Cold Light

by John Harvey

  Michelle’s legs were beginning to shake.

  Seventeen

  Robin Hidden put through a call to the police station at ten-thirty-five on Boxing Day Night. He had been sinking a pint of Boddington’s in a pub in Lancaster; earlier that day he had been climbing on the east side of the Lakes and then driven back, muscles pleasantly aching, to his friend Mark’s place near the university to dump their boots and change their clothes. They were sitting in the small bar, in front of them plates that had once held pie and chips and gravy, now wiped clean with doorsteps of bread and butter. The beer was going down a treat, backs of their legs just beginning to stiffen. The television set had been on in the other bar, attached to a bracket high on the wall, and Mark had chanced to glance over his shoulder as the picture of Nancy flashed on to the screen.

  “Hey! Isn’t that …?”

  By the time they had hobbled through into the main room, Robin fumbling with his glasses, the program had moved on and scarcely anyone they asked had paid much attention to what had gone before.

  “Christ knows, pal,” someone had said, “but whatever it was, it weren’t good, you can bank on that.”

  “That lassie,” the barman said, pulling a pint, “gone missing. Didn’t know her, did you?”

  Robin Hidden pulled a five-pound note from his trouser pocket and placed it on the counter. “Ch-change please, as m-much as you can. For the phone.” The constable who took the call wouldn’t give a lot of detail, only the facts, such as they were known, simple and unadorned. He listened when Robin said that he had known Nancy, known her well, wrote down his name and asked a few questions of his own.

  “When would it be convenient for you to come into the station, sir? I’m sure one of the officers dealing with the case would like to talk to you, face to face as it were, possibly make a statement.”

  Robin’s first reaction had been to drive back down there and then; but he’d had two pints of beer, as Mark pointed out; and driving all that way in his condition, he’d be lucky not to get cramp in his legs.

  “You’ll fall asleep at the wheel,” Mark said. “What’s to be gained from that? Far better to sleep now, set the alarm for half-five, get an early start.”

  “Mid-morning,” Robin Hidden told the officer. “I’ll be there by mid-morning at the latest.”

  “Very well, sir. I’ll be sure to pass that on. Goodnight.”

  Mark gave his friend’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. Not that he wanted anything awful to have happened to Nancy, of course, but the way Robin had been mooning on about her all the time they were walking … Besides, they’d never really been suited, anyone who knew Robin could tell that.

  James Guillery’s parents had tried contacting their son in Aosta, but the hotel he was supposed to be staying at denied all knowledge of him; there had been a mix-up with the travel agency, overbooking. They were given two other numbers, one of which seemed to be permanently engaged, while dialing the other resulted in a high-pitched, unbroken tone which suggested it was unobtainable. The travel agency was closed and its answering machine swallowed the Guillerys’ message halfway through.

  “I don’t know how he met her,” Mrs. Guillery said. “Nancy, that is. Wherever it was, he went out with her a few times …”

  “More than a few,” Mr. Guillery put in.

  “Do you think so? Yes, well, I suppose it was. Though I don’t think it was ever what I’d call serious.”

  “He wasn’t going to marry her, that’s what she means,” Mr. Guillery interpreted.

  “No, what I mean, James seemed to like her well enough, that is, he spoke well of her, but, as I said, it never occurred to me they were what I’d call serious.”

  “What she doesn’t understand,” Mr. Guillery confided, “young people today, it’s not the same. Not like it was even in our day. Young people today, they can be serious without being serious. If you see what I mean.”

  Eric Capaldi’s neighbors in Beeston Rylands knew very little about him, beyond the fact that he was an engineer for BBC Radio Nottingham. Or was it Radio Trent? He owned a sports car, not new, one of those little jobs, close to the ground; forever stretching an old blanket and a piece of tarpaulin on the street, he was, then crawling underneath the engine.

  One person thought he might have recognized Nancy Phelan from her photo as someone he’d once seen Eric with, but he couldn’t swear to it. How could he? Late evening it had been and the street lights down there, all very well for the council to be saving money, but when you could hardly see a hand in front of your face without there was a moon, that couldn’t be right, could it?

  The woman on the switchboard at Radio Nottingham confirmed that Mr. Capaldi was on a fortnight’s leave and she had no idea where he had gone. Yes, certainly, if it was important she would try to find out. Who was it calling?

  Andrew Clarke kept a half-size snooker table in the room that was still called the breakfast room and he shut himself in there with a bottle of sherry and practiced running through the balls on the table, all the reds and then the colors, right up to the black. Steadying each shot, remembering to bend low, eye along the cue, right hand firm.

  “You don’t think, Andrew,” his wife said when she found him there, “you ought to go back down?”

  “Whatever for?” The brown was a fraction too close to the cushion and he chipped it back next to the D.

  “Well, you are sort of involved.”

  “Nonsense.” Better shot now, let the cue ball spin back for the green.

  “It was your affair …”

  “Affair?”

  “Your do, that she disappeared from.”

  “That hardly makes me responsible.”

  Audrey wished he would look at her when he spoke, not keep wandering round the blessed table all the time, squinting down at all those balls like a general poring over a battle plan. “Besides,” she said, moving herself so that she was close to his eye line, “isn’t she your librarian’s best friend or something?”

  “Dana, mm. Live together, I believe. Flat-share, not you know …” He made his shot and the green rolled slowly towards the pocket and hovered there, close to the rim, refusing to drop out of sight.

  “Not what, Andrew?”

  With something of a sigh, he straightened and reached for the chalk. “I mean they’re not—what-d’you-call-it?—gay.”

  “Really? However would you know?”

  “Surely you can tell?”

  “I don’t know. Can you? I shouldn’t have thought it was that easy. Especially nowadays.”

  “Likes the men, too much, Dana. You’ve met her, seen the way she dresses. Christmas Eve, for instance, more out of that frock or whatever it was than in.”

  “Andrew, I don’t think all lesbians have their hair cut short and wear motorcycle suits.”

  For a moment, he stared at her, he didn’t think he had ever heard his wife say the word lesbian before.

  “Anyway,” Audrey Clarke tasted the tip of her forefinger, she had been making tartlets with lemon cheese.

  “It’s just not like you, that’s all. You’re so anxious to be on top of things. As a rule.”

  “Audrey, if I thought my presence would make the least difference, I should be there already. As it is, I’m on holiday and I intend to enjoy it. With you.”

  There had been a time when Audrey Clarke had found that somewhat anxious smile of her husband’s attractive, skin furrowing deep between his eyes; she supposed she must have.

  “I’m popping out,” she said, “stroll down by the sea.”

  He watched her walk away, a middle-aged woman in a long tweed skirt, a barbour jacket, and green Wellington boots, a Liberty print scarf tied about her head. When she was well clear of the house, Andrew Clarke looked up Dana Matthieson’s home number and dialed it from the hall.

  The answerphone clicked on first and Andrew was lowering the receiver when Dana’s voice broke through. “Nancy? Nancy, is that you?”

  “It’s Andre
w,” he said, more high-pitched than he had intended. “Andrew Clarke. I was just wondering how you were. I mean …”

  But Dana had hung up and he was left talking to the air.

  “Bastard!” she whispered softly to herself. “Bastard!”

  Dana was squatting by the low table where she had taken the call. She had been getting out of the bath when Andrew Clarke had phoned and she had two towels carelessly round her, water trickling on to the floor. Every time she looked in a mirror and saw her mascara smeared down her face again, she told herself she was through with crying, she had no more tears left. Shivering, she clasped her arms across her chest and rocked lightly heel to toe, forwards and back, crying again.

  Eighteen

  “So, Charlie, getting any closer, d’you think?” Skelton had both hands flat against the wall, arms straight, stretching his legs muscles till they were fully taut; last thing he wanted, running back up Derby Road, one of his hamstrings going.

  Resnick shrugged. “This lad Hidden’s coming in today, all accounts he was the one went out with her most recent.”

  “And the bloke Divine and Naylor checked out yesterday?” Skelton was lifting one leg with his hand, fingers around the toe of his running shoe, holding it so that the heel touched his buttock, right leg first and then the left.

  “Got an alibi for all the relevant times. We’re checking it out. But what I’ve heard, I don’t fancy him, frankly.”

  “The car, Charlie, that’s the key.”

  Resnick nodded: as if he needed reminding.

  “You’ve not come up with anything more yourself? Not got a clearer picture?”

  Stubborn as a stain, the dark blur clung to the edge of Resnick’s vision, refusing to take on true color or shape, its driver a notion of a person, nothing more.

  “Someone offered her a lift, Charlie, no two ways. Like as not, someone she didn’t know, met that evening, fancied her, danced with her a bit, like as not. Whisked her off with his eye to the main chance. After that, who knows?”

  With any luck, Cossall and his team would have pushed through their initial inquiries by the end of the day. Matching men and cars that had been present. After that, it would be a slow process of elimination. And time, they knew, was the one thing Nancy Phelan likely didn’t have.

  “There’s a press conference at three,” Skelton said. “Her parents’ll be there, too. Not what I’d’ve wanted, but nothing I could do about it. So if you think Hidden’s going to lead us anywhere, you’ll let me know as soon as you can.”

  “Right.”

  Skelton turned away, jogged a few paces on the spot, lifting his knees, then set out along the pavement at a tidy pace, fumes from the incoming traffic dancing round his head.

  Resnick knew it was Graham Millington in the Gents’ as soon as he arrived at the door. From inside, the unmistakable sound of Millington whistling his merry way through the songs from the shows told him that his sergeant was back on duty.

  “‘Phantom of the Opera,’ Graham?”

  “‘Carousel’ that,” Millington said, slightly offended. “Wife and I went down to see it in London before Christmas. That Patricia Routledge—never’ve thought she’d have a voice like that, never.”

  He shook himself a few more times, just to be sure, zipped up and stepped away. “That song—what is it?—‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ scarce a dry eye in the house.”

  “Fellow coming in this morning,” Resnick said, “Nancy Phelan’s boyfriend. Sit in with me on that, will you?”

  “Right.” Checking in the mirror, Millington brushed a few flecks of white from the shoulders of his dark suit. Dandruff best not be coming back, he thought he’d seen the last of that. “Right, I’ll be there.”

  And he sauntered off into the corridor, reinterpreting Rodgers and Hammerstein with an atonality that would have made Schoenberg proud.

  Robin Hidden was late. Three sets of roadworks on the M6, a caravan overturned on the AIM. He was perspiring beneath his sweater and corduroy trousers when he made his way into the station, stammering when he announced his name. It was something that happened when he was feeling excited or stressed. Nancy had teased him about it, how the words he called out when they were making love came in spurts.

  “Robin Hidden?”

  Startled, he looked round to find a man with a roundish face and trim moustache, smart suit, and neatly knotted tie. “Detective Sergeant Millington.”

  Robin didn’t know if he were supposed to shake hands with him or not.

  “If you’ll just come with me.”

  He followed the sergeant up two steeply winding flights of stairs and right along a corridor to an open door; behind this was an empty space, nothing that you could call a room, and beyond that another door.

  “Through here, sir, if you please.”

  This was more what he had been expecting, what he had seen on the television, the table, plain, pushed over towards the side wall, empty chairs on either side. What he’d been less sure of, the tape machine on a shelf at the rear, double recording decks, a six-pack of cassettes, cellophane-wrapped, waiting to be used.

  “Mr. Hidden, this is Detective Inspector Resnick.”

  A large man coming towards him, holding out his hand; the grip was firm and quick and almost before it was broken, the inspector and his sergeant pulling out their chairs, sitting down. Waiting for him to follow suit.

  “Should be some tea along, any minute now,” said Resnick, glancing back towards the door.

  “Likely need something,” Millington added pleasantly. “Long drive like that.”

  “If you want to smoke …” Resnick said.

  “Have to be your own, though,” Millington smiled. “Getting my resolutions in ahead of the New Year.”

  “It’s all right, thanks,” Robin Hidden said. “I don’t.”

  “Wise,” said Millington. “Sensible.”

  There was a knock on the door and a uniformed officer came in with three cups on a tray, spoons, several sachets of sugar.

  “You heard about Nancy how?” Resnick asked.

  “Television news, this pub in Lancaster …”

  “You’d been walking?”

  “Yes, I …”

  “Alone, or …?”

  Robin shook his head. “With a friend.”

  “Female or …”

  “Male. Mark. He’s …”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said Millington, reaching for his tea. “Not now.”

  Robin tried to tear a corner of the sugar with his fingers and failed; when he used his teeth, half of the contents spilled down his arms and across the table.

  “Not to worry,” Millington said. “Good for the mice.”

  Robin had no idea if he were joking or not.

  “Nancy,” Resnick said, “how was it you met her?” As if it were something he already knew but just couldn’t call to mind.

  “The marathon …”

  “Local?”

  “The Robin Hood one, yes.”

  “You were both running?”

  “N-no. Just me. Nancy was watching. Lenton Road, where it goes through the Park. I got a cramp. Really bad. I had to stop and, well, lie down, massage my leg till it went off. N-Nancy was there, with her friend, where I dropped out.”

  “You got to talking?”

  “They asked me if I was okay, if I n-needed a hand.”

  “And did you?”

  “No, but she said, Nancy’s friend said …”

  “Is that Dana?”

  “Y-yes. She said if ever I wanted someone to rub in Ralgex, she knew someone who’d be happy to oblige.”

  “Meaning herself?”

  “M-meaning Nancy.”

  “Took her up on it, then?” Millington smiled. He was doing a lot of smiling today; glad to be back at work, away from Taunton, back in tandem with the boss, enjoying it. “Kind of offer doesn’t come every day. Not when you’re already down to your shorts, I dare say.”

  “I didn’t
take it seriously. Thought they were just joking, having me on, but before I got back in the race, Nancy said, ‘Here,’ and gave me her phone number. Corner of her Sunday paper.”

  “Stick it down your athletic support?” Millington wondered. “Keep warm.”

  Robin shook his head. “In my shoe.”

  Millington smiled again and looked across at Resnick, who was jotting odd words on a sheet of paper.

  “Sh-shouldn’t we …?” Robin said a moment later, glancing over his shoulder at the tape machine.

  “Oh, no,” Millington said. “I don’t think so. Just background this. An informal chat.”

  Why, then, Robin Hidden wondered, didn’t it feel like that?

  Dana had been thinking about Robin Hidden that afternoon, walking in Wollaton Park, making a series of slow circuits around the lake, scarf knotted high at her neck. His body aside—and it had seemed a good body, right from their first sight of him there had been no doubt about that—she could never see the attraction. He wasn’t especially interesting, no more than run-of-the-mill, a medium-grade job with the Inland Revenue, something at Nottingham 2. Evenings out with Robin seemed to consist of a visit to the Showcase to watch Howard’s End, then rhogon josh and a peshwari nan at the curry place on Derby Road. Better still, letting Nancy cook pork and mushroom stroganoff and eating it in front of the telly, Robin blinking behind his glasses at a program about the disappearing llamas of Peru. The only time she had seen him really come to life had been when he was planning their weekend walking in the Malvern Hills, designed to get Nancy in shape, get her prepared for the mountains to come.

  Yet Nancy had seemed happy with him, content anyway, more than with the others. Eric, who, when he wasn’t whisking her round motor accessory shops on a Sunday to buy bits and pieces for his car, used to drag her off to the back rooms of pubs to listen to bands with names like Megabite Disaster. Or that weirdo Guillery, who wore combat boots and woollies his mum had knitted him and persuaded Nancy to go to horror movies, where they sat in the front row and ate popcorn. Once, according to Nancy, after they’d gone to bed together—a strange experience in itself, apparently, though she wouldn’t go into detail—Guillery had insisted on reading her his favorite bits from something called “Slugs” while he stroked her inner thigh with his big toe.