by John Harvey
"Already?"
He glanced at his watch. "Should be lifting Alston pretty soon."
"Good luck with it."
"Thanks."
Quickly across, she kissed him on the cheek and gave his arm a squeeze. "I'm sorry about last night."
"That's okay." There was a smile in his eyes.
"Just wasn't feeling like it."
"I know." He gave her a hug and then stood back. "Take care."
"You, too."
"Do my best."
She listened to his feet, heavy on the stairs, and then the closing of the door. One more glance at the black trousers in the mirror and she changed her mind; she'd wear the brown linen skirt she'd lucked on in the Jigsaw sale instead.
Nine
With the strong possibility of Billy Alston being in possession of a firearm, or of there being guns and ammunition on the premises, armed response officers had been requested from the Tactical Firearms Unit attached to Operational Support-armed for their own safety and for the protection of members of the public, as the rubric goes.
The house where Alston lived with his three younger siblings, his aunt and mother was close to a main road, which even at that hour of the morning, could be expected to be carrying a certain amount of traffic. Immediately before officers moved in to effect the arrest, therefore, roadblocks would be moved into place.
Resnick sat with Catherine Njoroge in an unmarked car some little way back along the boulevard; Resnick slightly unnerved by the way in which Catherine could sit motionless, not speaking or feeling the need to speak, for quite so long.
Otherwise, he was content to be close to the action without being directly involved; the issue of rank aside, his days of charging up and down flights of stairs, yelling at the top of his voice, were, he was not unpleased to think, well past.
Thirty-one officers all told, nine vehicles, not exactly softly- softly, but as Bill Berry had pointed out, this was a young man they had good reason to believe had not only shot and killed at close range, but had also fired on a police officer in the execution of her duty.
"No risks, eh, Charlie? Either way."
Amen to that, Resnick thought, and checked his watch.
Still a good few minutes to go.
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
There was a pub, he remembered, back along the boulevard from where they were now, lively even by local standards, parties most weekends in the function room above the bar. Resnick had met a woman there once, way back before Lynn, back, even, before he was married. A young PC off duty on a Friday night, most often he'd wander down to The Bell by Slab Square, in search of some jazz; either there, or out to the Dancing Slipper, where Ben Webster, one of his heroes from the Ellington band, had turned up one night too drunk to stand, let alone to play. But this particular evening, a couple of pals had been going to someone's birthday party at the pub and they'd dragged him, reluctantly, along.
"Never know, Charlie, you might strike lucky."
After a manner of speaking, he had.
She was tall, with that kind of tightly curled permed hair that was fashionable at the time. Dark hair and blue eyes. She'd been laughing when she'd pulled him out onto the floor. Something by Geno Washington or the Foundations; Jimmy James, perhaps, and the Vagabonds.
"You can dance, can't you?" she'd said and laughed again.
Well, in those days, after a fashion, he could.
When he kissed her later, on the street outside, her mouth had been cool and quick and hair had smelt a little of sweat and cigarettes.
"Shall I see you again?" he'd asked, as her taxi pulled in to the kerb.
"Maybe," she'd said. And, with a pen she borrowed from the driver, had written her number on his wrist.
He'd realised then he didn't know her name.
"Linda," she called through the cab window. "Don't forget."
"I don't know if you'll remember me," he said, when three days later he phoned.
"'Course I do," she said cheerily. "You're the dancer with two left feet."
The first time he went round to her place, an old farm labourer's cottage she was renting out at Loscoe, they'd fooled around a little on the settee and just when he'd thought push might be coming to shove, he'd been shown the door with a hug and a swift kiss good night; the time after that she'd left the door on the latch and was sitting up in bed with a glass of wine, the room lit by candlelight.
For the next three months, he saw her every free minute he could, every minute she'd grant him, until one evening he called round, hopeful and unannounced, the door was answered by an ambulance driver with his shirt unbuttoned and hanging outside his uniform trousers.
"She's busy," he said and closed the door again promptly.
His jacket had been neatly folded over one of the straight-backed chairs.
Resnick saw her a couple of times after that, and then not again. He heard once that she'd moved up to Cumbria to manage one of the big hotels, stayed, and got married. Resnick was married himself by then, to Elaine, and it had scarcely mattered.
Now, for some stupid reason, it did.
This damned place, he thought, I've lived here too long and the longer it goes on, the more ghosts there are, beating a path to my door.
He checked his watch again.
"Okay," he said into the radio. "Roadblocks in place."
And then, moments before giving the order to go, he cursed softly, staring down the road ahead.
"What's wrong?" Catherine Njoroge asked.
But by then she, too, had seen the television van that had drawn up at the closest possible point.
Smack in the middle of the inner city, early though it might be, Resnick had known there was always the possibility of the arrest being something of a public event. What he hadn't counted on was a camera crew from the local television station and an eager young reporter who would doubtless soon be trailing her microphone around the neighbourhood, collecting a selection of opinions she could edit to her advantage.
"Go," he said into the radio. "Go now."
Billy Alston was a light sleeper. He was wide awake and vaulting out of bed almost the moment he heard the door smashing downstairs. Wearing only the striped boxers and undershirt he slept in, he was out of the room, while his younger brother, with whom he shared the room, was barely stirring. Heavy footsteps on the stairs below, voices shouting, "Police. Police. Armed police."
Alston kicked open the door to the attic room where his sisters were sleeping, both of them surrounded by dolls and stuffed animals, Lauren half out of the top bunk, her arm trailing down towards the floor. When he pushed at the catch, the window into the slanting roof refused to budge. Alston picked a stool up from the floor, and, one arm cradled across his head, smashed the stool against the centre of the glass.
He could hear both his mother and his aunt screaming now, shouting and screaming, and the voices of the police getting louder, their feet closer. Reaching up, he grasped the sides of the window and hauled himself through.
Behind him, Lauren cried out as an armed policeman burst into the room, and she ducked her head back down beneath the covers.
Alston slid down towards the guttering, scattering loose tiles in his wake, balanced for a moment, precariously, then jumped, barefoot, onto the flat roof of the rear extension. Another jump, down into the backyard, and this time he fell awkwardly, his ankle turning under him, scrambling to his feet and part-hopping, part-jumping towards the back gate, which, hanging half off its hinges, gave out into the narrow ginnel running down between the rows of houses.
There were police marksmen some fifteen metres along in both directions, weapons raised.
Fuck!
Without waiting to be asked, Alston raised both hands and placed them, fingers linked, behind his head.
"Down! Down on the ground. Now! Now! Do it, now!"
Slowly, Alston obeyed.
"A charade, Charlie, that's what it was, a fucking charade. Like somethi
ng out of Life on fucking Mars. "
They had just finished watching television news, shots of heavily armed police swarming towards an innocuous-looking terraced house, interspersed with talking heads, both black and white, speaking, almost unanimously, of police intimidation, overkill, the harassment of an entire community.
"The purpose of the raid, according to a police spokesperson, was to arrest a young male, whom the police have so far declined to name, for questioning in connection with the murder of sixteen-year-old Kelly Brent. One of the reasons given for the presence of so many armed officers at the scene was the very real possibility that there were guns and ammunition on the premises. As far as we can tell, no guns nor ammunition have so far been found."
Cut to footage, taken from a distance and slightly blurred, of an officer breaking down the door and others pushing past into the building.
"The question we must ask ourselves is to what extent police actions such as these serve to alienate the very communities they are empowered to serve."
The camera tightened on the reporter's finely made-up face and well-groomed hair.
"This is Robyn Aspley-Jones on the streets of-"
Bill Berry silenced her with the remote, blanking the picture from the screen.
"Public-relations disaster, Charlie."
"I didn't think public relations were our main concern," Resnick said.
"Fuck off, Charlie! Where've you been the last fifteen fucking years?"
Resnick chose his words with care. "With respect, sir, I think I'd consider this morning's operation a success. The man we were after was taken into custody without a shot being fired and is currently being questioned. A detailed search of the premises is still being carried out and, despite Robyn What's-Her-Name, it's far too early to say what we might find."
Berry uttered a long, heartfelt sigh. "All right, Charlie, okay. Only for God's sake don't start calling me 'sir.' We're both of us too long in the tooth for that."
Alston had been given a pair of jeans that were several sizes too large in the waist and an abandoned Nike top with a broken zipper. His solicitor was wearing a pin-striped skirt that covered her knees and a neat little jacket over a pale pink blouse. Every now and again, she made a brisk note in the spiral-bound notebook open on the table before her.
" Casino Royale? " Michaelson said.
"What?"
"The new Bond."
"You what?"
"You didn't see it? Daniel Craig, the new James Bond?"
Alston stared back at him, bemused.
"That's what it reminded me of," Michaelson said. "You jumping across rooftops and that. I thought maybe you'd seen it, wanted to give it a try."
"Takin' the piss, i'n it?" Alston said.
"Shame about the fall at the end, bit of a tumble, but otherwise, you ever want to apply for any stunt work…"
Resnick and Bill Berry were watching on a monitor in an adjoining room.
"You know who this pair remind me of?" Berry said.
"Michaelson and Pike? No, who?"
"Little and Large, remember them?"
"Not often," Resnick said.
"Little and Large without the laughs."
Hard to imagine, Resnick thought.
"Focus," he said into Michaelson's earpiece. "Get to the point."
This just as Pike was saying, "Two days before the Kelly Brent shooting, you tried to buy a gun."
"I did?"
"Trouble with St. Ann's, that's what you said."
"Yeah?"
"You needed a gun. Protection, that what it was?"
Alston shook his head.
"Two days before it happened, Billy. Trouble with St. Ann's, like you said." Pike slammed the flat of his hand down fast against the table. "One girl dead."
Alston blinked.
"Kelly Brent, you know her, Billy?"
"No."
"You didn't know her?"
"I knew, like, who she was. Seen her around, yeah."
"She was what? Fifteen, sixteen?"
"I dunno, man. Didn't really know her, like I say."
"You got sisters, Billy, that right?"
"They got nothin' to do with this."
"How old are they, Billy? Your sisters?"
"I don't see the relevance," the solicitor began.
"Come on, Billy, how old?"
"Eleven an' seven, i'n it?"
"Eleven and seven."
"Yeah. But that ain't-"
"Suppose it had been one of them?" Michaelson said. "How would you feel then?"
Alston stared back at him.
"Easy happen, Billy. Split second, someone out there with a gun."
Alston shifted on his seat, hitched his shoulders and let his arms fall down by his side, long fingers, big hands.
"This little confrontation with St. Ann's," Pike said. "This meeting you had. There was always going to be trouble, right?"
Alston shrugged.
"Billy, you thought there'd be trouble?"
"Nothin' we couldn't handle, i'n it?"
"Nothing you couldn't handle."
"Yeah, 's'right."
"Because you had a gun."
"I never had no gun."
"Two days before, you were out trying to buy one."
"No."
"Pub car park out at Carlton. Half-eleven."
"I don't know no pub out Carlton. I don't never go to no Carlton."
"We've got a witness, Billy."
"Yeah? Well, he's lyin'. Whoever it is, I'm tellin' you, he's lyin'."
"You're not listening, Billy," Michaelson said. "We know you were there and we know why. You were there to buy a gun."
"Bullshit!"
"One hundred and fifty pounds for a handgun and ammunition, that was the deal."
Alston started to say something, then sat back, the beginnings of a smile on his face. "Say, just say, right, I was there, like you say-"
His solicitor reached out a hand, as if to intervene.
"An' lessay, jus' for the sake of argument, right, I was thinkin' 'bout buyin' this gun."
"Billy," the solicitor said, "I really don't think-"
"Then if you got someone was there, you know I didn't buy no gun, right?"
"Billy-"
"Could be, I was tempted to buy a piece, but then I realise, like you all always tellin' me, that's not such a cool thing to do. So I jus' walked away. Far as I know, ain't no law 'gainst thinkin' 'bout doin' somethin' an' if that's all I'm here for, you wastin' my time an' your own. Aw'right, Mr. Bond?"
"Fuck's sake, Charlie," Bill Berry said. "Little bastard's running 'em round in circles."
Resnick told Michaelson to suspend the interview and allow Alston to take a break. Forty-five minutes later, he went back in there himself, taking Anil Khan with him, still hoping for something positive from the scene-of-crime officers searching the house.
According to Alston, the reason he backed out of the deal over the gun was that he realised it was stupid, get caught with a firearm in your possession, you were looking at serious time. And, no, he still maintained, as far as he knew, none of his crew had gone up to St. Ann's that day strapped. As for the identity of the shooter, he had no idea. No more than the police did themselves.
Resnick knew the clock was ticking down.
Charge him or let him go.
Resnick had been back at his own desk for twenty minutes or so when one of the duty officers rang up from below. "Howard Brent, sir. He's down here now. Wants to see you if he can."
Resnick sighed and raised his eyes towards the ceiling. "I'll come down."
Today Brent was wearing his blue Converse trainers with black jeans and a suede jacket, a white T-shirt with two overlapping gold chains, a gold ring in place of the diamond stud in his ear.
"Mr. Brent, what can I-?"
"You arrest someone for my daughter's murder, and I have to learn this when someone phone me from the paper."
"Mr. Brent-"
"This is my daugh
ter we talkin' about."
"Mr. Brent, if you hadn't been so hostile towards officers engaged in this investigation-"
"Hostile? That's good comin' from you. You callin' me hostile."
"If you hadn't persistently refused to have anything to do with the Family Liaison Officer appointed, then you would have been informed in the proper way, using the proper channels. As it is, I can confirm, yes, a suspect has been arrested and is currently being questioned at this station."
"Alston, right?"
"Mr. Brent-"
"What everyone's sayin', Billy Alston. That's what everyone's sayin' on the street."
"A statement-"
"Hey, man!" Brent jabbed a finger towards Resnick's face. "Don't fuck with me. Alston, he here 'cause he killed my daughter, I got a right to know."
Wearily, Resnick shook his head. "Mr. Brent, all I can tell you is this. We are speaking to someone in the course of our enquiries and nothing more. No charges concerning your daughter's murder have been made."
Brent made a tight scoffing sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh.
"If and when that happens," Resnick continued, "you will be informed. Now please go home. There's nothing you can do here."
"You think? That's what you think, eh? Well, I tellin' you, this gonna get sorted. One way or another. You know that, yeah? You know?"
Resnick turned and walked away.
At four o'clock that afternoon, the report came through from the team that had been searching the Alston house: a small quantity of cannabis aside, nothing illegal had been found. No firearms, no other drugs, no ammunition.
At a quarter past six that evening, Billy Alston was released.
Ten
The closer the trial date came, the more it played on Lynn's mind.
She'd been in court to give evidence on more occasions than she could remember: sworn the oath and told, despite the attempts of the defending barrister to throw her off course, the whole truth and nothing but.
She felt nervous, nevertheless.
Always had, always did.
The fear that she might trip up, throw away the case with a careless word, a slip of the tongue, some misremembered fact, let herself and everyone down. As if she were being tested: as if, somehow, she were the one on trial.
