by Harvey, John
‘Bloody spastic!’ says another.
They haul him to his feet and hold him there.
‘Good news, sunshine. You’re under fucking arrest.’
The voice isn’t local. London, maybe? Kent? He looks for the number on the officer’s uniform like he’s been told, but can’t see one.
Groggy, he makes a sound in his throat as if he’s going to spit, spit in the officer’s face, and the officer knees him in the groin, grabs hold of him as he lurches forward and spins him round, thrusting him fast against the fencing so that the wire cuts into his face.
One of the others yanks his arms round behind him and cuffs his wrists.
‘Result!’ says the officer with a laugh.
Danny is put in a holding cell with nine others, taken out to be questioned – questions he largely refuses to answer.
‘The advice from my union,’ he says, ‘is not to speak to police or make a written statement about any picket I may have been taking part in before seeing a strike committee official or a lawyer.’
The words don’t sound right on his tongue.
‘Never mind your union’s advice,’ says one of the two police officers sitting opposite. ‘Do yourself a favour and stop being such a prat. Sooner you play along, sooner you’ll be out of here and home.’
He says it with a smile on his face, friendly-like.
‘I’m not saying owt,’ Danny says.
‘Suit yourself.’
He’s taken back to the cell. Brought back. Questioned. Nothing. Fingerprinted and his photograph taken.
Next morning, taken before the magistrate.
One charge of using threatening words and behaviour, another of obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty, one of common assault.
Unconditional bail refused.
Almost before he knows what’s happening, Danny is released on the conditions that he remains resident at his given address, doesn’t cross the county border into Nottinghamshire and at no time ventures within half a mile of any property or properties belonging to or rented by the National Coal Board.
He hitches his way home, feeling sick.
29
‘AND YOU WERE going to tell me fucking when?’
‘Sir, I—’
‘When?’
‘I didn’t want to raise the possibility of another line of inquiry without first—’
‘Didn’t want to say, more like, you were getting your fancy knickers in a twist over some hare-brained idea spun out of some bastard journalist’s head.’
‘Sir, I—’
‘Shut it! Just fucking shut it, okay?’
Okay. Catherine drew breath, chanced a sideways glance at Resnick, exhaled. The atmosphere in Picard’s office smelt of air freshener, over-brewed coffee, spite.
They had been summoned to Radford first thing, the detective chief inspector’s office; no pleasantries, no pack drill, just a straightforward bollocking, simple and pure.
Resnick shifted his balance from one foot to the other, mind running through the twenty or so places he’d rather be that moment than here.
‘You’ll remember,’ Picard said, his eyes focused on Catherine, ‘a conversation in this office. Keep in touch, anything you’re concerned about, unsure of, run it by me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You do remember?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So, what? Somewhere along the line you forgot? Selective amnesia? Or maybe you just thought, fuck it, he’s never going to know, never going to care, I’ll just go my merry fucking way regardless. Was that it?’
‘No, sir.’ Catherine looking at the ground, the carpet, industrial grey, able to hold his gaze no longer.
‘And you,’ Picard said, turning his attention to Resnick, ‘crystal clear, or so I’d thought. Low-key, that was the way to pitch it. The way it was going to be. Low-key.
‘Your experience, I expected you to keep things in check, under control. No call to go stirring up more than necessary, more than was needed. Instead of which you go haring off, the pair of you, on some wild fucking goose chase, till you’re up to your armpits in serial bloody killers. Michael fucking Swann – how d’you think that’s going to play once the media get hold of it? Well? Throw your low-key out the fucking window then. Eyes of the country, eyes of half the fucking world. Some bastard Japanese TV crew making a documentary, poking their mini-fucking cameras up your nose.’
Catherine broke the silence that followed. ‘With respect, sir—’
‘Respect? What fucking respect?’ Picard furious, red faced, spittle on his lips. ‘Any respect you’d have okay’d this with me from the start, let me know what you were thinking, instead of leaving me high and dry, having to find out for myself elsewhere.’
‘How exactly did you do that, sir? Find out, I mean?’
‘Never you fucking mind.’
McBride, Catherine thought – either that or a quick phone call from Walcott. Top brass to top brass, Walcott to Hastings, Hastings to Picard. Her money was on McBride.
‘What I don’t understand, how the basics here could have got so forgotten. And don’t –’ seeing Catherine was about to interrupt – ‘give me any more of that respect bollocks. My take on the case, what happened to Jenny Hardwick – not that you’ve had the sense of protocol to furnish me with anything approaching a proper briefing – the two prime suspects, two you should be looking at, two in the frame, that twat from Yorkshire she was fooling around with and her old man.’
He looked from one to the other. ‘Care to disagree?’
Neither did. Not there and then. Far too simplistic, Catherine thought, keeping it to herself.
‘The husband – Barry, is it? Where are we with him?’
‘Still accumulating evidence, sir. Hearsay, largely. Hostility between the pair of them, husband and wife, that’s clear. Mainly over the strike – major difference of opinion there – possibly over any relationship she might or might not have been having with somebody else. Been interviewed on two occasions, due to be again.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Apart from an informal conversation at the funeral, yes, sir.’
Picard raised his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Beyond fucking belief.’
Catherine chanced another glance towards Resnick, who was tactfully looking away.
‘The bloke she was shagging?’ Picard said. ‘How about him?’
If she was shagging, Catherine qualified for her own intents and purposes.
‘Scotland, sir, last we heard. Fort William. Sandford and Cresswell are up there now. Seems he’s moved on.’
‘On? On where?’
‘Not the type to leave forwarding addresses, I’m afraid. Gave them another twenty-four hours. If nothing, report back. Start over.’
‘So they’re yomping all over the Highlands and you two are – where was it last?’
‘Lincolnshire.’
Picard raised his eyes to the heavens, shot his cuffs, settled back behind his desk.
‘Detective Inspector, perhaps you wouldn’t mind waiting outside for a few moments, allow Mr Resnick and me time for a few words?’
Catherine bridled, seemed about to argue, thought better of it. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Time, while the door was closing, for Resnick to feel embarrassed on her behalf.
Picard stared him down.
‘What’s the matter, Charlie? Standing there like someone’s stuck a red-hot poker up your arse.’
‘It doesn’t feel right, undermining the SIO in this way.’
‘Leave the way I manage to me, Charlie, okay? Hold her hand afterwards, if you like. Cuddle her tits. Whatever it takes.’
Resnick said nothing, waited.
‘Straight question then, Charlie. Two, to be precise. This Swann business, now you’ve poked your toe in, anything to it? Worth the fuss?’
Resnick took his time answering. ‘Swann himself, doubtful. Wouldn’t rule it out completely, but, on balance, I’d say unl
ikely. But there were other suspects that investigation turned up, a dozen at least, maybe more. Some of those might fit our profile, such as it is. A few more bodies, civilian staff maybe, we could chase them up, re-interview where necessary.’
‘All right, but more bodies, unlikely – you should know the staffing situation as well as me. What was it? Last spending review? Another nine thousand jobs going, nationwide? Go down that route, you’ll have to find a way of doing it with what you’ve got. My advice, get round Johnny McBride’s good side, for God’s sake, instead of rubbing him up the wrong side of his bloody sporran. He can be creative when needs be.’
Resnick nodded. ‘Do what I can.’
‘Second question. And I want a straight answer.’ Picard gestured towards the door. ‘Is she up to this or not?’
‘She’s fine.’ No hesitation, looking Picard square in the eye.
‘I hope to Christ you’re right.’
Catherine was waiting at the end of the corridor, the head of the stairs. They walked down side by side.
As they emerged on to the street, someone called Catherine’s name.
A tall man, handsome, in an expensively tailored suit, dark hair brushed back, olive skin, liquid brown eyes, five-hundred-pound shoes.
‘Catherine, you haven’t been returning my calls.’
30
TIME STOPPED. THE man standing in the middle of the pavement, assured, smiling. Catherine with a hand to her lips, not quite touching. Resnick, off to one side, uncertain, waiting.
A photograph: not seen, untaken.
‘Abbas, you shouldn’t do this.’
The merest of shrugs. ‘You didn’t answer my calls.’
‘My choice, Abbas.’
‘You could have been sick, taken ill, I didn’t know, anything could have happened.’
‘And if I were . . .?’
‘Then, of course, I should know.’
‘Sick, ill, whatever . . . whatever happens to me, Abbas, it is no concern of yours.’
‘You know that’s not true.’ He moved forward quickly as he spoke, his hand circling her wrist.
‘Abbas, let go.’
For all that she is tall, he is taller still. Well-muscled beneath the fine lines of his suit. Sleek, the word that comes to Resnick’s mind as he watches.
‘Abbas . . .’
He tightens his grip instead.
‘I think you should let go,’ Resnick says. ‘Move away.’
There are people watching now, a few. A woman with a buggy across the street; an elderly man with a shopping trolley; a pair of uniformed officers hesitating on the police station steps.
‘Who’s this?’ the man called Abbas says.
‘Never mind,’ Catherine says. ‘Just go.’
‘You’re taking a turn for older men, perhaps? A change from the real thing.’
‘Abbas, you’re making a scene. Please go.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘We have nothing to say.’
His fingers are still around Catherine’s wrist. Resnick puts a hand on his elbow and he knocks it away. One of the two uniformed officers has started to walk cautiously towards them. Two small children and a teenager in a grey hoodie, who may be in charge of them and may not, make their way along the opposite pavement, oblivious. One of the children points at the old man’s shopping trolley and laughs. The woman with the buggy is still where she was, rooted to the spot, agog.
Resnick takes hold of the man’s arm again and this time he doesn’t let go.
The man stares at him, their faces close. Something aromatic on his breath.
Nothing else is said.
The man lets go of Catherine’s wrist and turns away.
Pale marks like bone against her skin.
Something has passed between the man and Resnick in the moment before he released his grasp. A moment of recognition? A warning?
He has turned on his heel and walked away, the old man with the shopping trolley pulling it aside to let him pass.
‘Everything okay?’ the police constable enquires.
‘Are you all right?’ Resnick asks.
In response to both she nods her head. Determined, even though he can no longer see, not to let her former lover have the satisfaction of somehow knowing she is rubbing her wrist to ease the pain.
They found a pub near the town centre, open early, breakfast still being served, the smell of toast and bacon, cooking oil that had been used too many times, unchanged; a table outside, wrought-iron painted white, the kind you find in a garden centre; not warm out, no sun, but this was so that Catherine could smoke. Which she did, two cigarettes almost down to the filter, one after the other, no conversation. She’d asked for, and was halfway down, a large glass of white wine, while Resnick had opted for coffee and almost immediately regretted it, returning for a bottle of pale ale, an approximation, he supposed, of the old Worthington White Shield that bar staff more often than not had asked you to pour yourself, leery of its volatility.
‘Abbas,’ she said suddenly. ‘I met him when I was at university. I was in my final year and he was doing an MBA. Secondment of some kind from the City bank where he’d been working. His family, they’re Iranian. Some of them came over to this country after the revolution; some stayed. Abbas and his two brothers, they were all educated here. His older brother, he’s a doctor, he went back to Iran. The youngest, like Abbas, stayed here. He’s some kind of lawyer, solicitor, barrister by now, I’m not sure.’
She reached for her cigarettes, reconsidered, drank some more wine instead.
‘I’m not used to men hitting on me. Not, you know, out of the blue . . .’ A quick smile. ‘Apparently men find me intimidating. Some men. Anyway, Abbas just came up to me – I was with some friends drinking coffee – came up and asked me out. As if it never occurred to him I might refuse.’
‘So you didn’t?’
‘I didn’t. And it was like that. Suddenly we were in a relationship. From nowhere. He’d seen me – one of his friends told me this later – he’d seen me walking across the campus and asked who I was. Decided he was going to have me. Marry me, that’s what his friend said. He was going to marry me.’
‘And did he?’
Catherine shook her head. ‘No, but it all moved along so fast, there was a time when it just might have happened. One minute we were dating, spending practically every minute when he wasn’t studying for his precious exams in one another’s company. The next we were flying out to Tehran to meet that side of his family. My exams, my finals – looking back, it was as if they didn’t matter. That I got the good result I did was up to all the work I’d done previously as much as anything.’
‘So what went wrong?’ Resnick asked.
A single-decker bus slowed to a standstill a stone’s throw from where they were sitting, cloaking them in a fug of diesel.
‘I saw the light – or, rather, I had some friends who saw it for me – realised I’d hardly made a decision of my own in months. Where to go, what to think, what to wear.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you.’
‘It wasn’t. That’s the point. I broke it off. Tried to. He wasn’t having it, of course. At first, he simply refused to believe me. Then did everything he could to change my mind. Maybe he thought he could buy me, I don’t know. When it finally clicked that I was serious, he told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life and I’d regret it for ever.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sometimes. Yes, if I’m honest, there were things about him I missed. But now I had my degree and, of course, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with it. Made the usual half-hearted journey around the capitals of Europe, my gap year I suppose. Came back and joined the police. Shock horror from my parents. Why are you throwing away a good education, the usual sort of thing.’
‘Abbas, what had they felt about him?’
‘Well, of course, they thought he was marvellous. Well-to-do, beautifully mannered, rich and likely to get rich
er. A good family. A family of doctors and lawyers and bankers. They must have thought it was a perfect fit. Although, when we stopped seeing one another, I think – although they’ve never said it – I think secretly they were pleased. No, relieved.’
‘Something about him they didn’t like? Didn’t trust?’
‘Perhaps. I think, also, in some way they feared I was a little out of my depth.’
Resnick drank some more of his beer; asked Catherine if she wanted any more wine but she shook her head.
‘All of that,’ Resnick said, ‘seems to have been quite a long time ago.’
‘It was.’
‘And now, suddenly, he’s started calling, wanting to see you?’
Another smile, grudging this time. ‘Not exactly. Abbas can be persuasive, as you can imagine. All he needs to do is catch you at a weaker moment and . . .’ She gestured with her hands. ‘I’ve seen him – I mean, we’ve been together, a couple, on several occasions since. Once for as little as three weeks, once, the last time, almost a year. It was not long after . . . not long after the investigation into Lynn’s murder. I was feeling, I don’t know, a bit low, I suppose, and Abbas did his usual thing of sweeping you into his orbit. You go along, and why not? It’s fun, exciting. For a time you stop asking questions, and then, gradually, you do.’
She looked at Resnick, drank the last of her wine, looked away. Traffic sidled past. A young man of no more than twenty, face the parchment pale of the perpetually poor, came, hand out towards their table, mumbling something about needing his fare to Derby. Resnick gave him a handful of change and sent him on his way.
‘This time he was nasty, threatening. Accused me of using him, telling lies. What was it? Spreading my legs for money like any other high-class tart. The last time I saw him, before today, he made one more effort to get me to change my mind, and when I wouldn’t he called me a black whore and punched me here.’
She indicated a spot at the centre of her chest, a few inches below her breasts.
Resnick recalled the look that had passed between them, Abbas and himself.
‘What will he do now?’
‘I don’t know. Try phoning again. Try to intercept me. Maybe nothing at all.’
