Carew had found a light cotton sweater, pearl gray, and he wore it now, draped across his shoulders, a deep purple singlet underneath, white running shorts with stripes in two shades of green and a high vent at the sides, Reactolite Polaroids with silvered frames. On each wrist a purple and green sweatband. He didn’t want her to think he wasn’t taking this seriously.
He rocked forward, legs straight out, and flicked an ant from the toe of his left shoe. Brand new LA Gear, he’d made a trip specially into the city to buy them that morning. What was the point of having parents who were prepared to supplement your grant if you didn’t take full advantage?
“You didn’t just happen to be here?” Sarah Leonard said.
“Uh-uh,” grinning that cocky grin of his, “I was waiting for you.”
“How did you know I’d be here.”
“Easy. I checked your ward rota.”
“You checked …”
“Lying around on the sister’s desk.” Carew touched the side of his sunglasses, but didn’t take them off. “It’s hardly confidential. Surely?”
“I’m early.”
“I know.” All right for some, Sarah thought, bit of sun and they’re lazing around, taking it easy; here he was, didn’t care if he had to wait over an hour, just as long as he got a little more tanned. But instead Carew said, “You’re often early.”
“Am I?”
“More often than not.”
“You’d know, would you?”
He did take off his glasses then and smiled. Conceited bastard! Flashing those blue eyes, Sarah thought. Why are the good-looking ones always so conceited? Or gay?
“You sound as though you’ve been watching me.”
“I have.”
Something prickled at the root of her scalp, along the backs of the arms and legs: not the attraction, not the heat. Though they were part of it.
“Why?”
“Oh, come on!”
“No, why are you watching me?”
“Now? Take a look at yourself.”
Sarah was wearing a loose dress which buttoned up the back, deck shoes, no tights. Sometimes she wore a slip with the dress and today, seeing the weather, she hadn’t, so there she was now, wishing that she had. Her hair wanted cutting, she had no makeup save for a touch above her eyes, a smudge of blue; she knew exactly what she looked like.
“I don’t mean why are you watching me now, I mean why before? Why the interest in my hours, when I come in and out? What?”
“You know,” Carew said, treating her to a lazy smile.
“So tell me.”
“Why?”
“If I already know, tell me again.”
“What’s the point?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. I want to know if I’m right.”
“It’s simple. I’ve already told you. I think you’re attractive. I want to go out with you. I fancy you, all right?”
Sarah turned to walk away.
“Wait!” He was on his feet in a second, rolling back on his buttocks then springing up, jumping in front of her just as the unmarked car swung round from the main entrance and Resnick, seated in the back, leaned forward between Naylor and Divine, pointing, and said, “There he is.”
“What?” Sarah said, Carew not looking at her now, somewhere else beyond her shoulder, something that changed his expression to one of concern, almost alarm.
When Sarah turned her head, the car had slewed upon to the grass, two of its doors already open, front and back, two men in the process of getting out. She didn’t recognize the first, a tall man with a large plaster on one side of his face, but there was no mistaking the second.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
Carew didn’t reply. For a moment, she thought he was going to turn and run, saw his body tense and then relax, the moment passed now. By the time the officers were in front of him, each a little to one side, he was almost relaxed.
“Detective Inspector Resnick, this is Detective Constable Divine.” Sarah watched the faces, impassive, saw the warrant cards in their hands. Resnick reached out a hand, not quickly, and placed it firmly on Carew’s right arm, midway above the elbow. “We are arresting you in connection with the murder of Amanda Hooson. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.”
Carew glanced at Sarah, much of the color gone from her face; he looked at Resnick’s fingers, quite tight around his arm. “Made up your mind, hadn’t you?” Carew said. “Couldn’t get me for one thing, you were going to get me for something else.”
Resnick withdrew his arm and the three men walked in close formation towards the waiting car. The last image Sarah had of Ian Carew was his face swiveled round toward the rear window, searching for her, smiling.
Thirty-eight
“Don’t suppose either of you saw the match last night?” Carew said from the back. They were turning left into Gregory Street, passing the houses the health authority had built for doctors, but the doctors hadn’t wanted to live in them. “Highlights,” Carew said.
Nobody answered.
Carew was looking at the side of Divine’s face; someone had fetched him one hell of a whack.
“What happened?” Carew asked. “Your eye.”
Divine stared out through the opposite window.
“I suppose,” Carew said, “they don’t all come as quietly as me.”
“You call this quiet?” Divine said. “Haven’t shut your mouth since you got in the car.”
“It’s called being sociable,” Carew said.
“It’s called being a pain in the neck, that’s what it’s called.”
“It’s …”
Resnick laid his arm along the top of the front seat. “Sociable is what you do on day trips to Skegness,” he said. “You’ll get all the time you want to talk later.”
“I …”
“Save your breath.”
“We wouldn’t make a detour via my place?” Carew said to the back of Resnick’s head. “Pick up some other clothes?” He was beginning to think that running shorts weren’t going to be the most serviceable form of clothing.
“You have the right,” the custody sergeant said, “to inform a relative or close friend that you are being detained.” Carew wasn’t looking at him directly, but off to one side. Resnick and Divine were behind him, ten feet apart. All four men were standing. “You have the right,” the custody sergeant said, “to consult a solicitor.” He handed Carew a typewritten notice conveying the same information. “Is that understood?” the custody sergeant asked.
Carew nodded and set the notice back upon the desk.
“You also have the right to examine the Code of Practice for the Detention, Treatment and Questioning of Persons by Police Officers, should you wish.”
“I want a solicitor,” Carew said.
“You wish to inform anyone else that you are here?”
“I want to inform my solicitor.”
“Nobody else?”
“How many times,” Carew said, “do I have to tell you?”
The sergeant’s eyes met Resnick’s for just a moment then flicked back to Ian Carew’s face. “Twice, I think, will be enough.”
The first thing Suzanne Olds did when she walked into the police cell was to turn right around again and walk out. “What the hell’s going on in there?” she asked. Resnick and the custody sergeant were waiting by the sergeant’s desk; the constable who’d escorted the solicitor to the cell wavered uncertainly in her wake. “Well?”
Resnick and the sergeant exchanged questioning glances. “You tell us,” the sergeant said.
“I didn’t know,” Suzanne Olds said, “you went in for this kind of thing. I’m surprised you didn’t order him to strip and have done with it.”
“I don’t quite follow …”
“He’s in there in shorts. A skimpy pair of shorts and whatever the temperature might be outside, it’s pretty damned cold in there.”
“He has a blanket,” the sergeant observed.
“In Northern Ireland,” Suzanne Olds said, “it gets called sensory deprivation.”
“Really? Here we just call it sitting around in shorts.”
“I presume you’re intending to question him like that as well?”