Wasted Years (2 page)

Angled across from where Resnick was sitting, Suzanne Olds licked her finger ends clean with the fastidious delicacy of one of his cats. Lifting her leather briefcase from the floor, she slid from her stool and approached. The last time they had spoken, one of the solicitor’s clients had been up on five charges under sections 18 and 47 of the Offenses Against the Person Act, shuffling alibis like a dog-eared pack of cards.

“Inspector.”

“Ms Olds.”

“I was at dinner with a new colleague of yours a few nights ago. Helen Siddons. Very bright. Sharp.” Suzanne Olds smiled. “Aware of the issues.”

“I thought crime was the issue: solving it, preventing it.”

Suzanne Olds laughed. “Come off it, Inspector, you’re not as naive as that.”

Resnick watched her walk away, incongruously elegant and somewhat intimidating as she passed between local-grown spinach and pink and white shell suits, the latter greatly reduced, council clothing vouchers welcomed. He had met Helen Siddons a number of times since she joined the local force; transferred from Sussex, detective inspector at twenty-nine, eighteen months and she would have moved on. A graduate with a degree in law, she was being propelled by the Home Office along a fast track towards the highest ranks. She should be looking at Assistant Chief Constable by the time she was forty. Resnick could see how well she and Suzanne Olds would have got along; serious conversations between courses about the sexism endemic in the force, racism, the errors—careless or malicious—in police evidence which had led to conviction after conviction being so publicly overturned.

Why was it, when he agreed, at heart, with most of the beliefs women like Helen Siddons and Suzanne Olds held, he found it so hard to give them his support? Was it simply that he found them a threat? Or the almost certain feeling that the support of men like himself, career coppers for more than twenty years, would not be welcomed?

“Another?” asked the stall owner, whisking his cup into the air.

Tempted, Resnick checked his watch and shook his head. “Got to be off. Important meeting. Maybe see you later. Cheers.”

And he ambled away, shoulders hunched, a wave at the man from the fish stall forever on at him about giving a bit of a talk to the Church Fellowship, a bulky man in a shiny suit that had been beautifully tailored by his uncle more than fifteen years before—for somebody else and not for him.

Reg Cossall was standing on the steps of the central police station, swopping tales of arson with the senior officer from the fire station alongside.

“Hey up, Charlie,” Cossall said, falling into step with Resnick as he pushed through the front door. “Heard the latest?”

Resnick was sure he was going to, any minute.

“They only reckon Grafton’s going to get Tom Parker’s spot. Can you believe that? Malcolm bloody Grafton a chief inspector. Over the likes of you and me.”

Resnick grunted noncommittally and started on the stairs.

“Tell you what, Charlie. That bastard’s done so much sucking up, must have a gullet like anyone else’s large intestine. Not to mention wearing through three sets of kneecaps.”

Resnick opened the door and waved Cossall through ahead of him. Most of the other officers were already present, a round dozen, inspector and above. Maps marked with colored pins and tape hung from the walls; memos and computer printouts lay in plastic wallets on tables of walnut veneer. The overhead projector was in place, screen pulled down. Jack Skelton, Resnick’s superintendent and heading up this particular task force, stubbed out one of his rare cigarettes, poured a glass of water from the jug, cleared his throat, and called the meeting to order.

“Operation Kingfisher, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Eighteen months previously, five men, masked and wearing track suits, had forced their way into a bank in Old Basford right on closing time. The two remaining customers had been told to lie on the floor, the cashiers bound and gagged; one of the weapons the gang had been carrying, a shotgun with sawn-off barrels, had been placed against the assistant manager’s head. They had got away with close to forty thousand pounds, changing cars three times in making their escape.

Driving in to open a newly refurbished supermarket at Top Valley five months later, the manageress had her Orion forced off the road and a pistol flourished in her face. Only after she had facilitated the opening of the safe was the gun withdrawn from sight. All the manageress could tell the police about the person threatening her was that he was average height and wearing a Mickey Mouse mask.

Mickey was on hand when the Mansfield branch of the Abbey National was held up one busy Saturday. It was Goofy, though, who placed a suitcase beside the protective screens on the counter and informed the nearest cashier that it contained a bomb. None of the staff felt like testing the possibility that it was just a bluff. Nor did they appreciate suggestions that the whole thing was a publicity stunt on behalf of EuroDisney.

The most recent robbery, three weeks ago now, took place in the inner city, Lenton Boulevard, just as the sub-post office was opening for the day. The door was locked from the inside and, while a line of grumbling customers grew along the pavement, the staff were tied to one another, shut inside a cupboard and warned that if they tried to get out or raise the alarm, shots would be fired through the door.

Four robberies: close on half a million pounds.

Five men: all wearing gloves, instantly disposable clothing, masks. All armed.

Between three and five cars, stolen days in advance, used on each occasion.

Threats of violence, so far not carried out.

Some of the stolen money had surfaced in places as far apart as Penzance and Berwick-on-Tweed; most of it, it was assumed, had already been laundered abroad for a fat commission.

Operation Kingfisher had been set up after the second incident; between thirty-five and fifty officers had been involved. All of the information gathered had been entered by civilian operatives on to disk and checked against the Home Office’s central computer. Possible links were being followed up in Leeds, Glasgow, Wolver-hampton. Known criminals implicated in similar raids were being tracked down and interviewed. Comparisons with similar robberies in Paris and Marseilles were being made. Flight manifests at East Midlands and Birmingham airports had been checked.

Sooner or later, somebody would make a mistake; so far, no one had. Resnick hoped it wouldn’t be some building society clerk or bank teller acting out of bravery or panic, a misplaced sense of loyalty to his employers.

“You know what, don’t you, Charlie?” Cossall said as they were leaving, best part of two hours later.

“What’s that, then, Reg?”

“What this lot reminds us of. That bloody business—when was it?—ten year ago.”

But Resnick didn’t want to be reminded. Not then or ever. Refusing Cossall’s offer of a quick pint in the Peacock, he slipped into a pub on High Pavement he rarely used and where he was unlikely to be known. That bloody business ten years ago. Never one to drink in the middle of the day, Resnick surprised himself with two large vodkas, one sharp after the other, with the tonic he had bought to dilute them still open and unused when he pushed his way back on to the street.

Three

Peter Hewitt farmed several hundred acres in what had once been known as Rutland—the smallest county in England. To those families whose roots had taken long before local government rationalizations, it still was. To them, Hewitt was an outsider, welcomed guardedly. He represented new blood, new stock, new ideas.

Hewitt had not always been a farmer. Brought up, as farm children always were, to take his share of the work from an early age, he had turned his back on the land at seventeen and gone to sea. As an officer in the Royal Navy, he had served in the Falklands campaign, a lieutenant commander on HMS
Argonaut.
Along with other vessels, his ship had come under heavy hostile fire in Falkland Sound: her fellow frigate, the
Ardent,
had been sunk with the loss of over twenty lives; the
Argonaut
had been more fortunate—she had remained afloat and only two of her crew had died.

Only.

The word teased Hewitt cruelly still.

He thought of the parents of these men when they heard the news; thought of chance and misfortune, stability and flow, the sea and the land. As soon as he was able, he left the navy.

Hewitt’s father had retired: rather, the recession and rheumatoid arthritis had retired him. Now he lived quietly in a cottage in Northamptonshire, grew vegetables, kept goats, grew lonely. Peter had bought a farm near him but not too near; his intention had always been to go his own way. He had given this a great deal of thought and it seemed right that his methods and means should be as organic as good business sense and the land would allow.

In addition to the acreage given over to crops, Hewitt kept a herd of Friesian cows and had several contracts to provide organic milk. His wife, Pip, ran a profitable farm shop. Together, they encouraged local groups and schools to visit the farm so that they could explain their methods. Spread the word. Hewitt found himself increasingly in demand as a speaker in various parts of the country, occasionally in Holland or even France.

This work, as an ambassador for organic farming, he took seriously, just as he did his time as a school governor, his stint as a JP. If you take something from the community, he told friends less convinced, you have a duty to put something back. It was the way he felt about the land. It was why he had accepted the invitation to be on the Board of Visitors at the local prison without hesitation. Part of his duties there was to serve on the Local Review Committee, whose recommendations were forwarded to the Parole Board.

This was why he was driving in today, beneath low skies, to interview a long-stay prisoner whose application for parole was due for review.
Showing a callous disregard for the safety of others, you were prepared to threaten and use violence in the pursuit of personal gain.
Hewitt had read the judge’s summing-up before leaving the house. The man he was going to see had been found guilty on five separate counts and sentenced to fifteen years. The nature of the offenses, the use of violence, meant there would be no automatic release once two-thirds of that sentence had been served. After ten years, however, there was the question of discretionary parole.

Hewitt slowed as the side road leading to the prison came in sight, checked his rearview mirror, changed lanes, signaled his intention clearly.

The moment he walked through the twin doors and heard them close behind him, Peter Hewitt felt something leave his body. He would not regain it until some hours later, pacing the fields of his farm, marveling over visible horizons.

“Good one for you today, sir,” the warder remarked. “Very nice fellow, I’m sure.”

Prior was sitting in a room without view or natural light: plain wooden table, metal chairs with cloth seat and back. He scarcely glanced up as the door opened.

“One thing we didn’t succeed in teaching him,” the warder said, “manners.”

“Thank you,” Hewitt said. “We shall be fine.”

As the door was being closed, Hewitt introduced himself and offered his hand. Sitting, he took out the packet of cigarettes he had bought that morning at the village shop and slid them across the table. Box of matches, too.

Prior said thanks and helped himself, lit up, and looked at his visitor squarely for the first time.

“You understand, of course, the importance of this interview?” Hewitt asked.

Something of a smile floated at the back of Prior’s eyes. “Oh, yes,” he said.

Prison had stripped weight away from him, made him strong. It was that way for some, a few; those it didn’t institutionalize or weaken, break down. The ten years had grayed Prior’s skin to putty, but it was tight; the muscles of his legs and arms, chest and back were strong; the eyes were still alive. Sit-ups, push-ups, stretches, curls. Concentration. Save for one occasion, whenever he had been tempted to lash out, respond, overreact, he had thought about this moment, this meeting. He had kept himself largely to himself, waiting for this: the possibility of release.

“Before I can make a positive recommendation,” Hewitt was saying, “I have to be convinced in my own mind that you have no intention of offending again.”

Prior held his gaze. “No problem, then, is there?”

Hewitt blinked, shifted the position of his chair. “The offenses you committed …”

“Long time ago. Different life.” Prior released smoke through his nose. “Wouldn’t happen again.”

“It did then.”

“What I think,” Prior said, “people change.”

Hewitt leaned forward, leaned back.

“You believe that, don’t you?” Prior said.

“Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

“Well, then …” this time the smile was unbridled. “There you go.”

“Have you thought,” Hewitt asked after some moments, “about work, finding a job?”

“Used to be a chippie …”

“Carpenter?”

“Joiner, yes. That’s my trade.”

“Good, good. I’m sure your probation officer will try to find something for you. After all, having a skill, a real skill, it’s what so many men in your position sadly lack.”

Way this is going, Prior thought, better than I could have hoped.

“You’ve friends on the outside?”

“A few.”

“That might be willing to help you find work?”

“They might.”

“And you’ve a wife.”

“No.”

“Surely you’re married?”

“Legally, maybe, but no. Not any more. Not really.”

“Ten years, it’s a lot to withstand. It takes a very special woman …”

“Oh, she was that, all right.”

“Was? She isn’t …?”

“I haven’t seen her. Don’t know where she is.”

“I’m sorry.”

Prior shook his head. “One of those things. Can’t put in the sort of time I have, expect everything to stay the same.”

Hewitt was thinking what he would do if for any reason Pip left him. A partnership, that was how he referred to it when he was making his after-dinner speeches, a partnership in which my wife is the strongest part.