by John Harvey
"Marius Gooding. Yes, why? Have we met? You'll have to forgive me, I don't remember."
What she was taking from her pocket was her warrant card.
"I'm a police officer. Detective Constable Kellogg. I…"
He was still smiling his well-mannered, tentative smile when he struck out, the arm that held the newspaper jerking towards her face. For an instant, Lynn was lost in tall pages of newsprint, crisp and self-righteous editorials, as Marius followed up his blow with a push and took to his heels. Twenty yards along the platform, heading for the stairs, he collided with an elderly couple, loaded down with walking boots, binoculars and rucksacks, off for a day in the Peaks. Spinning around, close to losing his footing, Marius started off again in the opposite direction, aiming for the far side of the buffet, the steps that would take him up to the bridge and the open car park, the streets beyond.
Lynn positioned herself well, feet firmly set; she made a grab for his upper arm, ducking beneath his. open hand as he made to fend her off. Her fingers grasped the sleeve of his coat and held fast Marius's impetus rocked Lynn back, but not totally off-balance.
Buttons sprang free as threads snapped.
Most of the people waiting on the platform had ceased worrying about their train. Fingers pointed; cries of "There!"
"There!" and "Look!"
A black porter, white- haired, too small for his blue-black uniform, hovered anxiously, wanting to do something but unsure what.
Lynn ducked again under a nailing arm and tightened her grip on Marius's opposite wrist, forcing it high towards the middle of his back.
Marius gasped with sudden pain.
"Go on, duck," someone called admiringly.
"You show 'im right and proper."
Releasing one of her hands, but not the pressure, Lynn caught hold of Marius's hair, just long enough at the back to give her leverage.
Marius cried out as first one knee, then the other struck the concrete platform.
"Nesh bugger!" a voice came dismissively.
"Be scraightin' next, you see if he ain't."
And, in truth, there were tears in the corners of Marius's eyes.
"Marius Gooding," Lynn said, a little short of breath, "I'm arresting you on suspicion of threatening behaviour…"
"That's ridiculous! When did I ever threaten…?"
"For assaulting a police officer and resisting araest."
The socks matched: a perfect fit. The youth with the earrings and the shaved head had remembered finding the second sock, the one that Naylor had triumphantly discovered in the kitchen, but not exactly where. Somewhere on the stairs, he thought? Out in the yard? Anyway, he had assumed it belonged to one of the other lads (knowing it not to be his, his came from a stall in the market or at Christmas and birthdays from Marks and Spencer, via his parents) and had stuffed it in the washing machine along with an accumulated load. How it had ended up wedged where Naylor had found it, he had no idea, except, socks, well, almost as if they had a mind of their own.
The Coke can still contained minute traces of what Resnick was certain would prove to be crack cocaine.
And the blood on the silk blouse? If blood indeed were what it was?
Forensic tests would be carried out with as much haste as urgent calls from Resnick himself and Jack Skelton could engender. If the blood proved to match that of the late Peter Farleigh, they were as good as there, home free. If not. "So, Charlie," Skelton said, turning away from the window behind his desk, clear blue sky beyond the edge of the building outside.
"Are we there, do you think, or what?"
"Nudging close. Got to be. Business with the sock, could be coincidence, but that's asking a lot. Circumstantial, though, at best."
"This, er, friend of hers Doris Duke. She'd give evidence about seeing the blood on Kinoulton's clothing, as well as her deteriorating mental state?"
Resnick shifted his weight in the chair. Close and yet still far.
"Maybe, though what credence the jury give to her, I don't know.
Something concrete, that's what we need. Positively linking Kinoulton with the attacks, any one of them. That's what we still don't have.
IfFarieigh's hotel room had given up a clearer print that'd be a start, but no. Smudge and fudge. I can lean on McKimber again, but he's got his own reasons for not wanting to get dragged in too far.
Desperate to get back with his wife and kids, poor bugger. "
Skelton coughed, a sudden, sharp attack and Resnick waited while it subsided.
"Course, if we could lay our hands on Kinoulton herself, ask her some questions direct, it might be a different picture."
Skelton nodded neat agreement and nicked out the sides of his suit jacket before sitting back down.
"Not to fret, Charlie; something'!! turn up. "
Once his panic and anger had subsided, Marius Gooding had apologised so abjectly, his tongue must have tasted of the interview room floor.
Over and over. You have to believe, I've never done such a thing in my life. Never struck anybody at all, never mind a member of the opposite sex, a woman. No, Lyim, had observed, but you have done other things.
"What? What other things?"
One by one, she showed him the Polaroids that had been taken inside Dorothy Birdwell's hotel suite. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!
Without further hesitation, Marius had demanded a phone call and a solicitor. The call was to Dorothy Birdwell, who listened patiently to his pleading and then hung up without answering.
The solicitor who arrived was actually a solicitor's clerk. Heather Jardine; a forty-three-year-old Scot, divorced with two teenage children, who had abandoned a stuttering career as a playwright and enrolled in evening classes in law. She knew Lyiin Kellogg fairly well they had been through this and similar procedures before and the two women treated one another with more than grudging respect.
Jardine made sure her client was aware of his rights, had been fairly treated and asked if he might not have a cup of tea.
Lynn waited for Kevin Naylor to join her and set the tape rolling, identifying those present in the room and the time.
"All right, Marius, why don't we talk about the incident with the rabbit first off?"
After a less than ten minutes of prevarication, Marius asked if he could speak to Heather Jardine alone. This allowed, he admitted the incident with the breakfast trolley, said that he had got it ready the previous day and had intended to leave it outside Cathy Jordan's door; seeing the trolley there, waiting to be taken into the room, he had elaborated his plans accordingly.
"And what was the point?" Lynn asked.
"I mean, why go through all of this rigamorole?"
Marius didn't reply immediately. Instead, he swivelled his head and asked Heather Jardine if he had to answer, and she said, no, he did not. Another few moments and he answered anyway.
"It was a symbol," he said.
"Of what I think of her work."
"A symbol?" Lynn repeated carefully.
"Yes."
"Perhaps you'd best explain."
"Oh, if you'd read any, you'd know."
"In fact, I have," Lynn said.
"A little."
"Then you'll know the awful things she does; little children tortured, abused, defiled." His face was a mask of disgust.
"Do you have children, Mr Gooding? Yourself?" Lynn asked.
"I don't see what on earth…"
"I was interested, that's all."
Well, no, then. No, I don't. "
"But it's something you feel strongly about?"
"Yes. Yes, of course. I mean, it's only natural. At least, that's what you would think. And the fact that she's a woman. That it's a woman, perpetrating these things…"
"Not exactly, Mr Gooding."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Ms Jordan isn't actually doing any of these things. She isn't doing anything. Other than writing books. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, but…"
"Let me b
e clear here," Naylorsaid, leaning forward for the first time.
"The business with the rabbit, that was to teach Miss Jordan a lesson, frighten her into stopping writing, what?"
"Huh, she's never going to stop, is she? Not with a formula like that. Raking it in. God knows what she must have earned, the last few years. Though, of course, she hasn't got the respect. Not from the critics, nor the affection of her readers. True affection, like Dorothy."
"That was what you had for Ms Birdwell? Yourself, I mean. Affection and respect?"
"Of course, yes. Why I…"
"Then why this?" Lynn's finger hovered over the first of the photographs.
"Or this? Or this?"
Marius closed his eyes.
"I was upset. I…"
"You seem to get upset a lot," Lynn observed quietly.
"I thought… I know it was stupid and foolish and very, very wrong… but I thought she didn't… Dorothy didn't… after everything that had happened between us, all the 240 time we had spent together…" His body was racked by a sudden sob.
"I thought she didn't love me any more. And I am deeply, deeply ashamed."
The faint whir of the tape machinery aside, the clipped clicking of the clock, the only sounds were the contortions of Marius's ragged breathing as he struggled to recover himself, regain some element of control. Heather Jardine looked at the notepad on her lap and wished she could light up a cigarette; Kevin Naylor simply looked embarrassed. It was Lynn whose eyes never wavered. If ever anyone was in need of therapy, she was thinking, it's this poor, pathetic bastard and not me.
"These feelings you had about Cathy Jordan," Lynn asked, 'about her work. Would you say that Ms Birdwell shared those? "
"Most strongly, yes."
"But she didn't approve of the methods you used to express what you felt?"
"Grand guignol was the term she used. Over-theatrical. Too close for Dorothy's liking to the kind of thing you can imagine Jordan doing herself. Though, of course, that was the point."
"She was happier with the letters, then, was she?" Lynn asked, making a leap of faith.
Marius's face was a picture.
Reaching down for the folder that was leaning against one leg of the table, Lynn extracted copies of the threatening letters Cathy Jordan had received and set them carefully down along the length of the table.
"The letters," Lynn said.
"Have a good look. Remind yourself."
Marius wobbled a little in his seat.
"I think," Heather Jardine said, rising to her feet, 'my client is in need of a break. "
"This interview," Lynn said, face angled towards the tape recorder, 'suspended at seventeen minutes past twelve. "
At four minutes to two, Alison and Shane Charlton rang the buzzer at the Enquiries desk below and asked if they could speak to somebody about the Peter Farleigh murder.
FR1; Forty-three "We had a message," Alison Charlton said, 'you wanted us to get in touch. We've been away, you see. The weekend. " She smiled at her husband, who smiled, a touch self- consciously, back.
"We came in as soon as we heard." The wedding rings, Resnick noticed, were shiny and new on their hands.
"The man who died," Shane Charlton said,
"Alison's mother had saved his picture from the paper. She knew we'd been staying there that night. The same hotel."
"It was Shane's firm's do," Alison explained.
"I recognised him, we recognised him right off," Shane said.
"Didn't we, All?"
"Oh, yes." Her face, bright already, brightened still further.
"We were right facing him, him and her. Going up in the lift. Must have been1 was saying to Shane, wasn't I, Shane? – after that that it happened."
"What time was this?" Resnick asked.
"Can you remember?"
"It would have been round eleven thirty," Shane said.
"Nearer quarter past," Alison said.
"You said, him and her," Resnick reminded her.
"The woman…"
"The woman he was with…"
"Nice looking, she was. Well, quite…"
"Considering."
"Like you say, considering. And I think she'd been drinking, don't you, Shane?"
"Didn't act drunk, though, did she? Not exactly."
"No, it was what she said."
Shane nodded, remembering.
"Come right out with it, didn't she? We might as well not've been there, might we? For all she cared. Well, I'd never've had the guts to have said it. Not the way she did. One hundred and fifty pounds, she said, just like she was talking about, oh, you know, the weather.
A hundred and fifty pounds, to spend the night. I said to Shane after, when we was in our room, would he, like, if he was off on business and on his own, without us being married, of course, would he ever spend that amount of money. And you said you might, d'you remember, but only if she looked like me. I thought that was really sweet. "
She giggled and Shane, embarrassed, fidgeted in his seat.
"Could you describe her?" Resnick asked.
"The woman."
They looked at one another before Alison answered. "She was, well, she wasn't young."
"She was never old," Shane said.
"Thirty-five, should you say, Shane?"
Shane shrugged.
"Something like that."
"And she was dressed, you know, not tarty. Smart, I suppose you'd say. She had this black, button-through dress. Satiny, sort of.
Sleeveless. A blouse underneath. "
"Colour?"
"Blue. It was, wasn't it, Shane? Quite a dark shade of blue."
"I don't know. I don't think I ever noticed."
"I'm sure it was. Midnight blue, I think that's what you'd call it.
Midnight blue. "
"How about her hair?" Resnick asked.
"What do you remember about that?"
"Well, it was dark. Definitely dark. And she wore it up like this…"
Alison demonstrated as best she could with her own hair, even though it was too short to give the proper effect.
'. pinned, at the back. "
"She had one of those things," Shane said.
What things? "
"I don't know, those things you put in your hair."
"A ribbon? She didn't have a ribbon."
"No, not that. One of those plastic thingununies…"
"A comb?" suggested Alison.
"She wasn't just standing there with a comb in her hair, don't be daft."
"That's what they're called, though. Combs."
"Don't you remember?" Shane said.
Alison shook her head.
"It was on the right-hand side," Shane said.
"Well, that was over towards you. Where you were standing."
"That's right."
"What colour was it?" Resnick asked, hanging on to his patience.
"This comb."
"White. Off-white." And, as though plucking the name from the air, smile on his face as if his answer had just won a prize.
"Ivory."
Alison smiled for him.
"I'd like you to look at some photographs," Resnick said.
"Down at Central Station. The Intelligence Bureau. I'll get someone to drive you down."
"Oh, great," Alison exclaimed.
"We'd like that, wouldn't we, Shane?"
The officer set out the photograph of Marlene Kinoulton along with eleven others of similar colouring and general age and appearance.
Neither Alison nor Shane picked her out immediately, but when they did, there was little or no uncertainty.
"It was the hair that threw me, wasn't it you, Shane?"
Alison said.
"She didn't have it down when we saw her. Like I told the other policeman…"
"Inspector Resnick," Shane said.
"Inspector Resnick, yes. Like I told him, her hair was up then. Made her look quite a bit different. Bit older, of course, but smarter.
I'd wear it like that all the time, if I were her. "
Heather Jardine and Lynn Kellogg were standing out at the rear of the station building, the ground around them dark and slick from the quick summer shower. Heather Jardine was having her second cigarette in succession, all the more necessary having given up smoking from New Year's Eve until a week ago last Friday. Now, it was as if she couldn't get the nicotine back into her bloodstream fast enough.
"So how's it been?" she asked and they both knew what she was referring to, Lynn standing there with a polystyrene cup of lukewarm coffee in her hand, not wanting to talk about the kidnapping and its aftermath, not at all, but understanding the other woman's need to ask, the concern.
"Not so bad," Lynn said.
"You know…" Letting it bang.
"I don't suppose," Heather said, 'it's the kind of thing you ever really forget. "
Lynn swallowed a mouthful more coffee; though the sun had come back out, the recent rain had left a nip in the air and she caught herself wishing she had worn a cardigan, some kind of a sweater.
"He's not come up for trial yet, either, has he?"
Lynn shook her head.
Heather drew smoke in heavily and held it in her mouth before exhaling.
"These letters, they're pretty nasty, I know. Threatening, it's true. But even if you could prove in court he actually did send them, there's never any real sense he was intending to carry any of those threats out' Lynn let her continue.
"I suppose if you took some of it literally, there might be a charge of threat to kill, but well… I don't think the GPS would be over the moon about that, do you? Without that, unless the woman wants to press charges herself, take out a civil action, where are you?"
Lynn smiled wearily.
"Public Order Act, section five."
"Ah, you'd not bother. Most your boss is likely to press for, bung him up before the magistrate and have him bound over."
Lynn had a mouthful more coffee and tipped the remainder out on to the wet ground.
"And what about all the rest?"
"Resisting arrest?"
"Assault."
Heather stubbed out the butt of her cigarette on the sole of her shoe.
"First offence, no record, previous good behaviour. I'd be surprised if it got anywhere near court, and if it did, any barrister worth half his fee would argue a hole through the prosecution a mile wide."
"Maybe."
