Of course Evan had been thinking about it; he’d been thinking of practically nothing else. Now he thought about it some more. “Only the sister, that’s all, really. Worked up about that, he was. Important. He asked us specially, me and Wes. If he could talk to her alone. Just the two of them, you know.”
“And you said …”
“I said okay. I didn’t see the harm. I mean, I was outside the door all the time.”
“Close enough to hear what they were talking about?”
Evan shook his head. “No. No, I’m afraid not.” He looked at Resnick anxiously. “Was it important, d’you think?”
Resnick stared back at him. “Probably.”
Thirty minutes later Resnick was on his way back out of the station, heading down into the center of the city.
Twelve
Resnick nodded thanks as Aldo slid the small cup of espresso along the counter toward him. The early edition of the Post lay folded against the till and Resnick pulled it toward him. It was strangely quiet in the market that morning, only a couple of middle-aged women sitting at the far side of the coffee stall with tea and cigarettes, chatting about prices and last night’s TV.
The article on Preston’s escape filled the whole page, raking up details of his father’s murder and the subsequent trial. Underneath an old file photograph of Preston himself, grim-faced, being led into court, were the words of the judge: It is almost beyond comprehension in a civilized society that any man would turn against his own flesh and blood with such violence and without apparent provocation.
Provocation: an argument over money, Skelton had suggested, the siphoning off of Preston’s ill-gotten gains. Well, maybe.
Realizing that, almost without noticing, he had finished his first espresso, Resnick ordered another.
For the first half-hour, Lorraine wandered slowly from room to room, enjoying the silence, willing herself not to look at the clock, the telephone. Without exactly daring to admit it to herself, she knew that what she wanted was for Michael to call, though she was unsure what she might say if he did.
Unable to settle to the Mail, she went into the living room and hoovered and dusted, tidying their few records and CDs, making neat piles of magazines. Upstairs in Sean’s room, she collected up stray socks and fetid sportswear, filched a fold-out pin-up of Pamela Anderson from underneath the bed and Blu-tacked it neatly to the wall alongside Sean’s team picture of Manchester United and above the one of Ryan Giggs. Along the landing, Sandra’s room was pristine in comparison, everything folded, hanging, shelved; pony books stood alongside Mills and Boon romances and Pride and Prejudice; they’d watched that together on the television, agreeing, despite Sean’s sneers, how gorgeous Colin Firth was as Darcy. A Greenpeace wall chart showing endangered species shared space with the Spice Girls and Gary Barlow from his days with Take That.
Lorraine sat on her daughter’s bed and closed her eyes. “You don’t love him, do you? Even if you ever did, you don’t love him any more. I can tell.”
When the phone rang, she gasped and it was as if, for a moment, her heart stopped. The receiver was cold as she fumbled it to her face. “Hello?”
“It’s me. I was just wondering how you were.”
Eyes closed, she rested her head against the wall. “Derek, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? ’Cause like I said, I can always …”
“No, I’m … Derek, it’s sweet of you, but really, I’m okay. I just need a little time, that’s all.”
Silence at the other end of the line.
“Derek?”
“Yes?”
“You do understand?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Only …”
“Only what?”
Another silence. Then, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Derek …”
“No, really. As long as you’re okay. I’ll see you this evening, yes? Take care.” And the connection was broken.
Slowly, Lorraine replaced the receiver and turned away.
Cutting through toward the Jacobs’ house, Resnick glanced at the well-tended shrubs and borders, and wondered what had been there before. Other houses, smaller, a spread of terraced back-to-backs perhaps, workers’ homes so-called? Or had it all been open ground, sprawling north from printing works and bakery, allotments possibly? Prize marrows, dahlias, runner beans.
For a couple of years, maybe more, his father had shared an allotment with another family from the Polish community. Resnick remembered watching him settle his cap on his head before setting out early on a weekend morning, trundling his wheelbarrow through half-deserted streets, fork and spade rattling against the rim. On lucky days, inside a sack, his father would be carrying manure, claimed swiftly from outside their house whenever the rag-and-bone cart had passed by; yellow-brown loaves of shit that lay steaming on the road’s smooth surface and crumbled open at the spade’s first touch.
Sometimes Resnick had gone with him, helped to dig shallow trenches, forked over brittle earth, watched as his father bent and prodded and poked. After an hour, he would become bored and wander off, constructing elaborate daydreams detailing how he would run away and where: the adventures that would be his if and when he left, wiped the dust of the city from his feet. Thirty or so years later, it still clogged his pores, veiled his eyes, clung to his skin.
And he regretted, looking back, all those times he had scorned his father’s company, shunned his presence-times that could never now be recovered or replaced.
As Resnick pushed open the gate of number twenty-four, he glanced up and saw, framed for an instant in one of the upstairs windows, a woman with dark hair pulled back from the pale oval of her face, staring down.
Lorraine was wearing black trousers and a blue shirt, faded, which hung loose over her hips; pale tan moccasins on her feet. No trace of makeup on her face. The skin around her eyes was puffed and dark, the tiny lines at their corners etched deep. She offered Resnick coffee and he followed her past the foot of the stairs into the first of two reception rooms, the dining-room, he supposed; connecting doors partly opened into the living room beyond-a leather sofa, deep armchairs, cut flowers in a tall glass vase. Everything smelled of polish, wax, spray-on shine.
“Why don’t you go on through?” she said. “I won’t be long.”
Where he had anticipated hostility, without knowing exactly why, the way she had greeted him had been pleasant enough, cordial, almost as though she had been expecting him. Well, Resnick thought, she had been expecting someone.
There was a photograph album on the coffee table, a pattern of red and gray diamonds across its padded front and a decorative tassel hanging from its side. Bending forward, Resnick looked inside: babies in prams, babes in arms, toddlers at the seaside, the park, the swings. Birthdays and Christmases, Sunday treats. A pair of dark-haired kids in T-shirts and shorts, check shirts and jeans. Michael-or was it Lorraine? — holding up a fish, a bat, a silver cup. Five, six, seven, eight. Inseparable, or so it seemed.
“That was Mum’s,” Lorraine said from the doorway. “Photo mad.” She was carrying a tray with cups, a jug of milk, sugar, coffee in a cafetiére. “Shunt it out of the way, will you? Then I can put this lot down.”
She set down the tray on the table, gestured for Resnick to sit on the sofa, and took a seat opposite him in one of the armchairs.
“Funny, isn’t it? All those snaps of me and Michael as kids-I suppose you don’t think about it at the time, too busy having fun-but they must have been forever sticking that camera in our faces. Mum and Dad. Smile. Say cheese. But then, Derek and I, I expect we’re the same with our two. Except for Derek, it’s his video camera.” She favored Resnick with a quick, uncertain smile. “You should see the number of tapes he’s got stashed away.”