then they need never know. Her name hadn’t been mentioned in the media yet
Norma Waterson sang about how God loves a drunk, and Banks continued to follow the drift of his thoughts. He didn’t know if he even wanted to try to sleep or not. It had been so long, he feared that if he did drop off he might not hear the phone, which sat on the chair arm beside him, might never wake again. It seemed ages since he had woken up in Teresa’s bed at the Monaco in San Francisco. Surely it couldn’t be only two days ago? She would be back to her life in Boston now, and their encounter would start slipping slowly but surely from her memory, the way such things do without further contact. The flesh forgets.
When Banks finally became aware of the mobile playing the opening notes of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, Norma Waterson had long finished, and an early-morning mist was rising from the valley in wraiths around the church tower, like will-o’-the-wisps slithering up the opposite daleside. Above Crow Scar the indigo sky was tinted with the rosy hues of dawn.
He awoke with a start from a dream that scuttled away into the dark recesses of his mind like some light-shy insect, but left him feeling unsettled and edgy. Reaching for the phone, he almost knocked it off the arm to the floor, but he managed to hold on and flip the case. “Banks,” he mumbled.
“It’s Winsome. Sorry for waking you but there’s been developments. Madame Gervaise wants you to come in now. Shall I drive over and pick you up?”
“Please,” said Banks. “Tracy?”
“No, no, it’s not Tracy or Annie, but it is important. I can’t tell you any more right now. Information’s still coming in. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be ready.” Banks closed the mobile and ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. Twenty minutes just about gave him time for a quick shower and a shave, which might help make him feel more human. He’d brush his teeth, too; he could still taste the Laphroaig. As he moved toward the bathroom he wondered what Gervaise could be in such a tizzy about.
16
OVER TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES AWAY, AND NOT much more than an hour earlier, Commander Richard Burgess, Dirty Dick to his friends, was equally discombobulated when his phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning, and the officer commanding the stakeout team watching Justin Peverell’s house requested his urgent presence there. The cheap lager Burgess had been drinking earlier down the pub had turned his stomach sour, and it rose up in a loud and tasty belch when he stood up. He glanced back at the bed to make sure he’d been sleeping alone that night. He had been. Then he pulled on yesterday’s clothes, helped himself to three paracetamol, two Rennies and a large glass of water fizzing with Alka Seltzer, grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and headed out to the garage. If he had no time for coffee in a morning, he always found that Coke gave him the caffeine jolt he needed to get his brain into gear. These days, his body tended to lag a bit behind, but his work was rarely physically demanding. Getting up early was usually the hardest part of his day.
The traffic around the Canary Wharf wasn’t too bad in the predawn light, and he was heading northwest, driving through the fringes of Limehouse and Bethnal Green, then through Hoxton and Holloway in no time. His destination was just off Highgate Hill, past Junction Road, and all in all, it took him a little over half an hour.
The house they had commandeered for surveillance was on the opposite side of the street to Justin Peverell’s semi, a few houses down. Luxury surveillance was one of the perks of Burgess’s new position, which mostly involved counterterrorism and not shutting down a valuable people-trafficking network for the sake of an old friend’s daughter. Not for him a shitty old Subaru littered with McDonald’s wrappers and a plastic cup to piss in. That national security was at stake was all they had to say these days. That covered a multitude of sins and opened a multitude of doors, including this one. They had packed the occupiers off to a cheap hotel for the night, moved in and made themselves at home. According to DS Colin Linwood, the surveillance team leader, the owners couldn’t get away quick enough, visions in their minds of wild-eyed barbarians aiming portable missile shooters.
“So what’s so bloody important you have to wake me up before dawn?” Burgess demanded of Linwood as he stormed into the house.
“They’ve gone, boss,” Linwood said.
Burgess scratched his head. “Who’s gone? Where?”
“French and Brody, sir,” quipped DC Jones, who was now, in Burgess’s mind, about to remain a DC for an unusually long time.
“Ciaran and Darren, that is.”
“Hang on,” said Burgess. “Let me get this straight. I put you bozos on surveillance, and the first thing you tell me is that the men we’re waiting to see arrive have left? Am I even close?”
“They must have been already inside,” said Linwood. “There was no way we could have known.”
“Geez, I would never have thought of that.” Burgess flopped on the armchair and swigged some Coke.
“Fancy a coffee, sir?” said Jones. “They’ve got one of those fancy Bodum things and some of that nice fair-trade Colombian.”
“Might as well,” said Burgess, putting the Coke can down on a smooth polished table, where it made a sticky ring. “Black, two sugars. And strong.”
Jones disappeared into the kitchen. “So what time did you lot arrive?” Burgess asked Linwood. “Remind me.”
“Eleven fifty-four P.M.”
“And Ciaran and Darren left when?”
“Three thirty-six A.M.”
“That’s a bloody long time. You sure you couldn’t have missed them going in?”
“No way, boss. We’ve even got a man watching the back.” He smiled. “Not quite as comfortable as we are in here, but…”
“Someone’s got to get the short end of the stick.”
“Anyway, like I said, they must have been already in the house when we arrived.”
“Which means that their man in Yorkshire tipped them off as to where to find Peverell well before we did our little favor for our colleagues up north.”
“Well, boss,” said Linwood. “In all honesty, they’re pretty lucky we did it at all, given the circumstances.”
“So they were in there for over four hours?”
“Looks that way.”
“And you didn’t clock anyone else coming or going?”
“No way.”
Jones came back with the Bodum and cups on a silver tray. “We’ll just let it brew a few minutes, sir, huh?”
“Where did they go from here?” Burgess asked.
“Ferguson and Wilkes followed them to a hotel on the Old Compton Road. Mid-range. Nothing too ostentatious. Lot of tourists. Americans, mostly.”
“I don’t need the pedigree of the fucking hotel,” said Burgess. “I hope Fergie and Wilkes are sitting tight.”
“They are, boss. Nobody’s going anywhere without us knowing.” Jones poured the coffee and they all took grateful sips. “Well done, lad,” said Burgess. “Terrific coffee. We’ll make a detective of you yet. The way I see it is like this. Brody and French were in there an awfully long time. Either Peverell wasn’t in and they were waiting for him, or he was in and…”
“They worked him over, got what they wanted?”
“Something like that. Either way, soon as we’ve finished our coffee, we’d better get over there and suss out the situation.”
“It might be an ambulance job, boss,” said Linwood. “If they were in there that long. Maybe we should go in right away.”
“After DC Jones has taken the trouble to make us this wonderful coffee? Peverell is a scumbag who helps smuggle in underage girls forced into prostitution,” said Burgess, ever fond of the crude American slang he picked up from TV and movies. “Letting him bleed a few minutes longer won’t do anything but good for the human gene
