Off Minor (11 page)

What? Had the killer wrapped her body in the rug before moving her elsewhere? Prior to the plastic bag? If so, how had she been transported? By car, along the rear seat, or stowed, like excess baggage, in the boot? Someone with access to a van?

It was possible, Resnick realized, that the assault had taken place on the rug itself; the assault which had resulted in Gloria’s death, in addition to whichever others might have taken place beforehand.

Before what?

Resnick, on his feet, walked round his desk once, twice, caged by visions of what he didn’t want to see. Before what? Before the girl had panicked, refused, screamed, struggled and struck out; before she had to be restrained, quietened, silenced, finally stopped. Although the rug from which those fibers had come had almost certainly been destroyed, that was not necessarily the case. It was not impossible that it lay still in the center of some perfectly ordinary room; the room where Gloria Summers had ended her short life.

Resnick sat back down. One thing he felt sure of: somewhere in the city, Gloria’s killer was walking around, leading an apparently normal life. One thing he was frightened of: before they caught him, that person might be driven to strike again.

Raymond’s first instinct had been to go right down there, have it out with her. Tell her what for, smack in the center of the hazelnut whirls and mint cream imperials. But he knew that was wrong. Temper. He’d had to learn to control his temper. More than once, his uncle Terry had had to take him off to one side, explain the facts of life.
Ray-o, you can’t go on like that, flying off the handle. It’s not like you’re a kid, not any more. You carry on that way, people are going to think there’s something wrong.
Well, there wasn’t. I mean, that’s nonsense. A load of bollocks. He was all right.

The water had started to run cold, so Raymond stepped out of the shower and began to towel himself down. Hair first, good hard rub, then his back, shoulders, legs and arms. One thing he couldn’t stand, putting any of his clothes back on before every square inch was properly dry. Kind of thing you had to be careful with, didn’t want to catch a cold; worse, that flaky skin between the toes, athlete’s foot; start walking around in wet clothes, sitting down, next thing you had piles.

Raymond sprayed deodorant in the direction of his underarms, down towards his pubic hair. He shook a little scented talc on to one hand and patted it between his legs, around his balls.

A kick on the base of the door. “Leave it alone, Raymond, and give someone else a whack. You’ve been in there over half an hour.”

He had meant to iron his blue shirt, but he pulled a crew neck jumper on over the top so that only the collar and an inch or two of cuff were visible. The jumper had worn through on one elbow, but his jacket would take care of that. He wondered what Sara would be wearing, hoped it would be something casual, not that suit she’d worn to the police station. Like it was church or something.

He took a position close by one of the lions, keeping that at his back, that way he had a clear view past the fountains up to where the bus came in, the one he thought Sara would likely take. Punks sat on the steps, calling out at the occasional passer-by. Sticking safety pins up your nose and sniffing glue, all that was ridiculous, aside from unhygienic, no one carried on like that any more. Pathetic!

He stepped away as Sara paused at the edge of the pavement, trying to pick him out. Really nice, she looked, loose black trousers, black jacket over a red blouse. The last thing he was going to do, risk spoiling the evening, say anything about the knife.

“What did we have to come and see this for?”

“Ssh. Watch this bit. It’s terrific. Look.”

“Where?”

“There, coming through the door. Look!”

“Oh, God!”

Sara twisted sideways in her seat, covering her face with her hand almost as quickly as the semi-naked hero magicked a sword from the ether in perfect time to slash the throat of one attacker right across while connecting a flying kick to the jaw of a second, finally disemboweling the third with all the skills of a pathological Vietnam vet and master butcher, the dying man’s entrails slithering off screen, silver-gray and red.

“Amazing!” breathed Raymond, lost in admiration.

“I just didn’t like it,” Sara said. “All that violence.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Raymond said. “I’ve seen a lot worse.” He meant better, but he wasn’t about to say so. Get too far up Sara’s nose and he wouldn’t even get a feel from her on the way home.

They were in Pizza Hut, the smaller one, up near Bridlesmith Gate. The other one, above Debenham’s, was better, but Raymond didn’t have good memories of walking down there this time of a night.

“I don’t want to be snobby, Raymond, but it’s just not my kind of film, that’s all.”

“Oh, so what is?”

“I don’t know …”

“Something all romantic, I suppose?”

“Not necessarily.” Sara chewed her garlic bread with mozza-rella topping and thought about it. “Something with more to it, I suppose.”

“You mean, serious?”

“Okay, if you like, serious.”

“Well, what about what we just saw, then? All that stuff about how they kept him buried underground for weeks at a time, absolute blackness, nothing to eat except for rats he had to catch and kill himself.”

“What about it?”

Raymond couldn’t believe it. Was she stupid or what? “It shows you, doesn’t it? Explains why it happened.”

“What?”

“Why he turned out like he did. Dedicated to vengeance. No feelings. It’s like,” pointing his fork at her, “his motivation. Psychology and that. Can’t tell me that’s not serious.”

“One deep-pan medium with extra beef topping,” announced their waitress, Tracey, wafting the platter between them. “One thin and crispy vegetarian.”

Raymond was sure she’d ordered that on purpose, get him all riled up.

“Table for two?”

“Please,” Patel said.

“Smoking or non?”

Patel glanced sideways at Alison, who said, “Non.”

“Do you mind sharing?”

“No,” said Patel.

“How long would we have to wait,” Alison asked, “to get somewhere by ourselves?”

Raymond had finished his pizza, every slice, garlic bread, more than his share of the salad; now he sat nibbling on a piece of Sara’s vegetarian, didn’t taste of a thing. Since they’d argued about the film, she had scarcely said two words, beyond complaining about the dressing he’d spooned over their bowl of salad, how she preferred the blue cheese to the Thousand Island any day of the week. Next time, get it yourself, Raymond had thought, saying nothing. What sort of an idiotic name was Thousand Island for a salad dressing anyway?

“Listen,” he said, leaning towards her.

“Yes?”

“That knife of mine: what d’you have to go bloody talking to the police about it for?”

Alison paused in the midst of explaining the relative merits of a fixed-rate mortgage.

“You’re not listening, are you?”

Patel felt himself beginning to blush. “Yes, I am.”

Alison shook her head. “You’re staring.”

“I’m sorry.”

She smiled. “It’s all right.” And reached out her hands. “Now all you have to do is stop fidgeting with that knife and fork.”

“I’m …”

“I know, you’re sorry. Are you always so apologetic, or is it something to do with me?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll try to be more positive.”

“Good,” Alison said, still smiling at him with her eyes. “Do that.”

“Are you ready to order?” the waiter asked.

“Er, I don’t think so,” said Patel, “not quite.”

“Yes,” said Alison, “we’ll order now.”

Patel smiled, and then he laughed.

“I hate that,” Raymond said.

“What?”

“Over there?”

Sara turned her head, following his stare. “What about it? I don’t see …”

“The girl sitting with that Paki.” Raymond grimaced. “Kind of thing I hate to see.”

Fifteen

“What’s the matter with you this morning?”

“Nothing. Why?” Lorraine, turning away from the kitchen window, busying her hands with her apron.

“Three times I’ve come in here now, three times you’re just standing there, staring.”

“I’m sorry,” heading for the dishwasher now, finish loading it up with the things from last night’s dinner party, every fork and glass and plate, she didn’t know how her mother had managed for so long without one.

“You’re sorry?”

“I was thinking.”

“What about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing special.”

Michael lifted the kettle, making sure there was sufficient water before switching it on to boil. “That’s what she used to say.”

Lorraine trapped the word,
who
, before it left her tongue. Of course, she knew.

“Came in once, don’t know where I’d been, somewhere, I don’t know, local, not far, maybe taking a load of stuff down the tip, Diana was in the front; the lounge. She was wearing her outdoor clothes, raincoat, red scarf she’d had for years; standing there in front of the windows, she’d got this shovel, little garden shovel, blue-handled, in one hand. ‘Diana,’ I said, ‘what d’you think you’re doing?’ And she just turns to me and smiles, like I was the last person she expected to see. ‘What are you doing?’ She’s got nothing on under her coat, not a stitch. ‘Nothing,’ that was what she said. ‘I don’t think I was doing anything.’ And then, ‘It’s turning quite cold. I shouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t in for some rain.’”

Lorraine, listening, couldn’t look at her husband’s face instead, she concentrated on his hands, the way, slowly, he spooned coffee into the two mugs and, after the kettle’s click, added the water, one spoon each of sugar, the milk.

“What she was going to do,” Michael said, “was start digging. Digging for James.”

Lorraine wanted to throw her arm round him, give him a hug, tell him that it was okay, she knew that it still got to him and that was all right, she could understand. But she knew that if she did, he would shrug her off and frown and give her his look that said don’t, don’t, just leave me alone.

Taking her coffee from the work top, she brushed the outside of his hand with her own.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking across the room.

“There’s no reason.”

“Just, when I walked in and saw you …”

“I’m not Diana,” Lorraine said, wiping at the surface where the mugs had left a faint ring. “I’m nothing like her.”

“I know.”

“So.”

Michael sipped his coffee; it was still too hot. “He was only eight days old, James. That’s all he ever was.”

The muffled whine of a power saw aside, it was silent for some little time; then, through the door, the shriek of sudden laughter, Emily watching Sunday morning television. Lorraine set down her mug and crossed the room to switch on the dishwasher. “If I’m going to get that stuff out back sorted,” Michael said, “it’d better be now.”

If God had meant me to be a plumber, Millington thought, he would have set me on this earth with a full set of washers and a neck that stretched easily around U-bends.

“Graham!” his wife called from the foot of the stairs. “Is it coming along all right?”

Millington confided his reply to the spider with whom he was sharing the space beneath the bath and fumbled for the correct adjustment to the wrench.

“Whatever happened to that nice young man you met at that garage? You know, the time you had that trouble with your exhaust. Somewhere your side of Grantham.”

“Nothing, Mum.”

“I thought he was going to take you out for dinner or something? He did fix the exhaust for free.”

What he had done was squeeze on some rapid-dry sealant, pack some black gunge around it and try for a quick feel while her Nova was still jacked up to head height. Dinner had been a Berni’s three-course special offer, prawn mayonnaise, rump steak with jacket potato and watercress garnish, Black Forest gateau. He’d hardly been able to wait to get Lynn out into the car park and show her that he hadn’t earned his Kwik-Fit mechanic-of-the-month certificate for nothing.

“So there’s nobody else on the horizon, then?”

“No, Mum. Not just at the moment.”

“Oh, Lynnie,” her mother sighed. “I do hope you haven’t left it all too late.”

“And not before time,” Patel’s father said, unable to keep a smile of second-degree pleasure from his voice. Patel could imagine his father’s face, his mother and his sisters standing near.

“You must bring her up to visit us.”

“Look, I don’t know …”

“Soon.”

Sara’s mother spent her Sunday mornings at the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints, a former community hall with a corrugated roof and a view of the race course. Her dad spent his Sundays in bed with the
News of the World
and the
People
—only chance I get to have a good read—least till the pubs opened.

“What’s he like, then, this Raymond?” Sara’s mother asked, sliding a three-inch-long steel hatpin from the folds of her permed hair, the soft gray felt of her church hat. “Educated, is he? Nicely spoken?” She pursed her lips into a smile. “As long as he isn’t common.”