All the Colors of Darkness

The waitress scurried away and Banks sipped some more wine and began to eat his pizza. So Wyman had given Hardcastle the photos at the restaurant, and he had reacted by tearing them up. Which was why they hadn’t been found at Castleview Heights. Hardcastle had taken the memory stick, though. Wyman must have asked for two separate bills. No doubt he didn’t want to seem so friendly that he had bought dinner for Mark Hardcastle, even at Zizzi’s. So it was all a tissue of lies. Banks very much doubted that Hardcastle had rejoined Wyman to go to the National Film Theatre after seeing the photographs. More likely, he went off in a state and got drunk, slept at the Bloomsbury f lat, where he had probably polished off the whiskey, then drove home the next day to brood and drink until Silbert came back from Amsterdam.

Banks thought further on his conversation with Annie and realized that she could very well be right in that Hardcastle, not Silbert, had been the intended victim, and that left the whole espionage business on the sideline. He also realized that he had wanted to be right, wanted 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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it to be something to do with gray men doing dark deeds in the shadows, with or without government approval. He had probably watched and read far too many fictional espionage tales—from The Sandbaggers and Spooks on television to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Ipcress File between the covers of a book. Not to mention James Bond.

No doubt the reality wasn’t like that at all.

On the other hand, one heard rumors. Assassinations had certainly been carried out, elected governments undermined, not only by the CIA in South America, and rival spies or double agents had been murdered in the street. You couldn’t forget Philby, or Burgess and Maclean, if you had grown up when Banks had. The Profumo Affair, too, had its own very definite whiff of the Cold War in the form of Ivanov, the naval attache at the Soviet Embassy, despite the pleasurable distractions of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis. More recently, there were the Bulgarian killed by the poisoned umbrella and Litvinenko poisoned with a radioactive isotope that left a trail halfway across London.

No, it was a shady and much misunderstood world, but it existed, all right, and Banks had apparently become fixed on its radar. The real problem was that, while they could always find you when they wanted to, you could never find them. He could hardly go knocking at the door of Thames House or Vauxhall Cross and ask for Mr. Browne.

There was one person he could talk to, though. Detective Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess had been working with some elite counterterrorism liaison squad for a while now. Even their acro-nym was so secret that if you heard it you had to die, he had joked.

Burgess was a cunning old bastard, but he and Banks went back a long time, and there was a chance he might know some of the people involved, let slip a morsel or two. Phoning him was an option, at any rate.

As Banks finished his wine and decided to leave the last slice of pizza, he was convinced that the young couple who had just passed by again on the opposite side of the street had not had to walk up and down Charlotte Street six times in the past hour, as they had done, simply to find an outside table at a restaurant. Who was it who said that paranoia simply means being in possession of all the facts? Banks gestured to the waitress and reached for his wallet.

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“ D R I N K , D I Cabbot?” said Superintendent Gervaise as she plunked her pint down on Annie’s table.

Annie glanced at her watch. Just after six.

“You’re officially off duty, aren’t you? Besides, a senior officer is asking you to have a drink with her.”

“Okay. Thank you, ma’am,” said Annie. “I’ll have a pint of Black Sheep, please.”

“Good choice. And there’s no need to call me ma’am. We’re just a couple of colleagues having a drink after work.”

Somehow, that sounded more ominous to Annie than Gervaise had probably intended, though she wasn’t sure about that. She still hadn’t quite got a grasp on the superintendent yet. Gervaise was tricky. You had to be careful. One minute she could come on like your best friend, and the next she was all business again, the boss. Then just when you started to think she was a careerist, straight from university and training school to a desk upstairs, she would surprise you with a story from her past, or take a course of action that could only be described as reckless. Annie decided it was best to remain as passive as possible and let Gervaise lead the way. You never quite knew where you were with her. The woman was unpredictable, which was an ad-mirable quality in some, but not in a superintendent, and sometimes when you went away from a meeting with her, you weren’t quite sure what had transpired or what you had agreed to do.

Gervaise came back with the Black Sheep and sat opposite Annie.

After raising her glass for a toast, she looked around the small room, its dark varnished paneling glowing in the soft light, and said, “Nice here, isn’t it? I always think the Queen’s Arms is just a little too noisy and busy at times, don’t you? I can’t say I blame you for coming here instead.”

“Yes, m— Yes,” said Annie, just remembering herself in time. Two colleagues having a drink after work. So the game was up. Gervaise knew about the Horse and Hounds. Pity. Annie liked the place, and the beer was good. Even the Britvic Orange was good.

“Was that DCI Banks you were talking to just now?”

“I . . . er . . . yes,” said Annie.

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“Having a nice holiday, is he?”