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Gervaise’s attention from Banks. “Ah, DI Cabbot,” she said. “So good of you to join us.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Annie. “I was out on a call.”
“What kind of call?”
“Missing person,” she said, glancing toward Banks. “Derek Wyman’s disappeared.”
“Why would he do that?” Gervaise asked. “I thought you said he was off the hook. You let him go.”
“He is,” said Banks. “And we did.” He turned to Annie. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon. He left the theater after the matinee and didn’t turn up for the evening performance. And there’s another thing.”
“Yes?” said Gervaise.
“You’re not going to like this, ma’am.”
“I don’t like anything I’ve heard so far. Better tell me, anyway.”
“Two people went over to Wyman’s house yesterday afternoon. A man and a woman. They scared the sh— the living daylights out of his wife, took a few photographs and papers and went away. Said they were from the government.”
“Yes. I told you you weren’t going to like it, ma’am.”
“Reminding me of what you told me doesn’t help your cause in the least, DI Cabbot,” snarled Gervaise.
“Could he have got back from the matinee in time to see these people enter his house, or come out of it?” Banks asked Annie. “Do you think they picked him up and spirited him away?”
“It’s possible,” Annie said. “The timing’s close enough.”
“But DCI Banks just assured me this mess was over and done with,”
said Gervaise.
“Well, it was,” said Annie. “It might still be. I mean, maybe he’s just . . . I don’t know . . . another woman? Or he’s done a runner?
These things happen. Just because he’s missing, it doesn’t have to mean that MI6 carted him off to one of their secret interrogation camps.”
“There are no such places,” said Gervaise.
A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
3 2 5
“Very well, then. One of their secret
“Very clever. Don’t let your imagination run away with you, DI Cabbot,” snarled Gervaise.
“Have these government people had access to any of our case files?”
Banks asked Gervaise.
“Not through me,” she answered. “Or through anybody else in this office, I shouldn’t imagine.”
“Has the chief constable been around much lately?”
Gervaise paused. “A bit more often than he usually is. What are you trying to suggest, DCI Banks? Is this connected with that innuendo you made earlier?”
“I think you know, ma’am. You might not like to admit it, but you know. They took an interest in this from the start, at least as soon as they realized I wasn’t going to stop investigating. They’ve been following me around. Annie, too, perhaps. They probably know what we know. Given that we didn’t tell them, I’m wondering how they found out. It’s my bet they went straight to the top. The chief constable’s ambitious, and he has political aspirations.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” said Gervaise. “And you’re not also suggesting that the government is responsible for Wyman’s disappearance are you? I mean, this isn’t some little tin-pot South American dictatorship.”
“You don’t have to look that far south when it comes to citizens disappearing,” said Banks. “But I don’t know. I’m just calling the facts to your attention, that’s all.”
“But why on earth would they be interested in a bloody schoolteacher cum amateur theater director?”
Banks scratched his scar. “Because he hired a private detective to take photographs of Silbert meeting a man on a bench in Regent’s Park,” Banks said. “And because we’re interested in him. It seems logical to assume that this wasn’t anything to do with an affair of the heart, but that those activities were part of Silbert’s postretirement covert work. There’s also the brother.”
“Brother?”
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“Wyman’s brother, Rick. He was SAS. He was killed on a secret mission in Afghanistan in 2002. The press covered it up. Called it an accident during maneuvers. Silbert has visited Afghanistan. There’s a chance that he might have been involved on the intelligence side, and Wyman might have found out about it through Hardcastle, blamed him for Rick’s death.”
“Oh, this just gets better and better.” Gervaise glared at Banks, breathed out heavily, ran her hand over
