Strange Affair (31 page)

What really made up his mind, though, was that right at the moment he was so weary he could hardly lift himself out of the armchair, let alone hit the wet streets looking for a cheap hotel, so he said, “Thanks, that’s very good of you. That’ll be great. And I prefer red, if that’s okay?”

14

A
nnie woke early on Wednesday morning, and when she opened her curtains she was happy to see that the sun was shining again and the sky was robin’s egg blue. She managed twenty minutes of meditation and a short yoga session – ten salutes to the sun, cobra, locust and peacock – then she dressed in her new white cotton slacks, red short-sleeved top and light denim jacket and went down to the restaurant for breakfast with Banks, her wavy brown hair still damp from the shower.

The meditation and yoga hadn’t made her feel as calm as she had hoped, and she couldn’t help feeling anxious and tense about meeting Banks again, especially after the way he had phoned and so casually put her off late the previous evening. Their last meeting had gone well enough, but nothing had been resolved and Annie still felt as if she were bursting with questions and insecurities.

The stories in the morning paper upset her, too, brought back too many bad memories. Because the reporter was trying to link Banks’s fire with his brother’s murder, they had also raked up all the stuff about Phil Keane and his hapless policewoman girlfriend. Where they had got it all from in the first place, she didn’t know, but there’s always a leak somewhere.

Banks didn’t look in too bad shape, Annie thought, when she saw him already sitting at a cloth-covered table drinking coffee. In fact, he looked a lot more like his old self than he had in ages. All he really needed now was a decent haircut and a few more good nights sleep to get rid of the bags under his eyes. And maybe some fresh clothes. The pallor had all but gone, and there was a certain edginess back in his body language instead of that infuriating languor. There was also a brightness in his dark blue eyes that she hadn’t seen in a long time. Perhaps, she thought, his brother’s death had made him realize how lucky
he
was. Or more likely it had just given him something to care about, a sense of purpose. For there was no denying that he was on the case, officially or not.

She sat down opposite him and noticed that he smelled just a little of original Old Spice. It was a smell she liked, something she remembered from their intimate time together. It had taken her a while to throw out the antiperspirant stick he had left in her bathroom cabinet, but she had done so eventually, along with the razor, shaving cream and toothbrush.

“So what were you up to last night that you couldn’t meet up with me then?” Annie asked.

“Social duties,” said Banks.

“Pull the other one.”

“I went to see Corinne,” he said.

“How is she?”

“She’s suffering plenty,” said Banks. “I don’t know about you,” he went on, “but whenever I’m having breakfast in a hotel, it has to be the bacon and eggs. Don’t know why. I’d never have that at home.”

“It’s because you don’t have to cook it yourself and wash the dishes after,” said Annie.

“And because I never have time to sit around and eat it.”

“How are things going?”

“Not so bad, considering,” said Banks. “My dad’s just worn down by the whole thing but my mother’s acting strange.”

“Strange how?”

“As if it’s just another family event, like the anniversary party. She’s already talking about sandwiches for the funeral tea.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” said Annie. “The post-mortem’s over. Given cause of death I shouldn’t imagine they’ll be holding on to the body for too long. I’m really sorry about your brother, Alan. I know Dave Brooke will do his best. He’s a good copper.”

A waitress came over. Banks ordered the full English, and Annie decided on a cheese and mushroom omelette. She felt a twinge of guilt – her first morning she’d had only a continental, and the next two days muesli – but if you didn’t treat yourself once in a while, what was the point?

“Anyway,” Banks asked, “how are things progressing up north?”

Annie ran her hand over her hair. “I’ve only been in touch over the phone but they seem to be moving along nicely. Mostly it’s forensics on the tire tracks and fingerprints we found at your cottage and on the door of Jennifer’s car. We’ve also got people asking around, you know, did anyone see anything, that sort of thing. But we don’t expect much to come from that. It was late and in a remote place. Anyway, Winsome’s on the case, and I know I can trust her.”

“What about Templeton and Rickerd?”

“They’re on it, too. You know as well as I do. DC Rickerd’s a born office manager. And Kev might be a bit of an arsehole, but he’s got good instincts. He’s off on a bit of a tangent, and it’s not a bad idea to give him some space. Anyway, it’s in good hands. I’m hoping to get back up there today, if only for a
flying visit to bring everything up to speed. The telephone has its limitations.”

“Indeed it does.”

“What about you?” Annie asked. “What have you been up to?”

“Me? Apart from keeping my parents company, and Corinne, nothing much, really,” said Banks. “I doubt that I’ve discovered anything you’d be interested in hearing.”

“Try me. What is it you usually say to witnesses or suspects? ‘Let me be the judge of that’?”

“Touché,” said Banks. “Okay. I’ve found out that Gareth Lambert is back from self-imposed exile in Spain and that one evening a couple of months ago he had drinks with Roy. That mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“They’re old pals,” Banks said. “Known one another for years. No doubt they were mixed up in all sorts of criminal enterprises before the arms deal put the wind up them. Up Roy, at least. Lambert we’re not so sure about. Anyway, it’s a bit too much of a coincidence for my liking, two old crooks reunited and one of them dead.”

“I suppose you got all this from Burgess, didn’t you? That man’s a walking disaster area.”

“Dirty Dick has his good points, but I don’t know why you should think I got any of it from him.”

“I can’t imagine where else, that’s all.”

The waitress delivered their breakfasts. Banks asked for more coffee, Annie for tea.

“Anyway,” Banks said, when the waitress had gone, “DI Brooke’s got everything I found: the mobile, the CD and USB drive, even the digital photos I’d printed from the CD. Everything.”

Annie’s eyes narrowed. “But you kept copies.”

“It’s not illegal. I didn’t withhold or tamper with anything.”

“Goddammit, Alan, you broke into a murder victim’s house, you went through his stuff, you used his mobile phone, you found and copied personal information. Don’t tell me you haven’t tampered.”

Banks rested his knife and fork at the sides of his plate. “In the first place, I didn’t know he was a murder victim at the time. He was simply missing and had been gone for less than twenty-four hours. What would we have done if a call like that came in? If he’d been a child or a teenager, then perhaps we might just have set the wheels in motion. But a healthy man in his late forties? Come on, Annie, you know as well as I do what would happen. Nothing. And he was my brother. Family. I think that gave me a right to enter his home. What is it that really upsets you?”

“It’s that you keep going off all on your own like some kind of maverick,” she said. “You don’t tell anyone what’s going on. You think you’re the only one who can work it all out. You think you can handle everything on your own, but you can’t. For God’s sake, Alan, you nearly got killed.”

When one of the nearby diners looked over, Annie realized she’d let her voice get too loud. The thing was, it had come out spontaneously. She hadn’t known what she was going to say when Banks asked her what her problem was because she hadn’t really known. Perhaps the stories in the newspaper had stirred it all up, but now she did know. It went back to Phil Keane and the way Banks had suspected him but said nothing, gone and tried to build his own case against Phil on the quiet.

When she thought about it, though, she realized that it went even further back than the Phil Keane case. Banks had been just the same when he went off looking for Chief
Constable Riddle’s wayward daughter, Emily, and he’d held back so much information from Annie during that case that her hands had been tied. At one point she had even suspected him of being sexually involved with the girl’s mother, if not the girl herself. That was what happened when you held things back; the truth got warped and twisted in people’s minds. Lacking the facts, they made up stories based on fancy, like the stories in the tabloids.

Now she’d said it, though, she felt embarrassed, and she sneaked a look at Banks as she took a bite of her omelette. He was eating his breakfast again quite placidly. The waitress came with more coffee and tea. Annie thanked her.

“Listen to us,” said Banks, “bickering over breakfast like an old married couple.”

“We’re not bickering,” said Annie. “It takes two to bicker. Aren’t you going to respond?”

“What can I say? I’m glad you got it off your chest.”

“Simple as that, is it?”

Banks looked at her directly, his eyes clear and bright. “It’s a start. If we’re going to go on working together, we have to get one or two things sorted.”

“On whose terms?”

“That’s not the point. I’m not going to change my ways. Nor are you.”

“Then maybe we
shouldn’t
go on working together.”

“Up to you.”

“Not entirely. What do
you
want?”

“I want to carry on working with you. Believe it or not, I like you, and I think you’re damn good at your job.”

Annie felt absurdly pleased at the compliment, but she hoped it didn’t show in her face. “But you’re still going to leave me in the dark half the time?”

“I don’t deliberately hide things from you. If I had told you all my suspicions about Phil Keane as soon as I had them – and God knows I tried to hint – you’d have thrown me out on my ear, accused me of being jealous, which you did anyway, and never talked to me again. All I had to go on was a feeling, at first, some sense that all wasn’t what it seemed with him.”

“But I might not have had to run into a burning house and drag you out.”

“So it’s that, is it?”

“No, it’s not even that, when you come right down to it.” Annie paused. “If you really want to know, it’s the way you treated me afterwards.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” But Annie had gone too far now to hold back. She put her knife and fork down.

“Come on, Annie,” said Banks. “We’ve got this far. Let’s clear the air. See if we can’t come up with a chance of working this out.”

“That’s a change of tune.” This was more difficult than Annie thought it would be, especially given the context, the ersatz hotel restaurant with its trees and potted plants, waitresses carrying trays, the businessmen in their pinstriped suits planning their days, some of them already on their mobiles and PDAs. “It’s just that you seemed to brush me off,” she said, “push me aside as if my feelings didn’t matter. God knows, I felt bad enough about making the mistake I did over Phil. I mean, can you imagine, sharing your bed with a fucking serial killer?” She shook her head. “But you. I’d have expected…I don’t know…support…comfort, maybe. You went to Corinne last night, didn’t you, but you weren’t there for me. I know we have our history and it hasn’t always been easy, but
you should have been there for me and you weren’t. I was hurting as much as you, if not more.”

There, she’d said it, said more than enough. Christ, he was staying silent an awfully long time.
Say something
.
Say something
.

At last Banks spoke. “You’re right,” he said. “And if it means anything, I’m sorry.”

“Why did you do it? Why did you abandon me? Was it her?”

“Who?”

“Michelle, or whatever her name is.”

Banks looked surprised. “No, it wasn’t Michelle. It’s just that Michelle didn’t have anything to do with what happened, seeing her didn’t make me think about it. She took me away from it, distracted me. It was thinking about it that was doing my head in. I couldn’t remember a thing between answering the door and waking up in hospital. Still can’t. All I know is what you’ve told me, and the smell of whisky still gives me panic attacks. Christ, for a while, for weeks, I didn’t even want to get out of bed in the morning, let alone have a serious heart-to-heart about what happened. What’s the point? It’s like these interminable daytime chat programs, people talking on and on about their bloody feelings and problems and it gets them nowhere. It’s just talk, talk, talk, blather, blather, blather.”

“Some people think that might be better than keeping it bottled up inside.”

Banks ran his hand over his hair. “Look, Annie, I feel like I’m crawling out of a deep trough. By all rights, Roy’s murder should have pushed me back in, but it hasn’t. Cut me a little slack here.”

“Maybe you’re fuelled by anger?”

“Maybe I am, but at least I’m fuelled.”

Annie looked at him for a while over her tea and let his
words sink in. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to put it all behind them and move on, and maybe part of doing that was allowing Banks some leeway in the investigation of his brother’s murder. After all, it wasn’t as if she could stop him.

“Okay, let’s imagine you were investigating the case,” she said. “Hypothetically, of course. What would your next move be?”