Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) (41 page)

‘It has an old castle, the Episcopal Castle, some beautiful old wooden houses and a nice waterfront. Peter the Great used to go there. And Tchaikovsky. There’s a bench dedicated to Tchaikovsky.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Banks said. ‘But this isn’t exactly a day at the seaside.’

‘I know,’ said Merike, casting him a sideways glance. ‘I am hoping we are successful, too.’

The plan, such as it was, was for Merike to first talk to Larisa, try to set her at ease, assure her there would be no comebacks or consequences, and then for Banks to question her, with Merike’s help as a translator, if necessary, about her past. If her husband didn’t know, and if he was there, they would get her away from him for a while. Joanna Passero, who had a special interest in this part of the investigation, would be taking notes and asking questions whenever she felt it necessary. Banks could hardly sideline her on this. They had not telephoned in advance. There were many reasons why Larisa Petrenko might want to forget her past, and they didn’t want to scare her away before they got there.

The suburbs of Tallinn gave way to fields and woods. Here and there, a narrow unpaved lane led between rows of hedges to a distant village. The road they were travelling on wasn’t very busy, though it was obviously a main east–west route, with bus service and all, so they made generally good progress. Merike had the radio tuned quietly to some inoffensive pop programme. In deference to her passengers, she refrained from smoking, though Banks assured her she was welcome to do so in her own car, which was pretty thick with the smell of tobacco anyway. Joanna sat in the back gazing out at the scenery. She didn’t seem ill, the way she had on the way to Garskill Farm, but then the road here was much smoother. Banks was thinking about the phone call he had received from Annie late last night. Warren Corrigan had been shot. She said she would call when she had more news. He wondered whether that triggered bad memories, or whether she could disassociate from what had happened to her.

Soon they were entering a town – Haapsalu itself, Merike announced – with a few modern buildings dotted around grassy areas, all very low-rise, then streets of old wooden houses as they drove slowly down the main street. Merike found a place to park and pulled to a halt. She pointed out of the window to a restaurant. ‘There,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘They should be open for lunch. It is very popular because the restaurant is above Alexander Petrenko’s gallery, where he has some paintings for sale.’

‘It seems a good business idea,’ said Banks. ‘Have a stroll around the gallery, see something you like, head upstairs for a nice meal and a couple of drinks to think it over.’

‘He does very well, I think, but he is so rarely there, of course. His studio is elsewhere in town.’

Banks could sense, if not smell, the fresh sea air when he got out of the car. He took a deep breath to rid himself of the tobacco smell that lingered in the upholstery. The first thing Merike did when she got into the street was light a cigarette. ‘You want me to go in alone first, right?’

‘Yes, please. I don’t think we should all go traipsing in there at once and scare the living daylights out of her,’ Banks said. ‘You go have a word with her, tell her what we have in mind. See if she can get someone to cover for her for a while, and we’ll all go for a walk on the seafront. Sound OK?’

‘OK,’ said Merike, stamping out her cigarette. ‘I feel like a cop.’

Banks smiled. ‘There’s no need to take it that far. Just be yourself.’

‘Who else could I be?’ said Merike, then she checked for traffic and wandered across the street. Banks and Joanna hung back by the VW. There were a few tourists walking about, checking antique and gift shops. ‘It’s famous for shawls, Haapsalu,’ said Joanna. ‘Beautiful shawls of knitted lace.’

‘Maybe later,’ said Banks, thinking something like that might make a nice present for Annie, though on second thoughts, she didn’t seem much like a lace shawl kind of girl. Still, there were plenty of gift shops in the Old Town. Some amber jewellery, perhaps, or ceramics.

Joanna wandered a few yards down the street to look in a shop window while Banks kept his eye on the door of the restaurant. It was about ten minutes before Merike came out. At first Banks thought she was alone, then he saw the woman behind her. Larisa Petrenko. She was a slighter figure than he had imagined – for some reason he had thought her a tall, leggy, exotic beauty. The closer they came, the more he could see that she was definitely a beauty, though in a very natural way. She now she wore her hair tied back in a ponytail. Her jeans were not the kind you had to put on with a shoehorn, but they certainly showed off the curves of her hips, rear end and legs. She had put on some weight since the photograph with Quinn had been taken, but not much. She was still slim and petite, and very young-looking. And she was nervous. Banks gave Merike a quizzical glance.

‘This is Larisa,’ Merike said. ‘She is willing to talk to you. Her husband is not here today. He is at his studio working. She does not believe she can tell you very much, but she will help if she can.’

Banks smiled at Larisa and offered his hand. She shook it. Her grip was firm, her skin soft. ‘I cannot be gone for long,’ she said, in clear but accented English. ‘Kaida is by herself, and we should be busy soon.’

‘Can we walk?’

Larisa led them down some quiet streets of wooden houses, and they soon came out at the sea. There was a large white wedding-cake style building on the water in front of them with a covered walkway all around it, like the covered porches in the Southern USA. To the right was something resembling a white bandstand sticking out from the shore. They walked along the waterfront path. Larisa had already told them on the way about her simple life in Haapsalu with her husband and her cafe, about how she had gone to university to study modern languages, and wanted to teach, but changed her mind. Now she made pottery and ceramics and ran a successful restaurant in a tourist spa.

‘I take it that’s a long way from your old life?’ Banks said.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ Banks had already showed her the photographs, which had embarrassed her.

Banks saw a polar bear in the water near the shore, then he realised it was just a statue of a polar bear. Haapsalu’s version of The Little Mermaid, he guessed. They came to a stone bench that was inscribed ‘P.I. Tsaikovski 1840-1893’ under a circular etching of the man himself. ‘Let’s sit here,’ said Larisa. ‘I like to sit here when I walk by the sea.’

‘Do you like Tchaikovsky’s music?’ Banks asked.

‘Not particularly. But I like the idea that he was here. I like to think of him enjoying the same view and hearing great music in his mind.’

Banks liked that idea, too, and he also liked Tchaikovsky’s string quartets and symphonies very much. The four of them sat in a row, Banks half-turned towards Larisa. ‘Do you remember that night when the photographs were taken?’

Larisa gazed out to sea, screwing her eyes up against the glare from the water. ‘Pieces of it,’ she said. ‘I met him in the hotel bar. I was pretending to get change for the telephone, and I caught his eye, as was planned.’

‘So you didn’t approach him directly?’ Joanna asked, from beside Banks.

‘I smiled at him. He came up to the bar and asked if he could help. He gave me some change. A few minutes later I came back in to thank him, and he offered to buy me a drink. After that, it was easy.’

‘But at no time did you proposition him?’ Joanna asked.

‘What kind of girl do you think I am? Of course I did not proposition him. We talked. He was nice. He was lonely. He had nobody to meet, nobody to talk to.’

‘What did you talk about?’ Banks asked.

Larisa frowned. ‘I do not remember. Wait. We talked about fishing at some time. He did. I remember how intense and alive he became when he talked about fishing. The rest is gone. Small talk. How he liked Tallinn. The sights. That sort of thing.’

‘Did he talk about his job?’

‘I do not know what his job was. Perhaps he did.’

‘He was a police detective.’

‘I would have remembered,’ Larisa said. ‘And I would have left. In those days I avoided the police.’

Banks let that one go by. ‘So you talked,’ he said. ‘Then what?’

‘Dinner. I said I was hungry, and he took me to dinner. And we drank some wine. And we talked some more.’

‘When did the subject of going to his room come up?’

‘Towards the end of dinner. We were perhaps both a little drunk. He said it would be nice to continue the conversation up in his room. I agreed.’

‘You did this all of your own free will?’ Joanna asked. ‘Not for money?’

‘Yes, of course for money,’ said Larisa. ‘But not from him. I am not a prostitute. Not even then.’

‘So someone paid you?’ Banks said.

‘Two thousand kroon. It was a lot of money.’

‘Do you know who paid you?’

‘Of course I do. It was the same man who gave me the powder to put in his wine.’

There had been no point heading down to Leeds on Friday evening, as it was West Yorkshire’s crime scene, and they would only be in the way, so Annie had given in to her softer nature and taken Krystyna home to her little cottage in Harkside. They had spent the evening in companionable silence watching American cop shows on Channel Five while sharing an Indian takeaway and a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Annie’s clothes hung on Krystyna, but she seemed to appreciate just having something clean to wear. She had spent over an hour in the bath and used most of the scented salts that Banks had bought Annie for Christmas. She never touched the stuff herself. He was crap at presents, Banks, but at least he tried.

Annie had got Stefan Nowak on the phone that morning and had him explain to Krystyna where she was going and that she was coming back soon, where the food was, and so on. She could tell by the coolness and distance in his voice that he didn’t approve of her taking Krystyna home with her, but Annie didn’t care. Stefan said he expected to be in the lab all morning, barring another murder scene, so Annie left his number for Krystyna in case there were any problems. She promised to be back by late afternoon. When she thought about it, she realised that she actually expected Krystyna would still be there, and that she would be disappointed and sad if she weren’t. Then she shook that feeling off and got into Winsome’s car, come to pick her up for another drive to Leeds.

The way Annie managed to piece it all together later, this was what happened: Late on Friday afternoon, Corrigan was in his ‘office’ in the Black Bull with Curly, finishing up for the day, and counting the take brought in by several of their debt collectors that afternoon. It had been a lucrative day, and Corrigan was in a festive mood, ready to take his wife to Anthony’s in central Leeds. Curly was about ready to head off to his local in Wortley with his mates for a Friday night darts match. They were both enjoying an end-of-the-week drink, as was their habit, a pint of bitter for Curly, and a double Glenmorangie for Corrigan.

A man walked into the Black Bull at about 5.45 p.m. Of medium height and build, with a short dark beard, he was wearing a navy blue overcoat and a woolly hat. None of the staff had ever seen him before. He bought a half pint of Guinness and a packet of pork scratchings and sat down at a table by the far side of the public bar. He didn’t remove his overcoat, though it was warm in the pub. Nobody paid much attention to him. The Black Bull wasn’t very busy at that time. Apart from one or two punters dropping by for a stiff one on their way home from work, it was too early for the two-for-the-price-of-one dinner crowd and the karaoke night regulars.

Somebody noticed the man get up and go to the toilet shortly after he had arrived. He was gone for about five minutes. The theory was that he had spent that time checking out the lie of the land. At 6.05 p.m., he went back to the bar and bought another half pint of Guinness and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, with a new ten-pound note, fresh from the cashpoint. Getting up his nerve, so the theory went. The barmaid who served him noticed that he had a foreign accent, but that wasn’t so rare around those parts. His hands were also shaking slightly, and he spilled a little beer when he picked up his glass.

It was about 6.15 p.m. when he went to the toilet a second time, or so the woman at the next table, who was the only one who noticed, assumed.

According to a barmaid who was walking past the office on her way from the staff room to the main bar, the man negotiated the maze of corridors and bars in the back of the pub and approached Corrigan’s office. Both Corrigan and Curly were sitting on the banquette sipping their drinks. Hence, there was no one to prevent the man from walking straight into the office.

Curly got immediately to his feet and moved forward to stop the man coming any closer. ‘Hey, you!’ he said. ‘Private office. Nobody’s allowed back here.’ Startled by his loud voice, the barmaid paused to see what was happening and glanced into the room.

Before Curly could get any further, the man pulled a gun from the pocket of his overcoat and shot him. Curly fell to the floor, clutching his side. The man then turned his attention to Corrigan, who was now cowering on the banquette, pleading for his life, trying to shield his body with his briefcase. The waitress was terrified, but she said she was rooted to spot; it was like watching a road accident in slow motion. Corrigan picked up a handful of money and held it out, telling the man to take what he wanted and leave. The man fired again, and Corrigan jerked up off the banquette, holding his arm out, trying to make a dash for the door. The man shot him again, this time in the stomach. Corrigan fell to the floor and groaned, trying to hold in his oozing insides. The man stood for a few moments and surveyed the scene, perhaps enjoying the sight of Corrigan suffering before he died, then he raised the gun again and emptied it into the prostrate body. Corrigan jerked with each shot, but not another sigh or groan escaped his lips, only a final bubble of blood that slid down his chin and hung there.