Playing with Fire (41 page)
Authors: Peter Robinson
“Keane made him feel special?” Banks suggested.
“Yes. He made him feel special.” Annie leaned forward. “Look, Alan⦔
Banks touched her hand. “Later,” he said.
Then the door opened and Michelle Hart popped her head in. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Banks looked over at her. “Well,” he said, “you're a sight for sore eyes.”
Annie left the room.
H
e'll be coming for me soon. Today, tomorrow, or the next day. I can feel his dark mind reaching out to me. It doesn't matter. I'm tired now. I'm the cancer patient who lives longer than the doctors have given him, the sad father who outlives all his children, the condemned man who receives a stay of execution. But now it's time. Soon he will come.
In my weak and foolish moments, I dream we go away together, start anew, embark on another escapade, but in the cold, dark reality of my caravan, I know he likes to travel light, and I know he doesn't like loose ends. I don't think he enjoys killing. Yes, there is a coldness at the core of his being, and I doubt that he's overly troubled by conscience. But I don't think he actually enjoys it. My murder will be dispassionate, calculated, a necessary end.
The irony is, of course, that I would never betray him. I'm not like Tommy, the fool, who let his greed and his pride ruin everything. Why did he have to spoil it all? These past few months have been a great adventure, full of camaraderie, romance and the thrill of the game, but Tommy had to let his ego ruin it for everyone. So we weren't getting enough money. I could have lived with that easily, so long as he still came to visit me in the caravan and we had our long talks into the night with the rain tapping against my flimsy roof.
I can hear him coming up the rickety steps. Now he's knocking at my door. When I open it, he will be standing there with a smile on his face and a bottle in his hand. Quick. I must stop now. Another drink, another pill, Beethoven's
Pastorale
. We have come full circle.
F
irst of all, I would like to give special thanks to Fire Investigation Officer Terry Calpin and to the firefighters of Pontefract Station, White Watch: Sub Officer Peter Lavine, Leading Firefighter Barry Collinson, and Firefighters Gary Dixon, Andy Rees, Richard Beaumont, Dave Newsome and Arran Huskins. Thanks for your time, and an extra thank-you to Gary for setting it all up. Also for their professional help, I would like to thank Detective Inspector Claire Stevens of the Thames Valley Police and Commander Philip Gormley of the Metropolitan Police. As usual, any technical mistakes are entirely my own and are usually made for the benefit of the story.
Thanks also to those who read and commented on the manuscript: Dominick Abel, Dinah Forbes, Trish Grader, Sheila Halladay, Maria Rejt and Sarah Turner. Your help is invaluable when I can't see the woods for the trees.
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, England, and has lived in North America for twenty-five years. His previous Inspector Banks novels include
In a Dry Season
âwhich was nominated for the Edgar®, won the Anthony Award, and was named a
New York Times
Notable Bookâand the international bestsellers
Aftermath
and
Close to Home
. You can visit his website at www.inspectorbanks.com.
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praise
for international bestselling author
PETER ROBINSON
and
PLAYING WITH FIRE
“The novels of Peter Robinson are chilling, evocative, deeply nuanced works of art.”
Dennis Lehane, author of
Mystic River
“Each time you think you're a step ahead of the author, Robinson jumps in with a jaw-dropping twist.
Playing with Fire
is the most accomplished of the Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks series.”
People
“Satisfyingly complexâ¦excellently plottedâ¦
Playing with Fire
is crime fiction at its bestâ¦Robinson's novels continue to be a pleasure.”
Detroit Free Press
“Exciting and suspensefulâ¦deft characterizations, agile plotting, and a smooth narrativeâ¦Seek out four or five [Banks novels] and read them straight throughâ¦They satisfy.”
Washington Post Book World
“Multi-dimensionalâand therefore genuinely interestingâcharacters in a highly complex plotâ¦There's no question Robinson is on a winning streak.”
Tampa Tribune
“What a novelâ¦[Robinson] builds a cast of eclectic, sometimes pathetic charactersâ¦[His] plots are ingeniously created in true police procedural fashion, narratives expertly honed. All in all, the author is not just a master storyteller, he's a literary magician.”
Montreal Gazette
“One bleak day last month, I picked up Robinson's new Banks novel,
Playing with Fire
â¦I've had five encounters with Banks since and, well, I don't want to jinx it, but we've become almost inseparableâ¦[Robinson] gives us in Banks a human being who is prey, like most of us, to all the slings and arrows of just being aliveâ¦Fascinating. He's not just anyone; he is everyone.”
Raleigh News & Observer
“Believable and affectingâ¦energetic and originalâ¦Robinson expertly weaves a thread of betrayal and fraud throughout.”
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“It's good to see Peter Robinson's booksâ¦beginning to get the critical attention they deserve.
Playing with Fire
â¦has a loud ring of truth and a good deal of suspense.”
Chicago Tribune
“The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are, simply put, the best series now on the market. In fact, this may be the best series of British novels since the novels of Patrick O'Brian. Try one and tell me I'm wrong.”
Stephen King
“Intriguing and entertainingâ¦[An] excellent seriesâ¦Robinson renders
Playing with Fire
with his clear, concise prose and evokes the seamy side of a wet and cold Yorkshire longing for the summer tourists.”
San Antonio Express-News
“Scintillatingâ¦[His] seamless melding of crime and character shows [Robinson] at the top of his game. It really is time to speak of him in the company of Rankin and Dexter and Connelly and James and other international masters of the genre.”
Toronto Globe and Mail
“An engaging pleasureâ¦Virtually every character is etched with care, precision, and emotional insight. With each book, the quietly competent Alan Banks gets more and more human; like red wine, he gets better and more interesting with age.”
Publishers Weekly
“Peter Robinson fools and entertains me with every twist.”
Nevada Barr
“Stellarâ¦Character, setting, and conscience count for at least as much as plot does in [Robinson's] masculine, brooding work.”
New York Times
“Kept us up past our bedtime several timesâ¦Robinson conjures up some pretty scary scenariosâ¦His characters have much more depth than the average detective novel.”
Boston Globe
“A tale that's both satisfyingly traditional in one regard, and thoroughly up-to-date in its setting and psychological insight.”
Orlando Sentinel
“Intriguing, sympathetic charactersâ¦Stephen King has praised Robinson, and deservedly so. He meshes the involving personal stories of Banks and his team seamlessly into the hunt for a perp who hides in plain sight.”
New York Daily News
"A superior detectiveâ¦a superior writer"
Denver Post
“Robinson has won just about every mystery award there isâ¦His latest shows why.”
Booklist(*Starred Review*)
“[Robinson is] the equal of legends in the genre such as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“There's no predicting the labyrinthine route of the investigation, which leads Banks down the bleak byways of parental abuse, drug addiction, and homelessnessâ¦Robinson's talentsâ¦account for both the quickness of mind that makes Banks such a keen protagonist and the diversity of tongue that gives the secondary charactersâfrom inarticulate teenagers to bloviating art expertsâtheir lively individuality.”
New York Times Book Review
“So readableâ¦Robinson brings a seamlessness to his creation of Banks and his world that has helped the series remain fresh.”
Seattle Times
“The whodunit world's best kept secretâ¦He succeeds splendidly.”
San Diego Union-Tribune
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
. Copyright © 2004 by Peter Robinson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2006 ISBN: 9780061835452
Version 07142015
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