Cold in Hand

by John Harvey

  ‘Best not,’ the SIO said with a grin. ‘Might not want to be reminded.’

  Lynn smiled, suggesting that was probably the case.

  ‘You’ll have another?’ he asked.

  ‘Thanks, but no.’ Glass empty, she got to her feet.

  ‘Back home to get the old man’s supper?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Seeing her moving, Resnick held up his own glass, recently refreshed, signalling he’d be a short while yet. Lynn raised a hand to show she understood and pushed her way through the door and out on to the street. As soon as she was outside, she sensed someone at her back.

  ‘Leaving early?’ Daines said, moving closer as she turned.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Lynn said. She could feel his breath on her face.

  ‘Thought I might join you . . . but thenIthought, no, relaxing with her mates, friends, her – what would you call him? – common-law husband.’

  ‘You’ve been following me?’ Lynn asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Daines said, the street light picking out the chip of green in his eye when he smiled. ‘Though I thought it was more a case of you following me.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Really? Asking questions behind my back. Checking up on me. Amounts to more or less the same thing.’

  Lynn took a step away. ‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’

  ‘So I hear.’

  Lynn said nothing.

  ‘Anything you wanted to ask, why not come out and ask it yourself. Straight out. Or maybe that’s not your way.’

  ‘I already did,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know her,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Andreea Florescu, you know her. You’d seen her before.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘Well, she knows you.’

  ‘She’s lying.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘That foreign tart, you believe her rather than me?’ Daines made a scoffing sound in his throat. ‘She’s probably been lying about Zoukas as well. About seeing him stab the girl.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Who knows?’ A smile slipped across his face and disappeared. ‘A word of advice. One professional to another.’ Reaching out quickly, he took hold of her arm. ‘Don’t make me your enemy.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘If need be.’

  Shaking him off, she stepped away and as she did so the pub door was pushed open and Resnick stepped outside. Daines nodded curtly in his direction, gave Lynn one final look, and walked briskly away.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Resnick asked.

  She gave him the gist of the conversation as they were walking home, north from the city centre and then cutting right on to the Woodborough Road.

  ‘You have to wonder,’ Resnick said, after listening, ‘what it is he has to hide.’

  ‘Something personal? You think that’s what it is?’

  ‘I don’t know. This operation, it’s pretty big. International. If he can help pull it off, his career’ll be made. Maybe he thinks anything that makes that possible is justified. And the last thing he’ll want is for things to come out in the open before he’s good and ready.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Lynn said.

  ‘You don’t like him.’

  ‘They’re not the same.’

  ‘I know.’

  They walked on, past the mosque and up towards Gorseyclose Gardens and Alexandra Park.

  ‘You could always report it,’ Resnick said. ‘Take it to the ACC if necessary.’

  Lynn shook her head. ‘He’d just deny every word.’

  One of the cats ran along the pavement to greet them, the others were waiting on the mat beside the door. Resnick turned first one key in the lock and then the other. It struck cold when they stepped inside, the heating turned off too soon. Even so, it was good to be home.

  It was a quarter to three on the following afternoon, Tuesday, before Dan Schofield confessed to killing both Christine and Susan Foley, admitting through his solicitor to manslaughter while the balance of his mind was disturbed.

  ‘Guts enough to stab a woman to death with a bloody kitchen knife and smother a little kiddie while she slept,’ as the SIO put it, ‘but not man enough to own up to what he’s done without hiding behind the skirts of some bloody shrink.’

  It had still to be seen if that ploy would succeed.

  Lynn was barely back at her desk when the phone rang. It was Alexander Bucur calling from London, his voice quick and nervous, words skidding together: two men had come to the flat on the previous evening looking for Andreea. He had told them she wasn’t there, but they had forced their way in nevertheless and searched. When they asked him where she was he had told them she was working but that he didn’t know where. They would be back, they told him. They would be back.

  ‘And Andreea?’

  ‘When I told her, she panicked. It was all I could do to stop her grabbing her things and running there and then. She’s terrified.’

  ‘I’ll come down,’ Lynn said, impulsively. ‘Talk to her.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she could catch the 15.38 London train. Just time enough to poke her head round Resnick’s office door before legging it to the station.

  ‘Charlie, I’m off down to London. Something’s come up.’

  ‘What d’you mean, come up?’

  ‘Alexander Bucur – the guy Andreea’s been living with. In Leyton. He just called me. Someone’s been round looking for Andreea. Sounds like the same guy who threatened her before. She’s frightened out of her wits.’

  ‘I don’t see—’

  ‘Charlie. I’ve got to run. Be back this evening, okay?’

  Resnick raised his hand. ‘Ring me.’

  ‘I’ll call you from the train.’

  A moment and she was gone.

  Bucur met her at the front door. A black eye, in the process of turning from mauve to yellow, marred his otherwise perfect face.

  ‘What happened?’ Lynn asked.

  ‘This? Last night. When I told them I didn’t know where Andreea was working, I don’t think they believed me.’ It made him wince to smile. ‘Come in.’

  She followed him upstairs and into the flat. The look on his face told her before he said the words. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Cornwall, perhaps. I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I went out not long after I phoned you. Just to buy milk, a few other things, that was all. She seemed to have calmed down. When I got back, she’d gone. Her rucksack, too. I tried her mobile, but it was switched off.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.’

  Bucur cleared a bundle of papers from one of the chairs and set them on the table amongst all the books and other paraphernalia.

  ‘Please. Sit. I’ll make some tea.’

  While she waited, Lynn cast her eye over the formidable piles of books. The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch. Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier. Aldo Rossi. Jane Jacobs. Mies van der Rohe.

  ‘Architecture,’ Lynn said, when he came back into the room. ‘That’s what you’re studying?’

  ‘Yes. Architecture. Urban design.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’

  ‘Interesting, yes. But studying as I am, many years.’

  The tea was hot and strong.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I am wasting your time, worrying for nothing.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘The first time I phoned you, you were engaged, so I called the man who was here with you . . .’

  ‘Daines.’

  ‘Yes, his number was in the room where Andreea had been sleeping. A card. But he was
not there either. So I made a call to you again and you answered. I hope it is all right.’

  Lynn assured him that it was. ‘When you came back,’ she said, ‘and Andreea wasn’t here, were there any signs of a struggle? Anything to suggest she’d been taken against her will?’

  ‘No. It was just like this. The bedroom – a few things here and there, but, really, nothing.’

  ‘She left of her own accord, then?’

  ‘It’s what I want to believe. But I am not sure.’

  ‘And Cornwall, if she did go off on her own, you think that’s where she went?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. She had spoken of going there later in the year, perhaps to work.’

  ‘Which part of Cornwall? Do you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I think . . . Sennen . . . Sennen something . . .’

  ‘Sennen Cove?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  Lynn knew it from childhood holidays, the north coast close to Land’s End. Journeys they had made all the way across country from East Anglia, Lynn sitting squashed in the rear seat beside mounds of luggage, staring out at scenery that scarcely seemed to change, hour upon hour, unable to read for more than twenty minutes at a time lest it make her sick.

  Mum, Dad, how much longer?

  Don’t ask.

  ‘This friend,’ Lynn said, ‘do you know her name?’

  ‘Nadia. That’s all. I don’t know her other name.’

  Unless it had changed a great deal in the intervening years, Lynn didn’t think it should prove too hard to track down someone of that name working in one of the relatively few hotels.

  ‘If that isn’t where she’s gone,’ Lynn said, ‘you’ve no idea where else she might be?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. None at all.’

  ‘No other friends she spoke of? At the hotel, say, where she worked?’

  Bucur shook his head.

  ‘These men,’ Lynn said, ‘the ones who came here looking for her. Can you describe them?’

  ‘Of course. They were both quite tall, leather jackets, jeans. One, the one who did most of the talking, he was older – I don’t know, thirty, thirty-five – and he had a beard, dark, almost black, and a scar, here . . .’ Bucur ran his hand down the left side of his face.

  ‘What nationality would you say he was?’

  Bucur thought before answering, trying to recall the man’s voice. ‘Not Romanian. Slovakian, maybe.’

  ‘Serbian?’

  ‘Yes, that is possible. You know him?’ he added, seeing the expression change on Lynn’s face.

  ‘He might be a man named Lazic,’ Lynn said. ‘Ivan Lazic. The description sounds similar to the man who threatened Andreea with a knife.’

  Bucur had not been in the room when Andreea had identified him in the photograph.

  ‘What about the other man?’ Lynn asked.

  ‘I didn’t notice him as much. Except when he hit me, of course.’ He gave a quick, self-deprecating smile. ‘He was young, my age, I suppose. Tall, like I say. I didn’t hear his voice. I don’t think he spoke at all.’

  Lynn nodded.

  ‘If you know him,’ Bucur said, ‘this man, surely you can arrest him?’

  ‘Not without good reason. And always assuming we knew where he was.’

  Bucur sat back, tasted the tea and frowned. ‘It is too strong.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  He added more sugar to his own. ‘If they come back, what shall I do?’

  ‘If they come back,’ Lynn said, ‘it’s a good sign. It means they still don’t know where Andreea is.’

  ‘But not so good for me,’ Bucur suggested with a smile.

  ‘Keep the door locked, don’t let them in. Phone the police and tell them these men have attacked you before. I’ll have a word with the neighbours while I’m here, knock on a few doors. Someone may have seen something, strangers hanging round. I might call in at the local police station, too. It’s just back along the High Road somewhere, is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Past the sports ground and on the left. Francis Road. The bike I had before was stolen and I had to go there then.’

  Lynn took a quick look at her watch and gulped down a last mouthful of tea. ‘I’d better move. You’ll let me know the minute you hear anything?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Likewise.’ She shook his hand. ‘We’ll find her, don’t worry. She’s probably on a National Express coach even now, heading west.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  After the comparative warmth of the small flat, it struck cold when Lynn stepped out on to the street. There were lights behind most sets of curtains, but not everyone came to the door, and those who did had little useful to say. A stout woman with her hair wrapped in a towel and the residue of an Irish accent thought she might have seen two men earlier in the day, not doing anything, just standing there, looking up at the house opposite. But if one of them had had a beard, never mind a scar, she hadn’t noticed. Next time she looked, they’d gone.

  The sergeant she spoke to at the police station listened without giving her story the fullest attention; it was all a bit vague and besides, trying to keep tracks on a transient population like theirs . . .

  Lynn thanked him, left her number and headed back for the High Road and the walk to the tube; with any luck she’d be at St Pancras in time for the 20.55.

  She phoned Resnick from the train, the sound of some jazz or other in the background as he spoke. She pictured him sitting there, perhaps with one or other of the cats on his lap, a glass of whisky close at hand.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Resnick said, after listening, ‘she’s in Cornwall even now. Coach just pulling into Falmouth or Penzance.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘It’s not all down to you, you know. The situation she finds herself in.’

  ‘Isn’t it? I can’t help feeling it is. I put her in danger, Charlie.’

  ‘You asked her to help put a dangerous man behind bars. Not the same thing.’

  ‘That was a right fiasco, too.’

  ‘No fault of yours.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You want me to meet you at the station?’

  ‘No need. I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  When the CD finished he set aside the book he’d been pretending to read, recharged his glass and searched for a Bob Brookmeyer reissue he’d picked up a month or so before. Brookmeyer on valve trombone with a couple of different rhythm sections back in ’54, the instrument’s sound less sinuous than brittle, a slight rasp to his tone. Nothing too surprising here, pleasant, relaxed, moving with an easy swing, comforting; the trombone releasing the melody to the piano before working its way through a series of variations and then restating the final theme. ‘Body and Soul’. ‘Last Chance’. Four minutes and twenty-two seconds of ‘There Will Never Be Another You’.

  Through the music he heard the sound of a cab approaching along the narrow, poorly made-up road that led towards the house and a smile came to his face. In his mind’s eye, he saw Lynn leaning forward to pay the driver, exchanging, perhaps, a few words, before getting out and, as the cab drew away again, crossing towards the house. In a moment he would hear the faint clicking of the gate. The cat jumped down from his lap as he rose and moved towards the door.

  At first he thought what he heard as he stepped into the hall was the sound of a car backfiring, then knew, in the same breath, that it was not.

  PART TWO

  22

  Waking, Karen Shields found herself reaching, automatically, for the glass of water beside the bed. Her head, as she lifted it off the pillow, felt like a medicine ball that had been thrown once too often around the gym. The water was stale and warm and she swilled it around her mouth and spat it back into the glass. Then, with a sudden jerk of memory, she reached her hand into the space beside her and, to her relief, touched nothing but tousled, empty sheets. Thank Christ for that!

  Slowly, wi
th extravagant care, she lowered herself back down against the damp pillow, damp and rank from her own sweat. Seven minutes past five. Traffic sounds were already beginning to build up two streets away on the Essex Road. In a little over twenty minutes more, the boiler would kick in and she would push back the sheets with her long legs and swing them to the floor. For now, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the painful reverberations inside her head, which felt as if it were being bounced against a hardwood floor.

  It had started harmlessly enough, as many such evenings do: a couple of drinks with colleagues after work; a couple which had somehow, almost without noticing, become a couple more. Someone had suggested moving on to this club she knew, down at the opposite end of Upper Street from where they were, not really a club, more of a bar, but with a members policy at the door. Karen well into it by now, cocktails and beer, that good buzzy feeling you get when you’re with mates and the pavements are crowded with people out having a good time and every other place you pass is a busy restaurant or bar; sharing a laugh and a joke and letting the tension of the job, the day, float off in a haze of flashing lights and loud voices, the music from a dozen open doorways mingling with the strident sounds of car horns and sirens and amongst the laughter, the occasional scream or angry shout, the sharpened sound of breaking glass.

  He had been watching her, she knew, almost from the minute they entered the bar, the place already full to the gills, each trip to the bar the equivalent of a full body search or more; Karen’s thong – the fashionable undergarment redesigned as medieval torture instrument – already cutting into her where it hurt.

  ‘Hi.’ His voice was just the honeyed-brown of his skin. ‘What happened to your friends?’

  ‘You mean you weren’t watching them too?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ And then the smile.