"You know this isn't your birthday, don't you?" That's what she said. " He looked over towards Resnick.
"She was there, then, wasn't she? What was I supposed to do?"
"What kind of a woman would you have said she was?" Resnick asked.
"Based on that first part of the evening."
"Woman? She was a tart, wasn't she?"
"Yes, but before you knew that. I mean, was she pleasant, well-spoken? How did she come across?"
McKimber shrugged.
"Just sort of normal, you know."
"Intelligent? Bright?"
"Bright enough to know she had my balls in her pocket' " But, aside from what you've already said, were you surprised to find out she was apparently a prostitute? "
"Surprised?" McKimber shook his head.
"One way or another, they all are. I mean, that's the way it works. If you can get someone to pay for it, why give it away?"
Resnick showed him six sets of photographs, six different women, all similar, all with dark hair.
"Look," McKimber said, 'you're wasting your time. I've already been through this. "
"Humour me," Resnick said.
"Let's try again. Just these few."
McKimber lit another cigarette. A good minute before he answered, Resnick could see that he'd stopped really looking.
"I'm sorry,"
McKimber said.
"It isn't any good."
"You're quite sure."
"Yes, I said. The only one…"
"Go on."
"The only one it just might possibly be…"
"Yes?"
McKimber transferred the cigarette to his mouth and jabbed a finger "That one. That's the only one, if you told me I had to pick out one of these, had to, that's the only one comes close. Only one that's near." And he picked out, not Marlene Kinoulton, but the woman in the set of photographs immediately above her, gazing into the camera with a slight squint.
Divine and Naylor had driven Sharon Gamett back to her flat and waited while she had cleaned up and changed into tan leggings, a purple T-shirt, black cotton jacket. Together, Naylor driving, they trawled the red-light district looking for Marlene Kinoulton and her friend 146 Doris Duke. Nowhere to be seen. None of the girls out working claimed to have seen them for several days. A week. Sheffield, try Sheffield.
Leeds.
"Sorry," Sharon said eventually.
"We're wasting our time. We'd be better trying again later tonight. Late."
"Fair enough," Divine said and Naylor pulled in towards the kerb.
"I might have a problem," Naylor said.
"With later. I'm supposed to be off round Debbie's mum's. She's got this relation over from Canada. Nephew or something. Having a bit of a celebration."
"Sounds," Divine said with a smirk, 'like the kind of thing you wouldn't miss for the world. "
"Yes, well. I'll see what I can do."
Sharon opened the car door.
"Half ten in the Arboretum then, okay?"
"Get there first," Divine grinned, 'and mine's a pint of Kimberley. "
"You wish! I'm the one doing you a favour, remember? And mine's a Bacardi and Coke. Large. Ten thirty, right?"
Divine watched as Sharon walked away.
"Second thoughts, why don't you go hobnobbing with the in-laws after all. Leave this to me."
"Thought you were being faithful this month?" Naylor said.
"One-woman man."
"Yeah, so I am," Divine grinned, grabbing his crotch. "It's just this that doesn't understand."
Twenty-seven
"Honey, you sure you're up for this?"
Cathy Jordan hesitated in what she was doing, adjusting her silver Zuni earrings in front of the mirror; her favourites, the ones she had bought in Santa Fe.
"God, Frank, I wish you wouldn't do that."
"What? Show a little concern?"
"Call me honey that way. Makes me feel like something out of Norman Rockwell."
"Not The ShiningT He came up behind her with arm raised, as if holding a knife, leering his manic Jack Nieholson leer.
"Honey, I'm home!"
"Jesus, Frank."
What? "
"All that's been going on, that's not so funny."
Dipping his head towards her shoulder, an oddly tender gesture, he slid both arms around her.
"That guy, huh? The one in the paper. Poor bastard!"
She was looking at his reflection in the dressing table mirror, both their reflections: familiar and strange.
Frank? "
"Umm?"
"Did you read any of the new book?"
"Your new book?"
Uh-huh. "
"I didn't think you'd even shipped it off to the publishers yet."
"No, but…" "You're still working on it, right?"
"Fiddling, that's all. The manuscript."
"You remember one time you caught me reading these pages you'd left lying around? I thought you were going to go crazy."
Cathy Jordan smiled into the mirror.
"That was a while back. I was more cranky then. Nervous, I guess."
"What you mean is, back then, you cared what I thought."
"That's not what I mean at all." Looking at him, defiance and concern in his eyes, the stance of his body, strength of his arms. So easy to have turned inside those arms.
"Anyway," Frank said.
"I didn't look at it, not a peek. How come you ask?"
"Oh…" Her voice drifted off and she looked away; how strange desire was, months in which she had felt God! – nothing, at best a mixture of comfort and irritation, and now this.
"It doesn't matter," she said, and moved her mouth over his.
They kissed until it was difficult to breathe.
"Jeeze," Frank said, as she released him.
"What's got into you?"
Cathy let her smile spread wide and when she laughed it was down and dirty.
"Recently, not a whole lot."
He reached for her and she reached for him.
"Well," Cathy said, eyebrow arched.
"Have you been working out?"
They were midway between the dressing table and the bed when the phone rang.
"Leave it," Frank said.
"All right." But she could see the time, winking at her, green-eyed, from the clock radio beside the bed.
"Cathy, come on."
She reached out a hand and the ringing stopped. "Hello," she said, listening a moment before dropping the receiver back down.
"It's Mollie. She's in the foyer, waiting. We have to be there in thirty minutes."
Frank rolled clumsily round and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers pressed against his temples.
"Don't, sweetheart," Cathy said, giving his arm a squeeze. Her voice tenderly mocking.
"Don't have a headache."
"What do you suggest?" he said.
"A shower? Maybe there's time to jerk off? I know, I could jerk off in the shower."
Already she was on her feet, reaching her coat from the hanger.
"You could come with me to the store, that's what you could do. Protect me from any more militant paint- throwers. Radical fertmies. With this murder on their hands, I doubt the police will have officers to spare."
Frank looked across at her from the bed, still undecided how grouchy he was going to be.
"Don't be mad," Cathy said.
"Do this for me. Once it's over, we've got the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. We can come back here, what do you say?"
But Frank knew, they both knew, whatever he replied, the moment was gone.
Cathy hadn't known what to expect, but the city centre on a Saturday lunchtime wasn't it The way people pushed, wall to wall, along the pedestrianised street leading towards the Victoria Centre, all Cathy could think of was one of those paintings by who was it? – Brueghel. A medieval vision of Hell.
The bookshop, where she and Dorothy BirdweU were to do a joint signing, was on the ground floor of the shopping precinct. Signing with Dorothy, needless to say, had not been Cathy's own choice, but it was at the shop's request and, as her publisher had been quick to point out, the shop was capable of shifting a lot of product Cathy presumed she meant books.