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Banks gave her a peck on the cheek. She smelled of jasmine. “Thank you for inviting me,” he said. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
She turned up her nose. “We were terrible. But thanks anyway. And it’s nice to see you, stranger.”
“Sorry I couldn’t stick around after The Pearl Fishers,” Banks said.
“That’s okay. I was knackered anyway. Long day. What did you think?”
“Wonderful.”
She gri
Banks gestured around the church. “I’m surprised you have time for this.”
“St. Peter’s? Oh, if the schedules work out all right, I can do it. I need all the practice I can get. I’ve been recording the Walton Viola Concerto, too, with the orchestra. For Naxos. Finally the viola’s getting some of the respect it deserves.”
“You were the soloist?”
She slapped his arm. “No. Not me, you idiot. I’m not that good. The soloist was Lars Anders Tomter. He’s very good.”
“I’m really glad it’s all working out for you, anyway.”
Pamela smiled and made a mock curtsy. “Thank you, kind sir. So, where now?”
Banks looked at his watch. “I know it’s a bit early, but how about di
“Fine with me. I’m starving.”
“Curry?”
Pamela laughed. “Just because I’m Bangladeshi, it doesn’t mean I eat nothing but curry, you know.”
Banks held his hands out. “Whatever, then. Brasserie Forty-four?”
“No, not there,” Pamela said. “It’s far too expensive. There’s a new pizza place up Headingley, just off North Lane. I’ve heard it’s pretty good.”
“Pizza it is, then. I’m parked just over in The Calls.”
“You can have curry if you really want.”
Banks shook his head, and they walked through the dimly lit cobbled backstreets to the car. They were in the oldest part of Leeds, and the most recent to be redeveloped. Most of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century warehouses by the River Aire had been derelict for years, until the civic-pride restoration schemes of the eighties. Now that Leeds was a boom town, they were tourist attractions, full of trendy new restaurants, usually located on something called a “wharf,” the kind of word nobody there would have used twenty years ago. Canary Wharf had a lot more to answer for than vanished fortunes, Banks thought.
“It’s not that I think you eat curry all the time because you’re Asian,” he said. “It’s just that there isn’t a decent curry place in Eastvale. Well, there is one, but I think I might be persona non grata there at the moment. Anyway, pizza sounds great.”
“What did you get?” Pamela asked as she got into the Cavalier and picked up the HMV package from the passenger seat. “Have a look,” said Banks, as he set off and negotiated the one-way streets of the city center.
“The Beatles Anthology? I never would have taken you for a Beatles fan.”
Banks smiled. “It’s pure nostalgia. I used to listen to Brian Matthew do ‘Saturday Club’ when I was a kid. If I remember rightly, it came on right after Uncle Mac’s ‘Children’s Favourites,’ and by the age of thirteen I’d got sick to death of ‘Sparky and the Magic Piano,’ ‘Little Green Man’ and ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain.’”
Pamela laughed. “Before my time. Besides, my mum and dad wouldn’t let me listen to pop music.”
“Didn’t you rebel?”
“I did manage to sneak a little John Peel under the bed-clothes once in a while.”
“I hope you’re speaking metaphorically.” Banks drove past St. Michael’s Church and the Original Oak, just opposite. The streetlights were on, and there were plenty of people about, students for the most part. A little farther on, he came to the junction with North Lane, an enclave of cafés, pubs and bookshops.
“Here,” said Pamela, pointing. Banks managed to find a parking spot, and they walked around the corner into the restaurant. The familiar pizza smells of olive oil, tomato sauce, oregano and fresh-baked dough greeted them. The restaurant was lively and noisy, but they only had to wait at the bar for a couple of minutes before they got a tiny table for two in the back. It wasn’t a great spot, too close to the toilets and waiters’ route to and from the kitchen, but at least it was in the smoking section. After a while, sipping the one glass of red wine he was allowing himself that evening, and smoking one of the duty-free Silk Cuts he’d picked up at Schiphol, Banks hardly noticed the bustle or the volume level anymore.
“So, have you got a boyfriend yet?” he asked when they were settled.
Pamela frowned. “Too busy,” she said. “Besides, I’m not sure I trust myself to get involved again. Not just yet. How’s your wife? Sandra, isn’t it?”
“Yes. She’s fine.”
After a while of small talk, their pizzas came – Banks’s margherita and Pamela’s fungi.
“How’s life at the cop shop?” Pamela asked between mouthfuls.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Banks. “I’ve been suspended from duty.”
He hadn’t intended to tell her, certainly not with such abruptness, but it had come out before he could stop it. He couldn’t seem to hold back everything. In a way, he was glad he’d said it because he had to confide in someone. Her eyes opened wide. As soon as she had swallowed her food, she said, “What? Good Lord, why?”
As best he could, he told her about the Jason Fox case, and about thumping Jimmy Riddle.
“Aren’t you still angry?” she asked when he’d finished.
Banks sipped some wine and watched Pamela wipe a little pizza sauce from her chin. The people at the next table left. The waiter picked up the money and began to clean up after them. “Not really angry,” Banks said. “A bit, perhaps, but not a lot. Not anymore.”
“What, then?”
“Disappointed.”
“With what?”
“Myself mostly. For being too stupid not to see it coming. And for thumping Riddle.”
“I can’t say I blame you, from what you’ve told me.”
“Oh, Riddle’s an arsehole, no doubt about it. He even suggested that I took you to Amsterdam with me.”
“Me? But why?”
“He thinks you’re my mistress.”
Pamela almost choked on a mouthful of pizza. Banks didn’t feel particularly flattered. Afterward, he couldn’t tell if she was blushing or just red in the face from coughing. “Come again,” she managed finally, patting her chest.
“It’s true. He thinks I’ve got a mistress in Leeds and that’s why I keep making up excuses to come here.”
“But how could he know? I mean…?”
“I know what you mean. Don’t ask me.” Banks smiled, felt his heart skip, but went on anyway, aiming for a light tone. “It didn’t seem like such a bad idea.”
Pamela looked down. He could see he’d embarrassed her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was supposed to be a compliment.”
“I know what it was supposed to be,” Pamela said. Then she smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.”
Please do, he almost said, but managed to stop himself in time. He wondered if she would take him home with her if he told her that he and Sandra had split up. They ate some more pizza in silence, then Pamela shook her head slowly and said, “It just sounds so unfair.”
“Fairness has nothing to do with it.” Banks pushed his plate aside and lit a cigarette. “Oh, sorry,” he said, looking at the small slice left on Pamela’s plate.
“That’s all right. I’m full.” She pushed hers aside, too.
“This Neville Motcombe you mentioned, isn’t he the bloke who was interviewed in the Yorkshire Post this weekend? Something to do with neo-Nazis disrupting a funeral?”
“That’s the one.”
“Didn’t someone die there?”
“Yes,” said Banks. “Frank Hepplethwaite. I knew him slightly.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We weren’t close friends or anything. It’s just that I liked him, and I think, of anyone, he’s the real victim in this whole mess. Tell me something: Have you ever come across Motcombe in any other context?”