“Maybe it was Roy who rang Jennifer later, then?” Annie suggested.

“And gave her directions to my cottage and told her to set off right there and then because he couldn’t come himself? Maybe it was. But why? What happened between half past nine and a quarter to eleven?”

“That we don’t know.” Annie paused. “Poor lass,” she said. “Everything I’ve found out about Jennifer tells me she was a decent, hardworking, caring person, perhaps a bit naive and idealistic.”

“So what got her killed?”

“I wish I knew.” Annie sipped her wine. The light changed and she could tell that clouds were gathering, the world darkening around them. “What are you going to do next?”

“Carry on my own personal covert operation,” said Banks

Annie smiled. “What can I say?”

“Nothing. You?”

“I’ll talk to Dave Brooke as soon as I can and I’m pretty sure he’ll want to see you. I mean it, Alan. Our cases have crossed and I’m not leaving any loose ends. Besides, given what happened to Jennifer Clewes, Roy could be in danger. Have you thought about that?”

“I haven’t thought about much else,” said Banks. “Mostly I’ve been thinking that he’s done a runner, with kidnapping a distant second. Your connecting him with the murdered girl puts a different complexion on things.”

“I’m glad you see it that way. If you’d bothered to keep in touch, we might have got to this point ages ago.”

“How was I to know you were looking for me?”

“You know what I mean. Anyway, I’ve still got a couple of things to do tomorrow. Jennifer was killed on our patch, but her life was down here. It makes things awkward.”

“So what do you have to do?”

“Visit Jennifer’s workplace, for a start. She worked at a family-planning center in Knightsbridge. It-”

“What’s it called?” Banks asked.

“The Berger-Lennox Centre. Why?”

Banks opened the folder again and started turning over sheets of paper, some of them covered with his own spidery scrawl. Finally he pointed to a printed sheet. “I thought I remembered the name,” he said. “It’s one of the centers Roy invested in. One of Julian Harwood’s companies. Are you sure that’s where Jennifer Clewes worked?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps that’s where they met, then. Harwood told me that Roy’s a hands-on sort of investor, likes to check out his assets. And if Jennifer Clewes was a good-looking young woman…”

“Which she was,” said Annie.

“Bingo.”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Maybe not,” said Banks. “But it’s another connection. One person murdered, another disappeared. Her phone number is in his book, my address is in her back pocket, and they have this family-planning center in common. I don’t know about you, but that’s way too many coincidences for me. Maybe I’ll go with you tomorrow. Find out for certain. Someone must remember if Roy’s been there.”

Annie paused. She wanted to be diplomatic but didn’t quite know how to do it. In the end, she threw caution to the wind. “You can’t,” she said. “You know you can’t. It’s not your case. I’ve already made it clear I’m making your brother’s disappearance official and I’m giving you a bit of room to maneuver, but you can’t just come muscling in. You have no official standing in the Jennifer Clewes investigation whatsoever.”

“But what if there’s a connection with what’s happened to Roy?”

“Look, Alan, you’ve got no official standing there, either. I’m not taking you with me and that’s that.”

“Fine,” said Banks. “Okay. I understand.”

“Don’t sulk. It doesn’t suit you.” Annie stood up. She felt a little wobbly, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. “And stick around. DI Brooke will be wanting to take your statement.” Annie heard a light tapping sound on the leaves behind her. It quickly grew louder and faster. The rain had started again.

It was early evening and Banks was sitting in Roy’s office reading through the files of correspondence Corinne had printed out when he heard someone at the door. At first he thought it might be Roy, but why would he be knocking at his own door? Then he thought it might be DI Brooke come to interview him and decided it would be best to get it over with. Even so, he looked for some sort of weapon, just in case. All he could find was a set of golf clubs in the landing cupboard, so he grasped one of the irons and answered the door. The man who stood there was about Banks’s age. He was wearing a dark suit, had a neat side parting in his graying black hair and a serious, intelligent look in his eyes. He could have been a policeman, Banks thought, except that he was wearing a clerical collar. He looked at the golf club and at Banks.

“Hello,” he said, reaching his hand out tentatively. “Hunt’s the name. Ian Hunt. Roy home?”

Banks shook his hand. It felt damp and cool. “No,” he said. “I’m his brother, Alan. What’s it about?”

“He’s mentioned you,” said Hunt. “The policeman. But I didn’t think… Never mind.”

Banks had a good idea what Ian Hunt didn’t think, but he kept quiet. He needed all the information he could get, and a defensive attitude from the outset wouldn’t help matters much. He wondered what the hell the vicar was doing calling around at Roy’s house. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes. Yes, please, if it’s all right.”

Banks propped the golf club by the front door and led the way to the kitchen at the back, where he had recently sat with Annie, and offered Hunt a chair. Hunt made no comment about the club. Banks didn’t want to seem as if he was interrogating the man, but he realized he had practically forgotten the simple art of conversation after all his years in the force. His job affected the way he saw and dealt with everyone. He had even been brusque with Corinne. “Why did you want to see Roy?” he asked.

“No real reason,” Hunt said. “Only he didn’t turn up at church this morning, and that’s not like him.”

Banks nearly fell off his chair. “Church?” Wonders never cease.

“Yes. Why? What’s so strange about that?”

“Nothing,” said Banks, who hadn’t set foot inside a church since his childhood, except for weddings and funerals. He and Roy hadn’t been given a particularly religious upbringing, and neither of their parents had been regular churchgoers. At school, back in those days, there were prayers and a hymn every morning, of course, but apart from a few years of Sunday school and a brief stint in the Lifeboys and Boys’ Brigade, that had been it as far as Banks was concerned. Now this.

“Normally, I wouldn’t bother dropping by,” said Hunt, “but there was a meeting of the restoration fund committee after the service and Roy has always been a keen contributor. Not only financially, you understand, but also in terms of ideas. Very creative mind, Roy.”

“Cup of tea, Vicar?”

“Please. And call me Ian. Unless you want me to call you Chief Inspector?”

“Ian it is.” Banks put the kettle on. Tea with the vicar on a Sunday afternoon, he thought. How very genteel. This wasn’t a world he would ever have suspected Roy of inhabiting. He found the tea bags next to the coffee and put two in the flower-patterned teapot.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Banks as the kettle was coming to a boil, “when did Roy start going to church?”

“I don’t mind at all,” said Hunt. “He started attending services on the sixteenth of September, 2001.”

“I didn’t expect you to remember the exact date,” Banks said.

“But how could I forget? You’d be surprised how many people returned to the church, or first started attending, around that time.”

Banks had to think for a moment before he realized the significance of the date. It must have been the first Sunday after the attack on the World Trade Center. But why should that affect Roy so much? He poured boiling water into the pot. “What drew him there?” he asked.

Hunt paused. “You really don’t know much about your brother, do you?”