“Just tired.”
“Okay. What are your thoughts?”
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“Something obviously put the wind up him,” said Banks. “Maybe Mr. Browne got the thumbscrews out.”
“There’s no call for f lippancy. It was expressly to avoid something like this happening that I told you to lay off over a week ago.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” said Banks, “that wasn’t the reason.
You told me to lay off because MI6 told the chief constable, and he passed the message on to you. Your hands were tied. But I’d hazard a guess that you knew damn well that the best way to get me asking questions on my own time was to tell me to lay off. Just like MI6 did eventually, you let me do the dirty work for you while keeping me at arm’s length. The only thing you didn’t expect was for Wyman to do a runner.”
Gervaise said nothing for a moment, then she allowed a brief smile to f licker across her features. “Think you’re clever, don’t you?” she said.
“Well, isn’t it true?”
“You may think that, but I can’t possibly comment.” She waved her hand. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. For better or worse, we’re here.
The point is what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to find Derek Wyman first,” said Banks, “and then we’ll work on calming everyone down. I know it sounds impossible, but I think we should just sit down and thrash it out with MI6, or whoever we can get to talk to us and settle the matter one way or another. It doesn’t matter whether Wyman upset the applecart because of his brother or because he was angry with Hardcastle. He still hasn’t broken any laws, and it’s about time everyone knew that.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“I don’t know why it shouldn’t be. Get the chief constable to invite his pals to the table. He’s in with them, isn’t he?”
Gervaise ignored his barb. “I don’t think they’re concerned right now about
“but about how much and
“I don’t think he knows anything,” said Banks.
“You’ve changed your tune.”
“Not particularly. I wondered before, speculated, perhaps, but I’ve A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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had a chance to think it through. I’ve got a contact who does know about these things, and he told me that Silbert had nothing to do with Afghanistan except for some joint mission with the CIA in 1985, and that his recent work involved the activities of the Russian Mafia.”
“You believe him?”
“About as much as I believe anyone in this business. I’ve known him for years. He’s got no reason to lie. He would have simply told me he didn’t know or couldn’t find out.” Or, knowing Burgess, to fuck off, Banks thought.
“Unless someone fed him misinformation.”
“Who’s paranoid now?”
Gervaise smiled. “Touche.”
“What I’m saying,” Banks went on, “is that we might never know for certain, just the way Edwina Silbert doesn’t know for certain that MI6 killed her husband. But she thinks they might have. They might also have had a hand in Laurence Silbert’s murder. Maybe he was a double agent and that’s why they wanted rid of him? We’ll probably never know. Despite all the scientific evidence, I still don’t think it’s beyond the realm of reason that someone in their dirty-tricks brigade got in the house and killed him. You saw as well as I did how useless those local CCTV cameras were when it came to covering the area we were interested in. But if that is the case, there’s no evidence and there never will be. I’m sick of the whole damn business. The point now is to stop all this before it gets worse. If Wyman hasn’t found shelter, a change of clothes, food and water, do you realize that the poor bastard could die of exposure out there? It’s got cold as well as wet. And for what? Because a couple of jumped-up Boy Scouts in suits have ransacked his home and scared the shit out of him the way they did with Tomasina Savage?”
“But what if Wyman’s working for the other side?” Gervaise asked.
“The Russian Mafia? Oh, come off it,” said Banks. “What use would a puny school teacher like Derek Wyman be to a bunch of neckless ex-KGB agents? And why would he hire a private detective if he was in with them? They’d have their own surveillance people to follow Silbert. Besides, if they were involved, they would have broken 3 4 2 P E T E R
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Silbert’s neck or pushed him in front of a car. Shot him, even. They don’t care. I will admit that what happened smacks of British secret service silliness, or the Americans, with their exploding cigars for Castro—it’s all a bit Pythonesque—but the Russian Mafia . . . ? I don’t think so.”
“When did you become an expert all of a sudden?”
“I’m not an expert,” said Banks, straining to rise above the pounding in his head. “I don’t pretend to be. It’s just
