Easy Meat

by John Harvey

  Thirty years on, the face was more fleshy, thin lines had appeared, crisscrossing the nose and cheeks, blue like Roquefort cheese. Dark hair, graying at the temples, was receding; small flakes of dandruff decorated the shoulders of his dark-blue suit.

  “Of course, this is terrible,” Jardine was saying and Resnick nodded, waiting for the second “terrible” to follow, which it predictably did.

  “A young boy.”

  “Yes.”

  “A tragedy.”

  He could be, Resnick thought, rehearsing the vicar’s empty speech. “Last night, this morning, when the incident occurred—you weren’t on the premises?” He hadn’t intended it to sound hostile, but from Jardine’s expression he could see that it had.

  “I can’t be here all of the time, Inspector.”

  “No, of course. I didn’t mean …”

  “I left, in fact, quite late. Nine thirty or ten. My staff contacted me at home this morning when the … when Nicky’s body was discovered.”

  “And that was Paul …”

  “Paul Matthews, yes.” Jardine’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, chest pressing the edge of the desk. “Inspector, you do appreciate we shall be carrying out a full internal inquiry. I’ve discussed this already with the Director of Social Services. In the meantime, I must ask you not to question any of my staff unless either myself or a solicitor is present.” He settled back into the curve of his chair. “I have no doubt whatsoever, the inquiry will establish that, as far as we are concerned, correct procedures were followed.”

  If the correct procedures had been followed, Resnick thought, then maybe a boy wouldn’t be lying out there dead. He said nothing, but jardine read the accusation, unmistakable in Resnick’s eyes.

  “Nicky’s mother,” Resnick said, “she has been informed?”

  When Resnick left the building less than ten minutes later, it was with a sense of relief. Graham Millington had arrived moments earlier and met Resnick outside, a few crumbs of toast still caught in his mustache. Easy to imagine Madeleine sitting her husband down at the kitchen table: “Graham, you’re not going off at this hour without something inside you. You know how your stomach plays you up when you do.”

  “Straightforward enough, then?” Millington said, apprized of the details.

  “Who knows, Graham? The lad’s dead, no two ways about that, but how and why …?”

  “Topped himself, though, didn’t he? I mean, it was suicide?”

  Resnick sighed. “That seems the most likely—at present.”

  Millington looked back at him quizzically, eyebrow raised. “You’ve no reason to suppose …”

  “No reason, Graham, to suppose a thing. But there’s a social worker in there, Matthews, ready to come apart at the seams. And the director, Jardine, getting the hatches battened down like he was in a time of siege.”

  “Or cholera,” Millington said quietly.

  “Sorry, Graham?”

  “It’s a book the wife was reading …”

  “I dare say, Graham. Anyway, stick around, keep Scene of Crime on their toes. Soon as they’re through, you can release the lad’s body to the hospital. Oh, and Graham, so you know, Jardine gave me the benefit of a lecture, no talking to the staff without his say-so.”

  “And without a social services solicitor to hold their hand.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Ah, well,” Millington grinned ruefully, “do what we can, eh?”

  “By the book, Graham. If there is anything amiss here, we’ll not want to let it slip away.”

  Millington nodded and walked towards the entrance. The morning air was cold and the sky was an almost unbroken gray. Whatever had happened to spring, Resnick thought? At the end of the drive, he looked back towards the tall windows and saw the faces staring down.

  Thirteen

  It was still early on Sunday morning. Kevin and Debbie Naylor lay beneath the duvet, Kevin on his back, Debbie curled over on her side; softly, from the adjacent bedroom, the sounds of their daughter holding a long and complicated conversation with one or other of her stuffed animals.

  “Kevin?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  But just by reaching out a hand and touching him, Debbie could tell that he was lying.

  “Kevin?”

  “What?”

  Debbie laughed and slid one leg across his, the laugh stifling against his chest.

  “Deb.”

  “Mmm?”

  “She might come in at any minute.”

  “Not if we close the door.” She moved her head again and her mouth found his nipple.

  “Ow!”

  “Sshh.”

  “Is it, you know, all right?”

  “Of course it’s all right.”

  Some months ago Debbie had had a miscarriage; she didn’t want to wait too long before giving their only child a little sister or brother.

  “Kevin?”

  But Kevin was smiling as he rolled off his back towards her, the whole thing easy between them now, easier than it had ever been. Just for a second she tensed when he touched her but then quickly relaxed. His mouth at her neck, her breast, and then her hand around him, guiding him in.

  Deftly, Lynn Kellogg fashioned for her mother the story of her Saturday night date; at seven on the dot, her young man, an accountant with a local firm of solicitors, had picked her up at the housing association flat where she lived. They had gone to see the new Alan Bennett play at the Playhouse. Well, not new actually, an old one revived, but with that actor her mum had always liked in The Likely Lads. No, not him. The other one. Yes, very good. Funny. And then they’d gone for something to eat at Mama Mia. Yes, tagli-atelle. Italian, that’s right. Very tasty. And, yes, of course she’d be seeing him again. No, she didn’t know exactly when.

  She could almost hear her mother, sitting in the kitchen of their Norfolk poultry farm, making calculations, crossing fingers, counting chickens, hatching dreams.

  What Lynn had actually done the previous night was read two chapters of a Tom Clancy, walk around the corner for a takeaway chicken korma from the Maharani, pop open a can of Carlsberg, and watch Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan drinking their way through When a Man Loves a Woman on a rented video.

  All those things her mother wanted for her—marriage, babies—Lynn thought she was happy to forgo them all, if that meant she didn’t have to go through all of the crap that seemed necessary to get within even spitting distance of them.

  “How’s Dad?” she asked, breaking across her mother’s words.

  “Oh, Lynnie, he’s fine. Right as rain. Out there with his blessed birds since the Lord knows when. He’ll be in soon for his bit of breakfast, you see.”

  Almost two years ago, Lynn’s father had been diagnosed as having colorectal cancer, cancer of the bowel. He had had an operation, treatment, regained weight, resumed work, almost as if nothing more could happen. It was like sitting on a time bomb, Lynn thought, waiting for the news, imagining what was slowly growing inside him.

  “Lynnie, your dad’s fine. Honest.”

  Her mother who believed in dreams.

  For Norma Snape the best Sundays were not present but past. She could remember when she was still with Patrick, waking late in that bed in Huddersfleld, sunlight patching across the room and Patrick sitting propped on pillows beside her, building his first joint of the day. Then lying there, getting more and more stoned until finally the munchies overcame them and they raided the refrigerator for leftover pizza and chocolate chip ice-cream. Al Green on the record player all the while: “Let’s Stay Together,” “Here I Am (Come and Take Me),” “Call me (Come Back Home).”

  Or later, Sundays with Peter, his hands fluttering at her back like wings, barely touching, never still. Sheena, nine months old, fast asleep close alongside her, thumb in her mouth, hair fair across her eyes. The rise and fall of the child’s tiny chest no more than the delicate pressure of Peter�
�s fingers at the base of her spine. The tension within her as she bit into the soft underside of her lip, waiting for his hands to move lower.

  Norma stirred and reached for the mug of tea she had fetched earlier and which had long since grown cold. Faint from downstairs she could hear the sound of the television, though she’d swear that she’d heard Shane go out the best part of an hour since. She fidgeted the sheet around her and reached for a magazine. She could hear Sheena now, running herself a bath. But not her Nicky, he wasn’t there for certain. Shut up in that place, poor little bastard, shut up in that bastard home. This afternoon she’d get herself up nice, go out and see him, take him some chocolate, cigarettes, something special, something for a treat. No matter what he’d done, when it came down to it he was her son; there was no getting away from that, no getting away from it at all. She’d just stay there ten minutes longer, get up for good then, mash some fresh tea. She lit a cigarette and flicked towards the problem page—anyone else’s but her own, they were a cinch.

  She was still lying there, half an hour later, when the doorbell rang.

  When it became clear that, whoever it was, they weren’t going to go away, Norma pulled on her dressing gown and shuffled to the upstairs window, overlooking the street.

  “What the hell …?”

  She saw Resnick looking up at her and what she saw in his eyes drove into her stomach like a fist.

  Downstairs, she could see him silhouetted through the mottled glass panels at the top of the door. Impatient with the bolts, her fingers finally fumbled back the door.

  “Norma …”

  It was still there in his eyes and in the way he stood.

  “It’s Nicky, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something’s happened to Nicky.”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  Norma’s hands were at her sides, clenched; for a moment she closed her eyes.

  “Norma. I think we’d best talk inside.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Norma …”

  She caught hold of him, the lapel of his coat. “Fucking tell me!”

  Resnick’s breath snagged in his throat. “He was found earlier this morning. Norma, he …”

  “He’s dead.”

  Resnick’s voice was quiet, each word screaming in her head. “Yes. Yes, Norma, I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  She flung back her arm and her hand smashed through the glass of the door. What came from her mouth was more of a hiss than a scream. Resnick caught her and held her close, her breath against his face. Blood ran from her palm and wrist, down past her finger ends onto the floor.

  “Norma, come on. Come on now, let’s get inside.” He led her, half-dragging her, along the short hall. Sheena was standing, white-faced, a towel wrapped round her, at the foot of the stairs.

  “Help me get your mum into the front room.”

  Sheena didn’t move.

  Over and over again, Norma was saying Nicky’s name. Resnick maneuvered her onto the settee and raised her arm so that her hand was level with her head. Cartoon dinosaurs were doing battle on the TV.

  Resnick looked round at Sheena, silent in the doorway. “Get a clean towel, tea towel, anything as long as it’s clean. All right? Now.”

  There were slivers of glass visible in the fleshy part of Norma’s hand, below the thumb. “What … happened?” she gasped. “Nicky, what happened?”

  “Let’s get this mess sorted first …”

  “No! No. Tell me, I want to know.”

  Careful, Resnick eased the longest of the glass shards away; he was holding Norma’s arm upright with his hand. Sheena came back carrying a hand towel. She had pulled on a T-shirt and jeans. “It’s all I could find.”

  “That’s fine. Now phone for an ambulance …”

  “No.” Norma was sobbing, shaking her head.

  “An ambulance, this wants seeing to properly. And get the kettle on, let’s have some tea, all right? Sweet tea.”

  Gingerly, Resnick fingered out another piece of glass and set it carefully with the first, on the floor by the settee.

  “Mr. Resnick, please …”

  He held her other hand as well. “He was found in one of the bathrooms with a towel around his neck. He was hanging. It looks as if he took his own life.”

  She pulled away from him so hard that he was unable to hold her; punched and slapped against him as the cries tore from her throat and didn’t stop until he had caught her wrists and pinned them back and by then the front of his shirt and the side of his face were smeared with blood.

  “It’s okay, Norma,” Resnick said. “It’s okay, it’s going to be all right.”

  But Norma could only remember Nicky’s face as she chased him away, holding her ten pounds aloft and laughing. You let me get my hands on you, you little tripeshanks, and I’ll wring your miserable neck.

  Fourteen

  When Resnick first worked with him, Jack Skelton had begun his days in track suit and running shoes, jogging a couple of miles down the Derby Road towards the university, one lap round the lake and then back up the hill, forehead glistening with sweat and good intentions. Now, he lit his third or fourth Benson of the day between the car-park and the rear door of the station, and his breath was audible by the time he reached the second flight of stairs.

  Time was, too, when Resnick would have had his work cut out to be at his desk before the superintendent of a morning, but this Monday he had almost finished briefing Millington and the rest of the team before Skelton had arrived.

  It had been a weekend like many another. Half a dozen break-ins either side of the Alfreton Road and the same number in the narrow streets at the back of Lenton Boulevard. In one of these, the burglars had made themselves jam and peanut butter sandwiches, opened the mail, then sat around long enough to watch the recording of that Saturday’s Match of the Day, which had been left in the VCR. All of this while three lads slept upstairs, out to the world.

  A van had been stolen from round the back of a bakery in Radford and driven into the canal behind the Raleigh cycle works. Two men had got into a fight in the early hours, which resulted in one biting off the first finger of the other at the tip; the victim had walked into accident and emergency at the Queen’s with the finger safe inside a condom he had been keeping providentially in his wallet. And at a little before seven that morning, three girls wearing face masks, one of them in what looked like a school uniform, had tried to hold up the petrol station by Abbey Bridge with what proved to be a cucumber inside a plastic bag.

  “Another week, eh, Charlie?” Millington had said, stubbing out his cigarette.

  “Least we don’t have Nicky Snape to fret about,” Divine said, getting to his feet.

  Resnick shot him a look that would keep his head down for the rest of the day.

  “The Hodgson youth,” Resnick said to Lynn as she walked by, “safely back at Ambergate?”

  Lynn nodded. “Till the next time.”

  “Good work there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The man they picked up with him …”

  “Brian Noble.”

  “Vice decide to charge him or what?”

  Lynn shook her head. “More trouble than it was worth in the end. Gave him a warning and kicked him free.” She smiled. “What’s the betting he was in church yesterday with his wife and kids, giving thanks.”

  Across the room, Kevin Naylor turned his head from the telephone. “The hospital, sir, Doris Netherfield …” The skin tightened apprehensively around Resnick’s eyes. “No change, apparently. Still holding her own.”

  “Good,” Resnick said, releasing his breath. “Thank God for that as well.”

  Skelton was waiting in his office and listened with barely concealed impatience while Resnick made his report. There were more pressing things on his mind.

  “Don’t know how you managed it yesterday morning, Charlie, out where that kid was found, but you got a hair stuck up the director’s arse of siz
eable proportions. I had the ACC on the phone to me last evening, Assistant Director of Social Services had been onto him, asking whatever investigation we carry out, you wouldn’t be the officer in charge.”

  Resnick grunted in response.

  “According to Jardine you questioned staff without his authority.”

  “I talked to one, the man who let me in. What was I supposed to do, maintain strict silence?”

  “And then, apparently, you all but accused Jardine of culpability in Snape’s death.”

  “That’s nonsense. I accused nobody.”

  “All right, then, implied.”

  Resnick looked past Skelton’s head towards the window; with what seemed unnatural slowness, a plane from East Midlands Airport was making a diagonal pass across a blue-gray sky. “I’d be tempted to wonder, all this defensiveness, if he hasn’t got something to hide.”

  “The suicide? You think there’s something not kosher?”

  Resnick shrugged. “Not necessarily. But if that is what happened, I’d like to know the reasons why.”

  “The way he attacked that old man, kid or not, he might’ve been facing some heavy time. Maybe it was the thought of being shut away.”

  Resnick shook his head. “I think it would’ve taken more than that.”

  “Bullying, then, some of the other youths, is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know. Could be a lot of things.”

  “Or nothing at all.”

  Resnick shifted heavily in his chair. “Dead fifteen-year-old, that’s what there is.”

  Hands clenched behind his head, Skelton leaned his chair back onto its rear legs. “There will be a police inquiry, of course. Routine. The ACC mentioned Bill Aston. What do you think?”

  “I thought he’d been put out to pasture long since.”