Cold in Hand (18 page)

Schofield made a sharp sound of disbelief, half snort, half laugh. "Look, this is ridiculous. I don't know who you've been talking to, but whoever it was, whatever they've said, it's a lie. Okay? A lie." He rose quickly to his feet and backed one step, two steps away. "Now, if it's all right with you, I've got to get back to work. I've got another session."

"Of course," Lynn said. "Thanks for your time."

He hesitated a moment longer before walking crisply back along the canal path, Lynn continuing to sit there, thoughtful, watching him go.

***

Terry Brook got in touch with Resnick ahead of the Fire Investigator's report. Any doubts that the fire had been started accidentally could be dismissed. Some crude kind of petrol bombs had been used, hurled through windows at both the front and back of the house, more or less simultaneously.

The youth on whose floor Marcus Brent had allegedly slept was Jason Price, currently studying entry-level Music and Sound Technology at South Notts College and with two previous brushes with the police to his credit. Both youths worked in Marcus's father's music shop on Saturdays and in whatever spare time they could scrounge. Though the shop always stocked a certain amount of rap and reggae, dub was what it specialised in, what set it apart from the big chains and the independent opposition: rare vinyl alongside remastered versions of classic King Tubby and new recordings by bands like Groundation and Bedouin Soundclash.

When Anil Khan spoke to him, Price was surly and affable by turns: he and Marcus had been out with mates, just hanging out, i'n it? Then down to Stealth—DJ Squigley and Mista Jam. He didn't know nothin' about no fire, no Billy Alston, nothin'. Not till later, aw'right? Marcus came back and crashed at his crib like he sometimes did. Time, man? Come on, I dunno what time, but late, like, late, i'n it? Aw'right?

As alibis went, it was all vague in the extreme. They took them in for questioning, the pair of them, applying pressure where they could. Meantime, officers searched Price's flat for whatever they could find incriminating, hoping, if not something as obvious as an empty petrol can or a bottle of paint thinner, then clothing that had been splashed with petrol or still had a residual smell of smoke.

There was nothing.

Both Marcus and Jason stuck to their stories.

Disappointed, Khan thanked them for their cooperation, trying hard not to react to the smug grins on their faces.

***

Bill Berry caught Resnick on the way out and insisted on a catch-up over a pint. Make that two. By the time Resnick got home, Lynn was asleep on the front-room settee, head lolling to one side, half-drunk mug of tea grown cold on the floor alongside.

Resnick stood watching, his feelings for her such that, had she woken and seen them on his face, she might have been frightened by what they revealed. They spoke, neither of them, about their personal emotions a great deal.

It was "love" and "sweetheart," a kiss in passing and a squeeze of the hand, a quick hug or cuddle, the reality of what each truly felt buried beneath the mundane and the day-to-day. A few weeks before, when the call had come through to say she had been shot, he thought he had lost her and, in that moment, his life had stopped, the blood refused to pump round his body.

She stirred and moved her head and, as she did, a small sliver of saliva ran from one corner of her mouth onto her cheek. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Resnick stooped and dabbed it away.

"Charlie?" As if from a dream, she blinked herself awake. "I'm sorry, I must have dropped off."

"No harm." With a smile, he brushed the hair back from her face.

"D'you want something to eat?" he asked.

"I suppose I should." With a small grunt of effort, she sat up straight.

"I'll see what I can find."

Scraps. Bits and pieces of this and that. Small bowls of leftovers covered in cling film and pushed to the back of the fridge. He fried up some cooked potato with garlic and onion, added half a tin of cannellini beans and a few once-frozen peas, then sliced in some cold pork sausage from God-knows-when. In a bowl, he whisked up eggs with black pepper and a good shake
of Tabasco, and, when everything else was starting to sizzle, poured the mixture over the top. The result, served with hunks of bread and the last knockings of a bottle of Shiraz, was close to a small feast.

"You're a wonder, Charlie."

"So they say."

"In the kitchen, at least."

"Aye."

It was a while before either of them spoke again, just the contented sounds of two people eating, with the occasional promptings from a hungry cat and in the background the brushed sound of Lester Young's saxophone, a track Resnick had set to play, Lester with Teddy Wilson, "Prisoner of Love."

"I talked to Dan Schofield today," Lynn said. "The man Christine Foley was living with when she was killed."

"And?"

Lynn paused, her fork partway to her mouth. "Nice enough bloke. On the surface, anyway."

"You think he might be involved?"

"I'm not sure. If he is, I can't yet see how."

"He's got an alibi?"

"Yes. Cast iron, so far." She ate a piece of sausage. "You know what I find fascinating? There's this woman, the dead woman, Christine. Attractive in a conventional kind of way. Reasonable education, a year or so of college. Works for a building society until her daughter's born, then, when she starts nursery, gets a part-time job behind the counter in a chemist's, thinks about possibly retraining as a pharmacist. Everything about her perfectly ordinary, and yet there are two men, about as different from one another as chalk and cheese, both of them in love with her, think she's the greatest thing since I don't know when and can't stand the thought of living without her."

A grin came to Resnick's face.

"What?"

Still grinning, he shook his head.

"You think it's sex, don't you?" Lynn said. "You think she was this incredibly passionate, inventive creature in the sack."

"What I was thinking," Resnick said, "maybe she was a great cook. You know, the kind who can whip up astonishing dishes from almost nothing."

Lynn laughed.

Resnick poured the last of the wine. "Any idea what you're going to do next?"

"I don't know. Wash up? Do some ironing? Go to bed?"

"I mean about the investigation."

"Oh, talk to a few of Christine Foley's friends, I think. People she worked with, try and get a different perspective."

Leaning across the table, half out of his chair, Resnick kissed her on the lips.

"What was that for?" Lynn asked, surprised.

Smiling, Resnick shrugged. "Good luck?"

Ryan Gregan had insisted they meet in the Arboretum, down near the pond and the bandstand. Just over the road from the cemetery, you know?

Resnick knew.

Many times, when he'd been stationed up at Canning Circus, he and his sergeant, the redoubtable Graham Millington, had eaten a quick sandwich lunch while staring at the elaborate tombstones, talking their way through whichever investigation was uppermost in their minds. Now Millington, a few years Resnick's junior, had wangled a transfer down to Devon, where his wife hailed from, and was doubtless cycling round the lanes that very moment, keeping an eye out for sheep rustlers while whistling his way through the Petula Clark songbook.

Resnick shuddered at the thought.

Not just the constant repetitions of "Downtown" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway," but the prospect of all those high, winding hedges and undulating hills and fields. Lynn had been right: short term apart, the country was not for him. The other man's grass, in this case, not greener at all.

Gregan was sitting on one of the benches beyond the bandstand, shoulders hunched, rolling a cigarette. He was wearing
blue jeans and some kind of camouflage top, a peaked New York cap pulled down over his eyes. Tattoos, which might have been new, on the backs of both hands.

Resnick had taken Pike with him, regulations insisting that two officers were present when an informant was interviewed, and favouring Pike over Michaelson, as Pike, at least, could be relied upon to sit still and say nothing unless directly spoken to.

"Mr. Resnick."

Resnick nodded.

Gregan glanced at Pike, but nothing more.

"I thought you'd not mind the stroll," Gregan said. "The open air, you know."

They sat either side of Gregan on the bench and waited while he lit up, a few stray curls of tobacco hissing briefly as they caught.

"You've got something for me," Resnick said.

Gregan smiled.

At the far side of the pond, a tram began its slow ascent along Waverley Street towards the Forest. A boy of no more than ten or eleven, who should certainly have been in school, went past, dragging a scrawny mutt by a piece of string.

"The shooting," Resnick said. "You've heard something?"

Gregan shook his head. "Only the same as before. Billy Alston's finger on the trigger, that's the word."

"You believe it?" Resnick asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Gregan's cigarette had gone out and he lit it again.

"You've got reasons to think it might have been somebody else?"

Gregan shook his head. "Alston, I'm just not sure he's the type. Too jumpy, you know? All over the damned place. Not certain he has it in him—aside from the bragging, that is."

"Bragging? Is that what he's been doing?"

Gregan's face showed contempt. "All mouth and trousers,
isn't that what they say? No bottle. No body. Letting people think he was the one did the shooting, good for his rep out on the street. Hard man." Gregan laughed. "And besides, where did he get the gun? Not from me, and I've asked around, and I've yet to come across anyone who sold Billy Alston as much as a fucking slingshot—never mind a pistol, replica or not."

"Any other names being mentioned?"

"Not to me."

"You'll keep your ear to the ground?"

"Absolutely."

Resnick waited. Gregan clearly wasn't done. At the other end of the bench, Pike shuffled his feet.

"The fire now," Gregan said eventually. "Alston's place. Kelly Brent's old man can't wait for you to do the business—that's most likely what you're thinking. Take the law into his own hands."

Resnick said nothing, let him continue.

"I heard a whisper. Could be nothing to it. But Billy, he was dealing. Just kids' stuff. Five-, ten-pound deals, you know? Seems he was holding out, even so. Bulking it out, pushing the price and not passing it on. Had a warning a month or so back, but paid it no mind. This was the final word, something he couldn't ignore."

"The fire?"

"The fire."

"It's not just talk? Someone making noises after the event?"

Gregan shook his head. "That's always possible, of course. But I don't think so."

"You've got names?"

"Just the one. Ritchie."

"Spell it."

Gregan did.

"First name?" Resnick asked. "Or last?"

"First, I think."

"You could find out some more?"

A smile played around Gregan's eyes. "I could try."

"Try harder."

As they were walking back across the Arboretum, Resnick asked Pike what he thought.

"Is he telling the truth, boss? Is that what you mean?"

Resnick nodded.

"He could be, I don't know. I mean, if he's not, if he's making it up, what'd be the point?"

"He might think it's clever, stringing us along. Or he could be doing someone else a favour, Brent, for instance, trying to make us look elsewhere."

"How do we know?"

"We don't. Which is why, as far as we can, we check. See just how reliable he is. You and Michaelson, find out what you can about any medium-level dealer called Ritchie. Ask around. If he wasn't Billy Alston's supplier, find out who was. Maybe, for once, we can put two and two together and make four."

Lesley McMaster had known Christine Foley—Christine Devonish, formerly—since school, since primary school, in fact. Lesley, neat and trim in her little black suit, but with worry lines starting to show around the eyes, didn't want to think exactly how long that was.

They'd worked together at the Shires Building Society, starting on the same day, nervous as anything; Christine had been the first to settle, not too long before she was being packed off on courses, tapped for promotion. Reliable, that was the thing. Not only that. Initiative, too. Manager, she'd have been by now, if she'd stayed, Lesley was certain. If she hadn't packed it in when the baby was born. Even then they were on at her to come back, pick up where she'd left off, but Christine had said no, she wanted a change, though to Lesley's way of thinking it was more her Tony who was behind it, happier for some reason
if his wife was wearing a white coat in the corner chemist's, doling out cold cures and sanitary items instead of doing something more responsible, earning more cash.

One thing Lynn would say later about Lesley McMaster: she could talk for England.

"You kept in touch with her then, afterwards?"

"Yes. Well, not as much perhaps once she took up with Dan Schofield. In each other's pockets and no mistake, the two of them. Christine, she loved it at first, all, you know, the attention. Doing everything together. Tony, she'd probably spent as much time talking to him on his mobile, texting him and that, as she did in person."

"You said 'at first,'" Lynn prompted. "She loved it at first."

Lesley smiled. "For all Tony's faults, he never bothered about her going out for a drink with her mates, as long as Susie was being looked after and everything. Well, it gave him a bit of leeway himself, that's what I think. But Dan, he was different. Didn't like it at all. If she wasn't out with him, he thought she should be at home, made it really difficult for her to get out on her own. In the end, she had to create a bit of a scene. Lay down the law, like. Stick up for her rights. I mean, it wasn't as if they were married or anything. And she could be quite tough, Christine, when she had to be."

"It was a real cause of friction between them, then? That's what you're saying?"