Resnick shrugged.
"Maybe," he said, not believing it was so. Even now it would lurch at him, unsuspected, out from the darkest corner of the house or through the glare of a midsummer street the urge to have a child of his own.
"Well, I tell you," Cathy was saying,
"I'm from a big family and whenever we get together, nephews and nieces every which way, I get home after one of those things and I'm glad of the rest." She laughed.
"I've got three sisters, five cousins, seems they pop another one out whenever they stop to take a breath."
Resnick smiled and together they walked on past the lake's edge and up the slow incline towards the Hall. By the time they had turned through the gateway past the stables and the small agricultural museum, it was time to drive the short distance back to the city.
"You going to be okay?" Resnick asked. They were standing beside the car in the hotel forecourt, motor idling.
"Mollie seemed concerned about this interview you have to do."
Cathy gestured dismissively with her hand.
"I'll be fine. And listen, thanks for this afternoon. Most people wouldn't have taken the time.
I'm only sorry I wasn't better company. "
"That isn't true."
She threw back her head and laughed.
"Along with everything else, I'm fucking premenstrual!"
Resnick watched her walk towards the doors.
"Take care," he said, then climbed back in the car and drove to the station.
Millington's wife was spending the afternoon rehearsing The Merry Widow and he had come in to the office in an open-neck shirt and his third-best sports jacket, the one with the leather-patched sleeves, and was threading his way, painstakingly, back through the statements mat pertained to Peter Farleigh's murder. Something whose importance they had failed to grasp, a connection they had missed if it were there, so far it had eluded him.
"Call for you from the wife," Millington said, seeing Resnick walk in.
Resnick's stomach went cold; without reason, his first thought was of Elaine.
"Ex-wife, that is," Millington went on.
"Widow. Farleigh's."
"Sarah," Resnick said.
"Yes, that's it. Wants to know, once the inquest is over, will we be prepared to release the body?"
Resnick's breathing was back to normal.
"I'll talk to her, thanks."
He looked down at the material on the sergeant's desk.
"Anything?"
Millington shook his head.
"About as enlightening as shovelling shit."
Resnick nodded and moved away.
"Boss." He turned again at the sound of Divine's voice; Mark coming into the room with a slice of part-eaten ham and pineapple pizza folding around his hand. Lunch, Resnick thought, I knew there was something.
"Had a bell from Gamett. Says she's going to have another go at Kinoulton's mate later, reckons as how she knows more'n she's letting on."
"You think she's right?"
"Could be. Let's face it some bugger's got to know something."
"Okay," Resnick said.
"Keep on top of it." Sharon Gamett, Divine thought, I shouldn't mind. Tilting back his head as be lifted the pointed end of pizza to his mouth, he wandered over towards his desk.
In the corner near the kettle, Resnick found the remnants of a packet of chocolate digestives and dunked them in lukewarm tea. He was considering phoning Sarah Farleigh, still wondering exactly what he might say, when Kevin Naylor and Lynn Kellogg got back from Cathy Jordan's hotel.
Naylor had talked to the room service staff on duty, the young woman who had prepared Cathy Jordan's breakfast tray, the man who had taken it up to her room, knocked, received no reply and left it on the trolley outside the door. He had talked to the maid who had been changing bed linen and towels on that floor. Everyone had followed procedure; no one had noticed anything amiss. Unless one of the staff were lying, and Naylor didn't think this was the case, the most likely scenario was that the macabre 'baby' had been exchanged for the proper contents of the basket while the trolley was outside the room. Which raised the question since, presumably, the thing had required planning, and since whoever was responsible could hardly have been sure the breakfast trolley would be so conveniently standing there what other means had been envisaged for its delivery?
After helping Naylor a while at the hotel, Lynn had gone off in search of Vivienne Plant, who, after a few obligatory warnings about harassment, had been only too happy to give the names and addresses of three witnesses who could testify that she had been engaged in a fortnightly badminton game that morning, after which she and her friends had progressed to Russell's bar for a good, unhealthy fry-up brunch.
"Okay," Resnick said, having listened to their reports.
"Without getting into a lot of lengthy forensics and committing more hours than we can afford, that may be as far as we can go. For now, anyway."
"That's okay, then," Naylor said, walking with Lynn across the QD room.
"We can get back to doing something important."
Lynn stopped in her tracks.
"What?"
"Well, you know. Not as if there was any real harm done," Naylor said.
"No harm?"
"You know what I mean. It's not as if anything actually happened."
"Something happened all right," Lynn said.
"Yes," Naylor agreed, digging an even deeper hole for himself, 'but not serious. "
"Suppose it had been Debbie, though, Kevin, how would you feel, then?
How would she feel, d'you think? "
"She'd be upset, course she would…"
"Upset?"
"Yes, but she'd get over it."
"Which means it's not worth our bothering with?"
"Not as much as some other things, no."
"If she'd been hit, though? Physically attacked, raped even?"
"Then, of course, that'd be different."
Lynn laughed, more a snort than a laugh.
"Fact you can't see wounds and bruises, Kevin, doesn't mean a person hasn't been damaged. Hurt.
Doesn't have to mean it's less serious. "
Doris Duke didn't look as if she were working. Instead of high heels, she was wearing a pair of scuffed trainers and there was a hole at the back of her black tights big enough to slip a hand through. Aside from what still stuck, haphazardly, to her face from the previous night, she wore no make-up. Her hair had been pulled back from her head and hung raggedly down, secured by a couple of pins and a rubber band. There was a cigarette in her hand.
Sharon eased the car over to intercept her and Doris's head instinctively turned; she wasn't out looking for business, but she wasn't going to shunt it away.
As soon as she recognised Sharon, she knew it was business of a different kind.
"What d'you want now?" she asked, trying to summon up a belligerence that wasn't really there.
Sharon set the hand brake slipped the car into neutral. "Talk."
"Oh, yeah? What about now?"
"This and that?"
"Pay for my time, will you?"
Sharon smiled.
"You've been watching too many of those TV movies, Doris. That's the only place girls like you get paid to talk to the likes of me."
Doris stood uneasily, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, cigarette cupped in her hand.
"From what I've seen, your sort are either looking to bang you up and slap the hell out of you, or they're sniffing round for freebies."
She gave Sharon a look that was meant to be provocative. "Which is it with you?"
"Neither. I told you. I just want to talk."
"And I said, what about?"
"Marlene."
Doris dropped her cigarette to the pavement, quickly ground it out and began to walk away.
"Doris…"
"No," she called over her shoulder.
"I already told you everything I know."