by John Harvey
“All right, gentlemen. Settle down now. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Jack Skelton, two years an inspector, transferred up from Stevenage, and still pretty much an outsider, was on his feet and looking round the room expectantly. A nice result here was what he needed to get his feet under the table and he was going to push everyone as hard as it took until it was over.
What they had, Reg Cossall reckoned afterwards, was about as much use as a eunuch in a brothel. They were in an after-hours drinking club on Bottle Lane, crowded round a table in the last of a succession of small rooms, Cossall and Resnick and Rains and four or five others. Any pretence at moderation, just a pint before hitting the road, had long since flown out the window. Now it was spirits, doubles, Resnick dodging the occasional round, wanting to pace himself, knowing all he had to do was get up and leave, knowing that once you’d passed a certain point it’s the hardest thing in the world.
Skelton had been with them in the pub earlier, his shout, a few pleasantries, and then the suburbs awaited. But Jack Skelton had rank for reason, had a young kiddie, a girl named Kate, waiting for him to kiss her good night; he had a wife, something in hospital administration, professional woman. Expectations he had to fulfill.
When Resnick made inspector, things would change; like Skelton he could make his excuses and leave, knowing full well the men were glad to be shot of him, free to talk, to call him names behind his absent back.
When he and Elaine had a child …
“What d’you reckon then, Charlie?”
“How’s that?”
“What Rainsey here was saying, these blaggings down to Prior.”
“I thought we’d been through all that?”
“We have.”
“Checked him out.”
Rains leaned forward, jabbing a finger at the air. “Pulled him in twice, brief right alongside him, all through interrogation, every step of the sodding way.”
“The way it’s meant to be,” Resnick said.
“Bollocks!”
“Alibied to the armpits, wasn’t he?” Cossall said.
“In bed with his old lady, middle of the afternoon …”
“I should fancy!”
“Not if you’d seen her you wouldn’t. Face sour as last week’s milk. Real scrubber.”
“What’s his form again?” Resnick asked, interested almost despite himself.
Rains eased back in his chair. “Couple of stretches, aggravated burglary. Fancied him for a post office job, eighteen months back, his face all over it but nothing we could prove. That time, reckoned he and the wife had driven her mother up to Harrogate, bit of shopping, afternoon tea.”
“Family man,” said Cossall quietly. “That’s nice.”
“Villain, that’s what he is,” Rains said. “Nothing else.” He leaned forward again, looking into their faces. “What d’you think he’s been up to this last eighteen month, filling in his Spot the Ball coupons?”
Cossall shrugged and Resnick checked his watch and Rains downed his Scotch and got to his feet. “Another of these and then I reckon we go round and knock him up, see what he’s got to say.”
“What grounds?” Resnick asked.
Rains winked. “Information received. Reasonable suspicion. Probable cause. Who gives a toss? Scotch, Reg? Charlie? Vodka?”
Resnick shook his head.
“Suit yourself.”
“Jesus, Charlie,” Cossall said, watching Rains disappear in the direction of the bar, “most of us get tireder as the night gets longer—each hour he’s awake he gets bloody brighter.”
“Think there’s anything to what he says?” Resnick asked.
“Prior? He’ll be into something right enough. His sort always are. That’s not counting shagging his missus the wrong side of Blue Peter. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give him a tumble at that.”
Resnick shook his head. “Not like this. Not now.”
“Be off his guard.”
“For how long? No warrant, we’re not going to find anything. Get him down the station and he’ll be back on the street before breakfast. Besides, state Rains is in, no telling what he might get up to.”
“What, Charlie?” Cossall laughed. “With you there to hold his hand?”
“You’d go along with it then?”
“Like hell as like! Way Rain’s getting himself pumped up, time he gets there, be near enough out of his skull.”
Rains arrived back with doubles all round, setting one down in front of Resnick as if he’d never said a word; from the gleam in Rains’s eye he’d slipped in an extra one while being served.
“Here’s to us, then.” Rains raised his glass in front of his face. “And here’s to a life of crime.” He downed the whisky in a single swallow. “What d’you say, then, skip?” He rested a hand on Resnick’s shoulder. “Tune to see if Prior’s all tucked up?”
Resnick got to his feet, leaving his drink untouched. “Time we all went home. Got some sleep.”
“Bollocks!”
“Come on,” Resnick said.
“Keep your hands off me,” Rains said. “Leave me a-fucking-lone.”
“Quietly,” Resnick said. “I’ll walk with you down the square, cab it home.”
“I don’t need a cab, I’ve got my sodding car.”
“Leave it where it is. You don’t want to drive.”
“Who says?”
“You’re drunk.”
“Who’s fucking drunk?”
Reg Cossall stood up heavily, taking hold of both their arms. “This isn’t so good. People are starting to pay attention. What say we hold it down?”
Rains swung himself clear of Cossall’s grasp. “The rest of you can do as you like. Just don’t try and fucking interfere.”
Resnick caught up with him near the foot of Bottle Lane. Rains was leaning forward against the wall, urinating on to the uneven cobbles and his own feet. The car keys were in Rains’s right-side coat pocket and Resnick had found them and fished them out before Rains could react.
“You can have these back in the morning. Now get home and sober up. And don’t go within a mile of Prior. Clear?”
Rains’s eyes were glazed and he shook his head from side to side, bringing Resnick into focus.
“You’ve got no …”
The index finger of Resnick’s right hand stopped no more than two inches from the center of Rains’s face. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. Not you. I spent one of the worst mornings of my life in court today, bending over backwards to keep the shit off your shoes. I’m in no mood to do the same thing twice. Now get home and get yourself sorted out.”
Resnick let the keys fall into his own pocket as he turned away; glancing back from the corner of Bridlesmith Gate, he saw Rains had not moved. Resnick hailed a cab rounding the square and gave his address.
“Good night?” the driver asked pleasantly.
“Yes.” Resnick said. “Terrific!”
Only the front-hall light was on and Resnick switched it off as he went through to the kitchen. There was a piece of Stilton in the fridge and the remains of some pasta Elaine had made in a covered bowl. He shook some Worcestershire Sauce onto the pasta, cut slices from the cheese, and sat at the kitchen table with the local paper. Fifteen minutes later, shoes in hand, he climbed the stairs to bed.
Elaine was tucked in on herself, most of the covers dragged over to her side. Resnick undressed quickly, sliding in alongside her, finding some space beneath the sheet.
“Charlie,” she said softly. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Charlie,” Elaine said, turning towards him, “you smell of drink.”
Twenty-Three
Resnick had his feet behind his desk before eight and by eight fifteen Rains was standing in front of him with an apologetic grin.
“Way out of line last night, sorry.”
Resnick drew breath.
“Try not to let it happen again, eh?”
“Right,” Resnick said.
“No hard feelings?”
Resnick shook his head. “No.”
Rains held out a cupped hand and Resnick dropped his car keys into it. Rains smiled. “Tell you something interesting,” he said. “Bloke got picked up this morning, Rossi. Early hours. Shinning down a drainpipe out near the castle. Neighbor got up to let out the cat, spotted him, phoned in. Your mate, Ben Riley, got out there in time to help him to the ground. Once he got him talking, hardly get him to stop. Put his hand up for twenty break-ins going back two years. Says there’s more but he wants to cut a deal.”
“Go on.”
Rains shrugged. “Usual kind. Not so keen on going back inside. Something about four walls, not good for his nerves. He wants to trade.”
“Information?”
“What else has he got?”
“You know what we stand to lose? Lies and half-truths, God knows how many hours chasing after things we can’t make stick.”
“All the same,” Rains was nodding, “one little titbit—reckons he knows something about the Sainsbury’s job. Reckons he knows the driver, friend of a friend.”
“Name?”
Rains shook his head. “Not yet. Not so easy.”
“Okay,” Resnick said, “get him in an interview room. I’ll have word on high.”
Rains went off smiling.
On his way back from talking to Jack Skelton, Resnick ran into Ben Riley on the stairs; Ben, still in uniform, sergeant’s stripes in place. When Resnick had applied to return to CID, his friend had opted to stay put. “Not me, Charlie, all that hanging about in pubs, rubbing shoulders with the scum of the earth. Rather keep them at a distance—close as the end of this truncheon, that’s about as close as I want to get. And besides, I like the uniform. Smart. Lord alone knows what you’ll look like when you’re back in civvies. Without you get Elaine to sort you out every day and I can’t see her being much in the way of that.”
“Just off to have words with the chap you arrested,” Resnick said.
“Tried to kid me he was from Visionhire,” Ben Riley laughed. “People had complained about trouble with their picture; he’d gone out to sort out the aerial.”
“Four in the morning without a ladder?”
“All part of the service, he reckoned. That was before I got him to turn out his pockets. Three picklocks, a chisel, and a six-inch metal rule.”
Resnick grinned and continued up the stairs.
“Pint later?” Ben Riley called after him.
“Doubt it.”
“You’ll be at the match Saturday?”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t bloody try. Be there.”
Melvyn Rossi was a shortish man with a weepy left eye and skin like chalk. Son of an Italian father and a Scottish mother, he had fetched up in the Midlands by default. Seven years of hard graft in his father’s ice-cream business in Dawlish had ended when his father had discovered he was unsystematically skimming off the top. His mother, who had returned to her native Inverness long since, had never had much time for him anyway. Melvyn had met a man on a long-distance coach who had told him you could pick up women in the city like fruit from the trees. True, Melvyn discovered, though his fellow-traveler had neglected to point out that you were expected to pay for them.
Rossi would break into the back of a house in St Anne’s or by the Arboretum, steal what cash he could find, fifteen minutes later hand it over for the dubious pleasure of taking his clothes off in an upstairs room with a single-bar electric fire, a narrow bed, and a red light bulb.
It was the crabs that cured him of that particular habit. Now he spent his money on horses and beer and an ever-growing pornographic video collection. There were times he wished he’d never turned his back on the world of 99s and Orange Zooms and water ices in five identical flavors and this was one of them.
When Resnick entered the interview room, Melvyn Rossi was sitting at the plain wooden table, Rains standing close behind him, patting Melvyn benevolently on top of the head.
“Melvyn’s decided to be a good boy,” Rains said. “Melvyn’s going to tell us everything we want to know.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. As Resnick had suspected, what he told them in the space of almost four hours didn’t amount to a great deal. Aside from the burglaries that Rossi had carried out single-handed, the rest was a mixture of insinuation and evasion. Rumor and counter-rumor, most of which could not be substantiated, none of which would have stood up in court, always assuming Rossi would have agreed to repeat his allegations under oath, which was almost certainly not the case.
And if he had, what judge, which jury would believe him?
Melvyn Rossi leaned first on that elbow, then on this, dabbed at his weeping eye with the corner of a handkerchief, smelled his own sweat.
“The Sainsbury’s robbery,” Rains prodded again, “where the guard got shot. You know the driver.”
“I told you.”
“Tell us again.”
Melvyn had been in a pub on Alfreton Road when the landlord locked the doors from the inside and proceeded to throw a party. Melvyn had almost certainly got himself invited by accident. Some time later he was squashed up in a corner with a red-headed woman he knew was on the game, feeding her gin and thinking she was better-looking by the minute. He had one hand on her leg, the other fingering her fleshy shoulder like it was Plasticine when she started telling him about the time she’d been paid for a foursome by two real villains, hard nuts the pair of them, flyers all over the bed, the one of them bragging about how he’d taken close to ten thousand from a security van outside a supermarket.
“Name?” Resnick asked.
“That’s what I can’t remember.”
“Name!” Rains shouted, leaning hard into Melvyn’s face.
“Honest, I can’t remember. Maybe she never said.”
“And the woman?”
“Mary, Margaret, I don’t know.”
“Perhaps,” Rains said slowly, looking across at Resnick, “you could let Melvyn and me have a few words in private. See if that wouldn’t help his memory to come back.”
Resnick stared back at him. “Not such a good idea.”
“In that case, why don’t we push him back in the cells and let him stew? All right, Melvyn, you decide you’ve got something more to say to us, something serious, you let us know. Otherwise …”
Rains made a gesture of wiping his hands clean down the lapels of his jacket and moved towards the door.
“Look,” Rossi said, “I’m doing my best.”
Resnick nodded. “The trouble is, Melvyn, it isn’t good enough.”
An hour later Rains had a quick word in the custody sergeant’s ear and let himself into Rossi’s cell. Less than a quarter of an hour after that, he was back in the CID room, hovering close to Resnick’s desk, waiting for the sergeant to get off the phone.
“Frank Churchill, otherwise know as Chambers, also Frank Church. Address in Basford.”
Resnick looked at the smile toying at the corners of Rains’s mouth. “Funny thing, isn’t it,” Rains said, “memory? Way it comes and goes.”
Frank Churchill had gone, too. “Manchester,” the woman who came to the door said. “Hope the bastard gets washed down the drains where he belongs.”
“You’ll not mind if we come in, love?” Rains said. “Take a look around.”
“Help your bloody selves.”
They found several pairs of Y-fronts, odd socks, a striped tie that looked as if it had been used as a belt; a plastic tube of hair gel and an empty deodorant spray; a ticket stub from the Odeon; several dog-eared western paperbacks written by an ex-postman from Melton Mowbray.
“If you find him,” the woman called out on to the street after them, “tell him not to bother coming back bloody here!”
“We could phone Manchester CID,” Resnick said. “Ask them to keep an eye out. Chances are he might be known up there, too.”
Rains nodded, checking the rearview mirror as he backed the
car away from the curb. “Vice Squad, I’ll see what they know about a red-headed torn called Mary.”
“Or Margaret.”
“Whatever. See who else was taking part in this little foursome, who else had reason to celebrate. Working it back, I’d say it couldn’t have been more than a couple of days after the Sainsbury’s job went down.”
Twenty-Four
Mary MacDonald had been out since eight o’clock that evening. Short black skirt, black tights, high heels that pinched, a once-white blouse that hung open over the tops of her breasts. The fake fur, hip-length, she wore unfastened. By ten, Mary had been approached seven times, the car slowing as it neared the curb, window wound down, face—always white, usually middle-aged—leaning towards her.
“Looking for business, duck?”
It was as far as the transaction had progressed. Head withdrew, window up, the car puffing sharply away, looking for what? Someone younger, slimmer, sexier, closer to their damp and furtive little dreams?
Mary watched the same cars driving round and round the circuit, some of them never going beyond the first exchange, discussion of terms—“Any place to go? Strip? How about the night? Have you got a friend?” Mary lit a cigarette although she was supposed to be giving it up, leaned back against the stones of the high wall, paced slowly up and down.
From the corner of Gedling Grove along Waverley Street, hang about on the edge of Raleigh Street, then back again, heels clicking on the pavement as she climbed back up the hill. Across Waverley Street, the trees of the park were dark and losing shape and through them she could just see the lights of the Arboretum Hotel. Some nights the landlord would let her sit at a table near the bar, sipping at a rum and black, slipping off her shoes, now and again reaching down to rub her feet. Other times, the look on his face would be enough and if she were thirsty enough, fed up enough, she would walk the other direction, up on to the Alfreton Road, where the publicans were less fussy about their trade.