Thirteen
“Kevin?”
“Shhh!”
“What time is it?”
“Early. You go back to sleep.”
“The baby …”
“I gave her a drink and she went off again.”
Debbie rolled on to her side, face to the pillow. It was dark in the room, even the gap at the top of the curtains, where they refused to meet, offering no light.
“You’re on an early.”
“Yes.” Dressed in all but his jacket, Kevin sat on the edge of the bed, close to her bare arm.
“I’m sorry, I forgot.”
Lightly stroking her shoulder, Kevin smiled. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You used to hate that.”
“What?”
Slowly lifting her face, a thin skein of spittle stretched from the pillow to the corner of her mouth until it snapped. “When I used to forget your rota, which hours you were on.”
“I used to hate a lot of things.” Her mouth was damp and warm and musty from sleep. “Love you,” he said.
“I know,” Debbie said. She brought her other arm around him, crook of her elbow tightening against his neck. One breast slipped free from the Snoopy T-shirt she wore in bed.
“I’ll be late.”
“I know,” Debbie said.
She kissed him hard and let him go.
Pulling the front door shut and stepping out on to the street, the same, now familiar feeling closed cold around his stomach: how close he had come to losing this, all of it, letting it go.
Resnick had woken something short of four, finally got up at five. When he had opened the garden door to Dizzy, the black cat had entered with sprung step and hoisted tail as if there were nothing new in this. Below freezing outside, Dizzy’s fur was sleek and tinged with frost.
Resnick warmed him milk in the pan, testing the temperature with his finger before pouring it into the dish. The cat’s purrs filled the kitchen as it ate and Resnick sipped hot black coffee: a secret between them, no one else awake.
The first news of Nancy Phelan’s disappearance would go out on the local news at six, would possibly rate a minor mention on the national network an hour later. Jack Skelton had called a meeting for nine. The evidence, such as it was, would be assembled, evaluated, broken down; assignments would be made, which interviews warranted following up, which gaps had still to be filled. Her father’s pain and anger on the phone. Doing everything we can. He remembered the way Nancy had looked in the otherwise empty CID room, red coat unbuttoned and loose at her shoulders. Later that evening, the voice that had seemed to come from nowhere, silver of her smile, breath that had hung between them in the air.
“Very well, ladies and gents, let’s come to order if you please.”
The new DCI wore his Wolverhampton Polytechnic education like a thin veneer; a supercilious smugness which his Black Country vowels disavowed. Recently promoted over the pair of them, Malcolm Grafton was ten years younger than either Resnick or Reg Cossall-as Reg never failed to remark.
“Jesus, Charlie! You don’t think he wore those for his interview, do you?”
As Grafton had resumed his seat on the platform, one leg had crossed high over the other, revealing a sock that looked, as Reg Cossall remarked, as if it had been dipped in a late-night curry disaster, then hung on the line to dry.
Resnick grunted and kept his own counsel, only a while back he had noticed he was wearing odd socks himself, dark blue and maroon. No wonder he hadn’t pinned down the color of the car waiting to drive Nancy Phelan away.
“For the present, we’re looking at three areas for the possible abductor …” Jack Skelton was on his feet now, gesturing towards the boards to his right, “… boyfriends, men friends, call them what you will, that’s for starters; guests at the hotel on Christmas Eve-initially that’s those at the same architects’ do as her, but ultimately anyone and everyone who used the place that evening.” A groan from the assembled officers at this. “And lastly, at the moment no more than an outside chance, this man, Gary James.”
Heads swiveled to where Skelton was now pointing and Gary’s whippet face stared back at them, full-on, from between twin profiles, left and right.
“As most of you’ll know,” Skelton continued, “there was an incident at the Housing Office the same afternoon, James became violent, offered threats to various personnel, including the missing woman, Nancy Phelan, whom he kept a prisoner in her office for a time. The initial grudge he has against her seemed to stem from an argument over the housing allocated to James, his common-law wife, and their two children. Whether, as a result of anything that happened yesterday, it’s gone beyond that, we don’t know.”
Skelton stepped back, seeking out Lynn Kellogg through the rising haze of tobacco smoke. “Lynn, you saw him yesterday, I believe.”
Slightly self-conscious, buttoning, then unbuttoning the front of her jacket, Lynn got to her feet.
“I spoke with James yesterday, sir. Claims he was home the later part of the evening and his wife, Michelle Paley, that is, she supports him in that.”
“You think he’s telling the truth?”
“I’ve no reason not to think so.”
“But you’re not convinced.”
A pause. “No, sir.”
“The woman, Michelle, she’d lie to alibi him?”
Without hesitation, Lynn said, “She’d be frightened not to.”
“Knocks her about, does he?”
“No direct evidence, sir. No obvious signs. But he’s got a temper; flares up out of nothing. And there are the injuries to the little boy.”
“I understood we’d cleared that up?” Skelton was looking towards Resnick now. “Clean bill of health.”
“According to the doctor,” Resnick said, half out of his chair, “bruising and swelling tallied with the mother’s story. Accidental injury.”
“But you think it could be something else?”
Resnick shrugged. “Possible.”
“The situation’s being watched?”
“Social Services, yes.”
Skelton nodded gravely, pressing the tips of his fingers tight together; Resnick lowered himself back into his seat. Lynn was still on her feet.
“Yes?” Skelton said.
“I was wondering, sir, whether that was enough. The whole situation there, I don’t know, it’s like something waiting to explode?”
“We’ve heard, Social Services are keeping an eye …”
“Even so, overstretched the way they are …”
“And we’re not?” There was more than a touch of anger in Skelton’s voice.
“But if James is a strong suspect …”
“Is he? Is that what we’re saying? He’s really a viable suspect here?”
Lynn didn’t answer; glanced across at Resnick for support. At the back of the room, Kevin Naylor shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed on her behalf.
“Are you saying it’s possible,” Malcolm Grafton put in, “that James could have been the driver of that car, waiting to whisk Nancy Phelan away?”
“We don’t know that’s what happened,” Resnick said.
“Best bet, Charlie. Your call.” Grafton leaned back and recrossed his legs, giving his socks another airing. “Got to be where we’re looking, surely? Not this sorry bugger. Knocking his wife and kids about, throwing chairs at women clerks, that’s his mark.”
“That doesn’t mean-” Lynn began, color leaping to her cheeks.
“Lynn …” Resnick was out of his seat, faster this time.
“You’re not suggesting, sir,” Lynn said, gripping the chair in front of her hard, “that domestic violence …”
“I think what the DCI means …”
“Thank you, Charlie, but I don’t need an interpreter,” Grafton said.
“Just a decent pair of socks,” murmured Reg Cossall.
“Our concern here is finding Nancy Phelan, what happened to her,” Grafton continued. “Anything else, it gets in the way.”
Slowly, Lynn sat back down.
“’Bout chuffing time!” Divine said to no one in particular. “Now we can get bloody on.”