Cold in Hand

by John Harvey

  Scrub it all out and start again?

  Increasingly bored and listless, Lynn persuaded the medical officer to declare her fit to resume work and, rather than being assigned to the hunt for Kelvin Pearce, she was pulled in to help out on an investigation into a double murder that had stalled, a twenty-nine-year-old woman and her four-year-old daughter, the daughter smothered with a pillow as she slept, the mother stabbed with a kitchen knife eleven times. To the senior investigating officer it had looked straightforward, open and shut: the woman and her partner had split up acrimoniously eight months before, since which time she had started a new relationship with another man.

  There was ample evidence to suggest that the father, who had moved out of the family home when the split occurred, had made several attempts at reconciliation, all of which had been rebuffed. Neighbours were aware of numerous rows between the pair, and on two occasions – once in the aisles of the local supermarket and once on the street outside – he had been heard to threaten violence. ‘If I can’t fucking have you, no other bastard will!’

  As the SIO had said, open and shut.

  Except that the father – the obvious suspect – had been on a friend’s stag weekend to Barcelona when the murders had occurred. Friday night through to Sunday afternoon. Witnesses from amongst the men he had travelled with, staff at the various clubs and bars they had visited, hotel staff and airline personnel, accounted for practically every minute of his time.

  As accurately as the pathologist had been able to pinpoint it, mother and daughter had been killed in the early hours of Sunday, somewhere between two and four a.m.

  When the father had been informed of what had happened on his return, he had broken down, visibly shocked, and wept.

  The only other person potentially involved – the new boyfriend, a fitness instructor at one of the city’s health clubs – had been visiting his family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; all of them had been out celebrating a sixtieth birthday till late on the Saturday, midnight and beyond.

  Open but far from closed.

  Lynn read through written statements, watched taped interviews, talked to the detectives working on the investigation. She went out to the house where the murders had taken place, a neat semi-detached within sight of Bestwood Country Park, and spent time standing silently in the girl’s bedroom – an abundance of toys and Miffy posters and cards from her last birthday – and then downstairs in the neat MFI kitchen, echoes of blood high in the ceiling corner and across the slats of the window blind.

  Sometimes, visiting the scene, standing there in the silence alone, walking slowly from room to room, gave a sense of what might have occurred. It was something she’d learned from Resnick when she was still a young DC and adopted as her own. But this time there was nothing aside from the obvious, the already known, no shadows stepping away from the walls.

  Her next step would be to re-interview the two men, though, more and more, she was convinced someone else had been involved. A stranger, another lover, a friend.

  She was on her way back to the office when she all but bumped into Stuart Daines as he was leaving the building.

  At first, she thought he was going to carry on past, with scant acknowledgement at all, but instead he stopped and turned and hesitantly smiled.

  ‘Why is it,’ he said, ‘whenever I see you, I always seem to be apologising?’

  ‘Because you’re such an arsehole?’

  Daines laughed. ‘That could be it. There’s an ex-wife and two Jack Russells somewhere who’d agree. Marry in haste and repent at leisure, isn’t what they say?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You married?’

  Lynn shook her head.

  ‘But you’re . . . you’re with somebody, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Someone here on the force. I think that’s what I heard.’

  ‘Look, I don’t see—’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How long have you been together?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘It’s just . . . you know . . . if you’ve been together quite a while and still not hitched . . .’ He grinned. ‘I thought I might be in with a chance.’

  ‘You are joking?’

  A little self-consciously, Daines laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  She started to walk away.

  ‘The girl . . .’ Daines said to her back.

  ‘Which girl?’ Turning.

  ‘The witness. Andreea?’

  ‘Andreea Florescu, yes.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to her sometime.’

  Lynn’s face tightened. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘As I understand it, she worked for Viktor Zoukas for quite a while.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’d like to show her some photographs, people Zoukas might have met.’

  ‘Here? At the sauna?’

  Daines shrugged. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Seems a long shot.’

  ‘They often are.’

  ‘She won’t be happy. She might well not even agree.’

  ‘If you asked her . . .’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It could be important.’

  ‘Another piece of – what was it? – Jenga?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  Lynn still hesitated.

  ‘You do know how to get in touch with her?’ Daines said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘All right, then. Perhaps you’ll give me a call? The next couple of days?’

  Without waiting for an answer he moved off, leaving Lynn to her thoughts.

  Back home that evening, she and Resnick watched as the bulk of Michael Brent’s speech was repeated on Newsnight, followed by a discussion between the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime within black communities in London, a representative of the Campaign for Racial Equality and the Labour Member of Parliament for Nottingham South.

  ‘Talks a lot of sense that one,’ Lynn said. ‘For an MP.’

  ‘How about Michael Brent? What did you think of him?’

  ‘Bit different from his father. Doesn’t go flying off at the handle. Much more controlled. More articulate, too. Better educated.’

  Resnick nodded. ‘He’s articulate, certainly. More so than his brother. But then so’s his old man, in his way. Michael just seems, like you say, more in control. As if maybe going off to university or wherever’s made a difference.’

  ‘Made him less black, is that what you mean?’

  ‘No, not really, it’s not that. Being black’s at the heart of what he’s saying.’

  ‘Less ghetto, then? Further from the stereotype.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Resnick said. ‘Maybe he’s our best hope. For the future.’

  ‘Michael Brent?’

  ‘People like him.’

  Lynn wasn’t sure.

  At a quarter past three both were awoken by the telephone. Bleary-eyed, Resnick answered first. The Alston house in Radford was ablaze. Two adults and one child were on their way to hospital suffering from second-degree burns and smoke inhalation. Billy Alston had sustained a suspected broken arm and broken leg after falling from a second-floor window.

  15

  Resnick knew the watch commander well. Terry Brook. They’d first encountered one another ten or twelve years before, the commander then a leading firefighter in charge of the rescue tender, Resnick the DI on call, the fire engulfing several of the old warehouse buildings along the canal – something bizarre about the ferocity and seemingly unstoppable speed of the flames so close to so much water, their reflection on the lightly moving surface of the canal a compulsive arsonist’s delight.

  It had been the fourth such fire in nine months, all of them amongst industrial buildings long abandoned by British Waterways or what would then have been British Rail. The first was put down to carelessness, kids most like
ly or dossers sleeping rough, a fire started for warmth and allowed to get out of control. After the second occasion, the fire investigation officer detected a shape and purpose, a characteristic burn pattern along the edges of the boards, the presence of petrol vapour in the air, a charred box of matches close to the point where the fire had begun.

  It had been Terry Brook who had spotted the youth first, a gangly fourteen-year-old with glasses and the slightest of stutters; the lad hanging around near the tender, asking questions, telling Brook how he’d like to join the Fire and Rescue Service when he’d finished college, either that or become one of those investigators employed by the big insurance companies.

  ‘A gas chromatograph, is that what they use to figure out what made it all go up so fast? GC/MS, is that what it’s called? Something like that?’

  Brook said he wasn’t sure, but he could introduce the lad to someone who was.

  When they’d searched the boy’s room they’d found a battered history of the British Fire Service, purchased from some local charity shop or car boot sale, and a nearly new copy of Images of Fire, borrowed from the central library and never returned.

  Brook turned now from where he was standing and shook Resnick’s hand, the front of the Alston house on its way to being little more than a charred shell, residents on both sides evacuated and standing, some of them, with blankets round their shoulders, watching, as if it were all part of some reality TV show.

  ‘Everyone got out okay?’ Resnick asked.

  ‘Far as we know.’

  ‘Accidental, you think?’

  ‘Always possible. Too early to tell.’ He looked Resnick in the face. ‘You got reason to think otherwise?’

  ‘I might.’

  The two men had met not infrequently over the intervening years, shared a jar in this or that pub or bar. Terry Brook, originally Brok, had come over from Poland with his family in the early seventies, several decades after Resnick’s own parents, who had been driven out of their homeland in the early years of the War. This back when Poles were still a relative novelty in Britain and signs on supermarket windows advertising Polish Goods Sold Here were yet unthinkable.

  Brook supported the other one of the city’s two soccer teams, couldn’t stand jazz, and his ideas of adventurous cuisine didn’t extend much beyond having sauce as well as mustard with his pie and chips, but somehow he and Resnick found a quiet ease in one another’s occasional company, each of them still, to some small degree, strangers in a now familiar land.

  Resnick told him about Billy Alston and his presumed connection to the death of Kelly Brent, about the possibility of her father or some member of the family taking the law into their own hands.

  Well, I tellin’ you, this gonna get sorted. One way or another. You know that, yeah? You know?

  ‘Be a while,’ Brook said, ‘before we can get in there, take a proper look around.’

  ‘Soon as you turn up anything, you’ll let me know?’

  ‘First thing.’

  They shook hands again and Resnick went back to his car: at that time of the morning, not yet properly light, St Ann’s was no more than minutes away. Mist hung low over the Forest Recreation Ground as he drove past, the trees along the upper edge darker shapes amidst the prevailing grey.

  Howard Brent came to the door in a T-shirt and a pair of hastily pulled-on jeans.

  ‘What the fuck now?’

  ‘There’s been a fire in Radford. Where Billy Alston lives. I thought perhaps you knew?’

  Brent shook his head.

  ‘Billy’s in Queen’s. Broke his leg jumping from an upstairs window to escape the blaze. Arm, too.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shame the bastard didn’t burn.’

  Nice, Resnick thought. ‘You can account,’ he said, ‘for your whereabouts between midnight and three a.m.?’

  ‘Yeah, I was down Radford chuckin’ petrol bombs,’ Brent laughed. ‘No, man, I was home here in my own bed.’ He cupped his genitals and lightly squeezed. ‘Ask Tina an’ she tell you. Know what I’m sayin’?’

  The news of the fire and Billy Alston’s injury seemed to have improved his mood considerably.

  ‘Got to thank you,’ Brent said, as if reading Resnick’s mind. ‘No matter what pass between us before. Ain’t every mornin’ the police knock me outta bed with good news.’

  This cheery, Resnick thought, no way his alibi isn’t going to hold.

  And so it would prove.

  Anil Khan and Catherine Njoroge went round later that morning and took statements. Friends had called round at the house on their way back from the pub and had stayed, drinking and, as Brent admitted, passing round a little weed, until close to one o’clock. Later, maybe, than that. Not so long after the friends left, Brent and his wife had gone to bed, if not immediately to sleep.

  The younger son, Marcus, had spent the evening with a bunch of friends from college and had ended up spending the night on the floor of one of them who lived in Sneinton.

  Michael was back in London, at his shared digs in Camberwell.

  Howard Brent’s friends supported his story. It was Marcus’s alibi that was the weakest and potentially the easiest to break; Marcus and his pals with time and opportunity, Khan thought, to torch the Alston place before getting their heads down for the night.

  Just maybe.

  When he put his doubts forward Resnick told him to go ahead and find out what he could.

  That morning Lynn had arranged to see Tony Foley, the husband and father in the Bestwood murders, Lynn explaining that she was taking a new look at the case and Foley, concerned, wanting to know should he bring his solicitor. Up to you, Lynn had told him, if you think it would make you feel more comfortable go ahead, but, she assured him, it was just an informal conversation, filling in background, bringing herself up to speed.

  In the event, Foley arrived on his own, smart after a fashion in a dark blue suit that had probably been dry-cleaned too many times, white shirt, blue-and-silver tie, shoes polished to within an inch of their lives.

  Lynn asked herself if she’d have pegged him as a car salesman if she hadn’t already known.

  ‘Good of you to come in,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘I’ll try not to take too much of your time.’

  Foley’s smile was practised, his grip firm and just a little overeager, holding on to her hand that few seconds too long. ‘Anything I can do to help. Anything at all.’

  His breath smelt freshly of peppermint, either from one of those little gizmos you sprayed in your mouth, Lynn thought, or else he’d been sucking extra-strong mints in the car.

  On the way to the interview room, he chatted on about the day, the weather, the drive down from Mansfield where he was currently living – more Ravenshead than Mansfield, really, pricey that side of town, south, but nicer, bit more class, plus easier for getting into the city. As if priming her for the moment he showed her the new Audi Cabriolet TDI Sport convertible. Definitely a lady’s car and for her he could see a way of shaving 5K off the price.

  ‘Please,’ Lynn said, ‘take a seat.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He sat back easily enough, one leg hooked across the other, helpful smile in place. He was quite heavily built, more than a few kilos overweight, a reddening in the cheeks which suggested, Lynn thought, high blood pressure or an overdependence on alcohol or both. Thirty-nine, but she might have placed him as older, mid-forties easily.

  ‘The inquiry into the murder of your wife and daughter,’ she said briskly, taking the smile off his face in a stroke. ‘As I explained on the phone, I’m just familiarising myself with the case, the people involved. Sometimes it’s useful to have someone look at things with a fresh eye.’

  Foley shifted a little in his seat. ‘Different perspective, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’ She shuffled a few papers on her desk. ‘Susie,’ she said, ‘she was how old?’

  Foley blinked. ‘She was four.’

 
‘And you’ve two other children? From a previous relationship?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Fifteen and eleven. Jamie, he’s fifteen, Ben’s eleven.’

  ‘Both boys.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It must have been different, having a girl?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’ He looked away, as if there were something logged in his brain. ‘I suppose it was.’

  ‘You still see them,’ Lynn asked. ‘The boys?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You not want to or . . .’

  Foley shook his head. ‘They’re living in Essex for one thing. Colchester, just outside. Not as if you can nip across of an evening, anything like that. For another she’s married to a real self-righteous prick, excuse my language, who’s gone out of his way to make it clear from day one that any contact with me was definitely a bad idea. So, no, I don’t see too much of them any more.’

  ‘They’re your children.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’ Foley leaned forward, one arm on the table between them. ‘You’ve got to understand, this last five, five and half years, since I met Chris, Christine, my life . . . well, let’s saymylife changed. Tanya and I, when we got together, got married, and Tanya had Jamie, I was what? Twenty-four? Twenty-five? Still wet behind the ears. I was out there working all the hours God sends. Different jobs, lots of different jobs in those days. Tanya, too. Bits and pieces, you know how it goes. And the boys – it was never easy. Jamie, he was always getting into trouble at school, and Ben, Ben was . . . well, Ben was, I suppose you’d say, slow. Kind of slow. Special needs. So it wasn’t easy. None of it was easy. And we’d row, Tanya and me. Fight. Argue. It was all a kind of nightmare. I don’t know why we stuck with it, either of us, as long as we did.

  ‘But then, then I met Chris and everything else, everything that had happened, it didn’t seem to matter, this was it now, this was my life, and when Susie was born I suppose . . . Isuppose, if I’m honest, that was when I seemed to start caring less about not seeing the boys, just birthdays and Christmas and not always that.’ He looked at Lynn. ‘That’s wrong, I know.’