It might be worth having a word with Carol Wyman alone, Annie thought. Better not get caught, though. Superintendent Gervaise wouldn’t take kindly to her moonlighting for Banks. They’d be tarred by the same brush, if they weren’t already. And for what? A half-baked theory based on a Shakespeare play that, even if it was true, couldn’t lead to any criminal charges that she was aware of. Still, Annie had to 2 1 8
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admit that she was intrigued by the whole business, and there were enough niggling doubts in her mind to make her willing to take the occasional risk.
The first item on the agenda, though, was to phone Banks, if he was available. Annie found his last call in the log and pressed the call button. It rang. When Banks answered, she could hear traffic in the background.
“Where are you?” she asked. “Are you driving? Can you talk?”
“I can talk,” said Banks. “I’m just entering Soho Square. Hang on a minute. I’ll sit on the grass.” There was a short pause, then he came back on the line. “That’s better. Okay, what is it?”
“I just thought we should get up to date, that’s all. I talked to Derek Wyman in the school staff room. We were asking him about Nicky Haskell and the stabbing, but on the way out I let him know he’d been seen with Mark Hardcastle in the Red Rooster.”
“And?”
“He got very stroppy indeed. Told me I should mind my own business and he had a right to drink anywhere and with anyone he wanted.
Well, words to that effect.”
“The strain’s showing?”
“I’d say that, yes. Assuming you’re right about this, the Iago business and all that—and I’m not saying you are right—but let’s say something along those lines did happen.”
“I’m still with you. I think.”
“Well, have you thought how it changes things?”
“In what way?”
“If Derek Wyman did poison Mark Hardcastle against Laurence Silbert—”
“There’s no ‘if ’ about it, Annie. He did. I just found the private detective he hired to follow Silbert and take the photos.”
Annie practically dropped her phone. “He did what?”
“He hired a private detective. Which is quite a luxury on his part, because he wasn’t exactly rolling in money. You should have seen the B-and-B he stayed at in Victoria. Definitely cheap and cheerful. But I imagine he had no choice. With school duties and everything, he couldn’t get down to London as often as he would have liked. And I’ll A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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bet he didn’t want to be recognized, either. Remember, he had met Silbert once or twice at dinners.”
“So what happened?”
“This woman followed Silbert from the Bloomsbury pied-à-terre to Regent’s Park, where he met a bloke on a bench, then the two of them carried on to the house in Saint John’s Wood. Wyman wasn’t interested in what they were doing together, apparently, or in anything other than the photos. That’s all he wanted, Annie. Photos of Silbert with another man. Evidence.”
“So it could have been completely innocent?”
“I doubt it. The pictures are ambiguous, to say the least. They meet on a park bench, walk and go into a house. There’s no hand holding or anything. The only time they touch is when Silbert precedes the other man into the house. But I’d say with Iago’s powers of persuasion they made pretty good icing on the cake.”
“So what were Silbert and his pal up to?”
“My guess is that they were probably working on something together. Some intelligence service project or other. I’ve been to that house and the old couple who own it are definitely dodgy. The sweet little old lady lied to me through her teeth, which leads me to believe she’s one of them, too, rather than the madam of a posh shag pad.”
“So he was still spying? He hadn’t retired?”
“Something like that. Or he was working for the other side, whoever that is. But imagine what it would seem like to Hardcastle, Annie, especially with the help of Wyman’s sly innuendos and graphic images.”
“The point I was trying to make,” Annie went on, “was that if—or because—Wyman poisoned Hardcastle against Silbert, there’s no reason to believe that Silbert was the intended victim. Wyman hardly knew him. He did know Hardcastle quite well, though.”
“So you’re saying Mark Hardcastle was the victim?”
“I’m saying he could have been. And you still have to consider the simple but significant fact that Wyman could not have been certain of the effects of his actions.”
“I agree he couldn’t have known that Hardcastle would kill Silbert, then himself.”
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“Well, thank the Lord for that.”
“But he did know he was stirring up a volatile situation, and that someone might get hurt.”
“True. Even if only emotionally, even if his only intention was to split them up.”
“Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Isn’t it what you’d expect if you convinced someone his partner was being unfaithful, rather than bloody murder and suicide? And Wyman had plenty of reason to be upset with Hardcastle over developments at the theater. Not enough to kill him, obviously, but perhaps enough to want to do a bit of mischief.”
“Perhaps,” said Banks.
“In which case,” Annie went on, “all this spooks business is beside the point. What happened wasn’t anything to do with the security of the realm, terrorists, the Russian Mafia, or any of that claptrap.”
“What about Mr. Browne?”
“You pissed in his swimming pool, Alan. For God’s sake, we’d be swarming around quickly enough if it was one of our blokes died that way.”
“Julian Fenner, Import-Export, the mysterious phone number that doesn’t ring?”
“Tradecraft? Part of what Silbert was up to when he was in London?
How he contacted the man in the photo? I don’t know.”
“And us being warned off?”
“They don’t want publicity. It does so happen that Silbert was a member of MI6, and he’d probably been involved in a fair bit of dirty business over the years. Probably still was, judging by what you were telling me. They don’t want to take the slightest chance that any of that might come out in the press or in the courts. They don’t want their dirty laundry washing in public. It was all neatly wrapped up.
Murder-suicide. Sad but simple. No need for any further messy investigations. And then you come along sticking your chest out and waving your fist in the air crying foul.”
“Is that how you see me?”
Annie laughed. “A bit, I suppose.”
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“Charming. I thought I was more of a knight on a white charger tilting against windmills and throwing a spanner in the works.”
“Now you’re really mixing your metaphors. Oh, you know what I mean, Alan. Bloke stuff. Pissing contest.”
“I’m still not convinced.”
“But you admit that I could be right, that it was all about Hardcastle, not Silbert?”
“It could be. Why don’t you nose around into Wyman’s and Hardcastle’s backgrounds a bit more deeply, see if you can find anything?
Who knows, maybe you’ll find the missing link somewhere in all that? It’s also possible that someone else was involved, that someone put Wyman up to it. Paid him, even. And I know you don’t like to consider the spook stuff, but it’s also possible that someone in that line of work who wanted to hurt Silbert put Wyman up to it, too. Not as likely, I admit, because the outcome was far from certain, but not entirely out of the question.”
“But we concentrate on the Wyman-Hardcastle angle for the time being rather than . . . Oh, shit!”
“What is it, Annie?”
Annie looked up at the slight but commanding figure of Detective Super
intendent Gervaise standing in the doorway, a pint in her hand.
“Ah, DI Cabbot,” Gervaise said. “So this is your little hideaway. Mind if I join you?”
“No problem, ma’am,” Annie said loudly enough for Banks to hear, then she pressed the end-call button.
B A N K S W O N D E R E D how Annie would talk herself out of being caught in the Horse and Hounds by Superintendent Gervaise, who had probably also heard that remark about following the Wyman-Hardcastle angle. No doubt she would tell him as soon as she could.
He got up and brushed the grass off his trousers. It was a fine evening, and the little park in the center of Soho Square was filling up: a couple lying together on the grass stroking and kissing, a student sitting by her backpack reading a book, a shabby old man eating sandwiches out 2 2 2
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of greaseproof paper. Office workers cut through on their way to or from Oxford Street and the Tottenham Court Road tube station. Already a few young people had gathered around the fringes of the park to prepare for that night’s concert at the Astoria—tight jeans, straight dyed hair and T-shirts bearing band logos. Banks remembered he had been to see Brian’s band there a couple of years ago and had felt very ancient and out of it. He passed the odd little gardener’s hut at the park’s center, and the statue of King Charles II, then crossed Oxford Street and continued on Rathbone.
The pubs were filling up, smokers crowding the pavements outside.
On Charlotte Street the patios were mostly full already—Bertorelli’s, Pizza Express, Zizzi’s—the streets packed with people searching for somewhere to eat. The high-end restaurants with their discreet facades, like Pied-à-Terre, would be filling up later, but for now, in the early-evening light, people wanted to be seen. Most of them were tourists, and Banks heard American accents along with couples speaking German and French.
Not quite sure what he was going to do, Banks made a quick dash when he saw someone leaving one of the outside tables at Zizzi’s, getting there before a couple of Americans, who had also had their eye on it. The woman glared at him, but her husband tugged her sleeve and they walked away.
Banks hadn’t made any firm arrangements for dinner with Sophia, wasn’t even sure what time she’d be home or whether she would have stopped off for a bite, so he decided he was hungry and he might as well have a pizza and a glass of wine, rather than the curry he had been fancying earlier. He was only taking up a table for two, so he didn’t get such a dirty look from the waitress when she finally arrived and took his order. The wine soon arrived, a nice large glass, and Banks settled back to sip and watch the pageant.
This was much what Derek Wyman and Mark Hardcastle must have seen when they sat out here about two weeks ago, Banks thought.
Mostly pedestrians, some just walking back and forth until they found somewhere to eat, a few beautiful people in evening dress piling out of taxis and limos to some special event in the club next door. Pale pretty blond girls in jeans and T-shirts carrying backpacks. Gray-haired men A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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wearing powder-blue polo shirts and white trousers walking next to impossibly skinny, tanned women with faces sewn and stretched tight over their skulls, and angry, restless eyes.
What had they been talking about? By then, Banks now guessed, Derek Wyman would have picked up the memory stick and prints of the digital photographs it contained from Tom Savage. Had he given them to Hardcastle here? Perhaps even at this very table? And what had Hardcastle’s reaction been? Had they simply gone off to the cinema as planned, or was that another lie? Hardcastle had probably gone and got pissed that night. Banks would have. He knew that Silbert was away in Amsterdam and wouldn’t be back until Friday, so he had been in no hurry to get back to Castleview Heights. He had driven up the next day, no doubt drank some more, examined the photos again, brooded over them, got angry, and by the time Silbert got home he had reached breaking point.
Tom Savage had told Banks that she gave Wyman the memory stick on the Wednesday afternoon at about four o’clock, so it would have been fresh in his possession around six when he met Hardcastle here for an early pizza before the film. He must have removed Tomasina’s business card, which was probably paper-clipped to the photos, and put it in the top pocket of his shirt and forgotten about it. Perhaps he didn’t want Hardcastle to know the source of the photos so he wouldn’t be able to go around asking questions himself.
When the waitress reappeared with his pizza diavolo, Banks asked her if she had a spare moment. She was clearly busy, but the sight of his warrant card, discreetly shown, drew a curt nod, and she leaned closer.
“Do you work here regularly?” Banks asked.
“Every day.”
“Were you working on Wednesday two weeks ago? This same shift?”
“Yes. I work every day same shift.”
“Did you notice two men sitting outside at one of these tables about six o’clock?”
“There were many people,” she said. “Very busy. Long time ago.”
Banks thought he detected an Eastern European accent. She glanced over her shoulder, apparently worried that her boss was watching her.
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Banks hurried on. “Two men together. One gave something to the other. There might have been an argument or a fuss of some sort.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “The man who tear the photographs?”
“What?” Banks said.
“I was delivering order to other table, over there, and this man—I think he dye his hair blond—he look at some photographs and then he get angry and tear them up.”
“Did you see the other man give him the photos?”
“No. Very busy. I just notice he tear them.”
“Was this two weeks ago today?”
“I no know. Not sure. Maybe. I must go.”
It was hardly likely, Banks thought, that two such incidents had occurred in the past couple of weeks. “Did they leave then?” he asked.
“They pay me. Separate bills. Very strange. Then he leave, the one who tear the photographs.”
“And the other?”
“He gather up the pieces and stay longer. I must go.”
“Thank you, “ Banks said. “Thank you very much.”
The waitress scurried away and Banks sipped some more wine and began to eat his pizza. So Wyman had given Hardcastle the photos at the restaurant, and he had reacted by tearing them up. Which was why they hadn’t been found at Castleview Heights. Hardcastle had taken the memory stick, though. Wyman must have asked for two separate bills. No doubt he didn’t want to seem so friendly that he had bought dinner for Mark Hardcastle, even at Zizzi’s. So it was all a tissue of lies. Banks very much doubted that Hardcastle had rejoined Wyman to go to the National Film Theatre after seeing the photographs. More likely, he went off in a state and got drunk, slept at the Bloomsbury f lat, where he had probably polished off the whiskey, then drove home the next day to brood and drink until Silbert came back from Amsterdam.
Banks thought further on his conversation with Annie and realized that she could very well be right in that Hardcastle, not Silbert, had been the intended victim, and that left the whole espionage business on the sideline. He also realized that he had wanted to be right, wanted A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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it to be something to do with gray men doing dark deeds in the shadows, with or without government approval. He had probably watched and read far too many fictional espionage tales—from The Sandbaggers and Spooks on television to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Ipcress File between the covers of a book. Not to mention James Bond.
No doubt the reality wasn’t like that at all.
On the other hand, one heard rumors. Assassinations had certainly been carried out, elected governments undermined, not only by the CIA in South America, and rival spies or double agents had been murdered in the street. Y
ou couldn’t forget Philby, or Burgess and Maclean, if you had grown up when Banks had. The Profumo Affair, too, had its own very definite whiff of the Cold War in the form of Ivanov, the naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, despite the pleasurable distractions of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis. More recently, there were the Bulgarian killed by the poisoned umbrella and Litvinenko poisoned with a radioactive isotope that left a trail halfway across London.
No, it was a shady and much misunderstood world, but it existed, all right, and Banks had apparently become fixed on its radar. The real problem was that, while they could always find you when they wanted to, you could never find them. He could hardly go knocking at the door of Thames House or Vauxhall Cross and ask for Mr. Browne.
There was one person he could talk to, though. Detective Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess had been working with some elite counterterrorism liaison squad for a while now. Even their acro-nym was so secret that if you heard it you had to die, he had joked.
Burgess was a cunning old bastard, but he and Banks went back a long time, and there was a chance he might know some of the people involved, let slip a morsel or two. Phoning him was an option, at any rate.
As Banks finished his wine and decided to leave the last slice of pizza, he was convinced that the young couple who had just passed by again on the opposite side of the street had not had to walk up and down Charlotte Street six times in the past hour, as they had done, simply to find an outside table at a restaurant. Who was it who said that paranoia simply means being in possession of all the facts? Banks gestured to the waitress and reached for his wallet.
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