by John Harvey
“Hungry?” his father asked.
“Not very.”
His father spooned chickpeas on to one side of a plate, two sausages, then thinking about it for a moment before adding a third.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“I said I wasn’t hungry, right.”
“That doesn’t usually stop you,” his father said, although all that home cooking barely showed and Calvin, in his T-shirt and jeans, was still lean as cured bacon.
His father lifted the frying pan over the plate and tipped out half the onions, giving the pan a helpful shake. Finally, a thick tomato sauce distilled from several pounds of ripe tomatoes and molasses.
“Here,” his father said, passing the plate across to the breakfast bar where they usually sat to eat. “You might need this.” He took the small, straight-sided bottle of Tabasco sauce from the shelf and set it close to Calvin’s plate. “Give it a little spice.”
Then he went back to serving himself.
A perfectly good dining table in the living room, a picture window that looked right down across the park, and nine times out of ten they had their meals in the kitchen. Sixteen years they hadn’t been able to get his father in there, now it was the devil’s own job to get him out.
“Good?” Calvin’s father asked.
“Mm,” Calvin responded through a mouthful of sausage. “Umnh.”
His father had taken up cooking, but he hadn’t any time for recipes. Making social security and his small disability pension stretch to feed the two of them took a special kind of enterprise and effort. He would spend up to half of each day wandering around the local shops, take the bus down into the city or up to Arnold, picking up stuff and feeling it, never seeming to notice when shopkeepers or stallholders told him to keep his fingers to himself. Once or twice a week he would get up at five and go down to the wholesale market at Sneinton, there and back on that old bike of his, pedaling home in laborious low gear, towing a little wooden trailer behind him—little more than a vegetable crate with wheels—loaded full of potatoes, cabbages, whatever was cheap and in season.
“You know all the colleges have started back now?”
Calvin grunted.
“I thought you were going to get yourself enrolled again?”
“I am.”
“When?”
“When I know what course it is I want to do.”
“And when’s that going to be?”
“I’m still going through the booklets, in’t I, prospectuses?”
“A little late, ain’t it?”
“Takes time, I don’t want to make another mistake.”
“No danger of that.”
Calvin set down his knife and fork. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never enrol, no chance you’ve got of dropping out.”
It wasn’t worth arguing. Every so often his father would nag him about it, he would stall and before long the matter would be forgotten. They would get back to what now seemed to have become their lives. Meals together, a couple of beers of an evening watching old films his father would rent on video. Operation Petticoat. That Touch of Mink. He could never understand how his father could watch such garbage, laugh at it. Still, it didn’t matter. Around ten he would go down to his room and lie back on the bed, headphones on his head. David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen. Calvin knew what he was supposed to play was Soul II Soul, New Kids on the Block, Niggers with Attitude. Crap like that.
Mouth still full, he pushed his plate aside.
“You haven’t finished.”
“I’ve had enough.”
The local paper came through the front door and the flap of the letter box snapped back with a crack. Calvin fetched it through into the kitchen, unfolding it to show the front page.
“Seen this,” he said, pointing at the headlines: NURSE’S GRIM FIGHT FOR LIFE.
His father nodded gently and slid the paper away. “What you left, I’ll put in the refrigerator. You might fancy it later.”
Fifteen minutes later, Calvin was ready. He’d pulled a sweater over his T-shirt, black running shoes on his feet. A canvas bag hung from his shoulder, rested snug against his hip.
His father was at the sink, finishing the washing up.
“Right,” Calvin said, opening the front door.
“Where’re you off to?” his father asked.
“Out.”
Twenty-three
“Dicey business, Charlie. Can’t say that I like it.”
Skelton was on the prowl. Desk to window, window to filing cabinet, filing cabinet to coffee-maker, though it didn’t seem to occur to him to offer Resnick a cup. The superintendent was so wired up himself, Resnick wondered if he’d been taking his caffeine straight, mainlining it into a vein. Truth was, likely he hadn’t done any serious exercise for a few hours, needed a five-mile run to steady his nerves.
He’d been like this after the trouble had flared up with Kate, either hyped up or flatter than a slow Sunday out in the suburbs of Bramcote, Burton Joyce. Resnick wondered again how things were with Skelton’s daughter, A levels pretty soon—was that what they still called them?—off to be a student somewhere probably. Then let Skelton try and keep tabs on her. Or maybe with the new morality they didn’t waste their energies on sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll? Straight into pension schemes and overdrafts to afford Paul Smith suits; long evenings lusting after fax machines while they listened to Nigel Kennedy or the Eric Clapton back-catalog re-released on CD. He’d been a fair guitarist once; Clapton not Kennedy.
“What are you thinking, Charlie?”
“‘Crossroads,’ sir.”
“Not bringing that back, are they? Thought it was all this Australian stuff, Neighbours and the like.”
“No, sir. ‘Crossroads.’ It’s a blues. Robert Johnson. Skip James. It’s …”
“Relevant, Charlie?”
“No, sir. Not really.”
Skelton gave him a short, hard stare and resumed pacing his office carpet. As a superintendent you get thicker pile and a choice of colors, replacement every five years if you had the right connections. The way Skelton was going, that might be something else to talk to Paul Groves about.
“It’s distracting,” Skelton said, behind Resnick now and making him turn in his chair. “That’s what worries me. Leading us away from what I think should be our main focus.”
“But if it’s there …”
“What, Charlie? What exactly?”
“If Groves and Dougherty were involved …”
“Come on, Charlie. We don’t know that.”
“Seems pretty incontrovertible Groves is gay, bisexual at least.”
“Where’s your evidence about Dougherty?”
“Close to thirty interviews, people who’ve worked with him, some of them for quite a while. Had a drink with him, socialized. Not a great deal, but a little. Never once, any talk of a girlfriend. Woman. Not once.”
“That means he’s gay?”
Resnick shrugged. What was Skelton getting so worked up about? “It’s an indication.”
“Of what? That he doesn’t like women? That he doesn’t like sex? Maybe he’s a very private person. Maybe it’s his hormones. If we all had our sexuality determined by our rate of intimacy, where would that leave us?” Skelton was back behind his desk, constructing cages with his fingers. “Come to think of it, Charlie, last couple of police functions, you haven’t brought anybody with you, the opposite sex. Not significant, is it?”
Resnick found himself wriggling a little more than was comfortable. Either Skelton was accusing him of being a long time in the closet or being innately prejudiced, he wasn’t sure which. Perhaps it was both. Or simply a game? No. The only games he could imagine Skelton being interested in had strict rules, required the utmost concentration and alertness, were important to win and absolutely no fun at all. Fun, Resnick thought, wasn’t a concept the superintendent believed in.
Poor Kate!
“I’m
sure there was something going on between them,” Resnick said. “Something to make Dougherty leave early, more than this shift business. I saw Groves’s face when I suggested they might have been having a row.”
“Lovers’ quarrel, Charlie?” said Skelton dismissively.
“Could have followed him out of the bar, across the street. One thing, if Dougherty knew who his attacker was, that would explain why he was able to get close, get in the first blow.”
“From behind, Charlie?”
The thought set up possibilities neither man was prepared fully to consider. Skelton slid back one of his desk drawers and took out a blue folder, some papers clipped neatly together.
“Home Office statistics. Rise in recorded sexual offenses, five percent to twenty-eight thousand in ’89, since then more or less holding.” Skelton flipped over two pages. “Research into that extra five percent, thirteen hundred cases, between half and a third indecency charges against men. One town’s public toilets. You can imagine what the gays had to say about that. You know.” Skelton turned to another sheet, a photo copy of a magazine article. “‘The prosecution and persecution of gay men,’” Skelton read.
“With respect, sir …”
“Let the media get wind of this,” Skelton said, “they’ll have a field day. Gays carving themselves up in lavatories. The so-called silent majority will want officers on observation, armed with everything from mirrors to video cameras and everyone to the left of the Co-op Labour Party will be organizing demos and picketing police stations on behalf of their oppressed brothers.”
Resnick allowed a small silence to collect around them. Beyond it a car went by, all of its windows presumably down, loudspeakers blaring. From further along the corridor, not quite decipherable, the familiar cadence of swearing. Telephones, their urgencies overlapping.
“If he had motivation, sir. Groves. Opportunity.”
“Yes,” said Skelton, subdued now. “I agree. We have to check it out. But, Charlie, low profile, low key, be careful who you use. And remember, if there is anything in it, where does that leave us with the attack on Fletcher? The hospital, Charlie, I still think that’s where we’ll find our answers.”
“Yes, sir,” Resnick said, getting to his feet.
“The wrong kind of publicity, Charlie,” Skelton said as Resnick reached the door, “it can only get in the way.”
Patel was worrying over the information that had come back from the hospital, fussing with the computer, opening files, finding facts to cross-reference, and concluding there were too few. If there was a clear link between Fletcher and Karl Dougherty he couldn’t pin it down. Aside from the obvious; apart from the fact that they had survived. In Dougherty’s case, just. His condition was still giving cause for concern.
Naylor and Lynn Kellogg were talking into telephones, opposite ends of the office.
“Nobody tramps the streets with a pram for eight hours,” Naylor was saying. “Nobody in their right mind.”
“And when she made this application,” said Lynn Kellogg, “did she say what she was going to do?… Mm, hm. Mm, hm … And did she say where?”
Resnick stood for a while behind Patel’s desk, looking at the characters springing up on the green screen. Names, dates, times. It should all be checked against a list of patients Fletcher would have had dealings with, patients from Bernard Salt’s list, but that list was slow in coming. The consultant’s secretary had greeted Patel’s request like an invitation to perform a particularly unsavory sexual act.
If Skelton was right and the hospital was where they were going to get their answers, they would have to do better than this.
“I would go back there, sir,” Patel said. “But with the best will in the world, I don’t think it would make a lot of difference. She is a very determined lady.”
Resnick nodded. The sort that, generations back, would have traveled across the Sahara by camel without ever breaking sweat or needing to urinate behind the nearest pyramid; who held the Raj together in the face of disease, the caste system, and the occasional difficulty in getting a fourth for bridge.
“If you might call her yourself, sir,” Patel suggested.
“I’ll get the super to do it.”
“I don’t know,” Naylor was saying. “As soon as I can. What does it matter anyway, if you’re not going to be there?”
“Thank you,” said Lynn. “If she does get in touch, you’ll let me know?”
Resnick watched as Naylor slammed down the phone and left the office with a speed that nearly left a startled DC, who happened to be coming through the door, minus an arm. Resnick looked questioningly towards Lynn Kellogg and slowly she shook her head. The number of times Resnick had seen it happen: young officers who think a kiddie is all they need to bring them and their young wives back together.
He headed for his office and Lynn followed him.
“Karen Archer, sir. I’ve checked with the university. Seems she saw the student counselor and was advised to take some time off. Compassionate leave, sort of thing. The department secretary assumed she’d gone home to her parents, but didn’t know for sure. I’ve tried to contact them and can’t get any response.”
“You’re worried?”
“Just a feeling, sir.”
“She had obviously moved out, though. Signaled her intentions.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not as if Carew’s gone after her again, no suggestion of that?”
Lynn shook her head.
“The concern is, then, what? She might have harmed herself?”
“Something like that, sir. Rape. The way Maureen Madden explained it, at least if she’d agreed to press charges, that would have been acknowledging what happened and saying that it wasn’t her fault. Not leaving her trying to suppress it or feeling guilty.”
“Her parents. Where do they live?”
“Devon, sir. Close to Lynmouth.”
“Put through a call to the local station. Ask them to contact the parents if they can.” He looked across at her, a stocky, earnest woman with worried, sympathetic eyes. “Take it from there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before Lynn had left his office, Resnick was getting himself put through to Skelton. The superintendent brought his rank and authority to bear on Bernard Salt’s secretary, who promised she would have the necessary information available by the end of the day. Resnick thanked him and checked that he could pick it up himself. He had another call to make that would take him close.
A little after five, Resnick was standing in the back garden of the Doughertys’ house in Wollaton, balancing a cup and saucer in his left hand. The sky was losing light and across a succession of privet hedges bungalows were falling into silhouette. Inside, in the kitchen, Pauline Dougherty was washing their best dinner service, the one that had been a wedding gift, for the second time.
“I’m sorry,” Resnick said to William Dougherty, who was standing to his left, staring at some non-existent blemish on the lawn, “but there’s something I have to ask you about Karl. Something personal.”
Twenty-four
“Helen, this is simply not the best time.”
“No?”
“No.”
“But then, Bernard, it never is.”
Bernard Salt put both hands briefly to his face, covering his mouth, tiredness; his eyes alone had any brightness left in them and even they were showing signs of strain. All the damned day in theater and now this.
“Look,” he extended his hands towards her, palms up, fingers loosely spread; the way he approached relatives, persuasive, calming; the way he approached them when the prognosis was poor. Helen Minton knew: she had seen it in operation many times before. “Look, Helen, here’s what we’ll do. Your diary, mine, we’ll make a definite date for later in the week …”
Already she was shaking her head.
“Go somewhere pleasant, that restaurant out at Plumtree …”
“No, Bernard.”
“Give us a chanc
e to talk properly …”
“Bernard, no.”
“Relax. Surely that’s better than this?”
Helen Minton lifted her head and began to laugh.
“Look at us. You’re tired, I’m tired. It’s the end of the day.”
“Yes,” Helen said, still laughing. “It’s always the end of the day.”
He came close to taking her by the arm but thought better of it. “Helen, please …”
The laughter continued, grew louder. Salt glanced anxiously towards the connecting door, the faint shadow of his secretary at her desk, the soft purr and click of the electric typewriter maintaining the same even tempo. The laughter rose and broke and was gone.
“Don’t worry about her, Bernard. She’ll think I’m just another hysterical, middle-aged woman for you to deal with. I’m sure she’s used to them, trooping in and out of your office. The fact that this one’s in uniform probably doesn’t make a lot of difference. She’ll never betray your confidence, expose you to anything as unsavory as gossip.” Helen smiled without humor. “She’s probably in love with you herself.”
Salt shook his head. “Now you are being stupid.”
“Of course,” she said, “I always am, sooner or later. If I weren’t, how could you dismiss me so easily. Ignore me as a fool.”
The consultant shook his head and sat down. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do. It’s simple. Give me an answer.”
He looked up at her and back at his desk. Slightly muffled, there was a knock at the outer office door. “I can’t,” he said.
They stayed as they were, Helen staring at Salt, at the fleshiness around his jaw, hating it, sickened by it, the sight of him; if he turned his head towards her now and said the right words, she would weep with gratitude and fall into his arms.
“Excuse me,” said the secretary apologetically, opening the door, “but the inspector is here. To collect the patients’ details. He wondered if you had a minute to spare.”
Without another word, Helen Minton hurried out, past the secretary, past Resnick, into the corridor.
“Of course,” said Salt wearily. “Ask him to come in.”
