Now's the Time

by John Harvey

  She gestured theatrically round the room and laughed. “See? All the evidence you need. Another poor neurotic wife, drinking her way through the afternoons.”

  “Really?” Resnick said.

  Nicola shook her head. “Not really. Well, certainly not poor and scarcely neurotic; just once in a while when the hormones kick in and everything goes a tiny bit crazy.” She lifted up the vodka bottle and squinted at it, as if marking off some notional measurement inside her head. “Only today I thought I’d knock up something fancy for dinner, not even fancy, really, more fiddly. So I poured myself a glass of wine to help the concentration, which was fine, except after slicing those shallots over there the wine ran out, which was when I started on the vodka, and then there you were at the door, looking more than a little dishevelled, but otherwise awfully serious and wanting to talk to Russell about Jimmy. And I was – am – just a little drunk.”

  “Maybe some coffee,” Resnick suggested.

  She made a face. “Can’t stand it. Gives me a headache. Mineral water, that’s the thing.” Taking a bottle of Evian from the fridge she offered it to Resnick, who shook his head.

  “Tell me about Jimmy,” he said.

  “What about him?” She drank a tumbler of water almost straight down, then refilled the glass.

  “You must know him pretty well.”

  “Must I?”

  “I understood he was your godfather.”

  She laughed; almost a giggle. “So he is. But, you know, spiritual welfare, well, nobody bothers with that much nowadays, do they?” She looked across at him, one hip leaning against the sink. “A custom – what does Shakespeare say?”

  Resnick didn’t know.

  “More honoured in the breach than the observance. I think that’s it. Though he was at my first communion, I remember that. There’s a picture somewhere, Jimmy looking fearfully proud, me in this ghastly white dress, more bows and tassels than a prize Pekinese.”

  “Jimmy’s club,” Resnick said, “you had shares.”

  “I did?”

  “You and your husband, you both had shares.”

  Turning away to the sink, Nicola rinsed her glass under the tap. “Then it was a tax thing. Russell does that when it suits him, puts shares in my name.”

  The water was still running, overflowing the glass, the pressure high. Resnick leaned in past her and turned the tap off. Her arm grazed his. “According to Jimmy, you owned the controlling shares.”

  Her eyes were focused now; there was no faltering in her voice. “Do you really think Russell would be so stupid as to allow that to happen?”

  He could feel the warmth of her breath. “Then Jimmy was wrong?”

  “Jimmy’s a romantic. He always has been.” She smiled ruefully. “If I’m no longer that poor pale creature in a communion dress, I doubt I’ve grown in his eyes since he introduced me to his pal Russell Venner when I was scarcely out of my teens. ‘Tell me if I wasn’t right’, he said. ‘Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?’” Still holding Resnick’s gaze, she took a step away. “Oh yes, he had my spiritual welfare uppermost that day did Jimmy, no mistake about it.”

  It was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock.

  “You’ve no idea, then,” Resnick said, “where your husband might be?”

  Nicola shook her head.

  “Nor when he might be back?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  With a slight nod, Resnick turned away. “You’ll tell him I was here?”

  “Of course.”

  At the front door, he held out his hand. “Thanks for your time.”

  Her fingers were warm, only the slightest tremble. “It was a pleasure,” she said.

  Back in the car, Resnick was trying to figure out the difference in ages between them, Russell and Nicola Venner. Twenty, twenty-five years? More? In all probability Venner was in his early sixties. Nicola was what? Thirty-five? That at most, Resnick thought.

  He was past Ruddington and joining the ring road when his mobile broke through his thoughts. Kevin Naylor’s voice was faint, the line unclear. “Reports coming in, sir. Been a body found. Colwick Wood.”

  Tight-lipped, Resnick acknowledged the message and accelerated into the outside lane.

  The woods were close by the Trent, no more than a mile or so from the city centre. A favoured spot for dog walkers, errant kids and fair-weather picnickers, they were a well-used urban amenity. The car was in a clearing near the northern edge, a few hundred metres from the road. A BMW, maroon, its nose was close against the trunk of what Resnick thought to be an oak. The body was slumped sideways across the front seat, the face, what was left of it, pressed fast against the glass.

  Uniformed officers were cordoning off the scene.

  Millington came across to where Resnick was standing. “Shotgun, down by his feet.”

  “Self-inflicted?”

  “Looks that way. For now, any road.”

  Resnick glanced at the blurred flesh, the rose of blood across the windscreen. “Any identification?”

  Millington scuffed the toe of his shoe in the dirt. “Likely a wallet or some such, inside pocket. Didn’t want to move him while the pathologist got here. Vehicle registration, though. Just got through checking as you arrived.” He paused and looked at Resnick, eyebrow cocked. “Russell Venner.”

  Soft and involuntarily, Resnick swore and swore again.

  “That in itself,” Millington was saying, “not conclusive. But if that is Venner, local paper’ll have a field day. Not just local either.”

  Resnick was thinking of Nicola Venner’s face at the door, blue eyes, slightly amused, fair hair pulled back.

  “The body,” he said, “who found it?”

  “Couple of youths, off fishing. Heard something they reckoned might’ve been a shot.” He pointed off beyond the cordon. “Lynn’s talking to ’em now.”

  Resnick nodded. He was glad she was there. Once identification had been established, he would need her to drive back out with him, to help him break the news.

  Somehow, Resnick hadn’t expected there to be children, he didn’t know why. Perhaps because there had been so little sign. But when Nicola Venner came to the door, there they were, crowding round her, fair-haired and clean-faced, the oldest still wearing his braided prep school blazer, two boys close in age – six, Resnick guessed, and eight.

  “Mrs Venner . . .”

  “You again . . .”

  She looked enquiringly at his face, glanced at Lynn Kellogg, serious at his side. A nerve darted, sharp, behind her eyes.

  “The boys,” Resnick said, “is there somewhere . . .?”

  Over faint protests and with promises of future treats, she sent them scurrying off to some distant part of the house until they were called. Resnick and Lynn she led into a living room that was long and cool with facing settees and pale green walls.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Just tell me.” Her hands fluttered close to her face, nervous for something to hold on to, a cigarette, a glass.

  When Resnick told her, her fingers gripped the honeyed upholstery and her mouth opened wide.

  “I’m sorry,” Resnick said finally. “I’m really sorry.”

  Nicola pushed a fist against her face and bit down into the skin.

  “Is there something I can get you?” Lynn asked, leaning forward.

  Nicola stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

  “A cup of tea? A . . .”

  “Another husband?” Rocking back against the cushions, Nicola laughed. She continued to rock, then, forward and back, arms clasped tight across her chest.

  Resnick and Lynn exchanged glances and Resnick gave a quick, almost imperceptible shake of the head. Somewhere, a neighbour’s dog was barking, the same sound, short and harsh, over and over again. Nicola slowed and was still.

  “Your husband,” Resnick began, “did he own a gun?”

  Ham off the bone, cucumber, lettuce, mustard of course, a strong, sli
ghtly smoky Dijon, slices of fat tomato, pepper, salt; Resnick pressed the sandwich down with one hand before cutting it across. The potato salad he enlivened with a dollop more mayonnaise, a scattering of chopped spring onion, a shake or two of Tabasco. The fat piece of tomato that had squeezed free, he popped into his mouth; mayonnaise he licked from his fingers. A small brewery had obtained a licence to make Worthington White Shield, rather than letting it disappear altogether, and, miraculously, they had started stocking it at his nearest Tesco. Opening a bottle, cold from the fridge, he poured it gently into a tall glass, wary of the sediment lingering at the bottom, and carried glass and plate across to the kitchen table. Art Pepper’s So In Love was playing through the auxiliary speakers, recordings made in seventy-nine, just a year before Resnick had seen him at Jimmy’s club, only three before he died. The front page of the Post, close alongside Resnick’s elbow, was dominated by a photograph of Russell Venner, hooded eyes, greying hair, mouth no more than a razor line across his face. Praise for his achievements vied for space with speculation about his death: rumours of financial problems and fears about his health, both of which were contradicted by associates and friends on an inside page. The other picture was of Nicola, recently snatched, a hand half-raised to ward off the camera’s flash. Young Widow Mourns, see page two, where you find, also, photos of the children in their school uniform, smart and self-assured and shining.

  The shotgun had belonged to Venner, properly licensed; the angle of the wounds consistent with a self-inflicted injury. There was no note, of course, and a note would have helped. Venner’s secretary had confirmed the bare details entered in his diary, he had been to a meeting that morning with his accountant, eleven-thirty in offices near the Playhouse; Venner had left the meeting after less than an hour, earlier than expected, items of business unfinished. When the accountant had talked to Kevin Naylor he described Venner as being preoccupied, his mind not wholly on matters at hand; his departure had been abrupt and unexplained, he had no idea where Venner had been going nor who, if anyone, he might have been going to meet.

  But two hours later he had been parked in his car in Colwick Wood and so far there was no indication of what had happened in that intervening time. Had Venner spent them alone or with someone else, and if the latter, who? And why? Curiosity stalked Resnick like an itch.

  The post mortem was scheduled for the middle of the following day and Graham Millington, who was developing a taste for such things, would most likely attend. The final notes of ‘Stardust’ faded, a soft fall of saxophone spiralling to silence. Resnick thought tomorrow he would talk to Nicola Venner again.

  He woke to the faint hiss of rain: dark earth and shiny roofs. Dizzy’s paw prints damp and well-defined across the kitchen floor. The quiet ritual of making coffee, feeding the cats, listening to the local news. One by one, Russell Venner’s contemporaries testified to his business acumen, his concern for the community, the common good. Resnick found a clean shirt that barely needed pressing, a striped tie he scarcely recognised. He took more than a little trouble over cleaning his shoes.

  Venner’s accountant was long-limbed and lean faced; squash, or whatever it was, had kept his body trim, encouraged the firmness of his grip. Farquarson, James Edward Farquarson – if not accountancy, Resnick thought, it would have to have been the law; failing that, possibly, dentistry.

  “Inspector, please, have a seat.”

  They were in a sort of anteroom, a suite of offices converted from an imposing double-fronted Victorian house. Austere furniture, cut flowers, high ceilings, all of the original architraves and cornicing intact. Through the window you could see the Catholic cathedral, the green square and broad pavement outside the Playhouse theatre.

  A pleasant-looking woman, middle-aged and smiling, popped her head round the corner of the door.

  “Tea, Inspector?” Farquarson asked. “Coffee?”

  Resnick declined, Farquarson shook his head, the woman disappeared. Resnick asked about Venner’s mood the previous morning, the morning he had died.

  Farquarson leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Ours was merely a routine meeting; there was nothing for Russell to latch his teeth into, no decisions of great moment to be made. I expect he was bored.” Farquarson smiled. “For someone whose life largely revolved around the acquisition of money, he was signally bored by figures.”

  “So there was nothing unusual about his behaviour?”

  Farquarson steepled his fingers and considered. “I’ve been thinking about it of course. On reflection, he might have been a shade more distracted than usual. Preoccupied.”

  “You’ve no idea what by?”

  “I’m sorry, no. I only wish I had.”

  “And when he left?”

  “As I said to your subordinate, it was sudden, without apparent reason.”

  “He must have said something, Venner?”

  “Not really. ‘James, we can finish this another time. I’ve got to go.’ That was all.”

  “And you’ve no idea . . .?”

  “None.”

  Resnick readjusted his weight. “If you thought by staying quiet, you were in some way protecting him or his family . . .”

  Farquarson shook his head. “Inspector, please believe me, I’d help you if I could.”

  “There was nothing in his financial affairs that might explain his death?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “No rivalries; plans for expansion, take-overs; nothing that might have given somebody else cause to feel unduly threatened?”

  Farquarson pressed his finger tips together and, more emphatically than before, gave a slow shake of the head.

  “Jimmy Nolan?”

  Farquarson smiled. “Let me explain, Inspector, Nolan and that club of his; it was never a good investment as it stood. Russell was acting against my advice when he became involved. All that was of real value was the site, but with Nolan feeling the way he did . . .” The smile had gone from the accountant’s face. “There had been several approaches, sound propositions, a consortium, for instance, wanting to open a casino. If Nolan had been willing to step aside, he could have been comfortable for the rest of his life.”

  “And Venner?”

  “My client would have realised a not unreasonable profit on his investment.”

  “Instead of which . . .”

  “Instead of which the opportunity passed.”

  “Surely Venner could have forced his hand? Tried to, at least.”

  Farquarson smiled with his eyes. “They were friends, Inspector. It went back a long time.”

  “I thought there’d been a falling-out?”

  “A good many, I daresay, over the years. I don’t know the ins and outs. But argue as they might, when it came down to it, Russell would never have pushed Nolan out of that club and I think Nolan knew that for a fact.”

  Resnick got to his feet. “I’ve taken enough of your time.”

  “Not at all, Inspector.”

  As if by some sign, Farquarson’s secretary, still smiling, was waiting to see him out. Rain was falling from an opaque sky, slanting into Resnick’s face as he turned and began to climb the hill towards the station.

  Nicola Venner said, yes, she would meet him, but not at the house. They met by the boating lake in the University Park, her suggestion; twelve o’clock. The rain had stopped and the air was fresh, leaves and grass a lustrous green. Nicola was wearing jeans, nicely faded, a thin cotton sweater with a high, wide neck. Her eyes were dark from lack of sleep.

  “How’re the boys?” Resnick asked.

  “My mother, she’s taken them off with her for a few days. Northumberland.”

  They walked without talking, a slow circuit of the lake. Above them, the university buildings, gift of Jesse Boot, clean cut in Portland stone.

  “I did my degree here,” Nicola said. “Modern languages. Translation, that was what I really liked. Got off on. Novels, poetry, you know, literary stuff.” She laughed wryly. “When we went abroad
Russell let me order the food, argue about the bill.”

  “And nothing else?”

  She walked on a little further, Resnick alongside. “You’re a grown woman, he’d say, independent. Act like it. Make your own decisions, your own life. And he meant it. Every time.” They were at the mid-point, crossing the bridge towards the second loop of figure eight. “I’d arrange for some work, freelance, once or twice here at the university, and Russell, he’d say good, fine, and then start raising these objections, obstacles, the children, the house, reasons why it was going to be difficult.” She shook her head. “It got so that some days, after he’d left, I’d feel winded. Paralysed.”

  “You talked to him about it, though? I mean, he knew?”

  She laughed again, freer this time. “Oh, he knew. We talked and he promised and the next month or the next week or the very next day we’d be having the same conversation again. So I stopped saying anything. Put up with it. I stopped caring.”

  “For him?”

  “For everything.”

  “You thought about leaving him.”

  She stopped. “Did I?”

  “If things were as bad as you said.”

  They stood back, allowing a woman with a push chair and a sleeping child to walk between them.

  “Sometimes,” Nicola said, “I’d wear myself out thinking about it. It seemed so huge, impossible. Much easier to drink my way through the day.”

  Resnick smiled. “Make asparagus something-or-other.”

  “Yes. Lots of it.” Her eyes were brighter now, taking in the blue of the lake. “I should have taken a lover. That would have slapped me back to life at least.”

  “Maybe brought,” Resnick said, “problems of its own.”

  “I dare say. And now we’ll never know. A little difficult to commit adultery without a husband, I suppose.” When she stopped again, she rested a hand on Resnick’s arm. “I’m sorry, that sounds callous, horrible.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She looked away. “There were times, he’d drive away in the morning, and I wanted . . . I wished . . .” Her fingers bit sharp into Resnick’s arm. “I wanted him dead. Not hurt. No pain. Just absent. Not there. So I wouldn’t have to deal with him again. Dead.”