All the colours of darkn.., p.18
All the Colours of Darkness, page 18
part #18 of Inspector Alan Banks Series
The presenter stopped short of announcing that Silbert had worked for MI6, mentioning only that he was Edwina Silbert’s son, had been a civil servant, and that he lived with his gay lover, “the son of a West Yorkshire coal miner,” in an “exclusive” and “desirable” residential suburb of Eastvale. Typical southern nonsense, Banks thought. As if Eastvale had suburbs. And Barnsley was in South Yorkshire, not West.
The segment also stressed that police were satisfied it was a tragic case of murder-suicide, and then went on to refer to details of similar cases over the past twenty years or so. At the end, Detective Superintendent Gervaise appeared on camera looking cool and professional. She assured the interviewer that police were satisfied with the result, stressing that forensic evidence had borne out their investigative conclusions, and there was no need for a further investigation which, she added, would simply cause more grief to the victims’ families. That was a load of bollocks, Banks thought. Edwina Silbert could probably take anything the world could throw at her, and Hardcastle had no family except for the distant aunt. Well, whoever had assembled that story had certainly done a good job of assuring anyone who might be concerned that the business was well and truly over. We’ll see about that, Banks thought.
After the news, Banks had a sudden urge to play some more music and go outside to sit on the wall beside Gratly Beck. This was one of his favourite spots, and though he didn’t use it as often as he had before, he still enjoyed it when the weather was warm enough. His cottage was isolated, a little quiet music in the background wouldn’t disturb anyone, even late at night, and it was only half past ten. Before he could pick out a CD from his collection, though, the phone rang again. Thinking it might be Sophia phoning back, Banks hurried and picked it up.
“DCI Banks?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Ravi here. Ravi Kapesh. Technical support.”
“Oh, Ravi. Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. It’s a bit late for you to be working, isn’t it?”
“Par for the course these days if you want to get ahead,” said Ravi, resignedly. “Anyway, I think I might have something for you. You did say to ring as soon as I got anything.”
Banks felt a tremor of excitement. “Absolutely. You do? Great. Look, I know this might sound a bit weird, but can you call me back on my mobile?”
“Sure. When?”
“Right now. I’m hanging up.” Banks didn’t know whether his mobile was likely to be any more secure than his landline, but he thought it might be. He would certainly feel a lot less paranoid when he bought the pay-as-you-go. The thing to remember about mobiles was to keep them switched off when you were not using them, or you might as well stand on the top of the nearest large building and shout, “I’m here!”
“OK, let’s have it,” he said, when the mobile rang.
“I managed to enhance the street sign enough to get a name,” said Ravi. “It’s a little street called Charles Lane, off the High Street in St. John’s Wood. Ring any bells?”
“None,” said Banks, “but I can’t say I expected it to. Thanks a lot, Ravi. Got a house number, by the way?”
“Sorry. You can tell which one it is from the photo, though.”
“Of course. Ravi, you’re a genius.”
“Think nothing of it. Talk to you later.”
“What about the phone number? Fenner.”
“Drew a blank. According to all my efforts it’s a number that has never actually been assigned in the UK. Maybe it’s for somewhere overseas?”
“Maybe,” said Banks, “but I doubt it. Just one more favour.”
“Yes?”
“Keep it under your hat, OK?”
“OK,” said Ravi. “My lips are sealed.”
“Bye.” Banks hung up. St. John’s Wood. Well, that was a posh enough area. So what was it all about? Banks wondered. A fancy man? One of Kate Moss’s parties? Sharing government secrets with the other side? Whatever it was, Banks felt sure it had contributed to Silbert’s death.
Perhaps Annie was right in that the Iago method couldn’t absolutely guarantee results, but if it didn’t work, the would-be assassin could always try something a bit more direct. If it did work, however, he would have brought off the perfect murder. A murder that wasn’t even murder. And it fitted right in with the sneaky, underhanded way he assumed the secret intelligence services of the world worked. After all, who else outside the realm of fiction would think of using a poisoned umbrella or a radioactive isotope to murder someone?
Banks picked up his wine, put on Sigur Rós’s Hvarf-Heim, then took his drink outside, leaving the door open just a crack so that he could hear the strange, eerie music. It harmonized naturally with the sounds of the beck making its way down the terraced falls, and the occasional cry of a night bird fitted right in, almost as if the band had planned for it and left a little space between their notes.
It was after sunset, but there was a still a glow deep in the cloudless western sky, dark orange and indigo. Banks could smell warm grass and manure mingled with something sweet, perhaps flowers that only opened at night. A horse whinnied in a distant field. The stone he sat on was still warm and he could see the lights of Helmthorpe between the trees, down at the bottom of the dale, the outline of the square church tower with its odd round turret, dark and heavy against the sky. Low on the western horizon, he could see a planet he took to be Venus, and higher up, towards the north, a red dot he guessed was Mars. Above, the constellations were beginning to become visible. Banks had never been very good at recognizing them. The Big Dipper and Orion were about as far as he got, and he couldn’t see either of them tonight.
Banks thought he heard a sound from the woods, and he had the odd sensation that he was being watched. It was probably just some nocturnal animal, he told himself. After all, he heard them often enough. There were badgers, for a start, and plenty of rabbits around. He mustn’t allow his nerves to get the better of him. He shook off the feeling and sipped some more wine. The water flowed on, here a touch of silver as it parted around a rock, there a flurry of white foam as it dropped a few feet over a terrace, and everywhere else shifting shades of inky blue or black.
It was nothing, Banks told himself, nothing but the wind through the trees, the Icelandic music and a sheep, frightened by a fox or a dog, baaing on a distant dale side. Like the streets, the woods were full of shadows and whispers. After a while, even those sounds ended and he was left in a silence so profound that all he could hear was his own heart beating.
9
The fine weather had brought out the crowds by Wednesday lunchtime, and Oxford Street was clogged with the usual array of tourists, street vendors, shop workers and people handing out free newspapers or flyers for language schools. Banks had taken an indirect route to Sophia’s, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed. Not that it mattered. Mr. Browne had known enough about Sophia that he probably knew where she lived, too.
Banks had parked his car – a Porsche was hardly out of place on a Chelsea side street, and he was also legal there – left his grip in the house, then headed for Tottenham Court Road by tube, stopping to look in a shop window every now and then on his way. There were so many people about, however, that he had soon realized there was no way he would be able to pick out someone who was following him, especially if that person was well trained. Still, it was best to make caution a habit.
He had worked undercover for varying periods in his twenties and early thirties, and he still had the rudiments of tradecraft. Also, one of the reasons he had done so well at it was that most people said he didn’t look like a policeman, whatever that meant. He could blend into the crowd. In Waterstone’s, just down the street from the tube station, he bought an AA street atlas of London, not willing to trust his memory of years ago, then he called in at one of the electronics shops on Tottenham Court Road and bought a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile, paying cash. It would need charging, but that could wait. He wasn’t in a hurry. He had spent all of Tuesday gathering most of the information he needed to do what he had to do in London.
As he walked along Tottenham Court Road he was overwhelmed by memories. The last time he had been in London doing detective work alone had been when his brother Roy disappeared. And look how that had turned out. Still, there was no reason to think that this time would turn into a disaster of similar proportions. He put his hand in his pocket and touched the spare key to Laurence Silbert’s Bloomsbury flat. He knew it was the right one because it had been marked with a neat label when he found it in Silbert’s study drawer that morning. He remembered seeing it when he and Annie had carried out their search. The rules called for Banks to get in touch with the local police, let them know he was on their patch and ask permission to visit the house, but he hadn’t done so. No sense inviting trouble, he thought, or paperwork. Besides, he was on holiday.
He turned up Montague Place between the British Museum and the university and found the street he wanted off Marchmont Street on the other side of Russell Square. He was in the heart of the University of London campus area, now, and there was also a healthy sprinkling of hotels for the tourists. The house he wanted was divided into flats, and the names under the brass number plates still listed an L. Silbert in flat 3A. It was a well-appointed building, not dingy student accommodation, as he would have expected for a man in Silbert’s position, with dark, thick-pile carpets, flocked wallpaper, framed Constable prints on the landings and a hovering scent of lavender air-freshener.
Banks didn’t know what he hoped to find, if anything, after the local police, and probably Special Branch, had turned over the place. He certainly didn’t expect any messages scrawled in invisible ink or written in a fiendish code. He told himself that he was there more to get a feel for Silbert and his London habitat than anything else.
The door opened into a tiny vestibule, hardly bigger than a hall cupboard. There were three doors leading off, and a quick check told him that the one on the left led to a small bedroom, just big enough for a double bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers, the one on the right to a bathroom – new-looking walk-in shower, toilet and pedestal washbasin, toothpaste, shaving cream, Old Spice – and the door straight ahead led to the living room with a tiny kitchenette. At least there was a view of sorts through the small sash window, though the narrow alley it looked out upon wasn’t much, and the buildings opposite blocked out most of the sunlight.
Banks started in the bedroom. The blue-and-white duvet was ruffled and the pillows creased. On impulse, Banks pulled the duvet back. The linen sheets were clean but wrinkled, as if someone had slept on them. More than likely, Mark Hardcastle had spent his night in London here.
There were a few clothes in the wardrobe, sports jackets, suits, shirts, ties, a dinner jacket and trousers, designer jeans creased along the seam. Banks found nothing hidden on the top or at the back of the wardrobe.
A copy of Conrad’s Nostromo lay on the chest of drawers beside the bed, a bookmark sticking out about three-quarters of the way through. The top drawer held folded polo shirts, T-shirts and underwear. In the middle drawer was an assortment of odds and ends, like his grand-mother’s old rummage box, which he used to love to root around in when he visited her. None of it was of much interest: old theatre ticket stubs and programs, restaurant and taxi receipts from earlier in the year, a tarnished cigarette lighter that didn’t work, a few cheap ballpoint pens. No diary or journal. No scraps of paper with telephone numbers on them. No business cards. The room had a spartan feel about it, as if it were somewhere merely functional, a place to sleep. The restaurant receipts also indicated an appetite for fine food: Lindsay House, Arbutus, L’Autre Pied, The Connaught, J. Sheekey and The Ivy. Clearly more Silbert’s than Hardcastle’s tastes. The bottom drawer held only socks and underwear, nothing sinister hidden among them.
The bathroom held no surprises and the living room was every bit as neat and clean as the bedroom. There was a small bookcase, mostly Conrad, Waugh and Camus mixed in with a few Bernard Cornwells and George MacDonald Frasers and a selection of hardcover biographies and histories, along with the latest Wisden. The small stack of CDs showed a predilection for Bach, Mozart and Haydn, and the magazines in the rack dealt mostly with antiques and foreign affairs. In the kitchenette Banks found an empty Bell’s whisky bottle and an unwashed glass.
He heard a noise outside and stood by the window watching the street cleaners go by at the end of the alley. There was nothing here for him, he decided. Either Silbert had been very careful or someone had already removed anything of interest.
Just before Banks left, he picked up the phone and pressed redial. Nothing happened. He tried again and got the same result. In the end, he concluded that it either wasn’t working properly or it had been erased – most likely, he thought, the latter.
Annie took Winsome with her when she went to talk to Nicky Haskell after school that Wednesday afternoon. She felt more than one pair of eyes following them as she drove along the winding main street of the estate past some of the better-kept terrace houses to Metcalfe House. Building permission had been granted for only two tower blocks, despite the bribes and kickbacks to local politicians that were rumoured to have exchanged hands. If Eastvale had been within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, there would have been no question of such atrocities going up, even though they were only ten storeys high, but it wasn’t. And the maisonettes that surrounded the tower blocks were just as ugly.
Metcalfe House had one of the worst reputations of any area on the estate, and Nicky Haskell had a reputation for antisocial behaviour. He was already on an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, which was more of a badge of honour in his circles than the stigma or hindrance to criminal activity it was supposed to be.
One problem was that often the parents hadn’t been around much while their kids were growing up – not because they went to work, but because they were doing much the same then as their children were doing now. They were often products of the Thatcher generation, who had also had no jobs and no hope for the future, a legacy they passed on to their children. Nobody had come along with that magic fix to reverse the damage. Like the homeless, they were far easier to ignore, and the drugs that helped to take the pain away demonized them even more in the eyes of society.
Nicky Haskell’s parents were a good case in point, as Annie well knew. His mother worked on the check-out at the local Asda, and his father, well known to the police, had been on the dole since the day he got thrown out of school for threatening his physics teacher with a knife. The idle days and hours that followed had left him plenty of time to indulge in his favourite pastimes, which included drinking enormous quantities of strong lager, smoking crack cocaine and having the occasional night at the dogs just to get rid of any surplus money he might have left over from his other habits. It was up to his wife to supply food, clothing, rent and utilities on her own meagre salary.
It was soon clear that they needn’t have waited for the end of the school day.
“Got a cold, haven’t I?” Nicky said, turning his back after letting them in. His lank greasy hair hung over his collar.
“I don’t know,” said Annie, walking into the living room behind him. “Do you? You sound fine to me.”
Nicky sank back on the battered sofa he had probably been lying on all day, if the empty crisp packets, loud television, overflowing ashtray and can of lager were any indication. The room smelled as if he had been lying in it all day, too. The apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree in this instance. “My throat hurts,” he said. “And I ache all over.”
“Want me to call a doctor?”
“Nah. Doctors ain’t no use.” He popped a couple of pills and drank Carlsberg Special Brew from the can. The pills could have been paracetamol or codeine for all Annie knew, or cared. Well, she did care, but she wasn’t out to change society single-handedly, or even with Winsome’s help; she was on yet another futile mission for information. He reached for his cigarettes.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t drink or smoke in our presence,” Annie said. “You’re underage.”
Haskell smirked and put the cigarettes down next to the lager. “I can wait till you’re gone,” he said.
“Mind if I turn the TV down?” Annie asked.
“Knock yourself out.”
“Midsomer Murders,” Annie said as she turned the volume down. “I wouldn’t have thought that was your cup of tea.”
“It’s soothing, innit? Like watching paint dry.”
Annie quite liked the program. It was so far removed from the real policing she did that she accepted it for what it was and didn’t even find herself looking for mistakes. She and Winsome sat on hard-backed wooden chairs because they didn’t like the look of the dark stains on the armchairs. “Where are your parents?” Annie asked.
“Mum’s at work, Dad’s at the pub.”
Technically, as he was only fifteen, they weren’t supposed to talk to him unless his parents were present. But as he wasn’t a suspect – Donny was one of his crew, after all – and most likely he wasn’t going to say anything that would prove useful in court, Annie wasn’t inclined to worry much about that.
“We been over all this before,” said Haskell before she even started. “It’s over and done with. Time to move on.”
“Someone stabbed Donny,” Annie reminded him, “and we’re not moving on until we find out who it was.”
“Well, I don’t know, do I? It wasn’t me. Donny’s me mate. He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“He’ll be fine. And we know he’s your mate. That’s why we thought you might be able to help us. You were there.”
“Says who?”
“Nicky, we know there was a scuffle down by the waste ground next to Glue-sniffers’ Ginnel. We know you and your mates, including Donny Moore, hang out there every night, and we know you wouldn’t take kindly to Jackie Binns and his crew muscling in, but we know they did. So why don’t you make it easy for us and just tell us what happened?”
