All the Colors of Darkness

Winsome almost jumped. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That was a very stupid thing you did on Saturday evening, wasn’t it?”

“But ma’am, in all fairness—”

“In all fairness, you should have taken more backup and you should have stayed out of the way until the suspect had been subdued and 3 2 2

P E T E R R O B I N S O N

handcuffed. You knew he was big and probably armed with a knife.

It’s no good blaming uniform branch for this one, though the two officers involved will be disciplined if it is deemed appropriate.”

“But ma’am, we had no reason to think he’d go crazy like that.”

“Where drugs are involved, DS Jackman, you should realize that it’s folly to try to predict what someone will or will not do. Toros Kemal was high as a kite on methamphetamine. Given the reason you wanted to talk to him, you should have known to expect something like that. There are no excuses.”

“No, ma’am.” Winsome looked down. Banks noticed her lower lip tremble.

Gervaise let a little time pass, then she turned to Winsome again and said, “I hear your fancy footwork was quite a sight to behold. Well done, DS Jackman.”

Winsome smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“But don’t even think of trying a trick like that again. We don’t want to lose you. How is our wild man?”

“Well,” said Winsome, “I did call by the hospital yesterday, and he’s out of danger. As a matter of fact, he was awake, and when he saw me, he . . . well, ma’am, he said some rather rude words. Words I’d not care to repeat.”

Gervaise laughed. “I’m not surprised.”

Winsome shifted in her chair. “Anyway, he’s got a broken collar-bone, broken arm, broken leg and a minor skull fracture, along with untold cuts and bruises.”

“Not least to his ego,” said Banks.

“Well, maybe that was why he swore at me,” Winsome said.

Gervaise turned to Banks. “Now, DCI Banks, make my day and tell me I have no reason to fear any more fallout from this Hardcastle-Silbert business you’ve been probing against my orders.”

“No,” said Banks. “It’s over. Derek Wyman admitted to watching Laurence Silbert and hiring a private investigator to take photographs of him with whoever he met. When we questioned him yesterday, he told us that Hardcastle asked him to do so. He’d become suspicious of Silbert’s frequent trips to London, thought he’d found a lover. It was jealousy, pure and simple. Wyman didn’t tell us earlier because he felt A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

3 2 3

guilty about what happened and he didn’t want to get involved.”

“I see,” said Gervaise. “And do you believe him?”

“Not entirely,” said Banks. “Edwina Silbert assured me that Mark Hardcastle knew her son was still working on the occasions he visited London and Amsterdam, so why would he ask Wyman to follow him?”

“I suppose he could have become suspicious over something,” Gervaise said. “You know, found a monogrammed hankie, someone else’s underwear in the laundry basket, whatever. Then he might have begun to think that Silbert was using work as an excuse to cover up an affair. And maybe he was.”

Banks looked at her. “You’ve got quite an imagination, ma’am,” he said. “And it’s entirely possible. But it doesn’t matter what we believe.

There’s nothing to charge him with.”

“So these half-baked theories of yours about Othello and Iago were exactly what they appeared to be? Half- baked?”

“So it would seem,” muttered Banks. “If his confession is to be believed.”

“And the involvement of the secret intelligence services was purely tangential?”

“Up to a point. Silbert was still engaged on intelligence work in some capacity—I’d hazard a guess that this man he was meeting in London was the mysterious Julian Fenner, Import-Export—but it now turns out that none of it has any relevance to the murder-suicide.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Well, you can never be entirely certain with these people,” Banks said, echoing Edwina. “But yes, ma’am. As sure as we’ll ever be.”

“So I can tell the chief constable and whoever’s been on his back that it’s all over?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Though I would imagine the chief constable is well aware of that already.”

Gervaise looked at him suspiciously but didn’t follow up on the remark. “Right. Well, I hope you’ve learned a lesson from the whole sorry affair.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Banks.

At this moment, Annie Cabbot rushed in and sat down, distracting 3 2 4 P E T E R