by John Harvey
Yvonne Warden was chatting to the receptionist at the desk, fresh cup of coffee in her hand, green plants luxuriating quietly to either side. Framed photographs of office blocks and hotels the firm had designed hung from the wall, alongside copies of the original plans.
“If you want to see Andrew,” she began, “I think he’s still in a meeting …”
“It’s all right,” Resnick said. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Dana was at her desk in the library, looking through a box viewer at a slide of one of Philip Johnson’s Houston buildings, a high-rise version of one of those gabled houses she’d fallen in love with by the canals in Amsterdam. A shame, she was thinking, Johnson never got to follow through on his design for a Kuwaiti Investment Office opposite the Tower of London that was a replica of the Houses of Parliament, twice life-size. At least the man had a sense of fun.
She looked around at the soft click of the door and when she saw it was Resnick she said hi and smiled, but halfway out of her chair the smile died.
“It’s Nancy, isn’t it?”
He nodded and held out both hands, but she turned aside and walked towards the window; stood, resting her head against it, eyes closed, holding on. The glass was cold against her face.
Resnick didn’t know any other way to do this. “Her body was found early this morning. She’d been buried in a field. She’d been strangled.”
Dana jolted, as if a current had passed through her, and her forehead banged against the window hard. Carefully, Resnick eased her back against him, until she was leaning against his chest, her hair soft on his face. Her breathing was like rags.
“Do her parents know?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God!” Slowly this time, Resnick still holding her, the top of her body arched forward until the crown of her head was once again against the glass. Someone came into the room and, on a look from Resnick, went quickly away again. “She was so … beautiful,” Dana said.
“Yes, she was.”
Dana turned, shaking, into his arms and Resnick held her, trying not to think about the time. By now Skelton would be taking counsel, issuing orders, readying himself for a press conference. As the senior officer present when Nancy Phelan’s body had been lifted from the ground, Resnick himself would have to go before the television cameras before the day was out. From the square, faint, came the sound of the bell on the Council House ringing the hour.
“You’d better be going,” Dana said, releasing herself and moving past him to where she kept the tissues at her desk. “God, I must look a mess.”
“You look fine.”
Dana sniffed and summoned up something of a smile. “Only fine?”
“Terrific.”
“Did you know I’ve got another job?”
He shook his head.
“Yes, in Exeter. Starting next month.” She laughed. “Andrew gave me such a wonderful reference, they could hardly understand why he’d agree to let me go.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Resnick said.
“In Exeter?”
“Now.”
Dana sighed. “Oh, yes. I’ll be … I’ll be fine. Just like you said. Fine.”
Resnick squeezed both of her hands, kissed her softly on the mouth. “Phone me, if things get bad.”
Michelle had sat down early with the baby, thinking it had to be almost time for Neighbours; what she got was the last third of the news. Some black woman standing in front of some farm buildings, answering questions to the camera. Michelle thought it was something about-what was it? — Salmonella or mad cow disease until the photograph of Nancy Phelan appeared top left of the screen. Quickly, she shushed Natalie down and leaned forward to turn up the sound. Almost immediately, the picture switched and there was this man, round-faced, sad-looking, Michelle thought, speaking about the same thing. Detective Inspector Charles Resnick, read the caption bisecting his tie. “Deep regret,” he said, and “renewed effort,” and when the interviewer, out of sight, asked whether he thought Nancy Phelan’s death had come about as a direct and unfortunate result of police incompetence the inspector’s mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed, and he said: “There’s no way of knowing if that’s the case. Any attempt to suggest otherwise would be pure speculation.”
Not that that was going to stop it happening.
Back across the Trent, Robin Hidden had disconnected his phone but could do nothing about the steady stream of local newsteams and reporters who beat a path to his door. Finally, he clambered over three sets of gardens, sneaking between rose bushes and around artificial ponds, until he found a path back on to the street.
He bought a paper at the newsagents to get change and rang Mark’s number from memory. His friend had been replacing some tiles in his bathroom and had heard what had happened on The World at One. “Why don’t you come up?” Mark said, without waiting to be asked. “I’ve still got some time off. We could have another go at Helvellyn. Three thousand feet up in the snow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Course I’m sure.”
“I’m not exactly going to be good company.”
“Robin, for heaven’s sake! What else are friends for?”
There were tears already in the corners of Robin’s eyes. Across the paper, the headline read MISSING GIRL’S BODY FOUND and underneath, POLICE PLAN FAILS. Just after dawn today, the report began, the body of Nancy Phelan, missing since Christmas Eve was discovered, naked and apparently strangled, buried in the mire of …
Numb, Robin walked on till he came to the footbridge over the river, turned down past the Memorial Gardens, and continued on until the roundabout by the old Wilford Bridge. Shoulders slumped, he leaned on the masonry to catch his breath. Through the sour gray of the day, all he could see was the image of Nancy, that last time together, getting out of the car and walking away. The air stuck in his lungs like a fist.
Going by on a bike, rod resting across the handlebars, a fisherman turned his head and stared at him curiously.
Robin pushed himself on, without any real aim, down through the close streets of the Meadows until he came out near to the railway station. Although he had only the clothes he stood up in, he knew he wasn’t going back to the flat. Mark could lend him an anorak, his spare pair of boots, he’d done it before. The ticket and anything else he needed, he could pay for with the credit card in his wallet.
Forty-five minutes to wait for a train, Robin bought an orange juice from the buffet and carried it along to the end of the platform, collar buttoned up against the curl of the wind. The train that would carry him across country was one of those little Sprinters, two carriages at most, but if he stood where he was, before long one of those expresses would come hurtling in. He looked through blurred eyes at the dull shine of the rails, heard Nancy’s name falling softly from his lips.
Forty-seven
The briefing room was cramped and airless, too small for the number of officers clustered inside. Pinned along one wall, stretching away from a color photograph of Nancy Phelan, smiling and alive, were grainy black and white 8?10s of her in death. Other photographs showed the location where her body had been buried, strips of colored tape pinned to them, marking spots where tire tracks had been found, so far unaccounted for, a boot mark, incomplete and etched into a hardened ridge of soil. A map of Lincolnshire and East Anglia showed the two roadside restaurants where the ransom money had been left, the locations north and south of a line that swung gently eastwards as it traced, inland, the curve of the coast around the Wash. Almost directly between, circled in red, was the spot where the pig farm was situated and where Nancy’s body had been found.
“Stinks of stale farts in here,” Cossall said, moving towards the rear of the room.
Divine looked offended. “Only just let that one go.”
Along the corridor in the computer room, extra civilian staff were in place, entering and accessing the information obtained so far, including what Helen Siddons had retrieved from the inve
stigation into Susan Rogel’s earlier disappearance. All this would be checked against the national Holmes computer. Once connections were established, it was from here that fresh action would be generated.
“More sodding paper,” as Cossall liked to put it, “than you’d need if you had four hands, two arses, and a bad case of diarrhea.”
Jack Skelton had recently returned from a press conference where he’d come within an inch of losing his temper. To listen to the most prevalent line of questioning, you’d imagine that Nancy Phelan had been abducted and murdered by a combination of the city’s police force and the Conservative government through the good offices of the Home Secretary.
Wearing a black suit, hair pinned back, shoes with a slight heel, Helen Siddons was leaning slightly towards him, talking earnestly.
Resnick sat with eyes closed, arms folded across his lap, trying to ignore the way his stomach was rumbling while he marshaled his thoughts.
Skelton nodded to Helen, who stepped smartly away, got to his feet and signaled for silence. “Charlie, what have we got so far?”
Notepad in hand, Resnick got to his feet, moving towards a more central position. “Right, preliminary pathologist’s report states death by asphyxiation; bruising consistent with the use of a leather belt or similar, no more than a centimeter and a half across. Marks under the hair, towards the back of the skull, left side, consistent with a fierce blow to the head. Whichever weapon was used, it may have been padded or covered in some way, as, although the bruising’s severe, there are only minimal cuts to the skin. Other bruising, particularly to the arms, legs, and back suggest Nancy struggled with her attacker, possibly in the immediate time before she was strangled.”
“Good for her,” said a voice from one side.
“Much sodding good it did her. Poor cow!” said another.
“Probable scenario, then,” Resnick went on, “for whatever reason, either he’s coming for her or she’s trying to make her escape, the two of them struggle, he subdues her with a blow to the head, strangles her while she’s unconscious.” There were other permutations, worse still.
“As far as can be ascertained,” he continued, “there was no sexual attack, no evidence of semen inside or outside the body. There’s no recent evidence of sexual intercourse.”
“Bloody waste,” Divine said quietly.
“Thought you were one of those,” Cossall said, overhearing him, “didn’t give a toss if they were alive or dead.”
“The fact that she was buried where she was,” Resnick was saying, “makes examination of the body difficult. There were some samples of skin tissue found under her nails, however, and here and there particles of fertilizer-enriched soil which don’t seem appropriate to the ground she was buried in. Tests are continuing on all of these.”
“Time of death, Charlie,” Skelton prompted.
“Again, not easy, due in the main to unusually low temperatures. But the best guess as of now is that she’d been dead for four or five days, with the body only being transferred to the point where it was found as little as six hours or less beforehand.” Resnick looked around. “I don’t need to spell out for you what this means: she was almost certainly already dead when the attempt to follow the ransom instructions were carried out.”
Muted cheers and more than a few prayers answered. At least they didn’t have to take the blame for that.
“Not a lot else from here,” Resnick said, flipping over another page of his notebook. “As you know, there’s a partial print of a boot, composite rubber, Wellington or similar, size eight or nine. Tire marks are marginally more interesting, weight and spread suggests a medium to large saloon, but I think we’re being a bit hopeful going that far.”
“Hopeful isn’t sodding in it,” intoned an anonymous voice, miserably.
“What we still lack is anything positive to link whoever killed Nancy Phelan with the person who returned her clothes to the flat. Analysis of the skin tissue found under her nails might give us that, if we can find a match in our records.”
“And pigs might do the proverbial,” Cossall remarked sourly.
“Something to add, Reg?” asked Skelton.
Cossall smirked and shook his head. Resnick stood his ground. “What we might have, however, is a better suspect than any of us thought. Someone a few of us have actually seen.”
In the hubbub that followed, Resnick moved back towards his seat and now it was Helen Siddons’ turn. The level of conversation rose again as she stepped forward and she was careful to wait, eyes surveying the room, until it had died down and she was sure of everyone’s attention.
“Most of you will know something about the Susan Rogel investigation and will be aware there are certain basic similarities with this one. Woman disappears without trace, after a brief period a ransom demand is made, and when an attempt is made to make payment, the money is ignored. So far, so good. Here, though we have a body, in Susan Rogel’s case we’ve turned up nothing and it’s not outside the realms of possibility that she engineered her own disappearance. Except … listen to this.
“Thirty minutes after the time appointed for the ransom to be collected, a car pulled in at the pub where the money had been left near the outside toilet; the driver went inside and ordered a half of bitter and a ham roll, left ten minutes later, still finishing off the roll and went to the Gents’.”
“Must’ve pissed with his left hand,” Divine said.
“When he drove off, he was followed and detained. At first, he got a big shirty, thinking it was a random breath test, but as soon as he realized it was something else, he was as co-operative as you like. Ended up asking almost as many questions as we did. Claimed he’d started studying once for a law degree, but for some reason had dropped out. Still thought about going to university, reading criminology.
“He said he was currently working as a sales rep for a firm called Oliver and Chard, based in Gloucester. Specialized in work clothes, farms and factories, you know the kind of thing, overalls, protective clothing, reinforced boots. He was on his way to a dairy farm in Cheddar and after that had a call to make in Shepton Mallet. Car he was driving had been hired from Hertz that morning; normally he used his own, but he’d been experiencing difficulties getting it to start.”
Helen Siddons looked right to left around the room; not too many people were staring at their shoes.
“His name was Barrie McCain. Of course we checked him out with his employers, appointments log, car hire, everything. It all tallied. There was never any follow-up; there didn’t seem to be any reason. Not until Patrick Reverdy turned up at the Little Chef and fished the duffel bag of money out from the toilet.”
“This McCain,” Reg Cossall said, “I presume we wouldn’t be going through all this if he was still working for the same firm.”
“Gave in his notice,” Helen Siddons said, “the week after the noncollection of the ransom. Some story about his mother being ill Manchester way, Wilmslow, the personnel manager thinks she remembers. He’d been a good salesman, friendly, they’d been sad to let him go.”
“Photograph,” Cossall said, “too much to hope for.”
“Company policy is to keep one on file. McCain kept forgetting to bring one in. After a while, they got fed up asking. Figures were so far up in his area, they didn’t want to get the wrong side of him. However,” continuing among the moans and groans, “D.C. Divine described the man he saw close to in the Little Chef, the one calling himself Reverdy. According to the personnel manager, in outline it fitted him to a T. Similar height, five eight or nine, medium to slight build, sometimes she said he used to let his moustache grow a little but before it became established normally he shaved it off. McCain was seen at close quarters by two other officers-getting a photo-fit together is a priority, I think, as soon as this is through.”
“Thanks, Helen,” Skelton said. “Charlie. All right, the rest of you. Without shutting off other avenues, there’s a lot to work on here. I want every element of this
Reverdy’s story checked forwards, backwards, then checked again. McCain, too. If we can clear connections between them, anything that’s more than circumstantial, for the first time we might be ahead of the game.”
Forty-eight
Lynn was in the bath, lying back, listening to GEM-AM. She had been in there long enough for the condensation that had steamed over the glass front of the wall cabinet to begin clearing, the pine-scented bubbles to all but disappear; the water was starting to feel cold. She considered running some more hot, finally decided long as she’d been there, it wasn’t time enough for the tank to have properly heated through. Another few minutes and she would have to get out. On the radio, a commercial for quick-fit exhausts came to an end and back came the music. They seemed to have been playing Everly Brothers’ songs, off and on, all evening. Another one now: “Till I Kissed You.” Her mum used to love their stuff, sing it around the kitchen when Lynn was young. Days when she still had something to sing about. She’d even been to see them once, the Everlys, her mum. Yarmouth, it would have been. Phil and Don. Hadn’t there been something about one of them being ill? Not being able to appear. Drink or drugs. Don or Phil.
Lynn pushed herself up in the bath and the water splashed, chill, around her waist. Maybe it was some kind of Everlys anniversary. Perhaps one of them had died and what she was listening to was a tribute. She hoped not, one thing her mum didn’t need, another reason to be sad. For long enough for the picture to form, Lynn closed her eyes and saw Robin Hidden’s face.
That morning, when she’d told him about Nancy’s body, he had turned gray listening to the words. Right there as Lynn stood watching, Robin, face crumpling in like a balloon losing air, the life being sucked out of him. “Why don’t you sit down?” The words stale even as she said them, stale and inadequate. “Would you like me to make some tea?” But he had, and Lynn had negotiated her way between the unwashed pots and empty packets and found the PG Tips.
“You haven’t got any milk.”