Darkness, Darkness: (Resnick 12)

by Harvey, John

  Jill had transferred up to the grammar school, a forty-five-minute journey each way on the bus.

  Jenny had stayed at the secondary modern.

  Net result: Jill went on and took her A levels, thought seriously about applying for university, but settled instead for a junior position in the administrative department of Nottingham University, which was where she still worked. Jenny stayed put, got married, had kids.

  End of story.

  Not quite.

  Jill kept her private life, in so far as she had one, very much to herself. She was still living at home with her parents, after all.

  Once in a while – Sunday lunch, say, all the family round the table, Jenny and Barry’s kids in their best clothes, best behaviour – someone would ask, politely, if Jill were seeing anyone, and Jill, just as politely, would say no, not right now, and move the subject along.

  There was somebody Jenny saw her with once, a tallish man who’d smiled out from behind rimless glasses and looked for all the world, Jenny thought, like a Gordon grown up – except that Gordon would never have smiled. They’d met, Jill told her later, at the art class she went to Wednesday evenings and occasional weekends. She never told her his name.

  Since the summer, since their parents had moved away, she knew Jill had only been working part-time, first four days a week and then three. Not only the coal industry was feeling the pinch.

  Today, Jenny knows, is one of Jill’s days off. She thinks about ringing first, to make sure she’s in, but wonders what she’ll say, not wanting to start explaining over the phone. And if Jill has gone out, she’s likely not gone far.

  Besides all of which, it’s not exactly far to walk. The other end of the village, the place their parents had moved into when their father first got a job down the pit. Not much more than a two up, two down, with a kitchen extension at the back, bathroom above that.

  A chill in the air, Jenny tucks a scarf down into the collar of her winter coat. She sees one of the women from the support group on the opposite side of the street and waves, rather than stopping to chat.

  She feels a slight tug seeing the house she grew up in; though, in truth, if she has crossed its threshold more than a few times since her parents moved, she’d be surprised.

  Different courses: different lives.

  Though it’s mid-morning a light still burns in one of the upstairs windows. Left on, Jenny thinks, by mistake.

  She knocks and waits.

  Maybe Jill has gone out after all.

  Oh, well . . . she knocks again, less in hope than expectation. Turns away. She’s halfway across the road when the door opens.

  ‘Jenny?’

  Jill is standing on the front step, tucking her blouse down into the waistband of her skirt.

  ‘I thought you were out,’ Jenny says. ‘Given up.’

  ‘Did you knock before?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  The two sisters look at one another.

  ‘You’d best come in,’ Jill says.

  There’s a man seated in one of a pair of easy chairs in the front room. He half-rises as Jenny follows Jill in.

  ‘You know Keith,’ Jill says.

  Yes, she knows Keith. Keith Haines. He’s the village bobby, has been these past several years. Had a house in the village, a police house, but moved out a good month back when his windows were smashed for the third time in as many weeks, paint thrown over the front door.

  ‘Just dropped in for a cup of tea,’ Keith says.

  ‘You’ll have one,’ says Jill. ‘There’s plenty in the pot.’

  Still not quite able to take it all in, Jenny shakes her head. ‘No, it’s okay. I only popped in on the off chance. You’ve got company, I’ll go.’

  ‘No call on my account,’ Keith says, though she can tell he doesn’t mean it.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ Jenny manages to whisper at the door.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Jill says.

  There is no later.

  Jill neither phones nor calls round. Jenny feels awkward about making the next move herself. When she bumps into Keith Haines a few days later – almost literally, turning a corner – he gives her a cheesy grin and carries on walking past.

  41

  IT NAGGED AT Catherine for the remainder of the afternoon and on into the evening: the picture that Nicky had created. Two little girls playing monsters and the monster had suddenly, terrifyingly, become real. Even after all that time, the fear had been tangible in her voice, her eyes. Little girls exaggerate, of course, tease themselves with made-up tales of evil witches, wizards, wicked stepmothers; talk themselves into nightmares that leave them shaken in their beds, hair damp and skin slick with sweat. Tales of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood coming home to roost.

  Catherine’s parents had read those stories to her in Mombasa when she was little; but they had read her Kenyan stories too, like the one about the hare who escapes from the farmer’s cooking pot by outwitting the chicken into taking his place. Catherine had felt sorry for the chicken, but admired the hare for his cleverness and cunning. And, unlike Little Red Riding Hood, there’d been no need for a woodsman to come to the rescue swinging an axe.

  Back at her flat, she sliced a banana into a bowl of yoghurt, added a cocktail of seeds she’d bought at the health-food shop and stirred in a teaspoon of honey.

  Before sitting down, she changed the Bach CD that was still in the stereo for the new KT Tunstall. Scottish, wasn’t she, Tunstall? Perhaps she should try dropping her name into the conversation in the office, impress John McBride. Except McBride wouldn’t know KT Tunstall from Mary, Queen of Scotts.

  And anyway, McBride hadn’t been quite such a pain lately. That morning he’d even smiled in her direction, showing off a motley collection of misshapen teeth.

  Opening her laptop she pulled down the files from the inquiry, statements Sandford and Cresswell had taken from people in Bledwell Vale. Friends of the Hardwicks, neighbours; members of the Women’s Support Group. No mention of a Linda that she could see.

  Linda?

  Linda what?

  It should be easy enough, first thing tomorrow, for one of the team to check the local census, voting records, whatever. Maybe the older Hardwick boy would be able to remember a name. Mary, even; she could phone Mary. After which would come the rigmarole of tracking the person down. Something a little more straightforward this time, she hoped, not another Geoff Cartwright, off in the wilds of Saskatchewan; another Danny Ireland, astray somewhere in the Scottish Highlands.

  Didn’t anybody stay at home any more?

  Not that she could talk.

  With all that extra chasing, she would have to speak again to the divisional commander at Potter Street, see if she couldn’t get another body seconded to her team, even if just temporarily; someone to work the Internet, make calls. If the DC was still being sticky, she supposed she could always approach Picard, ask him to intervene, but only as a last resort.

  Pouring herself a glass of wine, white from the fridge, she scrolled down from statement to statement, searching for something she might have missed in response to questions about the Hardwicks’ relationship.

  Tension between them, there had to be, the way they’d been straddling both sides during the strike. Not too many families can go on like that, riven down the middle, without coming to blows. And the rumours Jenny might have set her cap elsewhere, that’d not have helped. Nor was there any doubt that Hardwick had something of a temper. It was not solely Nicky Parker’s vivid memory that gave testimony to that. Reading through the interviews again, the signs were there. Harsh words, a fist raised in anger, but over almost as soon as it had begun. Meant nothing, people said. Letting off steam, that’s all it was. Better out than in.

  Search as she might, Catherine could find nothing that suggested those threats, those raised fists had become blows, nothing that testified to any actual violence being meted out. Perhaps, if it had ha
ppened at all, it had remained unseen?

  What was that corny old song her uncle used to sing at parties? Her uncle, the only known Kenyan country-and-western singer in captivity. There was even a clip of him on YouTube, stetson hat, waistcoat with silver buttons, bootlace tie, black face shining.

  ‘Behind Closed Doors’, that was the song.

  She reached for her phone and speed-dialled Resnick’s number. ‘Charlie, probably the last thing you want at this moment is company . . .’

  He had bought a jar of marinated herrings with onions and dill from the Polish deli, a large jar of pickled gherkins and a loaf of black rye bread. As a treat, a bottle of Cornelius unfiltered wheat beer.

  He’d thought he might sit and read a little, listen to some music – a toss-up between Monk with Sonny Rollins or Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else! – watch the News at Ten and then have an early night.

  ‘I’m sure I’m disturbing you,’ Catherine said, as she followed him into the house.

  ‘Not at all.’

  Evidence suggested otherwise. There was a plate still balanced on the side of his favourite chair, half a slice of bread, herring, a piece of half-eaten gherkin; a glass of beer on the table next to an old copy of The Jazz Scene he’d found in a charity shop; Cannonball, slinky and sensuous, playing ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

  ‘You’ve eaten?’ Resnick asked.

  ‘Yes. Sort of.’

  ‘You like herring?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’m really not sure.’

  In the kitchen, he buttered bread, forked pieces of herring from the jar.

  ‘Gherkin?’

  ‘Pass.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve almost finished the beer . . .’

  ‘I should have brought some wine . . .’

  ‘There’s whisky. Springbank. Only ten years old . . .’

  ‘Only?’

  He grinned. ‘Someone gave me a bottle of eighteen years once.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Worth every penny of the sixty-odd pounds it would have cost. Likely more than that now.’

  ‘You should treat yourself.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m sure this will be fine.’

  ‘Water?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘You can brag to McBride you’ve been enjoying a good single malt.’

  Catherine looked at him questioningly. ‘Have you said anything to him lately?’

  ‘Said?’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘He’s been close to what probably passes for McBride as charming.’

  Resnick nodded, pleased. ‘Let’s take these next door.’

  The CD had come to an end.

  ‘More music?’

  ‘I don’t really mind.’

  ‘What would you do at home? If you were sitting around on your own. Would you play music then?’

  ‘Yes, probably.’

  Resnick went across to the stereo. ‘This okay?’

  ‘I liked it. What I heard.’

  He pressed play. ‘Autumn Leaves’. Sat down, careful not to dislodge his plate from its precarious position. ‘Could be, when you phoned, you were bored and desperate for company, but somehow I doubt it.’

  Catherine smiled. ‘There is something. It’s been bugging me. Since I saw Nicky Parker – Mary Connor’s friend – this afternoon.’

  ‘All ears.’

  She told him about Linda, the missing neighbour, and, what had been preying on her mind most, the incident Nicky had so vividly described.

  ‘Aside from anything else, it’s difficult to match it with the man we talked to in Chesterfield. Happily pedalling back from his allotment; helping out the old lady next door.’

  ‘People change. Mellow. And besides, she could be exaggerating. Nicky. Not meaning to. But things can get magnified with time. Something like this especially. Something that made that much of an impression on her when she was just a kid . . .’

  ‘Which it clearly did.’

  ‘That could account for it looming so large now.’

  Catherine took a sip of whisky, decided she liked it, had another. The herring was another matter.

  ‘You think we should pay it no heed then, no special attention, log it and let it be?’

  ‘Not at all. And I certainly don’t think another chat with Barry Hardwick would be a waste of time. But let’s see first if we can’t track this Linda down, the neighbour, see what she has to say. If she was in and about as much as Nicky says, she should be able to tell us something.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  Resnick polished off the last of the contents of his plate, took a last swallow of beer.

  ‘The way I see it, all this Michael Swann business, we allowed ourselves to get sidetracked. It happens. Fight against tunnel vision and sometimes, without noticing, you go too far the other way. Everything becomes possible. And with a team the size of ours – yours – that’s got its own problems.’

  ‘I know. I just wish we had something more definite, something to hone in on. Instead of just Nicky’s story and whatever it is that’s nagging away at my insides.’

  ‘You don’t suppose that could be the herring?’

  Catherine laughed. It was a good sound, easy and free.

  Resnick relaxed back into his chair. This was the first time, he realised, that another woman had been in the house – let alone sitting there in the living room, a glass in her hand – since Lynn had been killed.

  It felt strange; strange, yet strangely good.

  The cat wandered in, sniffed around Catherine’s ankles, and wandered back out. The music slipped, almost without a pause, from one tune to another.

  ‘The other day,’ Resnick said, ‘when I asked you about the bruise on your forehead . . .’

  ‘I said I’d slipped.’

  ‘And if I asked you again now . . .’

  ‘The same answer. I slipped on some oil.’

  ‘That man in Worksop . . .’

  ‘Abbas.’

  ‘Abbas. It was nothing to do with him?’

  ‘No, nothing at all.’

  The mood broken, it wasn’t so very much longer before Catherine decided it was time to be on her way.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Charlie. And thanks for letting me disturb your evening,’ she said at the door.

  ‘Any time.’

  He watched her go, the tail lights of her car. Looked out across the garden, the low wall separating it from the pavement, the road. Remembered. Fought against remembering. Went back inside. Another whisky, warm against the back of his throat. It helped, but not a great deal.

  All the way home, driving across the city, Catherine worried at it like a cat with an injured bird. Couldn’t leave it alone. Something she had read in the statements taken after the funeral: something about Jenny sporting a black eye, an injury, she’d claimed, sustained on the picket line.

  The truth or a lie?

  Perhaps, like Catherine herself, Jenny had thought it was nobody’s business but her own.

  On the stairs going up to the flat, the thought of Abbas flooded her mind, the fear he might be there, waiting to spring out of the dark.

  Monsters?

  No.

  Abbas would never be hanging around, she knew that, not after what had happened. Too proud by half.

  She turned the key in the lock, stepped inside and locked and bolted the door behind her. Not too late for a bath before bed.

  42

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, as she was just stepping out on to the Ropewalk, Catherine’s phone rang: the cold case team looking again at Donna Crowder’s murder. Could she possibly spare them an hour or so? The sooner the better, all things considered. Catherine tried Resnick’s number, caught him just as he was leaving. Michael Swann, that’s what they were going to want to talk about, Fleetwood also.

  ‘Best drive up together, Charlie. Sheffield. Meet me here. We’ll go in mine.’

  An hour or so
became two. The cold case team comprised a detective inspector nearing retirement and two former detective sergeants brought back into service. By the time Catherine and Resnick arrived at the Worksop office, further delayed by a four-car pile-up on the motorway, it was well into the afternoon and things had changed.

  Conscious of the coming extra workload – by the end of the day, names from the Donna Crowder inquiry would, doubtless, be added to the load – John McBride had smuggled in a couple of extra computers, two extra desks, and, more importantly, had called in sufficient favours to have acquired the temporary services of two of the station’s civilian staff.

  Vanessa and Gloria. Mother and daughter.

  Identical outfits, identical hairstyles, save that Gloria’s was darker at the roots. One was busy inputting, the other checking employment records, chasing addresses.

  Without wanting to disturb them unduly, Catherine made herself known, thanked them for their help.

  ‘Not a problem,’ Vanessa said. ‘Is it, Gloria?’

  Gloria shook her head. ‘Makes a nice change.’

  ‘This Linda you’re after,’ Vanessa said. ‘Gets around.’

  ‘You’ve got a name, then?’

  ‘Several. Beckett, that’s the name she had when she was living in Bledwell Vale.’

  ‘Her husband’s name,’ Gloria explained.

  ‘Got divorced in eighty-nine, went back to using Stoneman, that’s her maiden name. Then, when she remarried in ninety-three, she became Price, Linda Price. Moved to Taunton.’

  ‘A nightmare,’ Gloria said, ‘keeping track.’

  ‘Matthew Price, died from a brain tumour in two thousand and five. Linda went off the rails a bit, by the look of things. Reading, you know, between the lines. Quite a bit of time in hospital.’

  ‘Medical records,’ Gloria explained. ‘Difficult to get hold of. Details, at least. Confidentiality.’

  ‘From her credit records,’ Vanessa said, ‘it looks as though she started using her maiden name again round about two thousand and nine. Stoneman. There’s an address in Melton Mowbray. She’s got family there, or she did. Worked for a short time at Dickinson and Morris. You know, the pies.’