“No. It doesn’t matter what he did, why they did it. For once motive isn’t really an issue. Maybe they thought he’d ripped them off? I’m sure he lost their laundered money on investments in the Elmet Centre development. Maybe they thought he’d stolen drugs from them, too, or was a police informer? Whatever it was, they clearly thought he had crossed or betrayed them in some way, and they wanted to make a point.”

“They’ve certainly done that.”

Banks remembered acting like an old mate the last time he had seen Blaydon alive, patting him on the shoulder while the man in the suit and sunglasses was watching them from across the hall. Had his been the touch of Judas, the mark of death? Had they made the assumption that Blaydon was a police informer? Was he partly responsible for what had happened here?

But Banks brushed such wild and pointless thoughts aside. Blaydon had enjoyed flirting with the dark side, and it had swallowed him whole. Simple as that. Maybe they would catch the men who had done this, and maybe they wouldn’t. If the killers had any sense, they would be back in Albania by now.

“Come on.” Banks took Gerry gently by the arm and led her back outside, into the fresh air. She still seemed to be walking in a daze, and he wished he had a hip flask of whisky or brandy or something to put more of a spring in her step. There was sure to be some in the house, but it was best not to disturb anything more than he had done already.

They sat in silence on the parapet of the still fountain; only the birds singing in the trees that ringed the estate made any sounds. Banks phoned in for the full treatment—CSIs, uniformed officers, police surgeon, photographer, the lot—and before long he could hear the sounds of the emergency vehicles, distant at first, then getting louder and louder as they approached.

RAYMOND’S FLIGHT was late, and it had started to rain again by the time Zelda had negotiated their way out of Newcastle Airport. Leeds and Bradford would have been marginally closer, but the connection time with the flight from LA didn’t work out. So Newcastle it was.

They were soon heading south on the A1, past the Metro Centre, over the Tyne with its famous bridges and the Sage on its south bank in Gateshead. Then on past Team Valley and the Angel of the North, which Raymond said he had always thought looked like a rusty Spitfire standing on its tail.

But Raymond was tired after his long journey, and after a while of excited chat and numerous mentions of how glad he was to be back with Zelda, he drifted off to sleep in the passenger seat and Zelda concentrated on the road through the hypnotic rhythm of the windscreen wipers.