by John Harvey
“Mum, she …”
“Shut it!” Derek said, thrusting a warning finger toward his face. “Just shut it, once and for all.”
Sean stood there, rubbing his leg and staring at the floor.
“Derek, you’d better be going,” Lorraine said, glancing at the clock. “You know what the traffic’s like on the ring road.”
Derek fumbled with his tie. “If it looks like I’m going to be late, I’ll give you a call.”
Lorraine nodded, collecting up the breakfast things and carrying them toward the sink.
Derek’s jacket and briefcase were out in the hall. “I’m off, then.”
“Hope it goes well.”
“Thanks.” She half turned her face toward him and he kissed her on the cheek.
Lorraine refilled the kettle and switched it on. Just time for ten minutes by herself with the paper before taking the kids.
Standing there at the window, waiting for the water to boil, she watched the milkman bustling from his float to houses right and left, the man on the opposite corner wave to his wife before driving off, a pale trail of smoke rising from his exhaust. Two teenage boys clambered over the fence into the field, rucksacks slung over their shoulders, taking a short cut to school. Had she really seen what she’d thought she’d seen, or had it been her imagination playing tricks?
She spooned instant coffee into her mug and tried not to notice the racket Sandra and Sean were making in the other room.
Anil Khan had walked the short distance from Major Crimes to Canning Circus and now sat in the detective inspector’s office, watching Resnick demolish the last of a Leicester ham and Jarlsberg sandwich on rye.
Khan was in his late twenties and had been in the Force for close to seven years; after a somewhat hesitant start on the beat, he had developed into a good community policeman, applying for a transfer to CID when he judged, correctly, the time was right. Eighteen months working as a detective in Central Division had proved his mettle; he had served diligently, studied hard, kept his head down when discretion was what he thought was needed. Remember, lad, you don’t have to fight every battle, every time.
He had first worked with Resnick closely on the investigation into Nicky Snape’s apparent suicide while in Local Authority care and they had complemented one another well: Resnick’s instincts, hewn from experience, Khan’s meticulous preparation, his logical eye. It had been no surprise when Helen Siddons had snapped him up for her Major Crime Squad, nor that Khan had been pleased to go.
“Right,” Resnick said, screwing up the paper the sandwich had been wrapped in and tossing it in the bin. “Paul Finney-what’s new?”
Though Khan was sitting upright already, he made a move as if to straighten his back before speaking. He was wearing a four-button suit, nicely cut, a pale-blue shirt and muted tie. His hair was perfectly in place. “What I’ve been checking into, sir, concentrating on, is the greyhound racing. At one point, Finney owned three. Co-owned with a man named Newlands. Perry Newlands. He’s in catering-hot dogs, pies, that kind of thing. He’s got a number of vans, they seem to go from place to place. Race meetings, in the main. Colwick, of course. Lincoln. Farther afield. Fakenham. York.”
Resnick nodded. “The dogs. Not his any more?”
“No, sir. Sold his interest to a Jack Dainty …”
“Ex-Vice?”
“Yes, sir. Sergeant in the Vice Squad for six years. Resigned eighteen months ago on grounds of ill health.”
“Under suspension at the time, wasn’t he?” Resnick asked.
“Allegations of taking backhanders, asking another officer to tamper with evidence. Nothing was proved.”
“It rarely is.”
Khan coughed discreetly into the back of his hand.
“Finney and Jack Dainty, this suggests they’re pals.”
“I’m not sure, sir. Not yet.”
Resnick got to his feet. “Keep digging. If Finney’s still spending time hanging around dog tracks and the like, chances are he fancies a flutter, and if he’s into gambling, I’d not be surprised to find he’s into debt.”
“Right, sir.”
Khan was almost out of the door when Resnick called him back. “You’ve thought of this yourself, I don’t doubt, but the officer Dainty was involved with, those allegations of fixing evidence-shouldn’t be difficult to find out who it was.”
What Lorraine liked to do, some days, was take her lunch hour early and drive into the city; leave the car in that new car park outside the Victoria Centre, the one where the bus station used to be, and wander round inside window shopping. Occasionally, she’d make an impulse buy, often not. But it pleased her to think she could do so if she wished.
Today, she thought hard about a pair of shoes in Dolcis, plain black with a low heel, quite stylish in their way, useful certainly; just inside the entrance to the new House of Fraser, there on the ground floor, she toyed with the idea of some nicely packaged soaps, all scented with fruits and herbs, something to brighten up the bathroom.
She was turning away, empty-handed, when she saw him, Evan, no disputing it, watching her from less than a dozen meters away. Evan, wearing a short leather jacket, blue jeans, hands in his pockets beside a display of men’s cologne. Watching her and smiling uncertainly.
Lorraine didn’t know what to do.
She turned away and began to walk, not hurrying, not wanting to run, out into the broad aisle that led to the rest of the center. And by the time she needed to make a decision, left or right, he was there at her elbow, something of a smile still on his face, uncertain.
“Mrs. Jacobs, it’s Evan. From the …”
“I know who you are.”
They stood there, not quite facing, while people spilled around them.
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“What about?”
“Your brother Michael.” But she knew the answer, had read it in his eyes before he spoke.
They went back inside the department store and up several short escalators to a shiny cafeteria where they sat among ladies with hats, Lorraine with hot chocolate, Evan with a pot of Yorkshire tea and a slice of lemon cake that stuck to the ends of his fingers.
“What it is,” Evan stumbled, “all this stuff about him, you know, going off to some Greek island, somewhere in Portugal, Spain, something like that. Well, I don’t know, I mean, I don’t think that’s right. Don’t, you know, believe it. Not really. No. I don’t think that’s what he’s done.”
Lorraine sitting there, staring at him until Evan had to look away. “Why?” she said, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. “Why should you think that? What did Michael say?”
“Nothing.”
“It must’ve been something, or else …”
“No, really. It’s just-I don’t know-a feeling.”
Lorraine laughed. “What are you? Psychic?”
“No. No. I … I can’t explain. I’m sorry, I know it must sound pretty stupid. I …” He stirred sugar into his tea and lifted the cup to his mouth with both hands.
Lorraine eased her head a little closer. “If you’re right-just suppose-what concern is it of yours?”
Evan looked at her as if she had said something absurd. “It’s my responsibility, that’s why. You can see that, plain as me. He was in my charge. What happened, it was down to me.”
Lorraine was wide-eyed, slowly shaking her head. “And now-what? — you’ve come to look for him, I suppose? Take him back.”
“Yes.”
“And how the hell d’you propose to do that?”
“I don’t know. I thought, you know, talk to some people first, people Michael would have spoken to at the funeral, yourself and so on …”
“What about the police? Don’t you think they’ve done all that?”
“Yes, but they didn’t find him, did they?”
“And you will?”
“I have to.”
There was a certainty in his voice that was absu
rd and chilling.
Lorraine spooned away the skin that had formed over the top of her chocolate and watched as Evan ate a section of his cake and washed it down with tea before licking his fingers clean.
Lorraine looked at her watch. “Look, Evan, I’m only on my break from work.” She pushed back her chair. “I’ve got to be getting back.”
“I thought…” he said quickly, half out of his seat. “I thought you might help.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing to help you with.”
He pulled a sheet of lined paper from his pocket and thrust it toward her. When she glanced at it, she recognized the name of a small hotel on the Mansfield Road.
“That’s where I’m staying,” Evan said.
Lorraine tore the paper in half and half again and let it fall through her hands.
“Please,” Evan said.
She turned and walked away.
Sharon Garnett was drinking instant coffee at her desk, a half-eaten Mars bar resting on a pile of blank incident report forms. “This time of the afternoon,” she said, “I always need some kind of sugar rush, you know.”
Resnick pulled over a chair. “Jack Dainty. Was he still in Vice when you were there?”
Sharon gave it a moment’s thought. “Only just. I think we overlapped by-oh, I don’t know-a couple of months. Three at the most.”
“You remember anything about him? This charge of interfering with evidence?”
“He was overweight, I remember that. Bit of a fat bastard.” She laughed. “Too many Mars bars.” Her face grew serious. “Other things, too. Only rumors, mind, but word was he turned a blind eye to some of the girls if they, you know, let him have a free ride. This evidence thing, I’m less sure. Something to do with pornographic videos. One minute, they were showing them in the back room for the lads, standing room only; the next, they’d disappeared. Dainty’d been the arresting officer.”
Sharon went thoughtful for a moment, drank some more of her coffee. “There was something else, only a whisper. Something involving drugs.” She thought a while longer, then shook her head. “No. It’s gone. If I ever knew the details at all.”
“You could find out, ask around? You’ve got friends still in Vice.”
She made a face. “Get the idea I’m turning against one of their own, even someone like Dainty, they’ll not be friends much longer.”
Resnick held her gaze for a long moment before rising slowly to his feet. “If you think it’s too difficult, of course, I’ll understand.”
Sharon laughed; snorted rather than laughed. “No, you’re all right. I’ll do what I can.”
Thirty-three
Derek had called her on his car phone, stuck behind a brace of lorries delivering fuel to the power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar. Sandra was doing her homework at the kitchen table, writing up an experiment she had performed on a frog, and Sean was round at a friend’s, getting up to God knows what. Lorraine’s afternoon had been highlighted by two queries over missing deliveries and another concerning an invoice that seemed to have been paid twice; so many faxes and aggravated phone calls, she scarcely had time to think about Evan-poor, dumb Evan, sitting opposite her, open-faced, truly believing that he could find Michael where all others had failed. Find him and-what was it? — take him back. For a moment, Lorraine felt pity. Michael would tear him in two without breaking sweat or shedding a tear.
Except that Michael was, whatever crazy Evan thought, relaxing on Paxos or Zante, stretching back on the beach in his trunks and soaking up the sun. That car he’d stolen to get to Birmingham airport, what else? She pictured him, dark glasses shielding his eyes, getting up whenever it got too hot and cooling off in the water, drinking an ice-cold beer, then later, around ten or so, wearing an open shirt and shorts, wandering along to this taverna for dinner, sitting there on the balcony and looking out over the sea.
Lorraine drank down the last of her gin and tonic and thought about the advisability of a second. The drive to Maureen’s in mind, she made herself a weak one, Sandra’s eyes flicking toward her at the hiss of the tonic bottle opening. Lorraine poured her a splash into a clean glass and added ice cubes and a wedge of lemon, setting it beside Sandra’s science book and kissing her briefly on top of her head, the fading smell of shampoo and young skin.
“Mum?”
“Mm?”
“You know when you go round Auntie Maureen’s, later?”
“Yes?”
“Can I come with you?”
No reason not to, except what Lorraine wanted was to nip straight in and out, no hanging about, and the way Maureen made a fuss of the kids sometimes it was likely they’d end up staying there half the evening.
“Best not, love. Stay here and finish that. Besides, you’ll be company for your dad.”
“Oh, Mum,” Sandra complained, but she didn’t really care; all she’d wanted was an excuse to stop what she was doing.
“You’ll not be long?” Derek said. Lorraine was waiting in the hallway when he came through the door, the keys already in her hand.
“Sooner I go, sooner I’ll be back.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek. “An hour, tops.”
“Should I wait dinner or what?”
“Chicken and ham pie; it’s in the freezer. Pop yours and Sandra’s in the microwave, I’ll sort myself out when I get back.”
“I’d rather wait.”
“Suit yourself.”
She closed the door with a crisp click and hurried toward the car, low heels tapping down the path.
So typical of Maureen, Lorraine thought, turning off the main road, to have read some article somewhere in the poncey color supplements about how these drab thirties places were becoming trendy and move out here where the only people you saw after seven were patrolling on behalf of the local neighborhood watch. Or lost. It wasn’t even like living in the city; it wasn’t like living anywhere. She shivered as she rang the bell.
Rang again.
Maureen’s face was strained and pinched when she opened the door, and Lorraine thought she had to be coming down with something, a summer cold; either that or she’d been fretting about the shop. Maybe it wasn’t doing as well as she’d thought.
They chatted briefly about the kids and Maureen offered her a drink.
“I don’t know if I really should.”
“There’s a bottle of white wine open in the fridge.”
“All right, then. That’ll be fine. But, Maureen, listen, I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t stay long. These clothes you were talking about…”
Maureen left her in the living room, copies of Vogue and Marie Claire on the coffee table, new cushions at neat intervals along the leather settee, bright colors, black, yellow, and orange, each with a pattern of large red roses.
Lorraine glanced at her watch: how long did it take to pour a couple of glasses of white wine?
When Michael came through the door, she let out a gasp and clutched at her throat. If he hadn’t caught hold of her she would have fallen, legs buckling, all the way to the floor.
Lorraine sat on the edge of the settee, head down toward her knees, clinging on to Michael’s hand. From somewhere, he’d fetched a small brandy, which when she sniffed at it had nearly made her heave, and now it sat on the table, untouched. Michael content to sit there, waiting for her to pull round, get a hold of herself. After a few minutes more of this, he put his other arm tight around her and held her close, and the words he said she either didn’t hear or didn’t want to understand.
“Michael. Don’t, don’t.”
He was kissing the back of her neck, pushing his face up into her hair.
“Don’t. I don’t like it.”
Pulling away, he took hold of her face and turned it toward him, fingers hard against her jaw; she shook her head vigorously and he allowed her to push his arms away.
“What’s the matter?” It was there in his voice, the flat gray of his eyes, something that frightened her more than the t
ouch of his hands, his lips on her skin.
Lorraine’s gaze shifted toward the door. “Maureen, she might come in.”
“No.”
She looked back at him.
“S’okay. I told her not to.” He smiled, that slow wrinkling of the skin around the eyes, the creases that spread from the corners of his mouth, and she saw him then as she had all those years before. Hopeful. Sexy. Sure.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Her breath had caught in her throat.
He laughed. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
She freed herself from his hand and got unsteadily to her feet. She crossed the room, Michael watching her every move. The way he used to do, all those years when they were young. Bedroom. Bathroom. Beach. Then not so young. Remembering his eyes staring at her teenage breasts, Lorraine’s nipples ached.
“Why, Michael?”
“What?”
“Why are you here?”
He glanced around. “Why not? It’s perfect. Perfect place for us to meet.” He laughed softly. “You don’t have to worry about Maureen, I can handle her.”
Does that mean you’re sleeping with her? Lorraine wanted to know. Fucking her? She was angry at the thought. Surprised at her own jealousy.
“I haven’t laid a hand on her,” Michael said, reading her mind.
“Haven’t you?”
He stared back at her, daring contradiction. Lorraine retrieved the brandy, but one swallow was enough to burn the back of her throat and make her cough.
He took the glass from her hand and stood close, their bodies almost touching, actually touching when they both breathed out.
“Why didn’t you go? Like everyone thought. Why didn’t you get away while you had the chance?”
“Come on, Lo, I couldn’t go without you. What’d be the point?”
“What d’you mean? You’re not making any sense.”
“Sense? ‘Course I’m making bloody sense. If it wasn’t for you, I might as well’ve stayed in jail. Done my time.”