‘What’s a food product, do you think?’ Banks asked Richmond.
‘I wouldn’t know, sir. Something that’s not real food, I’d imagine.’
‘And I thought he was trading Wensleydale cheese for maple syrup. That reminds me: what time is it in Toronto?’
Richmond looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be about nine in the morning.’
‘I’d better phone the Mounties.’
‘Er… they won’t be Mounties, sir. Not in Toronto.’ Richmond stroked his moustache.
‘Oh? What will they be?’
‘The Toronto Metropolitan Police, sir. The RCMP’s federal. These days they mostly do undercover work and police the more remote areas.’
Banks grinned. ‘Well, you learn something new every day.’
When Richmond had left, he lit a cigarette and picked up the phone. There was a lot of messing about with the switchboard, but after a few minutes of clicks and whirrs, the phone started ringing at the other end. It wasn’t the harsh and insistent sound of an English telephone though; the rings were longer, as were the pauses between them.
When someone finally answered, it took Banks a while to explain who he was and what he wanted. After a few more clicks, he finally got through to the right man.
‘Chief Inspector Banks? Staff Sergeant Gregson here. And how’s the old country?’
‘Fine,’ said Banks, a little perplexed by the question.
‘My father was a Brit,’ Gregson went on. ‘Came from Derbyshire.’ He pronounced the e as in clergy, and shire came out as sheer. ‘Do you know it?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes. It’s just down the road.’
‘Small country.’
‘Right.’
Gregson cleared his throat and Banks could hear papers rustling three thousand miles away. ‘I can’t say we’ve got any good news for you,’ the Canadian said. ‘We’ve had a look around Allen’s apartment, but we didn’t find anything unusual.’
‘Was there an address book?’
‘Address book… let me see…’ More paper rustled. ‘No. No address book. No diary.’
‘Damn. He must have taken them with him.’
‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? If he was going on vacation he’d be sure to want to send pretty postcards to all his buddies back home.’
‘What about his friends? Have you seen any of them?’
‘We talked to his colleagues at work. There’s not many of them around. College finishes in early May, so teachers are pretty thin on the ground at this time of year. Nice work if you can get it, eh? Now they’re all off swimming in the lake and sunning themselves on the deck up at their fancy summer cottages in Muskoka.’
‘Is that like a villa in Majorca?’
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind. What did they have to say?’
‘Said he was a bit aloof, stand-offish. Course, a lot of Brits over here are like that. They think Canada’s still part of the Empire, so they come on like someone out of
‘Did you find his ex-wife?’
‘Yup. She’s been in Calgary for the past six months, so you can count her out.’
‘Apparently, there was a lover,’ Banks told him. ‘Someone at the college. That’s why they got divorced.’
‘Have you got a name?’
‘Sorry.’
Gregson sighed. ‘I’d like to help you, Chief Inspector, I really would,’ he said, ‘but we can’t spare the men to go tracking down some guy who ran off with Allen’s wife. We just don’t have the manpower.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Besides, people don’t usually steal a man’s wife and then kill him.’
‘They might if he was causing them problems. But you’re right, it’s not likely. Did he have any girlfriends?’
‘As I said, his colleagues thought he was a bit stuck-up. One of them even thought he was gay, but I wouldn’t pay much mind to that. Sometimes, with their accents and mannerisms and all, Brits do seem a bit that way to us North Americans.’
‘Yes,’ Banks said, gritting his teeth. ‘I think that just about covers it all. I can see now why they say you always get your man.’ And he hung up. Nothing. Still nothing. He obviously couldn’t expect any help from across the Atlantic.
Still feeling a residue of irrational anger at Gregson’s sarcasm, he walked over to the window and lit a cigarette. The drizzle had turned into steady rain now and the square below was bright with open umbrellas. As he gazed down on the scene, one woman caught his eye. She walked in a daze, as if she wasn’t sure where she was heading. She looked soaked to the skin, too; her hair was plastered to her head and the thin white blouse she wore was moulded to her form so that the outline of her brassiere stood out in clear relief. It took Banks a few moments to recognize Katie Greenock.
He grabbed his raincoat and made a move to go down and make sure she was all right, but when he looked out for her one last time, she was nowhere in sight. She had disappeared like a phantom. There was no sense in searching the town for her just because she was walking in the rain without an umbrella. Still, he was strangely disturbed by the vision. It worried him. For the rest of the wet afternoon he felt haunted by that slight and sensuous figure staring into an inner distance, walking in the rain.
PART TWO:
THE THOUSAND-DOLLAR CURE
8
ONE
The powerful jet engines roared and Banks felt himself pushed back in his seat. It was his first time in a jumbo. The plane lumbered along the runway at Manchester International Airport, fixtures and fittings shaking and rattling, as if defying anyone to believe that a machine of such bulk could fly. But it did. Soon, Lancashire was a chequerboard of wet fields, then it was lost completely under the clouds. The NO
SMOKING sign went off and Banks lit up.
In a few moments, the blue-uniformed stewardess with her shocking pink lipstick and impossibly white teeth - the same one who had managed to put such drama into the routine demonstration of the use of the life jacket - came around with more boiled sweets and personal headphones in plastic bags. Banks took a set, as he knew there would be a film later on, but he gave the designer music a miss and took out his own Walkman. Soon the plane was over Ireland, an occasional flash of green between the clouds, the Beatles were singing ‘Dear Prudence’, and all was well with the world.
Banks ordered Scotch on the rocks when the trolley came around and relaxed with his miniature Johnnie Walker Red. Closing his eyes, he settled back to reconsider the events that had led to his present unnatural position - about 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, hurtling at a speed of roughly 600 miles an hour towards a strange continent.
It was Saturday, 3 July, almost a month since the Bernard Allen case had stalled. Banks had visited Swainshead once or twice and found things relatively quiet. Stephen and Nicholas Collier had remained polite in their arrogant way; Sam Greenock had been surly, as usual; Katie Greenock still seemed troubled and distracted; and John Fletcher had expressed passing interest in the progress of the case.
The problem was that there really wasn’t a case any more. Enquiries had turned up neither new witnesses nor motives. A number of people had had the opportunity to kill Bernard Allen, but no one had a clear reason. As long as the suspects stuck to their stories, it didn’t matter whether they were lying or telling the truth; there was no solid evidence to break the case. That was why it was vital for Banks to find Anne Ralston - she was the link between the Addison and Allen murders - and he had convinced Gristhorpe he could do it in a week.
‘How?’ the superintendent had asked. ‘Toronto’s a strange city to you. A big one, too.’
‘Where would you head if you were an Englishman living abroad?’
Gristhorpe rubbed his chin. ‘I’d seek out the expatriate community, I suppose. The club. I’d want to be among my own.’
‘Right. So, given we’re not dealing with the gentry, I’d expect Allen to hang around the English-style pubs. Every big city has them. His brother-in-law, Les Haines, told me Allen liked his ale and had found a pub where he could get imported British beer. There can’t be all that many of them in Toronto.’
‘But it’s Anne Ralston we’re looking for, remember that.’
‘I know. I’m just assuming that if Allen was a bit standoffish with his mates at work, he had a crowd of fellow йmigrйs he hung around with in his spare time. The odds are they’d meet up in a pub and stand at the bar quaffing pints. They might know the Ralston woman.’
‘So you want to go on a pub crawl of
