All the Colors of Darkness ib-18

by Peter Robinson

  Some days you could believe it, Banks thought, as he headed toward the car park, but today it seemed as far away from evil and Satanic rites as you could get. A couple passed him on the path, hand in hand, and the girl smiled shyly at him, a blade of grass in her mouth. One middle-aged man was jogging in a tracksuit and trainers, red-faced and sweating with exertion, a heart attack waiting to happen.

  Banks reached the end of the tarn where the cars were parked, and then he saw the familiar figure. Standing at the side of the water, throwing f lat pebbles that sank rather than skipped, was Detective Superintendent Dirty Dick Burgess. When he caught sight of Banks, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together, then he said, “Banksy.

  So glad you could come. Who’s been a naughty boy, then?”

  A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

  2 7 9

  * * *

  I T WA S typical that Banks would give her the job of talking to Gervaise, Annie thought, as she pulled up outside the superintendent’s house later that morning. Gervaise had been a tad tetchy on the phone—her husband had taken the children to the cricket match, and it was her gardening day, she said—but had agreed to give Annie five minutes of her time.

  As she drove along the quiet country road, Annie thought about Banks and his odd behavior earlier that morning. There had been something different about him, and she decided that the rift with Sophia must have been even more serious than he had made out. He had mentioned before how much Sophia valued the various natural objects and works of art she had collected over the years, so it must have really hurt her to witness such wanton destruction. Still, Annie thought, if the silly cow was more fond of her seashells than she was of Banks, then she deserved everything she got.

  When Annie pulled up in front of the house and knocked on the door, she heard a voice call, “I’m round the back. Just come down the side.” A narrow pathway ran down the side of the house beside the garage and led to the back garden.

  The sight of the superintendent in a broad-rimmed hat, baggy man’s shirt, white shorts and sandals, with a pair of secateurs in her hand, almost gave Annie a fit of the giggles, but she managed to restrain herself.

  “Sit down, DI Cabbot,” said Gervaise, a healthy glow on her face.

  “Barley water?”

  “Thank you.” Annie accepted the glass, sat down and took a sip. She hadn’t tasted barley water in years, not since her mother used to make it. It was wonderful. There were four chairs and a round table on the lawn, but no protective umbrella, and she wished she had worn a hat.

  “Have you thought about blond highlights?” Gervaise asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Maybe you should. They’d look good in the sunlight.”

  What was all this? Annie wondered. First Carol Wyman had suggested she go blond, now Gervaise was talking about highlights.

  2 8 0

  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  Gervaise sat down. “I suppose you’ve come to tell me about important developments in the East Side Estate stabbing?”

  “Winsome’s on the case, ma’am,” said Annie. “I’m sure we’re expecting a breakthrough any day now.”

  “Any moment would be better. Even the mayor’s getting edgy. And what about you, DI Cabbot? What case are you on?”

  Annie shifted in her chair. “Well, that’s what I came to see you about, ma’am. It’s a bit awkward.”

  Gervaise sipped her barley water and smiled. “Try me.”

  “You know we were talking, the other day, about Derek Wyman?”

  “You mean Banks’s Iago theory?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, what if there’s something in it? I mean, really something in it.” A wasp droned near Annie’s barley water. She waved it away.

  “Like what?” asked Gervaise.

  “Well, I was talking to Mr. Wyman’s wife, Carol, and she—”

  “I thought I told you to leave them alone.”

  “Well, ma’am, you didn’t exactly spell it out.“

  “Oh, for crying out loud, DI Cabbot. Maybe I didn’t spell it out in words of one syllable, but you know exactly what I was telling you. It’s over. Leave it alone.”

  Annie took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’d like to bring Derek Wyman in for questioning.”

  Gervaise’s silence was unnerving. The wasp droned by again.

  Somewhere Annie could hear a garden hose hissing and a radio playing “Moon River.” Finally, Superintendent Gervaise said, “You? Or DCI Banks?”

  “Both of us.” Now that Annie had said it, she was gathering courage fast. “I know you’ve been warned to lay off,” she went on, “but there’s evidence now. And it’s nothing to do with the secret intelligence services.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. DCI Banks found the private investigator who took the photos of Silbert with the other man.”

  A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

  2 8 1

  “A private investigator?”

  “Yes. They do exist.”

  “I know that. I was just . . . go on.”

  “He also talked to a waitress in Zizzi’s who remembered seeing a man we assume to be Hardcastle tearing up some photos.”

  “Assume?”

  “Well, it was Wyman who commissioned them, and he did tell us he had dinner at Zizzi’s with Hardcastle before going to the National Film Theatre.”

  “But why?”

  “To stir up Hardcastle.”

  “Or so you assume?”

  “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Why else would he go to all that expense? He isn’t a rich man.”

  “Why would he want to do it in the first place? He didn’t even know Silbert very well, did he?”

  “Not well. No. They’d met once or twice, had dinner, but no, he didn’t really know Silbert. It was personal, I think. The target was Hardcastle, but when you set things like that in motion, you can’t always predict their outcome.”

  “I’ll say. Do go on.”

  “From what I can gather from talking to Carol Wyman, her husband’s sick of his teaching job and he’s got a passion for theater.”

  “I know that,” said Gervaise. “He directed Othello.”

  “That’s just it, ma’am,” Annie rushed on. “He wants to direct more.

  In fact, he wants it to be a full-time job. But like I said at that meeting when you closed the case, if Hardcastle and Silbert had succeeded in setting up their acting company the way they wanted, there would have been no room for Wyman. Hardcastle himself wanted to direct.

  Wyman would have been back to square one. That kind of failure and humiliation can really push a man to the limit, hurt his pride.”

  “And you’re saying that’s Wyman’s motive for killing two men?”

  “I don’t think he intended to kill anyone. It was just a nasty prank went wrong. I mean, I’m sure he wanted to hurt Hardcastle, or he wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. I think directing Othello just put the idea in his mind in the first place. What he really wanted was 2 8 2

  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  to split up Hardcastle and Silbert so that Hardcastle would probably feel he had to leave Eastvale and abandon the theater.”

  “I don’t know,” said Gervaise. “It still sounds a bit far-fetched. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I still don’t see that any crime has been committed.”

  “We’ll work something out. People have killed for less—a job, a career, rivalry, artistic jealousy. I’m still not saying that Wyman intended to kill anyone, but what he did isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility. He may have incited Hardcastle to do what he did. He may have harassed him with the images and innuendos the way Iago did Othello. Maybe Wyman has a certain amount of psychological in-sight—you might expect it in a theater director—and he knew what buttons to push? I don’t know. All I know is that I think he did it.”

  Gervaise refilled her glass from the pitcher
and offered Annie more.

  Annie declined. “What do you think?” Annie asked.

  “I suppose there’s a certain low-level plausibility to it all,” Gervaise admitted. “But even so, we’d never prove it in a million years.”

  “Unless Wyman confessed.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Guilt. If it was a prank gone wrong. If he didn’t mean to really hurt anyone. If we’re not dealing with a cold-blooded killer. He must have feelings. What happened must be a burden for him. His wife says he’s been a bit preoccupied lately. I’ll bet it’s weighing on his mind.”

  “All right, DI Cabbot,” said Gervaise. “Let’s accept that Wyman did cook up some scheme based on his directing of Othello to get at Hardcastle, and that it backfired. Are you able to guarantee me that this was nothing at all to do with the intelligence services and with what Silbert did for a living?”

  It was as Banks had said, Annie thought. With the intelligence services out of the picture, Gervaise was far more willing to go along with the idea. “Yes,” she said.

  Gervaise sighed, took off her hat and used it as a fan for a moment, then put it back on. “Why can’t things be easy?” she said. “Why can’t people just do as they’re told?”

  “We have to pursue the truth,” said Annie.

  “Since when? That’s a luxury we can ill afford.”

  A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

  2 8 3

  “But two people died because of what Wyman did, no matter how he intended it, or even whether he’s technically committed a crime.

  Surely we have to do something?”

  “I think you’ll find that in this matter the law is very much concerned with any criminal offense he might have committed, or lack of one, and I can’t think of any.”

  “We’ll leave that to the CPS.”

  “Hmph. Do you know how much pressure I’ve had from above to drop this? About the only one who hasn’t been on my back is ACC

  McLaughlin, and that’s only because he has no particular liking for the secret intelligence services. But the chief constable is adamant. I don’t want this on my plate. Bring in Wyman, by all means. Have a chat with him. And if he admits anything that supports your theories, send the file to the CPS and see what they come up with. Just you and DCI Banks make damn sure that there’s no room here for things to go pear-shaped.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Annie, draining her glass and standing up before Gervaise changed her mind. “I’ll do that.”

  “Where is DCI Banks, by the way?”

  “He’s finishing his holiday at home,” said Annie.

  “Things not work out in London?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Well, let’s hope they improve. The last thing I want is a lovesick DCI moping about the station. Go on, then. Get to it. I’ve got to get back to my herbaceous border before Keith and the kids get back from the cricket match and want their dinner.”

  “ T H I S I S a bloody godforsaken hole you’ve chosen for a meeting place,” said Burgess as they walked around the scenic footpath.

  “It’s supposed to be a spot of great natural beauty,” said Banks.

  “You know me. I’m a city boy at heart. I have to tell you, though, Banksy, Dewsbury is a boil on the arse of the universe.”

  “It’s got a nice town hall. Same architect who designed Leeds, I think. Cuthbert Broderick. Or Broderick Cuthbert.”

  “Bugger the bloody town hall. It’s the mosques that interest me.”

  2 8 4

  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  “That’s why you’re up there?”

  “Why else?” He sighed. “It just gets worse, doesn’t it?”

  “So what’s the answer?” Banks asked.

  “You tell me. I’ve been up in Dewsbury for a couple of weeks or so investigating various terrorism-related matters, and now we know that two of the young lads involved in planning yesterday’s bombing live there. They’re all homegrown these days. We don’t need to import our terrorists anymore.”

  “Don’t feel so bad. They could have sent you to Leicester.”

  “Not much in it, if you ask me. Anyway, for what good it’ll do, we’re searching for a garage, a lockup somewhere out of the way. Obviously to rig up the car and driver the way they did, they had to have a secure place, out of the public eye. Could be Dewsbury.”

  “Leicester’s closer to London,” said Banks.

  “What I said, but did they listen?”

  “And why not use London as a starting point?”

  “It’s not the way they do things. It’s their policy to use cells. Net-works. Contract out. You can’t centralize an operation like that. Too many risks involved. Besides, we’ve got London sewn up tighter than a gnat’s arsehole.”

  “I’d say there were plenty of risks involved in driving a car full of explosives down the M1 from Dewsbury to London,” said Banks. “Or even from Leicester. Haven’t you ever seen The Wages of Fear?”

  “Great film. But they use much more stable stuff these days, for crying out loud. It was hardly nitroglycerin.”

  “Even so,” Banks said

  Burgess kicked a stone off the path. “Can you imagine it, though?

  Some bastard driving a car full of explosives two hundred miles or more knowing he’s going to die at the end of it.”

  “Same as those terrorists on the planes that f lew into the twin towers. It’s what they’re trained for.”

  “Oh, I know all about their training, Banksy, but it still boggles my imagination. Twenty-two years old, the kid who did it. Bright lad, by all accounts. From Birmingham. Islamic Studies degree from Keele.

  Anyway, he’s wearing an explosive suit wired to a bootful of explosives and he drives two hundred miles to his appointed destination, A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

  2 8 5

  where he promptly presses the button. The score’s forty virgins for him, forty-six dead, fifty-eight injured, some seriously, and seventy-three orphans for London.” Burgess paused. “I counted. Do you know, when they raided one of the f lats, they found plans drawn up for possible similar attacks on Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and the front of Buck House, where the tourists all stand and gawp at the changing of the guard?”

  “So why Oxford Circus?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Banks said nothing.

  “Hang on a minute, you were in London yesterday, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Banks said.

  “Were you anywhere near? You were, weren’t you?”

  “I was there,” Banks said. He hadn’t planned on telling anyone, but Burgess always had an uncanny knack of knowing these things anyway.

  Burgess stopped and stared out over the water. Its surface was ruff led by a few ripples caused by the light breeze. “Bugger me,” he said.

  “I won’t ask you . . .”

  “No,” said Banks. “Don’t. Thanks. I don’t really want to talk about it.” He could feel a lump in his throat and tears prickling in his eyes, but the sensations passed. They continued walking.

  “Anyway,” Burgess went on, “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want to see me about. It’s to do with these dead shirt-lifters, isn’t it? The one who worked for MI6 in particular. The answer’s still no.”

  “Hear me out,” said Banks, and told him what he knew about Wyman, Hardcastle and Silbert, along with had happened at Sophia’s house and Tomasina’s office.

  Burgess listened as they walked, head bowed. As his hair had thinned over the years, he had finally gone for the shaved look rather than the comb-over, which some people unwisely chose. He was in fairly good shape, his paunch diminished a little since their last meeting, and he reminded Banks physically a bit of Pete Townshend from the Who.

  When Banks had finished, Burgess said, “No wonder you’re red-f lagged.”

  2 8 6

  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  “It’s no
t just me,” Banks said. “If it were only me, I could deal with it. They go after your loved ones as well.”

  “Well, the terrorists don’t discriminate, either. These are interesting times. Bad things happen. Difficult decisions are made on the f ly.

  No pun intended, Banks, but there’s a darkness out there. You should know.”

  “Yes, and the struggle is to keep it out there.”

  “That’s too metaphysical for me. I just catch the bad guys.”

  “So you’re defending their actions? What they did in Sophia’s house, Tomasina’s office?”

  “They’re the good guys, Banksy! If I don’t defend them, whose side does that put me on?”

  “Do you know a Mr. Browne?”

  “Never heard of him. Believe it or not, MI5 and MI6 are not my outfits. I work with them from time to time, yes, but I’m on a wholly different detachment. I don’t know those people.”

  “But you do know what’s going on?”

  “I like to keep my f inger on the pulse, as well you know. Can we sit down on this bench a minute? My legs are starting to ache.”

  “But we’ve only walked round twice. That’s not even half a mile.”

  “I think the altitude’s getting to me. Can we just bloody sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  They sat on the bench, donated by some famous local moorland enthusiast whose name was engraved on a brass plate. Burgess examined the name. “Josiah Branksome,” he said in as close an imitation of a Yorkshire accent as he could manage. “Sounds very northern.”

  Banks leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and cupped his head in his hands. “Why did they do it, though?” he asked.

  “Because they’re fucking crazy.”

  “No. I mean MI5. Why break Sophia’s things and scare Tomasina out of her wits?”

  “What makes you think it was MI5?”

  Banks glanced at him. “Browne said he was MI5.” But when Banks cast his mind back, he couldn’t be certain that Browne had said that; he couldn’t be certain what Browne had said at all. “Why? What do you know?”