Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“She said she saw you. In London.”

“That’s right. I was down there on business.”

“She said she thought you were watching her. Stalking her.”

“I was doing no such thing.”

“Well, she says you were hanging around her house. In the rain.”

“It wasn’t raining. That started later.”

“Dad, she’s worried about you.”

“I don’t see why.”

“She thinks you’re becoming weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yes. Hanging around her house and all. It is pretty weird. You must admit.”

“I had a few questions I wanted to ask her.”

“About a case?”

“As it happens, yes. About an artist she once knew when she worked at the community center. It’s part of a case I’m working on.”

“The burning boats. Yes, I’ve read about it in the paper.” Tracy paused. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“Well, it’s true. What? Don’t you believe me? Do you think I’m getting weird in my old age?”

“Nobody said anything about old age.”

“Still… my own daughter grilling me.”

“I’m not grilling you. Can’t you see, she still cares about you?”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“You scare her, Dad. She just can’t cope with you. You always seem so angry with her. She thinks you hate her. All she can manage is to go cold when the two of you talk to one another.”

Banks remembered that from their marriage. Whenever Sandra couldn’t deal with a situation emotionally, she would just sort of turn off. Sometimes she would even fall asleep in the middle of an argument. It used to infuriate him. “I don’t hate her,” he said.

“Well, that’s how she feels.”

“It’s a funny turn of events, isn’t it, my own daughter giving me advice on marital relationships?”

“I don’t have any advice to give. And you’re not married anymore. That’s the problem. How’s your girlfriend?”

“Michelle? She’s fine.”

“Seen her lately?”

“No. We’ve both been too busy.”

“There you go, then.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dad, you’ve got to make time to have a life. Stop and smell the roses. You can’t just… Oh, I don’t know. What’s the point?”

“I stopped to smell the roses last summer,” Banks said. “But it didn’t last.” He remembered the two weeks of bliss he had spent on a Greek island, the sun, the light on white and blue planes of the houses straggling down the hill, scents of lavender, thyme, oregano, a whiff of dead fish and salt spray. He also remembered how restless he had felt and how, though it seemed a great wrench at the time, he was secretly pleased to feel himself being called back home to a case. And to the lovely Michelle Hart. How he wished she were with him tonight, but he wasn’t going to let his daughter in on his longings.

“That was because you came running back to get involved in another case,” Tracy said.

“Tracy, Graham Marshall was an old friend of mine. How could I-”

“Oh, I know. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have come back. Of course I’m not. But remember the time before, when we were supposed to be going to Paris for the weekend, and you went off searching for Jimmy Riddle’s runaway daughter instead? There’s always something. Always will be. You just have to… I mean, you can’t solve the world’s problems single-handedly. You’re not the only detective in the country, you know. Sometimes I think you just use your job to hide yourself from yourself. And from everybody else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, it’s too complicated to go into right now.”

“Quite the philosopher you’ve become. And here’s me thinking you were a history student.”

“You know what Socrates said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ ”

“Well, I wouldn’t examine it too closely, if I were you. You never know what you might find.”

“Oh, Dad. You’re just playing word games now.”

Banks felt the urge for a cigarette peak and wane. He took another sip of whiskey. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry for being facetious. It’s just been a long day. A long week, as a matter of fact. I haven’t had much sleep, and I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“When was it ever any different?”

“Tell your mother I don’t hate her.”

“Tell her yourself. Good night, Dad.”

And Tracy hung up.

Banks held the phone in his hand for a few moments and listened to the buzzing sound. He’d been about to tell Tracy that seeing the baby for the first time had been a shock, that he hadn’t been prepared for the way it made him feel. But she’d hung up on him.

He put the phone down and went into the kitchen to top up his glass. As he stood there pouring the Laphroaig, he felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy envelop him. But it came from the outside, not the inside. Though he didn’t generally believe in the supernatural, he had long believed that the kitchen contained some sort of spirit. It usually gave him a strong sense of well-being, and he had never felt its sadness before.

Banks shuddered and went back to the living room, turned up Jesse Winchester singing “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” and settled down gloomily to get drunk. He knew he shouldn’t, knew that tomorrow would be just as busy as today, and that the hangovers only got worse as he got older. But his daughter had hung up on him. He thought of phoning her back, but decided against it. He didn’t feel he had the emotional energy to deal with the sort of discussion Tracy seemed to have in mind tonight. Best wait till they’d both slept on it. He was sure she would ring him again tomorrow and patch things up. Still, it was a sour note to go to bed on, which was why he had refilled his glass.

He wanted to talk to Michelle. The way things had turned out, he hadn’t called her from London, hadn’t spent the evening in Peterborough. It was after one o’clock, but he would ring her anyway, he decided, reaching for the phone. But before he could pick it up, it rang. He thought it might be Tracy ringing back to apologize, so he answered it.

“Alan?”

“Yes?”

“Ken Blackstone here. Sorry to bother you at this hour, but I thought you might be interested. I just got a call from Weetwood.”

Banks sat up. “What is it?”

“Another fire. Adel. Patrick Aspern’s house.”

Banks put his glass down. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Banks took stock of the shape he was in. Luckily, he had only taken a sip or two of his second drink, and he knew he wasn’t over the limit. He put the kettle on and poured plenty of fine-ground coffee into a filter. While the water was coming to a boil, he stuck his head under the tap and ran cold water over it for a couple of minutes. Then he poured the boiling water into the filter and watched it drip through, filled it once again and brushed his teeth and sucked on a breath mint. Just before he left, he filled a travel mug with hot black coffee and carried it out to the car. The night was cold and hoarfrost had formed on the trees and drystone walls, giving them a ghostly white outline in the night. The sky was studded with stars.

There was no time for Jesse Winchester’s bittersweet musings now. Banks flipped through the CDs he carried in the car and went for The Clash’s London Calling . If that and the hot, strong coffee didn’t keep him awake all the way to Adel, nothing would.

The fire engines were gone when Banks arrived at Patrick Aspern’s house shortly after two in the morning, and two police patrol cars were parked diagonally across the street, blocking it to all traffic. He hadn’t known what to expect in terms of damage, but from the outside, at least, the house seemed intact. The local police had sealed off the path, and a line of blue-and-white tape barred the gateway, where a young constable, who looked to be freezing his bollocks off, even in his overcoat, was logging everyone who came and went. Banks went up to him and asked for DI Ken Blackstone.