“That’s what Siddons thinks, too?”
Lynn looked back at him, serious-faced. “Probably.”
“And you think Norman Mann knows all about this? You can’t think he’s actually involved?”
“Involved, I don’t know. It’s too early to say. But if he doesn’t know, then he’s lost all track of what’s going on in his team.”
“And if he does, he’s got to be turning a blind eye.”
“At least.”
“If any of this is true, then there ought to be an inquiry. Official. Someone from an outside force. Whatever evidence Major Crimes gets should be handed over to them.”
Lynn smiled and shook her head. “Maybe it will. In the end. But only after Siddons has got what I think she wants. The dealers in one hand, whoever they’re buying off in the other. Twice the arrests, twice the glory. She wants it all.”
Resnick was thinking about Norman Mann, cases they’d worked on together, bars that in their younger days they’d closed down. All those marriages, three kids, a new house apparently; something going on with one of his younger DCs, or so Resnick had heard. Not without his prejudices, Norman, not above doling out the odd backhander if he thought it might speed up inquiries and there wouldn’t be any bruising, but, all that aside, as honest, Resnick would have thought, as the proverbial day was long.
“Come on,” Lynn said, getting to her feet. “Let’s walk.”
They were leaning on the parapet, gazing out over the slow waters of the canal and across the Meadows toward the Trent when she told him what else was preoccupying her mind, stopping her from sleeping. “It’s my dad,” she said. And suddenly, from nowhere, there were tears at the corners of her eyes. “The cancer. It’s come back. I’m afraid he’s going to die.”
Resnick reached for her hand to give it a consoling squeeze, but fumbled and missed; finally, embarrassed, he flung an arm around her shoulder and settled for a clumsy hug. “Lynn, I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“It’s okay. No, no. It’s okay. I’m … I’m fine.”
In the brief moment he had held her close against him, her tears had left dark patches on his shirt.
“Lynn, look …”
She cried now, without attempting to stop herself or hide what she was doing; Resnick looking on, helpless, hands in his pockets, stranded in his own awkward uncertainty.
It was twenty minutes later and they were in the cafeteria, drinking coffee at a corner table shy of visitors. Lynn had ordered a sandwich and, after two small bites, it lay unwanted on its plate. The hum of conversation rose and fell around them.
“Your dad,” Resnick said, “when did you hear?”
She didn’t answer straightaway, but took another sip at her coffee, already growing cold. “Last weekend. I was meant to be driving over, you know, going home. Then pretty much at the last minute I canceled. Phoned Mum and said something had come up at work, overtime. It wasn’t even true. And the peculiar thing is, I don’t even know why. It wasn’t as if there was anything going on here, anything special. Oh, Sharon was planning to go out on the Saturday, girls’ night out sort of thing, asked me to come along. But it wasn’t that, I just didn’t … I just didn’t want to go. So I lied.
“Mum said all right and that she understood; she sounded a bit down, but I thought that was because she’d been, you know, looking forward to me being there. Then she rang me back on the Sunday morning when Dad was out with the hens and told me. He’d been having a lot of pain again, down in his gut where it all happened before. Bleeding when he went to the toilet. His doctor made an appointment for him to see the specialist at the Norfolk and Norwich.”
There was a catch in her voice and for a moment Resnick thought she might be about to cry again. But she carried on. “Colorectal cancer, that’s what it’s called. Cancer of the bowel. Last time, two years ago now, more, they cut away part of the intestine. That was supposed to have dealt with it, once and for all. ‘Clean bill of health,’ that’s what the doctor said. ‘You don’t have to worry about your father, young lady, he’ll live till he’s a hundred.’ Patronizing bastard. Liar, too.”
“It’s returned,” Resnick said.
“Worse than before. He’s had X-rays, another endoscopy. Given the spread and the state of Dad’s health, they’re not keen on operating again.”
“There must be something they can do?”
“Chemotherapy. Large doses. The only thing they can promise for certain is it’ll make him feel like shit: it might not do any good.”
“But if they don’t do that?” Resnick asked.
Lynn shook her head and made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Treat the pain and let nature take its course. Mum says they started talking to him about going into a hospice and he told them all to bugger off. Said he’d rather die at home with his hens.”
Resnick had a vision of the poultry farm he had never seen; row after row of wooden huts, chicken wire, and husks of grain. “You’ve been over?” he asked.
She shook her head. “This weekend. Sunday.”
Resnick covered her hands in his. “I am sorry.”
She nodded, not raising her head. Not wanting to look at him, not then.
“If there’s anything I can do …”
“No, I don’t think so.” A quick smile. “But thanks.” What she wanted him to do was fold her in his arms and hold her tight. The illusion that if he did, somehow, it would be all right.
Back outside the castle grounds, a party of Japanese tourists all but blocked the cobbled forecourt, photographing everything in sight. Robin Hood, Resnick thought, had a lot to answer for.
He and Lynn steered a path between them, crossing toward the corner of Hounds Gate and up the hill past the entrance to the Rutland Hotel, heading in the direction of the Ropewalk and Canning Circus. Across the street from the old hospital, Resnick paused. “Thanks.”
“What for?”
“Telling me what you did.”
“You won’t …”
He shook his head and smiled. “Not a word.”
Lynn took a pace away and Resnick reached out and touched her arm. “Your dad. Sunday. I hope it goes well. You never know, it might not be as bad as you fear.”
“Yes. Maybe. Thanks, anyway.”
“You’ll let me know.”
“Yes, of course.”
Before she had reached the main doors, Resnick was well on his way toward his own building, hands in pockets, head down, stride lengthening.
Twenty
Lorraine had gone in to work earlier, thinking she needed at least to show her face; stay, at most, half the day. But after a couple of hours listlessly flicking through ledgers, pulling out the most overdue bills and passing them through for payment, making a call or two chasing paper supplies, she went into the general manager’s office and told him she was sorry, she just couldn’t carry on. Her concentration was shot. She’d try again after the weekend. He nodded sympathetically and assured her he understood: things like that-meaning her mother’s funeral-sometimes they hit you harder than you think. Take all the time you need, come back when you’re good and ready. Someone of Lorraine’s experience, motivated by more than the decidedly average wage he paid her, he knew she wouldn’t be easy to replace.
Insofar as she’d thought at all, Lorraine had reckoned on going back home, settling into a bath, occupying herself with another bout of mindless housework, tidying up the garden. As she was backing the car out on to the road that wound through the center of the industrial estate, she realized that wasn’t what she was going to do at all.
Wollaton Park was reasonably close to the city center, just the other side of Derby Road from the university. Turning off the ring road, past that sixties pub that looked like a great goldfish bowl, she drove slowly through the main entrance and along the narrow, uneven track, headed toward the ornate pile at the center. A mass of stairways and statues, high-arched doorways and elongated turrets, the Hall had long since been turned into a museum, and Lorraine remembered herself and Michael as children, pointing with momentary curiosity at stuffed birds behind dusty glass, before running off and sliding after one another down broad banisters and along polished floors.