“Off somewhere with Sean?”

“There’s no need to make it sound like that. And as a matter of fact, no, I’m not. Sean’s away photographing flood damage in Wales.”

Let’s hope the flood water carries him away with it, Banks thought, but bit his tongue. “I’m in town,” he said. “In London. I was wondering if, maybe, tomorrow night you might be free for a meal. Or we could just have a drink. Lunch, even.”

“What are you doing down here? Working?”

“In a manner of speaking. Are you free?”

He could almost hear Sandra thinking across the wires. Finally, she said, “Yes. Actually. Yes, I am. Sean won’t be back until Sunday.”

“So will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Yes. All right. That’s a good idea. There’s a few things we have to talk about.” She named a restaurant on Camden High Street, not far from where she lived. “Seven-thirty?”

“Can you make it eight, just to be on the safe side?”

“Eight, then.”

“Fine. See you there.”

“See you.”

Sandra hung up and Banks was left with the dead line buzzing in his ear. Maybe she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms, but she hadn’t cut him off, either. More importantly, she had agreed to see him tomorrow And dinner was far more intimate than lunch or a quick drink in the afternoon. It was a good sign.

It was already dark by late afternoon when Banks took the train out of Euston. The Virgin InterCity sped through Hemel Hempstead so fast he could hardly read the station nameplate, then it slowed down near Berkhamsted for no reason Banks was aware of except that trains did that every now and then – something to do with leaves on the tracks, or a cow in a tunnel.

Berkhamsted was where Graham Greene came from, Banks remembered from A Sort of Life, which he had read a year or two ago. Greene had been one of his favorite writers ever since he first saw The Third Man on television back in the old Met days. After that, in his usual obsessive fashion, he collected and read everything he could get his hands on, from the “entertainments” to the serious novels, films on video, essays and short stories.

He was particularly taken by the story of the nineteen-or twenty-year-old Greene going out to Ashbridge Park in Berkhamsted with a loaded revolver to play Russian roulette. It was eerie now to imagine the awkward, gangly young man, destined to become one of the century’s most famous writers, clicking on an empty chamber that autumn over seventy-five years ago, not far from where the train had just stopped.

Banks had also been impressed by Greene’s writings on childhood, about how we are all “emigrants from a country we remember too little of,” how important to us are the fragments we do remember clearly and how we spend our time trying to reconstruct ourselves from these.

For most of his life, Banks hadn’t dwelled much on his past, but since Sandra had left him a year ago, he had found himself returning over and over again to certain incidents, the heightened moments of joy and fear and guilt, along with the objects, sights, sounds and smells that brought them back, like Proust’s madelaines, as if he were looking for clues to his future. He remembered reading that Greene, as a child, had had a number of confrontations with death, and these had helped shape his life. Banks had experienced the same thing, and he thought that in some obscure, symbolic way, they partly explained why he had become a policeman.

He remembered, for example, the hot summer day when Phil Simpkins wrapped his rope around the high tree in the churchyard and spiraled down, yelling like Tarzan, right onto the spiked railings. Banks knew he would never forget the squishy thud that the body made as it hit. There had been no adults around. Banks and two others had pulled their writhing, screaming friend off the railings and stood there wondering what to do while he bled to death, soaking them in the blood that gushed from a pierced artery in his thigh. Someone later said they should have tied a tourniquet and sent for help. But they had panicked, frozen. Would Phil have lived if they hadn’t? Banks thought not, but it was a possibility, and a mistake, he had lived with all his life.

Then there was Jem, a neighbor in his Notting Hill days, who had died of a heroin overdose; and Graham Marshall, a shy, quiet classmate who had gone missing and never been found. In his own way, Banks felt he was responsible for them, too. So many deaths for one so young. Sometimes Banks felt as if he had blood on his hands, that he had let so many people down.

The train stopped in Milton Keynes. Banks got off, walked up the stairs and along the overpass to the station exit.

He had never been to Milton Keynes before, though he had heard plenty of jokes about the place. One of the new towns, built in the late sixties, it was constructed on a grid system, with planned social centers, hidden pedestrian paths, rather than pavements, and hundreds of roundabouts. It sounded like the sort of design that would go down well in America, but the British sneered at it. Still, at not much over half an hour by train from London, and a much cheaper place to live, it was ideal commuting territory.

As it was, it was too dark to see much of the place. The taxi seemed to circle roundabout after roundabout, all of them with numbers, like V5 and H6. Banks didn’t see any pavements or people out walking. He hadn’t a clue where he was.

Finally, when the taxi turned into Stony Stratford, he found himself on a typical old village High Street, with ancient pubs and shop facades. For a moment, he wondered if it was all fake, just a faux finish to give the illusion of a real English village in the midst of all that concrete-and-glass modernity. It seemed real enough, though, and when the taxi pulled into a street of tall, narrow prewar terrace houses, he guessed that it probably was real.

The youth who answered the door looked to be in his mid- to late twenties; he wore black jeans and a gray sweatshirt advertising an American football team. He was about Banks’s height, around five feet eight or nine, with curly dark hair and finely chiseled features. His nose had a little bump at the bridge, as if it had been broken and not properly set, and he was holding something that looked like a squat vacuum flask, which he kept tipping gently from side to side. Banks recognized it as a developing tank.

Craig Newton, if that indeed was who it was, looked both puzzled and annoyed to find a stranger on his doorstep early on a Friday evening. Banks didn’t look like an insurance salesman – besides, how many salesmen still called at houses in these days of direct mail and electronic advertising? He also didn’t look like a religious type, or a copper.

“What are you collecting for?” Newton asked. “I’m busy.”

“Mr. Newton? Craig Newton?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Mind if I come in for a moment?”

“Yes, I do. Tell me what you want.”

“It’s about Louisa.”

Craig Newton stepped back a couple of inches, clearly startled. “Louisa? What about her?”

“You do know her, then?”

“Of course I do. If it’s the same person we’re talking about. Louisa. Louisa Gamine.” He pronounced it in Italian fashion, with a stress on the final e. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Louisa?”

“Can I come in?”

He stood back and gave Banks enough room to enter. “Yes, I’m sorry. Please.”

Banks followed him down a narrow hallway into the front room. These old terrace houses weren’t very wide, but they made up for it in length, with both kitchen and bathroom tacked on at the back like afterthoughts. Comfortably messy, the first thing the room told Banks was that Newton probably lived alone. A number of magazines, mostly to do with photography or movies, littered the coffee table, along with a few empty lager cans. A TV set stood at the far end. “The Simpsons” was showing. There was also a faint whiff of marijuana in the air, though Newton didn’t appear stoned at all.