Easy Meat

by John Harvey

  “Tell … tell me what happened.”

  “Why don’t we go and make …?”

  Her voice was shrill and angry. “I don’t want …! I want to know.”

  Resnick took her arm, his hand steady beneath her elbow. “All right, but let’s at least sit down.”

  The living room was at the rear of the house, fussy with tasteful ornaments and family photographs; the curtains, had they been fully drawn, would have revealed French windows and beyond those some eighty feet of flower beds and tidy shrubs, well-groomed lawn. As it was, they sat in facing chairs in the shadowy half-light, Margaret’s face angled towards the other armchair, empty by the span of fireside, the one in which, Resnick guessed, her husband would more usually have sat.

  He told her such details as were known, restricting the description of Aston’s injuries to a minimum. She listened, straining towards him, head angled slightly to one side, her hands in her lap never still.

  “Bill,” she said, when Resnick had finished. “Poor Bill. Whatever has he ever done to deserve this?”

  “Nothing, Margaret. Nothing.”

  She was on her feet. “I want to see him.”

  “Later, Margaret. Why not let it wait?” Gently, he led her back to the chair. On his feet, he went to the windows and let light into the room.

  “When you came to the door,” Resnick asked, “just now. You thought it was Bill, back from walking the dogs?”

  “Yes?

  “But when this happened, as far as we can tell, it was near the middle of the night. One or two.”

  He waited while she assimilated this.

  “Yes, he … Sometimes he couldn’t sleep. Not right away. So he’d go out again, a walk, anything rather than lie there. He hated that; there was nothing he disliked more. And this past couple of years it had got worse, much worse. That was why we moved, he moved across the hall; separate rooms, you see. That way, if Bill was troubled with his insomnia, he wouldn’t feel guilty about waking me.” She plucked at the hem of her dressing gown, some end of cotton she alone could see. “Not that I ever minded. Not …” And she was lost to tears again, flapping Resnick away when he came near.

  He went to find the kitchen and left her there, unembarrassed in her own grief. If Bill Aston had gone out last night after midnight, taking the dogs with him, she would not have thought it unusual; and if she had slept through till morning, possibly gone to look for him in his room and found him not there, she could have imagined him up early, taking a stroll, nothing sinister or alarming there.

  The tea was ready in the pot when Margaret, red-eyed, came into the room. “I do want to see him, now. You must take me to see him.”

  On his feet, Resnick tried the beginnings of a smile. “Let’s have a cup of this, why don’t we? I’ll call the hospital, then drive you over. All right? Margaret, is that okay?”

  She stood, staring at him, lost between table and door. How long till it was ever okay again?

  Twenty-two

  Eleven forty-four: cigarette smoke hung like a gray-blue cloud from the center of the windowless room. Enlarged photographs of Aston’s body had been tacked to the wall. Color. Black and white. High, to the right, a picture which had been taken eighteen months before, Bill Aston at the retirement party for a colleague, champagne glass held aloft, dinner-jacket and tie, smiling and alive.

  At right angles to these, a blown-up map showed the precise spot on the Embankment where the body had been found; a second map, larger scale, delineated the parameters of the area—the deep southerly curve of the river, forming an almost perfect U between Trent Bridge and the old Wilford viaduct, the Memorial Gardens and flat, open recreation grounds which led up to the predominantly council-owned Meadows residential area in the north; south, the civic blandness of County Hall and then more open ground, playing fields and schools. Farther along, a fully detailed map of the city and its surroundings had been marked with Aston’s home, the office where he had been based, the local authority accommodation where the Snape inquiry had been carried out. On the far side of the photographs, also attached to the wall, were the two white boards on which the principal lines of inquiry would be followed and marked. A pair of linked video monitors had been set up at the rear; two computers, one of them on line with the national Home Office computer, stood ready to access and disseminate information.

  Copies of the pathologist’s initial report had been handed out to those present: multiple fractures of the cranial cavity, severe damage to the upper and lower jaw, the mandible and orbit walls, rupturing of the blood vessels to the brain and consequent internal hemorrhaging. Damage to Aston’s hands and bruising to the forearms suggested that he had put up a considerable struggle and had made a determined, finally desperate effort to defend himself.

  Skelton stood near the front of the room in close conversation with Resnick and the DCI in charge of uniforms. A little to one side, Reg Cossall, thick gray hair brushed back, inevitable cigarette burning from the curve of his hand, spoke in slow undertones to the inspector from the Support Department, emphasizing every sentence with a jab of his finger towards the man’s chest. Skelton, more alive than Resnick had observed him for months, wearing a double-breasted suit that Resnick had never seen, glanced quickly down at his neatly written notes before slipping them from sight; as soon as this was over he would go directly to the media briefing below. A last word to Resnick and he turned away; two steps forward and the heavy hum and burr of voices around him rose, then died.

  Briefly, he introduced Harry Payne, the inspector from the Support Department, fifteen of whose officers would be responsible for the initial close search, and Jane Prescott, the sergeant who would be liaising between the investigation and Force Intelligence. He introduced DC Khan as Bill Aston’s assistant on the Snape inquiry, and finally the two civilian computer operators. Everyone else knew everyone else, pretty much.

  Skelton cleared his throat. “I don’t need to tell you a fellow officer has been killed. One of us.” Nods of agreement, murmurs of assent, and anger from all around. Skelton waited before going on. “Many of you knew Bill Aston; some of you, like myself, worked with him. He was a good officer. The old school. Decent. Fair. Scrupulous in everything that he did. After all of his years of service, Bill was due to retire at the end of this year. And now this.”

  Once again, the litany of voices as though in church. Skelton orchestrating them, call and response.

  “We all know what happened in the early hours of this morning. You’ve all seen the photographs, read the report, some of you were present at the scene where Bill Aston’s body was found. This was a callous, brutal attack and I know that you all feel as shocked as I do. And I know that what you all want is to get whoever did this, person or persons, banged up behind bars as soon as possible. We want a result and we want it fast. We want it for Bill Aston’s widow … and before whoever was responsible for this can act again.”

  Skelton waited for the volley of sound, fierce and emphatic, to subside. He wanted every face turned towards him, everyone’s attention exclusively on what he had to say.

  “Before we set to work, I want us to be clear—there are dangers here. The last thing we can afford to do is rush headlong into this and let feelings, however strong, get the better of judgment. Nobody. None of you is going off at half-cock on this. It’s too important.” Skelton’s voice clear now, no longer loud, no longer needing to be: silence around him in the room. “What we can’t afford is to bring in the right person, the right people, and then not be able to make it stick. So we’re thorough, exact, we work through channels, we check, and then we double-check. And then when we’ve caught the bastard, he stays caught.”

  Acclamation. Skelton waited a moment longer before stepping aside. “Charlie?”

  As Resnick began speaking, he moved across until he was positioned in front of the maps of the Trent. “The most likely scenario so far is that this was a random, unpremeditated attack, carried out for gain. Whatever he had on
him at the time. They could have seen Bill as an affluent enough looking bloke, not so young, out on his own with a couple of little dogs. No threat there.” Resnick pointed up at one of the maps. “Bill parked his car here, opposite the Memorial Gardens and walked, as far as we can tell, in this direction here, along the Embankment towards the bridge. When he couldn’t sleep, this was something he did quite a bit, nothing unusual about it at all. We’re presuming that whoever it was that attacked him saw him wandering alone, presumably nobody else around, and marked him down as an easy target. He was set upon here, close by these trees, and his wallet was found here, not far from the body, cash and credit cards gone.” Resnick paused and looked around the room. “Margaret Aston says the most he would have been likely to have had with him was thirty or forty pounds.”

  “Bastards!” somebody said, loud and pronounced.

  “Thanks, Charlie.” It was Skelton’s turn again. “Right. To specifics. Reg, anything and everything that happened on the Embankment between one and four, anyone who set foot, anything that breathed, that’s your bailiwick.” Cossall shuffled a foot and gave the floor a half-smile. “So, supervision of house-to-house, that’s down to you. All those places along Victoria Embankment, they can’t all have been tucked up with their Ovaltine, anyone who heard anything, saw anyone, we have to know. And we’ll be appealing for anyone who drove along that way after midnight, any late-night fishermen, joggers, whatever, to come forward. Anyone using the pub on his side of the bridge, especially around last orders, or walking back into the city from the Trent Bridge Inn. We’ll be using local radio, television news, the Post. Whatever information we get, once it’s been processed, Reg, you and your team, get it prioritized, followed through.

  “Charlie, your team, I want you to go in close. Forensics, anything found at the immediate scene, give us as exact a picture as you can of what actually happened. And the twenty-four hours leading up to the attack, we want to know where Bill went, who he spoke to, what he did. Cover ourselves, just in case. If we have to look farther afield, that’s where we’ll start.”

  Skelton cleared his throat and wished for a glass of water; he was conscious of speaking for a long time. The troops were getting restless for action and it was time for the last push. “All right, one of the things we have to be wary of is tunnel vision. The most obvious suspect is not always the one that ends up in the frame. Which is why, even though I don’t think there’s any connection, I’m going to be talking to Khan here about the inquiry Bill was heading into the apparent suicide of Nicky Snape. There may be no connection, but it has to be checked and eliminated. And there’ll be other avenues. Cases Bill worked when he was operational, people he was responsible for getting sent down who’ve recently been released. Anyone else who might have held a grudge, the Job or personal. Anything out of synch. I don’t see Bill as having been a man who made enemies easily, but we’ll talk to Margaret, see what she says. Finally, any of you, any ideas you might have, different angles, things that seem to be in danger of being overlooked. Come forward. Talk to me. I want to know.”

  Skelton took a step back and inclined his head right, then left. “Charlie, Reg, anything you want to add?”

  Neither did.

  “All right, let’s be moving. And good luck.”

  Less than half an hour later, Resnick was back in his own CID room. Kevin Naylor had just finished mashing tea. Resnick sat on the edge of one of the desks, finishing off a smoked chicken and cranberry sandwich that had been sent across from the deli on the Circus.

  “Okay,” he said, taking a mug from Kevin and holding it in both hands, “let’s talk this through.”

  Millington was sitting close to Resnick’s right, chair angled back onto its rear legs, Divine was down towards the end of the narrow room, chair reversed, legs spread wide; Lynn Kellogg sat with her head resting back against the left-hand wall; Naylor, having handed out the tea, took up a position behind one of the dark-green filing cabinets and leaned forward on both elbows.

  “First things first. We already have somebody helping us with our inquiries, this homeless youth who found the body, phoned it in. Graham, I want you and Mark to question him again, push him some more. Let’s check out what he knows, make sure he’s telling us everything.”

  “You think he might’ve been involved, boss?” Divine asked. “The attack?” Push him a little, he’d liked the sound of that.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” Millington said. “Throwing off suspicion, reporting your own crime.”

  Resnick nodded and moved on. “Kevin, Scene of Crime will have details of footprints, boot marks, in the area the body was found—photographs, casts, whatever. Make what sense of them you can. Other things aside, it should help us to pin down how many people were actually involved.”

  “We are pretty definite, are we,” Naylor asked, “we’re dealing with more than one person?”

  Resnick swallowed a mouthful of tea. “That’s my gut feeling, yes. Two at least, maybe more. Bill had kept himself reasonably fit, he wouldn’t have looked such an easy mark to one man on his own. And unless whoever struck the first blow managed to take him completely by surprise, I doubt that a single attacker would have been able to cause as much damage as this.”

  He shifted his focus across the room. “Lynn, we have to build up a detailed picture of Bill Aston’s last twenty-four hours; everything he did, everywhere he went, anyone and everyone he spoke to. I’d like you to take care of that. I’ll go with you to see Margaret Aston first off, introduce you. Then you’re on your own.”

  “Right,” Lynn said. “Thanks.”

  “Meantime, I’m going to go over the material from the Nicky Snape inquiry with Khan.” Resnick set both hands on the desk and pushed himself to his feet. “Before you go off duty tonight, check back with me, let me know what you’ve got.”

  The last drops of water spurted noisily down into the jug of Skelton’s coffee machine and, standing close by the side window, looking down, Resnick was aware of his stomach rumbling in sympathy. Past noon and, chicken sandwich aside, the last food that had passed his lips had been at Hannah’s house hours before, a couple of chocolate digestives that had seen better days. For a moment he was thinking of her, Hannah, the skin round her hip, along her thigh, smooth and taut against his hand.

  “Charlie?”

  “Huh?”

  “Milk or without?”

  “As it comes.”

  Skelton took a seat and Resnick did the same. “Difficult not to think,” Skelton said, “how close he was to retiring, poor bugger.”

  “Yes.” And Margaret, Resnick thought, what kind of life for her? After all that time, that life, how could you hope to adjust? The kids, he supposed, there was always the kids; but then he wondered what kind of an answer that was.

  “Press conference at one,” Skelton was saying, “you’re okay about that, fully briefed?”

  “I can only say what we know, and up to now that’s not too much.”

  “Good opportunity, though, ask for information, help.”

  Resnick nodded: they would be flooded with calls, extra staff on hand to log them in. Much of the information would prove inconclusive and conflicting; and then there would be the cranks, psychics, and back-yard psychiatrists, two or three at least wanting to confess. He set his cup down in its saucer, placed them both on the floor. State-of-the-art coffee maker or not, Skelton’s coffee always tasted like instant, and weak instant at that. He got to his feet, thinking that was all, but there was more.

  “There’s a young DC,” Skelton said, “looking to transfer up from Leicestershire. Chance he might come here.”

  Resnick waited at the back of his chair. “Is this definite, or just rumor?”

  “Definite as these things go.”

  “I thought there was a freeze on all recruitment?”

  Skelton spread his hands, fingers wide. “In theory there is, but you know finance, Charlie. Bloody unfathomable.”

 
“This transfer, does he have a name? You said he.”

  “Vincent. Carl Vincent.”

  “And he’s CID?”

  Skelton nodded. “Five years.”

  “Still a DC?”

  Nodded again.

  There were all kinds of reasons, Resnick knew, why officers applied to transfer. Personality clashes, mostly; sometimes a case goes sour and they’re looking for a fresh start. Family reasons for needing to relocate, but this—nothing more than an hour’s drive.

  “Might be he’ll be here in the next couple of days,” Skelton said. “No bad thing, Charlie. This inquiry, you’ll be needing all the bodies you can get. Have him plug a few holes, feel him out. You can afford to give it a while either way, see how it goes. If it turns out he’s half the copper young Patel would have been, you’ll not be sorry.”

  Resnick could still remember the first time he had met Dipak Patel, bright as tomorrow and eager to please. The first from his family to go to university, get a degree. The police force, Patel’s father had said, why that? Such waste. Resnick remembered blood drying on the paving stones, the purplish hue around the wound, one single slashing blow that had found the artery by design or chance. A killer never caught. He remembered the father’s face, the way it had twisted in; his uncomprehending grief.

  Margaret Aston.

  Norma Snape.

  It went on, without end.

  Twenty-three

  Norma had tried not to notice the smell on Sheena’s breath when her daughter came in; not tobacco, not quite gin, it was grass, she knew, remembered it distantly but well.

  “And where d’you think you got this?” she asked, angling back her head the better to see the black leather jacket, studs around both pockets, zips unfastened along both sleeves.