weeks. After all, that’s what I do best. I’ve laundered and hidden millions for Churchill and his wife.”
“How much for yourself?”
“Three or four million,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know exactly. Enough, anyway, to last us our lifetime. And there was plenty left in Eastvale for my family. They’re well provided for in the will and by the life insurance. I made sure of that. Believe me, they’ll be better off without me.”
“What about Daniel Clegg? What about Pamela Jeffreys?”
“Pamela? What about her?”
Banks told him.
He put his head in his hands. “Oh, my God,” he said. “I would never have hurt Pamela… It wasn’t meant to be like that.”
“How did you meet her?”
Rothwell sipped some more Pepsi and rubbed the back of his hand across his brow. “I told you the Calvert thing felt very strange at first. Mostly, I just used to walk around Leeds in my jeans and sweatshirt. I’d drop in at a pub now and then and enjoy being someone else. Occasionally, I got chatting to people, the way you do in pubs. I’ll never forget how frightening and how exciting it was the first time someone asked me my name and I said ‘Robert Calvert.’ I knew it was still me – you have to understand that – we’re not really talking about a split personality here. I was Keith Rothwell, all right, just playing a part, or trying to find himself, perhaps. It gave me an exhilarating sense of freedom.
“Anyway, as I said, I used to drop in at pubs now and then, mostly in the city center or up in Headingley, near the flat. One night I saw Pamela in The Boulevard – you know, the tarted-up Jubilee Hotel on The Headrow. It seemed a likely place to meet women. They stay open till midnight on weekends and they’ve got a small dance-floor. Pamela was with some friends. They’d been doing something at the Town Hall, a Handel oratorio, or something like that. Anyway, something happened, some spark. We caught one another’s eye.
“She wasn’t with anyone in particular. I mean, she didn’t seem to have a boyfriend with her. The next time she was at the bar, I made sure I got there, too, next to her, and we got chatting. I wasn’t a great fan of classical music, but Pamela’s a down-to-earth sort of person, not a highbrow snob or anything. I asked her to dance. She said yes. We just got on, that’s all. We slept together now and then, but both of us knew it was just a casual relationship really. I don’t mean to denigrate it by saying that. We had a wonderful time. I was astounded she fancied me. Flattered. It was the first time in my entire marriage that I’d been with another woman, and the hell of it was that I didn’t feel guilty at all. She was fun to be with, and we had a great time, but we weren’t in love.”
“What came between you?”
“What? Well, we stayed friends, really. At least, I like to think we did. There was her work, of course. It’s very demanding and between us we couldn’t always be sure we could make time to get together. And Pamela was more outgoing. She wanted more of a social life. She wanted me to meet her friends, and she wanted to meet mine.”
“But you didn’t have any?”
“Exactly. And I didn’t want to get too well known around the place. It was a risk, playing Calvert, always a risk.”
“Go on. What happened next?”
“I met Julia.”
“How?”
“We met on a bus, would you believe? It had been raining, one of those sudden showers, and I was out walking without an umbrella. So I jumped on a bus into town. Then the rain stopped and the sun came out. I’d been looking at her out of the corner of my eye. She was so beautiful, like a model, such delicate, fragile, sculpted features. I imagined she was probably stuck-up and wouldn’t talk to the likes of me. Anyway, she left her umbrella. I saw it, grabbed it, and dashed after her. When I caught her up she seemed startled at first, then I gave it to her and she blushed. She seemed flustered, so I asked her if she wanted to go for a coffee. She said yes. She was very shy. It was hard to get her talking at first, but slowly I found out she was a teacher and she lived in Adel and she adored Greek history and literature.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Mr. Banks? Do you? Because that’s what this is all about, really. It’s not just about money. It’s not just about leaving my old life behind and seeking novelty. I fell in love with Julia the moment I saw her, and that’s the truth. It might sound foolish and sentimental to you, but I have never in my life felt that way before. Bells ringing, earth moving, all the cliches. And it’s mutual. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted. When I met Julia, nothing else mattered. I knew we had to get away, find our Eden, if you like, our paradise. I had to get a new life, a new identity. Everything was in such a mess, falling apart. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“Except Daniel Clegg.”
Rothwell banged on his chair arm with his fist. “I told you! That wasn’t my fault. I had to appear to have been violently murdered. By Daniel himself, or by someone he’d hired. And that’s exactly the way it would have been, too, if I hadn’t been tipped off and made other plans. But Julia knew nothing of that. She’s a complete innocent. She knows nothing of the things we’ve just been talking about.”
“So you invited Clegg over to the Calvert flat to get his fingerprints there? Am I right?”
“Yes. On the Monday. I said I had some business to discuss that couldn’t wait and he came over. I showed him around, had him touch things. I’d cleaned the place thoroughly. Daniel was a touchy-feely kind of person. Anything he saw, he’d pick it up and have a look: compact discs, wallet, credit cards in Calvert’s name, coins, books, you name it. He’d even let his fingers rest on surfaces as if he were claiming them or something. He handled just about everything in the place. I was much more careful to make mine blurred.” Rothwell laughed quietly. “He really was a fool, you know. Every time I got him to help me with something illegal, like setting up the Calvert bank account and credit card, for example,
“So you must have known we’d find out about the Calvert identity, about Pamela, about Clegg and the money-laundering?”
“Of course. As I said earlier, I had to leave Calvert behind. It was part of my plan that you should find out about him. Another dead end. But please believe me, Pamela wasn’t meant to be a part of it, except maybe to confirm the Calvert identity. I mean, I thought she might get in touch with the police if she saw my picture in the papers. Or someone else might, someone who thought they recognized me. It was meant to confuse you, that’s all. I left a careful trail for you. I thought it led the wrong way. I knew the police would be able to unlock and interpret the data on my computer eventually, that they would realize I’d been laundering money for Martin Churchill. I also left a letter for Daniel Clegg in a locked file. I knew you’d get at that eventually, too.”
“That was one of the things that bothered me,” Banks said. “In retrospect, it was all too easy. And we never found a copy of the letter among his papers. He could have destroyed it, of course, but it was just one of those little niggling details. Lawyers tend to hang onto things.”
“I never sent it,” said Rothwell. “I just created the file so you’d get onto Daniel if you hadn’t already. It was a way of telling you his name, but I couldn’t make it
“Oh, we did,” said Banks. “We did.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I’m a persistent bastard, among other things. There were too many loose ends. They worried me. Two different sets of thugs roaming the country, for a start. They could be explained, of course, but it still seemed odd. And we couldn’t find any trace of Clegg, no matter how hard we tried. His ex-wife said he fancied Tahiti, but we had no luck there. We had no luck anywhere else, either. Of course we didn’t. We were looking for the wrong person. But mostly, I think, it was the connection with Julia that really did you in.”
“How did you find out about her?”
“Pamela Jeffreys mentioned her first. She said she thought you were in love. Just a feeling she had, you understand. Then I began to wonder how it would upset the apple-cart if you fell in love as
