by Harvey, John
‘Course not.’
‘You bloody liar! Of course you did. Him and how many others? Talk of the bloody coalfield, am I? Standing joke?’
‘No, no.’
He slips his fingers round her wrist and this time she lets them stay.
‘I had to say something. He’d not’ve come here otherwise.’ Desperate, he looks over his shoulder. Steve’s still where he left him, whistling, rolling a cigarette. ‘Look, we’ll just go for a pint, eh? Me and Steve. Have to now he’s here. Only fair. Then I’ll come back. Your old man, he’s on nights this week, right?’
How does he know that, Jenny thinks? But he’s right.
‘I’ll come by later.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. No one’ll see.’
‘Danny, you can’t.’
Stooping towards her, he lowers his head for a kiss, just missing her mouth as she turns aside.
Moments and he’s back at the van, climbing in, Steve poking his head through the window and giving her a broad wink before driving away.
She’s trembling, praying that there’s no one there to notice, but no one is. No one she can see.
At home, after checking the children are all asleep, easing Brian’s thumb from his mouth, she changes into her nightie and, instead of getting into bed, curls up on the settee downstairs, half an ear towards the door, waiting. But he doesn’t come.
47
THE INTERVIEW WITH Barry Hardwick over, Catherine had said she needed some fresh air to clear her head; Resnick had taken this to mean she needed a cigarette. Picking up coffee on the way, he tagged along, their direction towards the same piece of green space where they’d sat before, within reach of the canal.
The temperature had shifted upwards a degree or two since earlier, but it was cold enough still for their breath to be seen on the air when they spoke. Steam rose from Resnick’s coffee when he prised off the lid. At the far side of the trees, the flour mills were shrouded in mist.
‘These trips she made down to London – Jenny – you think there might be something relevant there?’
‘Difficult to say. But whatever it was, I doubt she’d have gone without good reason.’
‘A meeting, then? A rally of some kind?’
‘Likely. But from what Linda Stoneman said, arrangements seemed to have been made pretty much last moment.’
‘Filling in for another speaker somewhere?’
‘Possible, I suppose.’
‘But that’s not what you think.’
‘No way to be sure, of course, but I’m wondering if it could have been something to do with the movement of money. Cash money.’ He shook his head in annoyance. ‘I should’ve thought of that before.’
A dog walker went past, tailed by a Border Collie/German Shepherd cross doing its best to carry a branch three times as big as itself.
‘You’d best explain,’ Catherine said.
‘Simple enough, really. Quite early on in the strike the union had its funds frozen. Just at the same time it was getting more and more dependent on financial support from outside. Other unions, you know, and not just in the UK. France, Russia, all over. Most of it smuggled into the country one way or another. As far as they were concerned, a case of having to. All secret, of course. Secret as can be. Surreptitious meetings, midnight assignations, banknotes hidden in the hollowed-out bottoms of suitcases. Like something out of what’s-his-name? Tinker, Tailor, Soldier man?’
‘Le Carré?’
‘Le Carré. And, of course, rumours were rife. Officers from my team would pick up a hint here, a hint there. Misinformation, some of it, of course. Throw us off the track. Not all. A matter of sifting through. Keith Haines, I remember – he had his nose to the ground as well – passed on some useful information a time or two.
‘We had a tip-off once, might even have come through Keith in the first place, I’m not sure now. But anyway, we followed it up – a money shipment on its way from the Continent to Harwich by ferry, making its way from there to NUM headquarters in Yorkshire. We tracked it, intercepted it just outside Newark. Six thousand pounds under a blanket in the back of a Ford Granada. And that was just one we knew about, knew for certain. If even half the tales that came through to us turned out to be true, there’d have been that kind of money and more coming in all the time. A lot more. And heaven knows where some of it ended up.’
‘So you think that’s what Jenny might have been doing? Those trips to London? Acting as a sort of courier?’
Resnick hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s possible. I could have a word with Edna Johnson. She and Peter Waites were close, she might have an inkling. Other than that, there’s someone I used to know quite well back then, worked for a while at the NRC. He’d be able to fill me in on a bit of background, if nothing else.’
Catherine stubbed out her second cigarette. ‘You do that, Charlie. I’ll see how things are back at Potter Street.’
At Potter Street, things were in a state of barely subdued excitement. Rob Cresswell, recently back from A & E, bandage around his newly shaven head, was sitting in the one good chair, basking in universal, if temporary, approval, not least from Vanessa and Gloria – Gloria, in particular – both women hovering close by in the expectation that he might suffer a sudden relapse and need their comforting attentions. Whatever checks they’d been making on the suspects thrown up by the earlier Donna Crowder investigation temporarily in abeyance.
Alex Sandford, meanwhile, was in the act of retelling the events of the morning for the benefit of John McBride and an assortment of officers from elsewhere in the building.
What it amounted to, Catherine discovered, was this. Having made two unsuccessful attempts to locate Joe Willis – a name passed down to them from the Swann investigation – at his last-known address in Kirkby, on both occasions with uniformed police from the local station in support, Sandford and Cresswell, acting on a whim and against McBride’s instructions, had called back that morning without back-up, hoping to catch Willis sleeping. Which they had, persistent knocking and bell-ringing bringing a tired-looking Willis to the door, a Leeds United sweatshirt hanging over a pair of droopy boxers.
No sooner had he recognised the two detectives for what they were than Willis had ducked back inside, hurling the door shut behind him, only Sandford’s outstretched boot preventing it actually closing.
Grabbing a pair of trousers from the end of the bed, Willis had half-run, half-hopped towards the stairs, moving with surprising agility for a man of his age, and reaching the first-floor landing before Cresswell caught up to him; Willis lashing out and catching Cresswell hard enough to send him backwards down the stairs and head first into the wall.
Sandford had stopped to check that his partner was all right, giving Willis the chance to exit through a third-floor window and out on to the roof. When Sandford next spotted him, he was climbing down a rusty fire escape into a narrow ginnel that ran between the houses.
As long as he remained within sight, Sandford was confident of overhauling him. All that marathon training had to count for something.
When he finally caught up with him, just where the alley opened out on to the main road, Willis was no longer really running, more like jogging on the spot, shoulders and chest heaving, breath ragged and wheezing, mouth open. In danger, Sandford thought, of a heart attack.
From the sound of a police car approaching, Sandford knew that Cresswell had successfully called it in. Maybe they’d need an ambulance as well.
‘All we wanted,’ he told Willis, ‘was to ask a few questions.’
‘’Bout that post office robbery . . . Basford . . . yeah, I know.’
‘No,’ Sandford told him, ‘not that at all. Something that happened thirty years ago.’
Willis, still struggling to recover his breath, had looked at him with a mixture of dismay and disbelief. And when questioned later, he had not been able to assist in the investigation into Jenny Hardwick’s murder by one jot.
‘Good work,’ Catherine said. ‘And think yourself fortunate you’ve only got one sore head between the two of you.’
Once the euphoria had died down she would take the pair of them aside and remind them of what had happened not so long ago to two female officers who were lured into a trap by a wanted criminal and shot down in cold blood. On that occasion there had been nothing to suggest it was anything more than a routine incident they had been called to; no need, as far as they could judge, to call for back-up. But both Sandford and Cresswell had been explicitly told not to approach Joe Willis unless support was in place.
This time they had been lucky.
Next time, Catherine would make good and clear, they should obey orders to the letter or the outcome might be tragically different.
Home, for Edna Johnson, was a small ground-floor apartment in sheltered accommodation. A banner – white lettering on a maroon background, WOMEN AGAINST PIT CLOSURES – leaned against one wall. Photographs were dotted here and there, grandchildren vying for space with groups of jubilant, angry women, marching, singing, linking arms, holding hands.
‘So,’ Edna said, once they were settled, ‘to what do I owe the honour?’
‘Jenny Hardwick, just trying to fill a few gaps, plug a few holes.’
‘Do what I can.’
‘Last time we spoke, at the funeral, you mentioned visits Jenny might have made to London . . .’
‘No might about it. London. Cardiff. A few more, I dare say. Union business, speeches. Never hurt to have a pretty woman on the platform.’
‘And that’s all it was?’
She looked back at him, saying nothing.
‘Is it possible, I wonder, that she could have been acting as a courier? Collecting sums of money and delivering them up here to the Midlands? On up to Yorkshire?’
Edna took her time before answering. ‘It’s possible.’
‘But likely?’
‘Like I say, it’s possible. There was money, right enough, and I doubt they were sending it through the post. Nor putting it in the bank, neither. Not the regular accounts, for certain.’
‘Peter Waites, you and he were close.’
‘We were.’
‘You think he would have trusted Jenny sufficiently to send her on that sort of mission, what with the sums of money involved?’
Edna shook her head. ‘If you’d known Jenny, you’d not’ve needed to ask that question.’
‘He would, then?’
‘He would. Which is not to say that he did. Not to best of my knowledge, at least. And if it did happen, I doubt Peter himself would have known too much about it. Whatever details Jenny might’ve been given, they’d’ve been for her eyes only. As far as I could tell, that’s the way it was.’
A resigned expression on his face, Resnick nodded thanks.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Resnick . . .’
‘Charlie.’
‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but that’s all I can tell you.’
Resnick thanked her again, happy to spend another thirty minutes or so in conversation; he didn’t know how many visitors Edna had on a regular basis, now that it was no longer so easy for her to get around, but he suspected, it was growing fewer with time.
Thirty minutes became forty and then an hour. Somewhere in the middle, Edna made her way into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of port and lemon.
‘Not trying to lead me astray, are you, Edna?’
She laughed. ‘I might, if I thought I could get away with it.’
As he was leaving, she touched him on the shoulder. ‘Jenny’s killer, are you any closer to finding him?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘And this business with the money, you think that could be part of it?’
‘It might.’
‘Don’t give away much, do you?’
Resnick planted a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘Look after yourself, Edna.’
‘You, too, Charlie.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Not a bad bloke for a copper, I always said.’
48
A LITTLE OVER an hour to spare before his appointment, Resnick cut across Euston Road from the station, walked up Judd Street and through Russell Square, past the British Museum and on into Soho. Rain drifted lightly through the air.
Collar up, he entered Frith Street at its northern end, Ronnie Scott’s two-thirds of the way down on the right-hand side. Ronnie’s. Where he had seen Dizzy Gillespie; failed to see Thelonious Monk. Of the names on the bill now there were few that he recognised; few that he would have associated with the word ‘jazz’.
Across the street, the Bar Italia was still in business, best cappuccino in Soho before the coffee boom and possibly still was. He signalled behind the counter and took a seat outside.
The last time he had been inside Ronnie’s was a little over twenty years before; one of his favourite tenor players, Spike Robinson, fragile looking and stoop shouldered, doing beautiful things to George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern. Before the final number, Resnick remembered, Robinson had dedicated it to the memory of another musician, the alto saxophonist Ed Silver, who had died earlier that week.
SILVER, Edward Victor. Suddenly at home, on 16 February 1993. Acclaimed jazz musician of the bebop era. Funeral service, Friday 19 February at Golders Green Crematorium, 1.45 p.m.
Silver and Resnick had been friends, up to and beyond the point when the musician had become a near-helpless alcoholic, unable to stand, unable to blow, threatening to take his own life if his liver didn’t do it for him. Now Robinson was dead himself, and others too: Ronnie, of course, Max Roach, Stan Getz, Tony Burns.
He remembered Ed Silver standing in his kitchen, the night he had talked him out of taking off his own foot with a butcher’s cleaver, looking mournfully round while they listened to the late Clifford Brown.
‘They’re all dying, Charlie.’
‘Who?’
‘Every bugger!’
And, of course, it was true.
Resnick shuddered involuntarily as if a shadow had passed over his grave. ‘Now’s the Time’, that was the final number Spike Robinson had played.
Except you rarely knew.
He finished his coffee and continued south on to Shaftesbury Avenue; a taxi towards Victoria and to hell with the expense.
You only live once.
The hotel was in one of those largely unexplored streets behind the Catholic cathedral, old stone on the outside, plastic, glass and faux marble within. Matthew Prior was seated in a booth between the restaurant and the bar. At first sight, he seemed to Resnick hardly to have aged at all, but then, shaking hands, Resnick saw the lines around the eyes, the loose flap of skin beneath the chin. Still a full head of hair, some magic potion fending off the grey.
‘Charlie, long time no see.’
His grip was still firm. Still a brightness in the eyes. His suit, dark grey with a faint stripe, custom made, and sombre tie suggested something successful in the City. Banking? A hedge fund manager, perhaps.
Resnick knew that for the past twenty years or so he had been a senior-level officer in British Intelligence. M15.
‘Good trip down?’
‘Fine.’
‘Didn’t mind trawling all the way over here? Lot on right now and at least this gives me a chance to stretch the legs. Would have suggested lunch otherwise.’
‘It’s good of you to take the time.’
A waiter was hovering at the entrance to the booth.
Prior placed a hand over the glass already in front of him, sparkling water, ice and lemon.
‘Charlie?’
Resnick shook his head.
The waiter went away.
‘So,’ Prior said, ‘the Miners’ Strike. F
unding of same. There’s a novel there, Charlie, still to be written.’
‘Perhaps just the outline, then.’
‘Do what I can.’
A group of half a dozen diners went by on their way to the restaurant, chatting amiably, quite loudly, oblivious to others.
Out of habit, Prior held his tongue till they’d gone past.
‘Basic facts, you’ll know. I can fill you in a little more. In September of eighty-four, responding to an action that had been brought by two working miners, a High Court judge ruled the strike unlawful. As far as Mr Scargill was concerned, of course, this was a red rag to a bull. Denial of democratic rights and so on. It probably didn’t take too much to persuade the national executive of the union to agree. Scargill was charged to appear in court and refused. Result, the NUM were hit with a two-hundred-thousand-pound fine. When that went unpaid, on the twenty-fifth of October in the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholls ordered the sequestration of the union’s funds. Assets, property, everything. Which meant, quite simply, no more money in or out. Everything was to be under the legal control of an official receiver appointed by the court.’
Prior paused for a mouthful of water.
More people went past on their way to early lunch.
‘Now the union had already been moving some of its funds around – the Isle of Man, Dublin, Jersey, Switzerland, Luxembourg – but once it was out of the country, without the connivance of the banks it would be difficult to bring back in now without having it fall into the hands of the receiver. Same applied to the money they’d been drumming up from sympathisers overseas. The most obvious case being Russia, where, by dint of deducting a day’s pay from all its working miners, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party was sitting on a gift of a million roubles, getting on for one and a half million pounds, with no sure way of getting it into the NUM’s hands.’
‘So what happened?’
Prior’s face coasted into a smile. ‘Who knows? Possibly some of that money eventually made its way here, possibly none. What I do know, the government moved heaven and earth to ensure it stayed where it was. Pressure from the Foreign Office to the Soviet Embassy. Through top-level channels to Gorbachev himself.