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Banks put the mobile aside and went back to the bathroom, where he removed his rumpled clothes and climbed into Roy’s luxury Power Shower, turning it on full. The jets of hot water pummeled his body back into some semblance of humanity.
As he dried himself on a thick soft towel, Banks realized that he had left his overnight bag in the boot of his car, which was parked outside. He didn’t want to dash out and fetch it right now, so he brushed his teeth with Roy’s electric toothbrush, which almost ripped his gums to shreds, and borrowed a clean short-sleeved shirt and socks from his brother’s wardrobe. He had to wear his own jeans because Roy’s were too long for him and too big around the waist.
After he had found Roy’s stash of coffee in one of the kitchen cupboards and made himself a decent pot, Banks took it with him upstairs and returned to the entertainment room and the mobile. The phone call and digital image should be traceable, Banks knew, given the police’s technical resources. You could also learn an awful lot from a mobile phone’s sim card. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the resources at the moment. How important was it? he wondered.
Banks still couldn’t let go of the idea that his brother might have been involved in something illegal and that that was why he’d vanished. Things had threatened to catch up with him and he’d had to run away fast and hide out. If that was the case and Banks brought in the local police, then he risked getting Roy into serious trouble. If something terrible came out – drugs or pornography, for example – and Roy went to jail, it could kill their parents.
On the other hand, there wasn’t much more he could do alone except work on the leads he already had: the names from Roy’s call list and mobile phone book, and from the files Cori
First he went into Roy’s office. There was another telephone message, he noticed. It must have come in while he was taking his shower. Again it was from A
Finally he dialed a number he had committed to memory. As requested, he left a message and fifteen minutes later the phone rang. He snatched up the handset.
“Banks here.”
“What’s so urgent you have to disturb a hardworking copper on his only day off?” asked Detective Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess.
“I need to see you,” said Banks. “Urgently.”
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks weighed heavily on Superintendent Gristhorpe’s mind, and not only because if Banks were around, Gristhorpe might be able to spend a bit more time on his drystone wall rather than having to drive into Western Area Headquarters so early on a Sunday morning. No doubt there would be a crowd of reporters to deal with, as the issue of guns always touched a nerve. Despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, enacted in the wake of the Dunblane massacre, the country seemed to be flooded with cheap illegal guns from Ireland and eastern Europe.
As it was, he still had a little time in hand, so he took his mug of strong tea out to the back garden and rested it on his chair while he studied various stones from the pile to see which one fit best. The wall went nowhere and fenced nothing in, but for Gristhorpe it had become almost as necessary as breathing. He would never finish it – how could you finish something that went nowhere? – but if he ever did, he would pick it apart and start again. Wall-building was almost a lost art in the modern Dales, and while Gristhorpe had no pretensions to being an expert, of doing the work professionally, it was both his homage and his therapy.
As he weighed his options, Gristhorpe was pleasantly aware of the sun on his face and the light breeze that ruffled through his unruly thatch of hair, delicate as a woman’s fingers. He thought of his wife, Mary, and her feather-light touch, and realized it was over twelve years now since the cancer had taken her. He still missed her as he would miss a part of himself, and not a day went by when he didn’t think of her, remember some detail of her face, an expression, her gentle voice, her sense of humor, a certain gesture.
The air, he noticed, smelled of wild garlic, with a hint of tar from the hot road surface. Gristhorpe sipped some tea and decided upon a stone. The one he chose fit perfectly. Then he dragged his thoughts back to the matter in hand: Banks.
Over the years, Banks had been more than just a junior officer to Gristhorpe. He could remember his first impressions of an edgy, nervous chain-smoking detective on the verge of career burnout and he had wondered if he had made a mistake in approving the transfer. But Banks had made a journey back to some sort of equilibrium, aided in part by the Yorkshire countryside he had now adopted as his home.
In some ways, Gristhorpe knew that he had been a kind of mentor to the new Banks, not so much in terms of doing the job, but in human terms. Banks was a complex sort, and Gristhorpe wondered if he ever would find the peace and harmony he seemed to be looking for. After the divorce from Sandra, which Gristhorpe knew still hurt Banks deeply, and the messy relationship with A
Gristhorpe drank more tea and looked for another stone. He wanted to know what Banks’s co
Gristhorpe finished his tea and put the stone in place. Too big. He chucked it back on the pile and went indoors. Time to go to work.
Banks had a couple of hours to kill before his meeting with Burgess. First he called Julian Harwood and was surprised to get an appointment to meet at Starbucks on Old Brompton Road at two o’clock that afternoon. Harwood sounded like the kind of person who thought giving you the time of day was doing you a big favor, but the mention that Banks was Roy’s brother got his interest.
After that, he had made a written note of the names and numbers in Roy’s call list and mobile phone book, just in case. In his experience, electronic gadgets tended to behave erratically just when you most needed them to do what they were designed for.