She held out her hand. ‘I’m Patsy Janowski. Pleased to meet you.’ Her grip was firm and strong. Her accent was American.

‘I’m here to see Mr Ivers,’ he said. ‘Is he at home?’

‘Yes, but he’s working. You can’t see him now. He hates to be disturbed.’

‘And I would hate to disturb him,’ Banks said. ‘But it’s important.’

She gave him a thoughtful look, then smiled. It was a radiant smile, and she knew it. She looked at her watch. ‘Why don’t I make us some tea and you can try some of my bread. It’s fresh from the oven. Claude will be down in twenty minutes or so for a short break.’

Banks considered the options. Either way he would have surprise on his side, and if he let Ivers finish his session, the man would probably be better disposed towards him. Was that what he wanted? At this stage, he decided, it would be helpful. He also felt a great sense of respect for the music the man created and would have been loath to interrupt the creative process. In addition, he had to admit that the prospect of tea and fresh bread was one that appealed very strongly.

He smiled back at Patsy Janowski. ‘Sounds good to me. Mind if I smoke?’

‘Go ahead. I don’t myself, but Claude’s a pipe man. I’m used to it. I won’t be a minute.’

Banks sat in front of the fire and lit up. The chair was hard and creaked whenever he shifted position, but in an odd way it was comfortable. A few minutes later, Patsy came back in with a plate full of warm bread and a steaming teapot covered with a pink quilted cosy. She put them on the low table in front of the fire then fetched butter and strawberry jam. That done, she sat opposite Banks.

‘Nice place,’ he said, buttering the bread.

‘Yes. Claude bought it after he split up with his wife. They had this enormous mansion near Eastvale, and you know what prices are like these days. This was comparatively cheap. Needed a bit of work. And he always wanted to live by the sea. He says it inspires his work. You know, the sea’s rhythms, its music.’

As she spoke, Banks noticed, her lively eyes flitted from one thing to another: his wedding ring, the scar by his right eye, his left foot, the middle button on his shirt. It wasn’t as if she were avoiding eye contact, more as if she were conducting an inventory.

Banks nodded at what she said. He had noticed musical imitations of the ebb and flow of waves in Ivers’s previous work. Perhaps such effects would be even more prevalent in the future. Certainly between the hiss and crackle of the fire he could hear waves pounding the rough sea wall.

‘What about you?’ Banks asked.

‘What about me?’

‘What do you do? It’s a bit out of the way here, isn’t it?’

She shrugged. ‘Why should you assume I’d prefer the city? Do you think I like cruising the bars, going to discos, taking my credit cards shopping?’ She smiled before he could answer. ‘I love it here. I can amuse myself. I read, I draw a little. I like to cook and go for long walks. And I’m working on my PhD dissertation. That keeps me busy.’

‘Consider me suitably chastised,’ Banks said.

‘Thank you.’ She treated him to the radiant smile again, then frowned. ‘What is it you want with Claude?’

‘It’s a personal matter.’

‘We do live together, you know. It’s not as if I was just a neighbour dropping in for gossip.’

Banks smiled. She had at least answered a question before he’d had to ask it. ‘Do you know his ex-wife, Veronica Shildon?’

‘I’ve met her. Why, has anything-?’

Banks held up a hand. ‘Don’t worry, nothing’s happened to her,’ he said.

‘And she’s not really his ex-wife,’ Patsy said. ‘They’re still married.’ She sounded as if she didn’t like that state of affairs. ‘Wanted to avoid the scandal. More bread?’

‘Mmm, I think I will.’ Banks reached forward. ‘A drop more tea as well, if there is any.’

‘Sure.’

‘How did you meet Claude Ivers?’

Patsy looked at the pen in Banks’s top pocket. ‘I was studying at York when he was teaching a music appreciation course. I took it and kind of… well, he noticed me. We’ve been living together here for a year now.’

‘Happily?’

‘Yes.’

‘How often have you met Veronica?’

‘Three or four times. They were very civilized about things. At least they were by the time I came on to the scene.’

‘What about Caroline Hartley?’

Her jaw set. ‘You’ll have to ask Claude about her. I’ve met her once or twice, but I can’t say I know her. Look, if it’s-’

At that moment they heard a cracking on the stairs and both turned in unison to see Claude Ivers duck under the low lintel and walk into the room. He made an imposing figure – tall, gaunt, stooped – and there was no doubt about the power of his presence. He wore a jersey and baggy jeans, and his grey hair stuck up in places as if he had been running his hand through it. His skin was reddish and leathery, like that of a man who has spent a lot of time in the wind and sun, and a deep ‘V’ of concentration furrowed the bridge of his nose. He looked to be in his early fifties. An inquisitive glance passed between Ivers and Patsy before she introduced Banks. Ivers shook hands and sat down. Patsy went to see to his coffee.

‘What do you want to see me about?’ he asked.

Banks repressed a childish urge to tell him he liked his music. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Caroline Hartley, your wife’s companion. She’s dead.’

Ivers lurched forward and gripped the sides of his chair. ‘Good God! What? How?’

‘She was murdered.’

‘But that’s absurd. Things like that don’t happen in real life.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s true.’

He shook his head. ‘Is Veronica all right?’

‘She’s very upset, obviously, but apart from that she’s okay. I take it you still care?’

‘Of course I do.’

Banks heard something crash down heavily in the kitchen.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr Ivers,’ he went on, ‘I find that very difficult to understand. If my wife-’

He waved Banks’s comparison aside. ‘Listen, I went through everything any normal man would go through. Everything. Not just anger and rage, but disbelief, disgust, loss of self-esteem, loss of self-confidence. I went through hell. Christ, it’s bad enough when your wife runs away with another man, but another woman…’

‘You forgave her?’

‘If that’s the right word. I could never entirely blame Veronica in the first place. Can you understand that? It was as if she’d been led astray, fallen under someone else’s influence.’

‘Caroline Hartley’s?’

He nodded.

‘Would you tell me what happened?’

For several moments there was silence but for the fire, the sea and muted sounds from the kitchen. Finally, Ivers stared at Banks, then cracked his fingers and stretched back in the chair.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’re a stranger. Somehow that makes it easier. And we don’t get many people to talk to around here. Sometimes I get a bit stir-crazy, as Patsy puts it. There’s not a lot to it, really. One day everything was tine. She was happy, we were happy. At least I thought so. Maybe she got a bit bored from time to time, got depressed now and then, but we had a good solid marriage, or so I thought. Then she started seeing a therapist, didn’t tell me why. I don’t think she knew herself, but I suspect it was a bit of a trend among bored, middle-class housewives. It didn’t seem to be doing her much harm at first so I didn’t object, but then, out of the blue, there’s this new friend. It’s all “Caroline says this” and “Caroline says that”. My wife starts to change in front of my eyes. Can you believe that? She even started using this other girl’s language, saying things she would never say herself. She started calling things she liked “neat”. “Really neat”, she’d say! That wasn’t Veronica. And she started dressing differently. She’d always been a bit on the formal side, but now she’d wear jeans and a sweatshirt. And there was all that interminable talk about Jung and self-actualization. I think she once told me I was too much the thinking type, or some such rot. Said my music was too intellectual and not emotional enough. And she got interested in stuff she’d never cared about when I’d tried to interest her – theatre, cinema, literature. She was never in, always around at Caroline’s. Then she even started suggesting that I should go to therapy too.’