Cold Light

by John Harvey

  “When you’ve a minute, Charlie,” Skelton called from the doorway, “all right?”

  He was tipping ready-ground decaf into the gold filter of his new coffee machine when Resnick knocked and walked in.

  “So, Charlie, where are we? Not throwing up panic signals too soon?”

  Resnick waited until the superintendent had added the water, flipped the switch to on. New machine or no, he was thinking, it’ll still be too weak to stand. When Skelton was back behind his desk, Resnick took a seat himself and relayed Dana Matthieson’s concern over her flatmate, Nancy Phelan.

  “That’s not the same woman involved in that incident yesterday? Phelan?”

  “At the Housing Office, yes.”

  “Threatened, wasn’t she?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “The man responsible …”

  “Gary James, sir.”

  “We released him.”

  “Last night, yes.”

  “No suggestion he might have been involved?”

  Resnick shook his head. “Not as far as we know.”

  “What happened at the Housing place, was it personal between them?”

  “Not as far as we know.”

  “We know damn all.”

  “Very little, so far.”

  Skelton crossed to the side of the room; the coffee had all but finished dripping through.

  “Black, Charlie?”

  “Thanks.” When the superintendent held up the glass pot of coffee, Resnick was alarmed: you could see right through it.

  “You’ve got someone out having a word with him, James, all the same?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  Skelton sat back down. “Boyfriend?” he asked.

  “No one special, not at the moment. Not according to her flatmate. She gave us some names, though. We’ve started checking them out.”

  “Family?”

  “We’re in touch.”

  Skelton squeezed the arms of his chair. He had never noticed before the way Alice’s eyes followed him from that photograph on his desk; carefully, with forefinger and thumb, he angled her away until all she could see was the blackening brick of the city beyond the window. “How long since anyone saw her last?”

  “Nineteen hours, give or take.”

  “Around midnight, then.”

  “I think, sir,” Resnick said, reaching down to rest his coffee on the floor, “the last person to see her, so far as we know, it was likely me.”

  He had the superintendent’s attention now, taking him through Nancy Phelan’s unscheduled visit to the station, his chance meeting with her later in the hotel courtyard, the engine ticking over just beyond the edge of his vision, the car.

  “Make? Number?”

  Resnick shook his head. “Saloon, four-door probably. Standard size and shape. Astra, something close.”

  “Color?”

  “Black, possibly. Certainly dark. Dark blue. Maroon.”

  “Damn it, Charlie, there’s a lot of difference.”

  “There wasn’t a lot of light.”

  “I know, and you had no reason to pay special attention.”

  Which doesn’t stop me, Resnick thought, from thinking that I should.

  “We can’t be certain, presumably, the car was waiting for her?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see her get into it?”

  “No.”

  “So she could have been going back into the hotel?”

  “It’s possible, but from what she said … I’d guess she was about to leave.”

  Skelton leaned back, locked his fingers behind his head.

  “If the car, any car, had gone past me,” Resnick said, “between there and the castle, I think I’d have noticed. But all he had to do was turn right instead of left, I’d never have seen him.”

  “He?” Skelton said.

  Elbows on his knees, Resnick brushed a hand across his forehead, closed his eyes.

  Eleven

  Dana Matthieson was sitting on the edge of a chair in Resnick’s office, trying to concentrate while he double-checked the names of people who had been at the dinner, the connections between them, making sure it had all been noted down. The door to the outer office was open a couple of inches, enough to let the overlapping conversations, occasional bursts of anger or laughter slide through. It was difficult not to keep thinking about Nancy, where she might be.

  “This name here,” Resnick said, “Yvonne Warden …”

  “Andrew’s assistant. She’d have the list of invitations, everything would go through her.”

  “And Andrew is?”

  “Andrew Clarke. The senior partner.”

  “He was there?”

  Dana visualized Clarke’s expression when he had asked if she wanted a lift home, did she want to pop in for coffee? The narrowing of those piggy eyes. How could she have been so naive? “Oh, yes,” she said, “he was there.”

  Resnick wrote something on the sheet of paper. “We should talk to him, certainly.”

  “Yes,” Dana said. “I think you should.” She was wondering if there were others in the office Clarke had tried it on with. Probably, she decided. Clarke and men like him. Carrying on as if sexual harassment was a headline they passed over in the morning paper, nothing to do with them. Men in authority and middle-age. She was looking at Resnick across his desk, tie twisted inside his shirt collar, worry lines pouched deep into his face. When she had been close to tears, earlier, blaming herself for persuading Nancy to go with her, he had been sympathetic, straightforward, done his best to assure her that her friend would turn up safe and well.

  “Then why are we doing all this?” Dana had asked. “Going to all this trouble?”

  Resnick had smiled reassuringly with his eyes. “A precaution. In case.”

  Now he was standing, telling her there was nothing more. “The minute you hear from her, you’ll let us know?” Dana assured him that she would.

  Resnick had spoken to Nancy’s parents several times within the past hour, the mother alternately tearful and bravely matter-of-fact, her father ever closer to anger, frustrated that as yet there was no one for him to aim that anger at. Resnick spelt out all that they were doing, wanting them to feel involved, not wishing that anger to be directed at him. If Nancy’s disappearance proved not to be voluntary, they were going to need the parents on their side.

  “Shall you not be wanting a picture? Her mother’s bound to have something recent …”

  Resnick explained they were getting one from Dana, taken only a few weeks before. A detailed description had already been forwarded to all stations in the city, all officers on duty.

  “And shall you put it, like, on tele? On the news?”

  He had discussed this with Skelton, Skelton with the chief superintendent. They had decided not to go public for another twelve hours.

  “I thought you were treating this as urgent? That’s my bloody daughter …”

  “Mr. Phelan, we still think the most likely explanation is that Nancy decided at the last minute to spend Christmas Day with a friend.”

  “Without letting anyone know?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Aye, and pigs might bloody fly!”

  “Mr. Phelan, we have to—”

  “What you’ve got to do is get off your arse and bloody find her!”

  “Mr.—”

  “Listen. Never mind your cock and bull theories. Whatever our Nancy took it into her head to do, Christmas Day she would have phoned her mother. And what about her friend, her as she lives with, she’d have got in touch, told her what she was up to, surely to God? I mean, how long’s it take to make a phone call, after all?”

  “The most likely assumption, the one we’re working on, is that she met a man on Christmas Eve …”

  “What man?”

  “We don’t know the answer to that yet. We’re still—”

  “What bloody man? Someone she knew or what?”

  “
Not necessarily.”

  “Are you telling me my daughter’s a whore?” A hundred miles or more to the northwest, a telephone receiver was slammed against the wall. Better a whore and alive, Resnick thought, than virtuous and dead.

  Naylor and Divine were working through the lists that Lynn had compiled: men that Nancy had dated, those that she’d danced with, spent significant time talking to on Christmas Eve. No way had Dana been able to swear either list was complete.

  There had to be easier things to do, easier times.

  Receiver cradled between chin and shoulder, Divine fumbled another extra-strong mint from its pack; finishing the call, he checked off another name on his list.

  “Yes, sir,” Naylor was saying across the room, “Phelan. P-H-E-L-A-N. Nancy. Yes, that’s right.”

  Deaf, Divine thought, or daft. Comatose. All those blokes having to haul themselves off the couch where they’d fallen asleep after a surfeit of mince pies and turkey. Divine hadn’t surfaced till mid-afternoon himself, coming out of a bitter and Bacardi haze with a head like a rear tire in need of a retread.

  “Hello, love. Yes. Can I speak with Mr. McAllister, please?”

  Divine was at his desk against the rear wall, the wall where his Sun calendar used to hang before Lynn had lost her rag and torn it into little pieces. Pissed him off no end, that had. Kellogg getting into her hard-hat feminist routine every time her pre-menstrual cramps came visiting. Still, the one he’d bought for next year, Page Three Lovelies, that was already up in the bathroom at home: give himself a lift each time he stepped out of the shower.

  “Hello, Mr. McAllister? DC Divine here, CID.”

  When Andrew Clarke’s wife told him there was a police officer on the line wanting to speak with him, he had just got back from a long walk with the boys along an almost deserted beach. Gulls low over the water as the tide turned and began to roll back in. Haze of moon in the sky and the light almost gone. They had walked briskly, as briskly as one could on sand, well wrapped against the cold. Later there would be mulled wine, sandwiches, snooker, cards.

  “Sure it’s for me?” Clarke asked, unwinding his scarf, feeling the first signs of panic tickling his gut.

  His wife had raised an eyebrow and turned back to the kitchen table.

  “Hello,” Clarke said, picking up the extension in the hall, “This is Andrew Clarke.”

  At the other end of an imperfect line, Resnick identified himself and said there were a few questions concerning the Christmas Eve dinner-dance.

  Oh, Christ, Clarke thought, I was right. The stupid bitch has only gone and made a complaint to the police.

  “How can I help you, Detective Inspector?” he said.

  “There was a young woman,” Resnick said, “one of the guests …”

  Oh God, thought Clarke, here it comes. In his mind he was erecting excuses, explanations, I’d been drinking too heavily, under severe stress at work, she led me on.

  “… as far as we can tell she left at around midnight, possibly accepting a lift, and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Dana,” Clarke said.

  “Sorry?”

  “The woman you’re talking about, Dana Matthieson.”

  “No. Not Dana. Her friend.”

  “Friend?”

  “Yes. Nancy Phelan.”

  Resnick clearly heard the gear change in Andrew Clarke’s breathing. “You do know her then?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not, no. Dana, of course, she’s been with us for quite a while. A good worker. Very good. Reliable, shows initiative …”

  “Nancy Phelan,” Resnick said.

  “No, not at all. That is, I may have met her. We may have been introduced. I’m afraid I can’t quite remember.”

  “You don’t remember dancing with her, for instance?”

  Andrew Clarke laughed nervously, more of a bark.

  “Not much of a dancer, Detective Inspector. Not my style.”

  “Even so, Christmas. Special occasion. I should have thought, just to show willing …”

  “I did dance, of course. Once or twice.”

  “And that would be with Mrs. Clarke?”

  “My wife wasn’t present, she …”

  “With somebody else, then?”

  “Of course. You don’t think I’d make a fool of myself …”

  “And this person you were dancing with, it couldn’t have been Nancy?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Haven’t I said …”

  “But if you’re not certain you knew who she was, Nancy, isn’t it possible she could have been …?”

  “Inspector, I know the person I was dancing with.”

  “And you wouldn’t mind telling me, just for the …?”

  “It was Dana Matthieson, as a matter of fact.”

  “Dana.”

  “Yes.”

  “And at the end of the evening?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I said, to the best of our knowledge someone offered Nancy Phelan a lift in their car.”

  “It wasn’t me, Inspector.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Positive.”

  Resnick let him have a moment of time; not too long. “Functions like that, Christmas Eve, it’s easy to forget …”

  “I assure you …”

  “I mean, at first you said you hadn’t danced, but then, when you thought about it, you remembered that you had.”

  “Detective Inspector …”

  “Mr. Clarke, it’s important that we compile as accurate a picture of what happened yesterday evening as possible. You realize the potential seriousness of the situation, I’m sure.”

  Clarke shifted his stance so that his back was towards the kitchen door. “As it happens I did give somebody a lift home …”

  “I see.”

  “Dana, actually.”

  “Dana Matthieson.”

  “Yes. She lives not so far away from me.”

  “So must Nancy then.”

  “I suppose so. I really don’t know.”

  “And you didn’t see her when you drove Dana home?”

  “No.”

  “What happened exactly? I mean, did you just drop her off outside, did she invite you in, coffee maybe? What?”

  The pause was too long. “Outside,” Clarke said. “I dropped her off outside.”

  “And she’ll confirm that? I mean, if necessary?”

  “We didn’t go directly there,” Clarke said, voice lowered, “we stopped off at my place on the way.”

  “For coffee,” Resnick said.

  “A nightcap, yes.”

  “And then you drove her home?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Not exactly?”

  “She decided to walk.”

  “Wasn’t that, well, a little odd? I mean, having accepted a lift from you in the first place.”

  “Perhaps she wanted to clear her head.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You can’t recall what reason she gave for wanting to walk home after accepting a lift?”

  “No.”

  “So you had, in fact, no idea that she got home all right?”

  “I assumed …”

  “Of course. People do. But her friend, Nancy Phelan, seemingly didn’t.”

  “I told you, Inspector, I know nothing about that. Nothing about that at all. I may have noticed her once or twice in the course of the evening, talking with Dana. At least, I assume it was her. But later, no. I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.”

  “When do you think you’ll be back down here, sir? In the city.”

  “We’d planned to stay here until after the New Year.”

  “There are some addresses we still haven’t been able to track down,” Resnick said. “You’ve no objection if we ask your assistant for her help?”

  “Yvonne? No, of course not. The firm will do anything it can
.”

  “And you, Mr. Clarke? Yourself?”

  “Of course, but I really don’t see …”

  “Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Thanks for your time.”

  When Andrew Clarke went back through the flagstoned kitchen, seeking out some fifteen-year-old malt, his wife remarked that for some reason he seemed to be sweating, She hoped he wasn’t coming down with something, a cold.

  Divine’s back was aching, sitting in the same position too long, asking the same questions. Naylor had been out in search of a takeaway and returned empty handed, everywhere shut tight as an old maid’s arse. Even the mints had run out.

  “Oh, her with the dress and the legs,” a voice was saying at the other end of his phone. “You kidding? Course I remember her. What about her?”

  There was a moment when Dana arrived back at the flat when she was certain Nancy would be there. It lasted only as long as it took to push the front door closed behind her, slip the catch on the lock, and feel the emptiness settle round her shoulders like a shroud.

  Twelve

  “Another cup of tea?”

  “Say what?”

  “Another cup of tea?”

  Gary reached out and turned the TV down, unable to hear Michelle from the kitchen above the roar of pre-recorded laughter.

  “Tea?”

  By that time she was in the doorway, ski pants and sweater, and even though the sweater hung loose he could see how she was getting her figure back after Natalie. See: he knew. Strands of hair hung loose across her face. Gary wanted to give her a look, the look towards the stairs, but he knew what she would say. Karl’s this minute dropped off; the baby’ll be awake soon anyway.

  “Gary?”

  So, all right, what was wrong with down here? Least, in front of what was left of the fire, they’d keep warm.

  “C’m here,” he said.

  “What for?”

  But she knew the grin, the way it was meant to make her feel. “I’ve got the kettle on,” she said.

  “Then take it off.”

  “Oh, Gary, I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do. Come on.” Winking. “While it’s hot.”

  Pushing the hair out of her eyes, Michelle went back into the kitchen and switched the kettle off. She’d been so pleased when Gary had come home, late on Christmas Eve, relieved, she would have made love to him there and then, but all he’d wanted was to carry on about the bastard coppers, the bastard law, bastards at the Housing whose fault it all was anyway. Hadn’t even wanted to see the kids. Ask after Karl. Take a look at his face.