Strange Affair

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A

The meditation and yoga hadn’t made her feel as calm as she had hoped, and she couldn’t help feeling anxious and tense about meeting Banks again, especially after the way he had phoned and so casually put her off late the previous evening.

Their last meeting had gone well enough, but nothing had been resolved and A

The stories in the morning paper upset her, too, brought back too many bad memories. Because the reporter was trying to link Banks’s fire with his brother’s murder, they had also raked up all the stuff about Phil Keane and his hapless policewoman girlfriend. Where they had got it all from in the first place, she didn’t know, but there’s always a leak somewhere.

Banks didn’t look in too bad a shape, A

She sat down opposite him and noticed that he smelled just a little of original Old Spice. It was a smell she liked, something she remembered from their intimate time together. It had taken her a while to throw out the anti-perspirant stick he had left in her bathroom cabinet, but she had done so eventually, along with the razor, shaving cream and toothbrush.

“So what were you up to last night that you couldn’t meet up with me then?” A

“Social duties,” said Banks.

“Pull the other one.”

“I went see Cori

“How is she?”

“She’s suffering plenty,” said Banks. “I don’t know about you,” he went on, “but whenever I’m having breakfast in a hotel, it has to be the bacon and eggs. Don’t know why. I’d never have that at home.”

“It’s because you don’t have to cook it yourself and wash the dishes after,” said A

“And because I never have time to sit around and eat it.”

“How are things going?”

“Not so bad, considering,” said Banks. “My dad’s just worn down by the whole thing, but my mother’s acting strange.”

“Strange how?”

“As if it’s just another family event, like the a

“Might not be a bad idea,” said A

A waitress came over and Banks ordered the full English. A

“Anyway,” Banks asked, “how are things progressing up north?”

A

“What about Templeton and Rickerd?”

“They’re on it, too. You know as well as I do, DC Rickerd’s a born office manager. And Kev might be a bit of an arsehole, but he’s got good instincts. He’s off on a bit of a tangent, and it’s not a bad idea to give him some space. Anyway, it’s in good hands. I’m hoping to get back up there today, if only for a flying visit to bring everything up to speed. The telephone has its limitations.”

“Indeed it does.”

“What about you?” A

“Me? Apart from keeping my parents company, and Cori

“Try me. What is it you usually say to witnesses or suspects? ‘Let me be the judge of that?’ ”

“Touché,” said Banks. “Okay. I’ve found out that Gareth Lambert is back from self-imposed exile in Spain and that one evening a couple of months ago he had drinks with Roy. That mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“They’re old pals,” Banks said. “Known one another for years. No doubt they were mixed up in all sorts of criminal enterprises before the arms deal put the wind up them. Up Roy, at least. Lambert we’re not so sure about. Anyway, it’s a bit too much of a coincidence for my liking, two old crooks reunited and one of them dead.”

“I suppose you got all this from Burgess, didn’t you? That man’s a walking disaster area.”

“Dirty Dick has his good points, but I don’t know why you should think I got any of it from him.”

“I can’t imagine where else, that’s all.”

The waitress delivered their breakfasts. Banks asked for more coffee, A

“Anyway,” Banks said, when the waitress had gone. “DI Brooke’s got everything I found: the mobile, the CD and USB drive, even the digital photos I’d printed from the CD. Everything.”

A

“It’s not illegal. I didn’t withhold or tamper with anything.”

“Goddammit, Alan, you broke into a murder victim’s house, you went through his stuff, you used his mobile phone, you found and copied personal information. Don’t tell me you haven’t tampered.”

Banks rested his knife and fork at the sides of his plate. “In the first place, I didn’t know he was a murder victim at the time. He was simply missing and had been gone for less than twenty-four hours. What would we have done if a call like that came in? If he’d been a child or a teenager, then perhaps we might just have set the wheels in motion. But a healthy man in his late forties? Come on, A

“It’s that you keep going off all on your own like some kind of maverick,” she said. “You don’t tell anyone what’s going on. You think you’re the only one who can work it all out. You think you can handle everything on your own, but you can’t. For God’s sake, Alan, you nearly got killed.”

When one of the nearby diners looked over, A