Living Proof r-7

by John Harvey

  He moved across to the pictures of Marlene Kinoulton. "This is the woman identified by the waiter in the hotel restaurant as the one Farleigh was talking to earlier on the evening he was killed. They'd been eating at separate tables till Farleigh went over and joined her. Afterwards they went out, the waiter thinks, into the hotel bar, and although the barman confirms that Farleigh was there with a woman, sat there with her until past eleven, he wasn't able to confirm the identification. His general description of the woman Farleigh was with is close enough though, for us to take this woman, Kinoulton, very seriously.

  "She is a known prostitute, here in the city, we've established that.

  Also works in Sheffield, Leicester and Derby. "

  "Anywhere she can get a Cheap Day Return," somebody said.

  Resnick waited for the laughter, what there was of it, to fade.

  "On five previous occasions, she's been issued a warning for soliciting in the big hotels. She wants finding and fast. Mark, Kevin, you're already liaising with the Vice Squad, she's your target, down to you.

  As I've said, I'm talking to McKimber. The rest of you, we have to keep checking other guests at the hotel, the rest of the staff, so on. We really need another ID to back up the one on Kinoulton. Or some positive forensics. We're also going to do a little digging into Farieigh's work, appointments kept on this trip, general background.

  Why he chose to stay in a hotel in the city when an hour's drive at most would have seen him home. " He looked around.

  "All right.

  Questions? Sergeant Millington's got your assignments. Let's be diligent. Not miss anything. Let's get this wrapped up as fast as we can. "

  "You think I'm wrong?" Resnick asked. He and Skelton, out in the corridor, officers spilling past them, Voices raised from the stairs, banging of doors, the same old chanting of telephones.

  No. why? "

  Resnick shrugged.

  "If I thought you were going down the wrong road, as your superior officer, I'd say so. Only…"

  Resnick looked at him expectantly. A shout, distant, from the area of the cells, was followed by a metallic slamming sound, then silence.

  Skelton stood back, nodding, still fiddling with his tie.

  "Not wanting to chuck a spanner in the works, Charlie, not at this stage. But like you said, tunnel vision, it's a dangerous thing."

  "Yes," Resnick said.

  "Thanks. Thanks, I'll keep it in mind." i 138 Breakfast had been a rushed affair, needing to be in at the station early, make certain everything was up and ready for the briefing.

  Now, Resnick stood in line behind a pair of purple-shirted tax accountants, waiting for the assistant at the deli to make him a couple of sandwiches for the drive down into the neighbouring county, something tasty on dark rye and caraway, an espresso for now and another for the journey. The tape machine in his car had been on the blink for weeks, all he'd been able to listen to was GEM-AM, recycling the glorious moments of some- body's youth, though rarely, it seemed to Resnick, his own. But now it was fixed and he could play the new to him Joshua Redman to his heart's content: "Moose the Mooche',

  "Turnaround',

  "Make Sure You're Sure'.

  Clicking the seat-belt into place, Resnick turned the key in the ignition and switched on the stereo, tenor sax loping in at mid-tempo as he eased out into the midmorning traffic.

  Twenty-six The pub was flat against the main road, a thin line of pavement all that separated its windows from the heavy lorries shuddering down towards the A5, the M69, the M6. Inside four men, worn down by middle-age, sat at four separate tables, nursing pint glasses through until lunchtime. All four looking up when Resnick entered, but none looked up for long. The landlord, restocking shelves behind the bar, paused to glance at Resnick's warrant card, listened to his question and pointed towards the stairs.

  "First floor, back." If the radio had been switched on and if it had been playing David Whitfield or Perry Como, Resnick would not have been surprised.

  There were three boards, bare along the landing, and each one of them creaked.

  "Gerry McKimber?"

  A tall man, spindly with a nose like a wedge that had been driven hard, and not quite straight^ into the centre of his face, McKimber stared at Resnick's identification, then stepped back, shaking his head.

  "Christ! It's not taken her so bloody long!"

  "Her?"

  "I told her I'd pay, Jesus, she's knows I'll pay just as soon as I can. She knows I've lost my fucking job, for Christ's sake, what does she expect?"

  "Mr McKimber?"

  "I've told you…"

  Mr McKimber. "

  What? "

  "You're talking about maintenance, child support?"

  "No, I'm talking about winning the fucking pools!"

  "That's not why I'm here."

  "Not? Not the pools, then?" He laughed, more a bark than a laugh.

  "Not here to tell me that? Half a million quid? Am I going to let it change my life?"

  Resnick shook his head.

  "Well, thank Christ for that.

  "Cause I forgot to post the sodding coupon."

  "Mr McKimber, can I come inside?"

  There were two beds pushed back against the far wall, narrow divans low to the floor, only one of them recently used. On the other, McKimber had piled, not neatly, some of his possessions, cardboard boxes, motoring magazines, clothes. A wardrobe, a table, what might euphemistically have been called an easy chair. The single window, with a view over beer crates and barrels and an outside urinal, was open a crack.

  McKimber stubbed out the cigarette that had been smouldering in the ashtray and lit another. He held the packet towards Resnick, who shook his head.

  "If it's not that cow, then what is it?" But then he saw Resnick's face and thought he knew.

  "You've caught her, that cunt as stabbed me? You've got her, right?"

  "Afraid not."

  "Then what the fuck…?"

  "There's been another incident…"

  "Like that? Like what happened to me?"

  "Similar. Enough to make us think there might be a connection. I need to talk to you again."

  McKimber walked towards the window and looked down, pushing fingers back through his unkempt hair. "You know, at first she never believed me, the wife, I don't know why. It was a fight, she said, you were in a fight. Some pub or other. Same as before. Why bother making up an excuse? Why bother lying?"

  ^IcKimber turned back into the room, cigarette cupped in his hand.

  "As if what I'd said, you know, what really opened, the hotel and that, as if somehow she'd never dave minded so much."

  He went over to the bed, sat down.

  "I used to get into these scrapes.

  Once in a while. You know what it's like, on the road Travelling.

  Well, you can imagine. Chatting Up people all day, trying to. Half the time getting doors closed in your face. Abuse. You wouldn't believe the gbuse. Come evening, had a bit of a meal, too far to go home, too tired, what do you do? Well, me, like a lot of men, I like a drink. Trouble is, when I drink I suppose I get careless 'bout what I say. Don't care who hears me, either. Gets me into trouble, I admit it The firm, they'd warned me, Gerry, this has got to stop. So many last warnings, I never believed them and then they gave me the push for something else altogether, but that's another story. "

  He drew on the cigarette, releasing the smoke, slow, down his nose.

  "The wife, see, she'd been on at me, an' all. Forever on at me. Just once more, Gerry McKimber, you come home looking like you've been in a brawl and you're out of my house. My house!" McKimber repeated his barking laugh.

  "Not now. Not when she's crying out for me to pay something towards the sodding bills. Oh, no. Now it's our house again. Our house!"

  He looked across towards Resnick, who waited, listening, prepared to listen, saying nothing.

  "This business with the woman, the one as cut me, the wife, she thought I'd made it up
. Of course, I never told her, what I never told her, that I was, like, paying for it, you know. Christ, I wasn't about to tell her that now, was I? Paying for it. Give her that satisfaction. No, what I said was, what I told her, this woman and I, we get talking in the bar, one thing rolls into another, I've had a few too many to know properly what I'm doing, next thing she's with me, up in the room. Would she believe that? Not for weeks would she fucking believe that, blue in the sodding face from telling her. Well, it was the truth, more or less the truth, I didn't want her mingeing on at me for something I'd never done. Jesus! When I finally get it through her thick head I'm not lying, what does the stupid cow do? Fucking slings me out!

  "All my stuff, clothes, everything, out the window, out the door. Out the house. Receipts, samples. God knows what, all over the front garden, next door's, up and down half the bloody street. Some of it I never even bloody found.

  "You believe me now, don't you?" I said.

  "You're filth," she says.

  "You're scum. You're never setting foot in this house again." The kids upstairs, hanging out of the upstairs, taking it all in. "

  He ground the nub end of his cigarette into the threadbare carpet with his heel.

  "What was it you wanted to know?"

  Sharon Gamett had been on court for the best part of an hour and a half; two games down in the fourth set and any rhythm in her service had gone. A couple of double faults, an attempted lob off her backhand which had landed closer to the next court than the one on which they were playing, and it had been over.

  "Thanks, Sharon. Good game."

  "Sure," Sharon grinned.

  "I was crap."

  Her opponent laughed. He was a nice enough bloke, sergeant in Surveillance, wife and two-point-four kids, semi-detached south of the city at Ruddington.

  "Time for a drink after?"

  After? "

  "Shower, change, whatever?"

  "Thanks, no. Maybe some other time. I'm going to shower at home."

  She was almost at her car before Divine spotted her, Divine and Naylor, leaning up against their own vehicle, taking in what there was of the sun. The rhododendron bushes thick along the perimeter of University Park behind them.

  "Will you look at that?" Divine said.

  "Legs that go all the way up to her arse!"

  "Right," Naylor said.

  "New design. Don't know if it'll catch on."

  "Clever bugger!"

  Naylor gave a shout and Sharon turned and saw them, no more than a couple of big kids, standing there in shirtsleeves, grinning. She wished she had stopped for a shower now, changed; aware of her sports shirt sticking to her, the sour-sweet smell of her own sweat.

  "Called in at the station, said you might be here," Divine said.

  Day off. "

  "Win?" Naylor asked.

  "Not exactly."

  "This bloke copped it in the hotel," Divine said.

  "You heard about it?"

  She nodded.

  "Witness made an ID…" Naylor said, taking over. "Waiter, works in the hotel restaurant' " She's a torn," Divine said, interrupting.

  "Local?"

  "So it seems."

  Name? "

  "Kinoulton. Marlene."

  Sharon wished they weren't having this conversation out there, cars driving in and out of the tennis centre behind them. Sweat growing cold.

  "Know her?" Divine asked.

  "I've not been here long enough to know all the girls."

  "But this one, this Marlene?"

  I might. " They waited.

  "You know the girl I contacted you about? Doris. The one said she might have something interesting to tell me, about the night that man was knifed near the Alfreton Road? Well, turns out, as far as Marlene Kinoulton's got a best friend, she's it."

  Divine grinned across at Naylor and Naylor winked back: at long last they might be getting somewhere.

  Resnick had taken McKimber back through the evening in low gear, beginning to end.

  "Never occurred to me at first that she was on the game. Never cottoned on. I thought, I suppose, nothing special, even so, not going to let themselves get turned into a knocking shop. But then I thought, yes, well, why not? Where all the money is, isn't it, after all? Blokes with time on their hands, money to spend."

  "So, as far as you were concerned, at the beginning, it was what?

  Just a casual chat? "

  "Well, no, not exactly. Way she was coming on to me, right off like, knew it was more than that. But, well, like I say, I suppose I thought I'd clicked, you know. Pulled."

  "And when did she make it clear that wasn't exactly the case?"

  "When we got to the room."

  "Once you were inside?"

  "No. I was just, like, about to use the key. One of them bits of plastic, not really a key at all. She leaned past me, hand against the door.

  "You know this isn't your birthday, don't you?" That's what she said. " He looked over towards Resnick.

  "She was there, then, wasn't she? What was I supposed to do?"

  "What kind of a woman would you have said she was?" Resnick asked.

  "Based on that first part of the evening."

  "Woman? She was a tart, wasn't she?"

  "Yes, but before you knew that. I mean, was she pleasant, well-spoken? How did she come across?"

  McKimber shrugged.

  "Just sort of normal, you know."

  "Intelligent? Bright?"

  "Bright enough to know she had my balls in her pocket' " But, aside from what you've already said, were you surprised to find out she was apparently a prostitute? "

  "Surprised?" McKimber shook his head.

  "One way or another, they all are. I mean, that's the way it works. If you can get someone to pay for it, why give it away?"

  Resnick showed him six sets of photographs, six different women, all similar, all with dark hair.

  "Look," McKimber said, 'you're wasting your time. I've already been through this. "

  "Humour me," Resnick said.

  "Let's try again. Just these few."

  McKimber lit another cigarette. A good minute before he answered, Resnick could see that he'd stopped really looking.

  "I'm sorry,"

  McKimber said.

  "It isn't any good."

  "You're quite sure."

  "Yes, I said. The only one…"

  "Go on."

  "The only one it just might possibly be…"

  "Yes?"

  McKimber transferred the cigarette to his mouth and jabbed a finger "That one. That's the only one, if you told me I had to pick out one of these, had to, that's the only one comes close. Only one that's near." And he picked out, not Marlene Kinoulton, but the woman in the set of photographs immediately above her, gazing into the camera with a slight squint.

  Divine and Naylor had driven Sharon Gamett back to her flat and waited while she had cleaned up and changed into tan leggings, a purple T-shirt, black cotton jacket. Together, Naylor driving, they trawled the red-light district looking for Marlene Kinoulton and her friend 146 Doris Duke. Nowhere to be seen. None of the girls out working claimed to have seen them for several days. A week. Sheffield, try Sheffield.

  Leeds.

  "Sorry," Sharon said eventually.

  "We're wasting our time. We'd be better trying again later tonight. Late."

  "Fair enough," Divine said and Naylor pulled in towards the kerb.

  "I might have a problem," Naylor said.

  "With later. I'm supposed to be off round Debbie's mum's. She's got this relation over from Canada. Nephew or something. Having a bit of a celebration."

  "Sounds," Divine said with a smirk, 'like the kind of thing you wouldn't miss for the world. "

  "Yes, well. I'll see what I can do."

  Sharon opened the car door.

  "Half ten in the Arboretum then, okay?"

  "Get there first," Divine grinned, 'and mine's a pint of Kimberley. "

  "You wish!
I'm the one doing you a favour, remember? And mine's a Bacardi and Coke. Large. Ten thirty, right?"

  Divine watched as Sharon walked away.

  "Second thoughts, why don't you go hobnobbing with the in-laws after all. Leave this to me."

  "Thought you were being faithful this month?" Naylor said.

  "One-woman man."

  "Yeah, so I am," Divine grinned, grabbing his crotch. "It's just this that doesn't understand."

  Twenty-seven

  "Honey, you sure you're up for this?"

  Cathy Jordan hesitated in what she was doing, adjusting her silver Zuni earrings in front of the mirror; her favourites, the ones she had bought in Santa Fe.

  "God, Frank, I wish you wouldn't do that."

  "What? Show a little concern?"

  "Call me honey that way. Makes me feel like something out of Norman Rockwell."

  "Not The ShiningT He came up behind her with arm raised, as if holding a knife, leering his manic Jack Nieholson leer.

  "Honey, I'm home!"

  "Jesus, Frank."

  What? "

  "All that's been going on, that's not so funny."

  Dipping his head towards her shoulder, an oddly tender gesture, he slid both arms around her.

  "That guy, huh? The one in the paper. Poor bastard!"

  She was looking at his reflection in the dressing table mirror, both their reflections: familiar and strange.

  Frank? "

  "Umm?"

  "Did you read any of the new book?"

  "Your new book?"

  Uh-huh. "

  "I didn't think you'd even shipped it off to the publishers yet."

  "No, but…" "You're still working on it, right?"

  "Fiddling, that's all. The manuscript."

  "You remember one time you caught me reading these pages you'd left lying around? I thought you were going to go crazy."

  Cathy Jordan smiled into the mirror.

  "That was a while back. I was more cranky then. Nervous, I guess."

  "What you mean is, back then, you cared what I thought."

  "That's not what I mean at all." Looking at him, defiance and concern in his eyes, the stance of his body, strength of his arms. So easy to have turned inside those arms.

  "Anyway," Frank said.