by John Harvey
It turned out to be French, the cooking done behind the counter in a space no bigger than a half-size snooker table. He settled for the onion soup, then lamb’s liver, which was tasty and tender, a nice pinkish turn of blood drifting into the accompanying rice and courgettes.
The names Jackie Ferris had given him, printed out neatly on a single sheet, were folded inside the smart new notebook he had requisitioned from the stationery manager that morning:
Hugo Levin
Bernard Martlet
Maria Rush
Martin Sansom
Edward Snow
Vernon Thackray
David Wood
All with London numbers save Martlet, who lived in Brighton, and Thackray, whose address was in Aldeburgh. But Resnick knew that already: it was Thackray who had called on Miriam Johnson, offering to buy the paintings; Thackray whose line was now, seemingly, disconnected.
He struggled to say no to crème brûlée, accepted losing with a brave face, and asked for a double espresso and the bill. According to Jackie, the club he was going to was only a short walk away and he didn’t want to miss the first set.
There was no way Resnick could have known, but Grabianski’s grandmother-not the Polish one, but the English-had brought him here, to Chapel Market, on her rare trips north of the river. Cheap vegetables, stockings, birthday cards, and cheese, off they would go, staggering home, weighed down with bargains and with young Jerzy struggling to keep his string bag from dragging on the ground. But not before they had shuffled into the eel and pie shop for steak and kidney pie and mash, Jerzy’s head just level with the counter and the edge of his white china plate.
The street that Resnick walked along was thick with refuse from that day’s market, crates and boxes interlaced with bright blue paper, rotting oranges, grapes, onions oozing pus.
The Rhythmic was on the left-hand side, beyond where the market proper ended. The main room was large, larger than Resnick had anticipated, the half immediately facing him set out with tables for dining. He had time to buy a bottle of Budvar and find leaning space along the side wall before the lights dimmed and, after a brief announcement, Jessica Williams came on stage.
Tall, red-haired, and wearing a long, loose flowing dress, she sat at the piano and for a moment fidgeted with the height of the stool. Even before she began playing, fingers hesitating above the keys, Resnick had noticed the size of her hands. Then, without introduction, she launched into “I Should Care.” Almost deferentially at first, brushing the tune around its edges, feeling her way freshly into a melody she must have played-and Resnick heard-a hundred times. Ten minutes later, when she had exhausted every variation, left hand finally rocking through a stride pattern that would have made James P. Johnson or Fats Waller beam with pleasure, she finished to a roar of disbelieving applause.
And paused, eyes closed, waiting for the silence to resume. This time it was a slow blues, building from the most basic of patterns to a dazzling display of counterpoint that recalled for Resnick an old album he had bought by Lennie Tristano-“C Minor Complex,” “G Minor Complex”-bop meets Bach. After that, she clearly felt relaxed enough to talk, and played her way through two sets of standards and originals that held the crowd’s-and Resnick’s-attention fast.
By the time he walked back out into the London night some hours later, he knew he had been in the presence of something-someone-special.
I should care, the words came to him, I should let it upset me. When he dialed Hannah’s number from the callbox on the corner, the answerphone had been switched off and it rang and rang and rang till he broke the connection with his thumb.
Fourteen
Resnick had been sitting there no longer than it took to prize the top off his first cup of coffee, when he saw Jackie Ferris approaching from the opposite corner of the square. This morning she was wearing a tan raincoat, open over a rust-red cotton sweater and blue jeans. Black and white Nikes on her feet.
It was a well-kept space surrounded by railings, flourishing shrubs, and trees; flower beds marked the perimeters of close-cut grass. The cafeteria was a low prefabricated building in the northeast corner, a paved crescent in front of it dotted with tables and chairs. On all sides, red or green buses trailed one another through the heavy morning traffic and the pavements were busy with people on their way to work.
“You found it okay, then?”
“No problem.” Russell Square was less than a ten-minute stroll from Resnick’s hotel.
Jackie nodded toward his cup. “Ready for another?”
“Not yet.”
Resnick leaned back against the metal chair and waited; the coffee was slightly bitter but at least it was strong. Jackie re-emerged with a polystyrene cup of her own and two slices of toast on a paper plate. Before trying either toast or coffee, she lit a cigarette.
“So how was last night?”
“Fine.”
“Enjoy the jazz?”
“Very much.”
Watching Jackie Ferris take her first bite, Resnick wished he had ordered himself some toast.
“You know, I read something about her. Jessica Williams, right? One of those magazines. Took her-what? — twenty years before she could get any sort of proper recognition. She’d play around these bars, California somewhere-Sacramento, I think that’s what it said-just waiting for a break. Anyway, according to what I read, it wasn’t just the fact that she was a woman held her back. More that she was gay.” She looked across the table at Resnick, squinting a little behind her glasses. “Did she make anything of that, last night?”
Resnick shook his head.
“And you wouldn’t have known, you couldn’t tell from the way she played?”
“I don’t see how.”
“No.”
Jackie stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. “It’s easy to get fooled sometimes, you know? You look at someone like k.d. lang filling Wembley Arena umpteen times over and you think things have changed, but really it’s not true. I don’t know, but how many jazz players are there, women who’ve really made it, got through to the top? Not singers, but musicians.”
Barbara Thompson, Kathy Stobart, Marian McPartland-Mary Lou Williams, of course, Melba Liston-that Japanese pianist whose name he could never remember. “Not many,” Resnick said.
“Man’s world, eh, Charlie? Even now.”
“Maybe.”
“Like the police.”
“I thought things were getting better.”
Jackie Ferris laughed. “How many women, what percentage, inspector and above?”
“There’s you for one.”
“And don’t think it didn’t cost me, Charlie. What, you don’t want to know.”
Resnick finished his coffee and held up his empty cup. “Time for another?”
“Plenty.”
This time, he remembered the toast.
“I’ve talked to my boss,” Jackie said. “This is the way we’d like it to play out.”
The CID room was empty, save for Lynn worrying away at an electronic typewriter that should have been pensioned off a long time back. Resnick stood in the doorway, wondering how long it would take till she was forced to recognize that he was there.
“The Family Support Unit,” Lynn said finally. “I went down to see them myself. They’ve given me an interview, Friday. Half-nine. If that’s all right.”
Resnick nodded. “That’s fine.”
He went into his office and closed the door. Before he could sit down, the phone rang; it was Suzanne Olds.
“Mark Divine,” she said. “He got bail.”
Resnick breathed a slow sigh of relief.
“They made a condition of residence, of course.”
“The flat here in the city?”
“Yes. Banned from visiting Derby city center or any nightclub anywhere this side of the trial. Forbidden from contacting or interfering with any of the prosecution’s witnesses. All pretty much what you’d expect.”
“And Mark?”
“Said if they thought they could tell him what he could do with his own time, they had their heads up their arses.”
“He’ll calm down.”
“Maybe.” She sounded less than confident.
“I’ll call round,” Resnick assured her, “have a word. He’ll see sense in the end.”
From the tone of her reply, Suzanne Olds didn’t seem convinced.
Resnick ran the gauntlet of traffic across to Canning Circus and haggled over which kind of mustard to have with a honey roast ham and Emmenthal sandwich, a generously proportioned dill pickle on the side. He was carrying this back into the building as Jack Skelton, shoes shining like there was no tomorrow, came hurrying down the stairs.
“Off to Central, Charlie. Something’s come up with these Serious Crime appointments. Pow-wow with the chief. Ride with me, you can always get yourself a lift back.”
Sitting next to Skelton in the back of the car, Resnick brought him up to speed on the situation with Divine, and outlined the details of his meeting with Jackie Ferris.
“Huh,” Skelton grunted, “the Yard’ll not be helping us monitor your pal Grabianski and dole out expert advice, without wanting plenty in return.”
“A little information,” Resnick said, not quite believing it. “Some forgery scam they’re interested in. They’ve got the idea Grabianski might lead them to the people involved. Whatever we get out of him, they want us to feed back to them.”
“And that’s all?”
Resnick shrugged. “So far.”
Skelton took a roll of extra-strong mints from his pocket and popped one into his mouth. “Well, run with it for now. But don’t commit more than we can afford. And watch they don’t give you the run-around. Smart bastards, the lot of ’em. Treat us like country cousins if we give them the chance.”
Resnick still had his sandwich, more squashed than perhaps was comfortable but the taste would be pretty much the same. When he sat down on the bench across from Peachey Street, the winos who sojourned there daily, dawn to dusk, looked at him askance. He washed it down with a brace of espressos at the Italian coffee stall nearby and talked Aldo into letting him use his phone.
Just back from work, Hannah’s spirits rose at the sound of his voice.
There was cucumber and dill soup in the freezer and they ate it with rye bread Resnick had picked up after leaving Aldo’s; later, a mixed salad dressed with honey and olive oil, a chunk of Wensleydale cheese and narrow slices of plum tart. When Hannah went upstairs to work for a while, Resnick called Graham Millington at home and got his wife instead. The sergeant was out for the evening and wouldn’t be back till late; seeing one of his informants, Madeleine thought, unable quite to disguise the distaste in her voice.
Resnick took off his shoes, put his feet up on the settee, and fell asleep listening to Bonnie Raitt.
“I thought you liked this?” Hannah said a little later, waking him with a glass of wine. Bonnie and Sippie Wallace were joking their way through “Women Be Wise.”
“I do.”
“And this?” leaning over him.
“Mmm,” he said, recovering his breath, “I like that, too.” In bed, after they had made love, she told him about Jane, about the bruise above her kidneys, the state she had been in.
“You’re sure it was Alex?”
“Who else would it be?”
Slowly, Resnick rolled onto his side to face her. “And she hasn’t said anything to you before?”
“No. I had no idea. I mean, I knew he bullied her, verbally-we talked about that-but not … not this.”
Resnick stroked her shoulder. “She should report it officially. Make out a complaint. And if she hasn’t done so already, go to her doctor, or to the hospital, one or the other.”
Hannah moved closer, her breast resting against the inside of his arm. “I think she’s frightened of going to see anyone. What Alex might do if he found out.”
“If she doesn’t, it could be more frightening still.” Hannah turned onto her back. “You couldn’t talk to him? Unofficially, I mean?”
“It’s difficult.”
“But if he’s hitting her, if you know he’s hitting her …”
“Unless she makes a complaint …”
“He can do as he likes.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“As good as.” Hannah was sitting up now, legs drawn up to her chest.
He reached for her arm and she shook him off.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Try and get round me.”
“I wasn’t trying to get round you.”
“Patronize me, then.”
“Fine!”
He had flung back the covers and was almost to his feet before Hannah grabbed hold of his hand and held it fast.
After a moment, Resnick knelt on the bed and kissed her forehead, the side of her mouth, her eyes.
“Oh, Charlie.”
He lay beside her and they cuddled close, listening to the whine and hum of traffic from the road, the rough synchronicity of their own breathing.
“Why doesn’t she leave him?” Resnick said eventually.
“Charlie, for the life of me, I don’t know.”
Fifteen
Divine’s flat was above a butcher’s shop on Bath Street: a couple of ramshackle rooms, one of which also served as a kitchen, and a bathroom back down the hall. Despite protestations in the shop window below that only prime Scottish beef was sold, the odors of something old and inwardly rotting seeped endlessly up through the boards.
It was the third place Divine had lived in as many months; trapped inside his surroundings, self-conscious in the face of others and, despite himself, afraid, he quickly grew to hate whatever walls kept him prisoner and lashed out, defacing and despoiling before he escaped. His previous landlord, an Asian entrepreneur in Sneinton, was pursuing him with a bill for damages that didn’t fall far short of a thousand pounds. It had needed Resnick to stand surety before the owner of this building had agreed to take Divine on; a promise that the young DC had turned a corner, calmed down, and if that were not the case, Resnick himself would make whatever restitution was necessary.
So Divine spent his days with the ill-matched curtains drawn, the television playing in the corner of one room, take-out cartons piled precariously alongside the enamel sink, numerous beer cans, mugs stained orange-brown with the residue of endless tea. Night merged into day. When he ventured out, it was to walk the streets, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, face turned away. Pubs he went into were those in which he could be certain his former colleagues would not be found, old spit and sawdust bars no one had bothered to rejuvenate, forever on the verge of closing down. Here Divine would sit with a slow pint, listlessly turning the pages of the Post, the Mirror, or the Sun.
Up until a month back, he would slide into a phone booth, dial the squad room number, wait for Millington or Naylor or whoever to identify themselves, ear pressed hard against the receiver, listening to the sounds of all that activity, sucking it in.
A few times, he had rung Naylor at home, once getting Kevin himself, otherwise Debbie-the chatter of a small child in the background, the whirr and blurt of an electric mower-Divine had broken the connection without speaking.
At first, the nurse he had been seeing at the hospital had been sympathetic, gone out of her way to be understanding, tried to persuade him to continue with the therapy, spent time with him, trying to get him to talk about what had happened. But somewhere along the line there had been one sullen, half-drunken silent night too many and she had stopped calling, stopped caring. Divine, sitting there hunched in his own morbidity, had scarcely listened to what she said by way of explanation, barely registered the sound of her footsteps, brisk and assured now, relieved, walking away.
He picked up a woman on the curve of Mapperley Road and paid her the usual to undress; when his erection disappeared, she laughed it off and made him a cup of tea instead, showed him pho
tographs of her kids. It was a slow night, and cold: she had no desire to rush back out onto the streets.
A week ago, for the first time, Divine had gone back to the street where it happened. Several hours of aimless wandering had brought him down through a maze of narrow streets on the edge of Radford and there he was. The skin along his arms prickled cold and his legs refused to move. Lights burned, shaded, in the house; normal people living normal lives. Whatever normal meant. Divine’s stomach clenched as he saw again in the corner of his eye a man moving fast toward him, sensed the heavy swish and swing of a baseball bat, the sound, brittle and clear, of splintering bone. And then his legs being kicked out from under him, forced apart. Hands tugging at his belt, his clothes. Didn’t I tell you it’d be me and you? Didn’t I say I’d have you? An arm around his neck, powerful, forcing back his head, fingers probing hard between his legs. Cunt. Whore. This is it, this is what you want. Teeth, as the man climaxed inside him, biting deep into Divine’s shoulder, breaking the skin.
It will take a long time, the therapist had said, before you can expect to assimilate all of this.
The knuckles of Divine’s hands, pressed back against the wall behind him, were grazed raw and yielding blood. What had he expected, coming here like this?
Sooner or later, the therapist had told him, you have to confront what happened to you, accept it even, only then will you be able to see it in some kind of perspective, move on.
Bollocks, Divine said. Accept it, bollocks. What I want to fucking do is forget.
And there were times now, when he’d drunk enough, sometimes when he slept, when forget was what he did. Those times when he didn’t wake red-eyed and slaked in sweat, the sweet stink of blood and butchery sliding between lath and plaster till he could taste it on his tongue.
He was standing at the sink, head bowed beneath the tap when he realized someone was knocking at the downstairs door, likely had been for some time.
Resnick took him to a café on Bath Street and sat him down near the window, the market traders setting up their stalls on the uneven triangle of ground outside. Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans. Resnick liberally applied brown sauce, folded thin slices of bread and butter and dipped them into the yolk, wiped the juices from the edges of the plate.