by John Harvey
Skelton said,
"At least that business with the letters, threats to that woman, Jordan, that seems to have died down."
Muffled but on cue, Resnick's bleeper began to sound.
Cathy Jordan had fallen back to sleep. One of those shimmering dreams that refused to touch ground. Railway carriages, aero planes other people's bathrooms. Silk. Steel. Slivers of skin. She woke with the under sheet wound tight between her legs and her hair plastered to her scalp with sweat.
"Frank?" Frank was still not back. Breakfast? The breakfast didn't seem to have arrived. If room service had knocked, they had got no answer and gone away. Cathy prised herself from the bed and made it, less than steadily, to the shower.
Testing the temperature of the water with her hand, she stepped beneath the shower, letting the water stream over her neck and shoulders and as, eyes closed, she lifted her face towards it, she felt braced, revived.
Ten minutes later, Cathy briskly towelled herself down. Through the curtains, she saw it was another fine day. Not exactly sunny, but fine. Better than she had anticipated. Maybe she'd laze around a little longer, take a look at the Sunday papers. Wasn't that interview she'd done being printed today?
She glanced around. Frank could have taken the newspaper with him when he went out, but that seemed unlikely. Probably, they were still outside in the corridor.
Wrapping a towel around her, Cathy pulled back the door and looked out. There they were, and a full breakfast trolley, too. A glass cafetiere with silver trim, juice, several pots of honey and jam, a bread basket covered with a starched white cloth. Oh, well, the coffee would be cold, but nothing was wrong with orange juice and a couple of cold croissants. Cathy wheeled the trolley back inside and snapped the door closed with her hip. Letting the towel fall to the floor at her feet, she flicked back the cloth from the basket and screamed.
Where she had expected croissants, a baby nesflet snugly, its limbs, where they showed through its bab) clothes, skinned and streaked with blood.
Thirty-three The flesh was rabbit, not the supermarket kind, but bought fresh and skinned, none too expertly at that. The blood, it seemed, had been squeezed from a pound or so of liver, the richness of the smell suggesting pig as the most likely source. Baby clothes, otherwise new, had been purchased at Mothercare. The face, cherubic and brittle, had been detached from a child's doll, the old-fashioned kind.
It was not until later, when the trolley was being carefully checked and searched, that the note was found, a single sheet inside a small envelope which had been slipped between two napkins, folded beneath an empty glass.
"You don't want to see it," Resnick said.
Yes, I do. "
"There's no point, not now. Why don't you wait?"
Till when? " Cathy Jordan had laughed.
"Till I'm feeling better?"
When Resnick had first arrived, she had been standing by the window, dressed in denim shirt and jeans, an absence of colour in her face.
Someone from the hotel had brought her black coffee and brandy and she had drunk the latter, allowed the coffee to get bitter and cold.
The trolley and its contents were where she had left them, towards the centre of the room.
Frank Carlucci had arrived back from the pool a little after Resnick, unaware that anything was wrong. Immediately, Cathy had rounded on him, shouting, where in God's name had he been, why the fuck was he never there when she needed him? Once, hard, she had pounded her fist against the meat of his shoulder and Frank had lowered his head, eyes closed, bracing himself for her to strike him again.
"Can't someone, for Christ's sake, get me some fresh coffee up here?" she had said, turning away, letting her hands fall by her sides.
Since then she had been quiet, almost controlled, patient while Resnick made calls, issued orders, people came and silently went.
Conversations were held in hushed tones beyond the door.
Handling the edges carefully with gloves, Resnick held the note towards Cathy Jordan's face. It had been typed on an ill-fitting ribbon, black shadowing into red: How do you like this? The only misbegotten child you're likely to have.
Cathy read it slowly, again and again, tears filling her eyes until she could no longer see. Blindly, she moved towards the bathroom, banging her shin against the low table laden with magazines. When Frank went to help her, she pushed him angrily away.
The two men looked at one another, Resnick replacing the note inside its envelope.
"What kind of a sick bastard does something like this?" Frank asked.
"I don't know," Resnick said. All the while thinking, this weekend the city is full of them, writers, film makers, people for whom thinking up things like this is meat and drink.
"Frank," Cathy said, coming back, tiredness replacing the shock in her eyes, 'would you be a sweetheart, see what's happened to that coffee? "
Sure. "
As Frank picked up the phone, Mollie Hansen appeared in the doorway and Resnick motioned for her to stay where she was, walking over and leading her into the corridor outside.
"I only just heard," Mollie said. Her face, usually unblemished and even, was beginning to show signs of strain.
"I'm not sure I know everything that happened."
Concisely, Resnick told her all she needed to know.
"How's she taking it?" Mollie asked.
"She's angry, upset, pretty much what you'd expect."
"And those threatening letters she had do you think this is the same person?"
"It's possible. As yet there's no way of knowing. At first sight, the note doesn't seem to have been written on the same machine. But that might not mean a thing."
"And you don't imagine…"
What? "
"Well, that business with the paint. This couldn't be another stunt to get publicity for their cause?"
"Vivienne Plant and her friends? I don't know. I'd have thought she'd have had a photographer on hand, at least. But we'll talk to her, all the same."
"Good." They were standing near the lift doors, opposite a lithograph of trees and a beach, shaded pink.
"Can I talk to her? Cathy?" Mollie asked.
"From my point of view, no reason why you shouldn't. But you might leave it a while longer. Give her some time to settle down."
Mollie sighed, looked at her watch.
"I suppose so. It's just she's got this interview this evening with Sarah Dunant. If she isn't going to be able to go ahead with it, I ought to let Sarah know."
"Why don't you give her half an hour?" Resnick said.
"I can let her know you're around. If she says she wants to talk to you now, I'll let you know."
"Fine," Mollie smiled tiredly.
"Thanks."
Behind her, the lift shushed to a halt and Lynn Kellogg stepped out, Kevin Naylor immediately behind her. "Thought you could use a little help," Lyim said. Resnick nodded his thanks and set them both to work.
Susan Tyrell stood in the centre of the kitchen, door open to the garden, whisking meringue and wondering how long it had been since she and David had made love. Probably it had been Christmas, that squeaky bed in her parents' spare room, several bottles of cheap champagne and some good port enough to stir a little life into David's libido. Even then, he had called out the name of some movie star at the point of climax. His and not hers. Hers had been an altogether quieter, more private affair, later.
Since then it had been a cuddle last thing at night, those long moments before falling into sleep, David's last waking act to turn away from her arms.
"Why do you stay with him?" her friend, Beatrice, had asked.
Susan had sat there like a contestant on Mastermind, stumped for the right answer.
"This damned festival," Tyrell said, coming into the kitchen, cell phone in his hand, 'is getting more like a Quentin Tarantino screenplay every day. "
Terrific, Susan thought, blood and gore and bad seventies pop songs, continuing to stir the meringue as he re
layed the events at the hotel.
"You are coming to the show this afternoon?" Tyrell asked.
"Oh, yes, I expect so."
"You should. Aside from one screening at the Electric in 1982, Dark Corridor hasn't been shown in this country since the fifties. And Curtis himself hasn't set eyes on a print of Cry Murder since he was still in the States."
"Really?" Susan said with barely feigned interest. The meringue was just stiff enough now to cover the pie. She could have got into an argument about rarity not always equalling quality if the damn films were any good, why hadn't some enterprising programmer shown them? – but she lacked the energy.
Umpteen eleven- to eighteen-year- olds, nine till four, Monday to Friday, she knew well enough to reserve her strength for what really mattered.
Back at the hotel, Lynn Kellogg and Kevin Naylor were questioning as many of the staff and guests as they could find. Resnick had phoned Skelton and arranged to meet him back at the station to make his report; he had promised to talk with Cathy again later. Frank sat in the chair before a silent television, watching a ball game that, for all its apparent similarities to baseball, he just didn't understand.
Cathy Jordan lay on the bed, fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling with blank, blue eyes.
Thirty-four "I guess when I married Frank, that was more or less my last chance.
Kids, I mean. Oh, we talked about it, back and forth, you know. Frank he would have been keen, keener than me, if you want to know the truth, but, well, the time never did seem right. This book to be finished, that book; another damn tour. In the end, I suppose the idea just ran out of steam. "
Cathy Jordan had wanted to get away, clear her head, and Resnick had brought her to Wollaton Park, green slopes and a golf course, ornamental gardens round an old ancestral pile and down below where deer were grazing, the lake they were walking around.
"You have kids?" Cathy asked.
Resnick shook his head.
"But you're married, right?"
"I was. Not any more."
"I'm sorry." She laughed.
"I say that, sorry, automatically, you know, without thinking. Truth is, half the friends I've got are divorced and most of the others wish they were, so…"
They emerged between brightly coloured rhododendron bushes at the far end of the lake, a middle-aged couple walking amongst other couples who were exercising their dogs, simply enjoying the sunshine. Here and there, men sat transfixed beside fishing rods, immovable as stone.
"Mostly, now, I never think about it. Kids, I mean. Then something happens like today well, never like today, 192 not, thank God, exactly like that and somehow it starts up again…" Her voice trailed away and it was a good few moments before either of them spoke. A pair of Canada geese skidded noisily on to the water, scattering blue.
"I guess it gets easier, right? I mean, the point finally has to come, you accept it: I am not going to be a parent."
Resnick shrugged.
"Maybe," he said, not believing it was so. Even now it would lurch at him, unsuspected, out from the darkest corner of the house or through the glare of a midsummer street the urge to have a child of his own.
"Well, I tell you," Cathy was saying,
"I'm from a big family and whenever we get together, nephews and nieces every which way, I get home after one of those things and I'm glad of the rest." She laughed.
"I've got three sisters, five cousins, seems they pop another one out whenever they stop to take a breath."
Resnick smiled and together they walked on past the lake's edge and up the slow incline towards the Hall. By the time they had turned through the gateway past the stables and the small agricultural museum, it was time to drive the short distance back to the city.
"You going to be okay?" Resnick asked. They were standing beside the car in the hotel forecourt, motor idling.
"Mollie seemed concerned about this interview you have to do."
Cathy gestured dismissively with her hand.
"I'll be fine. And listen, thanks for this afternoon. Most people wouldn't have taken the time.
I'm only sorry I wasn't better company. "
"That isn't true."
She threw back her head and laughed.
"Along with everything else, I'm fucking premenstrual!"
Resnick watched her walk towards the doors.
"Take care," he said, then climbed back in the car and drove to the station.
Millington's wife was spending the afternoon rehearsing The Merry Widow and he had come in to the office in an open-neck shirt and his third-best sports jacket, the one with the leather-patched sleeves, and was threading his way, painstakingly, back through the statements mat pertained to Peter Farleigh's murder. Something whose importance they had failed to grasp, a connection they had missed if it were there, so far it had eluded him.
"Call for you from the wife," Millington said, seeing Resnick walk in.
Resnick's stomach went cold; without reason, his first thought was of Elaine.
"Ex-wife, that is," Millington went on.
"Widow. Farleigh's."
"Sarah," Resnick said.
"Yes, that's it. Wants to know, once the inquest is over, will we be prepared to release the body?"
Resnick's breathing was back to normal.
"I'll talk to her, thanks."
He looked down at the material on the sergeant's desk.
"Anything?"
Millington shook his head.
"About as enlightening as shovelling shit."
Resnick nodded and moved away.
"Boss." He turned again at the sound of Divine's voice; Mark coming into the room with a slice of part-eaten ham and pineapple pizza folding around his hand. Lunch, Resnick thought, I knew there was something.
"Had a bell from Gamett. Says she's going to have another go at Kinoulton's mate later, reckons as how she knows more'n she's letting on."
"You think she's right?"
"Could be. Let's face it some bugger's got to know something."
"Okay," Resnick said.
"Keep on top of it." Sharon Gamett, Divine thought, I shouldn't mind. Tilting back his head as be lifted the pointed end of pizza to his mouth, he wandered over towards his desk.
In the corner near the kettle, Resnick found the remnants of a packet of chocolate digestives and dunked them in lukewarm tea. He was considering phoning Sarah Farleigh, still wondering exactly what he might say, when Kevin Naylor and Lynn Kellogg got back from Cathy Jordan's hotel.
Naylor had talked to the room service staff on duty, the young woman who had prepared Cathy Jordan's breakfast tray, the man who had taken it up to her room, knocked, received no reply and left it on the trolley outside the door. He had talked to the maid who had been changing bed linen and towels on that floor. Everyone had followed procedure; no one had noticed anything amiss. Unless one of the staff were lying, and Naylor didn't think this was the case, the most likely scenario was that the macabre 'baby' had been exchanged for the proper contents of the basket while the trolley was outside the room. Which raised the question since, presumably, the thing had required planning, and since whoever was responsible could hardly have been sure the breakfast trolley would be so conveniently standing there what other means had been envisaged for its delivery?
After helping Naylor a while at the hotel, Lynn had gone off in search of Vivienne Plant, who, after a few obligatory warnings about harassment, had been only too happy to give the names and addresses of three witnesses who could testify that she had been engaged in a fortnightly badminton game that morning, after which she and her friends had progressed to Russell's bar for a good, unhealthy fry-up brunch.
"Okay," Resnick said, having listened to their reports.
"Without getting into a lot of lengthy forensics and committing more hours than we can afford, that may be as far as we can go. For now, anyway."
"That's okay, then," Naylor said, walking with Lynn across the QD room.
"We c
an get back to doing something important."
Lynn stopped in her tracks.
"What?"
"Well, you know. Not as if there was any real harm done," Naylor said.
"No harm?"
"You know what I mean. It's not as if anything actually happened."
"Something happened all right," Lynn said.
"Yes," Naylor agreed, digging an even deeper hole for himself, 'but not serious. "
"Suppose it had been Debbie, though, Kevin, how would you feel, then?
How would she feel, d'you think? "
"She'd be upset, course she would…"
"Upset?"
"Yes, but she'd get over it."
"Which means it's not worth our bothering with?"
"Not as much as some other things, no."
"If she'd been hit, though? Physically attacked, raped even?"
"Then, of course, that'd be different."
Lynn laughed, more a snort than a laugh.
"Fact you can't see wounds and bruises, Kevin, doesn't mean a person hasn't been damaged. Hurt.
Doesn't have to mean it's less serious. "
Doris Duke didn't look as if she were working. Instead of high heels, she was wearing a pair of scuffed trainers and there was a hole at the back of her black tights big enough to slip a hand through. Aside from what still stuck, haphazardly, to her face from the previous night, she wore no make-up. Her hair had been pulled back from her head and hung raggedly down, secured by a couple of pins and a rubber band. There was a cigarette in her hand.
Sharon eased the car over to intercept her and Doris's head instinctively turned; she wasn't out looking for business, but she wasn't going to shunt it away.
As soon as she recognised Sharon, she knew it was business of a different kind.
"What d'you want now?" she asked, trying to summon up a belligerence that wasn't really there.
Sharon set the hand brake slipped the car into neutral. "Talk."
"Oh, yeah? What about now?"
"This and that?"
"Pay for my time, will you?"
