“Yes, of course.”
“You’ve seen him,” Fowles said.
“I have not.”
“Heard from him?”
“Not a word. Not for years.”
“How often did you visit him in prison?” Fowles asked, toward the window.
“I didn’t.”
“We can check.”
“Half a dozen times, no more than that.”
“How come? I mean, I thought you were close, went back quite a way?”
“He didn’t want it, didn’t want any visitors.”
“You know why?”
Cassady hunched his shoulders forward. “He found it easier. You know, to do his time.”
Fowles took three strides toward the cupboard and rapped smartly on the door. “It’s okay, Michael, we know you’re in there. You can come on out now.”
“Is he always like this?” Cassady asked.
Naylor shook his head.
“You don’t mind if I take a look?” Fowles said, giving the handle a deft tug.
“Help yourself.”
“No, it’s all right.” Stepping away, Fowles peered down at the papers piled on the accountant’s desk.
“You’re saying you’ve no idea …” Naylor began.
Fowles interrupted him with a shrill whistle. “Is this all they get?” He was holding up a sheet of headed notepaper, high in front of his face. “Your blokes. Fiver an hour? Maintaining peace and tranquility among the night-clubbing classes. Turning their backs on the sale of a few Es. Don’t seem much.”
“Are you looking for work yourself, then?” Cassady asked. “Is that it?”
“He will be,” Naylor muttered.
“Moonlighting,” Cassady said, “that’s the thing. I’ve more than a few of your fellers on my books already.”
“Your opinion,” Naylor said, “Preston. You know him. Used to. Where would you say he is now?”
“After twelve years?” Cassady shook his head. “Out of the country. Far as he can. Somewhere you can’t get your hands on him and good luck. He’s served his time.”
“Not exactly.”
“Will there be many more questions?” Cassady asked, leaning back a little in his chair. “Only I’ve a couple of inquiries to reply to and then a site I need to go off and inspect. Theft from building works, heavy equipment-kind of thing we’re being called on to deal with more and more.”
Reaching toward the computer, Fowles pressed a button and Cassady’s screen saver disappeared instantly from sight. “When he sends you a postcard,” he said, “Rio, wherever. You might just let us see it, check the postmark, put our minds at rest.”
“Well,” Fowles said, as they stepped back out on to the street, “don’t know about you, Kev, but I thought that went pretty well myself.”
Kevin Naylor didn’t say a thing. Just watched as Fowles slid out into the light one of the sheets of paper he’d purloined from the top of Cassady’s assistant’s desk.
“List of all the blokes he’s had working for his outfit in the past six months,” Fowles explained. “Run it through records, compare and contrast. What’s the betting it throws up one or two interesting names?”
Sharon Garnett and Carl Vincent were getting nowhere sifting through the witnesses to the Ellis shooting. So when Resnick asked Sharon if she could find the time to run a check on Lorraine’s-and Michael’s-family, she was glad of the diversion.
Resnick was ready to pack it in for the day and considering a quick half over the road before heading home when Sharon knocked on his door.
“Preston, sir. Now that his mother’s dead, there’s only the one sister, Lorraine, close family anyway. She works for this small printer’s, part-time, ordering supplies, accounts, that sort of thing. Derek, her husband, he’s a divisional sales manager for a paper suppliers.” Sharon grinned. “More than likely how they met. But anyway, nothing out of line, not as much as an unpaid parking fine between them. Surprising, maybe, the kind of example Michael and his father had set. In fact, the only one who seems to have blotted her copy-book’s the husband’s sister, Maureen. Runs a clothes shop off Bridlesmith Gate. By Design. Second-hand, but pricey. Out of my league, anyway. She’s had a couple of warnings from the Inland Revenue, discrepancies in her VAT returns. And once what looks like a fairly serious inquiry about handling stolen goods.”
Resnick perked up and looked interested.
“Seems this customer went in and found several pieces that had been nicked from her place in the Park just the week before. Jean Muir skirt, one or two things like that. Hanging there on the rail marked ‘New Arrivals.’”
“She wasn’t charged?”
“No. Gave the clothes back, profuse apologies, offers of fifty per cent off. You can imagine. Claimed she’d bought the stuff in all innocence from someone who walked in off the street.” Sharon shrugged. “Well, who’s to say? It’s the kind of business she’s in.”
Resnick shuffled papers on his desk. “I don’t really see how it fits in. With Preston, I mean.”
“Maybe not. I just thought, if you reckoned it worthwhile, I could call round, have a word.”
Resnick shook his head. “I don’t think so. Get back on the shooting. But thanks, anyway.
“Right, sir.” Sharon was thinking she might drop in there some time anyway. By Design. She might come across a bargain, you never knew till you looked.
Resnick and Millington were in the old public bar of the Partridge, the pair of them savoring Speckled Hen on draught.
“You’d best watch out,” Millington said, something of a gleam in his eye.
“How’s that?”
Millington nodded at the pint glass in Resnick’s hand. “I’ll have you enjoying a decent ale yet.”
Resnick laughed. “Instead of that Eastern European muck, you mean?”
“You said it, not me.”
“Young Fowles,” Resnick said a few moment later. “How d’you reckon he’s settling in?”
“Ben? Bit of a motormouth, given half the chance. Fancies himself maybe a mite too much. But plane away a few raw edges, he’ll do fine.”
Resnick sank another inch of his pint. “Someone likely said that about Mark Divine a few years back.”
“Aye, you and me both.”
“And we’d have been wrong.”
“Some things you can’t allow for; some people.”
“Seen anything of him lately? Mark?”
Millington shook his head. “Rang him a few weeks back-well, tell the truth, must be a month or more-you know he’s got that new place, top of St. Ann’s, not that far from you-anyway, hear him tell it, life couldn’t be better.”
“Working?”
“Driving job; one of these overnight delivery places. Got him rushing all over. Doubt the pay’s great, but at least it’s something. Keeps his mind off things.”
Resnick was thoughtful; there were times since Divine had left the Force when he’d wondered if there weren’t more he could have done; but the odd meal, the occasional drink aside, Divine had made it clear handouts were not what he was looking for. Intervention, however well-meaning, was not to be encouraged.
“Another?” Millington asked, holding up an empty glass.
“Best not.”
“Hannah?”
Resnick shook his head.
The cats were waiting, patiently or impatiently, depending on temperament. There were dark beans in the freezer ready to be ground, pepper salami, blue cheese, cos lettuce, and cherry tomatoes in the fridge, light rye with caraway in a plastic bag on the side. Also in the fridge, a bottle of Czech Budvar that had survived three whole days. Next to the stereo in the front room, there was a CD of tracks by the clarinettist Sandy Brown, which Resnick had picked up at the record shop in the West End Arcade but not yet had the chance to play.
He had heard Brown once live, a studiously irascible Scotsman equipped with a withering tongue and rich, biting tone on the clarinet, which he made sound, with his dramatic whoops and glides up and down the register, like no other jazz player Resnick had ever heard. The Gallery Club, that’s where it had been, the place up in Canton Bill Kinnell held together for a while with promises and sealing wax. “Splanky,” Resnick remembered, and, more especially, “In the Evening,” Brown’s blues-edged voice so raw you could have used it to sharpen a pair of shears.