Peter Robinson - All the Colors of Darkness

And Sophia? Christ, she often worked at Western House, up Great Portland Street, unless she was off in another studio or out somewhere producing live interviews. She might have wandered down to Oxford Street shopping on her lunch break. She never did, though, Banks remembered. Said she hated it, with all the tourists. On a nice day she’d buy a sandwich at Pret and eat it by the gardens in Regent’s Park, or maybe there was a lunchtime concert at the open-air theater. He’d phone her, though, not least because he wanted a chance to put things right between them.

A wave of nausea came over him and he took a gulp of brandy. It made him cough, but it helped. Glancing over at the TV, he saw helicopter shots of blossoming smoke, and he didn’t know if the sound of sirens came from the scene on the news or from the real street outside. A tickertape was running underneath the images detailing breaking news. The death count was up to twenty-seven, injured thirty-two.

Banks turned to the bar and worked on his second pint. His right hand had almost stopped shaking, and his left hand was starting to throb a bit. When he glanced in the mirror behind the range of spirits and wine bottles, he hardly recognized the face that stared back at him. It was time to make a move.

He realized that first of all he would need new clothes. He had his wallet and both his mobiles, but nothing else. The rest of his gear was back in his car at the hotel. He knew he could get there bypassing Oxford Circus, but he didn’t want to. Not only didn’t he want to be anywhere near there right now, he also didn’t want to drive back to Eastvale, he realized. He would buy new clothes, then go to King’s Cross and take a train, come back for the car when he felt better. Sophia had a key—she sometimes liked to drive the Porsche herself — so he could ask her to pick it up and park it outside her house, where it would be safe. Surely she would do that much for him, even if she wasn’t talking to him?

Then he realized that all the underground and mainline stations would probably be closed for a while. It was all too much to contemplate; his brain wasn’t fully functioning, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. The alcohol was slowly calming him down and blotting out some of the horrors of the last hour, so he called out for another pint and told Joe Geldard to have one on him.

Annie wondered why Banks wanted her to drive out to his Gratly cottage early on Saturday morning. She had assumed that he would be staying in London with Sophia, at least for the weekend, but obviously not.

All her attempts to phone him the previous evening had been frustrated, as he had been unable or unwilling to answer either mobile. After work, she had simply gone home and watched in horror the events unfold on television after the Oxford Circus bombing. Special counterterrorist units were already on the move in Dewsbury, Birmingham and Leicester, so it was reported, and there were claims that three people had already been arrested and one mosque in London raided.

The Muslim community was up in arms about the sanctity of their place of worship, but Annie doubted they had many sympathetic listeners, not after the images from the TV screen had seared themselves on people’s minds and Al Qaeda had already claimed responsibility. While Annie tried to respect all faiths, she knew that religion had been used as an excuse for more wars and criminal activities than anything else throughout human history. It was getting harder now, when religious extremism was on the rise, to cling to the sanctity of any system of belief as an excuse for mass murder.

Still, it was a lovely morning for a drive into the dale, she thought, putting the news images aside as her ancient Astra rounded the curves and bounced over the sudden rises. The Leas lay spread out to her right, flat wetlands around the river Swain, which meandered slowly through the meadows of buttercups, cranesbill and clover. Beyond, the daleside rose gently at first, crisscrossed with drystone walls, then more steeply to the higher pasture. The green of the grass turned more sere as it rose to the craggy uplands of limestone outcrops that marked the start of the open moorland. She had her window rolled down and a Steely Dan greatest hits CD playing on the stereo, “Bodhisattva.” Banks probably wouldn’t approve, but she didn’t give a damn. All was well with the world.

Almost.

Winsome had caught a break on the East Side Estate business when one of the local thugs had let slip that there was a new player on the block, “an Albanian or Turk or something” just up from London, and all the kids who had previously had free rein in what petty dealing of drugs went on, were now expected to bow out gracefully, work for him, or... perhaps get stabbed. They hadn’t yet been able to find the newcomer, who went by the name of “the Bull,” but Annie knew it was only a matter of time. There were also rumors that he had connections and was planning on importing heroin into Eastvale in a big way. Catching the Bull would definitely be a feather in their caps as far as Superintendent Gervaise was concerned, not to mention ACC McLaughlin and the chief constable himself, who would be able to appear on television and say they were winning the war against drugs.

Annie drove along Helmthorpe High Street, past the church, pubs and walking-gear shops, then turned left at the school and carried on up the hill to Gratly. She drove carefully over the narrow stone bridge, where a couple of old men stood smoking pipes and gabbing, then a few hundred yards farther on, turned right into Banks’s drive, pulling up by the stone wall beside Gratly Beck before the driveway ended at the woods. She was surprised to see that his car wasn’t there.

Annie had never ceased to marvel at what an isolated and beautiful place Banks had chosen to live after his marriage broke up. The renovations he had made after the fire had given him a lot more space, but it had all been tastefully carried out in the same local limestone, and the place probably didn’t look that much different than it had when it was built—in 1768, according to the gritstone door head.

Banks answered her knock and took her through the living room into the kitchen.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Please.”

He knew how she liked it, Annie noted. Black and strong. He liked his the same.

“Let’s go out to the conservatory,” Banks said.

Annie followed him through the kitchen door. Honeyed sunlight poured in through the glass sides and there was just enough of a breeze through the open windows to keep it from being too hot. That was the problem with conservatories, Annie thought; one warm day and they overheated. In some ways, they were better in winter with an electric fire switched on, flickering fake coals and a couple of elements. But this early in the morning it was perfect. The view up the daleside to the limestone scar at the top, like a skeleton’s grin, was stunning, and sheep were dotted all over the hillside. The wicker armchairs, she remembered, were so deep and inviting and had cushions so soft that they were difficult to get out of once you sat down. She sat anyway and set her coffee down on the low glass table beside the morning papers, which hadn’t been touched yet. That wasn’t like Banks. He wasn’t so much of a newshound, but he liked to read the music and film reviews and grapple with the crosswords. Perhaps he had slept in. There was some strange orchestral music playing quietly in the background, funereal, discordant in sound, bells and trumpets, timpani, a choir coming and going.

“What’s the music?” Annie asked, when Banks sat down opposite her.

“ Shostakovich. The Thirteenth Symphony. It’s called ‘Babi Yar.’ Why? Is it bothering you?”