Gervaise sipped more beer. “I’m just telling you a story, Annie, that’s all.”
“You’re warning me off.”
“Warning you off what? You’re reading too much into what I’m saying. If I’m doing anything at all, Annie, I’m telling you to be very careful, and you can pass that on to DCI Banks the next time you talk to him.”
“There’s something else,” Annie went on. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something else. Don’t you believe there’s something odd about the Hardcastle-Silbert business, something that doesn’t quite fit, that doesn’t make sense? You do, don’t you?”
“You know as well as I do there are always things that don’t quite add up. But I would like to point out that, whatever baroque theories you and DCI Banks might have dreamed up, scientific evidence, combined with a thorough police investigation, proved beyond all reasonable doubt that Mark Hardcastle killed Laurence Silbert and then hanged himself. You’re not arguing with that, are you. With the facts?”
“No. I’m—”
“Then there is no case to pursue.” Gervaise regarded Annie. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, talking of baroque theories, that DCI Banks had some outlandish idea about someone putting Hardcastle up to it. Showing him fake photos, putting ideas in his head, making innuendos, getting him all riled up, that sort of thing. I went to see
Of course, Iago turned a man against his wife, but there’s no reason that shouldn’t translate into homosexual terms, is there, especially given the element of overkill we sometimes find in gay killings?”
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“What?” said Annie. She knew she was on dangerous ground now.
She hadn’t wanted to reveal the
Gervaise gave her a sideways glance and smiled. “Oh, don’t be so disingenuous, Annie. I’m not so green as I’m cabbage-looking, as I believe they say around these parts. Can you think of any other reason why you, or DCI Banks, should think it a case worth pursuing other than that you thought someone put Hardcastle up to it? I’m sure the two of you know as well as I do that our security services have any number of psychological tricks up their sleeves. I mean, even you two don’t usually f ly in the face of scientific evidence and f launt fact. You must have a reason for doing what you’re doing, and my guess is that that’s it. And as for DCI Banks, well, you probably know as well as I do that if you tell him to do something, he does the opposite. I just hope he realizes what happens to spies who go on missions behind enemy lines. Well, am I right? What’s wrong, Annie? Lost your voice?”
B A N K S WA S in a quandary when he left Sophia’s. What should he do? he wondered as he sat in the Porsche down the street, his heart still pounding, hands still shaking. He supposed he could stay at Sophia’s house, though it would be unbearable sleeping there on his own after what had just occurred. It was late, but he could also just head home.
He’d only had the one glass of wine, and that was some time ago, so he wasn’t over the limit. He didn’t even feel too tired to drive, though he knew he was distracted. There was always Brian’s f lat, too, or a hotel.
Sophia had been inconsolable. No matter what he said, she couldn’t let go of the idea that he had forgotten to set the alarm and someone had been watching and had taken advantage. He supposed, in a way, that was preferable to the truth—that someone from their own intelligence services had done this, perhaps to give Banks a stern message.
He also couldn’t entirely ignore the fact that he had talked to Victor Morton, Sophia’s father, about Silbert, and that Victor had spent his 2 3 6
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working life in the various British consulates and embassies of the world. There had been that strange man at the bar of The Bridge, and all the other strange faces Banks had seen in the street lately. Paranoid?
Perhaps. But there was no denying what had happened tonight. Someone with enough gadgetry or know- how to bypass a sophisticated alarm system had walked into Sophia’s house and calmly smashed a number of her most treasured possessions and left them in a heap on the living room f loor. Messages didn’t get much clearer than that.
From what Banks had been able to gather from a cursory look around the whole house, nothing had been taken and no other room had been disturbed; there was just the mess on the living room carpet. But it was enough. It was more than enough.
Sophia had kept insisting that he go, but he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone. In the end, he had persuaded her to phone her best friend Amy and spend at least the one night at her place. Reluctantly, Sophia had agreed and Amy had driven over to pick her up. Banks was glad of that. He wouldn’t have trusted Sophia not to tell a taxi driver to turn back. But Amy was sensible and strong, and a quick, quiet word in her ear while Sophia was packing her overnight bag was all it took. Banks felt he need have no worries that Sophia would do anything foolish tonight. His dilemma was whether he should stay in London to be around for her tomorrow, in case she had changed her mind about him. For the moment, though, he was about as far in the doghouse as a man could get. Not even his feet were sticking out.
The woman across the street, he remembered, was a bit of a nosy parker, always at her window, lingering a little too long when she closed them at night or opened them in the morning. He got out of the car and went to knock on her door. If she was up to form, she would have seen him coming.
The door opened shortly after his knock. “Yes?” she said.
She was younger than he had imagined from the vague figure he had seen from a distance, and there was an air of loneliness about her, like the shapeless brown cardigan she’d wrapped around herself, despite the heat.
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“I’m sorry to bother you,” Banks said, “but it’s just that we were expecting someone to come and service the computer across the street. I wonder . . .”
