Easy Meat

by John Harvey

  “Yes, get on it now. Take Carl here with you, okay? And stay sharp, the pair of you.”

  They were leaving when Resnick returned, sullen and sad-eyed. Millington waited while the kettle boiled and the tea had mashed before filling him in on all the details.

  “Right, Graham,” Resnick said, fortified, “let’s get over to the Snape place, you and me, see if we can’t lay our hands on Shane. Mark, Lynn, you’d best be along for the ride.”

  When Norma opened the door to Resnick, mid-afternoon, she was still wearing what she had slept in, an old dressing gown pulled loosely round her. One look at Resnick and she turned back into the house. The curtains in the front room were closed and the television on. Norma had one cigarette in her hand, another, forgotten, smoldering alongside cold toast.

  “Norma,” Resnick said, “what’s happened? Are you all right?”

  She looked at him as if she hadn’t properly heard what he had said.

  “Norma, it’s Shane. Is he here?”

  A slow shake of the head.

  “We’ve got a warrant to search the house.”

  “What do I care?”

  Resnick nodded at Millington and Divine and they moved quickly towards the stairs. He waited until Norma had flopped down into the settee and then he switched down the sound on the TV; outside, in the backyard, the dog was barking frantically to be fed.

  “Should I let him in?” Resnick asked.

  Norma didn’t care about that, either.

  He motioned for Lynn to stay with Norma while he tipped dog biscuits into a bowl and unlocked the rear door, careful to keep well to one side when the dog tore in. He could hear Millington and Divine moving around, heavy footed, upstairs. Back in the front room, he sat across from Norma, waiting for her eyes to focus on him.

  “It’s serious, Norma, this time. That alibi you gave him, him and his pal, it doesn’t stand up.” Her eyes flickered as if still only half understanding what he was saying. “Where is he, Norma? Shane. Where is he now?”

  Footsteps on the stairs were followed by a slow shake of Millington’s head, its expression telling Resnick they’d found nothing. Neither Shane nor any weapon: burned it or hidden it, Resnick thought. He was tempted to see the baseball bat floating off down the Trent, hurled there after Aston’s murder and never found—except for what had happened to Declan Farrell, the particular agonies he’d been put through. A varnished implement, solid, hard. They had searched along a half-mile stretch of railway line, between overgrown gravestones, in among bushes and across fields. Every dustbin, backyard, and cranny.

  He smashed this bloke about the face like he wanted to take his head clean off.

  Resnick pictured Shane standing there, sweat on his lip, breathing hard, hatred and anger bright on his face.

  Why?

  “Your Shane,” Resnick said, “when he’s not hanging round with this Gerry, are there any other friends he sees? Special, I mean?”

  Norma didn’t answer.

  “Girlfriends?”

  “Sara Johnson,” Norma said scornfully. “Slag.”

  “You know where she lives?”

  Norma didn’t have a clue, couldn’t have cared less, but she thought she worked in the Viccy centre, in the Food Court, somewhere like that.

  “Make sure the house is watched,” Resnick told Millington when they were back outside. “Front and back. And keep in touch with the station. Lynn, let’s you and me see if we can’t find this Sara Johnson.”

  At the curb, he turned back. “Look sharp, all of you be on your guard. Think on what he’s maybe done. He’s young and he’s strong, likely he’ll not come easy.”

  “Just give me the chance,” Divine said, once Resnick had gone. “Shane Snape, one on one, see how easy he comes then.”

  Once in the Food Court, steering his way between the shopping trolleys and the prams, Resnick realized he had seen Sara Johnson before; she had served himself and Hannah with coffee and now she did so for himself and Lynn, strong, small espressos in waxed paper cups. They identified themselves and asked Sara if she wouldn’t mind answering a few questions; carried the coffees to one of the nearby tables and sat down, Sara, pretty in her pink uniform, a fine sculptured face and lazy eyes, seventeen.

  Self-conscious, she lit a cigarette and wafted the smoke away from her face with her hand.

  “I don’t know,” she said in answer to Resnick’s question. “I haven’t seen Shane for a week or more now.”

  “Sara, you do understand this is important?”

  The tip of her tongue pressed for a moment against the underside of her upper lip. “I’m not a liar, you know.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ve not seen him. Besides, he wouldn’t come round to me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Near them, a man in a shabby overcoat, once someone’s best, but a long time ago, was coughing repeatedly into the back of his hand, rough-edged and raw. It was enough to make Resnick’s throat sore. “Why d’you say that?”

  “He just wouldn’t, that’s why.” There was irritation, mixed with amusement, in her eyes. “For one thing, on account of my old man can’t stand him, won’t have him inside the house, right? For another, I finished with him. Two weekends ago now.”

  Resnick reminded himself not to ignore his espresso.

  “Why did you chuck him, Sara?” Lynn asked.

  Sara tilted back her head and released a thin plume of smoke. Her nails were painted, Resnick noticed, with some kind of varnish that glittered, like the sprinkles on an ice cream sundae. “We went out, right. The Sat’day. Going to the pictures, that’s what I thought, but no, he didn’t fancy that, so we went up the Malt House for a drink. After that, I don’t know where. The Dog and Bear? Anyway, after that we come back down the Square and Shane, he calls a cab, so I think, oh right, his mum must be out, back to his place, usual thing, as if that’s all he’s got on his mind. Blokes, you know. Though in Shane’s case, you had to sometimes wonder why he bothered. Anyway, I get in the cab and he tells me he’s not coming, promised to meet one of his mates. Give the driver a fiver and tells him to take me home. Well, I wasn’t having that. I told him if that was how he felt, maybe he should spend all his time with his precious mates and stop wasting it on me.” She looked at Resnick and gave a little shrug. “That was that.”

  “How did he react?” Lynn said. “When you told him that?”

  Sara glanced back over towards the counter where she worked. Watching her, Resnick caught himself wondering if she knew just how pretty she was. “He didn’t care,” she said. “I don’t think he ever did.”

  The coughing had been joined by a small child’s shrill wailing and Resnick waited for the ensuing shout and slap. Through hidden speakers, a tinkly organ with percussion accompaniment was following “The Skye Boat Song” with “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?”

  “Look,” Lynn said, lowering her voice, “I don’t want to pry, but you said, well, you implied, sex with Shane, it wasn’t all it might have been.”

  Sara grabbed at her packet of Silk Cut and fidgeted back in her chair. “What d’you want to ask about that for?”

  “Sara, I’m sorry, I know it’s personal, but believe me, we’re not asking for no good reason.”

  She took a long drag on her cigarette and momentarily closed her eyes. “It was like, you know, he always wanted it, just never … well, not never, but … Everything was always okay when we, when he … Look, I can’t believe I’m sitting here telling you this, it’s like being on that, what d’you call it, Ricki Lake Show. But sometimes, well, let’s put it this way, what he was in such a hurry to start, he couldn’t always finish. How’s that for you?” She stubbed out her cigarette and hurried to her feet, glancing back again at the unattended coffee machine. “Now I’ve got to go, I’ll get fired. All right?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lynn said, leaning back. “And Sara, thanks.”

  Resnick watched her go, the tight swish of her legs inside her pin
k uniform. Why was it, since Hannah, he had begun again to notice these things?

  “Good,” Resnick said. “You made a sight better job of that than I would.”

  Lynn gave him a quick smile and drained her cup. They found a phone near the Mansfield Road exit and Resnick called the station; so far, there had been no sign of Shane. But twenty minutes previously, the fibers found inside the leather glove had been successfully identified as coming from Gerry Hovenden. Nothing now to stop them charging him with the murder of William Aston.

  “Right,” Resnick said, passing on the news to Lynn as they headed for the lift. “Let’s get back sharpish.”

  “What you mean is,” Lynn grinned, “you want me to drive. Again.”

  Forty-six

  Naylor and Vincent relieved Millington and Divine ten minutes short of six o’clock; not that Millington himself was in any hurry—his wife, he knew, was all set for one of her evening classes, and leftover mushroom lasagna, neatly wrapped in environmentally friendly cling film, would be all there was to go home to.

  “The daughter,” Millington said, “Sheena, is it? She came in about an hour ago, left ten, fifteen minutes back. Aside from that, about as quiet as the proverbial.”

  Divine and Vincent contrived to change places without exchanging either a look or a glance.

  “Nearly forgot,” Millington said, leaning back in through the car window nearest to Naylor. “How’d it go with Frankie Miller’s mate, Orston?”

  “Clammed up at first,” Naylor said, “much as you’d expect. Once he started talking, though, everything he said pretty much agreed with Miller’s version of events. Right down to standing there while them others beat Aston senseless. I asked him if he hadn’t been tempted to step in, try and put a stop, but he said, no, it weren’t none of my affair. Only thing he was sorry about, callous bastard, was that Shane had used his baseball bat to lay into him with.”

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Millington said. “What it’s all coming to, blokes like that.”

  “Good bloody thumping,” Divine said, “that’s what he needs. Only thing his sort bloody understand.”

  While Naylor and Vincent were on duty outside the Snape house and Millington was watching The Bill and washing his microwaved lasagna down with a can of Carlsberg, Divine was mooching around his flat, unable to get interested in either of the videos he’d rented from Blockbusters, The Specialist and Highlander III; the pizza he’d phoned out for sat cold in its cardboard box.

  By ten thirty he was so edgy that he’d dialed the number of the staff nurse from the Queen’s who’d spent nine months getting him to change his ways and then, when he almost had, had dumped him just the same. At the sound of Divine’s voice she set down the phone.

  Once in the car, he was on his way along the Radford Boulevard before he was wholly conscious of where he was heading or why.

  Naylor was sitting in the unmarked Sierra, seventy yards back along the road, with an unimpeded view of the Snape house.

  “Must want something to do,” Naylor remarked, as Divine got into the seat alongside him.

  “Reckon so,” Divine said. “Anything up?”

  Naylor shook his head. “Mrs. Snape left. Norma. Some woman friend of hers came round and they went off. Had this small bag with her. Suitcase, like. Asked her where she was going and she said round to this friend’s for the night. Made a note of the address just in case.”

  “You don’t think she could have been sneaking out some clean clothes to her Sonny Jim?”

  Naylor laughed. “Not unless he’s into dresses and frilly bras.”

  “Never can tell nowadays. Speaking of which, where’s our Carl?”

  Naylor pointed towards the house. “Watching the back entry.”

  “Who better?” Divine said.

  Naylor gave him a look but left it at that. He knew better than to get into an argument with Divine about what was politically correct.

  After forty minutes of sporadic conversation, Divine lit another cigarette and said, “Why don’t you get off home, Kev? Keep Debbie company. No point us both sitting here.”

  “No, you’re okay.”

  But when Divine asked him again, twenty minutes later, he agreed. He was getting out of the car when Vincent appeared, out of the alley entrance and walking towards them across the road.

  “Seen anything?” Naylor asked hopefully. Vincent shook his head. “Only the back of the house with all the lights out. Upstairs curtains drawn. Only sound’s from that dog of theirs, carrying on every once in a while to get let out.”

  “Mark,” Naylor said, “if you’re serious about hanging on, why don’t you go round the back for a spell? Then Carl can take my place here for a change. I’ll get off home for a bit. All right?”

  Divine didn’t like the idea of doing Carl Vincent any kind of a favor, but he agreed all the same. At least round the back he could pace up and down if he’d a mind, better than getting a numb bum in the Ford. And that’s what he did: walk, lean, light a cigarette; lean some more, walk.

  He was just approaching the house from the farther end of the entry when he saw something move in the yard. A shadow, low against the wall.

  Divine waited till his breathing had steadied and then moved on slowly, careful to lift his feet, not to kick a stray stone or stumble. By the time he had got to the gate, he realized it was the dog.

  All right. The breath punched out of him with a sigh. Only the sodding dog. And then, instantaneously, his palms began to sweat. The dog: the dog was inside, Carl had said so. Whining inside the house, wanting to be let out. And for him now to be out, someone must have gone in.

  He lifted the latch on the gate, and eased it open. Haif a dozen paces and he was at the back door. Listening, he heard no sound. He thought the door would have been locked again from the inside, but it had not. At the doorway leading off from the kitchen he paused and listened again, nothing but the pump of his own heart. Sweat was in his hair now, running the length of his neck. Holding his breath he stepped quickly into the front room and waited to let his eyes become more accustomed to the light. Nothing beyond the usual.

  Divine turned towards the stairs.

  Only once, when he hesitated midway up the stairs, did he ask himself the question he would ask himself a thousand times later, why hadn’t he called Vincent for backup before going in?

  Three of the four doors were open, partly at least. Divine’s mouth was dry and he ran his tongue across his lips; started counting to three inside his head and on two, turned the handle and pushed the door back as fast as he could. Flicked on the light.

  A girl’s room, posters of Take That and Keanu Reeves on the walls. Cuddly toys on the bed. The small wardrobe was crammed with clothes, some on hangers, many not.

  Maybe, Divine thought, Vincent had been wrong; what he had heard had been the dog in the backyard, yammering to get in.

  He could see the shape of a double bed through the doorway to the next room, covers all in a nick. Norma Snape’s room, he supposed. Shoes scattered across the floor, haphazard piles of clothes, pairs of tights hanging from a dressing-table mirror—Jesus! What a mess! He stepped over a discarded pair of jeans and a high-heeled shoe and that was enough; some sense alerted him, so that he swung his head towards a sound felt rather than heard and turned smack into the full curve of a baseball bat, swung with all the force of a young man, fit and in his prime, striving to strike the ball clear out of the park. The crack as Divine’s cheek-bone fractured was sharp and clear and as he catapulted back across the room, before he lost all hearing in that ear, he heard Shane say, smiling, “This what you’re looking for?”

  Divine bounced forward off the wall and Shane swung the bat again, down onto the top of his shoulder, breaking his collarbone.

  “Didn’t I tell you it’d be me and you?”

  Without Shane having to do anything more, one of Divine’s legs buckled under him and he went sprawling to the floor, crying out as his injured arm fell again
st the base of the bed.

  Shane grabbed him by his other arm, the collar of his coat and shirt and lifted him up, throwing him down again upon the mess of sheets.

  Divine wanted to shout, but somehow he couldn’t think how. Shane on one knee on the bed beside him, reaching underneath him, feeling for his belt. Oh, Christ!

  “Didn’t I say I’d have you?”

  A wrench and Divine’s legs kicked upwards as his trousers were yanked down about his knees, his boxer shorts next, Divine struggling to fight back, use his elbows, arms, the back of his head, anything, but when he did the pain that seared through him was enough to make him cry out and that was before Shane slid one arm around Divine’s neck and began to squeeze it back, his other hand feeling between Divine’s legs, fingers beginning to push against the clenched sphincter, all the time repeating words Divine could barely hear.

  “Slut. Whore. Cunt. This is it, this is what you want, you know it is.”

  Shane pulling at the front of his own jeans, freeing himself, and then kneeling above Divine, one arm still so tight about his neck that Divine was close to fainting, wishing he could faint, praying for it, rocking his body backwards, trying to throw him off, trying … Oh, God! The pain was sudden like a knife and sharp and then Shane was pushing into him and shouting louder and louder that litany of words again.

  “Whore! Cunt! This is what you want, you bastard! You fucking cunt!” Shane throwing himself across Divine as he came, sinking his teeth into the flesh at the back of his shoulder and puncturing the skin.

  The sound of the door slamming downstairs must have registered seconds after it happened. Shane pulling away and clutching at the top of his jeans, trying and failing to cover himself and at the same time reach for the baseball bat that had become jammed between the mattress and the foot of the bed before Carl Vincent burst through the door.

  Vincent, diving at Shane headlong, the top of his skull striking Shane’s breastbone as the bat flew from Shane’s hand and he fell backwards against the wall beneath the window. Vincent punching him once, twice, then slamming the point of his elbow hard into the center of Shane’s face, before seizing his arm and turning him, one knee driving down into the small of his back, Vincent’s cuffs in his hand now, one of them fastening about Shane’s wrist and the other half locked around the pipe from the radiator.