Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  But there was no mistake. Banks glanced over the body but could see no signs of physical violence. That didn’t mean anything, of course; even a fatal knife wound might not be visible to the naked eye. The only thing to do was not to disturb the scene further and to call in the police. They would need a doctor and a mortuary van, but there was no sense in asking for an ambulance. Ray was beyond ambulances.

  Following his copper’s instinct, Banks checked out all the other rooms upstairs. Nobody. Ray’s studio door was open and soft gold evening light flooded through the large skylight and back windows, illuminating the canvas that stood on its easel. It was Zelda, Banks could see. When he walked closer he saw all sorts of details and realised that it was a sort of optical illusion—one large image incorporating many smaller ones, also of Zelda, or so it appeared. It seemed somehow unfinished, and it would always remain that way now. On his way out he noticed Forever Changes on another easel and the cover of The Nice’s The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack leaning against the turntable.

  With a heavy heart, Banks stepped carefully over Ray’s body, made his way back downstairs on shaky legs, then went outside for some fresh air and punched in the familiar numbers on his mobile.

  NEITHER BANKS nor Annie had any interest in attending Dr. Galway’s post-mortem examination. Annie had gone down to the mortuary with Banks to identify the body, and then she had gone home, said she wanted to be by herself for a while. Gerry, too, was devastated. She and Ray had started out on the wrong track, Banks knew, because Ray had teased her mercilessly about her being a nubile pre-Raphaelite beauty and said how he wanted her to pose for him in the nude. But after she had almost died taking down a murder suspect, he had presented her with a beautiful head and shoulders sketch of her that he had drawn from memory. She had it framed and hung it in the pride of place on the wall of her small flat. Since then, they had been the best of friends, and she had given as good as she got in the teasing department.

  When it was all over, Banks was the one who walked down that tiled corridor to the doctor’s office alone and found himself again sitting under “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” while he listened to Dr. Galway’s interpretations of the post-mortem results.

  “I can state categorically,” she said, “that there are absolutely no signs of foul play. Your friend died a sad but most natural death.”

  “Heart?” Banks said. He had already heard from the CSIs that there was no evidence of a break-in or of any struggle at Windlee Farm, and his own brief examination had told him there was nothing missing, so robbery was not likely to be the motive. The people responsible for Zelda’s abduction and his own near demise were all dead—Phil Keane, Petar, and Goran Tadić. Leka Gashi, the Albanian whom Annie had discovered was responsible for the Connor Clive Blaydon and Neville Roberts murders was still on the loose somewhere, but he had no connection with Ray or Zelda.

  “Myocardial infarction. A massive heart attack. It would have been quick. He would hardly have known what hit him. A few moments of pain, perhaps, then . . .”

  “ ‘The anaesthetic from which none come round.’ ”

  She frowned. “Quite. Well, I suppose you could put it like that, if you happened to be of a poetic turn of mind. What I’m trying to say is that he wouldn’t have suffered greatly.”

  “Thank you. But would he have known what was happening? It looked as if he was trying to get downstairs to his phone.”

  “He would certainly have known something was happening. But not for long.” She paused. “His arteries were in a bad way. The blood supply to the heart was cut off. The damage was so extensive that he must have had at least some chest pain and shortness of breath over the past few months to warn him that something was seriously wrong.”

  Banks knew that Ray would simply ignore something like that, not think it worth mentioning. “I do remember once or twice he complained of chest pains,” he said. “Not that I don’t have plenty of aches and pains myself.”

  “It’s probably just your age. We often don’t recognise symptoms.”

  “And when we do, it often turns out that they’re not symptoms at all but simply a result of sitting in the wrong position for too long. Or indigestion, heartburn.”

  “There is that. But if you’re worried about anything, maybe you should see your doctor and have a full physical?”

  “Maybe. It’s been a while. But I’m not worried. So a heart attack, then?”

  “Yes.”

  A heart attack. Pure and simple. Banks was glad it was a natural death. If Ray had been murdered, it would create a whole new set of problems, some for which he might even bear a modicum of blame. “And the cause?”

  “Hard to say exactly.”

  “I know he didn’t get much exercise.”

  “That was quite obvious. He also drank and smoked too much and ate far too much fatty food,” Dr. Galway added, with a pointed look in Banks’s direction.

  “I don’t smoke,” Banks said, and she just smiled.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, Superintendent Banks,” said Dr. Galway. “Sincerely sorry. But he was in his late seventies and he didn’t take very good care of himself. Annie Cabbot’s his daughter, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “About as well as you’d expect, which is not very well.”

  “They were close?”

  “I’d say so,” said Banks. “Her mother died when she was very young, and he pretty much brought her up single-handedly. He just moved up here from Cornwall a year or so back.”

  “With that young woman who disappeared, is that right?” Dr. Galway asked.

  “Nelia Melnic. Right.”

  “He was upset about her?”

  “Very.”

  “That kind of stress won’t have helped his condition much.”

  “Can people really die of a broken heart?”

  Dr. Galway snorted. “Only if you take a very poetic view of death, as you seem to do. Stress is a factor, yes, as can be depression, worry, anxiety, and any number of mental conditions we don’t fully understand yet. All those things put a strain on the heart and its function, but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that it breaks. A heart attack involves a kind of paroxysm rather than a snap. The human body is a complex mechanism, interdependent in so many ways. All I can give you is the doctor’s viewpoint—the pathologist’s, at that. I deal with the dead.”

  “You really are very rational, aren’t you, doctor?”

  “Why, thank you. I try to be. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  Banks smiled and stood up, leaned over to shake her hand. “Thanks for doing this so promptly,” he said.

  “You’ll be able to put his daughter’s mind to rest?”

  “I’ll do my best. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try.”

  “If she . . . I mean, if you think she’s becoming seriously upset . . . there is help.”

  “I know,” said Banks. “And I’ll make sure that Annie knows, too.”

  “Well, then, I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Not too soon, I hope,” said Banks, and left. The Unicorn over the road from Eastvale General would be open now, and Banks could do with a pint. Or a double whisky.

  ON THE day of Ray Cabbot’s funeral, Banks drove to Harkside to pick up Annie, and for a while he thought she wouldn’t come. She sat in her chair, still wearing her dressing gown, hair an unruly mass, unmoving, not speaking, her eyes puffy and red from crying, face tear-stained.

  Banks sat with her in silence for a while, holding her hand. When he squeezed gently, he felt no return of pressure. What could he do? He couldn’t force her to go. He spoke to her softly, telling her she should get ready. She looked at him, uncomprehending, then all of a sudden seemed to snap out of it.

  “I must get ready,” she said. “Dad’s waiting.”

  Banks helped her up and told her he would wait downstairs while she got dressed and ready, and not to worry, the
re was plenty of time.

  It didn’t take her long. In a few minutes Annie had managed to throw on a dark skirt, top, and jacket suitable for a funeral, brush her hair and apply a little make-up to cover the ravages of her grief. She remained quiet as she got in the car and Banks drove to the funeral home in Eastvale. He refrained from playing any music. Annie might think it insensitive, even a requiem, and he honestly couldn’t think of anything to play for the occasion.

  Ray had left a will, as it turned out, and it stipulated that he wanted his ashes scattered in the sea below St. Ives. He had also left a substantial amount of his estate to Zelda and the rest—more than adequate, along with the house—to Annie. He hadn’t made any arrangements for his unsold paintings, but Banks imagined his agent would help Annie handle all that. He had left his collection of close to 2,000 vinyl LPs and Marantz turntable to Banks.

  When Banks had revisited Windlee Farm a couple of days after Ray’s death to make sure everything was turned off and locked up, at Annie’s request, he had found a postcard among that day’s post. It showed a reproduction of da Vinci’s Annunciation, and on the back, next to Ray’s address, a heart. Banks didn’t think he needed to check the handwriting to know that the postcard was from Zelda. The postmark read Belgrade, but Banks didn’t think that was where she was. She must have got someone to post it for her. He hadn’t told Annie about it.

  There was quite a crowd for Ray’s funeral, and the small chapel was bursting at the seams. The arts crowd had come up from London, and most of the people who still lived at the artists’ commune in St. Ives, where Ray had lived for many years, turned up, along with some who had lived there only briefly and left years ago. They all remembered Ray’s generosity and encouragement for young artists.

  A vicar who had never even met Ray delivered a few platitudes and a prayer, and then the tears streamed down Annie’s face as she sat through Banks’s short eulogy, which Annie had said there was no way she could do without breaking down, and a reading by Gerry of Christina Rossetti’s “When I am dead, my dearest,” which Banks had last heard at the funeral of his first love, Emily Hargreaves. Ray would have hated it, but funerals are about the living. As the service ended with The Beach Boys’ “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” which Ray had once told Banks was what he wanted to be played at his funeral, there was hardly a dry eye in the chapel.

  The funeral tea was held at Windlee Farm, and catered by the Black Bull’s Mick Slater. It was nothing special, just sausage rolls, vol-au-vents, scotch eggs, and slices of pork pie followed by Black Forest gateau, but it was enough. Slater had also brought a couple of kegs of beer, which most of Ray’s friends seemed to prefer to tea. Banks chatted with some of Ray’s old artist friends and also fell into conversation with a young woman who said she was a friend of Zelda’s from her London days, and she had read about the funeral in the paper. She had come in the hopes that Zelda would be there and was disappointed when Banks told her they didn’t know where she was.

  Finally, the last guests drove off. It was still light outside, and Banks poured himself another glass of wine and went outside to enjoy the mild evening air and the open views of the moorland. Curlews flew high in the distance, and a lark ascended, singing. Banks thought of the Vaughan Williams music. Annie wandered out a few minutes later and joined him, linking her arm in his. The vast expanse of the moors at the back of the cottage spread out for miles under a thickening cover of dark clouds still in the distance. But there would be rain before long.

  “So she didn’t come after all,” said Annie.

  “She probably doesn’t know Ray is dead,” Banks said.

  Annie removed her arm from his. “There you go, making excuses for her again. I suppose you know it’s all her fault. If he hadn’t got involved with her, none of this would have happened.”

  “Annie, Ray was ill. His arteries were blocked. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He ate too much red meat. He never went to the doctor’s.”

  Annie waved her hand dismissively. “I know all that. You’re a one to talk. But she’s the one who brought it all on, the straw that broke the camel’s back. You know what terrible shape he’s been in since she disappeared.”

  “It was hardly her fault she was abducted,” Banks said.

  “I mean after. After the fire. When she saved you and ran away.”

  “She was scared.”

  “So was Ray. And she was supposed to love him. She didn’t even bother to come to his funeral. Did you see that picture he was painting?”

  “Yes,” said Banks.

  “I hate it. You take it.”

  Banks knew there was no point in arguing, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset Annie any further, which defending Zelda would most certainly do. It was one of those moments where he would have loved to light up a cigarette, but he made do with the wine.

  Annie would get over it in time. Right now she was grieving and looking for someone to blame, and there was just enough truth in what she said to make that someone Zelda. There were certain aspects of Zelda’s life that made her dangerous company. After all, if she hadn’t become an important part of Ray’s life, it would have saved him a lot of grief. But what about the love? What about the joy she gave him? The happiness they shared? Annie didn’t see that. Banks had seen Ray and Zelda together and heard each speak separately about the other, and there was no doubt in his mind that they loved one another utterly, completely. Perhaps that kind of love can kill you eventually. He watched the distant birds swooping and weaving under the massing rain clouds. He couldn’t make out what they were—lapwings, curlews, swifts—but that didn’t matter. It was glorious just to witness the aerial ballet.

  “We’d better go in,” he said. “It’s going to rain.”

  Annie said nothing at first, then she tightened her lips and stalked off ahead of him towards the door. It was going to be a long haul.

  21

  CROATIA WAS BASKING IN LATE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE when Banks left his rental car at the bottom of the hill and started walking up the dirt path.

  He hadn’t got very far when a muscular young man with no neck appeared in front of him, cradling a Kalashnikov AK-47 in his arms. The man said something guttural in what Banks assumed to be Croatian, and Banks said he didn’t understand, that he was English, his name was Alan Banks, and he would like to see Nelia Melnic. The man gave him a suspicious glance, pointed to the ground and said, “You stay here,” then made his way up the hill. In case Banks had any fancy ideas about disobeying the command, another man, looking exactly the same as the first one, appeared, also cradling an AK-47. Banks considered asking him whether the weapon was legal but decided against it.

  The first man came back, examined the package Banks was carrying and twitched his head in the direction of the summit. Banks followed him. They arrived at a high stone wall topped with broken glass set in concrete. The man opened the spiked wrought-iron gates and gestured Banks through. He was out of breath and paused for a moment to rest. In front of him stood a petite woman in her early sixties with short silver hair and pale blue eyes that had seen far more than anyone ought. Her wiry body looked strong, as if she had done much manual labour. She held out her hand in greeting and walked forward. Banks shook it. Her grip was firm and her hand calloused.

  “Please forgive me if I ask for some identification,” she said.

  Banks noticed that his guide with the Kalashnikov was lingering by the gate. Only when he had shown his warrant card and the woman nodded did he disappear.

  “One can’t be too careful,” she said.

  “Is Nelia here?”

  “She is.”

  “You must be Mati.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “And you must be a very good detective.”

  “I have my sources,” Banks said.

  The woman started walking over the final gentle slope of grass past the side of the house. Banks walked in step beside her. “Will you tell me why you want to see her?” she asked
.

  Banks paused for a moment. “Her partner, Ray Cabbot. I’m afraid he died.”

  Mati stopped in her tracks. “Raymond? Dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A few weeks ago. It took me a while to find you.”

  “That’s good. I mean that it took the great detective a long time. We depend on being a needle in a haystack. But this news. It is very bad for Nelia. She is not strong.”

  “It’s not something I’ve been looking forward to,” said Banks. “But she should know.”

  Mati started walking again. “Yes. Of course she must know. Please, sit over there and wait.” She pointed to a white table with matching chairs on the edge of a promontory overlooking the Adriatic. “Forgive me if I do not invite you into the main house, but some of the girls . . . they are not yet ready to see a man again. I have to keep my sons away, too, and they are the gentlest people you could ever hope to meet.”

  Banks flashed on the neckless pair cradling their Kalashnikovs. Gentle wasn’t the first word that had come to his mind, but he believed her.

  Banks sat down at the table and faced the sea. The water ranged from pale green to deep blue and all shades in between. Small crafts and fishing boats bobbed between the islands, and far out to sea he could see the white bulk of a cruise liner. A light refreshing salt breeze blew up from the water. There was a bottle of Plavac on the table, already open, along with two glasses, and Banks saw no reason not to pour himself one.

  “Pour one for me, too, please, Alan.”

  The voice from behind startled him. He hadn’t heard her approach. Instead of pouring, he stood up and faced Zelda again, at last.

  She wore a simple, shapeless grey shift and her face was bare of make-up. Her hair was cut very short—not professionally, by the looks of it—and there was a strange pale luminosity about her skin and her eyes he had never noticed before. In an odd way, she reminded him of those old posters of Jean Seberg playing Joan of Arc. She was certainly a long way from the Zelda of Ray’s unfinished portrait. Was this one face of her that Ray had never seen? She was still beautiful, Banks thought, but now her beauty was of a different kind altogether.