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“How are you doing?” she asked, laying her hand on his bare forearm, near the spot where the needle rested.
“Can’t complain,” Banks said. “If I did, no one would listen.”
“Are they treating you well?”
“Fair to middling. Mostly I’m bored. Did you-”
A
“Good,” said Banks, slipping it in the drawer. “I’m not sure I could stomach that stuff again.”
“What has the doctor said?”
“I should heal up okay,” Banks said. “But there might be some scarring. We’ll have to wait and see. At least the headache’s gone. Worst I ever had.”
“Pain?”
“Pretty bad, but they keep me dosed up. Ever burned your finger?”
A
“Well, multiply the pain by a few thousand and you’ll have some idea. Thing is, with second-degree burns the nerve endings stay intact. That’s why it hurts. I didn’t know that. The hair follicles and sweat glands, too. It’s only the upper layers of skin that are burned. You know what the worst thing is, though?”
“What?”
“The memory loss. I can’t remember a bloody thing, from the moment I answered the door to the moment I woke up here. Except for the taste of the whiskey. The doctor says it might come back or it might not. Which is a pretty bloody useless thing to say, if you ask me.”
“Tracy’s been by a couple of times,” A
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Banks. “I’ll be home in a day or so.”
Christ, thought A
Banks looked at her as if she was confirming what he already suspected, and nodded. “Well, I’ll be out of here, at any rate,” he said.
A
Banks opened it and inside found a new personal CD player and a copy of Mozart’s Don Giova
“We didn’t know what you’d want,” A
“It’s fine,” said Banks. “Thank everyone for me.”
“You can do it yourself soon.”
Banks turned the CD player over in his hands for a few moments and looked away, as if the emotion were too much. “Have you caught him yet?” he asked.
“No,” said A
“Tell me what you’ve found out.”
A
“So he’s clean?”
“Not quite,” said A
“And?”
“And at your cottage.”
“So he used his own car to visit Gardiner, too?”
“Had to,” A
Banks said nothing for a moment. “Anything else?” he asked finally.
“His prints match a partial the SOCOs found on the rented Jeep Cherokee, which confirms what we already suspected.”
“That the killer was using Masefield’s identity?”
“Yes. The accountants digging into Masefield’s investments have discovered that he was dealing with someone called Ian Lang of Olympus Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands, but they’re not having a lot of luck tracing Mr. Lang or his company.”
“They wouldn’t have, would they?” said Banks. “Any more on Masefield?”
“All we know is that he was at university in Leeds at the right time, so I assume ‘Giles Moore,’ if that’s who we’re looking for, must have known him somehow and kept in touch. There’s every chance that Keane had something to do with whatever lost Masefield all his money, and that he killed him. But we can’t know for sure. Maybe it was just opportune. Maybe Masefield did commit suicide – everyone said he was depressed and drinking too much – and Keane found him dead, stole his identity and started the fire. But one way or another, he was involved in the death.”
“Yes,” said Banks. “And it would have been easy for him to pass himself off as Masefield if the two of them had a passing resemblance. It’s amazing what you can do with a pair of glasses, a different hairstyle or coloring, maybe a slight stoop and a little paunch.”
“Anyway,” A
“It’s a start,” said Banks. “Can you show her Keane’s picture?”
“We don’t have a picture,” A
“Someone like him,” Banks said, “is bound to be clever. Keane and Moore are probably only two of his identities. Maybe he’s Ian Lang, too. God knows who he is now, or where, but if I read him right, he’d have an escape route – and a new identity – all set up for an eventuality like this. I’ll bet he’s overseas already. He’s been at this all his life, A
A
“So he didn’t have time to get back there and pick them up,” said Banks. “Which means maybe he doesn’t have a passport – not one he can use, at any rate.”
“Which means he may well be still in the country.”
Banks looked at the notebook. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Roland Gardiner’s journal. It looks as if he started keeping it when Keane first came to visit, and it stops on the evening of his death. It’s quite touching, really. Elaine Hough told us Gardiner fancied himself as a bit of a writer when he was at the Poly.”
“Does it tell us anything?”
“Not really,” A
“And Keane?”
“Ever the pragmatist,” said A