Past Reason Hated

Some of the other diners looked around and frowned, whispering comments to one another. Veronica held Banks’s gaze for a few seconds, then picked up her fork again and speared a spicy shrimp far too violently. A few grains of rice skipped off the edge of her plate onto the napkin on her knee.

‘What I want to know,’ Banks said, ‘is why you didn’t tell me what you knew, and whether there’s anything else you’ve been keeping to yourself. See, it’s simple really.’

Veronica sighed. ‘You’re an exasperating man,’ she said. ‘Do you know that?’

Banks smiled.

‘All right. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to… to soil Caroline’s memory. She wasn’t that kind of person any more. I couldn’t see how it would do any good to drag all that up and let the newspapers get hold of it. Is that good enough?’

‘It’s a start. But I’ll bet there’s more to it than that.’

Veronica said nothing. Her mouth was pressed shut so tight the edges of her lips turned white.

Banks went on. ‘You didn’t want me or anyone else to think you were the kind of woman to be living with someone with such a lurid past? Am I right?’

‘You’re a bastard, is what you are,’ said Veronica through gritted teeth. ‘What you don’t understand is that it takes more than a couple of years of therapy to undo a lifetime’s damage. Christ, all the time I keep hearing my mother’s voice in my mind, calling me dirty, calling me perverted. Maybe you’re right and I didn’t want that guilt by association. But I still don’t see what good knowing that does you.’

‘The reason for Caroline’s murder could lie in her past. She was ru

‘But she didn’t,’ Veronica insisted, pressing her hands together and leaning across the table. ‘She didn’t. I lived with her for two years. In all that time we never went to London and she never mentioned much about her life there. Don’t you see? It was the future we wanted, not the past. Both of us had had enough of the past.’

Banks pushed his empty plate aside, asked Veronica’s permission to smoke and reached for his cigarettes. When he’d lit one and inhaled, he took a sip of beer. Veronica folded her napkin in a perfect square and laid it on the coral tablecloth beside her plate. A small mound of rice dotted with chunks of garlic, onion and diced pork remained, but the shrimp were all gone.

Banks glanced out the window and watched a punter in a cloth cap and donkey jacket hesitate outside the peep show. He was probably having a hard time making up his mind with so much to choose from: NUDE NAUGHTY AND NASTY down the street, LIVE EROTIC NUDE BED SHOW next door, and now NAKED GIRLS IN BED opposite. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he hunched his shoulders and carried on towards Leicester Square. Either lost his bottle or come to his senses, Banks thought.

Veronica had been watching him, and when Banks turned back to face her she gave him a small smile. ‘What were you looking at?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But you were watching so intently.’

Banks shrugged. ‘Coffee? Liqueur?’

‘I’d love a Cointreau, if they’ve got any.’

‘They’ll have it.’ Banks called the waiter. He ordered a Drambuie for himself.

‘What did you see out there?’ Veronica asked again.

‘I told you, it was nothing. Just a man, likely down from the provinces for a soccer match or something. He was checking out Soho. Probably surprised it was so cheap.’

‘What do you get for 50p?’

‘Brief glance at a naked tart, if you’re lucky. It’s a loss leader, really,’ Banks said. ‘Supposed to give you a taste for the real action. You sit in a booth, put your coin in the slot and a shutter slides so you can see the girl. As soon as your meter’s up, so to speak, the shutter closes. Of course, Soho’s been cleaned up a lot lately, but you can’t really keep its spirit down.’ Already, Banks noticed, his accent and his patterns of speech had reverted to those of his London days. He had never lost them in almost three years up north, but they had been modified quite a bit. Now here he was, to all intents and purposes a London copper again.

‘Do you approve?’ Veronica asked.

‘It’s not a matter of approval. I don’t visit the booths or the clubs myself, if that’s what you mean.’

‘But would you like to see it all stamped out of existence?’

‘It’d just spring up somewhere else, wouldn’t it? That’s what I mean about the spirit. Every big city has its vice area: the Red Light district in Amsterdam, the Reeperbahn, Times Square, the Tenderloin, the Yonge Street strip in Toronto… They’re all much the same except for what local laws do and don’t allow. Prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, for example, and they even have licensed brothels in part of Nevada. Then there’s Las Vegas and Atlantic City for gambling. You can’t really stamp it out. For better or for worse, it seems to be part of the human condition. I admire its energy, its vitality, but I despise what it does to people. I recognize its humour, too. In my job, you get to see the fu

‘I feel so sheltered,’ Veronica said, looking out the window again. ‘I never knew any of this existed when I was growing up. Even later, it never seemed to have anything to do with my life. I couldn’t even imagine what people did together except for… you know.’ She shook her head.

‘And now you’re wordly wise?’

‘I don’t think so, no. But after Caroline, after she brought me to life, at least I was able to see what all the fuss was about. If that’s what it felt like, then no wonder everyone went crazy over it. Do you know that Shakespeare so

‘It’s about lust, isn’t it?’ Banks said. ‘ “Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme.”’ Christ, he thought, I’m getting just like that Dalgliesh fellow Ruth Du

Veronica smiled. ‘No, you don’t know what I mean. At last I could understand. Even lust I could finally understand. Do you see?’

‘Yes.’ Banks lit another cigarette and Veronica held the glass of Cointreau in her hand. ‘About Caroline’s child,’ he said.

‘She never told me.’

‘Okay. But did she ever make any references to a person called Colm?’

‘No. And I’m sure I’d remember a name like that.’

‘She had no contact with anyone you didn’t know, no mysterious letters or phone calls?’

‘Not that I ever found out about. I’m not saying she couldn’t have had. She could be very secretive when she wanted. What are you getting at?’

Banks sighed and swirled his Drambuie in its glass. ‘I don’t know. I thought she might have kept in touch with the foster parents, adopters, whatever.’

‘Surely that would have been too painful for her?’

‘Maybe so. Forgive me, I’m grasping at straws.’ And he was. The child must be about nine or ten now. Far too young to hunt out his mother and stab her with a kitchen knife for abandoning him, or her. Far too young to see the irony in leaving a requiem for himself on the stereo. ‘There is one thing you might be able to help me with, though,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘Ruth mentioned that Caroline had begun to suspect she’d been sexually abused as a child. Do you know anything about that?’

Veronica blushed and turned her face to the window. Her profile looked stern against the gaudy neon outside, and the muscle at the corner of her jaw twitched.