Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

ALL THE outside tables were occupied, but Banks didn’t mind being relegated to the inside of the pub. They found a quiet corner and Banks fetched a pint of Theakston’s bitter for each of them. Brian was moderately famous, as a member of the Blue Lamps, and one or two of the drinkers stared as if they thought they recognised him but weren’t quite sure.

  Cyril had recently installed some air-conditioning on the cheap, and it managed to send a blast of chill air across the room every two or three minutes. And then there was the background music, one of Cyril’s never-ending sixties playlists, always full of surprises. There was something about that era of early sixties pop, before it became “rock” and started taking itself seriously, that smacked of innocence and the sheer joy of being young and alive. It was epitomised especially by the song playing at the moment: The Crystals singing “Then He Kissed Me.” It sounded just like that first kiss tasted.

  “You all right, Dad?” Brian asked.

  “Why? Don’t I look it?”

  “You seem a bit . . . I don’t know. Distracted.”

  “I suppose it was all the excitement of the wedding,” he said. “The emotion. My little girl getting married. And seeing your mother again. It’s been quite a while. I suppose I’m feeling just a little bit sad. And old.”

  “Yeah, it was weird walking past where we used to live. Are you sure you’re OK, though?”

  Banks swigged some beer. “Me? Course I am. Tough as old nails. It just feels like a momentous occasion. That’s all.”

  “It is for Tracy. What do you think of Mark?”

  “He’s all right, I suppose. Could be a bit more . . . you know . . . exciting. Adventurous.”

  “He’s an accountant, for crying out loud. What do you expect?”

  Banks laughed. “I know. I know. And he does like Richard Thompson. That’s definitely a point in his favour. She could have done a lot worse.”

  “She almost did, as I remember.”

  “Yes.” Banks remembered the time when Tracy had taken up with the archetypal “bad boy” and almost got herself killed as a result.

  “So maybe a little dull isn’t too bad?” Brian went on. “What about you, though? Still living the exciting copper’s life?”

  “It’s rarely exciting. But what else would I do?”

  “Same as everyone else your age, Dad. Putter about in the garden. Get an allotment. Ogle young women. Drink too much. Watch TV.”

  Banks laughed. “I already do all those things. Except the allotment. Maybe I should write my memoirs?”

  “You always said you hated writing reports.”

  “Well . . . yes . . . but that’s different. Enough about me. What about you? The farewell tour? How’s it going?”

  “Great so far. Mum and Sean came to the London show. Are you coming to see us?”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. The Sage. I’ve already got the tickets. Ray and Zelda are coming, too.”

  “No date for you?”

  “Not these days, it seems. I think my allure must have deserted me.” The music had changed again. Neil Sedaka was singing “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” He managed to make even such a sad song sound almost joyful. At that moment, Banks’s mobile played its blues riff. The number was withheld, but that happened often enough not to be a problem. He excused himself for a moment and went outside.

  “Yes?”

  “Banksy?”

  It could only be Dirty Dick Burgess; no one else ever called him that. “Yes?”

  “Where are you? You sound funny.”

  “I’m standing in the market square outside the Queen’s Arms on my way to my daughter’s wedding reception. So make it fast.”

  “Sorry,” said Burgess. “Give her my . . . you know . . .”

  “Right.”

  “Keeping busy?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual.”

  “Getting anywhere with the Blaydon murders yet?”

  “It’s still early days,” said Banks. “As I said, I’m on my way to a rather important wedding reception. I’m guessing you’ve called for some other reason than to yank my chain?”

  “Oh, you’re no fun. But as a matter of fact, I have. You’re not the only one working on a dead-end murder investigation.”

  “Where do I come in?”

  “I don’t want to say too much over the phone, but I think we should meet and compare notes. Are you seriously busy?”

  “No. Well, yes, but . . . we’re trying to make a case against Leka Gashi and the Albanians for Blaydon’s murder. Trouble is, we don’t even know where they are.”

  “Leka Gashi and the Albanians,” repeated Burgess. “Sounds like a rock band. Anyway, the Albanians can wait. They’ll be back. Don’t worry. You’ll nail them. Do you think your boss will let you come out to play?”

  “You want me to come down to London?”

  “I honestly can’t get away at the moment. Not for longer than an hour or two, and that won’t even cover the train ride. Meetings up to the eyeballs. Otherwise, as you know, nothing would please me more than a trip up north.”

  Banks couldn’t always figure out when, or if, Burgess was being ironic.

  “I promise you it’ll be worthwhile,” Burgess went on. “And if you can get here by lunch tomorrow, I’ll even buy. How’s that?”

  “An offer I can’t refuse.”

  “Excellent. Whenever you can make it. Pret on—”

  “Hang on a minute. I’m not going all that way to be fobbed off with Pret A Manger.”

  “Zizzi’s, then?”

  “You must be joking. Next thing you’ll be telling me it’s the NCA canteen.”

  “Do we have one? Well, it’s not going to be Gordon bloody Ramsay’s or Michel Roux’s, either, I can assure you.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find somewhere suitable. Text me in the morning.”

  2

  ZELDA CALLED AT ONE OF THE CAR RENTAL AGENCIES she had passed earlier and managed to rent an old grey Skoda with a starfish crack on the windscreen and so many dents and scratches the young man at the counter didn’t even make her sign off on them.

  It was an easy drive to Suruceni, and after the outskirts of Chișinău—more ruined buildings and half-built tower blocks—she drove through pleasant, rolling countryside on E581, encountering very little traffic.

  It was early evening when she pulled up in front of William Buckley’s house in the southwest of the village, not too far from the lake. It was a small, detached bungalow of beige stucco with a matching pantile roof and white mouldings around the arched windows. The house was slightly raised, and there were four steps up to the side porch and door. The small garden was untended, with not much but stones, dirt, and a few blades of parched grass. Even the weeds were struggling against the heat. Two fat crows sat on the pantiles. They didn’t move as Zelda walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

  At first, she thought there was no one home. The silence was resounding. But she knocked again and heard a slow shuffling sound from behind the door. Eventually, it opened, and a white-haired old man with what could only be called a “lived-in” face peered out at her in some surprise. A book-jacket photo she had seen of W.H. Auden came to mind. His face was a road map of a life hard lived, but his eyes were a startling childlike blue, and by far his liveliest feature. They could have been the eyes of someone her own age, Zelda found herself thinking.

  “Yes?” he said, speaking Moldovan. “Can I help you?”

  Zelda spoke English. “Perhaps. Are you William Buckley?”

  “Ah, a compatriot,” Buckley said. “Yes. I am he. And call me Bill. Please, charming lady, do come in. Don’t be afraid. I’m a harmless, toothless old man.”

  Zelda smiled and followed him inside, taking in the framed Japanese-style paintings and drawings on the wall and the sunlight through the arched windows. Buckley shuffled ahead of her, a hunched figure, walking stick in his right hand. The bungalow was small inside, just a living room, one bedroom, and kitchen/dining area, Zelda
guessed, but it was cosy. Bookcases lined two of the living-room walls, and each was so stuffed with books they lay on their sides on top of other books. All in English.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Buckley asked, indicating that she should sit in a damask armchair at right angles to the matching sofa which, judging by the little table holding a tea mug and a copy of Phineas Finn, was his spot. “May I fetch you a cup of tea?”

  “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “It’s no trouble. As a matter of fact, I just made some. It should still be hot. Milk and sugar?”

  “Just a little milk, please, then.”

  Buckley shuffled off and Zelda glanced around at the books. They covered all subjects—fiction, history, poetry, music, art, literary criticism, theatre, architecture—and were of all shapes and sizes, from dog-eared paperbacks that looked as if they had been bought in used bookshops, to recent hardcovers in shiny dust jackets and oversized coffee table volumes.

  She was still reading titles, her head slightly tilted, when Buckley came back with the tea. “A keen reader, are you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Zelda.

  Buckley nodded slowly and handed her the tea, his wrinkled hand shaking slightly.

  Zelda smiled. The room was stifling, and there was a slightly unpleasant smell of neglected hygiene and spoiled food, but she could put up with it. If Buckley lived here alone, it would be hard for him to deal with the myriad daily matters of simply keeping things ticking over.

  As if reading her thoughts, he said, “I do have a local lady who comes in once a week and cleans for me, but I’m afraid she’s not due next until tomorrow. I do apologise for the air of neglect.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Zelda.

  Buckley half reclined on the sofa and grimaced, as if the movement caused him pain. “You wanted to see me for some specific reason? Do I know you?”

  Now that she was here facing him, Zelda wasn’t sure how to get things started. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, no, you don’t know me, but I do want to see you. It’s about the orphanage.”

  “St. George’s?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Buckley narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you were there.”

  “I was.”

  “You poor thing.”

  “Oh, no!” Zelda cried. “Don’t think that. I had a wonderful life there. Everyone was so kind. The books and . . .” She found herself on the verge of tears. Was this man truly her benefactor? Or could he have been her destroyer?

  “I meant to lose your parents at such an early age. But I’m glad St. George’s was good to you. That was certainly the idea behind it. Yes, I do believe it was a place where much good was done in a time when such things were the exception rather than the rule. But how did you find out about me? I did my best to remain an anonymous donor.”

  “I’ve been back there,” Zelda said. “Just now. It’s in ruins, but there was a box of books in a storeroom, and your name and address were on them.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid St. George’s closed its doors in 2009. A real tragedy. In Moldova, as I’m sure you know, everything no longer used is simply left to decay at its own rate.” A mischievous smile crossed his features, giving Zelda a glimpse of what he might have been like as a young man. And while he wasn’t exactly toothless, he wasn’t far off. “Even many things which are still in use are falling apart. We are great believers in entropy. We have a very cavalier attitude towards progress and development.”

  “You say ‘we,’ ” Zelda said, “but you’re English, aren’t you?”

  “If you want to be accurate, I’m Welsh, but as I’ve been here nearly thirty years now, the matter of my origins is quite academic. I have certainly retained my interest in British culture, if that’s of any interest to you.”

  “Thirty years? B-but, how? I mean . . . what . . . ?”

  “What have I been doing all that time? Why am I here?”

  “Yes. All that.”

  “It’s a very dull story. I was what’s called a cultural attaché to the Romanian embassy in Bucharest. A diplomat and cheerleader for the British Council. I moved here to Moldova during the civil war, after the Soviets left in the early nineties. I suppose the long and the short of it is, I fell in love.”

  “With?”

  “With the country, and with a woman. Cherchez la femme. It was a second chance for me, you see. My first wife had died some years earlier, and I had never expected to fall in love again. I was fifty four years old. She became my wife. Sadly, she, too, died, five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He waved his hand. “Not for you to be sorry, my dear. Though I know what you mean, and I thank you for the sentiment. I’m surprised you don’t ask me why I fell in love with the most undesirable country in Europe.”

  Zelda laughed. “Love is blind?”

  Buckley smiled his approval. “Yes. That would be the easiest response, and perhaps the most accurate. But there’s a simplicity to the place, to life here, once you know the ins and outs. I’m happy to end my days here in Suruceni. There’s still corruption everywhere, I know, but the people have a spirit and a strong sense of stoicism. We always managed to get by. We lived in Chișinău then, my wife and I, and our house was always full of artists, writers, musicians. I taught English whenever I was allowed to do so. I also supplemented my income by writing books and reviews.”

  “Would I know your work?”

  Buckley laughed. “I hope not. No. I wrote under many pseudonyms. Potboilers in every genre you could imagine. Novelisations of movies or TV series, romance, crime, horror, science-fiction. You name it. I seem to have a talent for ventriloquism but no real voice of my own. But you’re not here to talk about me.”

  “I am in a way,” said Zelda. “Besides, it’s an interesting story.”

  “Probably not half as interesting as yours.”

  Zelda looked away. “You wouldn’t . . .” she said. “You don’t want to . . .”

  “I’ve upset you, my dear. I apologise. It was a flippant remark. I can see there has been much grief in your life.”

  Zelda shook her head. “It’s not . . . Oh, never mind. It’s about the orphanage.”

  “What about it?”

  “The books, for a start. Did you send them?”

  “I did. For many years. I suppose I was trying to spread my culture to a heathen land. No, that’s not strictly true. Forgive me, I was arrogant. Moldova has her own poets. I wanted people—I wanted the charges at St. George’s in particular—to experience the same pleasures I myself experienced when I read those books as a child.”

  “Were you an orphan, may I ask?”

  “You may. And, yes, I was. Am. My parents were both killed during the Blitz, in London. I have no brothers or sisters or any other living relatives as far as I know. It gave me more freedom than I knew what to do with. I don’t mean to belittle the grief and terrible sense of loss and aloneness, but did you have that experience yourself, a kind of odd relief that there was no one else to satisfy, to please, no one to make demands on you, to tell you what to do or in which direction to push?”

  “I’m afraid I never got to experience the positive side of being an orphan. At least, not in that way. Kind as they were, the nuns were always all too willing to make demands and tell us what to do!”

  Buckley smiled. “Of course. I meant later.”

  “There was no later.” Zelda leaned forward and clasped her hands on her knees. “But the books. I must . . . I have to thank you. Without them, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “I’m happy my gifts didn’t fall on stony ground.”

  “Oh, not at all! Those were some of the happiest times of my life, curled up in bed reading Enid Blyton or Charlotte Brontë. I felt as if I had always known English, as if it were my first language. I don’t remember working hard to learn it. Even later, in my darkest times, when I couldn’t make time to read, I always tried to summon up those memories. Peggo
tty. Jane. Julian, Dick, Anne, and George. And Timmy, of course. And Modesty Blaise. I loved Modesty Blaise. She became my benchmark if ever I was in trouble. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they made me feel safe again, but . . .”

  “It’s a hard, cruel world out there, my dear. I know,” said Buckley. “And there’s rarely a Willie Garvin to charge in and rescue you.”

  Zelda stared down at her clasped hands. She felt the tears struggling for release again. Held them back. This man could not have been her destroyer; she was certain of it.

  “So you were born here?” Buckley asked.

  “Dubăsari.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “There’s nothing to know. It’s a small place. In Transnistria. Near the Ukraine border. There’s an amusement park.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Both killed in the civil war. They weren’t participating, you understand. Just civilian casualties.”

  “Indeed. There was plenty of ‘collateral damage.’ You must have been very young.”

  “I was four.”

  “And so you arrived at St. George’s.”

  “Yes. It was very new at the time. Only in its second year, I think.” Zelda laughed. “You could still smell the fresh paint.”

  “For all that you have to thank a man called Klaus Bremner.”

  Zelda frowned. “Klaus Bremner. I’ve never heard the name.”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Buckley. “Besides, he’s long dead now. But for a while, in the uncertain days of the late 80s, when the Russian Empire was collapsing and a new Eastern Europe was struggling to be born, we were the best of friends. It was Klaus who put up the money for the orphanage and established the St. George’s Trust to keep it running even after his death. For a while, at any rate.”

  “But why? Was he an orphan, too?”

  “Klaus? No. And he was much older than me. He was a German soldier during World War Two. He fought in the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive.”

  “I remember learning about that in history class.”

  “It was an important battle. 1944. The Russians defeated the occupying German army and drove them out of Moldova. It was what Klaus witnessed in Kishinev, as it was known then—especially the number of orphaned children wandering the streets—that stayed with him. The guilt. He had never been a fully-fledged Nazi. Like many Germans, he was just doing his duty to save himself from being shot. He didn’t do it with as much relish as some.”