Peter Robinson: Strange Affair

“If that stupid whore hadn’t told Roy’s girlfriend that some girls had been abducted and badly treated, I don’t think any of this would have happened,” said Lambert, “and your brother and me would have been partners. I spent that week trying to convince Roy it was still the right thing to do but he didn’t like the idea that the girls were working against their will. That’s when I told him about the adoption. I thought he would see what a good thing it was.”

“And did he?”

“He wasn’t convinced. Obviously. But it softened him a bit. Until he went to see Mercedes.”

Roy a pimp, or procurer? Banks found it hard to imagine. He would probably have described himself as an investor in an escort agency, or perhaps as a travel consultant. At least his spiritual and moral conversion hadn’t cut into his desire to make a profit from just about anything, short of illegal body parts. “And to threaten my parents? Whose idea what that?”

“Mazuryk’s. When the digital photo they sent didn’t scare you off, they had to try stronger measures. They could have killed you, but I told them the last thing they needed right then was a dead policeman hot on the heels of his brother. I told them that, Banks. I saved your life. These people are not always reasonable, but I have spent time with them. I can talk to them. They followed you home and back and showed themselves on the road, to frighten you off.”

“I don’t frighten that easily. And Jennifer Clewes?”

“They were already worried about her. At first she was happy enough to help Dr. Lukas take care of the girls, but she got too friendly and Mazuryk was worried someone might actually let something slip about how they really came to be there. They thought Carmen was getting too cocky because she didn’t have to turn tricks anymore, and when Artyom saw them talking together, Carmen and Jennifer Clewes, he got suspicious and told Mazuryk. They made Carmen tell them what she had said. Without hurting her physically, you understand. They couldn’t risk harming the baby.”

“Don’t tell me. They threatened to harm her parents back home.”

“Possibly. But Artyom and Boris had been keeping an eye on Roy’s girl for a few days, then when she took off like that at the same time I told Mazuryk that Roy was out of control… Look, I wasn’t there… I don’t know for sure how it happened. But it wasn’t me.”

“But you know what happened. You set it in motion.”

“Max told me after it was done. They found out where she was going. Roy told Mazuryk when they were beating him and he phoned Artyom in the car. As soon as she got to a quiet spot on the road, they killed her. Artyom was going to kill you, too, just in case, but you weren’t there. He’s not very bright.”

“It’s a pity he didn’t,” said Banks, “because now Mazuryk is dead, Artyom is dead and the rest are going to jail. And you…”

“What about me?”

“I can’t decide whether to kill you or turn you in.”

And it was true. Banks had never in his life felt like killing someone as much as he felt like killing Gareth Lambert at that moment. If he’d had a gun, he might have done it. He hefted the iron bar, heavy in his hand, and smacked it against his palm again. That would do it. One swift blow. Crush his skull like an eggshell. Lambert was looking at him, fear in his eyes.

“No!” he said, holding his hands out to protect his face. “Don’t. Don’t kill me.”

It wasn’t just revenge for Roy, but also because he had never come across anyone so loathsome he’d even contemplate doing what Lambert was doing, let alone defend it and justify it. He could not have imagined such a thing if he hadn’t gone to see Mercedes Lambert, as Roy had, and heard poor Nina cry. Mercedes Lambert obviously knew nothing about her husband’s unholy scheme. The disgust Banks felt churned the bile in his stomach and he could bear to look at Lambert no longer.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to hurt me?” Lambert whined.

Banks hurled the iron bar. It clanged into the tangled metal about two inches above Lambert’s head. Then Banks walked away, bent over and vomited on the floor. When he had finished, he took a few deep breaths, hands on his knees, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took out his mobile.

One evening a few days later, Banks crossed the old pack-horse bridge at the western end of Helmthorpe High Street and turned right on the riverside path. It was a walk he had often enjoyed before. Flat and easy, between the trees and water, no hills to climb, and he’d end up back in Helmthorpe, where there were three pubs to choose from.

As he walked he thought about the events of the past month, how it had all started that night he saw Penny Cartwright in the Dog and Gun singing “Strange Affair.” He thought about Roy, Jennifer Clewes, Carmen Petri, Dieter Ganz and the rest.

And Gareth Lambert.

Now it was just about over. Artyom and Mazuryk were dead. Gareth Lambert was in custody, along with Boris and Max Broda, and the odds were good that they would get very long sentences. Banks’s actions had forced his hand, but Dieter Ganz seemed to think his team had enough evidence to convict them on charges of trafficking in underage girls across international borders for the purposes of prostitution. Unfortunately, raids on similar houses in Paris, Berlin and Rome had netted only minor players, as word of what had happened in London spread fast. In the Balkans, guides, drivers, kidnappers and traders had scattered. They would be back, though, Dieter had told Banks, and he would be waiting for them.

Whether Lambert would be tied to the conspiracy to kill Roy Banks and Jennifer Clewes was another matter. Lambert’s more sinister intentions couldn’t be proved. And as he had said, only he and the doctor knew what they intended to do with Carmen’s baby, and neither was talking. Banks had received a reprimand for his treatment of Lambert at the abandoned factory, which would also tend to discredit anything he claimed Lambert had told him. Still, there was a good chance that Max Broda would implicate him in the conspiracy rather than take the fall alone. And Lambert’s mobile phone records for that Friday, the eleventh of June, at the Albion Club, showed a call to Mazuryk’s number at about eleven o’clock.

As for the rest, Banks wasn’t quite sure how things would turn out. Mazuryk’s girls would eventually be processed and sent home, but who was going to repair their lives, heal their broken spirits? Perhaps some would recover in time and move on, but others would drift back into the only life they knew. Carmen Petri, Annie had told Banks, was to be reunited with her parents in Romania, where, contrary to what Gareth Lambert thought, there was a good chance that her baby might end up with a decent crack at life. Carmen had been abducted from the street three years ago and in all that time her parents hadn’t given up hoping she was still alive.

Of all of them, perhaps Mercedes Lambert had come out of it worst of all, and Banks felt deeply for her. Not only was her husband probably going to jail for a long time, but in all likelihood, short of a miracle, her baby, Nina, was going to die soon. The police were investigating Banks’s accusation and had questioned her about it, so now she also had to live with the knowledge of what her husband had been about to do. Banks could only imagine how knowledge like that might tear a mother apart and haunt her dreams forever. What might have been. The nameless, faceless issue of a Romanian prostitute she had never met measured against the life of her daughter.

His mind turned to other thoughts. He had just got back from Roy’s funeral in Peterborough. Needless to say, it had been a sad and tearful affair, but at least he had spent some time with Brian and Tracy, who had come in for the occasion, and it had given his parents some sense of that closure they valued so much. Banks never really got it. For him there was no closure.