Cutting Edge

by John Harvey

  Did you want him to have sex, make love to you?

  The marks on Karen Archer’s face, the eyes that could never once return your gaze.

  He said he didn’t believe me. Said I was dying for it.

  The police in Devon had reported no sign of her; she still had not contacted her parents. What happened next? Posters in shopping centers and outside police stations up and down the country? An urgent message on Radio Four, between the weather forecast and the news? Or wait until a body turned up somewhere months from now? The wasteland south of Sneinton, along by the railway line. Wedged between the lock gates on the Trent Canal. Under a mulch of leaves and earth in the middle of Colwick Woods.

  And now …?

  Amanda Hooson had been murdered in the early hours of Saturday afternoon, exactly when Carew had apparently been out of the house she had been so uselessly watching. Common sense told Lynn that if he had had anything to do with that, the last thing he would have done was strut past and throw suspicion on himself. Not with Lynn sitting there, unwittingly providing him with an alibi.

  Or would he? It depended just how clever, how cool he really was.

  Lynn locked the car and walked towards the lake, not the crowds today of youngsters waiting to hire rowboat or canoe and get out on the lake; lads who splashed each other with oars, occasionally overturning their boats and falling in; couples who moored alongside the small island and made love in the undergrowth, feeding the condoms afterwards to unsuspecting ducks. A stroll around might clear her mind of this, at least, encourage her to think of other things: whatever was going on with Kevin and Debbie Naylor, whether they’d get through the year without divorce; if her mother could persuade her dad to talk to the doctor about his depression, and if ever he did what the doctor might say. There were days, Lynn thought, buying herself one of the last ice-creams of the year, when she wished she had more problems in her own life, save her worrying so much about those of others.

  “I was wondering,” Resnick said, “if you had five minutes? Couple of things you could help me with. Perhaps.”

  “Five pairs of hands might be more useful.” Sarah Leonard brushed an arm across her forehead; a curl of dark hair had escaped beneath the front of her blue and white cap. Something about a woman, Resnick thought, almost as tall as yourself; the closeness of the mouth. If last time she had reminded him of Rachel, now there was no such misrecognition: he knew who she was and she was herself.

  “Let me change this catheter and I’ll be with you,” Sarah said.

  “Fine,” Resnick nodded, wincing a little at the thought.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll wash my hands first.”

  They went out into the corridor and stood at a window, looking down onto Derby Road. “I don’t know how you do it,” Resnick said.

  “What? Catheters, colostomy bags, enemas, that sort of thing?”

  “I suppose so. Partly, anyway.”

  Sarah grinned. “It isn’t all piss and shit, you know. James Herriot without the friendly collie dog yapping encouragement round your feet. A lot of the time it’s a good laugh.”

  Resnick looked back at her, disbelieving.

  “The other day,” Sarah said, “this young lad on the ward. Asked one of the student nurses to fetch me over, something seriously troubling him. ‘Staff,’ he says, ‘I don’t know what to do, I’ve got this erection and it won’t go away. Can you help me do something about it?’” Sarah laughed again, remembering.

  “Dare I ask?” said Resnick.

  “Took him along a bucket and told him to get on with it.”

  “What I wanted to know …” Resnick began.

  “Not you as well?” A knowing grin, sending him up just a little.

  Resnick could see his own reflection in the glass, a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure. One day, he thought, if I should ever get to know you better … “What I need,” Resnick said.

  “Yes?”

  “More in the nature of information.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “An ODA.”

  “What about them?”

  “What do they do? That would be a start.”

  “Operating Department Assistant. Attendant. Some hospitals, they call them Anesthetist Technicians.”

  “And that’s their function, assisting the anesthetist during an operation?”

  “The main one, yes. Supervising the machines, making sure they’re connected correctly so that the right mixture of oxygen and gases gets through to the patient. But they can do more than that, act as scrub nurse …”

  “Scrub nurse?”

  “Handles the instruments during the operation, passes them to the surgeon …”

  “Scalpel.”

  “Scalpel. Exactly. Whatever he’s using. Hands them over, takes them back.”

  “Responsible job.”

  “And she doesn’t spend the day dealing with fecal matter.”

  “Amanda Hooson,” Resnick said. “Don’t suppose you knew her?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Should I?”

  “Apparently she used to work here.”

  “As an ODA?”

  Resnick nodded.

  “We’ve twelve theaters, fifteen to twenty ODAs. When was she here?”

  “Left around two years ago.”

  Sarah gave it a little thought. Below, traffic was driving into the hospital in a constipated stream. “No, I’m sorry. Though there is something about the name.”

  “How recently have you listened to the news?”

  Sarah’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, God, it’s her.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “At the university, the student who was murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment, she rested a hand on his upper arm, a grip strong enough for Resnick to be aware of each finger separately through his sleeve. “I thought,” Sarah said, “when I heard it, a woman attacked with a knife, whatever, stabbed, I thought it isn’t, it can’t be anything to do with us here, at the hospital. She’s not a doctor, a nurse, she’s a student.”

  “I know,” Resnick said. “That was what I thought, too.” He knew he didn’t want her to move away, not yet, but, of course, she did, the bounce and the snap that was there before quickly returned.

  “We’ll be talking to staff about security,” Resnick said. “Officially, I mean. Leaflets, possibly, I don’t know. In the meantime …”

  Sarah grinned, broader than before. “Be careful out there?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Hill Street Blues. The sergeant, at the end of roll call … you never saw that?”

  Resnick shook his head.

  “Shame. I think you’d have liked it.”

  Resnick didn’t think so. Police series, films, he liked his fantasies a little less close to home.

  “Sarah …”

  “Um?” She was at the end of the corridor, making a fool out of whoever thought the wearing of a uniform put her on a par with all the others. Eyes, Resnick thought: why is it always the eyes?

  “Inspector?”

  “Thanks,” Resnick said. “Thanks for your help.”

  Sarah pulled open the door. “Whoever’s doing this, catch them before they do it again.”

  The way to prevent your take-away tipping over or getting thrown around the floor of the car, Lynn had discovered, was to slip the handles of the plastic bag they packed it in over the gear stick, then turn them twice, three times. One king prawn danshak with pilau rice home intact. She was so concerned about getting it across the courtyard and into the flat before it got cold that she failed to notice the figure moving forward from the shadow until it was almost at her shoulder.

  Lynn gasped and whirled around, bag ready as a weapon, poised to swing into her assailant’s face.

  “Whoa! Steady. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Lynn recognized the voice the same moment that she saw the face. “God, sir! Don’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Resnick said. “I thought you’
d have spotted the car.”

  Lynn’s breathing was less than steady. “Other things on my mind.”

  Resnick pointed to the white bag. “Whatever you’ve got, think you could slip it into the oven on a low light, keep warm? By my reckoning, it’s about time you and I went for a drink.”

  Some pubs you ruined by making them over, rendering them new; others cried out for ruining before a dividing wall was pulled down or four generations of tobacco smoke was sandblasted from the walls. Sometimes the result was a freshened-up local with tara-masalata or deviled prawns on, the snack menu alongside cheese and onion cobs and pickled eggs. If you were lucky.

  Resnick stood with one elbow on a convenient shelf and sipped at his Guinness, watching Lynn get down half a lager like it was water, which likely wasn’t so far from the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not quite bringing herself to look at him, unusual for her. “I knew all the time I was sitting there it was stupid. Somehow, once it had started, especially after he’d come up to me, Carew, and done his macho bit … if I leave now, I thought, it’s because he’s intimidated me into doing so. And he’ll know it.” She drained her glass. “I wasn’t going to let him do that, sir.”

  Resnick didn’t say anything until he’d fetched her another drink.

  “You really think he’s done something to Karen Archer? Something more?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I do think he’s capable of it.”

  Resnick glanced around. “So are half the people in this bar, given the right circumstances. We don’t stick officers outside their front doors at weekends, twelve-hour watch.”

  Lynn looked towards the floor: black tights, sensible shoes.

  “You’ve got good instincts,” Resnick said. “A good copper. You’ve got a nose for it.”

  Blood darkening the length of the landing until it stopped at the door to the small bedroom at the back of the house. The first time Lynn had interviewed William Doria in his office, something about him had prickled uneasily beneath the skin. At that time, there had been little enough reason for suspicion, a successful university academic, an expansive and loquacious man. Now, when there was more reason to regard a suspect with caution, why was Resnick holding her feelings up to question?

  “Karen Archer,” he said. “I wonder if that is where we should be looking?”

  “You mean the new one, Hooson?”

  “The timing could be tight. We know he slipped out of the house, plenty of time for him to cut across the campus, meet Amanda, go back to her room.”

  “Is there any reason for supposing he knew her?” Resnick shook his head. “She was seeing somebody, a man, we don’t know who he was.”

  “But Carew, isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

  “Probably.”

  “And besides, if I’m fool enough to be sitting there providing him with an alibi, why would he break it himself when he doesn’t have to?”

  Resnick gave her a quick grin. “I don’t know.”

  “To say nothing of talking to a lawyer, making a complaint.”

  A woman in Salvation Army uniform had come into the bar selling copies of the War Cry and Resnick reached towards his pocket. “Maybe he likes drawing attention to himself, being at the center of things, simple as that.” He gave the woman fifty pence and gestured that she should keep the paper. “Unless he’s being more devious, reckoning if he acts this way, it’s going to take him out of the running.”

  “Has it, sir?”

  Resnick set down his half-finished glass. “I don’t want you getting into trouble on this, giving him cause to make his complaint official. And I don’t want to be left feeling foolish again, not knowing what one of my team’s up to.”

  Lynn flushed, “Sorry, sir.”

  “On the other hand, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Let’s keep him well in mind, see if something turns up that gives us reason for talking to him again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, best get back to that curry before it’s all dried out.”

  Lynn smiled, close-mouthed. Resnick had one more swallow at his Guinness and followed her out of the pub.

  He half-expected a letter from Elaine, a note; even his ex-wife herself, in the front garden of the house, waiting for what? Apologies? Reconciliation? Another burst of recrimination? Outside there was nothing, not even Dizzy, patrolling the night watch. On the living-room sofa, Ed Silver slept like a baby, wrapped in a blanket and still wearing a pair of Resnick’s shoes that were several sizes too large.

  Thirty-four

  MURDER HUNT WIDENS

  Police are stepping up their hunt for the sadistic killer who viciously attacked pretty 26-year-old student, Amanda Hooson, and left her for dead.

  They have refused to confirm or deny that Amanda, who was half-naked when her body was discovered, had been sexually assaulted.

  Police Superintendent Jack Skelton admitted yesterday that he fears a connection between this cruel and senseless murder and recent attacks on hospital personnel in the city.

  Amanda, who had been studying for a Social Sciences degree, had previously worked as an Anesthetist Technician.

  Superintendent Skelton is anxious to contact a man whom they believe met Amanda for a drink at the university bar only an hour before the slaying. They are also urgently tracing her boyfriend, so far unidentified, so that he can be eliminated from the inquiry.

  Amanda’s mother, 52-year-old Deirdre Hooson of Amber Crescent, Belper, Derbyshire, said to our reporter yesterday, “Amanda was a quiet, thoughtful girl. All she ever wanted was to help other people. I still can’t believe this has happened to her.” Mrs. Hooson continued tearfully, “I keep expecting her to come walking through the door.”

  “Let’s be clear on one thing,” Tom Parker said, “no matter what you may have heard or read with suggestions to the contrary, none of the medical evidence points to a sexual attack of any kind. That’s not to say there might not have been some kind of sexual motivation; you’ve all seen the photographs.”

  They were still pinned high along one wall of the room, curling already at the bottom corners. One glance was enough to remind the men sitting there of what they were engaged in and why. Aside from Resnick, the other DIs were Reg Cossall and Andy Hunt; the officer in charge of uniforms was Paddy Fitzgerald. Once this briefing was over, they would report back to their respective teams and set them on their way.

  “We need something to break this open and quick,” the DC1 continued. “There’s already panic talk out at the hospital, staff phoning in and crying off late shifts if they haven’t got their own transport: the whole business will get worse before it gets better.”

  “Surely, sir,” said Andy Hunt, “the dead girl’s connection with the hospital, tenuous at best?”

  “That’s what we’re working to find out. Hopefully, by the end of today, we might have some answers. Meanwhile, we carry on exploring all the avenues we can.” The DCI stepped back, automatically buttoning his sports coat, unfastening it again as he sat down.

  Jack Skelton got up and moved towards the Al flip chart suspended from an easel alongside the desk. “Should’ve been bloody Rommel,” Reg Cossall murmured.

  “Wrong side, Reg,” whispered Paddy Fitzgerald.

  “Huh,” Cossall snorted, “bugger wouldn’t have given a toss which side, long as he was running the show.”

  Bernard Salt misjudged his turn, colliding with the end of the bed and banging his leg; he cursed beneath his breath and shot a fierce look at one of the nurses who was fighting hard to stifle a snigger. He’d been aware of them that morning, the way they were all looking at him, staring when they thought he wasn’t noticing, openly some of them, curious, dismissive. Salt wondered what Helen had done. Pinned up a notice in the staff cafeteria? Called a meeting? All around him he could hear the tainted wriggle of tongues. The letter Helen had sent to his former wife, crammed with accusations and half-truths. The copy which had been delivered to the hospital by han
d, together with a note: so reassuring after all these years to have my worst fears confirmed. I only hope the poor woman realizes how fortunate she is that you are letting her go too.

  He looked at her now, Helen, fussing down the ward in her sister’s uniform and it was beside belief that he had ever seen anything in her. A small-minded woman with a look of permanent disappointment in her eyes. Even then, when their affair had been at its height. Weekends in Harrogate and nights at the Post House near the M1. Escorting Helen down to dinner when she was wearing that awful red dress, velvet, that looked as if she’d taken it down from the curtain rail and put it through the machine. Now he despised her. One look enough to turn his stomach, the sight of her thick calves sufficient to make him feel sick. There was a way of quenching her anger, but he knew that he could never take it. Not now.

  He swept off the ward and stalked back to his office; damned secretary had been the worst, the look she’d given him, anyone would think it was her he’d been unfaithful to. A typed note waiting for him at the center of his desk, cow asking for a transfer to another consultant, to be expedited as soon as possible.

  Bitches the lot of them!

  And there was that bloody inspector, loitering in the corridor like a shop steward from the TGWU. Man in his position ought at least to shine his shoes in the morning, see to it that, if he was going to wear a white shirt, it was decently ironed.

  “All that guff you wanted,” Salt asked, showing Resnick through to his office, “lead you anywhere?”

  “Not yet,” Resnick said, relieving the consultant of the chance to keep him standing by sitting down.

  “Some crackpot,” Salt said, settling behind his desk.

  “Possibly.”

  “Damned certainty. Lunatic with a bee in his bonnet. Been put out on the streets, most likely, instead of being kept locked up, safe where he belongs. Don’t mind telling you, I think this government’s come in for far too much stick, but health policy, mental care in the community … Saving pennies by wasting lives.”

  “Amanda Hooson,” Resnick said.

  “Worked here, ODA.”

  “You knew her, then?”