vantage point above Starbotton. The only bad moments had come on Saturday night, when she had had another nightmare about the end of her last case. Fragmented images and emotions of blood and fear made her heart beat fast, and f loods of pity and pain surged through her. She had awoken crying, drenched in sweat, at about half past two and been unable to get back to sleep. After making a cup of tea, finding some quiet music on the radio and reading her Christina Jones novel for an hour or so, she had felt better and finally drifted off just as the sun was coming up.
Most of her working time had been taken up with the East Side Estate business, especially as it seemed that Superintendent Gervaise had kicked the Silbert-Hardcastle case into touch. Annie had spoken 1 4 2 P E T E R
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brief ly with Donny Moore at the hospital on Friday. His injuries weren’t life-threatening, but he claimed to remember nothing of what happened the night he was stabbed, except that he was just innocently walking along the street when a big bloke in a hoodie came at him.
Benjamin Paxton, the man who had reported finding Moore, had also mentioned a largish bloke heading away, so it was definitely worth following up. Winsome and Doug Wilson had tracked down most of the gang members they suspected had been present and, as expected, discovered nothing. None of them was particularly large, being just kids, but Winsome had nonetheless noted that one or two of them merited a follow-up visit, and Annie intended to be in on that over the week.
Annie had also gone for a radical haircut on Saturday, swapping her tumbling masses of auburn waves for the short layered style. She had been shocked to find a few traces of gray, but her hairdresser had applied the right chemicals and, voila, all was well. She wasn’t sure whether she liked it yet, worried that it perhaps made her appear older, emphasized the crow’s-feet around her eyes, but she also thought it made her seem more professional and businesslike, which couldn’t be a bad thing for a detective inspector. She would have to get rid of the jeans and red boots, though, she decided, as they undermined her general air of competent authority. But she liked them. One thing at a time, perhaps.
Anyway, there was no way she was having a pint with Banks, she thought, walking into the dim interior. Whatever he drank, she would have a Britvic Orange. As expected, Banks was in the little window-less room, which had become a sort of home away from home, a copy of
He folded up the newspaper when he saw her. “Are you alone?” he asked, glancing toward the doorway behind her.
“Of course I am,” she said. “Why? Who else are you expecting?”
“You weren’t followed?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Drink?”
Annie sat down. “Britvic Orange please.”
“Sure?”
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“Certain.”
Banks went to the bar. She got the feeling he went to check out who was in there as much as to buy her a drink. While he was gone, Annie studied the hunting prints on the wall. They weren’t bad, if you liked that sort of thing, she thought. At least the horses were quite realistically portrayed, their legs in the right positions, which was a difficult thing to achieve. Usually horses in paintings looked as if they were f loating an inch or two above the ground and their legs were about to fall off. She was quite proud of her Langstrothdale landscape, even though there were no horses in it. It was the best thing she’d painted in ages.
Banks came back with her drink and settled down opposite her.
“What’s all this about, me being alone, not being followed?” Annie asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Banks replied. “Just that you can’t be too careful these days.”
“The walls have ears and all that?”
“I always preferred the poster I saw in a book once, the one with the sexy blond and the two servicemen leering over her.”
“Oh?”
“The caption reads, ‘Keep mum, she’s not so dumb.’ ”
“Sexist pig.”
“Not at all. I like blondes.”
“So why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff ?”
“Well, Laurence Silbert worked for the Secret Intelligence Service, which is more commonly known as MI6, so it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“You’re getting in character? You’re playing a game? Alan, I hate to tell you this, but it’s over. Superintendent Gervaise said so the other day. You’re on leave, remember? Whatever Laurence Silbert did or didn’t do for a living, or for his country, it had nothing to do with his death. Mark Hardcastle killed him and then hanged himself. End of story.”
“That may be the official version,” said Banks. “I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”
Annie could hear the drone of voices from the bar. The barmaid 1 4 4
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laughed at one of her customer’s jokes. “All right,” she said. “Humor me. Tell me what you do think.”
Banks sat back in his chair. “Have you ever read
