All the Colors of Darkness ib-18

by Peter Robinson

  O B I N S

  O N

  * * *

  “ D R I N K , D I Cabbot?” said Superintendent Gervaise as she plunked her pint down on Annie’s table.

  Annie glanced at her watch. Just after six.

  “You’re officially off duty, aren’t you? Besides, a senior officer is asking you to have a drink with her.”

  “Okay. Thank you, ma’am,” said Annie. “I’ll have a pint of Black Sheep, please.”

  “Good choice. And there’s no need to call me ma’am. We’re just a couple of colleagues having a drink after work.”

  Somehow, that sounded more ominous to Annie than Gervaise had probably intended, though she wasn’t sure about that. She still hadn’t quite got a grasp on the superintendent yet. Gervaise was tricky. You had to be careful. One minute she could come on like your best friend, and the next she was all business again, the boss. Then just when you started to think she was a careerist, straight from university and training school to a desk upstairs, she would surprise you with a story from her past, or take a course of action that could only be described as reckless. Annie decided it was best to remain as passive as possible and let Gervaise lead the way. You never quite knew where you were with her. The woman was unpredictable, which was an ad-mirable quality in some, but not in a superintendent, and sometimes when you went away from a meeting with her, you weren’t quite sure what had transpired or what you had agreed to do.

  Gervaise came back with the Black Sheep and sat opposite Annie.

  After raising her glass for a toast, she looked around the small room, its dark varnished paneling glowing in the soft light, and said, “Nice here, isn’t it? I always think the Queen’s Arms is just a little too noisy and busy at times, don’t you? I can’t say I blame you for coming here instead.”

  “Yes, m— Yes,” said Annie, just remembering herself in time. Two colleagues having a drink after work. So the game was up. Gervaise knew about the Horse and Hounds. Pity. Annie liked the place, and the beer was good. Even the Britvic Orange was good.

  “Was that DCI Banks you were talking to just now?”

  “I . . . er . . . yes,” said Annie.

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  “Having a nice holiday, is he?”

  “So he says.”

  “Any idea where he is?”

  “London, I think.”

  “Still? So he hasn’t got as far as Devon or Cornwall yet?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “But he does have his mobile with him?”

  Annie shrugged.

  “Funny, that, because I can’t seem to get hold of him at all.”

  “I don’t suppose he has it turned on all the time. He is on holiday, after all.”

  “Ah, that must be it. Anyway, did I hear a mention of some sort of Wyman-Hardcastle connection?”

  “You might have done, yes. Just a bit of harmless theorizing, you know . . . as one does . . .”

  Gervaise put on a puzzled expression. “But that can’t be, surely?

  According to my files, there is no Hardcastle case. And I’m supposed to be in charge, aren’t I? I believe the coroner even filed a verdict of suicide.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I told you. Skip the formalities. It is all right if I call you Annie, isn’t it?”

  It felt odd, but Annie wasn’t going to argue at the moment. She needed to find out where Gervaise was going, and you could never tell from her opening gambits. “Of course,” she said.

  “Look here, Annie,” Gervaise went on. “I like you. You’re a good copper. You appear to have your head screwed on the right way, and at a guess I’d say you’re fairly ambitious, am I right?”

  “I like to do a good job and be recognized for it,” said Annie.

  “Exactly. Now nobody can fault you on that last business you were involved in on detachment to Eastern Area. One might argue that you acted rather hastily at the end, went off half-cocked, but there was no way you could predict the way things were going to turn out. As it happened, you acquitted yourself very well. It’s always a pity when blood is shed, but it could have been worse, a lot worse, if you hadn’t kept your head and your wits about you.”

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  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  Annie didn’t feel that she had kept her head at all, but you didn’t throw such praise back in the face of the person who gave it to you.

  Especially Superintendent Gervaise. “Thank you,” she said. “It was a difficult time.”

  “I can well imagine. Anyway, that’s behind us now. As, I thought, was the Hardcastle and Silbert business.”

  “It’s just a few loose ends,” Annie said. “You know, dotting i’s, crossing t’s.”

  “I see. And just what, once you’ve done all that, does it spell out?”

  “Murder-suicide?”

  “Exactly. Now the chief constable himself has taken a personal interest in this whole business, and he thinks it’s in the best interests of all concerned—his very words—that we toss the file in the solved cabinet—he really thinks we have such a thing, you know—and put it out of our minds, deal with the situation on the East Side Estate before it escalates. This is tourist season, you know.”

  “And let’s not forget the traffic cones,” said Annie.

  Gervaise gave her a disappointed look. “Yes, well. My point is that if you were doing your job, if you were following instructions, if you were—”

  “I am working on the Donny Moore stabbing.”

  “I know you’re working on it, Annie, but I’m not convinced you’re giving it your full attention. Now I catch the tail end of a telephone conversation you’re having with DCI Banks, who’s supposed to be on holiday, about a business that not only I, but also our chief constable, want to forget about. What am I to think? You tell me.”

  “Think what you like,” said Annie. “He just wants to tidy up a few loose ends, that’s all.”

  “But there aren’t any loose ends. The chief constable says so.”

  “And who told him?”

  Gervaise paused and regarded Annie coolly for a moment before replying, “Someone even higher up the tree than he is, no doubt.”

  “But don’t you feel used when the intelligence services start muscling in on our territory?” Annie asked.

  “Tut-tut,” said Gervaise. “That’s not the way to think of it. Not the way at all. This is cooperation. We’re all fighting a common battle 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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  here, a united front against the forces of evil. They’re not ‘muscling in,’ they’re offering us their expertise and helping us find our direction, and in this case they’ve directed us to a brick wall.”

  “Like my satnav usually does,” said Annie.

  Gervaise laughed. They both drank more beer. “Let me tell you a story,” she went on. “A few years ago, when I was working on the Met, we sometimes had to work a lot more closely than we would have chosen with Special Branch and MI5. You’re right, Annie, they can be arrogant and devious bastards, and they usually have the ultimate argument-crusher on their side, don’t they, whether it’s 9/11 or the July bombings. There’s not much you can say when someone brings that up. Fancy another drink?”

  “I shouldn’t,” said Annie.

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Okay. But it’s my shout.” Annie got up and went to the bar.

  Where the hell was Gervaise going with all this? she wondered as she ordered two more pints of Black Sheep. The pub was filling up now with its usual mix of locals and tourists, some of the latter carrying large rucksacks and walking gear, enjoying their first pint after a ten-mile hike. The pub music system was playing 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love.” Annie had always liked the song. One of her old boyfriends, an English graduate, had used it to point out to her the difference between irony and sarcasm. She still hadn’t gone to bed with him, and when she had quoted “I Get Along With
out You Very Well” back at him, she hadn’t meant it ironically at all.

  Ready for the next installment, she carried the drinks back to the old snug.

  T H E T U B E was hot and crowded again, and Banks was relieved to get off at Sloane Square. He walked down King’s Road in the evening light past the big drab Peter Jones department store and Habitat to where the street narrowed and the posh boutiques and jewelry shops took over. As he walked, instinctively slowing down every now and then to look in a shop window and check for anyone who might be following him, he mulled over everything he had discovered that day, 2 3 0

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  from Tomasina’s revelation about the photos and Hardcastle’s behavior at Zizzi’s to what Annie had told him about Nicky Haskell seeing Wyman arguing, or remonstrating, with Hardcastle at the Red Rooster, and Wyman’s reaction to her mention of it.

  He hoped Annie was okay. She was usually pretty good at talking herself out of difficult situations, but Gervaise could be tenacious, not to mention wily. There was a part of him that wanted to tell the superintendent that the evidence was bearing out his theory about the Hardcastle-Silbert case, and that Derek Wyman was in it up to his neck, but he didn’t trust her that much. There was no glory to be got from this one, and it had already been made perfectly clear to him that MI5, MI6

  and Special Branch didn’t want him anywhere near the Silbert case.

  Sometimes Banks longed for the old days with Gristhorpe in charge.

  You knew where you were with Gristhorpe, as plain-speaking a York-shireman as you could find. There was also a chance that he would have stood up to the powers-that-be. Gristhorpe had been nobody’s puppet, always his own man. Which was perhaps why he had got no higher than detective superintendent. That reminded Banks that he hadn’t visited his old boss and mentor in quite some time. Another thing to put on his must-do-soon list.

  He turned into Sophia’s street and tried to put the case out of his mind. If Sophia was home, perhaps they would have a glass of wine and then go to the cinema, or to a concert, as they had the other night.

  Even spending the evening at home together would be perfect as far as Banks was concerned. If she wasn’t home, then she would probably have left a phone message arranging to meet him somewhere later.

  When he got to the steps he noticed that the living room light was on, which meant she was in.

  Banks and Sophia had agreed that each should come and go from the other’s house as if it were their own, so he put his key in the lock and was surprised when the door opened at his touch. It hadn’t been locked. That wasn’t like Sophia. He checked the handle and lock for any signs of forced entry and found none. The alarm system should have taken care of anything like that, anyway.

  Calling out Sophia’s name, Banks turned right from the hall into the living room and stopped dead on the threshold. She was so still, 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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  with her head hanging on her chest, that at first he feared she was dead. But when he called her name again, she lifted up a tear-stained face to him and he could see that she was physically unharmed.

  She was sitting on the f loor leaning back against the sofa, her long legs stretched out into the heap of broken things piled at the center of the carpet. Her things. Banks couldn’t tell exactly what was there. It looked like a random selection of her cherished possessions taken from various places in the room: a slashed landscape painting that had hung on the wall above the stereo; an antique table on which she had displayed various objects, its spindly legs splintered, mother-of pearl inlay smashed; a broken Eskimo soapstone sculpture; a shattered ceramic mask; scattered beads from broken strings; a cracked painted Easter egg; dried ferns and f lowers tossed willy-nilly over the whole mess like a parody of a funeral.

  Sophia sat clutching a piece of exquisite gold-rimmed pottery in her hand, palm bleeding from how tightly she had clutched it. She held it out to Banks. “This belonged to my mother. Her grandmother gave it to her. God knows how long she’d had it or where she got it.”

  Then she suddenly f lung the shard of pottery at Banks. It hit the door-jamb. “You bastard!” she screamed. “How could you?”

  Banks made to move over to her but she held up her hands, palms out. “Don’t come near me,” she said. “Don’t come near me or I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  She had her mother’s eyes when she was angry, Banks noticed.

  “Sophia, what is it?” he asked. “What happened?”

  “You know damn well what happened. Can’t you see? You forgot to set the alarm and . . .” She gestured around the room. “This happened.”

  Banks crouched across the heap from her. His knees cracked. “I didn’t forget to set the alarm,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten to set it.”

  “You must have. There’s no other explanation. The alarm never went off. I came home as usual. The door hadn’t been broken open or anything. And this was what I found. How else could it have happened? You forgot to set the alarm. Someone just walked in.”

  Banks didn’t see the point in questioning her logic—on how anyone might have known if he hadn’t set the alarm, for example—because 2 3 2

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  she was clearly in no state for that sort of thing. “Did you check the back?” he asked.

  Sophia shook her head.

  Banks walked down the passage to where the back door opened off the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of forced entry, no sign of any kind of entry. For good measure, he went out into the garden and saw nothing had been disturbed there, either. The back gate was padlocked, as usual, though anyone could have climbed over it. They would still have had the alarm system to reckon with, though, as it covered the whole house.

  He went back to the living room. Sophia hadn’t moved. “Have you called the police?” he asked.

  “I don’t want the bloody police. What can the bloody police do?

  Oh, just go away. Why don’t you just go away?”

  “Sophia, I’m sorry, but this isn’t my fault. I set the alarm as usual this morning.”

  “So how do you explain all this?”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “How should I know?”

  “It could be important. You should make a list for the police.”

  “I told you I don’t want the police here. What can they do?”

  “Well, the insurance company—”

  “Bugger the sodding insurance company! They can’t replace any of this.”

  Banks stared at the heap of broken treasures and knew she was right.

  Everything here was personal, none of it worth a great deal of money.

  He knew that he should call the police, but he also knew that he wouldn’t. And not only because Sophia didn’t want him to. There was only one explanation for all this, Banks knew, and in a way it did make him guilty. There was no point calling the police. The people who had done this were shadows, wills-o’-the-wisp, to whom fancy alarm systems were child’s play. Mr. Browne had known where Sophia lived, all right. Banks knelt down beside the wreckage. Sophia wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Come on,” he said, sighing, “I’ll help you clean up.”

  * * *

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  “ T H A N K YO U ,” said Gervaise when Annie came back with the drinks. “Where was I?”

  “9/11 and the London bombings.”

  “Ah, yes. My little digression. Anyway, I’m sure you get the picture. Work around these people long enough and you get to think like them. One of the lads on our team, let’s call him Aziz, was a Muslim.

  His family came from Saudi Arabia, and he’d grown up here, spoke like an Eastender, but they still went to the local mosque, said their prayers, the whole thing. This was all in the wake of the July London bombings and the unfortunate shooting of that Brazilian on the tube.

  Tempers were a little frazzled all round, as you can imagine.
Anyway, Aziz made some criticism of the way our local Special Branch–MI5

  liaison officer handled a situation at a mosque, said something to indicate that he thought we were all being a bit heavy-handed about it all, and the next thing you know he’s got a file as thick as your wrist.

  They’d fitted him up with a legend. It was all in there, the training camps in Pakistan, the meetings with terrorist cell leaders, all documented, photographs, the lot. Personal friend of Osama bin Laden.

  I’m sure you get the picture, anyway. And every word, every image of it, was a lie. Aziz had never left England in his life. Hardly even left London. But there it was, in glorious Technicolor, the life of a terrorist. We all knew it was crap. Even MI5 knew it was crap. But they had a point to make and they made it.”

  Gervaise paused to drink some beer. “They talk about giving their field agents legends,” she went on. “Aliases, alternative life histories, complete with all the proof and documentary evidence anyone could ask for. Well, they gave Aziz this, without his even asking for it or need-ing it. Of course, they searched his f lat, interrogated him, told him they’d be back, pestered his friends and colleagues. This was something that could happen to any one of us who stepped out of line, they were saying. Aziz just happened to be dark-skinned, happened to be a Muslim, but we weren’t immune just because we were white police officers. You might think I was being paranoid, Annie, but you weren’t there.”

  “What happened to Aziz?”

  “His career was over. They took back all the files about training camps and stuff, of course—that was all for effect—but they’d made 2 3 4

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  their point as to what they could do. A week later Aziz jumped off an overpass on the M1. I mean, I don’t suppose it’s fair to blame MI5 for that. They couldn’t have predicted how deeply unstable he was. Or could they?”

  “What are you saying?”

  Gervaise sipped more beer. “I’m just telling you a story, Annie, that’s all.”

  “You’re warning me off.”

  “Warning you off what? You’re reading too much into what I’m saying. If I’m doing anything at all, Annie, I’m telling you to be very careful, and you can pass that on to DCI Banks the next time you talk to him.”