Peter Robinson - Strange Affair

Perhaps a few months ago, before the Phil Keane business, Annie would have welcomed his company, but now she didn’t quite seem to trust him. And she was right not to do so. The last thing he had on his mind was going back up to Yorkshire.

The CD finished and Banks looked for something else to put on. Roy didn’t have the Mahler songs, but he did have Strauss’s Four Last Songs, one of Banks’s favorite pieces of music; so he put that on. As it turned out, he wasn’t far into the second song when he heard the phone ring in Roy’s office. Putting his glass down, he hurried across the landing to answer it.

The London Eye towered over the scene, a huge dark semicircle against the moonlit clouds. It was closed for the night now, but still turning slowly, always turning. Nearby, on the stone steps that led down to the hump of shingle bank bared by the tide, the SOCOs came and went like ghosts in their protective clothing. It was a precise ballet in which every dancer knew his steps. Despite the occasional shout and chatter or static over police radios, there was an odd hush about the scene, and no sense of hurry, as if the mighty heart of the city were lying still. Even the media beyond the taped-off area were strangely quiet. Arc lamps lit rough slimy stone, shingle and greasy water alike, and a police video camera recorded everything. The rain had stopped, and from Westminster Bridge a few curious onlookers watched over it all, silhouettes against the light dying in the west.

When Banks arrived at the taped-off area, Burgess was already waiting for him, a grim look on his face. He had explained to Banks over the telephone that when he saw on the news that the body of a white male about Roy’s age had washed up by the London Eye, his alarm bells had gone off. They had found no identification on the body, so there was no evidence yet that it was Roy, and indeed he hoped it wasn’t, but it might be worth Banks’s coming along and having a look.

Banks hadn’t needed to be asked twice.

Burgess took him by the arm and led him over to a thickset man with a red moon-shaped face. “DI Brooke, Lambeth North,” said Burgess, “meet DCI Banks, North Yorkshire Major Crimes.”

The two men nodded at each other. “DI Brooke?” said Banks. “You’ll be the chap Annie Cabbot’s working with on the Jennifer Clewes case?”

“Annie and I go back a long way.”

Banks gestured toward the river. “Is he still down there?”

“The police surgeon’s pronounced death, but the SOCOs haven’t finished yet. They’ll have to move fast, though, because the tide’s coming in.” Brooke paused and looked down at his feet. “Look, Superintendent Burgess here told me he thinks there’s a possibility it might be your brother down there?”

“I hope to God it’s not,” said Banks, “but it’s a possibility, yes. He’s missing.”

“Sorry to have to put you through this.”

“Better than not knowing,” said Banks. “Can we go down?”

“There’s some extra overalls in the SOCOs’ van. And mind your step, those old stone stairs are worn and slippery.”

Kitted out in protective clothing, Banks and Burgess showed their identifications to the officer guarding the scene, ducked under the tape and approached the steps. The landing at the bottom didn’t quite reach as far as the exposed shingle bank, so the SOCOs had already set up a makeshift bridge made of planks. It wobbled a little as Banks and Burgess crossed. Once, Banks almost lost his footing and he became suddenly aware of how much he had had to drink that day. Water lapped gently against the stone wall.

Banks felt a tightness in his chest as he approached the shingle bank and breathing became an effort. Burgess gave a nod and one of the SOCOs gently turned the body so that the face was visible. Banks squatted, feeling his knees crack, and looked into Roy’s dead eyes. There was a little hole in his left temple, close to the childhood scar Banks had accidentally inflicted on Roy with a toy sword. Banks felt himself sway on his haunches and stood up so fast it made him dizzy. Burgess grabbed his elbow.

“I’m all right,” said Banks, disengaging himself.

“Is it him?”

“It’s him,” Banks said, and the only thing he could think as he tried to rein in his surging emotions was What the hell am I going to say to my parents?

“Let’s get back up on shore,” Burgess said.

Banks followed him back over the planks and up the steps. Brooke and his DS were waiting for confirmation. The sooner you identified the body, Banks knew, the sooner you put the machinery of a major investigation in motion. He nodded to Brooke.

“I’m sorry,” Brooke said.

“Look,” said Banks, “do you think you could keep it under wraps? His identity, that is. I’d like to be the one who tells our parents, in person, but not tonight. It’s too late.”

Brooke looked at the crowd on the bridge and the reporters and camera operators behind the crime scene tape. “We can tell them we’re still awaiting official identification of the body,” he said. “That should hold them off for a while.”

“First thing tomorrow,” said Banks. Just not tonight, he prayed. He couldn’t stand the idea of going over to Peterborough right now and waking his parents up and spending the night comforting them in their grief, knowing they would probably prefer it were Alan rather than Roy. Daylight would make it easier, he thought. Let them have just one more night of peace; there would soon be enough dreadful nights to come. “Can you tell Annie for me, please?” he asked.

“Of course. In the morning.”

“Thanks.”

Brooke paused. “I’m sure you know I was intending to visit you, anyway,” he said. “In fact, DI Cabbot and I had a little word about you earlier this evening.”

“I thought you might,” said Banks.

“This changes everything, of course, but I’ve still got some questions for you,” Brooke went on. “When you’re up to it, that is.”

“I’m up to it now,” said Banks.

“Right. Superintendent Burgess tells me you’ve been stopping at your brother’s house. How about we go there?”

“Fine,” said Banks, fumbling in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. “Let’s go.”

The Berger-Lennox Centre opened at nine o’clock on Monday morning and Annie was there on the dot. The center took up the first two floors of a four-story Georgian crescent house in Knightsbridge, which looked like something out of Upstairs, Downstairs. Still, when you paid through the nose for the service, Annie reflected, you didn’t expect some prefab concrete-and glass block building.

As soon as she got through the front door, the impression of elegant age gave way to one of muted modernity. The walls were painted in soft pastel hues and there was a kind of hissing hush about the place that made her ears feel stuffed-up, as if she were in an airplane. It took her a moment to notice the music playing softly in the background – something classical and soothing, something Banks would probably recognize.

The scent of sandalwood in the air triggered a sudden vision of Annie’s mother, Jane, leaning over her, smiling. The image shocked her, as her mother had died when Annie was six and she didn’t remember much about her. But now she could almost feel the long, soft hair tickling her face. Jane had been something of a hippie, and Annie remembered that sandalwood incense had often been burning in the artists’ commune where she had grown up. The memory also made her realize how far she had moved away over the past few years from so many of the ideals of her youth, and she felt the urge to spend more time on yoga and meditation; she hadn’t practiced at all since the business with Phil Keane.