“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I could have sworn this place stayed open all night.”
“Not to worry,” Lynn said. “It’s not your fault.”
“I travel this road quite a lot, though. I should know.”
“Me, too. I had half an idea you were right.”
“Perhaps it closes at twelve?”
“Perhaps.”
Lynn felt a little stupid now, sitting in the back the way she had. There was this man, perfectly nice, out of his way to help her, and there she was sitting in the back like Lady Muck.
“So what …?”
“What …?”
Their words collided and simultaneously they laughed.
“Had I best run you back to your car, then?” Michael asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you’re heading for Derby.”
“Nottingham?”
“Fine.”
Lynn leaned back in her seat. “Thanks,” she said.
It was warm in the car, cocooned from the cold and rain. For a time, Michael chatted about this and that, his words half lost in the swish of other wheels, the rhythmic beat of the wipers arcing their way across the windscreen. Ten years ago he had left a steady job, started a small business of his own, following a trend; two years back it had gone bust, nothing spectacular about that. Now he was picking himself up, starting from scratch: working for a stationery suppliers, there in the East Midlands, East Anglia, glorified rep. He laughed. “If you’re ever in the market for a gross of manila envelopes or a few hundred meters of bubble wrap, I’m your man.”
As they reached the outskirts of the city, sliding between pools of orange light, the rain eased, the wind dropped. Life shone, dull, through the upstairs nets of suburban villas as they approached the Trent.
“Whereabouts?” Michael asked. They were slowing past the cricket ground, the last customers leaving the fast-food places opposite with kebabs or cod and chips.
“Anywhere in the center’s fine.”
“The square?”
“You could drop me off in Hockley. The bottom of Goose Gate, somewhere round there.”
“Sure.”
Shifting left through the lanes as they went down the dip past the bowling alley, he drew into the curb below Aloysius House. A small group of men stood close against the wall, a bottle of cider passing back and forth between them.
“Thanks,” Lynn said, as Michael pulled on the hand brake. “You’ve been really great.”
“It was nothing.”
“If it weren’t for you, I’d still be out there now, probably. Condemned to spend a night on the A52.”
“Oh, well …”
Lynn shifted across the seat to get out. “Goodnight.”
“I don’t suppose …”
She looked at him.
“No, it’s all right.”
“What?”
“It’s late, I know, but I don’t suppose you’d have time for a cup of coffee or something? What d’you say?”
Lynn’s hand was on the door and the door was opening and she knew the last thing she wanted to do, right then, was walk up that street and turn the four corners that would take her to her flat, walk inside, and see her reflection in the mirror staring back.
“Okay,” she said. “But it’ll have to be quick.”
The all-night cafe was near the site of the old indoor market, opposite what had once been the bus station and was now a car park and The World of Leather. The only other customers were taxi drivers, a couple, who from the look of their clothes were on their way to Michael Isaac’s night club up the street, and a woman in a plaid coat who sang softly to herself as she made patterns on the table with the sugar.
They ordered coffee and Michael a sausage cob, which, when it arrived, made Lynn look so envious, he broke off a healthy piece and insisted she eat it.
“I’m in the police,” she said. The first cups of coffee had been finished for some time and they were starting on their second.
He showed little in the way of surprise. “What branch? I mean, what kind of thing?” His eyes were smiling; in truth, they had rarely stopped smiling the past half hour. “You have a uniform or what?”
“God!” she said and laughed.
“What?”
“Why is it that’s always the first thing men ask?”
“Is it?”
“Usually, yes.”
“Well, do you?”
Lynn shook her head. “I’m a detective. Plain clothes.”
“Is that so?” He looked impressed. “And what do you detect?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Even murder?”
“Yes,” she said. “Even murder.”
The couple across from them were laughing, well-bred voices as out of place as good china; the girl was wearing a long button-through skirt in what might have been silk and it lay open along most of her thigh. From time to time, carelessly, the young man stroked her with his hand. They were probably nineteen.
“What’s the matter?” Michael said.
Lynn realized she had started crying. “It’s nothing,” she said, unable to stop. A couple of the cabbies were looking round.
“It’ll be the accident,” Michael said. “Delayed reaction. You know, the shock.”
Lynn sniffed and shook her head. “I was crying when it happened. That’s what did it.”
“But why,” said Michael, leaning forward. “Why were you crying then? What was it all about?”
She told him: everything. Her father; fears: everything. In the middle of it he reached across and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, when she’d finished. “Really, truly sorry.”
Lynn released her hand, ferreted in her bag for a half-dry tissue, and gave her nose a good blow.
“Shall I not walk you home?” he said, out there on the street.
“No, it’s all right.”
“I’d feel happier.”
“Michael …”
“Young woman such as yourself, doesn’t do to be walking home alone at this hour … Heavens, is that the time?”
“You see.” Lynn laughing, despite herself. Tears gone.
“Come on,” he said, taking her arm. “Show me the way.”
She slipped free of his hand, but let him walk with her nonetheless, up past the Palais and into Broad Street and the new Broadway cinema, where she kept meaning to go without quite making it.
“The Vanishing” Michael said, looking at the posters. “Did you ever see that?”
Lynn shook her head. “No.”
“It’s a fine film,” he said.
At the entrance to the courtyard, she turned and stopped. “This is it.”
“You live here?”
“Courtesy of the Housing Association, yes.”
Slowly, he reached for her hand. God, how I hate this part of it, Lynn thought. Deftly, she moved towards him, kissed him on the cheek. “Goodnight. And thanks.”
“Will I see you again?” he called after her, voice echoing a little between the walls.
She turned her head for a moment towards him but didn’t answer and Michael didn’t mind: he knew he would.
Forty
The assistant chief constable’s last words to Skelton: “However else this little lot turns out, Jack, keep track of the bloody money.”
“Enough here,” Graham Millington had said thoughtfully, weighing one of the duffel bags in his hand, “to keep the Drug Squad in crack till next year.”
Skelton’s instructions had been clear, hands strictly off, keep your distance, no diving in: watch and wait, the name of the game. As he came down the stairs after the briefing, the strain on his face clearly showed.
“If this bastard’s tossing us around, Charlie,” Reg Cossall said, “jolly Jack there’s going to be scraping the shit off his boots for weeks.”
Resnick and Millington had charge of the A17 team, Helen Siddons and Cossall were north on the A631. “Big chance, eh, Charlie,” Cossall had laughed, “me and Siddons, parked off for a few hours, chance to find out what the old man’s getting his Y-fronts in a state about. Taking precautions, mind.” He winked, and pulled a leather glove from his side pocket. “Not be wanting to catch frostbite.”