Off Minor

by John Harvey

  Resnick could feel the dampness gathering in his palms; he was beginning to smell his own sweat. No way she could have gone back outside? “What about her, Diana?”

  She pushed the folded tissue to her lips. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t.”

  Resnick’s voice, low, not wishing to startle, almost as quiet as hers. “I know that you didn’t.”

  “I knew it was wrong.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why I came here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I couldn’t think what else to do, where else … and I thought, I knew … you see, I’d been going there, more and more, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t … couldn’t stay away, I had to be close to her, Emily, all the time. He should never have said it was wrong for me, he never … I’m her mother.”

  The hands which had been shaking faster and faster stilled themselves now by grasping Resnick’s arms at the wrist, biting tight.

  “I had it all planned, I knew what I was going to do. I didn’t know yet when, but I knew. Emily and I, on the train. To Jacqueline. She wanted me to go and live with her after all. She kept saying. She couldn’t have wanted me to go without my little girl, she would never have expected that. She couldn’t, could she? But she kept asking, over and over. It would be better, she said. Nicer. And it would have been, don’t you think, Charlie? Much nicer. The three of us together.”

  “Yes.” Resnick nodding as Diana released her grip, “yes, maybe it would.”

  “But inside,” Diana said, “I knew that it was wrong. But it was as though I couldn’t stop myself. Which is why I came back here, to the hospital. So that I wouldn’t take Emily away.” She wiped her mouth and smiled. “I’ve been here before, you know. It’s nice here. It’s quiet. They understand you. They make you better.”

  For a moment, Resnick hid his face in his hands.

  “What is it?” Diana asked. “Whatever’s the matter?”

  Not so many minutes later, the nurse returned. In the corridor Resnick offered Diana Wills his hand and as soon as, tentatively, she touched it with her fingers, he stepped forward and took her in his arms, held her tight.

  The rain was falling, blackening the building, further blackening the sky. Resnick engaged gear and sat where he was, engine idling. Ahead of him was a long night that would stretch into the small hours of morning. He would drink coffee black and listen again to Billie with Lester Young, to Hodges and to Monk. Why, when he had refused every one of Elaine’s pleas for help, when he had made no attempt to find out where or how she was, even now, did be find it so easy to sympathize with this stranger, to take and hold her in his arms and feel her tears upon his chest, this woman he had never before met?

  Thirty-two

  When Naylor’s call had cut across the introduction to “No Regrets,” a spare few bars of Dick McDonough’s guitar before Billie’s voice, Resnick had half-rolled, half-slid from the settee and crossed the room, cursing the unwanted interruption. The first chorus of the song barely over, Resnick began to ask questions, steadying the receiver between chin and shoulder as he sought to button his shirt, straighten his tie. Naylor’s voice again, excited, and, across the room, Artie Shaw’s stop-time clarinet phrases were flowing out of the ensemble in the instrumental break. “You’ve got the address?… Good. Who’s there with you?… Tell her to pick me up.” Resnick put down the phone, went back across the room and on to one knee, searching for his other shoe. Billie Holiday stretching into her last chorus, the drummer giving it a few good whumps as the band closed round her for the final bars. Two minutes, thirty-odd seconds. Resnick swallowed cold coffee, headed for the door.

  “Stephen Shepperd, sir. Fifty-two. His wife, Joan, teaches part-time at Emily Morrison’s school. Kevin interviewed her there this afternoon; that was when he saw Stephen. They live off Derby Road, on the right going up the hill.”

  “Near the flats?”

  “Three streets away.”

  Resnick could picture them, thirties’ semis with watered-down art deco features, privet hedges to the front and small, neat gardens behind; concrete bollards set across the center of long cross-streets to stop the traffic racing through.

  As they passed Canning Circus there were still lights burning in the police station, but not so many. Five pubs within spitting distance, customers jostling by now at the bar, getting in another round before the call for last orders. A few students, hands in pockets, beginning the trudge back out to the university campus. Lynn Kellogg slowed as she indicated left, turning into the Shepperds’ road.

  It was a third of the way along, facing west down the hill. A view over Queens Medical Center, the university beyond that; much closer, a hop, skip and a jump and little more, the high-rise blocks that had been Gloria Summers’s home. Naylor had parked fifty yards further on, the opposite side of the street and now he walked towards them, eyes on the Shepperd house.

  “Again,” Resnick said. “How certain are you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t a photograph.”

  “Which doesn’t mean you’re changing your mind?”

  A quick shake of the head. “No way. Just, you know, those drawings, that’s all they are. A sketch. Likeness.”

  “And the one you saw, that’s what it was, a likeness?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The lower third of the house was yellowing brick, the rest a creamy pebble-dash that would soon be in need of some repair. Except in the larger upstairs window, where it looked as if double glazing had been fitted, the windows were divided into small squares of glass. Lined curtains had been pulled neatly across. A light shone from beneath a brass shade above the porch.

  “No sense going in mob-handed,” Resnick said.

  Lynn took a pace off to the side, leaving the two men to approach the door.

  What had happened was this. “Quick,” Joan had called, hearing her husband’s slow approach along the hall, “it’s already started.” Well, didn’t she think he realized that? No sense rushing if it meant tumbling rear over tip and losing their supper. Besides, what would it be tonight? The main item? Even money something about what used to be called the Eastern Bloc. Not so many years ago, Stephen clearly recalled, the world and his wife were beside themselves with how marvelous it was, everything changing, throwing off their shackles, thirsting to vote. The democratic process. Stephen had been voting now for more than thirty years and he hadn’t noticed it improving his life a great deal.

  “Stephen!”

  “Coming!”

  He did wish she wouldn’t shout at him as if he were one of her five-year-olds. Though, come to think of it, she was a sight more patient with them.

  “Ste—”

  “I’m here.”

  On the screen the newsreader’s head—that woman, the dark one, not the very dark one, really black, he knew who she was, but this one, the other, light-skinned but dark all the same, equal opportunities, not before time he supposed but that didn’t help him to remember her name—anyway, there it was, superimposed over tanks trundling along the road to somewhere.

  “I thought you were never coming,” Joan said, as he set the tray down on the nest of tables she had pulled out ready.

  “Where is it this time, then?” Stephen asked. “Croatia? Czechoslovakia?”

  “Belfast.”

  Stephen squinted at the screen.

  “Bit mean with the apricot jam, Stephen,” his wife said.

  “What took me so long, scraping the jar.” He took his own plate and balanced it on the arm of his chair before sitting down.

  “Ooh, I do wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “It’s going to come flying off there one time, all over the carpet.”

  “Well, it hasn’t yet.”

  The newscaster was announcing an important new development in the investigation into the disappearance of six-year-old Emily Morrison.

  “I want to see this,” Stephen said.
>
  “Then do sit down.”

  One hand resting on the side of his chair, Stephen started to turn. Before he was fully round, the artist’s impression filled the screen. Stephen jolted upright, away from the chair, backs of his legs colliding with the tray. Joan’s mug of Horlicks went flying, hot malted milk splashing over the front of her skirt before the remainder emptied out across the carpet.

  “Stephen! What on earth—?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He flailed his arms for balance, struck his shins sharply against the table nest, swore and backed away reaching down to rub his leg, cheese biscuits tumbling to the floor as he banged into the chair.

  “Anyone who thinks they know the identity of this man should contact their nearest police station …”

  Joan was on her feet, shaking the front of her dress; Stephen on his knees, rescuing the biscuits, the plate, the empty mug. Every inch of his skin felt like ice. He held the mug between his fingers and dropped it again.

  “That lovely new carpet,” Joan was saying, dismayed, “it’s ruined.”

  “It’s only milk, it’ll come out.”

  “Nonsense. That’s the worst thing of all. You can never get rid of it.” Joan shuddered. “That awful sour smell, it’s there for ever.”

  The newsreader had progressed to the next item: the cost of first- and second-class post was about to rise again. Another twenty minutes passed in which damp cloths were pressed against the carpet, the dustpan and brush brought out from under the sink to deal with the crumbs, another cloth, dry, to deal with the smears of butter; more biscuits were prepared, a second helping of Horlicks, half and half this time or the milk would run out before the milkman called. The set had been switched off and when Stephen had put Manuel and His Music from the Mountains on the record player, his hand had shaken so much he had scraped the needle twice, once across the grooves, the second time not on the record at all but over the anti-static mat. “Stephen, you’re ruining my birthday present!”

  So it was that when Resnick rang the front doorbell, they were sitting in the front room in steely silence, the stain on the carpet darkening between them.

  “Whoever is that at this time of night?”

  “How do you expect me to know?”

  “Stephen!”

  “What?”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  The bell rang again, longer this time, followed by a double knock against the door.

  “We can’t simply sit here and do nothing.”

  “I don’t see why—not. It’s getting on for eleven o’clock, for heaven’s sake. There’s no law says you have to go answering your door to any Tom, Dick or Harry at this time of night. What if we were already in bed?”

  “But we’re not. And whoever’s out there can see that we’re not.”

  The letter flap rattled insistently.

  “Stephen …”

  “All right, I’m going. You stay here.” And he closed the door behind him.

  Resnick and Naylor had their warrant cards at the ready, clearly visible in the overhead light. “Detective Inspector Resnick, local CID. This is Detective Constable Naylor. Mr. Shepperd?”

  Stephen mumbled yes, nodded.

  “Mr. Stephen Shepperd?”

  “You do know what time of night this is?”

  “I wonder if we might have a word?”

  “My wife and I were ready for bed.”

  “It might be better inside.”

  Stephen didn’t move. “What is it about?”

  “You didn’t by any chance see the news tonight?” Resnick asked.

  “Yes. I mean, not all of it. But, yes, why? What’s happened? Has something happened?”

  “I do think it would be easier if we asked you questions inside, Mr. Shepperd.”

  “Whatever is it, Stephen?” said his wife from the living-room doorway. “Whatever’s the matter?”

  “We simply want to ask your husband some questions,” said Resnick.

  “I know you,” Joan Shepperd said, looking, not at Resnick, but at Naylor alongside him.

  “This afternoon,” Naylor said.

  “Yes,” coming towards the front door, “at the school. Stephen, you remember, he was at the school. Asking about Emily. This isn’t about Emily, is it?”

  “If we could step inside,” Resnick said.

  “Of course, of course. Whatever are you thinking of, Stephen, not inviting them in? Stand here in the hall with that door open much longer, we’ll all catch our deaths.”

  Resnick and Naylor came into the house and Stephen closed the door behind them.

  “It is to do with Emily?” Joan Shepperd asked Naylor.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it must be. Stephen, why don’t you go and put on the kettle while we go through to the front room?”

  “Thing is,” Resnick said, “it’s your husband we’ve come to see.”

  “Stephen? I don’t understand.”

  “All right, Joan,” Stephen said. “We’ll go in there and talk. Why don’t you make the tea or whatever it is we’re having?”

  “I shall do no such thing.”

  Stephen held his wife’s gaze for a moment before stepping past her to open the living-room door, holding it while the others went inside. He and his wife took their usual chairs, leaving Resnick and Naylor to sit, less than comfortably, on the two-seater sofa, side by side.

  “Last Sunday afternoon,” Resnick began, “the day that Emily Morrison went missing, someone was seen running close to her home.”

  “Stephen …”

  “Be quiet,” Stephen said.

  “Obviously, one of the things we’re concerned to do is identify anyone who was in the vicinity at the time Emily disappeared …”

  “Ste—”

  “I said, be quiet.”

  “Not because their being there is, in itself, in any way a cause for suspicion, but so that we can remove them from our inquiries. And because they might well have noticed something that could be of importance.”

  Joan sat watching her husband, his mouth slightly open, saying nothing.

  “You do understand?” Resnick asked.

  Stephen nodded quickly. “Yes, I understand.”

  “You aren’t that person?”

  “The one you were just talking about, the one running?”

  “Correct.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “You do run, though?”

  “No.”

  Joan’s fingers pressed deeper into the upholstery of the cushion on which she was sitting.

  “You’re saying that you never go running, Mr. Shepperd? Jogging?”

  Stephen was having difficulty freeing his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I didn’t say never.”

  “You do jog, then? To keep fit.”

  “Mostly I swim.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Yes, I prefer it. And it’s better exercise. For me, that is. Running, I never seem to go fast enough, you know, to do any good. Swimming, I suppose it suits me better.”

  “Do you mind if I ask where you were last Sunday afternoon?”

  Stephen’s eyes sought Joan’s before he answered. “Swimming.”

  “You went swimming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sunday afternoon?”

  “Yes, I said.”

  “I heard you, Mr. Shepperd. I just wanted to be sure.” Stephen clasped his hands together, crossed his legs, cradled his knee, loosened his grip, uncrossed his legs, laid both hands flat along his thighs.

  “Ask my wife,” Stephen said.

  Resnick glanced across at Joan Shepperd, but asked nothing.

  “You didn’t see,” asked Naylor, leaning forward, “when you were watching the news, a drawing of a man in a track suit?”

  “No. I’m afraid I didn’t. We didn’t, did we, Joan?”

  “It must have been when
there was all that kerfuffle.”

  “Kerfuffle?”

  “My drink got knocked over. Look, you can see, on the carpet, there. The stain.”

  “A shame,” Resnick said.

  “Yes,” Joan Shepperd said, “we’ve not so long had it down.”

  “I know it’s only a sketch,” Resnick said, looking straight at Stephen, “a quick impression. But I would have to say, it looked an awful lot like you.”

  Thirty-three

  Lynn Kellogg had been thinking about what Kevin had said, Debbie walking out and taking the baby. The look on his face in the pub when he had told her, what it had cost him to blurt out the words: how he must be feeling. The front door of the house opened and she saw him, outlined for a moment against the light. Then Resnick was there with him, half-turned back towards the house, saying something she could not catch; the two of them heading back towards the cars.

  Lynn went several paces to meet them, asking the question with her eyes.

  “Denied it,” Kevin Naylor said. “Out of hand.”

  Lynn shifted her gaze to Resnick’s face.

  “Says he was swimming,” Resnick said.

  “All afternoon?”

  Resnick shrugged and smiled.

  “What got me,” said Naylor, “reckons they were in there watching News at Ten, never saw the face.”

  “Got distracted,” Resnick said.

  “Spilt the bedtime drink.”

  “At the crucial moment.”

  “Convenient.”

  Between the two men, Lynn could see the house, porch light still shining, a movement of the front-room curtains, someone peering out, curious to know if they were still there. “What are we going to do, sir?” she asked.

  “Have a go at him again in the morning, maybe he’ll remember things differently. Till then, let him stew.”

  As they turned Lynn glanced at Naylor, wanting to say, look, come round and have some coffee, it’s not late, we could talk. But there was Resnick, standing by her car, expecting a lift back home. There was still the taint of whisky on his breath and she knew why he hadn’t wanted to drive himself.

  “Good night, Kevin,” she said.

  “Night. Night, sir.”

  Firm closing of doors, firing of engines, acceleration and a changing of gears. The Shepperds’ curtains twitched open, fell closed.