

  “Nothing,” said Banks, who didn’t want to get into that old argument again. Not here, not now. Besides, he agreed. His father had been given a raw deal, made redundant from his job as a sheet-metal worker during the Thatcher years. He had seen the riot police taunting the striking coal miners, and as a result he had come to see the police as the right hand of the oppressor. Banks knew that could happen, had done in some countries, and there was a certain feeling, not entirely unjustified, that it had happened during the Thatcher years. But most of Banks’s attempts to explain to his father that he simply put in a long day’s work trying to catch criminals fell on deaf ears.

  “Anyway,” said his father, “Roy was always generous to us.”

  The implied barb wasn’t lost on Banks, but he managed to bite his tongue before asking his father whether it mattered where the money came from. “So he never mentioned any names?”

  “Not as I remember.”

  “The Berger-Lennox Centre, Gareth Lambert, Julian Harwood?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “What about his girlfriends?”

  “Only that young lass he brought over last year, for the anniversary.”

  “Corinne. Yes, I’ve talked to her. He never mentioned anyone called Jennifer Clewes?”

  “That girl that got shot up in Yorkshire? You mentioned her earlier. No, I’m certain he never mentioned her to us.”

  Arthur Banks sagged back in his favorite armchair. The television was turned off, which was unusual, and there was no sign of a newspaper. Even though Banks had been absent only a short while, he noticed more signs of neglect. And his father was clearly as much in the dark about Roy’s activities as he was. He picked up two empty cups from the floor beside the armchair. “Fancy a cup of tea?”

  “If you like,” said his father.

  “What about dinner?”

  “Doesn’t matter as long as it’s not from that place over the road.”

  Banks put the kettle on and found the tea bags, never an easy task as his mother seemed to keep moving them around like beans in a shell game. This time they were in a jar in the pantry marked “Cocoa.” While the kettle boiled, he washed the few dishes that had been used and stacked them in the rack to dry. He found some bread, tomatoes, cheese and boiled ham and made some sandwiches. They would have to do for dinner.

  “Any more idea when the funeral will be?” his father asked when Banks brought in the tea and sandwiches.

  “I can’t say,” said Banks. “It depends when they release the body.”

  “What do they want to hang on to it for?”

  “Sometimes, if someone’s arrested and charged, the defense can ask for a second, independent postmortem. I don’t think that’s likely in this case, but it’s not my decision. Believe me, Dad. I’ll stay on top of it. I don’t want you and Mum worrying about the details.”

  “Don’t we have to register the death?”

  “You can’t do that until the coroner’s released the body. I’ll take care of it all when the time comes.”

  “What else are we going to do except sit around and mope?”

  “Just try to get through it day by day. It’ll take time.”

  His father sat forward. “But that’s just it. We haven’t got time.”

  Banks felt a shiver at the back of his neck.

  “What do you mean? Has your heart been giving you more problems?”

  “My heart’s fine. A touch of angina, that’s all. It’s not me. It’s your mother.”

  “What about her?” Banks recalled his mother’s tired and listless appearance when he first arrived, before he had even told her about Roy, and again he took in the air of neglect about the house. “Is it something to do with these tests she’s been having?”

  “They think she’s got cancer,” said Arthur Banks. “That’s why they want her in the hospital to do some more tests.”

  “When?”

  “They say they can’t fit her in until next week.”

  Banks felt the need for a cigarette, but he didn’t give in to it, not there and then. He wished he could afford private insurance for his parents, then they wouldn’t have to wait. “Christ,” he said. “It never rains but it pours.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “What does the doctor think?”

  “You know doctors. Won’t commit themselves without the test results. Anyway, it’s her colon they’re worried about. I can tell you what I think, though. The life’s slowly going out of her. I’ve been watching it drain away for weeks.”

  “But even if it is cancer, there are treatments. Especially colon cancer. As far as I know, the cure rate’s pretty good.”

  “Depends how far it’s spread, doesn’t it, how soon they catch it?”

  “Look, Dad,” said Banks, “there’s no point getting pessimistic. You’ve got enough on your plate with our Roy. See her through this. That has to be your priority right now. We’ll deal with the other thing when we know more about it.”

  “You’re right, but…it’s just so bloody hard, all the time thinking I might lose her. Now Roy.”

  Banks could see that his father was close to tears, and he remembered that he had never seen him cry. His mother, yes, but not his father. He wanted to spare him the embarrassment, knowing he was a proud man, so he went upstairs to see his mother. She was lying in bed with the sheets pulled up to her neck, but her eyes were open.

  “Roy?” she said when he first entered the room. “Is it really you?”

  “No, Mum,” said Banks. “It’s me, Alan.”

  He could swear he saw the disappointment register in her face. “Oh,” she said. “Where’s our Roy?”

  Banks sat at the edge of the bed and grasped her hand. It felt dry and thin. “He’s gone. Mum. Our Roy’s gone.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I remember now. In the water.” She closed her eyes and seemed to drift off.

  Banks leaned forward and kissed her quickly on the cheek, then said good night and went back downstairs.

  “She’s in and out,” he told his father.

  Arthur Banks had pulled himself together. “Yes,” he said. “It’s probably those tablets the doctor gave her.” He looked at Banks. “You said before you wished there was something you could do, and there is, you know. I’ve been thinking while you were up with your mother.”

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  “You’re supposed to be a detective, aren’t you? You can do your job and go back to London and catch the bastard that killed our Roy.”

  Banks sat down, picked up his mug of tea and reached for a sandwich. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. And that’s exactly what I intend to do first thing tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Late on Tuesday morning, after breakfast and a brief meeting with Brooke to review their progress so far, Annie went back to her room, packed her meager belongings and checked out of the hotel. She was looking forward to getting home, digging out some clean clothes and sleeping in her own bed again, if only for one night. She knew she would have to come back, especially as she planned on visiting Dr. Lukas at home in the near future. For the meantime, though, Brooke was leading the Roy Banks investigation, and Annie needed to show her face to the troops back up in Eastvale, talk to Stefan Nowak and Gristhorpe and see how Winsome and Kev Templeton were getting on.

  She wondered what Banks was up to as she waited for a taxi. She hadn’t tried to ring him again the previous evening, deciding it was probably best to leave him and his parents in peace. From what she could remember Banks telling her, they had doted on Roy. And even though he and Roy hadn’t been close, she knew he must be distraught. Though she wasn’t unduly worried about him, he had been depressed lately, and something like this could push him over the edge. She would like to talk to him, anyway, to see him, if only to reassure herself and offer her condolences. A taxi pulled up and Annie got in.

  “King’s Cross, please,” she told the driver.

  “Right you
are, madam.”

  They had hardly got over Lambeth Bridge when her mobile rang.

  “Annie, it’s Dave Brooke here.”

  “Dave. What is it?”

  “Thought you might be interested. I’ve just got the pathologist’s report on Roy Banks. Can you talk?”

  “It’s okay,” said Annie. “I’m in a taxi on my way to the station.” The driver was listening to an interview on BBC London, chuckling to himself, and there was a Plexiglas window between the front and the back.

  “Fair enough. Bottom line is the shot to the head killed him outright. It’s a twenty-two-caliber bullet, just like the one that killed Jennifer Clewes.”

  “Anything on time of death?”

  “He’d been in the water about forty hours. Had to have been to get in the state he was and end up on that patch of shingle, so the tide experts tell me.”

  “So it can’t have been the same killers.”

  “No. They couldn’t possibly have got back from Yorkshire in time.” Brooke paused. “DCI Banks isn’t going to like hearing this, but it also appears that his brother was tortured before he was shot.”

  “Tortured?”

  “Yes. There’s evidence of serious bruising to the body and cigarette burns on the arms and soles of the feet. Some of the fingernails have been pulled out, too.”

  “Jesus,” said Annie. “Someone wanted something from him?”

  “Or wanted to know how much he knew, or had given away.”

  “Either way, you’re right. Alan won’t like that at all. The press—”

  “They’re not going to find out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not from us. We’re keeping this to ourselves. All the press will be told is that he was shot. That will be enough for them. I can see the gun-crime editorials right now.”

  “True enough,” said Annie. “They’re already having a field day with the Jennifer Clewes shooting. Anything else?”

  “Just a couple of things,” said Brooke. “Remember the digital photo that came through on Roy Banks’s mobile?”

  “Yes. Alan mentioned it to me.”

  “As we suspected, it came from a stolen phone. Technical support didn’t have much trouble enhancing the image. They’ve got all sorts of fancy software that can filter and stretch and make predictions based on pixel statistics. The upshot is, though, that it doesn’t tell us a hell of a lot. We still can’t be absolutely certain whether the man in the chair is Roy Banks. They did manage to get something from the wall in the background.”

  “What?”

  “It looks as if there were two rows of letters, or words, stenciled on the rough brick. The first ends in NGS and the second in IFE. We’ve no idea how long the lines were or how many words. We’re getting a list of all abandoned factories in the Greater London area, and the experts are working on identifying some of the rusted machines. It might help figure out what sort of a factory it was. If the tide experts can come up with a general idea of where Roy Banks might have been dropped in the river, we should be able to put it all together and pinpoint where the murder took place.”

  “That sounds promising,” said Annie. “Any leads on who might have wanted Roy Banks dead?”

  “We’ve turned up a couple of iffy names from his business correspondence. Oliver Drummond and William Gilmore. Ever heard of them?”

  “No,” said Annie.

  “Well, they’re definitely in our bad books. The first one’s been involved in a couple of frauds and we think the second’s been running a chop shop. High-end. Mostly Jags and Beemers for rich Russians and Arabs. Never managed to track it down, though, and Gilmore always seems to turn out squeaky-clean. We’ve managed to get him on a few minor charges, which is why he’s on our books, but nothing big.”

  “What about the men in the photograph DCI Banks gave you?”

  Brooke paused. “Gareth Lambert,” he said. “He’s got no form. The other one we don’t know.”

  “Doesn’t it seem important, though? Roy Banks did think it necessary to take and then hide the photo. Maybe blackmail was involved?”

  “Give us time, Annie,” Brooke snapped. “You know damn well how it is with manpower and budgets. And half the bloody team’s on holiday right now. We’ll get there, eventually.”

  “Okay, Dave. Hold your horses. I was only trying to be helpful.”

  “I’m sorry, I know. Only we’re stretched to the limit.”

  “I understand. Best of luck, then, and thanks for bringing me up-to-date. I’ll see what’s happening up north and probably be back in a day or so. Keep in touch?”

  “Absolutely. Oh, by the way, our artist’s finished with Seaton now. The impression doesn’t look bad. Want a copy?”

  “Thanks. It might be useful.”

  “I’ll get it faxed to you.”

  The traffic slowed to a crawl as the taxi got closer to the chaotic and seemingly endless construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link around King’s Cross. Annie didn’t have a lot of time and worried she might miss her train, but the driver found a gap in the traffic and pulled up at the side with fifteen minutes to spare. Annie paid him, picked up a couple of magazines for the journey at W.H. Smith’s, then checked the platform number on the board and headed out to the train. The station was bustling with people and it smelled of warm engines, diesel oil and smoke. Annie found her coach and seat, popped her small bag on the rack and sat down to make herself comfortable.

  About three minutes before the train was due to set off, a decidedly nervous announcement came over the PA system. “Would all passengers calmly leave the train and exit the station.”

  Everyone sat there for a moment, stunned, wondering if they’d heard correctly. Then it came again, not sounding calm at all: “Would all passengers calmly leave the train and exit the station.”

  That was enough. Everyone grabbed their bags, dashed for the door and ran down the platform to the street.

  Banks had hoped to be back in London by late morning, early afternoon at the latest, but it wasn’t to be. For a start, he slept in. Lying there in his old bed, he hadn’t been able to get to sleep for thinking about Roy and worrying about his parents, and only after the light began to grow and the birds started singing did he finally doze off until nine-thirty. Even then, he was the first one up.

  If that had been the only problem, he could probably still have made fairly good time, but after he had made a pot of tea, made sure his new mobile was fully charged and walked across the road for a copy of The Independent, his mother was up and fussing. Whether the fact of Roy’s death had really sunk in yet, Banks couldn’t tell, but she seemed unnaturally calm, alert and in command.

  “Your father’s having a lie-in,” she said. “He’s tired.”

  “That’s okay,” said Banks. “You could have rested awhile longer yourself.”

  “I rested quite enough yesterday, thank you. Now…”

  And then she launched into the most extraordinary litany of “things to do,” the upshot of which was that Banks spent a good part of the day driving her around to the various relatives who lived close enough to visit, the ones in Ely, Stamford and Huntingdon, at any rate. Many had already phoned the previous evening after hearing about Roy on the news, but Banks had taken care of the telephone—including the reporters—and made sure neither his mother nor his father was disturbed.

  Now Ida Banks told each one, calmly, that Roy had died and she didn’t know when the funeral would be, but they should be on the lookout for a notice in the paper.

  Banks’s father was up when they got back from the first visit, just sitting in his armchair staring into space. He said he was okay, but Banks worried about him, too; he seemed to have no energy, no will.

  Banks had already seen a piece about the murder in The Independent, which referred to Roy as the “wealthy entrepreneur brother of North Yorkshire policeman Alan Banks, who almost lost his life in a fire earlier this year.” Uncle Frank told him it had been on the television, t
oo, and there had been a picture of Banks and some old footage of his cottage after the fire. Banks was glad he hadn’t seen it. God only knew what stories the tabloids were telling. Were they implying a link between the fire and Roy’s murder?

  By the time he saw his mother settled back at home and had fed her another of Dr. Grenville’s pills, it was mid-afternoon. Mrs. Green, a neighbor, came over to sit with them for a while and Banks was finally able to say his good-byes and set off back to London. Before he left, he rang Burgess, gave him his new mobile number and arranged to meet at a pub in Soho around five o’clock. It was time to pick up the threads of his investigation again.

  Lacking CDs, the best he could do was turn on the car radio. Classic FM was playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Radio Three had Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra. Banks chose the Tippett because he didn’t know it as well as he did the Beethoven.

  On the motorway somewhere around Stevenage, Banks noticed that a red Vectra had been following him for some time. He slowed down; the Vectra slowed. He speeded up; the Vectra kept pace. It was the middle of a warm summer afternoon on a busy road, but still Banks felt the chill of fear. He played cat and mouse with the Vectra for a while longer, then it shot past him. He couldn’t get a really good look, but he could tell there were two people in the car, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the back had a ponytail, and when the car was passing Banks’s Renault, he turned sideways and smiled, miming a shooting gun with his left hand, thumb signifying the hammer, then he tilted his hand up and blew over the tops of his first two fingers, smiling. It was a split-second vignette, then they were streaking ahead.

  Banks tried to keep up with them, but it was no good. The driver was skillful and managed to weave in and out of the lanes of traffic until they had left Banks far behind. Not before he had memorized the number, though.

  As he approached Welwyn Garden City, where it started to rain again, Banks wondered what the hell all that had been about. Then he realized with a sudden chill that they must have followed him from Peterborough. They were letting him know that they knew where his parents lived.