Sheffield, not for the first time, was a wash-out. As were Birmingham, Bradford, the Chapeltown district of Leeds. There was a twice-confirmed rumour that Marlene Kinoulton had been working the streets of Butetown, down near the Cardiff docks. A Vice Squad officer had warned her off, only recognising her from the circulated description when it was too late; a bevy of the local girls had backed her into a corner and given her a tonguelashing, warned her to piss off out of their territory or they'd get one of the pimps to see to her face and legs.
Millington and Divine drove down to Cardiff; Mark Divine pleased at the chance to make a rugby player's pilgrimage to Cardiff Arms Park.
It was about the only part of the trip that worked out well. The cooperation which the local force had promised was dissipated in a miasma of broken promises and missed appointments. They did persuade one of the runners working for a high- flown dealer to talk to them over a late-night biriani and chips. Marlene Kinoulton he swore he'd seen just two nights before, sold her the last two rocks he'd had.
Millington and Divine stayed another couple of days | and, as far as they were able, turned the underbelly of the city upside down.
Afterwards, only one thing seemed certain: Marlene Kinoulton had been there and now she had gone.
Resnick allowed Marian Witczak to talk him into accompanying her to a midsummer dance at the Polish Club and, 265 after several generous glasses of bison grass vodka, remembered how to polka. A card from Cathy Jordan, a street scene in Dublin, reminded him that he had still to finish Dead Weight and, between other things, he got not quite to the end, but almost.
Debbie Naylor waylaid Kevin one night with a bottle of wine and something racy she'd bought from an advertisement in the back of the Sunday paper and now she woke in the mornings with carry-cots and Babygros dancing before her eyes.
Kate Skelton, who not so long before had driven her parents close to despair, shoplifting to pay for her drug problem, astonished them by getting three good A levels and applying to university.
Sharon Gamett applied to be transferred from the Vice Squad into CID and her application was turned down.
Lyim Kellogg came into Resnick's office one morning at the end of July and told him she was seriously thinking about moving back to Bast Anglia and had been sounding out an old friend about a vacancy in a Norwich force. "
"Can we talk about this?" Resnick said. He felt as if something solid was being pulled out from beneath his feet. He felt something he didn't understand.
"Of course," Lynn said, and waited.
"I meant, I suppose I meant, not here."
"You're busy." His desk was the usual clutter of reports and forms, empty sandwich bags.
"Yes. No. It's not that. I suppose… well, to be honest, you've taken me by surprise."
"Yes, well, it's nothing definite yet, although…" She stopped, reminded of the look that had come into her father's eyes, the first time she had told him she was applying to join the police.
"How about a drink then?" she said.
"If you want to talk it through."
"It's a long time since you were at the coffee stall,"
266 Resnick said.
"They've just about given up asking where you've got to."
Lynn smiled; just a little, not too much; just with the eyes.
"All right."
Amongst the other things on Resnick's desk, unopened, the invitation to the service at Wymeswold Church dedicated to the memory of Peter Farieigh.
He thought she'd changed her mind. Several of the stall holders had taken in the goods that hung around the outside of their sections and pulled down the metal sides. Resnick had read the cricket report in the local paper twice.
"Sorry," Lynn said, a little out of breath, her cheeks flushed with colour for the first time in weeks.
"Something cropped up."
"Important?"
"No, just fiddly."
"Here," the assistant said, setting down a cappuccino, 'for you the first one free. "
"Thanks," Lynn said, 'but best not. " She pushed a pound coin across the counter and grinned.
"Probably consitutes a bribe."
Now they were there, there was no rush to talk. Resnick sipped his espresso as Lynn tasted the chocolatey froth from a cheap metal spoon. With a thump and clatter, another stall was locked away for the night.
"Your dad," Resnick finally said.
"Is that the problem?"
"How d'you mean?"
"The reason you're thinking of moving back."
"Oh, partly, yes. In a way."
"I thought he was better. Doing okay. Stable, at least."
"He is. But cancer, you know, so hard not to think, whatever the doctors say, it's not going to come back. Somewhere else."
"There's no sign, though?"
"No, not yet No. Touch wood." She glanced around. The couple who ran the corner vegetable stall were laughing together, lighting up, just for a moment holding hands.
"It's my mum, more."
She's not ill? "
Lynn shook her head.
"Just works herself up into such a state."
Resnick finished his coffee; wondered if there were time for one more.
"That's the reason, then? To be near your mother, close?"
Lynn drank some of her cappuccino.
"Not really, no."
Something had begun pressing against the inside of Resnick's left temple, urgent, hard.
Lynn tried to choose her words with care.
"Ever since what happened.
When I was. taken prisoner. I can't stop, haven't been able to stop myself, well, thinking. "
"That's only natural…"
"I know. Yes, I know. And Petra says… That's my doctor. Petra Carey. She says I have to take time, open myself to it; she says there's a lot I have to talk myself through."
'like what? "
"Like you."
Resnick's left eye blinked. If the assistant turned around, he would order another espresso, but, of course, the man continued stubbornly washing down the counter at the other side.
Lynn was speaking again, her voice measured, trying to talk the way she would to Petra Carey if Petra Carey were there.
"Tied up there at night, in the caravan, never knowing when he might come in. Knowing what had happened to that other girl, knowing what he'd done, what he might do. I was scared, of course I was scared. Terrified. Though I knew the last thing I could afford to do was show it. To him. And underneath it all, somehow I'm not sure, I was dreaming a lot of the time, I think I must have been; trying not to let myself fall asleep, but not being able to stop myself-but somehow there was always this idea that it would be all right, that someone no, you – that you would come and God, it sounds pathetic now, doesn't it, hearing myself say this but that you would come and save me." For a moment, Lynn pressed her face into her hands and closed her eyes.
"Except," she went on, 'it wasn't always you. It wasn't as straightforward as that. Sometimes, I would think it was you but then when I saw your face, it was my dad.
You were. my dad. " She shook her head, low towards her hands, which were folded over one another now, beside her cup.
"It isn't even that simple. There are things, other things, I can't, I don't want to say."
Resnick put one hand over hers, ready to retract it if she pulled away.
"I haven't been able to talk to you," Lynn said, not looking at him, looking away.
"Not really talk, not since it happened."
"I know."
"I just haven't felt comfortable, being with you."
"No."
"And it's difficult. So bloody difficult!" With surprise, the assistant looked round at her raised voice.
"And I hate it."
"Yes," Resnick said, taking away his hand. And then, "So this is why you want to go; this rather than your mother, anything at home."
"Oh, they want me back there, of course. My dad doesn't say so, but my mum, she'd love it. But if it wasn't for this other business, no, I don't think I'd go."