Cold Light cr-6

by John Harvey

  She switched on the radio, a few minutes of Suede and she clicked it back off; fumbling through her tapes for Rod Stewart, she hesitated over Eric Clapton or Dire Straits, finally found what she was looking for inside the cassette box labeled Elton John. This was more like it. Old Rod. “Maggie May”; “Hot legs.” Forget the new haircut, remember the bum. Listlessly she flicked through the pages of Vanity Fair. One more thing, sort through the drawers of her dressing table, and then she’d get out to the shops, buy herself something she didn’t really need in the sales.

  Her mood lasted as long as finding one of Nancy’s earrings jumbled amongst her own: it came back to her then like cold wind, chilling her where she stood; she didn’t think she would ever see Nancy again.

  Kevin Naylor had taken the call from the hospital, listened a moment, before holding out the receiver towards Divine. “For you.”

  “This is Staff Nurse Bruton, it’s about Mr. Raju.”

  Poor sod’s bought it, Divine thought.

  “He’s been making a good recovery, and he’s certainly well enough now to be able to talk to you.”

  “Well,” Divine said, “the thing is, something big’s come up here, this woman that’s gone missing, and I really don’t know …”

  “He could have died,” Lesley Bruton said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Mr. Raju, what those youths did to him, he could have died.”

  “I know, I’m sorry and …”

  “And it doesn’t matter?”

  “Look, I should have thought you’d have been pleased. I mean, this is a woman this has happened to and …”

  “And this is only an Asian man.”

  Oh, Christ, Divine thought, here we go.

  “I’ll tell him you’re too busy, then, shall I?”

  “No,” Divine said.

  “Perhaps you could send somebody else?”

  “No, it’s okay …” Looking at his watch, “… I could be there in forty minutes, give or take. How’d that be?”

  “If he has a relapse,” Lesley Bruton said, “I’ll try to let you know.”

  The queue just to get into Next was right across the pavement outside Yates’s and curled, four-deep, around the corner and up Market Street as high as Guava Records. Warehouse was hip to hip with customers eager for the twenty-five to fifty percent markdowns and Monsoon was crammed with well-bred women over thirty-five wearing what they’d bought at last year’s sale.

  Dana walked up past the futon shop into Hockley and considered treating herself to lunch in Sonny’s; discretion sent her down Goose Gate to Browne’s Wine Bar, a glass of dry house white and a chicken salad baguette. One glass became two and then three and from there it was a short, less than steady walk to the architects’ office where she worked.

  “Closed till January 3rd,” read the card in neat black italic calligraphy taped to the center of the door.

  She had the keys in her bag.

  For a while, she wandered from room to room, past the drawing boards and the intricately made models and into the library where she worked amidst carefully cross-catalogued collections of slides and plans.

  She walked back to Andrew Clarke’s office. Only gradually, sitting on the corner of his matt-black executive desk, toying with the lipstick she had bought that morning at Debenhams, did the idea form, in Moroccan Scarlet, in her mind.

  For all that Raju was out of the woods, Divine thought, he still had one hell of a lot of British taxpayers’ money hooked up to him, one way and another. It was all he could do to maneuver a place to park his chair amongst all those stands and tubes and dials.

  But old Raju, now he was propped up and looking perky, he came up with the goods as far as descriptions were concerned. One of the youths, the one who had done all the talking, the one who’d tapped on his window for him to stop, he had a small scar, the shape of a half-moon, there, underneath his right eye. And fair hair. Very, very fair. Divine knew full well none of the other witnesses had said anything about fair hair.

  “You’re positive,” he said, “about the hair?”

  “Oh, yes. Indeed.”

  More than likely, the bugger’s still a bit delirious, Divine thought.

  The second youth, the one who had hit him from behind, Raju was sure that he had several tattoos along his arms. Some kind of strange creature on one of them, a serpent maybe, something like that. Someone on a horse. A knight? Yes, he supposed that was right. And a Union Jack. No confusion about that. But left arm or right-no, sorry, he couldn’t say.

  “Age?” Divine asked.

  “The age you would expect. Young men. Sixteen or seventeen.”

  “No older?”

  Raju shook his head and the movement made him draw a sharp breath. “A year or two, perhaps. No more.”

  Divine closed his notebook and eased back his chair.

  “You will be able to catch them now?”

  “Oh, yes. Now we’re armed with this. Two shakes of a dog’s tail.”

  Leaning back against his pillows, Raju, smiling, closed his eyes.

  Lesley Bruton was talking into the telephone at the nurses’ station and Divine had to bide his time until she was through. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “Raju, there. Tipping me the wink.”

  She looked back at him, saying nothing, waiting.

  “Look,” Divine said, “I was thinking. You wouldn’t fancy coming out for a drink sometime?”

  “This is,” Lesley Bruton said, “some kind of a joke? Right?” And she brushed past Divine so close he had to step out of the way; it was three-fifteen and she had an enema to organize.

  “Have you got a solicitor, Mr. Hidden?” Graham Millington asked.

  They were in the corridor outside the interview room. After his second session, Robin had been decidedly shaky and they had suggested he walk up and down for a bit, make sure the windows were open, get some fresh air. Voices rose and fell along the stairways at either end. Someone’s personal radio flared to life, overloud. Behind doors, the muted clamor of telephones.

  “No, why? I don’t see …”

  “It might be as well if you contacted one. If there isn’t anyone you know personally, there’s a list we can provide.”

  Robin Hidden stared into the sergeant’s face, the brown, unblinking eyes, curl of the mouth beneath a moustache so perfect it could have been a fake.

  “I thought once I’d answered all of your questions, it would be all right for me to leave,” he said.

  The mouth widened to a smile. “Oh, no, I don’t think so, Mr. Hidden. Not quite yet. Not now.”

  Twenty-one

  The solicitor appointed to represent Robin Hidden was David Welch, a forty-nine-year-old bachelor with two small Jack Russells, which he left in the back of his BMW, with a request to the officer on the desk that they be let out to do their business after a couple of hours.

  Welch was experienced but lazy; some years before, he had realized that he lacked certain requisites for a really successful career. He lacked a wife, but clearly he wasn’t gay; he was neither a Mason, nor a Rotarian, nor the possessor of the right stripe of school or college tie; not driven by burning ambition, he had never successfully cultivated the appearance of someone sure to succeed. Poor David, he didn’t play bridge or poker, he didn’t even play golf. He had looked around and understood the score. It would have been possible to move to another practice, another city, start again; he could have sought a new career-what he had settled for was an easy life.

  “Your client’s waiting, Mr. Welch,” Millington said. “Along the corridor, third on the left.”

  “I suppose you’ve been allowing him all the proper breaks? Rest periods? A decent meal?”

  “Cod and chips,” Millington said chirpily. “Tea. No slices of bread and butter. Turned down the syrup sponge and custard.” Millington patted his own stomach. “Not want to be putting on weight, like as not.”

  “I’d like a good half hour,” Welch said.

  “All the time you
want,” said Millington. They both knew it was a lie.

  Divine was at his desk in the CID room, talking to a young woman who, two hours before, had had her handbag and two carriers of new purchases stolen from her in the middle of the city. Late lunchtime. Sandra Drexler had been walking through the underpass below Maid Marian Way, the one with the news kiosk at its center, close to the Robin Hood Experience. Several families had been passing through at the time, children wearing Lincoln-green hats made from felt and waving bows and arrows in the air. Two youths in jeans and shirt sleeves had come running down the steps from the entrance nearest to St. James Street, caught hold of Sandra Drexler’s arms, and swung her round in what had seemed, at first, like a drunken game. A couple of six-year-olds had pointed and laughed and their mother had shushed them on their way. But the youths had pushed Sandra hard against the tiled wall and torn the bags from her hands, her bag from her shoulder. They had gone running past the kiosk and along the tunnel towards Friar Lane and the castle, leaving Sandra on her knees, shocked and in tears, people walking wide to avoid her. Five minutes in which she had limped slowly towards the street, before an elderly woman had stopped to ask if she was all right.

  “These tattoos,” Divine said, interrupting her account. Sandra was in her second year of an Art and Design course at South Notts College. She took a sheet of A4 and a pencil and sketched them within minutes, the Union Jack, St. George and the Dragon.

  “Sixteen, seventeen, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re sure about the hair?”

  “Yes, quite sure. Sort of washed-out sandy color. Really fair.”

  Divine thanked her for her trouble and gave her his second-best smile; if he weren’t so full of himself and wearing that awful suit, Sandra thought, he might be almost good looking.

  Resnick was weary. The muscles at the back of his neck were beginning to ache and he had drunk so much canteen tea it felt as if there was a coating of tannin furring his tongue. Across the table, Robin Hidden, with his solicitor’s encouragement, had withdrawn into his shell. Saying as little as possible, giving nothing away.

  “Robin,” Resnick said, “don’t you think we’re making this more difficult than it has to be?”

  Robin didn’t respond; pointedly, David Welch looked at his watch.

  Inside the machine, the twin tapes wound almost silently on.

  At any moment, Resnick knew, Hidden was going to exercise his right to get up and go. Any solicitor other than Welch would surely have advised him to do so already.

  “All right,” Graham Millington said, business-like, “let’s get it clear once and for all.”

  “Is it necessary to go through this again?” Welch asked.

  “You arrived at the hotel between half-eleven and a quarter to twelve,” Millington went on, ignoring him. “Parked the car at the edge of the courtyard and took a quick look in the main bar, hung around for a while, no more than five, ten minutes, then got back in the car. You drove round the block a few times, came back to the hotel …”

  “By then it must have been close to midnight,” Resnick said.

  “Almost midnight,” Millington said.

  “And that was when you saw Nancy.” Resnick looked at Robin Hidden squarely and Robin blinked and stammered yes.

  “And she saw you?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She saw the car?”

  “I d-don’t know. How could I know?”

  “You can’t expect my client to speculate …”

  “Nancy did know your car, though,” Resnick said, leaning back, softening his tone. “She must have been in it a number of times? Associated it with you.”

  “I suppose so, but …”

  “Detective Inspector …”

  “But on this occasion, either she didn’t make the connection or if she did, chose to ignore it. Ignore you.”

  Robin Hidden closed his eyes.

  “And you did nothing? Stayed in the car and did nothing, no move to attract her attention, you didn’t call her over, get out of the car, you didn’t do anything-is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, I’ve told you. H-haven’t I t-told you already?”

  “Inspector …”

  “All right, Robin, listen …” Reaching forward, Resnick, for a moment, rested his fingers on the back of Robin Hidden’s hand. “Listen. I don’t want to make a mistake here. You were upset about not seeing Nancy, upset at the way things were going, the way they seemed to be falling apart. You were out on your own, driving around, thinking about her. Is that right?”

  Robin nodded. Resnick’s hand was still close to his, close on the table’s scarred surface. His voice was deep and quiet in the still room.

  “You thought that if you could only talk to her, you might be able to sort things out, put them right.”

  Robin looked at the table, the marks, his hand, how small his own fingers seemed, narrow and thin; his breathing was more agitated, louder.

  “And when you went back to the hotel the second time, there she was. Walking across the courtyard towards you. On her own.” Resnick waited until Robin Hidden’s eyes met his. “You had to talk to her. That was why you were there? You did talk to her, didn’t you? Nancy. Either you got out of the car or she came to you, but you did talk to her?”

  “No.”

  “Robin …”

  “N-no.”

  “Why ever not?”

  Head in his hands, the words were indistinct and Millington would ask him to repeat them for clarification. “Because I was frightened. Because I knew what sh-she’d say. She’d tell m-me she d-didn’t ever w-want to see me any more. N-not ever. And I c-couldn’t, I couldn’t s-stand that. So I w-waited u-un-til she’d gone past and then I drove away.”

  The tears came then without restraint and David Welch was on his feet to protest, but Resnick had already turned aside, Millington was looking at the ceiling, embarrassed, and for all intents and purposes the interview was over. Five thirty-seven p.m.

  Twenty-two

  “Struck lucky, then, Charlie. Took the old golden bollocks out of their case and give ’em a bit of a shine.” Reg Cossall was leaning against the open door of Resnick’s office, leering his lop-sided grin.

  Resnick came close to sighing; he’d like to think Cossall was right.

  “What? Boyfriend told to go walkies. The night before Christmas. Jesus, Charlie, don’t have to be much of a wise man to work out that one.”

  “Too easy, Reg.”

  Cossall looked for somewhere on Resnick’s desk to stub out his cigarette; made do with the heel of his shoe. “Never too easy. Blokes like that. Make ’em cough, bang ’em up, get yourself over the pub by opening time.” As a philosophy of police work it remained, in Cossall’s mind, undented by the fact that most pubs now stayed open all day. It also depended, from time to time, on not being fazed by the exact truth.

  “Still a way to go, Reg,” Resnick said.

  Cossall tapped another Silk Cut from its pack. “Least you and Graham’ve got a live one to get your teeth into. I’m still halfway up the arse in computer printout and sodding cross-reference.” When his lighter refused to work, he fumbled out a box of matches from his jacket; the spent match he snapped between finger and thumb and dropped back down into his pocket. “Meeting up with Rose in the Borlace, likely go for a bite later on,” he released gray-blue smoke through his nose, “fancy joining us?”

  Resnick shook his head. “Thanks, Reg. Things to do.”

  Cossall nodded, “Some other time, then.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Partial to you, you know, Rose is. Reckoned as how you’ve got a sense of humor. Told her she must be getting you mixed up with someone else.”

  “G’night, Reg.”

  Cossall laughed and walked away.

  Was it too easy, Resnick thought? Too simple? He conjured up the look on Robin Hidden’s face when the
young man had talked about his last evening with Nancy, their last meal together, all those expectations dashed. The lie about seeing her outside the hotel. How much anger did it take? How much hurt? Pain like a vivid line, drawn through Robin Hidden’s eyes. How many other lies?

  “How d’you want to play it?” Skelton had asked. “Hold him overnight? Keep pushing hard?”

  Resnick’s sense was that, for now, Hidden had been pushed as far as he could usefully go. Shocked by his own admission he had closed in on himself fast and even David Welch was on the ball enough to encourage him in his silence. So they had let him go home to the flat in West Bridgford, Musters Road, second floor of a detached house with a car port and an entryphone. Home to his microwave and his OS maps and his thoughts. “We’ll be wanting to talk to your client again,” Millington had smiled benevolently at the door.

  Resnick stood up, rubbed the heels of both hands against his eyes. Through the window the shapes of the buildings were wrapped in purple light.

  Lynn’s flat was in a small housing association complex in the Lace Market, balconies facing in on a partly cobbled courtyard. The rooms were large enough that she didn’t fall over her own feet, not so big they encouraged her to own a lot of stuff. The floors she hoovered or mopped about once a week, the surfaces she dusted when there was a chance someone might call. A film of soft gray attached itself to her fingertip as she drew it along the tiled shelf above the gas fire. A gentleman caller, where had she heard that expression? She tried to blow the dust away but it stuck to her skin and she wiped it down the side of her skirt as she bent low, turning the circular switch alongside the fire to ignition. She remembered now, a film she had seen on television, Glass something, The Glass Menagerie, that was it. This young woman with a limp, not so young actually, that was part of it, surrounding herself with these little glass animals, waiting all the while for her gentleman caller to arrive at her door.

  The radio was in the kitchen and Lynn switched it on before half-filling the kettle; a singer she failed to recognize was singing an Irish song. The voice was soft and warm and for no good reason it made her think of home. Swishing warm water around the inside of the pot, then emptying it into the sink, she saw her mother, year on year, doing exactly the same. She clicked the radio off, dropped a single teabag into the pot. How long had it been, Lynn asked herself, since she had stopped waiting for gentlemen callers herself? Before the tea had time to brew, the telephone rang.