Peter Robinson - Not Dark Yet

‘Drink?’ Burgess asked.

‘What are you drinking?’

‘Krombacher Pils.’

Again, Banks glanced at the menu. ‘Brixton pale ale, please.’ Hair of the dog.

Burgess went up to the bar. The pub was crowded, obviously a popular lunch spot for both local office workers and tourists walking along the riverside. And what a day for it. Banks glanced out of the window at the throng of people walking up and down the Embankment in the heat of the midday sun. Most wore sunglasses, shorts, sandals, and T-shirts. Many carried cameras, pushed prams or held hands with small children. He found himself thinking how quickly things could change if a terrorist with a knife ran into the crowd and started stabbing people. Or a speeding van suddenly veered off the road on to the pavement. It was the police officer’s curse, he told himself, to be so often imagining the worst. But things like that did happen. Had happened not so long ago, not so far away, and would certainly happen again. Relish every moment, as his poet friend Linda Palmer had told him.

Burgess returned quickly with the drinks. Banks remembered how good he was at bars; not for him any worries about who was first in line. It was all to do with who could push hardest and shout loudest. Banks sipped. It tasted good. They chatted briefly about Burgess’s morning of meetings up the road at NCA headquarters and Banks’s journey through the heartland. Now, though, he was back in the present in the thriving capital, just upriver from the centre of power. He tried not to think about what nefarious business might be going on in there. Backstabbing and prevarication, for the most part, he guessed. Perhaps politics had always been like that, but it seemed to him to have taken a turn for the worse over the last three or four years.

‘So what is it?’ he asked. ‘You said you were working on something that might concern me.’

Burgess leaned back. ‘Don’t get your hopes up too high. But, yes, I think it might.’

‘In what way?’

‘In two ways. That bloke you’ve been after for so long. The one who tried to kill you, set fire to your house.’

‘Phil Keane.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘And the other?’

‘That young woman you’ve got a thing for. Zelda.’

‘I’m intrigued,’ said Banks. ‘Do go on.’

‘It’s a bit complicated. I’ve been trying to put it all in order while I was waiting for you.’

‘Give it a try. I’m sure I’ll be able to follow.’

Burgess took a deep breath, then a few gulps of beer. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You know about Zelda’s boss?’

‘Trevor Hawkins, the one who burned to death in a chip-pan fire?’

‘That’s the one. Well, the two officers who’ve been investigating his death, Deborah Fletcher and Paul Danvers, haven’t found any evidence of foul play, but there are one or two anomalies, and Danvers isn’t quite convinced that it was an accident. It seems that your friend Zelda visited the street where Hawkins lived a couple of days after the fire.’

‘I know that,’ said Banks. ‘You told me all about it the last time we talked.’

‘Hear me out. Allow me my preamble. It’s difficult enough as it is.’

‘OK.’

Their food came, and they took a few bites in silence then carried on talking while they ate. ‘Paul Danvers was suspicious enough to widen his inquiry a bit, ask questions around the street and so on,’ Burgess went on. ‘They talked to Zelda again, for example, but she was about as helpful as the first time. Mmm, this fish is good. How about your burger?’

‘It’s fine,’ Banks said. ‘Zelda couldn’t be helpful because she didn’t know anything.’

Burgess raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s not forget how important Hawkins was. He was an agent of the NCA, running a special bureau compiling a database and facial recognition data of known sex traffickers. Your friend Zelda worked for him as a civilian consultant, using her special skills as a super-recogniser and her experience of the trafficking world to put names to faces. That way, they could track the movements of major players, keep an eye on who was climbing up the ladder, who was in, who was out, and so on. The long and the short of it is that a young bartender down the road in Hawkins’s local pub, The George and Dragon, recalls a woman coming in one lunchtime shortly after the fire and asking questions about Hawkins.’

‘Like what?’

‘Whether he was a regular. Whether he had ever met anyone there.’

‘And what did he tell her?’

‘That Hawkins was a regular, but that he usually only dropped in for a quick half and the Times crossword after work.’

‘Usually?’

Burgess took a bite of his sandwich before answering. ‘He said he did once, quite recently, see Hawkins meet and talk with another man in the pub. Said it appeared as if they knew one another and the meeting was prearranged. Apparently, the woman showed Chris — that’s the bartender — a photograph, and he recognised the man from it.’

‘Who was he?’

‘That we don’t know. And Chris wasn’t able to give us a clear description. You know — medium, medium, light brown hair, ordinary. He had a beard, too. One of those artsy type thingies. Van Dyke or goatee, whatever they call it. He didn’t know the man’s name, either.’

‘Pity.’

‘There was one tiny pinprick of light.’

‘Yes?’

‘He certainly remembered the woman, and he gave us a very detailed description of her. Sounded as if he was more than a little smitten, so Danvers told me. And I have to say, Banksy, that she sounds remarkably like your Zelda.’

‘What if it was her?’ Banks asked, spearing a fat chip. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

‘I disagree. Where’s your copper’s instinct? Don’t you think it’s odd? I mean, I can just about swallow that she visited her dead boss’s burned-out house because she was curious. But asking questions in his local about who he’d been meeting is going a bit too far. Don’t you think so? Why? And who was it in the photograph she showed Chris the barman?’

‘So you think Zelda’s involved?’

‘We know that she didn’t kill Trevor Hawkins. She was out of the country at the time of the fire. And neither Danvers nor I can accept that she somehow paid for it or arranged to have it done.’

‘Which leaves?’

‘Danvers’s theory is that she was suspicious of Hawkins’s activities. For some reason, she suspected him of being in the pay of the enemy, the traffickers, or somehow in thrall to them. Does that make any sense to you?’

Banks drank some beer and thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it does,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But what of it?’

‘Surely it’s significant if she had some reason to suspect him of being bent? She may have been watching him, observing him at work, even following him. Maybe his trafficker paymasters found out, and he started to become a liability?’

‘Are you saying Zelda was responsible for Hawkins’s death?’

‘I’m saying that she was sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. The outcome was unpredictable. Though anyone with half a brain could probably have worked out it would end in tears.’

‘But we don’t know any of this. It’s mere speculation on your part.’

‘As is so much of our job. And you know that, too. Come on, Banksy. Are you so pussy-whipped you can’t see the wood for the trees?’

Banks bristled, but he knew Burgess was right. Up to a point. There was nothing sexual between him and Zelda. She was Ray Cabbot’s partner, and he respected that. Even if he believed he was in with a chance, which he didn’t, he wouldn’t make a move on her. He didn’t do things like that to his friends. Not that she had given the slightest inclination of interest. But, yes, he liked her company, and yes, he lusted after her. What man wouldn’t?