by John Harvey
The prevailing police attitude, as Skelton had suggested, was we did our job once, nicked and tried and put away: if they get out again, not down to us; why waste the energy, bust our balls doing it all again?
Resnick waited for a gap in the morning traffic and crossed Waverley Street into the cemetery and the wavering path that would take him up through a succession of ornate Victorian tombstones and out on to Canning Circus and the Alfreton Road.
There were things about the escape he wanted to know. Had it been simply opportunist or planned? And, if the latter, who had helped and why?
He stopped off at the deli in the middle of the Circus for a coffee and an apple Danish, and carried them across and up the shallow steps into the station.
Millington was moments ahead of him, entering from the rear car park and waiting for Resnick at the foot of the stairs.
“Morning, Graham.”
“Aye. For some. Came by way of the hospital, thought I’d see how the casualty list was shaping.”
“And?”
“Ellis, lucky bastard, bullet passed right through without as much as touching a vein. Damage to the jawbone, nothing major. Some plastic surgeon working on him right now, patching up his face with the skin off his arse.” Millington laughed: “Be talking out his backside for real. But he’ll live. More’s the pity, maybe.”
Resnick shot him a look, but said nothing.
“As for the rest of ’em,” Millington continued, oblivious. “Feraday’s out of intensive care, making good progress, apparently.”
“And the chap from the prison service, Wesley?”
“Patched up pretty good, on his way out today.”
Millington pushed open the door to the CID room and stepped back to let Resnick through. Sharon Garnett and Carl Vincent were at their desks; Naylor and Fowles sleeping off their apparently wasted night on observation.
“Sharon,” Resnick said, “how d’you get on with that woman from outside Burger King, reckoned she got a good look at one of the suspects when they ran past her?”
Sharon made a face. “Went through all the likely faces down at Central. Didn’t recognize a single one.”
“Worth trying her again?”
“I don’t think so.”
Resnick sighed. “How about the other witnesses? Anything there?”
“I’ve been going back over the statements,” Vincent said. “There’s a few it might be worth talking to again. We ought to be able to get more on the car, at least.”
“Okay, keep working on it. It’s all we can do.” Two phones rang almost simultaneously, and Garnett and Vincent moved to answer them.
“How about Preston, Graham? Any news?”
Millington shook his head. “Nothing at the sister’s place last night. Quiet as the proverbial. There was one report come in late on, looked useful, bloke trying to charter a private plane, Tollerton Airport. When we checked it out, it was just some chap from Trent Water, executive, looking to fly to Guernsey for a bit of rest and relaxation. Worn out from carrying his wallet, I don’t doubt.”
Resnick grinned. “No follow-up to the sighting at Leicester station?”
“Nothing from the Met. Arranged for leaflets to be given out to passengers making the same journey today, the London train.” Millington arched his eyebrows. “I shouldn’t hold your breath.”
“We’re checking his old running mates?”
“I’ll set Kev and young Fowles on to it when they come in.”
Carl Vincent was on his feet, one hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. “One of the prison officers, sir. Evan. Wants to know can you spare him ten minutes before he shoots off back to London?”
Resnick glanced at his watch. “Tell him he stops by in half an hour, I’ll give him five.”
Lorraine had sent Sean back three times to change what he was wearing, Sandra sitting there in her school skirt and blouse, kicking her heels against the living-room carpet, waiting.
“Why can’t you take us?” Sean asked. “Why do we have to go now? Take us on your way to work like you always do.”
“Your mother’s not going to work,” Derek said, buttoning his jacket. “Not today, anyway.”
“Aren’t you, Mum?” Sean said. “Why not? Why not?”
“Are you okay, Mum?” Sandra asked. “You’re not ill or anything?”
“No.” Lorraine smiled, pushing the fringe back from her daughter’s eyes. “I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”
“After yesterday?”
“Yes, I expect so. I might go in later, anyway.”
“You’ll meet us after school?” Sean asked.
“Yes, don’t worry, I’ll meet you after school.”
Derek was standing with his briefcase in one hand, car keys in the other, stranded between the children and the front door. Lorraine sensed him looking at her and raised her head, returning his gaze.
“You’ll be okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
“I only need to make a few quick calls when I get in, no meetings, I could take a couple of hours off, come back …”
The look in her eyes told him what he didn’t want to know.
“As long as you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” She kissed the children and bundled them out the door.
Evan looked more hangdog, if possible, than the day before. Guilty about what had happened and certain that he was returning to a reprimand at best, a suspension more than likely, he could scarcely bring himself to look Resnick in the eye. “I was wondering, you know, if there was any news? About Preston?”
Resnick shook his head. “Nothing definite.”
“I see. I just thought that if, you know, you’d caught him, like, had an idea where he was, well it might … make things easier, I suppose that’s what I meant.”
“I’m sorry,” Resnick said, Evan looking so pathetic he almost meant it.
“If you do … find him, I mean. I don’t suppose you could let me know?”
“It’d be passed on,” Resnick said. “The appropriate channels.”
Evan blinked. “I see.”
“Maybe, Evan,” Resnick said, “there’s something you can tell me. Preston, yesterday. At the funeral and after. You’ve been thinking about it, bound to have. Is there anyone special you remember him talking to? Off on their own, maybe?”
Of course Evan had been thinking about it; he’d been thinking of practically nothing else. Now he thought about it some more. “Only the sister, that’s all, really. Worked up about that, he was. Important. He asked us specially, me and Wes. If he could talk to her alone. Just the two of them, you know.”
“And you said …”
“I said okay. I didn’t see the harm. I mean, I was outside the door all the time.”
“Close enough to hear what they were talking about?”
Evan shook his head. “No. No, I’m afraid not.” He looked at Resnick anxiously. “Was it important, d’you think?”
Resnick stared back at him. “Probably.”
Thirty minutes later Resnick was on his way back out of the station, heading down into the center of the city.
Twelve
Resnick nodded thanks as Aldo slid the small cup of espresso along the counter toward him. The early edition of the Post lay folded against the till and Resnick pulled it toward him. It was strangely quiet in the market that morning, only a couple of middle-aged women sitting at the far side of the coffee stall with tea and cigarettes, chatting about prices and last night’s TV.
The article on Preston’s escape filled the whole page, raking up details of his father’s murder and the subsequent trial. Underneath an old file photograph of Preston himself, grim-faced, being led into court, were the words of the judge: It is almost beyond comprehension in a civilized society that any man would turn against his own flesh and blood with such violence and without apparent provocation.
Provocation: an argument over money, Skelton had suggested, the siphoning of
f of Preston’s ill-gotten gains. Well, maybe.
Realizing that, almost without noticing, he had finished his first espresso, Resnick ordered another.
For the first half-hour, Lorraine wandered slowly from room to room, enjoying the silence, willing herself not to look at the clock, the telephone. Without exactly daring to admit it to herself, she knew that what she wanted was for Michael to call, though she was unsure what she might say if he did.
Unable to settle to the Mail, she went into the living room and hoovered and dusted, tidying their few records and CDs, making neat piles of magazines. Upstairs in Sean’s room, she collected up stray socks and fetid sportswear, filched a fold-out pin-up of Pamela Anderson from underneath the bed and Blu-tacked it neatly to the wall alongside Sean’s team picture of Manchester United and above the one of Ryan Giggs. Along the landing, Sandra’s room was pristine in comparison, everything folded, hanging, shelved; pony books stood alongside Mills and Boon romances and Pride and Prejudice; they’d watched that together on the television, agreeing, despite Sean’s sneers, how gorgeous Colin Firth was as Darcy. A Greenpeace wall chart showing endangered species shared space with the Spice Girls and Gary Barlow from his days with Take That.
Lorraine sat on her daughter’s bed and closed her eyes. “You don’t love him, do you? Even if you ever did, you don’t love him any more. I can tell.”
When the phone rang, she gasped and it was as if, for a moment, her heart stopped. The receiver was cold as she fumbled it to her face. “Hello?”
“It’s me. I was just wondering how you were.”
Eyes closed, she rested her head against the wall. “Derek, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? ’Cause like I said, I can always …”
“No, I’m … Derek, it’s sweet of you, but really, I’m okay. I just need a little time, that’s all.”
Silence at the other end of the line.
“Derek?”
“Yes?”
“You do understand?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Only …”
“Only what?”
Another silence. Then, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Derek …”
“No, really. As long as you’re okay. I’ll see you this evening, yes? Take care.” And the connection was broken.
Slowly, Lorraine replaced the receiver and turned away.
Cutting through toward the Jacobs’ house, Resnick glanced at the well-tended shrubs and borders, and wondered what had been there before. Other houses, smaller, a spread of terraced back-to-backs perhaps, workers’ homes so-called? Or had it all been open ground, sprawling north from printing works and bakery, allotments possibly? Prize marrows, dahlias, runner beans.
For a couple of years, maybe more, his father had shared an allotment with another family from the Polish community. Resnick remembered watching him settle his cap on his head before setting out early on a weekend morning, trundling his wheelbarrow through half-deserted streets, fork and spade rattling against the rim. On lucky days, inside a sack, his father would be carrying manure, claimed swiftly from outside their house whenever the rag-and-bone cart had passed by; yellow-brown loaves of shit that lay steaming on the road’s smooth surface and crumbled open at the spade’s first touch.
Sometimes Resnick had gone with him, helped to dig shallow trenches, forked over brittle earth, watched as his father bent and prodded and poked. After an hour, he would become bored and wander off, constructing elaborate daydreams detailing how he would run away and where: the adventures that would be his if and when he left, wiped the dust of the city from his feet. Thirty or so years later, it still clogged his pores, veiled his eyes, clung to his skin.
And he regretted, looking back, all those times he had scorned his father’s company, shunned his presence-times that could never now be recovered or replaced.
As Resnick pushed open the gate of number twenty-four, he glanced up and saw, framed for an instant in one of the upstairs windows, a woman with dark hair pulled back from the pale oval of her face, staring down.
Lorraine was wearing black trousers and a blue shirt, faded, which hung loose over her hips; pale tan moccasins on her feet. No trace of makeup on her face. The skin around her eyes was puffed and dark, the tiny lines at their corners etched deep. She offered Resnick coffee and he followed her past the foot of the stairs into the first of two reception rooms, the dining-room, he supposed; connecting doors partly opened into the living room beyond-a leather sofa, deep armchairs, cut flowers in a tall glass vase. Everything smelled of polish, wax, spray-on shine.
“Why don’t you go on through?” she said. “I won’t be long.”
Where he had anticipated hostility, without knowing exactly why, the way she had greeted him had been pleasant enough, cordial, almost as though she had been expecting him. Well, Resnick thought, she had been expecting someone.
There was a photograph album on the coffee table, a pattern of red and gray diamonds across its padded front and a decorative tassel hanging from its side. Bending forward, Resnick looked inside: babies in prams, babes in arms, toddlers at the seaside, the park, the swings. Birthdays and Christmases, Sunday treats. A pair of dark-haired kids in T-shirts and shorts, check shirts and jeans. Michael-or was it Lorraine? — holding up a fish, a bat, a silver cup. Five, six, seven, eight. Inseparable, or so it seemed.
“That was Mum’s,” Lorraine said from the doorway. “Photo mad.” She was carrying a tray with cups, a jug of milk, sugar, coffee in a cafetiére. “Shunt it out of the way, will you? Then I can put this lot down.”
She set down the tray on the table, gestured for Resnick to sit on the sofa, and took a seat opposite him in one of the armchairs.
“Funny, isn’t it? All those snaps of me and Michael as kids-I suppose you don’t think about it at the time, too busy having fun-but they must have been forever sticking that camera in our faces. Mum and Dad. Smile. Say cheese. But then, Derek and I, I expect we’re the same with our two. Except for Derek, it’s his video camera.” She favored Resnick with a quick, uncertain smile. “You should see the number of tapes he’s got stashed away.”
Resnick nodded; made no reply.
“You’ve got kids of your own, I dare say.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She looked at him. “Not married, then?”
“Not any more.”
It hung there, like motes of dust, still in the afternoon light.
“At the door,” Lorraine said, “you said there wasn’t any news about Michael.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve still no idea …”
“Not really, no.”
It was quiet: the ticking of a clock from the dining room, the faint whirr of someone’s mower away up the street, the dull residue of traffic.
“I expect this is ready by now,” Lorraine said, pointing at the cafetiére. Reaching forward, she eased the plunger slowly down toward the bottom of the jar.
Used to being offered coffee which bore little resemblance to the real thing, pale watery cups of bland brown liquid made from instant coffee granules, worse still, powder, Resnick was pleasantly surprised that this looked dark and strong.
“Milk?”
“No, thanks. This is fine.”
“When the other officer was here yesterday, I got the impression-he didn’t say anything, mind-but I got this sense that he-you-knew where Michael might be. Hiding, or whatever.”
Resnick shook his head. “I only wish we did.”
Lorraine sipped at her coffee, put in sugar, half a teaspoon, enough to take off the edge. “I expect you’re watching this place, aren’t you?” she said.
The slightest of hesitations before Resnick said, “Yes.”
“He’d be a fool to come here, then, wouldn’t he? I mean, he’d know. He’s not stupid.”
“He might consider it worth taking the risk.”
Lorraine staring at him now, trying to figure out how much he was guessing, how much, if
anything, he really knew. “That’s not too strong for you?”
“Just right. How I like it.”
“Good. Good.”
Out in the hallway, where Resnick had noted it attached by a bracket to the wall, a small table close by, pad and pen for noting down calls, the telephone began to ring. Eyes fixed on Resnick, Lorraine made no attempt to move. After six rings, it stopped.
“The officer yesterday … Carl, I think you said … he asked me about Michael at Mum’s funeral … if, when we were talking, he’d said anything, you know, about escaping.”
Resnick looked at her encouragingly.
“I told him, no. Nothing. He didn’t even mention it. Nothing at all.”
“And that was the truth?”
“Of course. What do you think? I was as surprised as anyone.” She leaned back a fraction on the settee. “If he had asked me, I’d have said, no, don’t be so stupid. You’ll only make things worse for yourself, that’s all.”
“But you didn’t …”
“What?”
“Say that. Tell him …”
“No, of course not. How could I?”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
Her eyes held Resnick’s for a moment longer before she lowered her cup and saucer back on to the tray.
“And the blade? The razor blade?”
“What about it?”
He smiled at her with his eyes. “It came from your bathroom, I imagine.”
It was difficult not to smile back. “I imagine it did.”
“You told the officer …”
“I said I didn’t use them. Didn’t use a razor. I don’t, not any more. But I used to. My legs, you know.” She did smile then, almost a grin. “I think there were some spare blades. Left over.”
“You think?”
“All right. There were.”
“And Michael took one.”
“Like I said, I suppose so.”