by John Harvey
He took the escalator up beside Miss Selfridge and entered the market via the meat and fish. No time for an espresso, he paused at the first of the Polish delicatessens and allowed himself a small treat, deciding between the three kinds of cheesecake always a problem.
“This business last night,” said the man running the stall, “that’s for you to sort out?”
Pointing at the middle tray, Resnick nodded.
“I’m surprised you’ve time even to think of eating.”
Resnick lifted the white paper bag from the glass counter and hurried between the flower stalls, heading for the far exit, the second escalator that would carry him down again, landing him close to the entrance to Manhattan’s.
It was busy already, plenty of people with time to drink as well as eat, the money to make it possible. There was a spare stool towards the end of the bar and Resnick maneuvered towards it and sat down. He was always surprised when he went into a place like this, especially in the middle of the day, how many men and women under thirty could afford, not simply to be there but to be in fashion, able to pay the rising cost of keeping up appearances.
Haves and have-nots: trouble with his job was, likely you spent so much time with the have-nots, it was easy to see them as the norm, be surprised when you found yourself surrounded by those for whom the system, supposedly, worked.
“What’s that?” said the young woman behind the bar, pointing at the bag Resnick had set on the counter.
“Cheesecake,” said Resnick. “Cherry topping.”
“Can’t eat your own food in here.”
“I’m not eating it.”
“That’s what I said.”
She had an open face, cheeks a hungry squirrel could have hoarded nuts in; her hair was in a lavish disarray it had taken ages to arrange. Her accent placed her east of Kimberley, but north of Ilkeston.
“Are you Maura?” Resnick asked.
“Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Sunday afternoons. The rest of the week I’m Leslie.”
Resnick thought it best not to inquire why. “Maybe your manager told you to expect me?”
“You’re not the detective?”
“Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays.”
“What happens Sundays?”
“I rest.”
When she smiled, Maura’s cheeks puffed out still further, for all the world like Dizzy Gillespie playing trumpet. “According to Derek, you’re fat and fifty and dressed like something out of the ark.”
Sooner that, thought Resnick, than someone who looked as if he should be inside it. “No wonder you didn’t recognize me,” he said.
“Right, you’re not so fat.”
“Thanks.”
“Not like some we get in here: half a hundredweight of cholesterol on feet.”
“Hey, Maura …” called somebody along the bar.
“I’m busy,” she called back.
“This is the man.” Resnick unfolded the photocopy of Karl Dougherty and turned it towards her.
“Four halves of lager, pint lager shandy, orange juice, pineapple, tomato juice with Worcester sauce and a Cinzano and lemonade—if you can tear yourself away.”
“What about you?” Maura was looking at Resnick, not the photograph. “Fancy anything?”
“Budweiser. Thanks.”
“For Christ’s sake, Maura …!”
She sighed and swore not quite below her breath. “Is there a problem here?” Derek Griffin appeared at Resnick’s shoulder sporting a different tie and a piqued expression.
“No problem,” Maura said brightly.
“No problem,” said Resnick.
“You do get paid to work here, you know,” said Griffin.
Maura raised an eyebrow theatrically. “Just,” she said.
Griffin turned away. Maura set a bottle and an empty glass at Resnick’s elbow, opened the bottle, tapped the picture of Dougherty with a false finger nail and said, “I’ll be back.”
“Now,” she said, moving along the bar, “what was it? Four small lagers …”
Resnick retreated and found another seat amongst the other lunchtime drinkers: well-groomed young salespeople from River Island, gray men in lean gray suits from Jessops talking earnestly about the partnership, bank clerks of both sexes from Barclays and NatWest. Dougherty had been here not so many hours before, enjoying a drink like these, maybe laughing, maybe not. He glanced over at the toilet sign, midway along the side wall. Was there anything strange in leaving here and going straight into the public lavatory across the road? If he did go straight there, that is? And besides, Resnick could remember, with embarrassment now and not pleasure, evenings when negotiating a path home via every toilet in the city center had still not been adequate to prevent him slipping into an alley, urinating against the wall.
“Hi!” Maura pulled over a stool and sat close beside him, orange lipstick on the rim of her glass like a kiss, on the filter tip of the cigarette she held in her other hand.
“Sure this is okay?” Resnick asked.
“Don’t fret.”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“That’s what the last one said.” Laughing.
“No, I mean it.”
“So did he. So he said. But then they all do. Try it on, lie. You expect it. Funny thing was …” She angled her mouth away to release a small stream of smoke, eyes staying on him. “… he said he was one of your lot, a copper.”
“And he wasn’t?”
“Milkman. Dale Farms. Hardly the same, is it?”
Resnick grinned.
“’Bout the only thing that interested me, really. The policeman bit.” She leaned back and moved her head so that her hair shook. “Got a thing about authority, you know?”
“Tell that to your boss.”
“Derek? No, I mean the real thing. Not some little tosser spends half his time trying to push you around and the rest round the back, jerking off in front of the mirror.” She drank some gin and tonic. “You need something to push against, you know? Otherwise where’s the fun. Anyway, this bloke, the milkman. I thought he might be it.” She laughed loudly enough to make several people break off their conversations and stare. “Till I went back to his place and talked him into putting on his uniform.”
“Maura!” came the shout from the bar.
“All right, all right.” She finished her drink in a swallow and stood up, leaning down until her hair covered her face. “Yes,” she said, tapping the picture of Dougherty, “he was in here, last hour before closing. Him and another guy, comes in quite a bit. Peter, Paul, one of those names. Don’t know if they were having a row or what, but they were getting loud, I remember that.”
“You didn’t hear what they were saying?”
Maura shook her head.
“You think any of the other staff might have?”
She shrugged. “Possible. Ask.”
“I will.”
“Maura!”
“Got to go.”
Resnick pushed himself up. “Right. Thanks for your help.”
Maura started to move away, then stopped. “The other feller. Paul, Peter. I think he must work round here. Comes in lunchtimes, three or four days a week.”
“You sure he’s working?”
“He wears a suit.” She grinned. “Wouldn’t use it as a floorcloth myself, but to him it’s a suit.”
“Anything else special about him? Except for bad taste?” Standing there, Resnick was conscious of the creases in his bagged trousers, the stain on his jacket lapel.
“Hair.”
“What about it?”
“Not a lot of it. For someone his age.”
“Maura!”
“All right!”
Resnick picked up the photocopy and the now sweaty bag, dark where the fat from the cheesecake had run through.
“Look in again some time,” Maura said. “When it’s not so busy.” A toss of the head and she was heading back towards the bar. Outsi
de it had started to drizzle and a thin film of water was collecting across the gray pavements. Breaking into an awkward trot to avoid a double-decker turning up into the square, Resnick sensed the bottom of the bag begin to break. A vain grab failed to prevent the cheesecake from falling, squashed, into the gutter, leaving Resnick licking cherry topping from his fingers on the corner of the street.
Twenty
It had taken William Dougherty the best part of two hours to calm down his wife, stop the persistent tremble in her hands, persuade her to focus on his words. Pauline listened and nodded and said something William couldn’t catch. Before he knew what she was doing, her hands were under the sink, fumbling for the scouring powder, cream cleanser and cloths. He watched while she lifted the hard plastic bowl from the sink and set it on the draining board, upside down; slowly she began to rub at the already spotless metal; painstakingly, she twisted a thin strip between the links of the chain that held the plug.
“Did you understand what I said?” he asked. “Any of it?”
Her permed hair, not so much as a comb through since morning, sat lopsided, like an ill-fitting wig. “Yes, William. Of course I did.”
As she went back to her cleaning, Dougherty left the house. Asking the neighbor across the way to call in again and sit with Pauline, he caught a bus to the hospital. Without entering the unit he could see Karl’s bed was empty and his knees buckled beneath him. Had Patel still been waiting, likely he would have reached Dougherty in time to steady him before he fell. As it was, Patel had left a note of where he could be contacted and returned to the station and it was a good ten minutes before one of the porters found William Dougherty slumped against the wall.
Nurses helped him to his feet and sat him down with a hasty mug of tea.
“Now then, Mr. Dougherty,” one of the nurses said as she took his pulse, “we can’t have this. We don’t want the whole family in here, sure we don’t.”
“Karl …”
“Oh, we just had to pop him back into theater. Don’t you fret now. He’s in recovery, doing fine. He’ll be back on the ward in a while and then you can see him. All right now? I’ll leave you to finish your tea.”
He sat there, one hand to his head, staring at the floor, uncertain whether he should be more worried about his wife or son.
Kevin Naylor tried Debbie a third time and still there was no reply. Probably round at her mum’s but he wasn’t going to phone there, he’d be buggered if he was.
“Okay?” Lynn Kellogg was standing further along the corridor, near the doors, arms folded across her chest.
“Yes. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Thought you looked a bit worried, that’s all.”
“I’m fine.” Heading past her, hoping she wouldn’t follow.
“Kevin …”
Naylor stopped short, breathed in slowly, then turned to face her.
“It’s not Debbie, is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Only …”
“Do us a favor, Lynn.”
“Yes?”
Naylor jabbed a finger at her like a hammer, like nails. “Go out and get a bloke of your own. Then you won’t spend so much time fussing round me.”
She flinched like she’d been hit. Naylor glared and walked away and Lynn watched him—whatever it was between us, she thought, now it’s gone. Just another man who didn’t like what he was feeling: choke it down until you’re not feeling anything at all. Her notebook was in the bag that hung from her shoulder, all of the staff she’d talked to had known Karl Dougherty, thought he was wonderful—efficient, funny, caring: an outstanding nurse. The impression she was left with was that none of them knew him at all.
She would go and talk to Tim Fletcher before leaving; see if there wasn’t something he could add.
Fletcher was sitting in an easy chair beside his bed, learning Italian care of his Walkman, eyes gently closed as he repeated the phrases over and over: “C’è una mappa con le cose da vedere?” “C’è una mappa con le cose da vedere?” “C’è …” He broke off, aware of someone’s presence.
“Sounds really impressive,” Lynn said.
Tim Fletcher smiled. “It could sound like La Traviata, I’m afraid I still wouldn’t understand it. Most of it, anyhow.”
Lynn introduced herself and sat on the edge of the bed. After several minutes’ polite conversation about his injuries, she asked him if he’d heard about Karl Dougherty and then how well he’d known him.
“Hardly at all.”
“You haven’t worked together, then? I mean, on the same ward or anything?”
Fletcher shook his head. “Not for any length of time. Not that I recall.”
“Wouldn’t you remember something like that?”
“The way it’s organized, I’m attached to a consultant, Mr. Salt as it happens. Now it’s likely the bulk of his patients will be in one or two wards, but, especially with the bed situation the way it is, the others might be just about anywhere.” For several moments he stared at her, vaguely aware that beneath his bandages there was an irritation waiting to be scratched. “You don’t think there’s a connection, something more than coincidence, what happened to the two of us?”
“Oh,” said Lynn, “I really don’t know. Except, well, it is a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? If that’s what it is.”
Fletcher didn’t want to talk about it, not any more. Bad enough being reminded of what had happened every time you tried to turn over in the bed, each faltering move you made under the physio’s eye. In the waste of night, his senses recreated for him the hot smell of hard rubber from the bridge floor with uncanny accuracy.
“All these flowers,” Lynn said, seeking a polite note on which to leave, “from Karen, I suppose?”
“Not all of them.”
“They’re lovely.” She got up from the bed and moved in front of Fletcher’s chair. “How is she? Karen.”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought …”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Oh?”
“She called, left a message with the Sister. Bit off-color.” He glanced round at the bedside cupboard. “She sent a card, lots of cards. I’m sure she’ll be in tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Lynn said, “I’m sure.”
Last thing she was likely to do, Lynn thought as she walked back through the ward, show herself with her face looking like a relief map of somewhere Wainwright might have hiked. Probably she was hiding in her room, waiting for the bruising to subside. No reason to think it was any more than that. Taking the stairs instead of the lift, Lynn glanced at her watch. It wouldn’t be far out of her way and if nothing else it would set her mind at rest.
For what was still the middle of the day, the street seemed unnaturally quiet. The rain had stopped, leaving gray cloud overhanging the sky like a warning. The bottle of unclaimed milk on the doorstep was a crusted yellow beyond cream. Lynn had lived in shared houses and understood the tendency never to see what didn’t immediately concern you; once you started taking out the garbage, you were saddled with it until you left. Holding her breath as best she could, Lynn rang the bell, then knocked. Through the letter box she could see the same pile of unwanted mail on the low table, the telephone. She had feared it might prove a wasted journey and the silence inside the house told her she had been right. Oh, well …
As she was turning away, Lynn heard a door opening inside.
She knocked again and eventually a man appeared, blinking at the dull light. He was in his early twenties, wearing a V-neck sweater over jeans with horizontal tears across both knees. Several days’ stubble on a blotchy face. A student or out of work, guessed Lynn, she found it difficult to tell the difference.
She told him who she was and showed him her warrant card, but he was already shambling back along the narrow hall.
“Karen Archer,” Lynn said, stepping inside. “Is she …?”
The man mumbled something she failed to catch and pointed upwards. Cl
osing the front door behind her, Lynn climbed the stairs, almost forgetting the broken tread but not quite. The picture of kissing lovers had gone from the door to Karen’s room and the catch that had once held a small padlock stood open. There was a sudden burst of music, loud from below, and the top half of her body jerked. The door to the garden had not quite been open. Almost two years now, still whenever she went through a door, uncertain of what she might find, the same images came silently slipping down. Stray ends of cloud moved gray across the moon. A bicycle without a rear wheel leaned against the wall. Her toe touched against something and she bent to pick it up. Mary Sheppard had taken her two children to her mother’s and gone out to meet a man; invited him home. What? Coffee? Mary Sheppard: the first body Lynn had found. Dark lines like ribbons drawn through her hair. Come on, Lynn. She turned the handle and stepped inside.
Stripped: stripped and gone. The box mattress, slightly stained and sagging at its center, the veneered dressing table were the only furniture left in the room. Screwed-up tissues, pale blue, yellow and pink, clustered near one corner. A single sock, purple and green shapes that had begun to run into one another, lay in the space between window and bed. Looking down over the backyards, Lynn saw short lines of washing, a baby asleep in a pram, geraniums; on the end of a square wooden post, a white and gray cat sat immobile, ears pricked. In one of the dressing-table drawers Lynn found an old receipt from the launderette, in another an empty box of tampons. Curling already at the ends, the Polaroid strip had fallen behind and, easing the dressing table from the wall, she lifted it out. Karen Archer and Tim Fletcher making funny faces with the photo-booth curtain as backdrop; no matter how distorted Karen tried to make her features, it was impossible to disguise her beauty. Or, now she looked at the photos closely, Fletcher’s hopefulness. There was a print mark on the bottom picture, the one in which they kissed. Lynn opened her shoulder bag and, carefully, placed the strip inside her notebook.
Downstairs in the communal kitchen the young man who’d let Lynn in was pouring warm baked beans over cold mashed potato.
