Cold in Hand

by John Harvey

  ‘How was it?’ she asked. ‘Coming in?’

  Resnick shrugged heavy shoulders. ‘I hadn’t realised being in mourning was a contagious disease.’

  ‘People are embarrassed. They don’t know what to say so they end up saying nothing at all.’

  He pulled out a chair and sat opposite her and she noted the deep shadows around his eyes.

  ‘You’ve not been sleeping.’

  ‘Not till today.’

  ‘It’ll pass.’

  With time, he imagined, she’d be right: what was extraordinary would become normal and he would carry on.

  ‘I was speaking to the coroner earlier,’ he said. ‘It needs your say-so before arrangements can be made for the funeral.’

  Karen nodded. ‘We’re still some way off making an arrest. And besides, I can’t see there’s anything for any defence to get specially exercised about. I’ll call him first thing.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You must find it frustrating, knowing the investigation is going on and not being able to be a part of it.’

  ‘I didn’t at first. I don’t think I was able to concentrate on anything. Didn’t seem to be able to think clearly at all.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘You could try me.’

  She reached for a file and slid it across the desk. ‘This came through last thing yesterday.’

  It was a printout of the report from Huntingdon. The markings identified the weapon used as a 9mm Baikal IZH-79 pistol and confirmed that both bullets had been fired from the same gun.

  ‘The reason for keeping the report back an extra day,’ Karen said, ‘they were double-checking the markings against the database. A batch of the same guns was seized in a raid last spring.’

  ‘Seized by the Met?’

  ‘Met and Customs both.’

  ‘SOCA, then?’

  ‘Not exactly. At least, I don’t think so. SOCA wasn’t launched until April and this operation went down in May and would have been set up a long time before that.’

  ‘You’re following it up?’

  Karen nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to one of the officers involved and he’s passed on a message to the DCI who was running the Met end of things. He’s on a course somewhere but he’s promised to give me a call back. From what I understand, there’ve been several small batches of these weapons making their way into the country for eighteen months or more. Some have been intercepted, but not all.’

  ‘And the ones that weren’t could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘There’s no word about the shooter coming in off the street?’ Resnick asked.

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘If anybody knew anything, you’d have thought there’d be a whisper by now.’

  ‘One of the local firms has offered to put up a reward for information.’

  ‘It might help. Difficult to say. Danger is, you’ll get people clogging up the lines who know next to nothing, but’ll make stuff up in the hope of getting their hands on the money.’

  ‘I know.’

  Resnick shifted in his chair. ‘Still no sign of Brent, I presume?’

  ‘Nothing. As far as we know, he’s still in Jamaica. We’re liaising with the police there as much as we can, but it’s not easy. And he’s not the only one missing.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Alexander Bucur and Andreea Florescu. They seem to have been missing since the day after the murder.’

  ‘You think there’s a connection?’

  Karen smiled. ‘Depends how much faith you put in coincidence.’

  ‘The reason Lynn went down, Andreea was frightened. I know from what Lynn told me, she’d been threatened before.’

  ‘This was over the Zoukas case?’

  ‘Yes. They warned her with what might happen if she agreed to give evidence.’

  ‘Which she did.’

  Resnick nodded.

  ‘There’s every sign,’ Karen said, ‘she and Alexander have both done a runner.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Not as far as we know.’

  Karen’s phone rang suddenly. ‘I’ll be right down,’ she said, and then, to Resnick, ‘Howard Brent’s just walked into the station under his own steam.’

  The reception area was busy: a couple of youths sitting morosely, one nursing a bloodied nose; a man in camouflage trousers and a Forest shirt, half his hair shaven away where a wound had been stitched; another man, older, with greying dreadlocks, reciting from the Bible, and a young woman, skinny and pale, holding a four-or five-month-old baby against her chest, while another child, barely a year older, alternately wailed and grizzled from the buggy by her side.

  In the midst of all this stood Howard Brent. Black leather jacket, white T-shirt, dark wide-legged trousers, black-and-white leather shoes; diamond stud in his left ear, gold chain round his neck. Handsome. Tall. As Karen entered, Resnick close behind her, he stood taller still.

  Seeing Resnick, his eyes gleamed.

  ‘I hear your woman died,’ he said. ‘Shot dead, ain’t it? Shot through the head. An’ you know how that make me feel?’ His face broke into a smile. ‘That makes me feel good, you know? Good inside. ’Cause now you know. You know what it’s like. To have someone you love—’

  Resnick charged at him, head down, fists raised.

  At the last moment, Brent sidestepped and stuck out a leg, tripping Resnick so that he went headlong, all balance gone, one arm twisting beneath him, his face slamming into the wall where it met the floor.

  Two uniformed officers seized Brent by the arms and pulled him back.

  Karen went to where Resnick lay, barely moving, on the ground.

  Brent still smiling, shaking his head.

  ‘Ambulance,’ Karen shouted. ‘Now.’

  When she and another officer helped Resnick to sit up, there was a cut above his right eye which was closing fast and blood from his broken nose had splattered all down the front of his shirt.

  32

  One of the paramedics reset Resnick’s nose before leading him to the ambulance. ‘There,’ he said, as Resnick screamed. ‘Better than new.’

  At the hospital, seven stitches were inserted over his cut eye and an X-ray determined that his left elbow, though extremely painful, was badly bruised and not broken; a precautionary CT scan revealed no intracranial haemorrhaging. Patched up and armed with a healthy dose of ibuprofen, he was sent on his way. Medical expertise could do nothing for his injured pride, the overwhelming sense of his own stupidity.

  With unwonted speed, the force’s Professional Standards Unit rolled into action. At a little after ten the following morning, the police surgeon deemed Resnick, somewhat conveniently, to be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and registered him as officially unfit for duty.

  ‘Fine welcome,’ Brent had said, when Resnick was being led off towards the waiting ambulance. ‘Come in of my own volition, hear you wantin’ to speak to me, and what happen? This feller come chargin’ at me like a wild bull, no cause, no reason.’

  ‘There was cause,’ Karen said sharply.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘You deliberately provoked him, wound him up on purpose.’

  ‘What I did,’ Brent said, a smile playing in his eyes, ‘express my sympathy. For his loss, you know?’

  ‘His injuries are as bad as they might be, you could be facing some serious charges.’

  Brent scoffed. ‘Anyone bring charges here, it’s me. Assault, yeah? Actual bodily harm.’ He pronounced each syllable lovingly. ‘Like I say, he the one come chargin’ at me, all I did, step out the way. Ask anyone.’ He swept his arm in a circle. ‘Go ahead. Ask these people here. Take witness statements, yeah? Ask these people what they see.’

  Karen knew Brent was right. Provoked or not, Resnick had lost it completely. In many ways it was fortunate that Brent had swerved out of Resnick’s path as adroitly as he did. Had he sustained anything approaching a serious injury, then not only
Resnick but the force itself could be facing charges of misconduct and a battery of claims for compensation.

  She asked one of the uniformed officers to fetch Brent a glass of water, asked Brent whether he would like to take a seat while she found out which interview room was most readily available. Ramsden could sit in with her during the questioning, but Ramsden on a short leash.

  ‘You’ve been out of the country,’ Karen said.

  There were no cameras switched on, no recordings being made, no lawyer present; Brent was there, as he’d said, of his own volition, and could leave, unhindered, at any time. Unless, of course, anything he admitted to gave sufficient cause for him to be restrained.

  ‘A few days, yeah.’

  ‘Jamaica.’

  ‘After what happened, a break, you know?’

  ‘Visiting family?’

  Brent made a sound midway between a snort and a laugh. ‘My family back home, they fell out with me long time back. We don’t speak, don’t text, don’t telephone.’ He shrugged. ‘Their loss, okay? Not mine.’

  ‘Then why . . . ?’ Karen began.

  ‘Friends. I got friends there.’

  ‘Girlfriends?’

  Brent smiled. ‘Just friends, let’s say.’

  ‘Colleagues? Business acquaintances?’

  ‘Business acquaintances, sure.’

  ‘What business, exactly, might that be?’

  ‘My business.’

  ‘Your catering business or your music business?’

  Brent smiled. ‘I come back with a few new recipes, somethin’ to try, maybe, at the restaurant, make some changes. Keep the chef on his toes. And some new recordin’s, too. DaVille. Jovi Rockwell. Business an’ pleasure, you know?’

  ‘Your wife,’ Karen said, ‘Tina. She claimed not to know where you were.’

  ‘Tina, she know what she need to know, that’s all.’

  ‘There was no contact between you while you were away?’

  The smile, quick and lascivious, was back on his face. ‘I expect she dream of me a bit, you know.’

  Ramsden would have liked to knock the smile, cocky bastard, off his face once and for all. ‘How did you hear about DI Kellogg’s death?’ he asked.

  ‘We have newspapers over there, you know. Television. The Internet.’

  ‘That’s how you heard about it, on the Internet?’

  Brent sat straighter. ‘My son, Michael, he told me. Called me on his mobile as soon as he heard.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ Karen asked. ‘What went through your mind?’

  ‘Be honest, I feel sorry for her, that my first thought. Sorry she lose her life in such a violent act. Still a young woman, eh? Then I go out and buy champagne. Drink a toast with my friends.’

  ‘You were glad.’

  Brent inclined his head, not answering.

  ‘You wished her dead.’

  ‘What I wish, my daughter’s life back. But that I cannot have. But now that Resnick he knows what it is to lose the one person you love in the world most of all. An’ yes, that make me feel glad. Here.’

  He laid his fist over his heart.

  ‘How much?’ Mike Ramsden said suddenly, leaning close towards him.

  Karen looked at him sharply, but he carried on.

  ‘Enough to arrange for it to be done?’ Ramsden continued, bearing down. ‘Bought and paid for, while you’re sunning yourself a few thousand miles away, drinking rum and Coke with your friends?’

  ‘That’s what you think?’ Brent said, voice raised. ‘That’s what you want me to come here for, to accuse me of that?’ He stared at Ramsden hard. ‘What you gonna do now? Get out the handcuffs? Make me confess? Or you gonna let me go an’ follow me? Stop me in the street and throw me up against the wall, huh? Search my clothes? Harass my family, harass my friends? Each time I go out in the car, someone pull me over, something wrong with your brake light, mister, or book me for speedin’, thirty-two mile an hour in a thirty-mile zone? Maybe I find my post opened? My telephone tapped?’ He snorted dismissively and rose to his feet. ‘Do what you want till doomsday, try all you can, I’m tellin’ you, you never gonna lay this at my door.’

  Karen took a breath. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Brent,’ she said. ‘If we want to talk to you again, we’ll let you know.’

  Ten minutes later, Brent escorted from the building, they were standing in Karen’s temporary office.

  ‘Nice going, Mike.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Subtle, the way you went about finessing things out of him.’

  ‘Got under my skin, didn’t he?’

  ‘Really? I’d never have noticed.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Ramsden said.

  ‘What did you think?’ Karen asked. ‘That you could shake it out of him? Ruffle his feathers and he’d fall to pieces at your feet?’

  ‘He’s a prick.’

  ‘Doubtless. Two pricks going at it together. Mine’s bigger than yours.’

  Ramsden put up a hand as if to ward her off. ‘Okay, okay.’

  Karen turned towards the window and saw her reflection, featureless against a greying sky.

  ‘So,’ Karen said, ‘what did you think?’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘I wish Resnick had hit him where it hurts and done some serious damage, instead of wallowing in like some overfed water buffalo and letting Brent take the piss. But that’s not what you want to know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to know, do I think he was responsible for Kellogg’s death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ramsden gave himself a moment. ‘Did he want her dead? Yes, think so, beyond a fragment of doubt. Longed for it. With every bone of his jumped-up, miserable body. But did he have the balls, the nous, the wherewithal to set it up, then give himself a nice alibi by being out of the country, I don’t know.’ He ran his hand down across his mouth. ‘There’s doers and talkers, you know what I mean? And up to yet, I’m not too sure which Brent is.’

  ‘He could be both.’

  ‘He could. And he’s some talker, I’ll give him that. Gift of the fucking gab. But the rest . . .’ Ramsden shook his head, uncertain.

  ‘What’s the feeling amongst the troops?’

  ‘Before today? They’d like to pin it on him, all the stuff he’s been coming out with especially. And, yes, I’d say some of them like him for it, but that might just be lazy thinking, you know?’

  ‘So we should forget about him? Cross him off the list?’

  ‘In a pig’s ear!’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘We keep chasing down all the other lines of inquiry. By the book. You know that better than me. But, meantime, let’s double-check Brent’s contacts, ask around. Have the troops keep their ears to the ground, get every informant working overtime.’

  Karen nodded. ‘I can chase up that guy I know from Trident, see if we can’t find out a little more about who Brent was seeing when he was in Jamaica.’

  ‘And then, of course,’ Ramsden said, face breaking into a grin, ‘there’s always stopping him in the street and throwing him up against the wall . . .’

  Karen phoned the hospital later that evening to be told that Resnick had been treated and allowed home. When she phoned his house there was no answer. She rang him at nine the following morning and then again at ten: still no reply. She could understand, she thought, why he might not want to be speaking to anyone, least of all her.

  33

  ‘My God!’ Jackie Ferris exclaimed. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Resnick said. The skin around his swollen left eye was a dramatic purple tinged with yellow and green; the centre of his face, all around the nose, was blue shading into black. An artist’s palette run amok.

  They were in the Assembly House, Kentish Town, Ferris’s pub of choice. Monday lunchtime, quiet, only a few tables occupied. A lone drinker at the bar. The sound of traffic accelerating away from the lights outside enoug
h to muffle what conversation there was. Among the cards and letters Resnick had received after Lynn’s death, expressing sympathy, Jackie Ferris’s had been one of the most heartfelt and to the point.

  ‘I take it,’ Jackie said, ‘you didn’t fall off your bike?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘The other feller, then? How does he look?’

  ‘Not a scratch.’

  Jackie lifted her glass. Coke with ice and lemon, hours to go still till the end of her day. ‘How’ve you been, Charlie?’ she asked.

  ‘You know, okay.’

  ‘Don’t fob me off, Charlie.’

  ‘All right. At first I could hardly sleep, a few hours at most. I wandered round as if I were in some kind of daze. Didn’t know where I was, when it was. And cold, a lot of the time I was cold. Shivering cold. And Lynn, she was everywhere . . .’

  ‘Oh, Charlie . . .’

  ‘Everywhere I looked. Not just at home, but out in the city. I’d see her on the bus or just across the street, the back of her head just turning a corner. I still do. Once today, coming here. And I can’t . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I keep bursting into tears, no warning, no reason.’

  ‘You’ve got reason.’

  ‘Standing at the counter waiting to buy a loaf of bread and suddenly these tears were running down my face. I felt . . . ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re grieving. What do you expect?’

  ‘Going crazy, that’s what I’m doing. A little bit crazy.’

  Jackie smiled. ‘It’s not crazy. It’s normal. Perfectly natural.’

  ‘That’s what he said, the bereavement counsellor. Absolutely natural.’

  ‘Well, he’s right.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘How long is it, Charlie? How long’s it been? Not long.’

  He held her gaze. ‘You want the hours, the minutes, or just the days?’

  She placed her hand over his. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And I need a real drink.’ Pushing her Coke aside, she got to her feet. ‘You want anything?’

  Resnick’s pint was barely touched. ‘I’m fine.’