He greeted Aston with a sir, a handshake, and a smile. Five minutes later they were making their way towards the Derby Road, slowed a little by the residue of rush-hour traffic. When they arrived, Derek Jardine greeted both men with brisk enthusiasm and ushered them into his office for coffee and a drab selection of biscuits. There were still twenty minutes before the case conference was due to start.
Phyllis Parmenter, heading up the three-strong team from the Social Services Inspectorate, was already present, balancing cup and saucer on one hand and chatting to the local authority solicitor. Jardine introduced her to Aston and stepped away. Khan snagged the remaining stale bourbon biscuit and examined the photographs on the director’s wall.
The conference room had been set out with pads of lined local authority paper, black Bics and sharpened pencils, water glasses, ashtrays, and copies of the agenda. The first item was to establish the methods by which the joint investigation should proceed. If we get that far by coffee time, Khan thought, glancing round the table, I shall be well surprised.
And he was: they would consider the pathologist’s report and then begin interviewing the staff, starting with Paul Matthews and Elizabeth Peck, both of whom had been on duty the night Nicky died, and finishing with Jardine himself. The youth who had shared a room with Nicky would be brought in, along with another of the lads Nicky had apparently befriended. If either the police or social services teams found a need to re-interview separately, that was their prerogative. It was agreed that it was desirable, if possible, for a joint statement to be issued when the inquiry came to an end.
“One point I think I should like to make clear,” Phyllis Parmenter said, “our aim here is to ascertain all that we can about the circumstances of Nicky Snape’s death. It may be, and I have no wish to prejudice the inquiry by saying this, that we discover there are certain procedures which would benefit from overhaul or change. If so, I’m sure we would all agree this can only be beneficial. But what we are not concerned with primarily here is blame; in these sad and unfortunate circumstances, we are not, I think and hope, looking for scapegoats.”
Especially, Khan thought, if they’re to be found among local authority staff. He edged a sideways look at Aston, who was nodding in thoughtful agreement.
Resnick had tapped Millington on the shoulder as they passed the small cafe near the fire station and, with a grin, the sergeant had performed a circuit of the roundabout and parked. Resnick had had a lousy night: broken sleep and nightmarish dreams. Finally, at something short of four, he had barefooted downstairs; thirty minutes later he was sitting with rye toast and coffee, Bud and Pepper vying for the prime place in his lap, while he tried to concentrate on a biography of Lester Young. To complicate matters he was listening, not to Prez, but to Monk. Alone in San Francisco. Between the notes, the sentences, he was wondering about Norma Snape, alone but not alone in Radford; about his ex-wife, Elaine, hoping that she was not alone anywhere. And Hannah: he was thinking about Hannah. The seriousness that turned down the corners of her eyes when she talked; the way that same seriousness would break suddenly into a smile.
“What’s it to be?” Millington asked, as Resnick slumped into a seat near the window.
His face brightened. “Oh, a bacon sandwich, don’t you think, Graham?”
“Is that with the egg or without?”
“Without. But a sausage wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Tea?”
“Tea.” The coffee here still had to catch up with the post-powder age.
They ate in near silence, Resnick enjoying the salt, slightly fish-like taste of the smoked bacon, not inquiring too deeply about the occasional gristly blob that the sausage vouchsafed. Later, as Millington relaxed with a Lambert and Butler, Resnick asked about Madeleine’s latest forays into amateur dramatics and adult education and received a lecture about the perils of living with a wife who is simultaneously reading Karen Horney and Kate Millett for her course on “Feminism for Beginners” and rehearsing the part of a frustrated middle-aged wife in an Alan Ayckbourn farce.
“Bit difficult for her, that, Graham. The play, I mean. Well outside her experience, I should reckon.”
Millington drew in smoke and examined Resnick keenly; if that was meant as some kind of joke, he couldn’t see the humor. Of late, Millington had taken to eyeing the kitchen knives with suspicion.
Resnick, however, solid food inside him, was beginning to feel better. The day might be salvaged after all. “All right, Graham,” he said, scraping back his chair. “Let’s not waste any more time.”
Once inside Queen’s, they checked on Doris Netherfield, who was still making cautious progress and treated them to a pale smile. Her husband was making slow but significant progress at home. Shane Snape was propped irritably between pillows, fiddling with the headset of his radio. One side of his face showed some deep bruising and a neat line of stitches butterflied its way from behind one ear onto his neck, but those injuries apart he had got off surprisingly lightly. Nothing broken. Another day and he would be discharged.
“Morning, Shane,” Millington said breezily. “Run into a spot of bother?”
He and Resnick took seats at either side of the bed.
“I’ve got nothing to say,” said Shane.
“The people who did this,” Resnick said, “you’re not in a position to identify who they were?”
Shane shook his head.
“And the name Turvey,” Millington offered, “that doesn’t ring any bells?”
Shane shook his head again.
“Coincidence, then, Peter Turvey sustaining all those injuries the same time as yourself? Same place?”
“Must’ve been.”
“There’s no chance, then,” Resnick said, “that you’ll be making a complaint, pressing charges, anything like that?”
“None.”
“Fine.” Resnick started out of his seat. “All right, Graham, we might as well go.”
Shane looked surprised they were letting him off so lightly, had just begun to relax back against the pillows when Resnick swiveled on his heels faster than a man of his size might be expected to, something like a dancer. From nowhere he was leaning over the bed, his right hand gripping Shane’s shoulder where it was bruised and swollen, finger ends not so far from where the line of stitches finished.
“Understand me. I don’t give a toss how you spend your evenings, what flotsam you hang around with, but I do care about your mother. She’s had a hard enough time as it is, bringing up the three of you, and now after what’s happened to Nicky, you’re the last thing she should have to worry about.” Resnick increased the pressure with his hand, enough to force tears to the edges of Shane’s eyes no matter how much he fought to deny them. “So stay out of trouble, right? Or I’ll come down on you so fast you’ll wish you’d paid attention.” Resnick relinquished his grip and stood tall. “Okay, Shane. Think you can learn something here?”
Shane stared back at him, humiliated, angry, a single tear making a slow track down his face.
Whistling “Winchester Cathedral” while they waited for the lift, Millington was still surprised by the force of Resnick’s anger.
Sheena had not clocked in at the factory since Nicky had died. The first day, the Monday, she had phoned in and explained; the second day she had said her mother still needed looking after. Her supervisor had been understanding, had told her to take whatever sick leave she was entitled to, and suggested that she make an appointment to see her GP on her own account, have him prescribe a tranquillizer, Valium, that new stuff even-what was it? — Prozac, that’s the one.
This morning Sheena had said nothing to her mum, had left home with her uniform ironed and folded in a plastic bag from Tesco, wandered without direction until she ended up in the Old Market Square, watching the gang of youths that sprawled extravagantly on the worn grass near the public lavatories, drinking Strongbow cider and shouting at any passerby who wore a suit. They were the usual sprinkling of latter-day punks and goths, lads with pink Mohicans or hair spiked out around their heads in blue-tipped stars, chains that hung from the pockets and lapels of torn leather jackets, ripped jeans, smaller chains dangling from their ears and the corners of their mouths. Tattoos. Girls younger than Sheena in tight T-shirts and skinny, black-legged jeans, rings through their ears and noses, mouths darkened into little black beaks.