Now's the Time

by John Harvey

  He arrived at the police station early, earlier than usual; Kevin Naylor, the young DC who had drawn first shift, was still sorting through the duty officer’s report of the night’s activities, breaking it down into categories before setting the file on Resnick’s desk. Burglaries Naylor would initially deal with himself, the rest would be for Resnick, as Detective Inspector, to prioritise and hand on to the other members of the squad.

  “Quiet night?” Resnick asked, glancing at a fax that had come in from Manchester CID during the night, asking for information about a runaway girl of fourteen.

  “Passable, sir. Usual bit of activity in the Park. Three houses broken into on Tennis Drive; last one the owner got up for a pee round about two, looked out the window and there were these blokes lifting his twenty-three inch Sony into a van.”

  “Blokes?”

  “Two of them; another in the driver’s seat he thinks. Not sure.”

  “And the van?”

  “Green, apparently. Dark green. If you can trust colours under those antique gas lamps they’re so proud of. Old post office van, sounds like, sprayed over.”

  “He wrote down the number?”

  “Two letters missing. Like I say, the lighting . . .”

  “Yes. I know. You’ll get round there sharpish.”

  “First call.”

  The Park was not a park at all: a private estate principally made up of large Victorian houses sporting stained glass and ornate decoration and originally designed to show off the wealth and taste of the mine owners and lace merchants who had lorded it in the latter half of the last century. Now it was home to barristers and account executives and Porsche owners who never seemed to work at all. Smack in the centre of the city as it was, the place attracted burglars the way a mangy dog had fleas.

  “Remember that couple who worked the Park a few years back,” Naylor said, making conversation as he poured the tea. “One of them built a bit like you, big, the other a scrawny little bugger. Turning over this place when the bloke as lived there come back unexpected, took one look at ’em and had a heart attack. Big bloke called emergency services, hung around to give him mouth-to-mouth.”

  “Saved his life.”

  “What was his name now? Something foreign. Polish, wasn’t it?”

  “Grabianski,” Resnick said, of Polish ancestry himself. “Jerzy Grabianski.”

  “Wonder what became of him then?”

  Resnick shrugged broad shoulders. “Retrained, maybe. Paramedic, something of the sort.” It was a nice idea and one he didn’t believe for a minute.

  Three hours later, when Resnick was in conference with his superintendent and Naylor was still out and about knocking on doors, Grabianski was watching with considerable pleasure as Sister Teresa crossed Gregory Boulevard. And a little more than an hour after that, Resnick selecting cheese and turkey breast for his sandwich at the nearby deli while Naylor checked through vehicle licences and registrations in the CID office, Grabianski was enjoying the fresh air and the ducks and contemplating the detailed drawing of the house in the Park which was home, just for the present, to a pair of watercolours by the British Impressionist, Herbert Dalzeil.

  Sister Teresa had made three more home visits after calling on Shana Palmer, that particular issue no more resolved than it had been when she had arrived. At lunchtime, she had stopped off at the Help Line centre run in conjunction with the local BBC radio station, and busied herself with everything from sorting through the previous week’s backlog of mail to counselling a fifteen-year-old boy who feared he might be gay, feared what his father would do if he found out, feared he might already have contracted AIDS.

  She then went into the studio for her regular weekly spot on the afternoon show, answering questions from callers about spiritual and other problems that were bothering them, mostly, she found, the latter. As usual, she ended by asking for donations or volunteers for the Help Line, thanked both presenter and producer and exited through the rear car park, having promised Sister Marguerite she would pop into Tesco’s and buy a Sara Lee Pecan Pie for her birthday.

  A dozen places into the car park a hand grabbed at her hair, an arm was thrown tight about her neck and she was wrenched backwards and thrown heavily against the rear wall.

  “Help?” Paul Palmer said, brandishing a fist in Sister Teresa’s face. “I’ll give you fucking help. All the help you fucking need.”

  And he began to punch her in the face and breasts, kick viciously against her legs and drive his knee into her groin.

  Thackray dropped Grabianski at the York Street entrance to the Shopping Centre and carried on his way towards the London Road roundabout and the river; within the hour he would be safely ensconced behind closed doors in Stamford, hotting up his modem with discreet faxes to the Far East and cryptic messages on the Internet.

  Grabianski had one of the swing doors half open, mind set on a bottle of vodka and some designer potato chips, when he heard cries coming from somewhere behind him: cries of pain and shouts of anger from the other side of the narrow street, from somewhere amongst the vehicles that were tightly clustered beyond the low brick wall. Others, passing, heard them and hurried on. Grabianski vaulted the wall and saw the couple towards the rear door, the man lashing out wildly and the woman half spreadeagled on the ground.

  “Come near my wife again, you interfering bitch, and—”

  Palmer broke off, hearing the sound of someone at his back; half-turned, another warning on his lips, and met the heel of Grabianski’s outthrust hand full force upon his nose. The snap of cartilage was dredged through snot and blood.

  “Bastard!” Palmer tried to shout, but something blurred and muffled was all that emerged. Grabianski picked him off his feet and half-threw, half-pushed him across the front of a Ford Orion, Palmer screaming as he fell.

  “Don’t . . .” began the woman, easing herself up on to all fours. “Please, don’t . . .” as she levered herself back against the wall, head sinking gingerly forward till it came to rest against her knees.

  “Don’t what?” asked Grabianski gently, bending down before her.

  “Don’t hurt him.”

  He recognised the dull sparkle of the ring upon her hand. Why was it they always defended them, no matter what? One of her eyes was already beginning to close.

  “A beating,” Grabianski said. “No more than he deserves.”

  “No, no. Please.” She fumbled for then found his wrist and clutched it tight. “I pray you.”

  Something about the way she said it made Grabianski think twice; he recognised her then, the woman who had been striding out in shades of grey, and felt a quickening of his pulse. Somehow instead of holding his wrist, he was holding her hand. Behind them, he heard her attacker scurry, slew-footed, away.

  The muscles in the backs of Grabianski’s legs were aching and he changed position, sitting round against the wall. Sister Teresa, blood dribbling from a cut alongside her mouth, was alongside him now, shoulders touching, and he was still holding her hand.

  She found it strangely, almost uniquely, reassuring.

  She said, “Thank you.”

  He said it was fine.

  She asked him his name and he her’s.

  “Teresa,” she said.

  “Teresa what?”

  And she had to think. “Teresa Whimbrel,” she said and he smiled.

  “What’s amusing?” she asked, though a pain jolted through her side each time she spoke.

  “Whimbrel,” Grabianski said, “it’s a bird. A sort of curlew.” He was smiling. “Notably long legs.”

  He looked, she thought, decidedly handsome when he smiled, and something else besides. She wondered if that something might be dangerous.

  “But I expect you know that already,” he said.

  She was looking at the fingers of his hand, broad-knuckled and lightly freckled with hair and curved about her own, smaller hand. And showing no intention of letting go. She nodded to signify, yes, she knew. There was a bird b
ook back at the community house and Sister Bonaventura had pointed out the illustration. “A black and white cap on its head,” she had said. “Just the way we would have looked once upon a time. Those unenlightened times.”

  “I think you should let go,” she said.

  “Um?”

  “Of my hand.”

  “Oh.” He asked another question instead. “Was that your husband? The man.”

  “Not mine.”

  He could feel the ring, though he could no longer see it. “But you are married?”

  “In a way.”

  Grabianski raised an eyebrow, continuing to smile. “Which way is that?”

  “A way you might find difficult to understand.”

  *

  She lay on a narrow bed in Accident and Emergency, bandaged, strapped and salved. They had examined her carefully, wheeled her down to X-ray and back on two separate occasions, confirmed that two of her ribs were broken, but that, aside from internal bruising, there were no further injuries invisible to the naked eye.

  “Lucky your saviour, he happened along when he did,” the nurse said.

  “Hmm,” Sister Bonaventura commented, eyeing Grabianski appraisingly, “so that’s who he is. He looks a little different in the pictures I’ve seen.”

  She and Sister Marguerite had rushed to the hospital as soon as they had heard, filling the small cubicle with anger, advice and concern. When the young police officer had arrived to take a statement, Grabianski had discreetly removed himself, returning an hour later with flowers, an artfully wrapped box of dark soft-centred chocolates from Thorntons and a copy of the Collins’ Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, with the section on curlews clearly marked.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Sister Marguerite asked, declining a second chocolate.

  “Perfectly,” Teresa replied. “The doctor’s assured me there’s no need for me to stay in overnight. And they’ll provide an ambulance to take me home.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Sister Marguerite said.

  “I know what you meant.”

  Grabianski’s presence filled the cubicle to the point of overflowing.

  Leaving, the sister pressed an extra crucifix into Teresa’s hand for good measure. The curtain she left ostentatiously open and after a few moments Grabianski reached across and pulled it closed. The bustle of Accident and Emergency went on around them, muffled but nonetheless real.

  “There’s one question . . .” Grabianski began.

  Teresa laughed. “There always is. Prostitutes and nuns, it’s always the same one: how did a nice girl like you . . .?”

  But Grabianski was shaking his head; that wasn’t the question.

  Naylor knocked on Resnick’s door and waited. Behind him, the CID room was the usual monkey house of movement and overlapping conversations; telephones rang and were curtly answered or left to flounder in their own impatience; officers scrolled down VDUs, pecked two-fingered reports from keyboards, doodled loved ones’ names on the backs of envelopes, listened on leaking headphones to taped interviews. At his desk near the head of the room, Naylor’s sergeant, Graham Millington, was sporting a new haircut and freshly trimmed moustache and an almost-new check sports jacket, in the inside pocket of which nestled reservations for seats on the London train and two tickets for that evening’s performance of Sunset Boulevard. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Petula Clark in the one evening; it was almost more than ordinary flesh and blood could stand.

  Naylor heard Resnick’s call of “Come in” just above the sergeant’s shrilly whistled version of ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’.

  “Kevin?” Amongst the papers littered over Resnick’s desk were the remains of a toasted tallegio and ham sandwich and several empty take-out cups still smelling of strong espresso.

  “Licence plate on the van, sir. Likely belongs to a ’94 Fiesta, reported stolen out in Bulwell three weeks back.”

  “Dead end, then.”

  “Not exactly. Youth as reported it missing, Tommy Farrell, been walking the thin and narrow since he left school.”

  “Charges?”

  “Fraudulently claiming benefit, passing stolen cheques, possession of illegal substances, handling stolen goods. Probation on one, the others all dismissed.”

  “Insurance scam, then, the car? Nicked by his mates, switch the plates, sit back and wait for General Life or whoever to pay over the cheque.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “So if one of Farrell’s friends happened to own an old Post Office van . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  Resnick leaned forward in his chair. “That piece of paper in your hand, Kevin; wouldn’t be a list of Farrell’s known associates would it?”

  Grinning self-consciously, Naylor placed the sheet upon the desk.

  “Mickey Redthorpe,” Resnick read, “Michael Chester, Sean McGuane – he’s in Lincoln doing three to five. Victor Canning, Barry Fielding, Billy Murdoch, Paul Palmer . . .”

  Resnick looked up, fingers drumming across the name. “Aggravated burglary, Palmer, eighteen months inside?”

  “Yes, sir. Released March 1st. Good behaviour.”

  “I wonder,” Resnick said, smiling a little, “what the chances might be of finding friend Palmer the owner of a resprayed van?”

  “A warrant or . . .?”

  “Too early. Take Mark with you, have a little nose around. Palmer’s got a wife and kids, hasn’t he? Probably not going anywhere in a hurry.”

  Naylor nodded. “Unless it’s back inside.”

  Grabianski was not as cautious. And although he preferred making his way into other people’s property under the cover of darkness, on this occasion, he was happy enough with the sound of the EastEnders theme tune and the sight of the living room door to the Palmer’s flat closing behind Shana as she carried through the three-year-old.

  Paul himself had made his way from the betting shop to the pub.

  Grabianski checked both ways along the balcony, inserted the strip of plastic between front door and frame and slipped the lock.

  As soon as he was standing inside the adrenalin grabbed him, jolting his veins. Being inside: forbidden. It was like sex, only better, purer; more controlled. He stood for several minutes, listening to sounds, breathing the air. Then made his way silently from room to room.

  There was a rusted bayonet at the back of the cupboard alongside the double bed and a shoe box containing half a dozen stolen credit cards underneath it; burglary tools were secure in a duffel bag behind the waste pipe of the kitchen sink. The baby was sleeping in the back bedroom in a cot surrounded by several thousand pounds’ worth of electrical equipment, including a top-of-the-range wide-screen Sony TV.

  Just as Grabianski stepped out into the hallway, the living room door opened and Shana stood facing him, the almost empty mug of tea slipping from her hand.

  “It’s all right,” Grabianski said softly. “There’s no need to be afraid.”

  Which was when Paul Palmer entered through the front door, a six-pack of Special Brew at his side.

  “You!”

  Grabianski had the advantage of surprise and some forty extra pounds in weight; he grabbed Palmer by the front of his leather jacket and jerked him forward, kicking the door closed.

  “You . . .?”

  “You already said that.”

  Palmer’s voice was distorted by the width of plaster taped across his nose. Grabianski spun him round and, firmly holding his shoulders, smacked him, face first, against the wall.

  Shana screamed and Paul fainted, unused to having his nose broken twice in the same day. When he came to and saw Grabianski was leaning over him he flinched.

  “Listen,” Grabianski said, “if you ever go near that person again, I will break every other bone in your body. You know who I mean?”

  Palmer blinked and grunted yes.

  “And you believe me?”

  He did.

  “Good,” Grabianski said, leaning aw
ay. “A little belief, it’s a wonderful thing.” He turned back at the door. “It might be an idea if you stopped thumping your wife, too. I imagine there’s a self-help group you could go to, men and violence, something like that. You should look into it.” And he walked off along the balcony, taking his time, though time was something he had precious little of – the owner of two rare Impressionist paintings would soon be sitting down to her first hand of the evening, busily counting points.

  Since Resnick had stopped using the Polish Club with any regularity, when he did appear committee and staff fussed round him like swans with their wayward young; which only served to curtail his visits all the more. But halfway through a bottle of Polish lager with only the cats and CDs for company, he made a sudden decision to call a cab and go, even though it meant exchanging Miles Davis Live at the Plugged Nickel for an accordionist with a ruffled shirt and his heart on his sleeve.

  He hadn’t been in the club more than twenty minutes when, reflected in the mirror above the bar, he saw, approaching, someone he had thought he was unlikely ever to see again. He waited until Grabianski had taken the stool alongside his before holding out his hand. “Jerzy.”

  “Inspector.”

  “Charlie would do. Not as if I’m on duty.”

  “Ah.” Grabianski smiled and ordered a bison grass vodka, Resnick declining with a shake of the head. “Maybe not.”

  “No coincidence, then? You being here like this?”

  “I phoned ahead.”

  “Something that couldn’t wait till morning.”