Playing with Fire (26 page)

“Wives, either,” Maria said.

“Well, I'd never claim to have
owned
a woman.”

She slapped him playfully on the forearm. “Silly. You know what I mean. Your job. It must make relationships difficult.”

Damn near impossible, thought Banks, realizing he hadn't even talked to Michelle in a day or two. He wondered how her missing child case was going. Better than his triple murder, he hoped. His train would pass through Peterborough on his way to London. Maybe she could come to the station and he could lean out of the window and kiss her like a scene in an old black-and-white film. All that would be missing would be the atmospheric steam from the engine. “Well,” he said, “you should probably talk to Sandra about that.”

“I would, except she seems to have deserted all her old friends.”

“She's burned a few bridges, all right,” said Banks. “So, Maria, what is it?”

“Nothing, really. It's just that after our little tête-à-tête the other day, well, you know how you start thinking back, trying to remember things?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “That's why I usually give anyone I question my phone number. They often remember something later.”

“You didn't give
me
your phone number.”

“Maria! Stop doing your Miss Moneypenny imitation. You're just down the street.”

“Just down the street. Story of my life. Ah, well.” Maria laughed. “Oh, don't look so exasperated. I'm only teasing.”

“You were talking about remembering something.”

“So stern. Yes, like I said, I got to thinking, trying to play the scene in my mind's eye, so to speak.”

“Which scene would this be?”

“The Turner reception, of course. There were quite a lot of people there, including that pretty young policewoman I've seen you with on occasion.”

“Annie was involved in the security. As you well know.”

“I'm surprised you two haven't…” Then she looked at Banks and opened her eyes wider. “Well, maybe you have. None of my business, anyway.”

“That's right,” said Banks. “The reception.”

“I'm getting to that. I was trying to picture Thomas McMahon, what he was doing, who he was talking to. That sort of thing.”

“And?”

“Well, he wasn't talking to anyone most of the time, but I did see him chat with Mr. Whitaker from the bookshop.”

That made sense. Whitaker had told Banks that McMahon bought old books from him. For the endpapers, Phil Keane had suggested, perhaps to make forgeries of period sketches. And Banks was still keeping an open mind as to whether Whitaker was involved in some sort of forgery scam with McMahon and Gardiner, especially after Stefan Nowak had confirmed that the car parked in the lay-by on the night of McMahon's murder had been a Jeep Cherokee, the same model Whitaker owned. Thanks to Geoff Hamilton's expert knowledge, they could now check Whitaker's fuel tank against the accelerant used in the Gardiner blaze.

“What was Thomas McMahon doing?”

“Well, his wineglass was rarely empty, I can say that.”

“But he wasn't drunk?”

“No. Maybe a little bit tipsy. But not so's you'd notice that much. I seem to remember he was the kind of chap who could hold his liquor, as they say in the movies. But that's not what I wanted to tell you.”

“What is it, then?”

“Just that at one point he
was
talking to someone who might be able to tell you more about him than I can.”

“Who?”

“That art researcher from London. Well-heeled, yummy-looking fellow. Do you know who I mean?”

Banks felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. Annie's “friend” Phil. Philip Keane. “Yes,” he said. “I know him. Why do you say well-heeled?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you
men
. His suit,
dearie. You can't get a suit like that off the peg in Marks and Sparks. That was a made-for-measure job,
bespoke,
tailor. Beautifully made, too. Best-quality material. Nice bit of schmatter. At a guess I'd say Savile Row.”

“How do you know?”

She winked. “I've got hidden depths.”

Banks imagined an art researcher probably made a fair income, and if Phil Keane wanted to spend it on Savile Row suits, good for him. “Go on,” Banks said. “What were they talking about?”

“I don't know that, do I? I was some distance away doing my hostess routine, seeing that everyone's glass was full. It was just something I noticed, that's all, perhaps because most of the time McMahon
wasn't
talking to anyone.”

“How long were they talking?”

“I don't know that, either. My attention was diverted. Next thing I knew, McMahon was studying one of the paintings on the wall and Mr. Art Researcher was chatting up Shirley Cameron.”

“Which painting?”

“I can't remember. Just one of the ones we had on display in the reception room. Nothing fancy. Local, most likely.”

“Did you get any sense of what their conversation was about?”

“Not really.”

“I mean, were they arguing?”

“No.”

“Exchanging pleasantries?”

“No.”

“Intimate?”

“Not in that
sort
of way.”

“An animated, passionate discussion?”

“No. More casual than that.”

“Just passing the time of day, then?”

“Well, yes, except…”

“Except what?”

“When I was playing it back in my mind last night…I don't know if I'm imagining things, you know, embroidering on what I actually saw, but I could swear they were talking as if they
knew
one another.”

“Not as if they'd just met?”

“No, that's it. You can tell, can't you, when there's a history? Even if you don't hear a word?”

“Sometimes,” Banks said. “Body language can actually tell you quite a lot.”

“Body language,” Maria repeated. “Yes…Anyway…” She reached into her handbag. “He gave me his business card and I dug it out of the files, if that's any use.”

Banks looked at the card. Some ornate sort of typeface, black and red. It gave Phil Keane's company name as Art-Search Ltd., along with an address in Belgravia. “Can I keep this?” Banks asked.

“Of course. It's no use to me, is it?”

Banks thanked her.

“Well, that's it, then.” Maria spread her hands. “I've told you all I know. I have nothing left up my sleeve to keep you here with.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Banks, suddenly feeling magnanimous toward Maria, and not in any great hurry to go home. After all, it was not yet seven o'clock and the film didn't start till nine. “What about the pleasure of your company?”

Maria looked puzzled. “You don't have to dash off somewhere?”

“No. Not yet, at any rate. As you pointed out, there's no wife waiting to massage my shoulders and neck and run a hot bath. How about another drink?”

Maria narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Maria blushed, then slid her empty glass toward him. “I'll have another Campari and soda then, please.”

She actually seemed quite shy when
he
took the lead, Banks thought, as he made his way to the bar. As he stood there waiting for Cyril to pull his pint, he wondered about what he'd just heard. It didn't mean anything, necessarily, even if Maria's intuition was right, but why hadn't Phil told him? Why had he lied about knowing McMahon? And how could Banks go about checking into it without damaging his already fragile relationship with Annie?

O
n the train to London, Banks fretted about what Maria Phillips had told him the previous evening, and what to do about it. He couldn't even relax and enjoy his John Mayall CD for worrying, and he certainly couldn't concentrate on the Eric Ambler thriller he'd brought along.

There was no denying that Maria had told him Phil Keane was deep in conversation with Thomas McMahon, as if they already knew each other, and Keane had said he didn't know the artist. It could be a simple, honest mistake in identity—after all, it was a few months ago—but Banks didn't think so.

Maybe Keane, like anybody else, wanted to avoid any connection with a police investigation. It was a natural response, after all. Don't get involved. Leave me out of it. Leslie Whitaker had done the same thing, and Banks was convinced that he was in a lot deeper than he admitted.

But Phil Keane
was
involved. As a consultant, and as Annie's lover. Which meant he was supposed to be on
their
side, didn't it? The last thing Banks could do was talk to Annie about it. She would immediately turn on him for trying to come between her and Phil out of personal jealousy, making their last little set-to seem like a preliminary round.

Shortly after Grantham, Banks had an idea. He made a call
on his mobile to an old colleague on the Met, someone who might be able to help. After that, he had a bit more success putting the matter out of his mind and listening to
Blues from Laurel Canyon
.

King's Cross was the usual melee. Banks headed straight for the taxi rank and joined the queue. Within a few minutes he was on his way to Sir Laurence West's office in the City. The journey was slow, like most road journeys in London, and the mild weather seemed to have brought more people out onto the streets. Couriers on bicycles weaved in and out of the traffic with total disregard for safety—theirs or anybody else's—and pedestrians wandered across the streets no matter where, or what color, the traffic lights were. Many were wearing only their suits or Windcheaters and jeans.

There aren't many skyscrapers in the City, but Sir Laurence's offices were on the twelfth floor of one of them and offered a splendid view south over the river to Southwark, or would have done had the day not been so overcast.

When Banks finally made it past the security, receptionists, secretaries, office managers and personal assistants, he was beginning to wish he'd sent someone else instead. He didn't cope well with bureaucracy and soon found himself losing patience. When he was finally ushered into the inner sanctum he was ready to give Sir Laurence a hard time.

The office was about as big as the entire upper floor of Western Area Headquarters, and most of it was uncluttered open space. Thick carpets with intricate eastern designs covered most of the floor area, the rest being shiny hardwood, and a big teak desk sat at the center, a sleek laptop computer the only object on its surface. In one corner a black leather-upholstered three-piece suite was arranged around a low, glass-topped table, a cocktail cabinet nearby. There was a faint whiff of old cigar smoke in the air.

The man himself was tall and portly, bald-headed and bushy-eyebrowed, with more than a passing resemblance to
Robert Morley, probably in his early seventies, but well preserved. He was wearing a slate gray suit, white shirt and striped tie, no doubt representing some old school, exclusive club or regiment. He came forward with a genial smile on his face and shook hands, gesturing for Banks to sit in one of the armchairs.

“Drink?” he offered.

“No, thank you,” said Banks.

“Hope you don't mind if I do.”

“Not at all.”

West poured himself some amber fluid from a cut-glass decanter and added a splash of soda. Banks got a whiff of brandy.

“I know it's a bit early,” said West, “but I always make it a point to have a drink before lunch. Just the one, you understand. It helps sharpen the appetite.”

Banks, who might have time to grab a burger at the nearest McDonald's, if he was lucky, nodded. “I'll have a Coke, if you've got any,” he said.

“Of course.” West opened what looked like a filing cabinet. It was a small fridge. He took out a can of Coke, poured it into a crystal tumbler and handed it to Banks, who thanked him and took a sip.

“Now, what can I do for you?” said West, sitting opposite Banks. He didn't have to explain that he was a busy man; it was evident from his body language. “The young man on the telephone didn't tell me very much. I do hope those wretched British Waterways people haven't been bothering you. They've been on at me for years, but I'm afraid I've rather ignored them.”

Anyone else's boats would probably have been towed away long ago, Banks reflected. Wealth and power do have their privileges. Slowly, he explained about the fires and the deaths.

“Oh, dear,” said West. “I hope you won't be holding me legally responsible for their condition?”

“That's not my department,” said Banks. “All I'm interested in is who set the fire, and why.”

“Then I'm afraid I can't help. You say there were squatters living on the boats? Perhaps they started the fire?”

“That's highly unlikely, given that two of them died.”

“I wish I could help.”

“How did you come to be the owner of the boats?”

West swirled his drink in his glass. “They were my father's,” he said. “I suppose I inherited them.”

“But you had no interest in his business?”

“No. He lived to be ninety-six years old, Mr. Banks. He died just two years ago, though he had been uncommunicative for some time. I know he was in the haulage business, but believe it or not, I didn't even know about those two boats until the Waterways people got in touch with me, after his death. I know I should have delegated, put someone on it, had something done, but I had more important things on my mind at the time. I didn't imagine they'd be doing any harm just sitting there.”

“There was no reason you wanted to keep them?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“Or sell them?”

“I suppose I might have got around to that eventually.”

“Were they insured?”

“I imagine so. My father was a thorough man before his illness.”

“But you don't know for how much?”

“I have no idea. I suppose the executor of his estate would know.”

“Do you know of anybody who might have had a reason to set fire to them?”

“No. Surely you're not suggesting some sort of insurance fraud?”

“I'm not suggesting anything,” said Banks. It was a patently absurd idea, anyway. West probably made a few billion a year, and the insurance on the boats wasn't likely to amount to more than twenty or thirty thousand. Still, stranger things had happened. The rich don't get richer by missing opportunities to make even more money. Or West might simply have got someone to torch them to get them off his hands.

“It's funny,” said West, “but now you bring it up, I actually did receive an offer to buy one of the boats a few months ago. My secretary brought it to my attention, but I'm afraid I didn't take the offer very seriously.”

“I thought you didn't need the money.”

West laughed. “My dear man, that's no reason to let oneself be taken for a fool.”

“How long ago was it?” Banks asked.

“Oh, not long. October, perhaps.”

“Do you think you could find the letter?”

West called in his secretary, a buxom woman in a no-nonsense pinstriped skirt and matching jacket, who disappeared for a few moments and returned with a buff folder.

“How did the letter come to you?” Banks asked the secretary before she scurried off.

“It was forwarded through British Waterways,” she said. She looked at Sir Laurence for guidance. He nodded, and she passed the folder to Banks. It contained just one sheet of paper, a letter dated the sixth of October. It was brief and to the point.

Someone wanted to buy the southernmost narrow boat—Tom's boat—moored on the dead-end branch off the Eastvale Canal, near Molesby. He was willing to pay ten thousand pounds—such a low sum, he explained, because the boat needed a lot of work—and that someone was Thomas McMahon himself.

 

Mark could smell and hear the sea as he made his way down the hill to the sands from Scarborough bus station just after eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning. After a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes, he had paid his bill in Helmsley and wandered toward the bus stops in the square. There he had caught the half-past-nine bus and stared out of the window at the bleak, misty moorland landscape to the north, until the bus headed down from the moors near Pickering.

His plan, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a job as soon as possible. The money he had stolen from Clive would enable him to get a roof over his head and food in his belly for a while, at least. But he would need something more dependable in the long term. If there was going to be a long term.

Mark didn't know why, but he felt both apprehension and numbness at the same time. A part of him was numb because he had lost Tina, yet another part of him was afraid of what lay around the next corner, who might be lying in wait for him. There was still the guilt, too. If only he'd been on the boat with Tina instead of with that slut Mandy. Anger raged inside him somewhere, unfocused yet growing stronger. He might have killed Clive, he realized, if they hadn't slowed at the bend and he'd been sharp enough to seize his opportunity to grab the money and get away. He remembered what the policeman had said, about the fire not being an accident. That meant someone had killed Tina, whether she was the intended victim or not. The only person he could think of who had a reason to kill Tina was Patrick Aspern, and when Mark thought of Aspern, he felt his rage surge up again.

A cold wind blew off the North Sea, pushing inland a mass of cloud the color of dirty dishwater. There was no blue to be seen anywhere on the horizon, no rays of sunshine lancing through to make diamonds dance on the water; the whole world was wrapped in a gray shroud.

Down on the prom, all the amusements were closed for the
winter, the cafés and fish and chip shops shut up, Jimmy Corrigan's, the Parade Snack Bar, the sands deserted except for a man in a hooded overcoat walking his dog, hunched forward against the wind. The tide was high and waves like molten metal crashed on the beach, churning the brown sand. One or two other people were walking along the prom, old couples, a young family. Probably people who lived in town, Mark thought. After all, Scarborough was a big place, and the people who lived there had to go on even when the tourist season was over.

A solitary gray Vectra was parked across the street, outside the Ghost Train, with two men in it drinking tea and eating Kit Kats. They both glanced toward Mark, and he kept his face averted. He couldn't tell whether he recognized them or not, but there was no sense in falling right into their hands. Maybe two people had set fire to the boats, not just one, and these could be the ones. Hands in his pockets, he strolled on beside the harbor, where the nets were stacked and the fishing boats were all moored for the winter.

He tried to light a cigarette, but the wind was too strong, and after three matches he gave up. He'd have one later in a warm pub. It felt good to be near the sea. He didn't know why, but the sight of the water stretching out as far as the eye could see, until it met the sky way in the distance, evoked a feeling of awe in him: the way it was always changing, the surface swelling and dipping, the scudding whitecaps and huge breakers. It put you in your place, put things in perspective. He could watch it forever.

He imagined sailors years ago, in wooden ships with canvas sails bellied out, tossing on seas like this, no land in sight, and thought that was what he would have liked to have been if he'd lived then. A sailor on a whaling ship. Not throwing the harpoons, because he didn't particularly like the idea of killing whales, but maybe at the wheel, steering the rudder, discovering new worlds. Maybe even now he could join the
Merchant Navy, if they'd have him, and spend the rest of his days at sea. The ships were more modern, he knew, but they'd still be at the mercy of the waves.

Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed the Vectra start moving just behind him, to his left. He walked past the empty funfair and onto Marine Drive. The car didn't overtake him, but kept up a slow, steady pace, about twenty yards behind him. Were they following him? Mark risked a glance back and thought he saw one of them talking into a mobile phone.

Mark felt exposed, out in the open. Marine Drive curved around the base of Castle Hill, with nothing but the steep rocky slope on one side and the cold North Sea on the other. Nowhere to run. The wind howled in his ears and the waves crashed high over the seawall and the metal railings, and Mark was soaked in no time.

The Vectra remained twenty yards behind him, crawling along, no matter how much he altered his pace. A few other souls were braving the weather, all dressed in waterproof gear. Out in the distance, the dark shape of a ship bobbed on the water. Mark wondered what it was doing there, what it felt like, who was on it. Were they in danger? He couldn't see any danger signals flashing, any flares, or SOS lights. Weathering the storm. Just like him.

The car was still following him, no doubt about it. Mark picked up his pace, nearly running now, and it surged forward, pulling over onto his side of the road just a few feet in front of him, blocking the pavement.

Mark turned and ran the other way, back toward town, ignoring the doors slamming and the shouts behind him. He couldn't hear what they were saying anyway because of the wind and the crashing waves. He ran back toward the prom. If he could get into the maze of narrow streets behind the amusements, he might have a chance of losing them, whoever they were.