All the Colors of Darkness

almost as much as they love Coronation Street and East Enders.” Banks wondered what he would make of the recent inquiry and the accusa-tions f lying around about Prince Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and MI6.

There were also references to an afternoon’s antique hunting, a George I card table with an inlaid pattern that Silbert “would simply have adored,” and a delicious meal, including foie gras and sweet-breads, with “Gracie and Sevron” at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the West End, where they saw one of Tony Blair’s cabinet ministers dining with an out-of-favor colleague.

The letter, like the rest, had been sent to Silbert, as diplomatic post, at the British Embassy in Berlin. Banks wondered if it had been read by censors. Gossipy as it was, there was nothing seditious in it, nothing calculated to bring the wrath of HMG down on Westwood or Silbert, and the only overt political reference was to Egon Krenz’s recent conviction for a shoot-to-kill policy on the Berlin Wall. All in all, it was chatty, well informed, snobbish and affectionate The writer was, no doubt, aware that his words would probably be read by people other than the intended recipient, so if he had been Silbert’s lover at the time, he had shown remarkable restraint. When Annie had finA 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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ished reading it, Banks put the letter back in its envelope and returned it to the pile.

“Do you think these could have caused a row?” Annie asked, tapping the pile of letters.

“It’s possible,” Banks said. “But why now? I mean, they’ve probably been lying around since the late nineties, unless Silbert suddenly discovered them somewhere.”

“Maybe Hardcastle did a bit of prying on Thursday evening or Friday morning while Silbert was still away in Amsterdam?”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “But surely he’d had plenty of opportunities to pry before? Silbert traveled quite a bit. Why now?”

“Jealousy got the better of him?”

“Hmm,” said Banks. “Let’s go have a look down the hall.”

The room was clearly Hardcastle’s study, and it was much less tidy than Silbert’s. Most of what they found related to Hardcastle’s work at the theater and his interest in set and costume design. There were notes, sketches, books and working scripts marked up with different-colored inks. On his laptop was a computer program for generating various screenplay formats, along with the beginnings of one or two stories. It appeared as if Hardcastle himself had also been interested in writing a movie script, a ghost story set in Victorian England, judging by the first page.

In the top drawer of the desk, on the latest copy of Sight & Sound, lay a memory stick of the type most commonly used in a digital camera.

“That’s odd,” Annie said, when Banks pointed it out to her.

“Why?”

“Hardcastle has a digital camera. It’s over here on the bottom book-shelf.” She picked up the small silver object and carried it over to Banks.

“So?” said Banks.

“Don’t be such a Luddite,” Annie said. “Can’t you see?”

“Yes, I can see. Digital camera, memory card. I still say, ‘So what?’

And I’m not a bloody Luddite. I’ve got a digital camera of my own. I know what memory cards are for.”

Annie sighed. “This is a Canon camera,” she said, as if explaining 8 6 P E T E R

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to a five-year-old. Though a five-year-old, Banks thought, would probably have known what she was talking about already. “It takes a compact f lash card.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” said Banks. “This thing here isn’t a compact f lash card.”

“Bingo. It’s a memory stick.”

“Won’t it fit in that camera?”

“No. It’s for Sony digital cameras.”

“Isn’t there an adaptor?”

“No. Not for the camera. I mean, technically I suppose someone could probably do it, but you just wouldn’t. You’d buy the right kind of memory. You can get card readers, and a lot of computers will accept different kinds of cards—Hardcastle’s laptop there does, by the way—but you can’t put a Sony memory stick in a Canon Sure Shot camera.”

“Maybe it was just meant for the computer, not the camera? You said most computers have card readers.”

“Possibly,” Annie said. “But I still think that’s unlikely. Mostly people buy those cheaper USB smart drives when they want portable computer memory. These little thingies are made for cameras.”

“So the question is, what’s it doing here?”

“Exactly,” said Annie. “And where did it come from? Silbert didn’t have a Sony, either. He’s just got an old Olympic. I saw it in his study.”

“Interesting,” said Banks, eyeing the small, wafer-thin stick.

“Should we check it out?”

“Fingerprints?”