Cutting Edge (25 page)

He parked outside Marian’s house and rang the bell.

Upstairs the curtains were forbiddingly drawn across; otherwise there was no sign of life. He could understand if today Marian had no inclination to speak to anyone, himself least of all. Still he tried again and waited. If she weren’t inside, waiting for him to leave, she would be at Mass. Resnick considered, but only for moments, waiting outside the Polish church for her to leave. All too easy to picture the scorn and curiosity on the faces of the congregation when they walked out of the incense and into the daylight, staring at him from their state of grace.

He got back into his car and set off towards the hospital. While there he would be able to buy some flowers, leave them on her doorstep with a note,
Dear Marian …
Perhaps in another six months he would pick up the phone and she would answer, perhaps not. Now, thank God, there was police business to attend to.

Karl Dougherty was no longer in intensive care, back down on the same ward as Fletcher, though not the same bay. A nurse approached, smiling warily, about to shoo Resnick away until the start of proper visiting, but his warrant card and a returning smile won him access to the bedside and the expected warning. “Don’t stay too long now. He’s still quite weak. Don’t want to tire him out.”

Dougherty looked pale but pleased to have a visitor, sucking up pineapple juice through a bendy straw. “I’ve been talking to a friend of yours,” Resnick said, the conventional queries and formalities over.

“Paul.”

Resnick nodded.

“Yes, he told me. Apparently he’s your prime suspect.”

“I wouldn’t call him that, exactly.”

Dougherty managed a grin. “I’m sure you could do better. At least, I hope so. Wouldn’t want to think that whoever did this was about to do it again.”

“I suggested to Paul you’d been having a row before you left Manhattan’s. He didn’t deny it.”

Dougherty was quiet. A domestic walked past, pushing a heavy, insulated trolley. Late breakfast, Resnick thought, before reasoning that it was early lunch.

“What were you arguing about?”

“The usual.”

“Which is?”

“Oh, you know, Inspector. Who’s the greatest psychologist, Jung or Freud? If you had three people in an air balloon, Mother Teresa, Bob Geldof, and Princess Di, who would you throw out first and why?”

“Seriously,” Resnick said.

“Geldof,” said Dougherty. “He’s the worst singer.”

“No, I mean seriously.”

“Sex,” Dougherty said.

“When, where, or how?”

Dougherty smiled and shook his head. “If.”

“Paul was interested and you weren’t, is that it’?”

Dougherty nodded. “Just about.”

“Why carry on seeing him?”

“Because I liked him, because ordinarily he’s good company. Because he isn’t a nurse. I was prepared to overlook the final five minutes of why won’t you come back to my place, why can’t I come to yours?”

“And that’s what you were arguing about? That evening?”

“It was a routine Paul went through. We both expected it.”

“Then why leave early?”

“What?”

“Why leave early? You left early, left Paul there to finish his drink. If it was no different to the end of any other evening, why did you do that?”

“Paul,” Dougherty said after a moment, “he was getting more and more insistent. Said that it was as if I was ashamed of him, he said I was using him, he said a lot of things. I didn’t want to listen to it any more.”

“You walked out on him?”

“I suppose so. I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“That’s the way he would have seen it?”

“He might.”

“He was angry with you already. Frustrated.”

“He didn’t do this.” Dougherty glanced down and Resnick imagined the wounds beneath the blanket. “He couldn’t.”

“He could have followed you from the club, seen where you were going.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean, psychologically, he couldn’t have done it.”

“Is that according to Freud or Jung?” Resnick asked.

Dougherty almost smiled. “Both of them, probably.”

“Physically,” Resnick said, “could Paul Groves have attacked you?”

“If he was worked up enough, I daresay he could have found the strength, but he could never have got that close to me without my hearing him, I’m certain of that.”

“You want to be certain. The last person in the world you want it to be is him.”

“Of course. But whoever it was, they came from directly behind me. From one of the lavatories, the stalls.”

“You heard them?”

Dougherty didn’t answer straight off. “I don’t think so. Though sometimes when I’m running it all through, only sometimes, there’s this faint half-remembered click, like the bolt of the door being pulled back.”

“And you saw?”

“As I said before, very little. A boot or maybe a shoe, black. Everything was black. Trousers …”

“Trousers, not jeans?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And size? Did you get some idea of that? How big? How tall?”

“Around my height. Strong, obviously. But I don’t think he was, you know, I don’t think he was a body builder or anything like that.”

Already the nurse was hovering at the end of the bed and Resnick could see that he was coming close to outstaying his welcome. “Karl,” he said, getting to his feet, “you rest now. Someone will be in to talk to you again.” He lowered his hand as if to pat the foot of the bed and Dougherty winced. “Take care,” Resnick said. “Get better.” He would walk along and have a word with Tim Fletcher while he was there, find out if any little memories had clicked into place in his brain.

The Yorkshire puddings had sat there in the gravy, staring backup at him like little brown diaphragms, but otherwise Sunday lunch hadn’t been too bad. Now Naylor was sitting in the living room with his feet up, listening to James Hunt and Murray Walker disagreeing about who was in pole position for the World Championship. With a murder investigation about to get underway, he was going to need what little rest he could snatch. Not so often the baby slept through an hour without waking to tears and you didn’t waste it.

Debbie came into the room but Naylor didn’t look up.

“We ought to be going soon,” she said.

No response. Mansell made as if to overtake on the inside, but at the last moment chickened out.

“Kevin.”

God! The whine in that voice!

“Kevin!”

“Yes.”

“I said …”

“I heard you.”

“But you haven’t moved.”

“That’s because I’m not coming.”

“You’re what?”

“You heard.”

“Mum’s expecting us.”

I’ll bet, thought Naylor. I can just see the corned beef sandwiches, turning up their edges in delight. He leaned further towards the screen and didn’t say anything.

“You can’t stay in all day, watching that.”

“Why not? Anyway, I shan’t be staying in. I’m going out.”

“Where? Where if it’s not …?”

“If you must know, I’m going to see how Mark is.”

“That’s right. You do.”

“I will. Don’t you worry.”

“Sooner spend time with the likes of him than with your own family.”

“It’s not my family, Debbie,” turning to face her now, splutter of engines from the set behind him, “it’s yours. She’s your mother, you go and have tea with her. Get yourself bored stupid listening to her prattle on.”

The tears were there, but she was fighting them back. Naylor was looking at her and then he was looking at the flat, painted wood of the door. When he swung back to the screen, Mansell had accelerated into the straight and was going into the final lap in second place.

Thirty-two

Lynn Kellogg had drawn the early shift and the logs were on Resnick’s desk and ready for his inspection a full fifteen minutes before he set foot in the station. Amongst the usual spate of break-ins that would require Lynn’s attention was one in which some enterprising soul had squirted WD 40 through the letter-box to stun a pair of angry Rottweilers, picked the lock, and walked away with several thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry and furs and the dogs’ studded collars as souvenirs. The distraught owner had woken to find the front door wide open and the animals wandering around the garden in a dazed state, unusually beatific expressions on their faces. The first phone call had been to the PDSA, the second to the police.

Graham Millington was in next, limping as a result of half the night cramped up in the rear of a hastily converted transit van, watching the lorry park off exit 29 through a hole the size of a new five-pence piece. He was experimentally jumping up and down in an attempt to get the circulation going when Resnick entered with a headache and a Brie and apricot sandwich he’d picked up at the deli across the road.

“Going into training, Graham?”

“Not exactly, sir,” said Millington, embarrassed, casting a sideways glance at Resnick’s feet to see if he was wearing odd socks again.

Resnick went through to his office and nodded for Millington to follow. “Good weekend?” he asked, making a space on the desk for his sandwich.

“Not bad, sir. Pretty good, really. The wife and I …”

Resnick skimmed through the night’s reports, half an ear on his sergeant’s domestic ramblings. What was it that made for a happy and lasting marriage, he caught himself asking? Perhaps it was a lack of imagination.

Lynn Kellogg brought in mugs of tea and cut the catalog of grouting and trips to the garden center mercifully short. After that lot, Resnick was thinking, it might come as a relief to be shut up in a van for six hours.

“These obs, Graham,” Resnick asked. “Any luck?”

Millington shook his head. “We were wasting our time up round Chesterfield, while they were in business outside Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”

Resnick spotted Naylor through the glass of the door and got to his feet, waving to get the DC’s attention and losing a bright sliver of apricot jam to his shirt front in the process.

“Any sign of Divine?”

“Saw him yesterday, sir,” said Naylor. Sitting in Mark Divine’s new studio apartment near the marina, watching a worn video of
9½ Weeks
while they worked their way through a six-pack of Carling Black Label.

“Coming in today?”

“No, sir. I don’t think so. He’s …”

“Wrong,” said Resnick. “Wrong answer. Injured in the line of duty, one thing. Getting smacked for behaving like a yob with libido problems, that’s another. Ring him now, tell him I expect to see him in thirty minutes. Here. Right?”

“Yes, sir.” Naylor went back into the main office, doing his best to figure out what a libido was; he thought that Divine had only had stitches above the eye.

Millington was midway through making a tortuous request to be relieved of working with the West Midlands Force, at least while there was so much heavy activity on his own patch, when Lynn Kellogg came back to the door. “It’s Ms. Olds, sir. Wants to see you now.”

Wonderful! thought Resnick. “Stall her,” he said. “Try and interest her in the delights of the canteen.”

“I did, sir.”

“And?”

“She laughed in my face.”

Resnick sighed. “All right. Five, no, ten minutes. Tell her it’s the best I can do.”

Lynn nodded and withdrew.

Suzanne Olds tilted back her head and released a film of smoke from between perfectly made-up lips. When Resnick was using the perfumery floor of Jessops as a cut-through, making for the market, that was when he saw women the like of Ms. Olds, perfectly groomed and hard as teak. He guessed one difference might be Suzanne Olds had the brains, too.

“Are you saying this is an official complaint?” Resnick asked.

Unnervingly, the solicitor smiled. “Not yet.”

“Maybe we should wait till it is?”

She swiveled towards him in her seat. “Police Complaints Authority, officers from an outside force, one of your own suspended. To say nothing of the possible accusations: victimization by a ranking officer, harassment, bias.”

“If, if Ian Carew was under surveillance, it was with no knowledge of mine.”

Suzanne Olds was enjoying this. “In that case,” she preened, “perhaps we should add incompetence to the list.”

“Jesus!” sighed Resnick.

“Yes?”

“It’s a game to you, isn’t it? Somewhere between Monopoly and Scruples.”

“There’s nothing funny about a citizen having his civil rights …”

“Oh, come on!” Resnick on his feet now, turning away, turning back. “Don’t give me Carew and civil rights in the same breath. It doesn’t wash.”

“Somehow he’s forfeited them? If that’s what you’re saying, I’d say it was a difficult argument to sustain.”

“Yes? Well, there’s a girl out there who had her civil rights severely curtailed when your client beat her up and raped her.”

“Wait.”

“No.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Why?”

“My client, these alleged offences, has he been charged? Never mind brought to trial, found guilty, sentenced.”

“The only reason he hasn’t, the girl withdrew the charges.”

“Maybe she changed her mind. In the light of day, decided she’d been rash, making accusations in anger. Who knows?”

“How about this? What happened to her was so appalling she couldn’t face being dragged through it again, in front of witnesses, knowing that he would be there watching her.”

“Melodramatic, Inspector.”

“Better than being smug.”

“And rude.”

Resnick made himself stand straight and still and with an effort brought his breathing back under control. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Apology accepted.”

“He was given an official warning,” Resnick said, “as to his future behavior.”

“Towards the girl?”

Resnick nodded.

“As far as your knowledge goes, has he seen her again?”

“No.”

“Has he made any attempt to?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then how is planting a police car at the end of his street to be construed? Exactly.”

“I’ve explained …”

“You know nothing about it.”

“Exactly.”

Suzanne Olds was smoothly to her feet. “If I were in your shoes, Inspector, I’d be at pains to find out. On this occasion I was able to persuade Mr. Carew an informal approach might be best; if he’s given any further cause for complaint, I suspect he won’t be as charitable. Oh …” pausing at the door, a trace of warmth around the edges of her smile, “… and there’s a smudge of jam, just there …” With one long, painted fingernail she traced a line down the silk of her blouse. “… the corner of your handkerchief and cold water, that should do the trick. Good day, Inspector. I know my way out.”