Peter Robinson - Strange Affair

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The chilling new Inspector Banks novel from the bestselling author of Playing With Fire. When he receives a mysterious and disturbing telephone call from his brother Roy, Banks heads off to London to search him out. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a murder scene on a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale. A young woman has been found dead in her car… With Banks’s name and address written on a slip of paper in the back pocket of her jeans. While Banks stays in his brother’s luxurious, empty house, digging into his life and uncovering more and more surprises about the brother he didn’t really know and didn’t particularly like, Annie tracks down the female victim’s friends and colleagues. It seems that both trails are leading towards horrific conclusions and when the cases look likely to intersect, the consequences for Banks and Annie become terrifying…

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He also couldn’t go official with what he’d got for the same reason he couldn’t use an Internet café: in case the disk held something incriminating against Roy. If Roy had been up to something dodgy, Banks wasn’t going to shop him, not his own brother. He might give him a damned good bollocking and read him the riot act when he found him, but he wasn’t going to help put him in jail.

There was one avenue he could explore first, someone who would probably be as interested in protecting Roy’s reputation as he was. Banks stubbed out his cigarette and reached into his pocket for the mobile. He scrolled through the list of names and numbers in the phone book until he found Corinne. That was Roy’s fiancée’s name, he remembered now, copying the number down into his notebook. Then he put the mobile back in his pocket, finished his drink and walked out to the street.

London was hot and sticky. Of all the places to be during a heat wave, this was not one he would have chosen. People were wilting on the pavements, and the air was redolent with the smell of exhaust fumes and worse, like rotting meat or cabbage.

Banks didn’t want to tie up the mobile again in case Roy got his message back at the house and phoned, so he sought out a public phone box and dug out an old phone card from his wallet. He felt as if he were walking into the tin hut where the Japanese locked Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Sweat trickled down his sides, tickling as it ran, sticking his shirt to his skin. Someone had crushed a bluebottle against the glass, making a long smear of dark blood. He could even smell the warm paper of the telephone directory.

Banks took out his notebook and dialed the number he had copied from Roy’s mobile. Just as he was about to hang up, a breathless voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Corinne?”

“Yes. Who is it?”

“My name’s Alan Banks. Roy’s brother. You might remember me. We met at my parents’ wedding anniversary party in Peterborough last October.”

“Of course. I remember.”

“Look, I’m down in London and I was wondering if we could get together somewhere and have a chat. Maybe over a drink or something?”

There was a pause, then she said, “Are you asking me out?”

“No. Sorry. I’m getting this all wrong. Please excuse me. Blame the heat. I mean, that’s why I thought a drink might be a good idea. Somewhere cool, if there is such a place.”

“Yes, it is hot, isn’t it. What do you mean, then? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“I just need to pick your brains, that’s all.”

“I remember. You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s not why… I mean, it’s nothing official.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got my attention. You could come over to the flat.” She paused. “I’ve got an electric fan in the office.”

“Have you got a computer?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Great,” said Banks. “When would be convenient?”

“Well, I’ve got a meeting with a client this afternoon – I’m afraid free weekends are never a given if you’re an accountant out on your own – but I should be done by early evening. Say five o’clock?”

Banks looked at his watch. It was half past three. “All right,” he said.

“Good. Have you got a pen and paper handy? I’ll give you my address.”

Banks wrote down the address and listened to Corinne’s directions. Just off Earl’s Court Road. Not far from Roy’s at all, then, though another world entirely. He thanked her again, escaped the sweat box and headed back to the pub.

By the time Annie had walked over the bridge and along the lane to Banks’s cottage, she had just about succeeded in regaining her equilibrium. The builders had got as far as restoring the roof. From the outside, the place looked perfectly normal, and one might even think someone lived there if it weren’t for the lack of curtains and the overflowing skip. Because it was Saturday, there were no workmen around, though given how slow they had been, Annie thought, the least they could do was put in a few extra hours to help get Banks back where he belonged. After all, they’d been on the job close to four months now.

It was the first time Annie had been back there since the night of the fire, and just seeing the place evoked painful memories: the feel of the wet blanket she’d wrapped around herself; the fire bursting out as she broke the door open; the smoke in her eyes and throat; Banks’s dead weight as she dragged him toward the door; Winsome’s strength as she helped them over the last few feet, a distance Annie thought she couldn’t make alone; lying there on the muddy ground sputtering, looking at Banks’s still figure and fearing him dead. And, almost worst of all, remembering Phil Keane’s silver BMW disappearing up the hill as Winsome had first turned into Banks’s drive.

She took a moment to bring herself back to the present. Jennifer Clewes had Banks’s address in her back pocket, but it was this address, Annie reminded herself. Why was that? She noticed tire tracks in the dust, but they could have been anyone’s. The builders’, for example. And despite the sign that said Beckside Lane was a cul-de-sac and a private drive, cars often turned into it by mistake. Even so, she made certain not to disturb the tracks.

Annie walked up to the front door of the cottage. Though the building wasn’t finished inside, she guessed that the builders would keep it locked to discourage squatters, and because they might sometimes leave their expensive tools there overnight. Which was why the splintering around the lock immediately caught her attention. She leaned closer and saw that it looked fresh. The door was new and not yet painted, and the splintered wood was clean and sharp.

Annie’s protective gloves were back in the boot of her car, so she used her foot to nudge open the door gently and kept her hands in her pockets. Inside, the place was a mess, but a builder’s mess, not a burglar’s, by the looks of it. The rooms were divided and the ceiling beams in place, and most of the plasterboarding had been finished except the wall between the living room and the kitchen. It felt odd to be standing there smelling sawdust and sheared metal rather than peat smoke, Annie thought. The stairs looked finished, solid enough, and after a tentative step she ventured up. The once-familiar bedroom was a mere skeleton, with builders’ calculations and blueprints scrawled on the walls in pencil. The second bedroom was similarly bare.

Annie went back downstairs and out to the lane. As she walked away, she turned once more and looked back. Someone had broken into the cottage, and recently. She assumed the builders had locked up when they left on Friday, though she would have to check with them to be certain. It could have been thieves, of course, but that seemed too much of a coincidence. Annie realized that she would have to bring in Stefan Nowak and the SOCOs to see if they could establish any links between Jennifer Clewes’s car and Banks’s cottage.

If it was the same person who had killed Jennifer Clewes, Annie reasoned, then he must have got hold of Banks’s address by some other means, because Jennifer Clewes had it in the back pocket of her jeans. Perhaps he already knew where Banks lived and, when he had guessed where she was going, and when they had got to a desolate, isolated stretch of road, he had shot Jennifer and then carried on to Banks’s cottage. To do what? Kill him, too? It would certainly make more sense to handle them one at a time.

But Banks hadn’t been there; he’d been about a quarter of a mile away, in his temporary flat. Had Banks any idea of what was going on? Was that why he had taken off so early in the morning? That was the big question, Annie realized, heading back up the hill to her car. How much did Banks know and how safe was he now? And she knew that she probably wouldn’t find out the answer to either question until she found the man himself.

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