Playing with Fire (37 page)

A cautious voice came over the intercom. “Yes?”

Banks introduced himself and said he wanted to speak to Helen Keane. Naturally, she was suspicious and nervous—people always are when the police come to call—but he managed to convince her that it was information he wanted, nothing more. She agreed to let him in but said she would keep her chain on until she had seen his identification. Fair enough, Banks thought, climbing the plushly carpeted stairs. Foyers, halls and stairs said a lot about the quality, and cost, of the place you were visiting, Banks always thought, the way bath towels and toilet paper said a lot about the hotel you were staying in.

As promised, she kept the chain on while she examined his warrant card, then she let him in.

The flat was an interior designer's paradise, all sharp angles and reflective surfaces, colors named after rare plants and southwest American states. There was no clutter. The stereo was state-of-the-art, brushed steel, hanging on the wall next to the large plasma wide-screen TV, and if the Keanes owned any books or CDs, they were stored elsewhere or hidden well out of sight. A couple of artfully placed art and design magazines were the only reading materials in plain view. At the far end of the high-ceilinged room stood a narrow black chair with a fan-shaped back. When he looked more closely, Banks couldn't be sure whether it was a chair or a work of art. At any rate, he wouldn't want to try sitting on it.

The woman who came with the flat was every bit as much of an expensive package and a designer's wet dream—beautiful, chic, petite, dark-haired, thirty at most, with intense blue eyes and a pale, flawless complexion. She was wearing ivory silk combats, high-heeled sandals and a delicate lace top that didn't quite obscure her skimpy black bra.

She bade Banks sit on the modular sofa and sat opposite, on a matching armchair, the color of which Banks couldn't name. Pink, or coral, came closest, but even they were a long way off.

“It's all right, Mrs. Keane,” said Banks. “There's no need to be nervous. As far as I know, nobody's done anything criminal. I'd just like a bit of background information, if you don't mind.”

“About what?”

“Your husband.”

She seemed to relax a bit at that. “Philip? What about him? I'm afraid I don't know where he is right now.”

Banks noticed a trace of an accent. It sounded vaguely Eastern European to his untrained ear. “How long have you been married?” he asked.

“Three years now.”

“How did you meet?”

“At a club.”

“Where?”

“In the West End. I was working there. It was a gambling club. A casino. Philip used to come there to play cards. We talked once…he asked me to dinner…you know…”

“Where are you from?” Banks asked.

“Where from?”

“Yes. Your accent.”

“Ah. Kosovo,” she said. “But everything is legal.”

“Because of the marriage?”

“Yes. I have a British passport now. Everything is legal. Philip did that for me.”

“But when you met?”

She smiled. “You know…I was Jelena Pavelich then, just another poor refugee from a war-torn country trying to make a simple living.” She gestured around the room. “Now I am Helen Keane.”

“It's a nice flat,” Banks said.

“Thank you. I designed it myself.”

“Is that what you did? In Kosovo?”

“No. I studied at university there. Languages. To be a translator. Then the fighting came. My parents were killed. I had to leave.”

“How did you escape?”

“People helped me. It was a long journey. One I want to forget. I saw many terrible things. I had to do many bad things. But you said you wanted to know about Philip?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Do you know what he was doing before you met?”

“He said he was working abroad. In galleries and museums, in Italy, Spain, Russia, America. Philip is very clever. He has traveled all over the world.”

“Yes, I know that,” said Banks.

Helen's eyes narrowed as she studied him. “Has he taken your girlfriend? Is that why you want to ask me about him?”

Banks felt himself blush. “Why do you say that?”

She smiled the way women do when they think they've gained the upper edge, put their finger on your weakness. “Because Philip is a very attractive man, no?”

“I suppose so,” said Banks. “But what makes you think he would have another woman? Has he been unfaithful before?”

She laughed. It was a deep, hoarse, almost crude kind of laugh, not at all the sort of sound he would have expected from such an exquisitely petite woman, but more like the way you'd laugh at a dirty joke in a smoky pub. Banks liked it. It made her seem more human to him, less of an ethereal beauty. “Philip always has other women,” she said.

“And it doesn't bother you?”

She made a little moue, then answered, “Ours is not that kind of marriage. We do what we want.”

“Why stay together, then?”

“Because we like one another. We are friends. And because, well…”

“Go on.”

She looked around the flat and ran her hand over her lace top, all the way down over the rise and fall of her small breasts. “I like nice things. Do you not think I'm pretty?”

“Very.”

“I think for Philip I am a business asset also, no? He likes to be seen with his pretty young wife on his arm. All his friends and colleagues envy him. They all want to go to bed with me. I can tell by the way they look at me.”

“And Philip enjoys that?”

“Yes. We go to openings and dinners and galas together. All sorts of official functions with many important people. And all of them look at me the same way. Young men. Old men. Some wives. It is good to be married when you have a business, yes?”

Banks agreed that it was. For some reason, marriage gave the semblance of both conservatism and stability that people require from a business. Potential clients were much more inclined to be suspicious of a bachelor of Phil's or Banks's age than they were of a married man. And the fact that his wife was a mysterious Eastern European beauty would certainly do no harm in the circles he moved in. If anything, it might make him seem a little more daring than most. Not too much, but just enough of a risk-taker to be worth running with.

Yes, if Phil Keane wanted everyone to think he was a traditional, solid and dependable sort of fellow, he could do a lot worse than step out with Helen on his arm. And for her part, she had already indicated that she loved the trappings of
wealth, the opulent lifestyle. Perhaps she had lovers, too? It seemed to be an open sort of marriage, according to what she had said, so no doubt she had plenty of freedom. Banks felt a little uncomfortable now as his eyes strayed to the outline of her skimpy bra under the lace top, and the exposed black strap against her pale shoulder. He found himself wondering just how much Phil Keane's lifestyle cost him, and whether ArtSearch made enough to support it.

“Did your husband ever mention a man called Thomas McMahon, an artist he knew?”

“No.”

“You never met anyone called Thomas McMahon?”

“No.”

“What about William Masefield?”

“No.”

“Leslie Whitaker?”

“I haven't heard the name. But Philip never talks about his friends. If he's not here, then I have no idea where he is or what he's doing.”

“Does he have many close friends?”

“Close friends? I don't think so. Mostly it is work.”

“You mean colleagues he's met through work, in the art field?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have any partners, anyone he works closely with?”

“No. He says he doesn't trust other people. They only mess things up. If he wants to do something, he does it himself.”

“Does Philip ever take you to the family cottage in Fortford?”

“What family cottage?”

“Apparently it belonged to his grandparents. In Yorkshire. He inherited it.”

“I know nothing about any grandparents. All Philip told me about his family is that his father was a diplomat and they
were always moving from one country to another when he was young. Where did you hear about these grandparents? Who told you?”

“It doesn't matter,” said Banks. “Did you ever meet his parents?”

“They're dead. They were killed in a plane crash ten years ago, before we met.”

“And he never said anything about owning property in Yorkshire?”

“Never. Whenever we go away we go to California or the Bahamas. But never to Yorkshire.” She hugged herself and gave a little shiver. “It is cold there, no?”

“Sometimes,” Banks said.

“I love the sun.”

“Helen,” said Banks, mostly out of exasperation, “do you know
anything
about your husband?”

She laughed again, that deep, throaty sound, then spread her hands as if to display her body. “I know he likes the good things in life,” she said, without a hint of false modesty.

Banks realized there was nothing more to be learned from her, so he said his good-byes and made a speedy exit, more confused than when he had first arrived.

A
fter a good night's sleep and a morning spent catching up with the previous day's developments—especially Elaine Hough's statement and the candle wax found in Roland Gardiner's caravan—Banks asked Annie if she fancied a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake at the Golden Grill, just across from the station. He needed to build a few bridges if they were to continue working together.

He'd been struggling with the dilemma that Helen Keane posed all the way home on the train from London the previous evening, and all that morning, and he still hadn't come to any firm decision. Maybe he'd probe Annie a bit, find out how she really felt about Phil. It wasn't fair to charge right in, he realized, and tell her outright. Especially as Keane's marriage was definitely the unusual kind. On the other hand, he was concerned about her feelings, and he didn't want her getting in too deep with Keane before she found out he was married. Still, he could only imagine how his news would be received, especially as their relationship was hardly on firm ground at the moment.

The bell over the door pinged as they entered. The place was half empty and they had their pick of tables. Banks immediately headed for the most isolated. As soon as they were settled with a pot of tea and tea cakes, Banks stirred his tea,
though there was nothing added to it, and said, “Look, Annie, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry. I was out of line the other day. About bringing Phil in. Of course it made sense. I was just…”

“Jealous?”

“Not in the real sense of the word, no. It just feels awkward, that's all.”

“He thinks you don't like him.”

“Can't say I have an opinion one way or another. I've only met him a couple of times.”

“Oh, come on, Alan.”

“Really. He seems fine. But when it comes down to it, how much do you know about him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean about his background, his past, his family. Has he ever been married, for example?”

“Not that he's mentioned to me. And I don't think he has. That's one of the refreshing things about him.”

The remark stung Banks, as he thought it was intended to. His failed marriage and the baggage thereof had been a constant bone of contention in his relationship with Annie. The wise thing to do would be to move on, not to retaliate with what he had learned from Dirty Dick Burgess. He teetered on the brink for a moment, then asked, “Anything new this morning?”

“Not a lot,” said Annie. “Winsome's been looking into William Masefield's background and come up with one piece of interesting information: He attended Leeds University, and he was there at the same time as McMahon and Gardiner were enrolled at the Poly. From 1978 to 1981. There's no evidence that they knew one another, however, and Elaine Hough says she'd never heard of him.”

“Pity,” said Banks. “Still, it does give us a tenuous link. Wasn't Giles Moore at the university?”

“That's another thing. I checked with the university this
morning, and they say there's no record of him ever being there.”

“Interesting,” said Banks. “Maybe he didn't get accepted, felt he needed to impress people.”

“Even so,” said Annie. “It's a pretty odd thing to do, isn't it?”

“He sounds like an odd person altogether,” Banks agreed. “Which gives us all the more reason to be interested in him. He's got to be somewhere. He can't just have vanished into thin air.”

“We're looking,” said Annie. “The only problem is that we're running out of places to look. As far as we can tell so far, there aren't any Moores living in mansions near King's Lynn. We haven't actually asked Maggie Thatcher or the Duke of Devonshire whether they knew a Giles Moore yet, but it may come to that.”

Banks laughed. “So he's a liar, then?”

“So it would seem.”

“What we need to do,” Banks said, “is have the Hough woman look at a photograph of Whitaker. I know it was a long time ago, but she may still recognize something about him.” And a photo of Phil Keane, too, if he could get his hands on one, Banks added to himself. “I seem to remember there was a framed photo on the desk in the bookshop. As he's missing, and people have been dying, I suppose it's reasonable for us to enter the premises, wouldn't you say? I mean, he could be lying dead in the back room soaked in petrol, with a six-hour candle slowly burning down beside him, for all we know.”

“Good idea,” said Annie. “I'll get on to it. What's going to happen with the Aspern woman?”

“Frances?” Banks shook his head. “I don't know. From what Mark Siddons told us, she might have a damn good case for pleading provocation.”

“What about diminished responsibility?”

“I'd leave that one to the experts. She needs psychiatric
help, no doubt about it. She's not clinically insane—at least not in my layman's opinion—but she's confused and disturbed. I think she just couldn't accept that her husband was sexually abusing his own daughter the same way he'd sexually abused her. It was easier in her mind to embrace the lie they'd lived right from the start—from when he first got her pregnant—that this fictitious American, Paul Ryder, was the father, and that Patrick was Tina's stepfather. Maybe sometimes she actually believed it. It's a thin line.”

“It certainly is,” Annie agreed. “I suppose this knocks both her and her husband off the list of suspects?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“And how seriously are we taking Andrew Hurst and Mark Siddons?”

“Not very. Hurst's weird. I mean, if it turns out that the art forgery angle's a blind alley and the fires were set by some nutter who just likes to set fires, then I'd look closely at him again. But he's got no connection with McMahon, Gardiner and the rest. Neither does Mark Siddons, except that he happened to be a neighbor of McMahon's. Mark has his problems, but I don't think arson is one of them. Besides, he has a good alibi. You said so yourself.”

“I could talk to Mandy Patterson again. Go in a bit harder.”

“No,” said Banks. “What could she possibly gain by giving Mark Siddons an alibi for murder? If Mark had wanted rid of Tina, there were far easier and more reliable ways of doing it than fixing himself up with a dodgy alibi and setting fire to Thomas McMahon's boat.”

“Which brings us back to Leslie Whitaker,” said Annie.

“What's his educational background?”

“He attended Strathclyde University from 1980 to 1983. Unfortunately, there's no evidence that links him to either Gardiner or Masefield, but we're still looking. And the way he's taken off certainly makes him seem more suspicious. That and some of his recent financial idiosyncrasies. Accord
ing to the auditor, his business books are a bit of a mess, to say the least.”

“I suppose if he was involved in some sort of scam with McMahon, he had to hide the profits somehow. Tell me your thoughts, Annie.”

“McMahon was known to be a good imitator, and he gained access to period materials through Whitaker's bookshop, and no doubt from other sources. Maybe Whitaker, Moore, or whoever set it up, enlisted his old buddies to help him in a forgery scam and they fell out?”

“Okay,” said Banks. “That makes sense up to a point. But what parts did Gardiner and Masefield play?”

“Masefield provided the identity for the killer to remain anonymous in his dealings with McMahon,” said Annie. “Whenever they met, he hired a Jeep Cherokee in Masefield's name, no doubt so we wouldn't be able to trace him. Remember, when Masefield died, or was killed, our man had his post redirected to a post office box, used his bank accounts, paid his bills. Assumed his identity.”

“What about Gardiner?”

“I don't know yet. But he must have played some part in it all. Don't forget the Turners and the money we found in his safe. They can't be just coincidence.”

“No. I haven't forgotten them. But none of this gets us any closer to who that person actually
is,
” said Banks. “Even if it
is
Giles bloody Moore, he's not going by that name now, and that name probably won't lead us to him. He's slippery. We're dealing with a chameleon, Annie. A damn clever one, too. Did you find out anything else about Moore? Anything at all that might help us?”

“No,” said Annie. “Not yet. It's a lot of legwork. And legwork takes time, and more legs than we've got right now.”

“I can talk to Red Ron about manpower.”

“Thanks,” said Annie. “I could do with a couple more good researchers, at least. But for the moment, my money's
still on Leslie Whitaker. Just because we haven't been able to find a past connection between him and Gardiner doesn't mean one doesn't exist, or even that we need one. I mean, maybe McMahon himself is the link. Maybe Whitaker put the idea to McMahon and McMahon recruited Gardiner.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “We'll have to ask him when we find him.” He finished his tea and let the silence stretch a moment before asking, “How are you and Phil getting along, by the way?”

“Fine,” Annie said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Where is he, anyway? I haven't seen him for a couple of days.”

“He's down in London dealing with the Turners. You know that. Why the sudden interest?”

“Nothing. Just wondering, that's all.”

Annie looked him in the eye. “Phil's right, isn't he? What I said earlier. You denied it at the time, but you didn't like him right from the start, did you? I mean, you never really gave him a chance, did you?”

“I told you, I've got nothing against him,” Banks said. But if truth be told, he had a very uneasy feeling about Phil Keane, like an itch he couldn't quite scratch, and though he wouldn't tell Annie this, he was going to keep on digging into the man's background until he was satisfied one way or another. “I don't want to start another argument, Annie,” Banks said. “I just asked you how you two were getting along.”

“Yes, but it's not as simple as that, is it? It never is with you. I can tell from your tone of voice. There's always another agenda. What is it? What do you know? What are you getting at?”

Banks spread his hands. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Is it jealousy? Is that what it is, Alan? Because, honestly, if it's that, if that's what it is, I'll just get a fucking transfer out of here.”

Banks didn't remember ever hearing Annie swear before,
and it shocked him. “Look,” he said, “it's not jealousy. Okay? I just don't want to see you get hurt, that's all.”

“Why should I get hurt? And who do you think you are? My big brother? I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

And with that, Annie tossed her serviette on the remains of her toasted tea cake and strode out of the café. Was it Banks's imagination, or did the bell ping just that little more loudly when she left?

 

Annie spent the rest of the day avoiding Banks. It wasn't difficult; she had plenty more paperwork to hide behind, and she took Winsome along to Whitaker's shop, which they entered through the backdoor, leaving no sign that they had been there, and borrowed the photograph. A quick trip to Harrogate didn't provide the conclusive answers she had hoped for. It was over twenty years ago, after all, said Elaine Hough, and Whitaker's chin and eyes were wrong. Even so, that didn't let Whitaker off the hook for the fires as far as Annie was concerned.

Had she overreacted to Banks in the Golden Grill? She didn't know. There had just been something about the way he kept on bringing up the subject of Phil that irritated her. Perhaps she should have let it go; after all, that would have been easy enough. But if she was going to carry on seeing Phil and working with Banks, then something would have to change, and it wasn't going to be Annie.

Banks clearly had something on his mind, and she wished she knew what it was. Had he been investigating Phil behind her back? Had he found out something? If so, what? Annie dismissed her fears as absurd. If Banks had found any dirt on Phil, he would have made sure she was the first to know. Otherwise, what was the point? Except to hurt her. Lash out because of his jealousy.

But the suspicion and anxiety persisted throughout the day and made it hard for her to concentrate. Late in the afternoon,
by which time Annie already knew she was going to be working late into the evening, the phone rang.

“Annie, it's Phil here.”

“Well, hello. It's nice to hear from you, stranger.”

“I just thought I'd let you know that the consensus of opinion is that the Turner sketches and watercolor are forgeries.”

If Annie was a bit disappointed that Phil was calling her on business, she tried not to let it show in her voice.

“Oh. Why's that?” she asked.

“It's nothing specific. Just a number of things adding up, or not adding up. Some of the scientific tests indicated the paper used was slightly later than the dates of the sketches. Then there's the style. Little details. I told you Turner was hard to fake. When you add to that the lack of provenance, the loose sketches and the coincidence of these pieces turning up so quickly after the major find, then…”

“What about fingerprints? In the paint, I mean.”

“There were none. So no help there.”

“Would there have been if the painting were genuine?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Okay, Phil. Thanks,” said Annie. “Does this cast doubt on the other watercolor?”

“Not at all. We've got some provenance there, and the same tests didn't turn out negative. I think that one was a genuine find. It must have given someone the idea of forging the other missing piece.”

“McMahon?”

“I've no idea who did it, but if you found it at the site of the caravan fire, and you've managed to link the two victims, yes, I'd say you're probably on the right track. They must have hatched some harebrained get-rich-quick scheme. It's quite possible to be a fine artist and pretty useless at almost everything else.”