Sneering, Shane turned his face away.
“Lies, Shane, beginning to end.” Millington grinned. “Pork Farm pies.”
“Bollocks.”
“Exactly.” Millington triumphant.
“Where you were, Shane,” Resnick said forcefully, “that Saturday, was out drinking with Gerry Hovenden and some of his dubious friends. Doing the pubs between London Road and the bridge, already a bit of excitement on the way, few fists flying, and then on the Embankment, pissed the lot of you, that’s where you came across Inspector Aston, out walking his dogs, and you went for him. The pack of you. Stole his wallet, cash, credit cards, this credit card, and left him for dead. That’s where you were on that Saturday night.”
Unblinking, Shane stared Resnick square in the eye. “Bollocks,” he said quietly.
“For someone who’s not exactly an idiot,” Millington said, “your conversation tends towards the boring.”
“Then why not stop all this crap and let me go? I don’t know nothing about any credit card, nothing about no bloke beaten up on the Embankment, nothing about any of it, right?”
“My client …”
“All right.” Resnick quickly to his feet. “Twenty minutes. No more.”
“Surely he’s entitled to a meal?”
“Half an hour.”
“This interview,” Millington said, “suspended at six thirty-nine.”
“You think he’s lying, Charlie?” Skelton was pacing the length of his office between door and desk, conscious of being harassed from above, harassed from below, the local media, national press.
“Sure of it,” Resnick said. “But I’m not sure about what.”
“Christ, Charlie, don’t play games. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Resnick was standing also, conscious he had already been sitting too long and likely would do again. “I put it to him straight, the whole business, Aston, everything. He never as much as blinked. I know he’s cool; one of those as can hold it all in tight until something goes and he explodes. But a dead copper, he must know we’re not going to mess around. But Shane, he could’ve been holding a razor blade to his own throat and there’d not have been as much as a nick.”
“Then why’s he lying?”
“I don’t know.”
“This credit card business, we’ve enough to charge him?”
Resnick looked doubtful.
“We could stand the woman up in court, sworn statement, her word against his.”
“With Purdy’s record they’d not believe the day of the week, even if it was staring at them off the calendar. And Shane knows it.”
“He’ll bluff it out, then.”
“He’ll try. But I’d like to hang onto him a while longer. If he wasn’t there when Aston was killed, likely he knows somebody who was.”
“So he’s covering for somebody else?” Skelton was round behind his desk, swiveling his chair so he could lean against the back, hands gripping its sides.
“Could be.”
“This pal of his, then … Hovenden?”
Resnick nodded.
“Let’s have him in. If we can’t budge the one, let’s try the other.”
But Resnick was already shaking his head. “What I’d sooner do, as long as you’re agreed, is make sure Hovenden knows we’re holding Shane. Let him stew a while. More reason then for him to wonder exactly what his mate Shane has said. If we finesse it right, maybe we can persuade him it’s more than it is.”
“No chance of him doing a runner?”
“I doubt it. Must know that’d draw attention to himself quicker than anything else. But we can always keep an eye.”
Skelton levered himself away from the chair. “Play it your way, then, Charlie. But only for now. Twenty-four hours tops.”
Resnick nodded and moved towards the door. Now that he had some food inside him, Shane might be feeling more amicable: he’d give it another shot.
“She’s got something against you, Shane, has she, Sally Purdy? Something personal?”
Shane glanced at Resnick and shook his head.
“Your family, then? Her and Norma, maybe? Argument of some kind, goes back a long while?”
“My mum wouldn’t pass wind on her, never mind the time of day.”
“What is it, then? Some kind of death wish?”
How d’you mean?”
Resnick straightened his back, hands flat near the table’s edge. “I mean, why you? When she gets picked up and she’s got to give a name and it’s not going to be the truth, wouldn’t she have to be stupid pointing at you? I mean, of all the names she could choose. What did she think you were going to do? Next time you see her, slip a fiver into her hand? Thanks for thinking of me when you were talking to the law.” Resnick shook his head in disbelief. “No, Shane, the only way she’d give you up is if it were true.”
A smile now, wavering about the corners of Shane’s eyes, beginning to think, they’ve got nothing, really nothing, what I can do, relax and enjoy this a bit.
“Mr. Resnick,” he said, polite as could be.
“Yes?”
“Prove it.”
They tried. Questions about how Shane put money in his pockets (the horses); where he got the cash from to make his bets (stand in line at the post office and cash me giro check like everyone else); about his relationship with Gerry Hovenden (mates, we work out together, down the gym); about Gerry’s right-wing connections (politics, no, we never talk about it, what’s the point, Labour, Tory, they’re all the same); what they were doing the night Bill Aston was killed (round my place watching some videos, how many more times).
Not many.
When the solicitor’s clerk asked for a meal break for his client and the chance of a rest, Resnick readily agreed. Lynn Kellogg had phoned in by then: she and Kevin Naylor had spoken to Hovenden and told him the police were holding Shane; nervous, it looked as if Hovenden was about to make some kind of move. All right, Resnick had said, stick close, observe. Anything urgent, you can reach me at home.
When finally they kicked Shane free with a warning they’d be speaking to him again, chance brought Shane and Divine onto the stairs at the same time. Shane walking down with Millington as escort, Divine on his way up to CID.
“Remember,” Shane said softly as they passed, “me and you, some time soon.”
“Yes,” Divine said. “In your dreams.”
Forty-two
It was late enough for the street lights to be showing clear against the purpling dark of city sky. Khan and Naylor were in the CID room chatting about the relative merits of the city’s Indian restaurants when Resnick strode in, nodded in their direction, and went on through into his office.
“The Shand,” Khan said, reaching for the folder on his desk, “for my money, that’s got to be the one.”
Instinctively, he straightened his tie and pushed a hand through his hair before knocking on the inspector’s door.
“Jardine, sir. You said to make a check.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t easy, getting hold of some of this, I’m afraid it’s only sketchy in places. And there are still one or two items I need to double-check. I …”
“Khan.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Just get on with it.” All of that waltzing around with Shane Snape had done little to improve Resnick’s patience.
“Well …” Khan flipped open his folder. “… before being appointed to this authority, Jardine worked in Staffordshire and Leicestershire. Regular social work to begin with, but pretty soon he moved into residential care.”
“Staffordshire,” Resnick said, “that’s where there was all that furore about kids being tied to their beds, held in isolation?”
“Yes, sir. Excessive physical restraint. Pindown, that’s what it was called. One of the homes Jardine worked in was involved right enough. I’ve got a copy here of the inquiry report. But compared to some of the other staff, Jardine comes out of it pretty well. The worst that was said about him was that he must have known these practices were being carried out and he did nothing to try and prevent them or to inform his superiors. But there’s no suggestion of any direct involvement.
“Not so long after that he moved across to Leicestershire. Promotion. And this might be more interesting. It seems that while he was in acting charge of one of their residential homes for difficult children, there were complaints of sexual abuse …”