He laughed as Resnick walked away.
Twenty-one
After a slow start-for Lynn, at least-Monday was turning out to be a good day. One of the night staff at the Holiday Inn in Newcastle upon Tyne had remembered something he had failed to mention when first questioned: he had seen Dan Schofield-or someone very like Dan Schofield-driving his car back into the hotel garage as he himself was leaving work. Somewhere between six-fifteen and six-thirty. While he couldn't be one hundred percent positive about Schofield, he was certain about the car. One door panel, front offside, a slightly different shade of green than the rest, where at some point it had either been re-sprayed or replaced.
"'Course, by rights," the SIO running the investigation told Lynn Kellogg later, "I should be more than a bit pissed off at you for making my team look like a bunch of rank amateurs. Not seeing what was under their bloody noses."
"Just luck," Lynn said, though they both knew it wasn't that.
"Any road, let me buy you a drink after work. If you're not driving, that is."
"Schofield's still to slip up. You sure you don't want to wait till he does?"
"No. He will and when he does we'll throw a proper party. This is just you and me, quiet, my way of saying thanks."
Resnick was at the other end of the bar, standing with Pike and Michaelson and Anil Khan; Anil, Lynn noticed, sticking to his usual lime and soda. She sat with half a lager, making it last, while the SIO's conversation moved from speculation as to what might have pushed Schofield over the edge on to considerations of his daughter's coming wedding, the state of his allotment, and matters in between. When he asked her, nodding towards the bar, what Resnick thought about his impending retirement, she said, "Ask him, why don't you? Ask him yourself."
"Best not," the SIO said with a grin. "Might not want to be reminded."
Lynn smiled, suggesting that was probably the case.
"You'll have another?" he asked.
"Thanks, but no." Glass empty, she got to her feet.
"Back home to get the old man's supper?"
"Something like that."
Seeing her moving, Resnick held up his own glass, recently refreshed, signalling he'd be a short while yet. Lynn raised a hand to show she understood and pushed her way through the door and out onto the street.
As soon as she was outside, she sensed someone at her back.
"Leaving early?" Daines moved closer as she turned.
"What's it to you?" Lynn could feel his breath on her face.
"Thought I might join you. But then I thought, no, relaxing with her mates, friends, her-what would you call him? — common-law husband."
"You've been following me?" Lynn asked.
"Maybe." The streetlight picking out the fleck of green in his eye when he smiled. "Though I thought it was more a case of you following me."
"I don't think so."
"Really? Asking questions behind my back. Checking up on me. Amounts to more or less the same thing."
Lynn took a step back. "Is that what I've been doing?"
"So I hear."
Lynn said nothing.
"Anything you wanted to ask, why not come out and ask it yourself. Straight out. Or maybe that's not your way."
"I already did," Lynn said.
"Sorry?"
"You know her," Lynn said.
"Her?"
"Andreea Florescu, you know her. You'd seen her before."
"No."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
"Well, she knows you."
"She's lying."
"I don't think so."
"That foreign tart, you believe her rather than me?" Daines made a scoffing sound in his throat. "She's probably been lying about Zoukas as well. About seeing him stab the girl."
"Why would she do that?"
"Who knows?" A smile slipped across his face and disappeared. "A word of advice. One professional to another." Reaching out quickly, he took hold of her arm. "Don't make me your enemy."
"Is that a threat?"
"If need be."
Shaking him off, she stepped away and as she did so, the pub door was pushed open and Resnick stepped outside. Daines nodded curtly in his direction, gave Lynn one final look, and walked briskly away.
"What was all that about?" Resnick asked.
She gave him the gist of the conversation as they were walking home, north from the city centre and then cutting right on to the Woodborough Road.
Resnick said, after listening, "You have to wonder what it is he has to hide."
"Something personal? You think that's what it is?"
"I don't know. This operation, it's pretty big. International. If he can help pull it off, his career'll be made. Maybe he thinks anything that makes that possible is justified. And the last thing he'll want is for things to come out in the open before he's good and ready."
"I don't like it," Lynn said.
"You don't like him."
"They're not the same."
"I know."
They walked on, past the mosque and up towards Gorseyclose Gardens and Alexandra Park.
"You could always report it," Resnick said. "Take it to the ACC if necessary."
Lynn shook her head. "He'd just deny every word."
One of the cats ran along the pavement to greet them, the others were waiting on the mat beside the door. Resnick turned first one key in the lock and then the other. It struck cold when they stepped inside, the heating turned off too soon. Even so, it was good to be home.
It was a quarter to three on the following afternoon, Tuesday, before Dan Schofield confessed to killing both Christine and Susan Foley, admitting through his solicitor to manslaughter while the balance of his mind was disturbed.
"Guts enough to stab a woman to death with a bloody kitchen knife and smother a little kiddie while she slept," as the SIO put it, "but not man enough to own up to what he's done without hiding behind the skirts of some bloody shrink."
It had still to be seen if that ploy would succeed.
Lynn was barely back at her desk when the phone rang. It was Alexander Bucur calling from London, his voice quick and nervous, words skidding together: two men had come to the flat on the previous evening looking for Andreea. He had told them she wasn't there, but they had forced their way in nevertheless and searched. When they asked him where she was, he had told them she was working but that he didn't know where. They would be back, they told him. They would be back.
"And Andreea?"
"When I told her, she panicked. It was all I could do to stop her grabbing her things and running there and then. She's terrified."
"I'll come down," Lynn said impulsively. "Talk to her."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, of course."
She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she could catch the 15:38 London train. Just time enough to poke her head round Resnick's office door before legging it to the station.
"Charlie, I'm off down to London. Something's come up."
"What d'you mean, come up?"
"Alexander Bucur-the guy Andreea's been living with. In Leyton. He just called me. Someone's been round looking for Andreea. Sounds like the same guy who threatened her before. She's frightened out of her wits."
"I don't see-"
"Charlie. I've got to run. Be back this evening, okay?"
Resnick raised his hand. "Ring me."
"I'll call you from the train."
A moment, and she was gone.
Bucur met her at the front door. A black eye, in the process of turning from mauve to yellow, marred his otherwise-perfect face.
"What happened?" Lynn asked.
"This? Last night. When I told them I didn't know where Andreea was working, I don't think they believed me." It made him wince to smile. "Come in."
She followed him upstairs and into the flat. The look on his face told her before he said the words. "She's gone!"