“It’s hard to know where to begin,” said Banks, still trying to digest what he had just heard about Tracy. He had failed her. He should have paid more attention to her when she needed it, spent more time with her, instead of getting bogged down in his own personal and professional problems and feeling sorry for himself. “I’m not sure myself, yet,” he went on. “I just arrived back from my holidays this morning, and I’m still jet-lagged. You’ll have to help me a bit.”
“Where did you go?”
“America. Arizona, Nevada and California, mostly.”
“L.A.? San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“Wicked. I’ve always wanted to go there.”
Banks smiled. “Me, too. And it really is ‘wicked.’” Erin paused a moment, then began, “My father-”
“You don’t have to talk about him,” said Banks quickly. “That’s not my case. I mean, I’m not saying that I’m not interested, or I don’t care, but because armed police officers were involved, we have to have a special investigation, and I’m not allowed to interfere. Do you understand?”
“I understand. That makes sense.”
“But you shouldn’t blame yourself. Nobody could have foreseen that combination of circumstances.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been trying to convince myself. It’s just that whenever I think about it I can’t help but feel that upsurge of guilt. It just floods through me like a dam’s burst, and I don’t have the strength to hold it back.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” said Banks. “My psychologist friend always told me it wasn’t a good idea to hold things back.”
“But you have to sometimes, don’t you? Anger? Hatred? Disapproval? Otherwise we’d all be at each other’s throats half the time.”
“What about love?” said Banks. “Should we hold that back too?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “It might not be a bad thing. In some circumstances. When you think about it, love probably causes more trouble than hate.”
She sounded far too wise for one so young, thought Banks, who had been patiently waiting for years now for the wisdom that was supposed to come with age; to no avail, it seemed. “Anyway,” he said, “no matter how bad things seem now, your mother’s going to need you before long. Do you think you can cope?”
“Dunno,” said Erin, waving away a troublesome wasp. “Not much I can do from jail, is there?”
“Why did you take the gun, Erin? I trust you did take it from your boyfriend Jaffar McCready, and that you hadn’t already got it from somewhere else?”
“Jaff,” Erin said. “He goes by Jaff. I was pissed off at him. I knew he had it-he’d shown it off to me once-and I thought if I took it he’d be angry. You know, like it was his favorite toy or something. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him notice me, want me back.”
Now, Banks thought, she didn’t sound so wise. “But it’s not a toy. Not like an iPod or a mobile or something. Didn’t you think he might be so angry he wouldn’t want anything to do with you again? Or that maybe he’d hurt you?”
“No. I don’t suppose I was thinking all that clearly. I just took it and went back to the house and picked up some clothes and went home. I was going to give it back to him.”
“Okay,” said Banks. “Do you know why he had it in the first place?”
“Not really. Just for show, I think. I don’t think he’d ever actually used it or anything. He just liked to play at being a tough guy, that’s all. I mean, he did hang around with some pretty shifty characters, and I don’t know how he had made so much money, but I don’t think it was from working nine to five.”
“Did you meet any of these shifty characters?”
“Sometimes.”
Banks took copies of Rose’s sketches of Ciaran and Darren from his briefcase. “Did you ever see either of these two, for example?”
“They came to the flat once. Jaff told me to stay in the bedroom but the door was open a crack. I saw them and heard them. They were arguing.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Couple of months. Something like that.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“I don’t know. Money. Some delivery or other. I think maybe Jaff did a bit of dealing. Nothing serious, but he knew everyone on the scene.”
“The club scene?”
“Yeah. And the student scene.”
“Is that how you met?”
“No. It was after uni. I was working at one of those posh restaurants in The Calls, and he used to eat there regularly.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes.”
“Ever with the two in the drawings?”
“No. If he did have company it was usually some expensive suit, not thugs like that.” She smiled. “I’m not sure they’d even get past the door, the place I worked.”
“Business?”
“It seemed that way. And he did come in by himself sometimes. He didn’t like to cook, or even to eat at home by himself. We got to chatting. You know. One thing led to another. He seemed fun. Smart, cocky, ambitious. We’d go to clubs sometimes after the restaurant closed. Like I said, everybody knew him. Mr. Big around there. Mr. Flash. Always carried a thick roll of twenties. It felt good to be seen out with him. Never boring. But it was hard to keep up with him sometimes. He always seemed to have something else going on, you know, somewhere else to be, or someone else to be with.” She shrugged. “Now I know who it was.”
“Tracy?” Banks said.
“Yes. Or someone else. I doubt that she was the first. Sometimes he was gone for days without explanation. Not that he owed me one. Oh, don’t think I blame Tracy. I was mad, yes, who wouldn’t be? She kissed him. She stole my boyfriend. It’s not as if she’s such an angel, anyway. It’s not as if she hasn’t been SUI more than once.”
“SUI?”
Erin glanced at him sideways. “Shagged Under the Influence. Does that shock you?”
It didn’t so much shock Banks as hurt him. To think something like that about his own daughter, to imagine the things that had happened to her when she was too far gone to be in control made him feel sorry for her, protective. Erin was basically talking about date rape. His own daughter. It made him angry. Why the hell couldn’t she have come to him with her problems? Was he that distant and uncaring?
“Do you mean drugged and raped?” he asked.
“Not the way you imagine it. I mean, I’m not saying you’re always up for it when you’re so off your face, but it’s no big deal. It’s just a shag. SUI. Anyway,” Erin went on, picking at a hangnail, “like I said, if it hadn’t been Tracy, it would have been someone else. I know that. Jaff was just…”
“But it’s Tracy he’s got with him now,” Banks said. “What do you mean?”
“It hasn’t hit the front pages yet, but he’s on the run. Armed. And Tracy’s with him. We think he shot a policewoman. Annie Cabbot. Maybe you know her?”
“I remember her, yes. You were close at one time, after Mrs. Banks left, weren’t you? But Jaff…? I can’t believe it.”
“We need to find them. Annie could die, and Tracy’s in danger.”
“But Jaff wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Have you ever seen him be violent?”
“Well, no. I mean, yes, but only…you know, someone who tried to rip him off, or put him down because of his color, call him a Paki or something. He really hated that.”
“So he can be violent?”
“He has a quick temper. But he never hurt me. I can’t imagine him harming a woman. Not Tracy.”
