Peter Robinson - All the Colors of Darkness

“So they’re using his old knowledge?”

“Yes. I’d say so. Just a guess, mind you.”

Banks made sure to keep his voice low. “Why all the secrecy about it? The Regent’s Park meetings. The house. Fenner’s phone number. The Townsends. I mean, we’re all fighting the Russian Mafia. Why didn’t he just go to Thames House or wherever and have a chat with them when they wanted to pick his brains?”

Banks heard Burgess chuckle down the line. “That’s not the way they do things, Banksy. They like games and codes and passwords and things like that. Basically, they’re like little kids at heart. When he was ready for a meeting, Silbert would ring a phone number they gave him, an untraceable number, as I’m sure you discovered, and all he’d get would be a line-disconnected message, but they’d know he was ready. They’d also know if anyone else phoned the number, too, which I assume is one of the things that tipped them off to your meddlesome presence in the first place.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “Julian Fenner, Import-Export. I certainly wasn’t trying to hide anything.”

“It may have been better if you had. Anyway,” Burgess went on, “they clearly didn’t want anyone to know that they were using him because the other side, of course, also knew exactly what and who Silbert knew, and they would be able to change any plans or routines or personnel accordingly.”

“Is that all?”

“I can’t think of anything else. Can you? And don’t forget what I said about the phone. Dump it. You owe me, Banksy. I must get back to bugging Muslim MPs now. Bye-bye.”

The phone went dead. Banks switched it off and put it in his pocket. He’d dispose of it later, in the Thames, perhaps, with all the other secrets that had been dumped there over the years.

It was a muggy evening on the London streets. The rain had stopped by the time Banks was walking down King’s Road at about half past eight, but a kind of heavy mist hung in the air, enveloping everything in its warm humid haze. The street still maintained its usual aura of busyness, of constant motion and activity. It was one of the things Banks loved so much about London, and one of the things he loved to escape from by going back to Gratly.

The street lamps made blurred halos in the mist, and even the sounds of the main street were muffled. Banks had sensed an odd mood as he made his way on the tube and by foot. London was still in shock from Friday’s bombing, but at the same time people were determined to get on with life as usual, to show that they weren’t going to be intimidated. There were probably even more people out and about than you would normally find on a humid Monday night. They needed to stand up and be counted. Banks felt a part of that, too. But most of all he wanted to find Sophia.

He turned into her street, which was considerably quieter, and felt his chest tighten as he rang her doorbell. No answer. He had a key, but there was no way he was going to use it. Besides, he had no reason to go in if she was out. He had deliberately not phoned her to say he was coming, too, in case she reacted badly and tried to avoid him.

She was probably working. Often her job demanded that she attend evening events—readings, openings, premieres—so he decided to pass the time in their local wine bar, just around the corner. Like other cafés and bars he had passed on his way, it was crowded. Not many establishments had tables out on the pavement along King’s Road— there simply wasn’t that much room—so the inside tables were all taken, and knots of people stood around where they could find a bit of space, leaned on pillars, held their glasses and talked.

Banks went to the closest section of the bar, where he was able to wedge himself between a couple of noisy, animated groups who had probably come for a drink after work and stayed too long. Nobody paid him any attention, including the bar staff. Angie, the blond Australian barmaid, was engaging in her favorite pastime—flirting with the customers.

Then, through the crowd, Banks saw a profile he recognized sitting at one of the tables. Sophia. She was unmistakable, her smooth cheek, the graceful curve of her neck, her dark hair tied up and held in place by that familiar tortoiseshell comb, one or two loose strands curling like tendrils over her shoulders. She was in half-profile and would only be able to see him if she turned around. But she wasn’t going to do that.

Opposite her sat a young man with lank longish fair hair and the kind of scruffy beard you get after not shaving for four or five days. He was wearing a light green corduroy jacket over a black T-shirt. Banks hadn’t seen him before, but that didn’t mean much. He knew that Sophia had many friends in the arts he hadn’t met. He was just about to walk over when he noticed Sophia leaning in toward the man, the way women do when they’re interested. Banks froze. Now more than ever anxious not to be seen, he edged away from the bar toward the exit, without even having ordered a drink. The next moment he was wandering down the street, heart pounding, not quite sure what to do.

There was a pub just down King’s Road called the Chelsea Potter, and in a daze Banks wandered inside and bought a pint. There were no seats left, but there was a shelf running below the front windows, where he could rest his drink. From there, he could see the end of Sophia’s street. He decided that if she went home alone, he would approach her, but if she went with the man from the wine bar, he would head back to Eastvale.

Someone had left an Evening Standard, and he started reading an article on the aftermath of the bombing, keeping one eye on the street. They had a photograph of the young blonde in the yellow dress—she was a model, it said, and one of the survivors. She had told the reporter how terrible it was, but she didn’t mention anyone rescuing her. She didn’t mention clinging on to the Selfridges bag, either, only that her darling dog Louie had survived, too.

Banks had been in the pub perhaps an hour and a half, had long ago finished the newspaper article and was into the dregs of his second pint of Pride, when he saw Sophia and her friend turn into her street. There were still plenty of people around outside, so he left the rest of his drink and crossed over, just part of the crowd. From the corner, he could watch them approach Sophia’s front door. They stood for a moment, chatting, then she put her key in the lock. She paused for just a moment, turning the key, and glanced down the street to where Banks’s car was still parked. Then she opened the door. The man put his hand on the small of her back and followed her inside. Banks walked away.

Annie cursed the rain as she walked around the parked car. The way the wind blew slantwise rendered her umbrella close to useless, and in the end it was easier just to close it and get wet. She was wearing a waist-length leather jacket, which she had treated with waterproofing spray, her jeans, which she hadn’t, and her red PVC boots, which would keep out anything. Only her hair was getting seriously wet, and that was now short enough to dry in seconds. She thought about what Carol Wyman had said about going blond. Maybe she would.

For the moment, though, she was looking at Derek Wyman’s 2003 Renault, which was parked in a lay-by across from the Woodcutter’s Arms, a couple of miles outside the village of Kinsbeck, about twenty miles southwest of Eastvale, over the moors from Gratly and Helmthorpe.

A local patrol car had discovered it about an hour ago and called it in. Now Annie and Winsome were on the scene, shooing away the sheep. The patrol officers, a couple of surly buggers by the name of Drury and Hackett, which sounded like a bad comedy duo to Annie, were leaning against their car smoking, clearly eager to get on their way back to whatever pub they spent their shift in. Annie wasn’t going to make it that easy for them. They had already made it quite obvious that they didn’t like taking orders from two plainclothes female officers, one of them black.