Lonely Hearts

by John Harvey

  “At which point did you establish that the woman who first reported the alleged offense was not, in fact, a neighbor but the girl’s mother?”

  Resnick had briefed Millington on the procedure to be followed when Macliesh arrived: made sure he would be at the station to interview Grace Kelley and take her statement. He would far rather have been there himself anywhere rather than back in court under cross-examination.

  “Inspector?”

  Resnick finished checking his notebook. “Three days after the initial report.”

  “Three days?”

  “Detective Sergeant Pierce went back to the home with DC Kellogg and on that occasion Mrs. Taylor agreed that she had made the allegations herself. Then, after some discussion, she further agreed to bring her daughter in for a medical examination.”

  “And this examination, Inspector, where did this take place?”

  “At the City Hospital.”

  “Who was present at this examination?”

  “A consultant pediatrician, the police surgeon, Mrs. Taylor of course, and the social worker assigned to her case.”

  “But not Mr. Taylor?”

  Resnick shook his head. “No.”

  “Not the child’s father?”

  “No, for obvious…”

  “Your mind was already made up. As to his guilt? Yourself and Social Services between you had determined…”

  “Nothing,” Resnick interrupted.

  The defense counsel smiled. “You would say that you enjoy a good relationship with the Social Services department, Inspector?”

  Resnick wanted to shift his gaze to where he knew Rachel Chaplin was sitting. He knew she was wearing a dark blue suit with a fine stripe running through it, the jacket tucked in slightly at the waist, padded at the shoulders. A pale blue blouse was buttoned high at her neck. Today her hair had been pulled back off her face to be held by matt silver combs.

  “Given that our aims are not always identical, I’d say, yes, it’s a good working relationship.”

  He was looking directly at the defense counsel, face giving nothing away. The barrister hesitated, drawn to pursue the issue of aims, wanting to, but not allowing himself, plowing on instead.

  Rachel Chaplin shifted back on the bench seat, recrossed her legs, right over left. In the quiet of the court, she could hear the sound of nylon sliding across nylon. “Not giving evidence today, are you?” Phillips had said as she was leaving. “I shouldn’t think so, why?” “Just you’re looking extra smart.”

  She had held her breath when she heard the question, waiting for Resnick to look across the courtroom and seek her out. How would you describe your relationship with Social Services? She was certain that he wanted to look in her direction, just a glance, and it impressed her that he did not. Only later did it occur to her that was his intention, the effect he’d been working on.

  Yes, she thought, all right, I’d like to sit down with you some time and talk about aims, intentions, sit down and talk some things through.

  “Now, Inspector,” counsel was saying, “I should like to draw your attention to those photographs, entered as Exhibit A, which were taken by the police photographer subsequent to the girl’s initial medical examination.”

  Resnick pinched the bridge of his nose and, for little more than the space of a second, closed his eyes.

  “Underpowered,” Divine said sideways.

  He was doing eighty-five in the outside lane, flashing full-beam at the Volvo fifteen yards in front.

  “Stop at the next services,” said Naylor.

  “Again?”

  “Again.”

  On the previous occasion, the two men had changed places, leaving Naylor in the rear with the prisoner. Almost a hundred miles of sitting less than comfortably, feeling your left leg growing numb above the knee; fidgeting your buttocks without wanting to move around too much because the man who was handcuffed to you was not moving at all, only breathing, his eyes staring through the offside window at the patches of green that rose and fell dully away between the swish of traffic.

  “You’re not going to make another phone call.”

  There was one thing you’d have to say about Divine, Naylor thought, once he got an idea into his head, no matter how pathetic, he didn’t let it go easily.

  “I want a leak,” Naylor said.

  “A couple of those doughnuts,” Divine said over his shoulder. “Lemon curd.”

  “Only two?” said Naylor.

  “For starters.” Grudgingly the Volvo shifted into the center lane and they accelerated past. “How about happy-bollocks?” said Divine. “He’ll be wanting to go by now.”

  Naylor looked at Macliesh.

  Macliesh continued to gaze out of the window like a man who’d found himself in another land surrounded by another language.

  They parked alongside a VW Polo and waited while a baby was strapped into a car seat and then three other children aged between three and seven were packed aboard, arguing and pushing their way between suitcases, assorted games, a blue plastic potty, and a Yorkshire terrier. By the time the parents had got into the front, they looked too tired to drive out of the car park.

  “That’ll be you in a few years’ time,” grinned Divine, opening the door so that Macliesh could get out.

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” said Naylor, following close behind.

  “Oh, yeh?”

  “There are other ways of doing it.”

  Divine smirked and raised one eyebrow.

  “It all depends on the way you treat them, the kids I mean. Set about it right and the more kids you have the more help they are. Within reason.”

  “Debbie tell you that?”

  “Common sense tells me that.”

  They were standing close to a line of video games and slot machines, a couple of bikers leaning up against the wall making gestures of solidarity towards Macliesh, who didn’t acknowledge they were there. An elderly woman went slowly past using a Zimmer frame, staring at the handcuffs all the way.

  “Realize how much it’d cost bringing a family like that in here? All those fish fingers, burgers, cobs, and chips. Set off on holiday and you’d be spent up before you were off the motorway.”

  Then what you do is pack up your own sandwiches before you leave, Naylor said to himself, big bottle of Coke and a Thermos. He knew better than to say it out loud.

  “Cheaper sticking to condoms,” laughed Divine. “Not that I use them myself, take away most of the enjoyment.”

  “Get us something and bring it out to the car,” said Naylor, nodding towards the cafeteria. “I don’t want to go in there like this. We’ll go to the Gents and see you back in the car park.”

  “Sure you’ll be all right?”

  Naylor nodded at Macliesh and started to walk him towards the toilet.

  “Better hope he’s left-handed,” Divine called after them.

  Just once, Naylor was thinking, just once it would be nice to get sent out with Patel, he wasn’t such a bad bloke, Lynn Kellogg even. There were even times when he found himself quite fancying Lynn. And that was something else that had taken him by surprise. Get hitched, he’d thought, and all that lusting after other women’ll go by the board. For the first few years anyway. God, he wondered what Debbie would say if he ever plucked up the courage to tell her, which, of course, he wouldn’t. She wasn’t even good-looking, Lynn, not in the way women were supposed to be, but that didn’t stop him catching a sideways glance at her sometimes in the squad-room and wondering what she looked like underneath those loose-fitting clothes she usually wore. Not long after she’d been promoted into CID, Divine had taken her out. Mouth flapping away as usual beforehand. On and on about how he was going to see she was made good and welcome, getting her properly initiated, crap like that. He didn’t know what had happened, but Divine had clammed up like a stone afterwards. Like a stone. He…

  Naylor felt something suddenly warm and turned his head. Macliesh had shifted sideways in h
is stall and was standing, quite solemnly, holding himself in his left hand and directing a steady stream of urine down the left leg of Naylor’s trousers.

  “And at no point, Inspector, did it occur to you to doubt the truth of Mrs Taylor’s allegations?”

  “It’s for the court to establish truth. What I needed to be certain of was that there was a real possibility that an offense had been committed.”

  “Which you were?”

  “Yes.”

  “Beyond any doubt?”

  “If there was any possibility of a child being at risk, it was my duty to see that the allegations were properly investigated.”

  “Speedily.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hastily.”

  “That’s your word,” said Resnick flatly.

  Good for you, Rachel said to herself and smiled.

  “I don’t consider it necessary for you to debate semantics with the legal profession,” said the judge, leaning slightly forward. “Simply answer the questions.”

  “I’m sorry, your honor,” replied Resnick, “I thought I already had.”

  “I suggest that what you have done,” said the counsel for the defense, “is to marry together two convenient pieces of evidence. That which proves, all too sadly and conclusively, that this unfortunate child was the victim of sexual misuse on more than one occasion, and the accusations of a highly wrought and distressed mother who may have had any number of other reasons for electing to blame her husband for those same offences.”

  There were angry shouts, two of them, bitter and prolonged, from different sections of the public seating. Rachel realized that she had risen halfway to her feet and made herself slowly sit down.

  “You took the first solution because it was the easiest, because it has become almost axiomatic in these increasingly well-publicized cases to see the father or stepfather as the perpetrator, and because, as you so revealingly said earlier, the good relationship you enjoy with the Social Services would have encouraged you to come to the same convenient and fashionable conclusion.”

  “I did not say…”

  “Inspector, your evidence is now a matter of record.”

  “I did not say that the views of any members of the Social Services…”

  “Inspector, please. The court is fully aware of what it was you said.”

  “Nothing was said by any outside agency that convinced us to put Mr. Taylor under arrest.”

  “Then what did?”

  Resnick held back his response, held his breath. He could feel the dampness of his shirt where it clung to the small of his back, the itch of perspiration beneath his arms and between his legs. “The girl,” he said clearly.

  “The seven-year-old girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “Upset, intimidated…”

  “No.”

  “Asked so many leading questions…”

  “No.”

  “…that, like all little girls do, she gave the answer she had come to realize was wanted.”

  A sound broke from Resnick’s mouth, somewhere between a roar and a laugh. “I watched,” Resnick said, “watched through a two-way mirror, watched seven-year-old Sharon Taylor sitting with a social worker and with nobody else in the room…”

  “Inspector,” said the barrister, “there is no need.”

  “Yes, there is!” Resnick’s hands were gripping the front of the witness stand and even from near the rear of the room Rachel could see that his knuckles were white. “There is a need.”

  The judge bent towards him. “Inspector Resnick, I do realize that this is a disquieting case.”

  Resnick faced the judge and when he spoke again his voice was low and even. “The only other things that mattered in the room were a microphone and two dolls.” He pointed towards the table where the dolls lay. “Those which have already been examined by the court. And what I heard and saw was Sharon Taylor using those dolls to explain what it was the accused had done to her. What he had made her do to him.” Resnick’s eyes fixed on the barrister’s face. “Her father.”

  Eight

  At first he thought she wasn’t there and felt a flush of disappointment that ran close to anger. It was something he almost believed he had earned, that his testimony had deserved. He had allowed himself to picture how she would be standing there, the smile coming up on her face to greet him. When would he learn to stop fooling himself?

  Resnick nodded at someone he knew, skirted round a couple of solicitors, diaries out, arranging their weekly bridge game, and there she was. Off to the side, her head mostly turned away, of course, Rachel was talking to Mrs. Taylor and Resnick could imagine her tone, even and reassuring.

  He slowed his pace, not wanting to reach the exit before she noticed him.

  “Inspector.” Rachel left Mrs Taylor with a smile and crossed the foyer.

  Resnick took his time about turning, so that Rachel was almost up to him when he looked at her.

  “How are you feeling?” Rachel asked.

  Resnick nodded past her shoulder. “How’s your client?”

  “She’s spent the best part of the day in court, listening while a highly paid smoothie with a wig on his head does everything he can to prove she’s a vindictive and hysterical liar. How do you think she’s feeling?”

  Rachel lowered her head for a moment and the corners of her mouth broke into a smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t deserve that. Mrs. Taylor’s coping pretty well. The positive thing about that kind of display is that it makes her feel angry too. Angry at what they’re trying to do to her. Whereas you…” The smile was in her eyes now. “…she thinks you’re the bee’s knees.”

  “Did she say that? The bee’s knees?”

  “No, I did.” She moved a half-pace towards him. “Look,” she said, touching her finger to her mouth. “Watch my lips move.”

  “I’m sorry about the other evening,” Resnick said, trying not to keep watching her mouth now and finding it difficult.

  “You said.”

  “I hope I didn’t dig you out of bed when I phoned?”

  “You did.”

  “But not—what’s his name?”

  “You know very well. It’s Chris. And we’re not going to start that again, are we?”

  “I thought we might go and have a drink.”

  “I’ve promised Mrs. Taylor I’d go along with her and collect Sharon. I ought to stay with them for a while.”

  “Later then?”

  Resnick watched her weighing it up, uncertain what was being held in the balance.

  “Seven?” Rachel said finally.

  “Okay. Where d’you want to go?”

  “You’d better choose this time,” she said, amused.

  “D’you know the Partridge?”

  “Mansfield Road?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Nodding, she turned away and walked back to where Mrs. Taylor was waiting. Resnick figured he would have ample time to check back at the station and find out what progress Millington had made with Macliesh. In all likelihood, he’d been bearing down on him so hard that by the time Resnick arrived there’d be a confession, signed, sealed, and witnessed. It might be enough to earn the sergeant his promotion and get him off Resnick’s back.

  On his way to the street, Resnick checked his watch. If he was lucky there’d just be time to nip home and feed the cats as well.

  “Bloody hopeless!”

  Graham Millington was sitting on the center block of desks, one foot pushed out against a convenient chairback; he had a plastic cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other and looked as though he’d thrown his clothes in the tumble drier without bothering to get out of them first.

  “Thought you’d given up,” Resnick said.

  Millington stared down at his hands. “Which one?”

  “Can I have a word, boss?” The late-shift sergeant was hovering close to Resnick’s shoulder, three plastic bags and a half-dozen ten-by-eight photographs in his hands.
r />   “Come on in.”

  Ten minutes later, when Resnick and the sergeant emerged, Millington was still in the same position.

  “Are we drinking Divine’s Scotch again?” Resnick asked.

  Millington nodded.

  Resnick took the bottle from the drawer, thinking as he did so that come January First he would have to say something to Divine about his taste in calendars. Surely he wasn’t the only one in the office who found month after month of jutting breasts objectionable? Maybe he should have a word about it with Lynn Kellogg.

  He tipped a little of the whisky into the sergeant’s cup.

  “How about you, sir?”

  Resnick shook his head. “Later.” And then: “I take it he didn’t break down and reveal all.”

  “I was the one fit for sodding breaking down.”

  “How come?”

  Millington looked at him. “What d’you think it’s like spending the entire afternoon with a man who won’t answer a single question?”

  “Quiet?” Resnick said quietly.

  Clever bastard! Millington thought.

  “Why isn’t he talking?” Resnick asked.

  “If he won’t open his bloody mouth, how’m I supposed to know?”

  “Take it easy, Graham.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Millington levered himself off the desk, started feeling in his pockets for his cigarettes. “It’s so bloody infuriating. Sitting there listening to the clock ticking round. You want to reach across the desk and shake it out of him.”

  Resnick took the cigarette out of Millington’s fingers and slid it back into the packet for him; the packet he dropped down into the side pocket of the sergeant’s rumpled jacket.

  “You didn’t?” Resnick said, only just a question.

  Millington shook his head. “I think he’d have been more than happy if I had. Had a go at him, I mean.”

  “Pretty cool for a man who’s supposed to have a violent temper.”

  “Perhaps he’s only tough with women.”

  Resnick felt an echo of something inside himself, too distant to be clear what it was. “Maybe,” he said.