The woman who opened the door had clearly been crying, but it didn’t mar her looks one bit, Banks thought. Perhaps the whites of her almond eyes were a little too red and the glossy blue-black hair could have done with a good brushing, but there was no denying that she was a woman of exceptional beauty.

Northern Indian, Banks guessed, or perhaps from Bangladesh or Pakistan, she had skin the color of burnished gold, with high cheekbones, full, finely drawn lips and a figure that wouldn’t be out of place in Playboy, revealed to great advantage by skin-tight ice-blue jeans and a jade-green T-shirt tucked in at her narrow waist. Around her neck, she wore a necklace of many-colored glass beads. She also wore a gold stud in her left nostril. She looked to be in her mid-twenties.

Her fingers, Banks noticed as she raised her hand to push the door shut, were long and tapered, with clear nails cut very short. A spiral gold bracelet slipped down her slim wrist over her forearm. On the other wrist, she wore a simple Timex with a black plastic strap. She had only one ring, and that was a gold band on the middle finger of her right hand. Light down covered her bare brown arms.

The living room was arranged for comfort. A small three-piece suite with burgundy velour upholstery formed a semi-circle around a thick glass coffee-table in front of the fireplace, which may once have housed a real coal fire but now was given over to an electric one with three elements and a fake flaming-coals effect. On the coffee-table, the new Mary Wesley paperback lay open face down beside a copy of the Radio Times and an earthenware mug half full of milky tea.

A few family photographs in gilt frames stood on the mantelpiece. On the wall above the fire hung a print of Ganesh, the elephant god, in a brightly colored primitive style. In the corner by the front window stood a television with a video on a shelf underneath. The only other furniture in the room was a mini stereo system and several racks of compact discs, a glass-fronted cabinet of crystalware and a small bookcase mostly full of modern fiction and books about music.

But it was the far end of the room that caught Banks’s interest, for there stood a music stand with some sheet music on it, and beside that, on a chair, lay what he first took to be an oversized violin, but quickly recognized as a viola.

The woman sat on the sofa, curling her legs up beside her, and Banks and Susan took the armchairs.

“Are you a musician?” Banks asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Professional?”

“Uh-huh. I’m with the Northern Philharmonia, and I do a bit of chamber work on the side. Why?”

“Just curious.” Banks was impressed. The English Northern Philharmonia played for Opera North, among other things, and was widely regarded as one of the best opera orchestras in the country. He had been to see Opera North’s superb production of La Bohème recently and must have heard Pamela Jeffreys play.

“Ms. Jeffreys,” he began, after a brief silence. “I must admit that your phone call has us a bit confused.”

“Not half as much as that rubbish in the newspaper has me confused.” She had no Indian accent at all, just West Yorkshire with a cultured, university edge.

Banks slipped a recent good-quality photograph of Keith Rothwell from his briefcase and passed it to her. “Is this the man we’re talking about?”

“Yes. I think this is Robert, though he looks a bit stiff here.” She handed it back. “There’s a mistake, isn’t there? It must be someone who looks just like him, that’s it.”

“What exactly was your relationship?”

She fiddled with her necklace. “We’re friends. Maybe we were more than that at one time, but now we’re just friends.”

“Were you lovers?”

“Yes. For a while.”

“For how long?”

“Three or four months.”

“Until when?”

“Six months ago.”

“So you’ve known him for about ten months altogether?”

“Yes.”

“How did you meet?”

“In a pub. The Boulevard, on Westgate actually. I was with some friends. Robert was by himself. We just got talking, like you do.”

“Have you seen him since you stopped being lovers?”

“Yes. I told you. We remained friends. We don’t see each other as often, of course, but we still go out every now and then, purely Platonic. I like Robert. He’s good fun to be with, even when we stopped being lovers. Look, what’s all this in-”

“When did you last see him, Ms. Jeffreys?”

“Pamela. Please call me Pamela. Let me see… it must have been a month or more ago. Look, is this some mistake, or what?”

“We don’t know yet, Pamela,” Susan Gay said. “We really don’t, love. You’ll help us best get it sorted out if you answer Chief Inspector Banks’s questions.”

Pamela nodded.

“Was there anything unusual about Mr… about Robert the last time you saw him?” Banks asked.

“No.”

“He didn’t say anything, tell you about anything that was worrying him?”

“No. Robert never seemed to worry about anything. Except he hated being called Bob.”

“So there was nothing at all different about him?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Oh?”

“It’s just a guess, like.”

“What was it?”

“I think he’d met someone else. Another woman. I think he was in love.”

Banks swallowed, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. This couldn’t be dull, dry, mild-mannered Keith Rothwell. Surely Rothwell wasn’t the kind of man to have a wife and children in Swainsdale and a beautiful girlfriend like Pamela Jeffreys in Leeds, whom he could simply dump for yet another woman?

“Don’t get me wrong,” Pamela went on. “I’m not bitter or anything. We had a good time, and it was never anything more. We didn’t lie to each other. Neither of us wanted to get too involved. And one thing Robert doesn’t do is mess you around. That’s why we can still be friends. But he made it clear it was over between us – at least in that way – and I got the impression it was because he’d found someone else.”

“Did you ever see this woman?”

“No.”

“Did he ever speak of her?”

“No. I just knew. A woman can tell about these things, that’s all.”

“Did you ask him about her?”

“I broached the subject once or twice.”

“What happened?”

“He changed it.” She smiled. “He has a way.”

“How often did you see each other?”

“When we were going out?”

“Yes.”

“Just once or twice a week. Mostly late in the week, weekends sometimes. He travels a lot on business. Anyway, he’s usually at home every week at some time, at least for a day or two.”

“What’s his business?”

“Dunno. That’s another thing he never said much about. I can’t say I was really that interested, either. I mean, it’s boring, isn’t it, talking about business. I liked going out with Robert because he was fun. He could leave his work at home.”

“Did he smoke?”

“What an odd question. Yes, as a matter of fact. Not much, though.”

“What brand?”

“Benson and Hedges. I don’t mind people smoking.”

Encouraged, Banks slipped his Silk Cut out of his pocket. Pamela smiled and brought him a glass ashtray. “What was he like?” Banks asked. “What kind of things did you used to do together?”

Pamela looked at Banks with a glint of naughty humor in her eyes and raised her eyebrows. Banks felt himself flush. “I mean where did you used to go?” he said quickly.

“Yeah, I know. Hmmm… Well, we’d go out for dinner about once a week. Brasserie 44 – you know, down by the river – or La Grillade, until it moved. He likes good food. Let’s see… sometimes we’d go to concerts at the Town Hall, if I wasn’t playing, of course, but he’s not very fond of classical music, to be honest. Prefers that dreadful trad jazz. And sometimes we’d just stay in, order a pizza or a curry and watch telly if there was something good on. Or rent a video. He likes oldies. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, that kind of thing. So do I. Let me see… we’d go to Napoleon’s every once in a while-”