All the Colors of Darkness

Banks. He seemed on the verge of saying something about the relationship, but first Banks asked, “How long were you in contact with Silbert?”

Victor gave Banks the kind of look that indicated he might have headed trouble off at the pass for the moment, but there’d be another pass and another opportunity later, and next time he might not be so lucky. “Oh, it wasn’t real contact,” he said. “As I told you earlier, I had nothing to do with that sort of thing. Then the Wall came down and things changed. We moved to Berlin, for a start. Ninety-one, I think that was. Of course that was never quite the real end of things, as some people think, more the symbolic one, which was the face presented to the world.”

“But did you know anything about what Silbert did, what operations he was involved in?”

“No, nothing like that. As I said, I only knew him by reputation, really.”

Sophia came back with two of the drinks. Banks apologized for not going to help her with the rest, but she said she was fine and went back 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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to the bar for the other two. They had all finished their meals by now, and Sophia and her mother were studying the list of sweets.

“Now then, Helena, dear,” said Victor, “would you be so kind as to pass me the dessert list. I rather fancy something hot and sticky with lashings of custard.”

Banks could read an “end of discussion” signal as well as the next man, and he turned to Sophia, asking her if had she enjoyed her meal and was she going to have a sweet. Then Helena joined in, and the conversation moved on to her and Victor’s travel plans for the winter, which included a three-month visit to Australia. Soon it was well into the afternoon and the lunchtime crowd was thinning out. Time to go.

Sophia had to drive back to London that evening for a full day of work the next day, and Helena and Victor were staying in the Eastvale f lat.

Banks had no plans other than to stay in and perhaps see about stain-ing the top edge of the bookcase.

Victor said he would drop them off at their car in Reeth village green. As they picked up their bags and walking sticks, Banks couldn’t get Victor’s story out of his mind. It was a bygone age, or so it seemed to him, the world he knew about only from reading Le Carre and Deighton. But Laurence Silbert had lived it. James Bond. 007. He wished Victor had known more details. Banks remembered the mysterious Mr. Browne telling him that there were now as many Russian spies in the U.K. as there were during the height of the Cold War, and he wondered whom they were spying on, what they wanted to know.

Of course, the Americans were still here; there were early warning systems and satellite spy stations at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill and countless other places. No doubt there were still places like Porton Down, conducting their scientific experiments into germ and chemical warfare. Could Laurence Silbert’s, and by extension Mark Hardcastle’s, death be in any way connected with that clandestine world?

And if so, how on earth could Banks find out about it? It seemed he not only had the secret intelligence services against him in this, but also his own organization. He was convinced that Superintendent Gervaise had been got at.

Before they left through the back door to cross the little beck over to the car park, Banks glanced at the man at the bar reading a Mail on 1 4 0

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

Sunday and sipping a half-pint of ale. The man looked up as they passed and gave them a vague smile. Banks went to The Bridge fairly often and knew most of the regulars, but he hadn’t seen this man before.

Still, that didn’t mean much. He didn’t know everyone, and lots of tourists dropped in on Sundays, but not usually alone, and not wearing a suit. There was just something about him. He certainly wasn’t dressed for walking, and he wasn’t one of the local farmers. Banks put it out of his mind as Victor drove them the half mile or so to Reeth, back to the car, and he and Sophia said good-bye to her parents.

“Well,” said Sophia, as she settled into the Porsche. “Even a simple family lunch becomes quite an adventure with you.”

“Anything to stop him getting on to the age difference and my job prospects.”

“I was doing my A levels.”

“What?”

“The period Dad was talking about. I was at an English school in Bonn doing my A levels. Sometimes we used to go to Berlin and I’d hang out in underground bars dressed in black, with transvestites and coke dealers listening to David Bowie and New Order clones.”

“What a checkered life you’ve led.”

She gave him an enigmatic smile. “If only you knew the half of it.”

They took the back roads home, winding south over the moors back to Gratly, Cherry Ghost singing “Thirst for Love” on the iPod.

It was an unfenced road crossing high moorland of gorse and heather, beautiful and wild, where the sheep roamed freely. Only the occasional burned patch of ground and warning signs to watch out for red f lags and slow- moving tanks reminded Banks that the landscape they were driving across was part of a vast military training range.

8

ANNIE CABBOT WONDERED WHAT BANKS WANTED

with her as she slipped out of the squad room at four o’clock on Monday afternoon and headed for The Horse and Hounds, which had become the secret getaway for anyone who wanted to avoid Superintendent Gervaise and enjoy a contemplative pint during the day. It was almost knocking-off time, anyway, barring any unusual occurrences in the next hour or so.

She was in good spirits, as she had enjoyed a teetotal weekend, got all her washing done, meditated, worked out at the fitness center and spent a few pleasant hours in the open air painting a Langstrothdale landscape from a