Banks paused. He didn't want to blow it this time, but he was damned if he going to grovel to his own son. “That's not the point,” he said. “I don't think it's out of line for a father to express some concern at his son's sudden change of plans, do you?”
“You know I'm into the band. You've always known I've loved music. Dad, it was
you
who bought me that guitar for my sixteenth birthday. Don't you remember?”
“Of course I do. All I'm saying is that you have to give it a little time to sink in. It's a shock, that's all. We were all expecting you to come out with a good degree and start
working at a good firm somewhere. Music's a great hobby but a risky living.”
“So you keep saying. We're doing all right. Anyway, did you always do what your parents wanted you to?”
Low blow, Banks thought.
Almost never
would have been the truth, but he wasn't ready to admit to that. “Not always,” he said. “Look, I'm not saying you aren't old enough to make your own decisions. Just think about it, that's all.”
“I
have
thought about it. This is what I want to do.”
“Have you spoken to your mother?”
Banks swore he could almost hear the guilt in Brian's pause. “She's always out when I call,” he said at last.
Bollocks
, Banks thought. “Well, keep trying.”
“I still think it would come better from you.”
“Brian, if it's your decision, you can take responsibility for it. Believe me, it
won't
come any better from me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine. All right. I'll try her again.”
“You do that. Anyway, the main reason I'm calling is that I'll be down in your neck of the woods tomorrow, so I wondered if we could get together and talk about things. Let me buy you a pint.”
“I don't know, Dad. We're really busy right now.”
“You can't be busy
all
the time.”
“There's rehearsals, you know . . . ”
“Half an hour?”
Another pause followed. Banks heard Brian say some-thing to Andrew, but he couldn't catch what it was. Then Brian came back on again. “Look,” he said, “tomorrow and Saturday we're playing at a pub in Bethnal Green. If you want to come and listen we can have that pint during the break.”
Banks got the name of the pub and the time and said he'd do his best.
“It's all right,” said Brian. “I'll understand if something else comes up and you can't make it. Wouldn't be the first time. One of the joys of being a copper's son.”
“I'll be there,” said Banks. “Goodbye.”
It was almost dark by now. He took his cigarettes and small whisky and went outside to sit on the wall. A few remaining streaks of crimson and purple shot through the sky to the west and the waning moon shone like polished bone over the valley. The promise of a storm had dissipated and the air was clear and dry again.
Well, Banks thought, at least he had talked to Brian and would get to see him soon. He looked forward to hearing the band. He had heard Brian practising his guitar when he lived at home, of course, and had been impressed by the way he had picked it up so easily. Unlike Banks.
Way back in the Beatles days, when every kid tried to learn guitar, he had managed about three badly fingered chords before packing it in. He envied Brian his talent, perhaps in the same way he envied him his freedom. There had been a time when Banks had also contemplated the bohemian life. What he would actually have
done
, he didn't know; after all, he had no facility for music or writing or painting. He could have been a hanger-on, perhaps, a roadie, or just a real cool guy. It didn't seem to matter back then. But Sandra, kids and a mortgage changed all that. Besides, deep down, he knew he needed a career with some sort of disciplined structure. He didn't really fancy the armed forces, and with images of the never-to-be-found Graham Marshall in his mind, that left the police. Mysteries to solve; bullies to send down.
An agitated curlew screeched and shrieked way up the daleside. Some animal threatening its nest, perhaps. Banks heard his phone ring again. Quickly, he stubbed out the cigarette and went back inside.
“Sorry to disturb you at this time of night, sir,” said
DS
Hatchley, “but I know you're off to London in the morning.”
“What is it?” Banks looked at his watch. Half past nine. “It's not like you to be working so late, Jim.”
“I'm not. I mean, I wasn't. I was just over at the Queen's Arms with a couple of mates from the rugby club, so I thought I'd pop in the station, like, and see if I'd got any answers to my inquiries.”
“And?”
“Francis Henderson. Like I said, I know you're off down there tomorrow, so that's why I'm calling. I've got an address.”
“He lives in London?”
“Dulwich.” Hatchley read out the address. “What's interesting, why it came back so quick, is he's got form.” Banks's ears pricked up. “Go on.”
“According to Criminal Intelligence, Francis Hender-son started working for one of the East End gangs in the sixties. Not the Krays, exactly, but that sort of thing. Mostly he dug up information for them, found people they were after, watched people they wanted watched. He developed a drug habit and started dealing to support it in the seventies. They say he's been retired and clean for years now, at least as far as they know.”
“Sure it's
our
Francis Henderson?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Thanks a lot for calling, Jim. Get yourself home now.”
“Don't worry, I will.”
“And give another push on that nationwide tomorrow if you can find time.”
“Will do.
Bon voyage
.”
Fourteen
A
nnie was waiting on the platform at York station looking very businesslike in a navy mid-length skirt and silver-buttoned blazer over a white blouse. She had tied her hair back so tightly it made a V on her forehead and arched her dark eyebrows. For once, though, Banks didn't feel underdressed. He wore a lightweight cotton summer suit and, with it, a red and grey tie, top shirt button undone.
“Good Lord,” she said, smiling, “I feel like we're sneaking away for a dirty weekend.”
Banks laughed. “If you play your cards right . . . ”
The station smelled of diesel oil and ancient soot from the days of steam. Gouts of compressed air rushed out from under the trains with a deafening hiss, and pigeons flapped around the high ceiling. Announcements about late arrivals and departures echoed from the public-address system.
The London train pulled out of the station only eleven minutes after the advertised departure time. Banks and Annie chatted for a while, lulled by the rattling and rocking rhythm, and Banks ascertained that whatever had been bothering Annie on the phone yesterday was no longer a problem. He had been forgiven.
Annie started reading the
Guardian
she had bought at
the station newsstand and Banks went back to
Guilty Secrets
. In bed the previous evening, he had given up on
The Shadow of Deat
h when the erstwhile
DI
Niven arrested his first suspect, saying, “You have the right to remain silent. If you don't have a lawyer, one will be provided for you.” So much for the realistic depiction of police procedures. Allowing that it was one of her early
DI
Niven books and feeling that she deserved a second chance, he started
Guilty Secrets
, her most recent non-series book, and had trouble putting it down to get to sleep. Clearly, Vivian Elmsley was better at psychological suspense than police procedurals.
Banks finished the book just before Peterborough. Annie had closed her eyes by then and was either napping or meditating. He gazed out of the window at the uninspiring landscape of his childhood: a brick factory, a redbrick school, stretches of waste ground littered with weeds and rubbish. Even the spire of the beautiful Norman cathedral behind the shopping centre failed to inspire him. The train squealed to a halt.
Of course, it hadn't been so uninspiring back then; his imagination had imbued every miserable inch of the place with magical significance. The waste grounds were battlefields where the local lads re-enacted the great battles of two world wars, using tree branches or sticks of wood for rifles, bayoneting opponents with great relish. Even when Banks was playing alone or fishing in the River Nene, it was easy enough for him to believe he was an Arthurian knight on a quest. Adam Kelly had been doing the same thing in Hobb's End when the world of his imagination had suddenly become real.
As the train left Peterborough station, Banks thought
of his parents, not more than a mile away. He looked at his watch. About now, he guessed, his mother would be drinking milky instant coffee and reading her latest women's magazine, and his father would be having his morning nap, snoring gently, feet up on the green velour pouffe, newspaper spread over his lap. Unchanging routine. It had been the same since his father was made redundant from his job as a steelworker in
1982
, and his mother grew too old and tired to clean other people's houses any more. Banks thought of the disappointment and bitterness that had twisted their lives, problems that he had certainly contributed to, as well as Margaret Thatcher. But their disappointments had been visited on him, too, in turn. No matter how well he did, it was never good enough.
Even though Banks had “bettered” himselfâhe had a secure job with a steady source of income and good opportunities for advancementâhis parents didn't approve of his joining the police. His father never tired of pointing out the traditional opposition between the working classes and the police force. When the riot police on overtime taunted striking miners by waving rolls of five-pound notes at them in the '
84
strike, he accused Banks of being “the enemy” and tried to persuade him to resign. It didn't matter that Banks was working the drugs squad on the Met at the time and had nothing to do with the troubles up north. As far as his father was concerned, the police were merely Maggie's bully-boys, the enforcers of unpopular government policies, oppressors of the working man.
Banks's mother, for her part, took a more domestic view and relayed tales of police divorces she heard about over the grapevine. Being a policeman wasn't a good career choice for a family man, she never ceased to tell him.
Never mind that it was more than twenty years later before he and Sandra split upâmost of that time relatively successful, as modern marriages goâhis mother took great satisfaction that she had finally been vindicated.
And there lay the main problem, Banks thought as he watched the city disappear behind him. He had never been able to do anything right. When bad things happened to other kids, parents usually took their side, but when bad things happened to Banks, it was his own fault. It had always been that way, ever since he started getting cuts and bruises in schoolyard fights, always him who must have started it, whether he did or not. As far as his parents were concerned, Banks thought, if he got killed on the job,
that
would probably be his own fault, too. When it came to blame, they offered no quarter for family.
Still, he thought, in a way that was what made him good at his job. When he had been junior in rank, he had never blamed his bosses when things went wrong, and now he was
DCI
, he took the responsibility for his team, whether it consisted of Hatchley and Susan Gay or just Annie Cabbot. If the team failed, it was
his
failure. A burden, yes, but also a strength.
King's Cross was the usual madness. Banks and Annie negotiated their way through the crowds and the maze of tiled, echoing tunnels to the Northern Line and managed to cram into the first Edgeware-bound train that came along.
A few minutes later, they came out of Belsize Park tube station, walked up Rosslyn Hill and turned into the side-street where Vivian Elmsley lived. Banks knew the area vaguely from his years in London, though after Notting Hill, he and Sandra had mostly lived south of the river, in
Kennington. Keats used to live near here, Banks remembered; it was in one of these streets that the poor sod fell in love with his next-door neighbour, Fanny Brawne.
A woman's voice answered the intercom.
There was a long pause after Banks had stated his rank and his business, then a more resigned voice said, “You'd better come up.” The lock buzzed and Banks pushed open the front door.
They walked up three flights of thickly carpeted stairs to the second-floor landing. That this was a well-maintained building was clear from the fresh lemon scent, the gleaming woodwork and freshly painted walls, decorated here and there with a still-life print or a seascape. Probably cost an arm and a leg, but then Vivian Elmsley could no doubt afford an arm and a leg.
The woman who opened the door was tall and slim, standing ramrod straight, her grey hair fastened in a bun. She had high cheekbones, a straight, slightly hooked nose and a small, thin mouth. Crow's-feet spread around her remarkable deep blue eyes, slanted at an almost Oriental angle. Banks could see what Elsie Patterson meant: if you were at all observant, there was no mistaking those eyes. She was dressed like a jogger, in baggy black exercise trousers and a white sweatshirt. Still, he supposed, it didn't matter what you wore if all you had to do was sit around and write all day. Some people have all the luck.
She looked tired. Bags puffed under her eyes, and broken blood-vessels criss-crossed the whites. She also looked strained and edgy, as if she were running on reserves.
The flat was Spartan and modern in its furnishings, chrome and glass giving the small living-room a generous
sense of space. Banks's eyes were drawn to a framed print of one of Georgia O'Keeffe's huge yellow flowers hung on the wall over the mantelpiece.