A little judicious questioning by Karen Shields's team soon determined that the man they were looking for was a fairly frequent user of the pub where the incident had started, a frequent traveller, too, up and back to Birmingham and Manchester in the course of his work: a wholesale supplier of stationery to both chains and independent stores. Quite often, he would stop off at the pub for a pint or two before catching the Northern Line south to Collier's Wood. The Swiss Army knife had been given to him by his fourteen-year-old son, a present for his last birthday.
When Karen's number two, Mike Ramsden, and a couple of other detectives went to the house, the man at first started to talk his way out of any involvement, then panicked and, against all the odds, attempted to run, which ended when Ramsden stopped him short with an elbow immediately below the breastbone, winding him completely.
Provocation, self-defence, a good solicitor would encourage him to plead to manslaughter and, if the CPS agreed to that, a sympathetic judge would likely sentence him leniently and he'd be back in the family home before his eldest set off for university.
All of which was of little more than academic interest to Karen and her team. A result was a result.
No sign of Mike Ramsden when she entered the office that morning, nor many others: Alan Sheridan, the DS who functioned as office manager, was sitting, owl-like, behind his computer, for all the world as if he'd been there from the night before.
"A message for you," Sheridan called out. "Urgent."
"Where from?"
"On high."
"Harkin?"
"The very same."
"What now?"
"Another promotion, I wouldn't be surprised." He grinned. "You know how you ethnic-minority types prosper."
"Fuck off, Sherry!"
"Yes, ma'am."
When Karen had been appointed Detective Chief Inspector three, almost four years ago, the accusations of favouritism, of positive discrimination had flown thick and fast. She's a woman, she's black, she earned it on her knees. It took Ramsden to stand up in the canteen and say she'd been promoted because she was a fucking good copper-"only don't anyone tell her I said so."
Assistant Commissioner Harkin's office, Karen thought-not that she'd been there that often-always smelled of air freshener and aftershave. Like a sales rep's car. She half-expected to hear Celine Dion or Chris de Burgh coming from speakers placed discreetly beneath his desk.
"Karen." He looked at her with a sort of brisk surprise, as if she were the last person he'd expected to see and he might just be able to find her five minutes of his time.
"Sir."
His hand was dry, so much so that for a moment Karen imagined tiny flakes of skin rubbing off against her fingers.
"That Euston business, good result."
"Thank you, sir."
"Much outstanding?"
"Not too much, sir."
A father of three, stabbed to death on the upper deck of the 24 bus, when he sought to intervene between two warring groups of Somali youths; an elderly man, yet to be identified, whose partly decomposed body had been found in an abandoned Electricity Board building down by the canal; a young Asian woman, whose fall to her death from the seventh floor of a block of flats in Gospel Oak might not be suicide, as first suspected.
"Nothing that couldn't be shuffled off to somebody else?"
Warning bells sounded inside Karen's head. "Probably not, sir. Only-"
"Good. Good. Something interesting's come up. Nottingham. You know Nottingham at all?"
"Robin Hood, sir?"
"Queen of the Midlands. Little raddled nowadays, but even so. Three women for every man, or so they used to say."
Get to it, Karen thought.
"Female officer, Detective Inspector. Homicide Unit. Shot and killed outside her home, yesterday evening."
A jolt ran through her-sympathy, surprise, there but for the grace of God…
"They want someone to go up there, take charge of the investigation."
"But surely they've got-"
"Right now they're seriously understaffed, too many highprofile cases."
"Even so."
"There are complications. The victim, she was in a relationship with another officer. Serious, long-term. DI. Lifetime on the Force. They need someone from outside. No connection. Easier all round."
"You said complications. Plural."
Harkin blanked her with a smile. "Best from the horse's mouth. You've a meeting with their ACC, Crime. Thirteen thirty. Just time for you to get home, pack a bag. Trains leave from St. Pancras, pretty much two an hour." He glanced at his watch. "You'll not want to hang around."
Twenty-three
Resnick had been kneeling beside her when the ambulance arrived. Blood on his shirt, his face, his mouth, his tongue. The first shot had struck Lynn in the chest; the second, fired from closer range, had torn away part of her face, exposing her jaw. Already there were no signs of breathing, no response. After calling emergency services, his voice cracked, wavering, unrecognisable, Resnick had knelt and tilted back her head, pinched her nose, and covered her mouth with his own. Breathed in twice, two seconds, watching for some movement; breathed again, harder, seeing the faintest rising of her chest. Another breath and her head jerked once against his hands, and she coughed blood into his mouth.
"Come on," he said. "Come on!"
Her eyes were open, staring, registering nothing.
Shifting his position and interlacing his fingers, Resnick pressed down on the centre of her chest. Blood oozed out over his hands as if he were leaning on a sponge.
Thirty compressions and then two breaths.
Thirty compressions more and the sound of sirens.
Keep going, keep going.
Sirens loud and louder in his ears, lights that flashed and circled like a fairground around his head; thirty compressions and two breaths, and they had to prise his hands away; halfdrag, half-pull him to his feet and lever him aside so that they could move in with their equipment, begin their work. One of the paramedics-Resnick would always remember this-was young, with a freckled face, freckled around the nose and cheeks even at that time of year, a freckled face and sandy, almost ginger hair-why did he notice that and not the light going from Lynn's eyes as they rolled back in her head?
More people now, more cars; someone pushed a glass of water towards him and it slipped and shattered on the path; someone else put a hand gently on his arm and he brushed it away. Several people spoke words he didn't understand. The paramedics were lifting her up and carrying her towards the ambulance and, stumbling once, Resnick hurried forward, calling after her, calling her name.
One of the paramedics helped him into the back of the ambulance and, breathing ragged and harsh, he sat beside her, leaning forward, her cold hand growing colder in his own.
He couldn't remember, later, leaving the ambulance or entering the hospital-just that he was suddenly there and in the corridor, and a doctor was standing in front of him, putting out both hands as if to restrain him, and speaking all the time, explaining, while behind him they were wheeling her away, not walking, hurrying, almost running.
A nurse led him to a place where he was supposed to wait.
Another brought a cup of hot, sweet tea and the smell and taste of the tea and the taste and smell of blood made him retch, and the nurse helped him to the men's room where he threw up into the lavatory bowl and then knelt there on the damp floor, his forehead resting against the cold, spattered edge of porcelain, listening to his own breathing as it slowed and slowed until he felt he could push himself to his feet, just, and turn, steadying himself for a moment against the cubicle door, before walking the four long paces to the sink and splashing cold water again and again in his face, a face that, in the mirror, looked more like a mask than it did his own.