“Great.” Actually, they were too spicy for Lynn’s taste, but she wasn’t about to say. It had been Sharon’s idea, the pair of them having a night out together, and the choice of the restaurant had been Sharon’s too. They had met earlier and had a couple of glasses of white wine in one of the wine bars near Lynn’s flat in the Lace Market, moving on when the place had begun to get really crowded and the offers of drinks from predatory males had been more than they could shrug off or gracefully turn down.
In the end, Sharon had rounded on one of the more persistent-a good few years younger than herself and certainly no taller-caught hold of him by the lapels of his mid-blue, beautifully tailored Kenzo suit, and told him that if he wanted to get sorted in front of his mates by a woman who taught a class in self-defense and close combat, he should just carry on as he was. She could tell from his wilting body language which option he was going to choose. Sharon straightened him out, brushed him down, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek; the man blushed deep red and retreated into the huddle of his friends.
“Don’t you hate all that?” Lynn asked, once Sharon had perched back on her stool.
“Want to know the truth?” Sharon grinned. “Actually I enjoy it.”
Now they were at a window table in Ocean City looking out at four lanes of traffic heading north up Derby Road. They were still attracting more than their fair share of sidelong looks-two youngish women eating alone-one black, one white, and Sharon in a long, loose denim skirt, a denim shirt over a soft gray fitted top, was the focus for most of them. If in some respects that left Lynn relieved, in others it didn’t help at all. Just about the last thing you needed, self-image at the low ebb, was playing second fiddle to someone who was not only sure of herself, but looked great into the bargain. And was nice with it.
Lynn could imagine their laughing conversation back in the wine bar, those blokes who’d fancied themselves in with a chance. “Mine’s okay, pal, but I wouldn’t go near yours on a dark night with a stick.”
“Here,” Sharon said, tipping the bottle of Australian Chardonnay over Lynn’s glass. “You might as well finish this off, too.”
Lynn laughed. “I shall be pissed.”
“Not working tomorrow, are you?”
“No, thank God. Nor Sunday, neither. Not unless anything major crops up.”
Sharon raised her glass. “Lucky you. We’re top-handed tomorrow night. Boss wants a bit of a crackdown. Scare the balls off the curb crawlers, promise to print their names in the paper, send letters home to their wives. Haul in the girls and keep them overnight, pack them off bright and early with a two-hundred-quid fine. All that does, send them back on the streets to earn some more.” With a flourish, she finished her wine. “Sometimes I think the magistrates do more to keep the trade going than the pimps.”
Lynn nodded and popped the last piece of oyster mushroom into her mouth.
“Right,” Sharon said, looking round for a waiter. “A couple of banana fritters, coffee, and they can phone a cab for us. Drop you off on the way to mine.” She winked. “All tucked up before midnight, eh, safe and sound.”
Curtains drawn, only a table lamp at the far side of the room burned its subdued light. Through the speakers, the sound of Steve Jordan’s guitar chording evenly above the rhythmic swish of Jo Jones’s brushes, while in the easy chair, the smallest of the cats nestling his head beneath his chin, Resnick slept, his breathing a soft counterpoint to the sounds of Sir Charles Thompson, gentling his piano through the tune of “Russian Lullaby.”
Nineteen
While Resnick had slept a house across the city had been torched and now stood gutted, the third instance of serious arson on the Bestwood Estate that month. The incident had taken place at two in the morning, four kids under the age of fourteen asleep upstairs, the youngest of them only escaping serious burns when his mother dropped him from the bedroom window into the arms of neighbors below. Certain in their own minds who had caused the fire, other members of the family had been intercepted on their way across the estate by hastily summoned police. A sawn-off shotgun and a pistol had been found beneath the rear seat of the car they had been driving.
As an excited local radio reporter informed Resnick that morning, an emergency meeting had been called at which the city housing chief and other officials would discuss with police additional ways of constraining an estate which was seemingly in the grip of mob rule. Resnick sighed as he buttered toast. He knew that extra officers had already been drafted in and that during the past few weeks alone there had been around fifty arrests; he also knew that most of those arrested would by now have been released on bail.
Interviewed by the reporter, the city council leader said they were preparing to take legal action against the eight families who were at the heart of the trouble: “We have no qualms about evicting,” he said. “The trouble is that we need witnesses-and witnesses can be intimidated.”
Resnick remembered his team going round Radford, door to door, trying to uncover information about the incident in which Nicky Snape had been petrol-bombed. After days of intensive questioning, it had proved impossible to persuade anyone who knew anything to make a statement. If Nicky could be put into hospital, so could they.
The result was a stubborn silence: distrust of the police; fear of reprisals.
Resnick opted for raspberry jam. While the other cats weren’t looking, he forked the last of the Whiskas into Bud’s bowl before throwing the can away. There was a note from Marian Witczak with the mail, reminding him in her ornate, slightly gothic hand, of the Polish Club dance that evening. Before his second cup of coffee, Resnick phoned the station and got a jubilant-sounding Kevin Naylor, the third of whose nights on observation with Reg Cossall had resulted in five arrests for drugs offenses, and three additional charges of passing counterfeit money and attempting to defraud the post office. Resnick could imagine Cossall’s obscene expressions of delight.
Well done,” he said to Naylor. “Good work. Now get off home and get some sleep. I’ll not want you propping your eyes open when you’re back on duty.”
Resnick had only that second put the phone down when it rang again. Instantly he recognized Millington’s somewhat nasal, bemused tone. In the background he could hear somebody practicing scales; after her triumph in the title role of The Merry Widow, Madeleine was preparing herself for the amateur operatic season once again.
“Morning, Graham. What can I do for you?”
“I was just wondering,” Millington said. “You’ve not heard anything about upping staffing levels? Ours, I mean.”
Resnick hadn’t heard a thing.
“Just I caught a whisper things were lightening up; few new bodies transferring in. Thought Jack Skelton might’ve mentioned something. Only, if it’s a case of staking a claim, well, that team of ours has been overstretched for more time’n I care to remember.”
What his sergeant was preferring not to recall was the murder of Dipak Patel, several years before, stabbed in the street when he intervened in a street brawl, his attacker never identified, never apprehended.
“This whisper, Graham, you wouldn’t like to be more specific as to the source, I suppose?”
“Rather not, boss.”
Just so, thought Resnick, nobody likes to get caught talking out of turn. “Okay, Graham, thanks for the tip. I’ll give Skelton a ring now, see if there’s anything can be done.”
“Right,” said Millington, and then, barely disguising the smirk, “Off to the match this afternoon, I dare say? Another bit of history in the making.”
Resnick lowered the receiver onto Millington’s laugh. After a season in which the club had hired and fired almost as many managers as their strikers had managed goals, today’s game was County’s last mathematical chance of avoiding relegation. Resnick didn’t like to think about it.