Playing with Fire (39 page)

 

Banks felt irritable when he got back to his cottage that evening. It was because of his argument with Annie, he knew. He didn't think he'd been too heavy-handed, so maybe she had simply overreacted. Love can make you feel that way sometimes. Was Annie in love with Keane? The thought didn't make Banks feel any better, so he poured himself a generous Laphroaig, cask strength, and put some Schubert string quartets on the CD player. Should he have told her about Helen? Probably not. What he should do, he realized, was talk to Keane again and suggest he tell Annie himself. After all, if it was such an open marriage, what had he got to hide? Annie wouldn't like it, would no doubt promptly end the relationship, but that was Keane's problem, not his.

He was trying to decide whether to get back to his Eric Ambler or watch a European cup match on TV when someone knocked on his door. Too late for traveling salesmen, not that there were many around these days, and a friend would most likely have rung first. Puzzled, he put his glass aside and answered it.

Banks was surprised, and more than a little put out, to see Phil Keane standing there, a smile on his face, a bottle clutched in his hand. He'd wanted to talk to Keane again, but not in his own home, and not now, when he was in need of solitude and relaxation, and the healing balm of Schubert. Still, sometimes you just had to take what you were offered when you were offered it.

“May I come in?” Keane asked.

Banks stood aside. Keane thrust the bottle toward him. “A little present,” he said. “I heard you like a good single malt.”

Banks looked at the label. Glenlivet. Not one of his fa
vorites. “Thanks,” he said, gesturing toward his glass. “I'll stick with this for now, if you don't mind.” No matter how paranoid it seemed, he felt oddly disinclined to drink anything this man offered him until he knew once and for all that he was who and what he claimed to be. “Would you like some?” he asked. “It's an Islay, cask strength.”

Keane took off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair, then he sat down in the armchair opposite Banks's sofa. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don't like the peaty stuff, and cask strength is way too strong for me. I'm driving, after all.” He tapped the bottle he'd brought. “I'll have a nip of this, though, if that's all right?”

“Fine with me.” Banks brought a glass, topping up his own with Laphroaig while he was in the kitchen, and bringing the bottle with him. If he was going to have a heart-to-heart with Keane, he might need it.

“You know,” said Keane, sipping the Glenlivet and relaxing into the armchair, “when it comes right down to it, we're a lot alike, you and me.”

“How do you get that?” Banks asked.

Keane looked around the room, blue walls and a ceiling the color of ripe Brie, dimly lit by a shaded table lamp. “We both have a taste for the good things in life,” he said. “Fine whiskey, Schubert, the English countryside. I wonder how you manage it all on a policeman's salary?”

“I do without the bad things in life.”

Keane smiled. “I see. Very good. Anyway, however you work it, we have a lot in common. Beautiful women, too.”

“I assume you mean Annie? Or Helen?”

“Annie told me about you and her. I didn't know I was poaching.”

“You weren't.”

“But you're not happy about it. I can see that. Are you going to tell her?”

“About Helen?”

“Yes. She told me about your little visit yesterday.”

“Charming woman,” Banks said.

“Are you?”

“Don't you think it would be better coming from you?”

“So you haven't told Annie yet?”

“No. I haven't told her anything. I've been trying to decide. Maybe you can help me.”

“How?”

“Convince me you're not a lying, cheating bastard.”

Keane laughed. “Well, I
am
a bastard, quite literally. I admit to that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Look,” Keane went on, “the relationship Helen and I have is more like that of friends. We're of use to one another. She doesn't mind if I have other women. Surely she told you that?”

“But you
are
married.”

“Yes. We had to get married. I mean, she was an illegal immigrant. They'd have sent her back to Kosovo. I did it for her sake.”

“That's big of you. You don't love her?”

“Love? What's that?”

“If you don't know, I can't explain it to you.”

“It's not something I've ever experienced,” Keane said, studying the whiskey in his glass. “All my life I've had to live by my wits, sink or swim. I haven't had time for love. Sure you won't have a drop of this?” He proffered the bottle.

Banks shook his head. He realized his glass was empty and poured a little more Laphroaig. He was already feeling its effects, he noticed when he moved, and decided to make this one his last, and to drink it slowly. “Anyway,” he went on, “it's not a matter of whether Helen minds if you have other women or not; it's how
Annie
feels.”

“Still her champion, are you? Her knight in shining armor?”

“Her friend.” Banks felt as if he was slurring his words a bit now, but he hadn't drunk much more since he'd poured the third glass. There was also an irritating buzzing in his ears, and he was starting to feel really tired. He shook it off. Fatigue.

Keane's mobile played a tune.

“Aren't you going to answer it?” Banks asked.

“Probably work. Whoever it is, they can leave a message. Look, Alan, if it makes you feel any better, I'll explain the situation to Annie,” said Keane. “She's broad-minded. I'm sure she'll understand.”

“I wouldn't be too certain of that.”

“Oh, why? Know something I don't?”

“I know Annie, and deep down she's a lot more traditional than you think. If she's got strong feelings for you, she's not going to play second fiddle to your wife, no matter how convenient the marriage, or how Platonic the relationship.”

“Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?”

“When?”

“The next time I see her. I promise. How's the case going?”

Banks wasn't willing to talk about the case to Keane, even though he had assisted as a consultant on the art forgery side. He just shrugged. It felt as if he were hoisting the weight of the world on his shoulders. He took another sip of whiskey—the glass was heavy, too—and when he put it down on the arm of the sofa he felt himself sliding sideways, so he was lying on his side, and he couldn't raise himself to a sitting position again. He heard his own telephone ringing in the distance but couldn't for the life of him drag himself off the sofa to answer it.

“What about this identity parade you mentioned?” Keane said, his voice now sounding far away. “I've been looking forward to it.”

Banks couldn't speak.

“It was very clever of you,” Keane said. “You thought your witness would identify
me,
not Whitaker, didn't you?”

Banks still couldn't make his tongue move.

“What's the problem?” Keane asked. “A bit too much to drink?”

“Go now,” Banks managed to say, though it probably sounded more like a grunt.

“I don't think so,” said Keane. “You're just starting to feel the effects. See if you can stand up now. Just try it.”

Banks tried. He couldn't move more than an inch or two. Too heavy.

“Eventually, you'll go to sleep,” Keane said, his voice an echoing monotone now, like a hypnotist's. “And when you wake in the morning, you won't remember a thing. At least you wouldn't remember a thing if you
were
to wake up in the morning. But you won't be doing that. I'm really surprised you don't have more security in this place, you being a policeman and all. It was child's play to get in through the kitchen window just after dark and add a little flunitrazepam to your cask-strength malt. Plenty of strong taste to cover up any residual bitterness in the drug, too. Perfect. They call it the ‘date rape' drug, you know, but don't worry, I'm not going to rape you.”

 

“What's wrong, Guv?” Winsome asked, leaning over her.

“This number.” Annie pointed. “I know it. It's Phil's BMW.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. I don't know why. I just remember these things. There's no mistake. He got a parking ticket two streets away from Kirk's Garage on the seventeenth of September.”

Winsome checked with her file. “That's one of the times Masefield rented the Jeep Cherokee,” she said. “Look, it doesn't make sense. Maybe the bloke who wrote the ticket made a mistake?”

“Maybe,” said Annie, as the thing that had been bothering her rose to the surface of her mind. Banks had said during their argument that morning that he had met Phil a
couple
of times, but later Phil had said he only met Banks
once
. The three of them had met the previous weekend, several days ago, but Banks had also said he hadn't seen Phil for a
couple
of days. Why was that? Had he been to see him since? And if so, what was it about? What were they keeping from her?

It might be nothing. An easy mistake to make. But now this. The BMW number. And it was true that Phil had only come onto the scene last summer, when both Roland Gardiner and Thomas McMahon had told people their fortunes were on the rise. Annie had only met him herself at the Turner reception, and he had phoned her a month or so later, determined not to take no for an answer.

Annie didn't like the direction in which her thoughts were turning, but even as she fought against the growing realization, she found herself remembering the night she was called away from her dinner at The Angel with Phil to the Jennings Field fire. Of course the accelerant didn't match the petrol from the Jeep Cherokee's fuel tank. Phil had been in his own car that evening, the BMW. He could hardly turn up for dinner in the rented Cherokee the police were all looking for, and he wouldn't have had time both to return it and to get cleaned up. Worth the risk for the alibi. Annie herself. A perfect alibi. And a source of information on the shape the investigation was taking. The horse's mouth. Horse's arse, more likely.

“There could be a simple explanation,” Winsome suggested. “It was well before the murders, too. Maybe it's just coincidence?”

“I know that,” said Annie, remembering that it was also around the time he had phoned and asked her out for the first time. “But we have to find out.”

Her hand was shaking, but she dialed Phil's mobile number.

No answer. Just the voice mail.

She phoned Banks at home.

No answer. After a few rings she was patched through to the answering service. She didn't leave a message. She tried his mobile, too, but it was turned off.

That was odd. Banks had
said
he was going straight home. Of course, he could have gone somewhere else, or maybe he just wasn't answering the telephone. There were any number of explanations. But when Banks was on a case, especially one that seemed so near to its conclusion, he was always on call one way or another. She had never, in all the time they had worked together, been unable to get ahold of him at any hour of the day or night.

Annie felt confused and uneasy. She couldn't just sit there. This had to be settled one way or the other, and it had to be settled
now
.

“Winsome,” she said. “Fancy a drive out in the country?”

I
t was a struggle just to cling to consciousness, Banks found. But the longer he stayed awake, the better his chances of staying alive. He could hardly move; his body felt like lead. He knew that he had to conserve whatever strength he had, if he had any, because when Keane set the fire, as he was certain to do, he was going to leave, and Banks might have just one slight opportunity to get out alive.
If
he was still conscious. If he could move. Neither McMahon nor Gardiner had got out alive, and the thought sapped his confidence, but he had to cling to what little hope he could dredge up.

“I'm doing this,” Keane said, “because you're really the
only
one who suspects me. Annie doesn't. And she won't. I know you haven't shared your suspicions with her or anybody else. I'd have been able to tell from the tone of her voice. I'm not an official suspect. And I'm pretty certain I've covered my tracks well enough that with you out of the way, I'm in the clear.”

Burgess,
Banks found himself thinking, in his muddled, muddied way.
Dirty Dick Burgess
. Keane had no way of knowing that Banks had enlisted Burgess's help. He also knew that if anything happened to him, Dirty Dick would have a good idea who was behind it, and that he wouldn't rest until he'd tracked Keane down. But a fat lot of consolation that was to him if he was dead.

Banks felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness as Keane's words washed over him, some of them resonating, some not connecting at all. All he could think, if you could call it thinking, was that he was going to die soon. By fire. He remembered again the image of the little girl etched forever into his mind, sculpted by the fire into an attitude of prayer, kneeling by her bed, a charred angel. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

Banks heard the door open and felt a brief chill as the draft blew in. It revitalized him enough to make that one last attempt to move, but all he could manage was to roll off the sofa and bang his head on the sharp edge of the low coffee table. As he lay on the floor, the blood dripping in his eye, fast losing consciousness, he heard the door shut again and then the sloshing of petrol from the can. He could smell it now, the fumes overwhelming him, and all he wanted to do was hug the floor and fall asleep. The andante from “Death and the Maiden” was playing, and Banks's final thought was that this was the last piece of music he was ever going to hear.

 

Annie felt no real sense of urgency as they drove along the Dale to Banks's cottage. Only that she had to see Banks, to talk to him about what she had discovered and what she was beginning to suspect. But Winsome was behind the wheel, and whatever inner alarms were ringing in Annie seemed to have communicated themselves to her, and she was doing her best Damon Hill imitation.

She slowed down as they passed through Fortford. A few lights showed behind drawn curtains, and here and there Annie could make out the flickering of a television set. One bent old man was walking his collie toward the Rose and Crown. There was a long stretch of uninhabited road between there and Helmthorpe, nothing but dark hills silhouetted against
the night sky, distant farm lights and the sleek shimmer of moonlight on the slow-flowing river.

There were a few people out on Helmthorpe High Street, mostly heading for folk night at the Dog and Gun, Annie guessed. The general store was still open and the fish-and-chip-shop queue was almost out into the street. Annie was still hungry, despite the salad sandwich. She thought of asking Winsome to stop. She didn't eat fish, but if the chips had been cooked in vegetable oil, then they might go down nicely with a pinch of salt and a dash of malt vinegar. But she held her hunger pangs at bay. Later.

Winsome turned sharp left, past the school, with only a slight screeching of rubber on Tarmac, and slipped smoothly down into second for the hill up to Gratly. Just before the village was a narrow laneway to the right, leading to Banks's cottage, and as they approached, a car came out and turned right, heading away from them. It wasn't Banks's Renault.

“That looks like Phil's car,” Annie said.

“Are you sure?” Winsome asked.

“It can't be. He told me he was still in London.”

Winsome stopped before turning into Banks's drive. “Shall I follow it?”

Annie thought for a moment. It would be good to know for certain. But if it was Phil, what on earth had he been doing visiting Banks? “No,” she said. “No point in a car chase over the moors. Let's do what we came here for and see if Alan's in.”

Winsome turned into Banks's drive, and ahead she and Annie could see the flames climbing up the curtains in the living room.
Christ, no!
Annie thought. No. Not after all this. She couldn't be too late. But they were flames, all right, and they were all over the front room.

“Call the fire brigade,” Annie said, unbuckling her safety belt and jumping out before the car had even come to a full halt. “And tell them there's danger to life. A police officer's life.” That might speed them up a bit, Annie thought. The lo
cal station was staffed by retained men, and it would take an extra five minutes for them to respond to their personal alerters and get to the station. Rural response time was eighteen minutes, and there'd be nothing left of the cottage by then.

Annie couldn't just stand there and watch the place burn. She knew that the worst thing you could do with a fire was open the door and supply more oxygen, but opening the door was the only chance she possibly had of getting Banks out alive. If he was still alive.

Annie pulled the wool blanket from the boot of the car. Luckily, the rain had left a few puddles in Banks's potholed drive, so she rolled it around quickly to soak it, then she wrapped it around herself, paying special attention to covering her hair and face.

Winsome had her car door open by now, mobile still in her hand. “What are you doing, Guv?” she yelled. “You can't go in there. You know you can't.”

“Did you ring?”

“Yes. They're coming. But you—”

Annie went up to the door.

Locked.

“Guv!”

Rearing back, she kicked at the area around the lock. It took her three tries, and it hurt her foot like hell, but she succeeded in the end. The door flew open and the fire surged, as she had expected. She heard Winsome shouting behind her against the roar of the flames, but she couldn't stop now. She took a deep breath and rushed inside. She had only seconds, if that.

The smoke was thick and the petrol fumes seeped through the blanket she had wrapped around her mouth and nose. As soon as she was inside, Annie could feel the intense heat licking at her, the tongues of flame on her legs and ankles. She hadn't believed fire could make so much noise. She called out Banks's name, but she knew he wouldn't be able to answer. He would be drugged, just like the others. It was a small
living room and Annie was fortunate to know her way around. She had been there often enough to know about the low coffee table between the sofa and armchairs, for example, so she wasn't going to trip over that.

The flames roared and smoke billowed. A painting fell off the wall and the glass smashed. Annie's eyes were stinging. She needed to breathe again. Her lungs felt as if they were exploding.

Then she saw him, just a leg, through the smoke down on the floor near the table. She rushed over to him. No time for subtleties, now, Annie, she told herself, as she threw the table over, grabbed Banks's legs with both hands and tugged. The limp body slid across the carpet. Annie's arms strained at her shoulder sockets.

Banks banged his head on the leg of the table as Annie pulled him around its edge. She couldn't see clearly, but she sensed that the open door was right behind her. All she had to do was keep on pulling him, moving backward. She thought she was going to keel over from the heat and smoke, but she kept dragging him, and soon she felt the chill of the outside piercing the blanket over her back. Almost there. A part of the ceiling fell down close to her, and flames singed her eyebrows. Annie couldn't go on. She felt her strength waning, her legs beginning to buckle under her. So close. Her vision shimmered. Her knees bent and she started toppling forward.

Then she felt herself bodily lifted and practically thrown across the lane. As she landed unceremoniously in the mud, she was able to rub her eyes and see Winsome finish the job, drag Banks's body out of the doorway to safety. Annie breathed the fresh air deeply and let herself fall back, hair and arms spread out in the mud, still wrapped in her damp blanket.

Winsome was outside the cottage now, and a few more feet would free Banks from the flames. His head bounced down the steps. Annie didn't know if he was dead or alive. She didn't even want to look at him for fear he would be
grotesquely disfigured by the fire, or just lying with his eyes wide open.

Finally, Winsome set Banks down a few feet from the cottage and hurried over to Annie.

“You all right, Guv?”

“I'm fine,” said Annie.

“That was a bloody stupid thing to do, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“Alan…?”

“I don't know, Guv. It took all I had to get the two of you out of there.”

Annie flung off her blanket and took a deep breath. And another. The cold fresh air made her feel dizzy. The two of them went over and squatted beside Banks. His clothes were smoldering, so Annie put the damp blanket on him. His face was blackened by the smoke, and she really couldn't tell if he was badly burned or not. She didn't think so, hoped to God not.

Holding her own breath, Annie leaned forward and listened for his. She thought he was still breathing. She wished she had some oxygen, wished that the firefighters and the ambulances would hurry up. She didn't even know whether it would help to give him the kiss of life, or if it would only make things worse.
Live, you bastard, live
, she whispered, Winsome beside her, hand on her shoulder, and in the distance she heard the welcome sound of a fire engine.

 

It was the middle of the night when Annie finally got home from the hospital, exhausted beyond belief, leaving Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe to keep a bedside vigil. There was more paperwork to do, of course, always more paperwork, but that could wait until morning.

Banks wasn't out of danger yet. He still wasn't conscious, for a start. Annie told the doctor that he had most likely been drugged with Rohypnol, or something similar, probably mixed
with alcohol. The flames had done
some
damage, mostly to his right leg and side, which had been closest in proximity to one of the seats of the fire, and to one side of his face. They were second-degree burns, with blistering, which would be extremely painful and cause some scarring. Banks's shallow breathing had prevented the high level of smoke inhalation that might have done more serious damage more quickly, and the bumps on his head from the table and steps were superficial.

Annie moved around like a zombie. She knew she should go to bed but she was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep. She needed a drink; she knew that much at least. She didn't often drink spirits, but tonight called for something stronger than wine, so she poured herself a stiff cognac and coughed when she first tasted the fiery liquor.

When she caught a glance of herself in the mirror, she was surprised at the muddy hair, sooty face and the frightened eyes that looked back at her. The doctor who had examined Annie and Winsome had been reluctant to let her go, but there was no real damage and no real reason to keep her. She had insisted she was fine. And she was, physically. Her muscles ached, and her foot was bruised and swollen from kicking the door in, but other than that she had been spared the ravages of fire and smoke. She had probably been in the burning cottage for no more than thirty seconds, she reckoned. Of course, the station officer had given her a bollocking for going in at all, but she sensed that he did so because it was expected of him, because it was his job, and that he secretly approved. He must have known, as Annie did, that there was nothing else she could have done to save Banks's life.

Phil
. Phil Keane had done all this. He had enlisted his old polytechnic pals McMahon and Gardiner to help him with the art scam, and they had got together and turned on him. For that, he had killed them. It had to have happened that way. It was the only thing that made sense now. Philip Keane, not Leslie Whitaker, was Giles Moore. Philip Keane, not
Leslie Whitaker, had assumed William Masefield's identity, and perhaps even killed him, too.

Annie would never understand in a million years how she could have felt so close to someone capable of doing what he did, of thinking she was in love with him, of sharing his bed. The thought made her skin crawl.

She realized that Phil, or whatever his name really was, was one of those rare creatures indeed: part charming con man, part cold-blooded killer. Con men didn't usually kill, not unless they were cornered and could see no other way out. And that was what must have happened. The threat of exposure. Of ruin. Of prison.

Phil Keane made people feel special so that he could manipulate them. Chameleonlike, he metamorphosed from one identity to another, leaving chaos in his wake. And he did it for profit and self-protection. Annie shook her head in disbelief at her own blindness. How little we know even those closest to us, she thought. Phil Keane kept his true self locked in a dark, secret place nobody could ever penetrate. You saw what he wanted you to see, believed what he wanted you to believe.

And he made you feel special.

Annie tossed back the cognac and poured herself another large one. What the hell. She felt as if she had been raped all over again, and right now she didn't know if she hated Phil more for killing McMahon and Gardiner, and for almost killing Banks, or for deceiving her so completely. He had used her all along, of that she was certain. While he hadn't known he was going to kill McMahon and Gardiner, he had been in a criminal partnership with them by August, when he had pursued Annie, and he had no doubt thought it would be useful to get close to someone with inside knowledge of what the local police were thinking and doing.