Easy Meat

by John Harvey

  “You called it in? Called the police?”

  “And risk my license? It’s not worth it. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything before.”

  “You’ve been warned, then?”

  “Once or twice.”

  Cossall nodded. “These youths, know them well enough to know any names?”

  Slowly, the landlord shook his head.

  “D’you notice where they went from here?”

  “No. But if I was to guess, I’d say on down towards the Trent.”

  “And that’s all it is, a guess?”

  “Afraid so, yes.”

  Cossall took a final swallow at his pint and pushed the glass away unfinished. “Here.” He took a card from his top pocket and set it down on the bar. “If you do hear a name, or if one comes to mind, give us a call.” He winked. “It’ll count for you, not against. Won’t do any harm, someone in your corner, eh?”

  The landlord watched Cossall till he was through the door, swallowed down what remained of his whisky, and allowed himself another. He’d as soon count on a copper like Cossall, he thought, as back himself to win the lottery without buying a ticket.

  Twenty-seven

  Resnick was on his way back from the superintendent’s office when Lynn intercepted him with her analysis of Bill Aston’s movements and contacts during the last twenty-four hours of his life.

  “It’s pretty much all there,” she said, business-like, not quite looking Resnick in the eye. “One or two gaps I still have to fill.”

  Resnick gave the first sheet a quick glance. “Anything that looks helpful?”

  “Afraid not. Trips to the supermarket and the garden center, that’s about it. The pool. Walking the dogs.”

  Resnick nodded, skimming the remainder. A day in the life of a quite ordinary, not especially interesting man. What was interesting about Aston was that he was dead: the manner of his dying.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Lynn said. “You remember you asked me to track down that call Aston made the day of his death? The one that was unaccounted for.”

  Resnick looked at her expectantly and she pushed a folded piece of paper into his hand. He opened it, looked thoughtfully at the name, then folded it again before pushing it down into his breast pocket.

  “There were two other calls, too. Unanswered, but logged in Aston’s office.”

  “Right. Good.” And then, as Lynn turned away, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, still not directly looking at him. “I’d like to take an hour later, personal time?”

  “Fine.”

  They continued their separate ways, Resnick along the corridor towards the CID room, Lynn making for the stairs. Whatever else, Resnick was thinking, she’s right about one thing—all this stuff that’s troubling her, it doesn’t seem to be interfering with her work.

  The meeting with Skelton had not been encouraging. One of his best hopes had been that the second blood sample taken from Aston’s clothes, the blood which wasn’t Aston’s own, would prove to have come from someone who was known. But Jane Prescott had checked the records available to Intelligence, made comparisons with all known and processed samples. Nothing. No match. Which left the shoe prints, the cassette, and—most outside of all outside chances—the bat. After that, they were down to information received, unearthing a witness who had seen or heard more than anyone had so far come forward to say. The media appeals had brought in replies, of course, and these were being processed through the computer and the more promising laboriously checked out. But so far …

  Sheer accident, Bill Aston’s murder? An unfortunate victim who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there a more specific motive? Resnick thought again about the name Lynn had given him and was glad he had already arranged to meet Khan and discuss the Snape inquiry. If there was a connection there, he had to tease it out.

  Reg Cossall was waiting for him in his office, using an empty coffee mug as an ashtray. With a degree of show, Resnick unfastened the window catch and lifted the lower frame high, before sitting down and gesturing with a hand to indicate Cossall should do the same.

  “This could be nothing, Charlie …”

  “I doubt that, Reg. If you thought that, you’d not be here.”

  Cossall smiled his quick, lopsided smile and retold the story of his meeting with the publican on London Road, gracing it with not a few embellishments of the scatological kind. A canny copper, Reg, Resnick was thinking, a man content to wear his prejudices on his sleeve, a glint in his eye like steel as if daring rebuke. Someone like Aston—similar age, equal seniority—they had been able virtually to discard, lost in the shuffle. But Cossall was too valuable, his experience too wide and his arrest rate too high.

  “I checked back with the chap on the Embankment who’d been moaning on about having his Saturday night soccer disturbed. He’s still not positive, but the youths he saw creating a disturbance, they could be the same ones from the pub. Only could, mind. There’s a couple of other reports I’m having checked now, might get confirmation.”

  Resnick turned it over. A strong possibility, it was true. “This fight in the pub, fracas, whatever. No way we can place any of them with something like a baseball bat?”

  Cossall narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “’Fraid not. But it’s got to be a runner, my way of thinking. Specially since we’ve got Jack-shit else. These blokes, kids, not much more, out on the street, all pumped up from the scene in the pub, tanked up too. Maybe Bill said something to them, you know how he was. Bit high and mighty, holier than thou, could’ve told them to keep their mouths down, behave. I can see that, see him doing that, can’t you?”

  Yes. Yes, Resnick could. He’d been in contact with Bill’s Sunday school manner more than a few times. He’d had more than a tendency towards sermonizing, had Bill. “You want to chase it down, Reg, or what?”

  Cossall leaned back, cigarette spooling up smoke from between the fingers of a crooked hand. “Like I said, there are a few things I’m checking into. But keeping on top of all that stuff the computer’s spewing out doesn’t leave a lot of time.”

  “I’ll have a word with Graham, see if he can help. But this landlord, you think leaning on him some more might loosen his tongue? You think he might know exactly who these youths are?”

  “He might. And I’ll do what I can.” Cossall winked. “Within the rules.”

  “Divine’s got a mate with the Football Intelligence Unit,” Resnick said, as Cossall walked towards the door. “Might be a contact worth following up. These lads might well be known to them by the sound of it.”

  “If they are,” Cossall grinned, “I doubt they’ll be County supporters, eh? Need to be drawing your pension, don’t you, ‘fore they’ll as much as let you in the ground?”

  With a sly laugh, Cossall was on his way, leaving Resnick standing beside his desk, picturing the group of young supporters at the last match he had attended. They had been lined up at the back of the stand, Union Jack draped from the wall behind them, raised fists clenched towards the opposition, one of them shielding his face inside a balaclava. He could hear their shrill young voices, lofted in anger. “No surrender! No surrender!”

  It had looked more like news footage from Northern Ireland, a Loyalist rally, than an otherwise tame end-of-season encounter near the foot of the Endsleigh League First Division.

  Two of the phones in the CID room were in use as Resnick walked through, late for his meeting with Khan, and when the third phone rang it was Lynn, on her way back in, who picked it up.

  “Lynn Kellogg, CID.” Working on auto-pilot, not over-friendly today. And then, as she held the receiver towards Resnick. “For you.”

  He pointed towards his watch and shook his head.

  Lynn brought the receiver back towards her and asked who was calling. “Hannah Campbell,” she said, mouthpiece covered now with her hand.

  Surprised at hearing the name, Resnick felt himself b
eginning to flush. He started towards the desk but stopped short, changed his mind. “Tell her,” he said, “I’ll call her later.”

  “Later this afternoon or …?”

  “Probably this evening.”

  She was looking at him now, interested. “Shall I get a number?”

  “No,” Resnick over his shoulder, departing. “It’s all right. No need.”

  Lynn asked anyway, a matter of procedure. Resnick was already descending stairs, two at a time, angry with himself for feeling embarrassed, remembering without pleasure what it had felt like to be twenty-three or -four.

  For his meeting with Resnick, Khan had worn a blue-black blazer, lightweight wool, tan trousers, highly polished brown shoes. His tie, a deep, dull red, almost rust, was one that Jill had given him a month after their second date and the first time they had slept together.

  “What’s this all about?” he had asked, amused.

  “Call it an anniversary, if you like.”

  “Starting off as we mean to carry on, is it?”

  “Something like that.”

  One month later he had given her a pair of minute white bikini briefs, with tiny bows at the sides, blue, he had said, to match her eyes.

  She had punched him, surprisingly hard, on the arm; so hard the bruise didn’t fade for days. “My eyes are brown.”

  Khan laughed. “How should I know? One way or another, they’re usually closed.”

  This time he had caught the fist inside his palm. They were sitting in Jill’s living room, TV and stereo both switched off so that they could hear any of her kids, if they woke and decided to come downstairs.

  Khan was thinking about that now, what had happened next, how it was possible, right down to those last moments, to stay quiet, when he saw Resnick hurrying up the short flight of steps and through the door leading into reception. He had imagined they would talk there, one of the rooms, temporarily spare, at central station, but Resnick insisted that they walk the short distance to the market, Resnick not really wanting to talk until he had downed his first espresso and ordered a second. Khan, not a great drinker of tea or coffee, content to sit and watch, watch and wait, the hubbub of trading all around them.

  “Okay,” Resnick finally said, “how far’ve we got?”

  Khan told him that Phyllis Parmenter had given him a hundred reasons why she could not conceivably reveal the Inspectorate’s findings ahead of publication, then hinted quite heavily that in her view there had been no serious lapses in security, nor any reasons other than the balance of his own mind why Nicky Snape had taken his own life.

  “And Jardine?”

  “Defensive, basically. One minute almost aggressive, the next not able to do enough to help.”

  “Then he’d no objections to our re-interviewing the two staff on duty that evening?”

  “None, but …” Khan smiled, “… Paul Matthews is off sick, quite serious, Jardine says, doesn’t know how long that might go on, and the woman, Elizabeth, er, Peck, she’s on annual leave.”

  “Since when?”

  “This last weekend apparently.”

  Resnick’s second espresso gave hot chase to the first. “Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. “I think we should pay Mr. Jardine a call.”

  “D’you want to ring him first? I could …”

  But Resnick was already on his way. “Let’s make it a surprise.”

  Sounds of Blur and Nirvana, identifiable to Khan if not to Resnick, squeezed from beneath a dozen doors. To the accompaniment of swearing and laughter, two youths played pool in one of the larger downstairs rooms, others sitting around watching, waiting their turn. In the television room, on a large-screen monitor, bought from the proceeds of the recent car boot sale and a sponsored run, another few were deep in shabby armchairs with a video recording of the previous season’s Forest highlights. Good job it’s not County’s, Resnick thought, scarcely have time to settle back before you’d be reaching for the remote control, pressing rewind.

  Jardine only kept them waiting five minutes and then greeted Resnick with a firm handshake, a surprising show of warmth. “Afraid we might have got off on the wrong foot last time, Inspector. Put it down to the strain of what had happened, shall we? But now, come in, come in. Please, sit down. Inspector, um, Constable, what can I get you? Tea? Coffee? Mineral water?”

  Both Resnick and Khan declined. Khan took his notebook from his inside pocket as he sat down, uncapped his pen. The veins crisscrossing Jardine’s face were even more pronounced, Resnick thought, than before. He let his eyes slide again along the rows of photographs on the wall, one at least for each year.

  “Well, it looks as if unofficially as yet of course, but it looks as if the report will put us in the clear. The staff here.” Jardine treated them to his best PR smile, the one more normally saved for the occasional middle-class parent or visiting minor politicians. “I spoke with Mrs. Parmenter only an hour ago. Fortuitous, really. It seems as if she’ll be giving us a clean bill of health.” Abruptly, he leaned forward, arms resting on the surface of his desk, serious now, smile set aside. “Of course, it does nothing to minimize the awfulness of that boy’s death.”

  If he expected agreement, a sharing of sympathy, congratulations even, he got nothing; Resnick let his weight ease back in the chair a little more and crossed his legs, deep creases in the trousers of his suit.

  Nervous under Resnick’s gaze, the director flicked at the dandruff on his shoulder, tugged at the lobe of his ear. He looked from Resnick to Khan—and back again. “The, er, officer, DC Khan, explained there would be questions you might wish to put to me …”

  “Your staff.”

  “Sorry?”

  “There are questions I need to put to your staff.”

  “Of course, if …”

  “Mr. Matthews and Mrs., Miss Peck.”

  One of Jardine’s hands swotted the air in Khan’s direction. “As 1 explained to the young man here, unfortunately neither of them is currently available …”

  “Unfortunately?”

  “I’m sorry, I …”

  “You said, unfortunately.”

  “Yes, I …”

  “Not fortunately?”

  Jardine seemed to be suddenly short of breath. “Inspector, I don’t see …”

  “Miss Peck, she’s on holiday?”

  “Part of her annual leave, yes.”

  “Arranged a long time ago?”

  Jardine’s head swiveled partway towards the chart attached to the wall behind him, annotations and arrows, neat in colored inks. “Usually such things are arranged, you know, at the beginning of the year.”

  “So there was nothing sudden about Miss Peck’s decision to take her leave now?”

  “Oh, no.”

  The green lettering denoting her absence looked, to Resnick, remarkably new; he raised an eyebrow in Khan’s direction and the DC made a note in his book.

  “You’ve no idea, I suppose where she’s decided to take this leave? Abroad, maybe? At home, redecorating the bathroom, something like that?”

  Jardine shook his head. “My staff, their private lives …” He shrugged, as though they could be none of his concern.

  “And Mr. Matthews,” Resnick said, relaxed still, quite relishing this, Jardine’s discomfort, relishing it in a way that was unusual for him and perhaps not exactly understanding why. “I understand he’s off sick?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Tummy bug? Flu? Something more serious?”

  Jardine was giving his ear a little more attention; when his hand brushed, inadvertently, against his hair, another little fall of dandruff showered down.

  “What is wrong with him, Mr. Jardine?”

  “I believe the doctor’s note mentioned nervous exhaustion.”

  “Brought on by what happened here to Nicky Snape?”

  “The note gave no indication …”

  “But that’s likely the reason, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t
know if it’s wise to conjecture …”

  “A member of your staff, you would have realized if he was unduly upset. He found the body, didn’t he? That morning I spoke to him, he seemed distressed.”

  “Naturally. Paul is a very caring man. Dedicated.” For a moment, Jardine’s eyes switched anxiously towards Khan, as if unnerved by the movement of his pen. “Something like that, he would be bound to be affected.”

  Resnick was nodding agreement. “Then there’s nothing else, no other reason that you can think of, no other cause for Mr. Matthews to be suffering from—what was the expression?—nervous exhaustion?”

  “No.”

  “He wasn’t apprehensive, for instance, about the results of the inquiry?”

  Jardine shook his head. “He had no need to be. He would have known that. And rightly. As I said, Mrs. Parmenter …”

  “I meant the police inquiry. DC Khan here. Inspector Aston.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And Miss Peck, as far as you know, she wasn’t unduly concerned about Inspector Aston’s findings?”

  “If she was, she certainly never expressed these concerns to me. Quite the reverse, in fact. After her interview, as I remember, she said that she thought it had been less of an ordeal than she had feared.” Jardine was feeling secure enough to try a smile again. “I’m sure in no small way due to your colleague here.”

  Resnick nodded. “I see. You’ve no idea, then, why she left messages twice at Inspector Aston’s office, or why, when she finally did get to speak to him at his home on the day that he died, they apparently talked for almost three-quarters of an hour?”

  Jardine’s head dipped forward and he closed his eyes. You crafty old bugger, Khan was thinking, looking across at Resnick, you sat on that one well enough.

  “Mr. Jardine?” Resnick said.

  A vein at the side of Jardine’s head was beginning to throb. “I’m sorry, I know nothing about that at all.” He held Resnick’s stare for several moments. “I don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “I’d be obliged,” Resnick said, getting to his feet, “if you would let DC Khan have home addresses and telephone numbers for both Mr. Matthews and Miss Peck. You might as well furnish them for the rest of the staff, while you’re about it. I can’t be sure how many I might need to speak to and it’ll save time later on. Oh, and if you could arrange for a copy of that medical certificate you mentioned?”