Peter Robinson: Strange Affair

Templeton grinned. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Right, then,” said Gristhorpe. “Seeing as we’ve got two reasons to celebrate, who’s going for the beer?”

Banks worked most of it out on his drive back from

Quainton, but he still needed some answers. He tracked Gareth Lambert down at the travel agency on Edgeware Road, leaving his Renault parked outside. Lambert seemed surprised and more than a bit put out at being manhandled into the street as his staff looked on openmouthed, but he went without putting up a struggle.

Banks opened the passenger door and shoved him in. “Buckle up,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“I’ve got something to show you.” Banks made his way through the traffic down the side of Hyde Park to Chelsea Bridge, then across the river and along to the old Midgeley’s Castings factory. If Lambert realized where they were going or recognized the place when they arrived, he didn’t show it.

Banks pulled up on the weed-cracked concrete in front of the door and got out. He opened Lambert’s door and practically dragged him out. Lambert was heavier, but he was in poor shape, and Banks’s wiry strength was enough to propel him toward the factory door.

“What the hell’s going on?” Lambert protested. “There’s no need to rough-handle me this way. Roy’s brother or no, I’ll bloody report you.”

Banks pushed Lambert through the door and into the factory. Birds took off through the holes in the roof. The police had finished with the scene, and the chair and ropes were gone, but there were still bloodstains visible on the floor. Roy’s bloodstains. The lab had confirmed it. Banks stopped and shoved Lambert down on a pile of broken pallets and rusty, twisted scrap metal. Lambert groaned as something sharp stuck into his back.

“I’ll have your fucking job for this,” he yelled, red-faced, struggling to get up.

Banks put a foot on his chest and pushed him back. “Stay there,” he said. “And listen to me. This is where they brought Roy. You can still see his bloodstains here.” Banks pointed. “Look at that, Gareth; that’s my brother’s blood.”

“That’s nothing to do with me,” said Lambert, sitting up and rubbing his back. “I’ve never seen this place before. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re rambling.”

He tried to get to his feet, but Banks pushed him down again.

“That’s a good one,” said Banks. “Let me be perfectly clear about it, Gareth. After you and Roy had your little talk in the Albion Club, you rang Hadeon Mazuryk or Max Broda on your mobile from the club’s toilet and asked for help. I’m sure your mobile records will bear this out. You needed to get Roy out of the way. Mazuryk came himself or sent someone else, and they got him in a car outside the club and brought him here. They tortured him, you know, Gareth, to find out how much he knew, what my address was and what I knew. Maybe they even got our parents’ address out of him, because they’ve made threats in that direction, too. He was tied up on a chair just over there, bleeding, knowing he was probably going to die at the end of it all.” Banks felt close to tears of rage as he talked and it was all he could do to hold himself back from thrashing Lambert. He found an iron bar on the floor, picked it up and slapped it against his palm.

Lambert cringed. “I told you,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me. Why would I do that? The girl and your brother were a danger to Mazuryk, not to me.”

“But you’re connected with Mazuryk. You arranged to get the girls to him after Max Broda bought them at markets in the Balkans.”

“You’ll never find any evidence of anything like that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Banks, “because that wasn’t what it was really all about. At first I thought it was about the girls you and Max Broda conspired to smuggle in for Mazuryk. Girls who had been lured by false job offers or abducted from the street. You wanted Roy in it with you, didn’t you, just like old times, and you’d been talking about it for a while, a couple of months. Roy didn’t know the whole story at first, and he might even have shown a flicker of interest if there was enough money in it for him. Lord knows, church or no, my brother was no saint.

“Then Carmen Petri let slip to Roy’s girlfriend that these girls were not willing participants. Jennifer told Roy and that changed things for him. I’d guess at that point he wanted nothing to do with it. I imagine he gave you a chance, though, for old time’s sake. I think on the Tuesday, the day after Carmen told Jennifer, Roy had lunch with you and Max Broda and you both tried to convince him everything was aboveboard. But he wasn’t convinced. That’s when he took the photograph of the two of you. He left the café first, didn’t he?”

Lambert said nothing.

“Maybe he wouldn’t have turned you in to the police,” Banks went on, “no matter how much what you were doing sickened him. I doubt that my brother had a very healthy regard for the boys in blue, given his track record. But there was his girlfriend to consider, too, wasn’t there? And she was even more outraged, being a woman. Roy must have told you at lunch on Tuesday that he’d persuaded her to keep quiet for the time being, not to contact the police, and that you needn’t harm her. But Mazuryk set Artyom and Boris to watch her just in case, to see where she went and who came to see her. If she had rung the police, they wouldn’t be content with just some anonymous voice over the phone; they’d want to visit her, or have her visit their station. That’s what Artyom and Boris were looking out for. Then, when things came to a head that Friday night in the Albion Club and Roy told Jennifer to drive up to see me, they followed her and killed her on a quiet country road.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Lambert, a condescending smirk on his face. “If only you could hear yourself. You can’t prove any of this. When I get out of here I’m going to-”

Banks kicked him hard in the stomach. Lambert groaned and rolled over, clutching his midsection and retching. “Bastard,” he hissed.

Banks swung the iron bar and hit him on the shoulder. Lambert screamed. “But it wasn’t even about the girls, was it?” Banks went on. “That was just the start of it. Oh, I’m sure you tried to convince Roy how they had a better life here, away from their war-torn countries, away from the poverty and disease and death. Maybe he even wanted to believe it. Then, in a final bid to enlist his sympathy, you told him that you were adopting Carmen Petri’s baby yourself. You probably gave him some sob story about how your wife couldn’t bear children and desperately wanted a family. You told him you’d give the child a much better life than it could have hoped for in Romania, or as the child of a prostitute in London. That was supposed to be the clincher. How benevolent of you. He’d hardly stand in the way of his old mate adopting a child privately, would he? It might not be strictly legal, but people do it all the time, don’t they? How can it be that much of a crime, to give a child hope? And even Roy had to see that any child you adopted had far more advantages than most. Financial advantages, that is.”

“So what?” Lambert argued. “So what if I was adopting her child? It’s true. The kid would have a much better life with us. Any fool can see that.”

“Maybe so,” said Banks. “But that wasn’t the real intention, was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know why Roy had to die,” said Banks.

“What are you talking about?” Lambert’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

“Because of where he went earlier that day, before you came to call on him. He found out the truth.”