Peter Robinson - All the Colors of Darkness

“I don’t believe this,” said Banks, shaking his head. “For that you destroyed two lives?”

Wyman drank some whiskey. “I never intended for anyone to be destroyed. I just wanted to cause a rift, so maybe Hardcastle would bugger off back to Barnsley or wherever and leave us all alone. It started as a bit of a lark, really, thinking about Othello. Then I wondered if you really could do that, you know, drive someone around the bend through innuendo and images. Mark was a bit jealous about Laurence’s frequent trips to London or Amsterdam, whether they were supposed to be business trips or not. I thought I could use that. Mark told me about the fl at in Bloomsbury, and one time I was in London at the same time Laurence was there on a business trip I went and watched the flat. That was when I saw Laurence come out. I don’t know why, but I followed him, saw him meet a man on a park bench and go to a house in Saint John’s Wood. I didn’t have my camera with me. You know the rest.”

“And you hired Tom Savage because you couldn’t get down there as often as Laurence Silbert did?”

“That’s right. I told her I’d ring her and give her an address when I wanted her to follow someone and take photographs. She did a terrific job. Mark went spare when I showed him them at Zizzi’s. I didn’t expect him to tear them up, but he did. Naturally, the photos weren’t enough in themselves, I had to embellish a bit on the sort of things I thought they were going to do to one another when they got upstairs. But the hand on the back was a lovely touch. If it hadn’t been for that, it might have looked innocent.”

A harmless gesture. Again, Banks wondered about Sophia. Was that all her friend’s gesture had been last night? And was he doing his own embellishment? He put her out of his mind. That was for later.

“I never expected what happened next. You have to believe me. I’ve been a wreck ever since. Ask Carol. Poor Carol. Is she all right?”

“You should ring her,” Banks said. “She’s worried sick about you.”

“I can’t face that just now,” said Wyman. “Give me a bit of time to get myself together.”

Banks finished his wine. “Look,” he said, “as far as I can tell, technically, you’ve created a hell of a mess, caused two deaths and wasted a lot of police time, but you haven’t committed any crime. It’s down to the CPS to make the final decision on that, of course, but I honestly can’t see what the charge would be.”

“You’ve got to take me in,” said Wyman. “We’ve got to get it sorted before I can go home again. I don’t want them coming to my house again. Carol. The kids. I’m willing to accept whatever punishment you think I should have, but I want you to help me get them off my back. Will you do that?”

Banks thought for a moment. “If I can,” he said.

Wyman put his tumbler down and got to his feet. “Now?”

“We’ll ring your wife from the station,” Banks said.

As they walked out front to the car, Banks thought he had probably had too much to drink to be driving—a can of beer with dinner and a couple glasses of wine in the fairly short time Wyman had been there. He was also in a pretty shaky emotional state. But it was almost midnight, and he didn’t feel at all impaired. What else was he going to do? Send Wyman back to wander the moors in the rain? Give him a bed for the night? The last thing Banks wanted was Derek Wyman skulking around the house in the morning. He could do that perfectly well himself. He knew he wasn’t destined for sleep tonight, anyway, so he might as well take the silly bugger to the station, get him off his hands for good and go back to nursing his broken heart over another bottle of wine. It was unlikely that MI6 would turn out for a meeting in the middle of the night, but if Wyman was too nervous to go home, Banks would be more than happy to put him in a cell for a night, then arrange for a solicitor to attend in the morning to thrash it all out.

There were no streetlights on the road to Eastvale, and only Banks’s headlights cut through the darkness and the steady curtain of rain ahead, the windscreen wipers beating time.

Then he noticed the distorted glare of someone’s headlights in his rear-view mirror, too close and too bright for comfort. They started flashing.

“Shit,” said Banks. He realized that they must have been watching his place, either hoping he would lead them to Wyman, or that Wyman would fetch up there looking for help after they’d put the wind up him. Parasites.

“What is it?” Wyman asked.

“I think it’s them,” Banks said. “I think they were staking out my house.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It seems as if they want us to stop.” Banks readied himself to pull over at the next lay-by, which he knew was a good half mile ahead. He was still driving quite fast, definitely over the speed limit, but the car behind was still gaining, still flashing its headlights.

“Don’t stop,” Wyman said. “Not till we get to town.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t trust them, that’s all. Like I said, I want a solicitor present the next time I talk to them.”

Banks sensed Wyman’s anxiety and felt a little surge of paranoia himself. He remembered the callous brutality these people had shown at Sophia’s, a brutality that he was certain had led to what happened between him and her. He also remembered stories he had heard, things Burgess had said, how they had frightened Tomasina and Wyman, and that it was still possible they could have been responsible for Silbert’s murder. He remembered Mr. Browne’s veiled threats. And he didn’t like the way they had tried to warn him off one minute and then use him the next.

Call me paranoid, Banks thought, but I don’t want a confrontation with MI6 out here in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with no witnesses. If they wanted to have it out, they could bloody well follow him to Eastvale and have a nice cozy chat in the security of the police station, with a mug of cocoa and a solicitor present, just the way he and Wyman wanted it.

But they had other ideas. As soon as Banks overshot the lay-by and put his foot down, they did the same, and this time they started to overtake him on the narrow road. The Porsche was powerful enough, but they were driving a BMW, Banks noticed, and weren’t lacking in power themselves. There was a corner coming up, but they obviously didn’t know about that when they started to edge to their left, about half a car length ahead. No doubt they intended to bring Banks to a smooth halt, but either because of the rain or not knowing the bends in the road, or both, they misjudged terribly, and Banks had to turn the wheel sharply to avoid a collision. He knew this part of the road well, so he braced himself as the Porsche broke through a section of drystone wall and flew over the steep edge.

Banks was strapped in the driver’s seat, and he felt the jolt of the seat belt as it absorbed the impact. Wyman, in his distracted state, had forgotten to fasten his belt, and he shot forward through the windscreen, so he lay half on the bonnet, his lower half still in the car. For some reason, the air bags hadn’t released. Banks unbuckled his seat belt and staggered out to see what had happened.

Wyman’s neck was twisted at an awkward angle, and blood pumped all over the bonnet from where a large sliver of glass had embedded itself in his throat. Banks left it there and tried to hold the wound closed around it, but he was too late. Wyman shuddered a couple of times and gave up the ghost. Banks could feel him die right there in front of him, feel the life go out of him, his hand resting on the dead man’s neck.

Banks fell back against the car’s warm bonnet, slick with blood, looked up to the heavens and let the rain fall on his face. His head throbbed. Disturbed by the noise, a few sheep baaed out in the field.