‘None of them three had much to do with Caroline anyway, as far as I noticed. They had some scenes together, but I never saw them communicate much offstage. And you can forget the others, too. I know for a fact that Antonio’s queer as a three-pound note, Sebastian’s very happily married with a mortgage, a dog and two-point-five kids, and the Clown, well… he’s very quiet actually, and he never seems to socialize with us.’

‘Have you ever noticed him talking to Caroline off-stage or between scenes?’

‘I’ve never noticed him talking to anyone. Period. One of the strangest transformations you can imagine. A wonderful Clown, but such a dull, depressing-looking man.’

Banks asked her a few more general questions but found out nothing else. Before long, Teresa was asking him about his most exciting cases and it was time to move on. He chatted briefly with some of the others but got no further. Finally, he went back to James Conran, excused himself from the company and walked out into the cold evening, but not before Faith Green managed to catch him at the door and slip him her telephone number.

Outside, Banks caught his breath at the cold. Bright stars stabbed pinpoints of light in the clear sky. Who, Banks wondered, had believed that the sky was just a kind of black-velvet curtain and the light of heaven beyond showed through the holes in it? The Greeks? Anyway, on nights like this it felt exactly that way.

There had been something wrong about his conversations in the Crooked Billet. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but everything had seemed too easy, too chummy. Everyone he spoke to had been nervous, worried about something. He hadn’t missed the way Faith excused herself before answering one of his questions, nor the way Teresa played with her cigarette when he asked her questions she didn’t like. Those two would merit further talking to, definitely. Surely there must have been minor tiffs or conflicts among the cast of a play? According to the people he had talked to, it had all been happy families – much too squeaky clean for his liking. What were they covering up, and when had they decided to do so?

He put his headphones on. In winter they acted as earmuffs, too. The tape he had in was a collection of jazz pieces by the likes of Milhaud, Gershwin and Stravinsky performed by Simon Rattle and the London Sinfonietta Tracy had bought it him for Christmas, clearly under instructions from Sandra. When Banks switched on the Walkman the erotic clarinet glissando at the opening of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue almost bowled him over. He turned down the volume and walked on.

The tree was still lit up outside the church in the market square, but there were no carol singers in evidence this evening. The cobblestones were icy and he had to step carefully. The blue lamp glowed coldly outside the police station. It was seven o’clock. Just time to drop in and see if any new information had turned up before going home for dinner.

He walked into the bustle of the police station and went straight upstairs to his office. Before he could even shut the door, Susan Gay called after him and entered.

Banks sat down and took his headphones off. ‘Anything new?’

‘I followed up on the record shops,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Most of them are open now because they’re having post Christmas sales. Anyway, I’ve tracked down two copies of that Luddite poori thing sold in the past three weeks.’

‘Good work. Where from?’

‘One from a small speciality shop in Skipton and another from the Classical Record Shop in Leeds. But there’s more, sir,’ she went on. ‘It seemed a long shot, but I asked for a description of the purchaser in both instances.’

‘And?’

‘The Leeds shop, sir. Before I’d even started he told me who’d bought it. The salesman recognized him.’

‘Claude Ivers?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, well, well,’ Banks said. ‘So he was lying after all. Why aren’t I surprised? You’ve done a great job, Susan. In fact I think you deserve a day at the seaside tomorrow.’

Susan smiled. ‘Yes, sir. Oh, and DS Richmond phoned from Barnard Castle with a message about Charles Cooper’s alibi. It seems things are getting a bit complicated, doesn’t it?’

7

ONE

A sea mist clung to the coastline when Banks and Susan arrived in Redburn at eleven o’clock the next morning. Icy roads over the vale and freezing rain on the moors had made driving difficult all the way, and now, as they came down from the land to the sea, the clash of the two elements had produced a fog that reduced visibility to no more than a few yards.

Susan, Banks could tell, was surprised at being chauffeured by a senior officer. But she would soon learn. He preferred his own car because of the stereo and the generous mileage allowance, and he actually enjoyed driving in Yorkshire, even in poor conditions such as these. On the way, he had been listening to Metamorphosen, Richard Strauss’s haunting string elegy for the bombing of the Munich Hoftheater, and he hadn’t spoken much. He didn’t know whether Susan liked the music. She had been as silent as he and had spent most of the journey looking out the window, lost in thought.

He parked the car outside the Lobster Inn again, and they made their way up the path to Ivers’s cottage. The mist seemed to permeate everything, and by the time they got to the cottage they were glad of the fire blazing in the hearth.

Again it was Pasty Janowski who answered the door. This time, when Banks introduced Detective Constable Gay, her big brown eyes clouded with worry and fixed on the door handle. She was wearing tight jeans and a dark-green turtle-neck sweater. Her dark hair, which still fell almost to her eyes in a ragged fringe, was tied back in a ponytail. Her smooth complexion was tinged with the kind of flush that a brisk walk in fresh weather brings.

‘He’ll be down in a few minutes,’ she said. ‘Sit down and warm yourselves. I’ll make some tea.’

‘Shouldn’t we go up, sir?’ Susan asked when Patsy had left the room. ‘It’ll give us an edge.’

Banks shook his head. ‘He’ll be no trouble. Besides, I want to talk to her alone first.’ They sat in the creaky wooden chairs near the fire, and Banks rubbed his hands in front of the flames. Although he had been wearing gloves on this trip, the chill seemed to have penetrated right through both leather and flesh. When he felt warm enough, he took off his overcoat and lit a cigarette. Warm air from the fire hooked the smoke and sucked it up the chimney.

Patsy returned with the tea tray and set it down beside them. There was no fresh-made bread this time.

‘What is it?’ she asked, joining them by the fire. ‘Have you found the killer?’

Banks ignored her question and picked up his mug of tea. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘where did you drive to when you left your parking spot behind the Lobster Inn the evening Caroline Hartley was killed?’

Patsy stared at his breast pocket, her eyes wide open and afraid, like a hunted doe’s. ‘I… I… You can’t expect me to remember a particular night just like that. Days are much the same out here.’

‘I can imagine that, but it was the evening before my last visit. I asked you then, very specifically, where you’d been the night before, and you both told me you’d stayed in. Now I’m asking you again.’

Patsy shrugged. ‘If I said I stayed in, I guess that’s what I did.’

‘But you were seen leaving the car park.’

‘It must have been someone else.’

‘I don’t think so. Unless you’re in the habit of lending out your car. Where did you go?’

She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea and gazed into the steaming mug as she spoke. ‘I don’t remember going anywhere, but I might have gone for a drive early on. I sometimes do that. But I wouldn’t have been gone long. There are some beautiful vantage points along the coast, but you have to drive out there, then walk a fair distance to find them.’