“I know, but we’ll have to check just the same.”
“It hardly seems fair.”
“Think what would happen if we failed to do it and it turned out to have mattered. What she can’t remember today might be clearer tomorrow.”
Resnick switched on the engine and turned up the heater.
“I don’t think I understand either,” Rachel said. “Not really.”
“You’re lucky,” Resnick said.
“I don’t feel it.” The words were out without thinking and with emphasis.
“You mean more than this,” Resnick said, gesturing back at the house.
Rachel nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Chris?”
“It’ll sort itself out.” She wasn’t looking at him any more. He could see her reflected in the car window, three-quarter profile. For Christ’s sake, thought Resnick, do something-say something.
“I’ve got to go,” Rachel said, opening the door.
She had one foot on the pavement when Resnick put his hand on her arm. As her head swung round, he made himself keep the hand where it was. “Take care.”
She smiled ironically. “Leave it to the professionals.”
Resnick’s fingers were back round the steering wheel. The door was firmly shut. As Resnick signaled and drew away from the curb, he was wondering how soon after getting home Jack Skelton or the DCI would be on the phone, checking progress, feeling for the next move.
Patel had been pulled on to nights to relieve Lynn Kellogg and let her return to normal shift. In a way, it suited him well. Peel wasn’t the pushy sort, kept himself to his copy of the Daily Mail and allowed Patel to get on with the studying necessary for his sergeant’s board.
“Running before you can bloody walk, pal!” Divine had said, glancing down over Patel’s shoulder in the canteen. “Look at this,” he’d called to Naylor. “Not content with taking over every tobacconists and newsagents in the sodding country, they’ve got eyes on the Force as well!”
Naylor, who was busily beating the books on his own account (well, Debbie’s, if the truth were to be told), had shaken his head and said nothing.
“You know why our Asian friends didn’t prosper in the Roman Empire, don’t you?” Divine had asked in a loud voice.
Naylor and Patel knew they were going to be told anyway.
“All them straight roads, where’d they put the corner shops?”
The beauty of nights, Patel thought now, no Mark Divine.
After another two paragraphs, Patel realized that Peel was staring at him. Oh, no, not you too. Then he understood that there was somebody else in the office; someone else who was receiving a great deal of Peel’s attention. Patel got up from where he had tucked himself out of the way, round at the foot of the L-shaped room. Grace Kelley was standing outside the inspector’s room, looking in. She was wearing a bright red laminated cape and a matching hood; there were a couple of inches of bare skin between her black leather trousers and red high-heeled shoes. Her sweater had a deep roll at the neck and a turquoise brooch like a misshapen heart pinned to the appropriate place; the sweater was white wool and at least one size too small.
She smiled at Patel encouragingly.
“Inspector Resnick is off duty,” Patel said.
“All tucked up?”
Behind Patel, DC Peel sniggered and crossed his legs.
“He will be in first thing,” Patel assured her. “If you could call back.”
“By then I shall be back to civilization,” Grace said. “Cases are in the car and I’ve just filled the tank. I’ve run out of things a girl can do here.”
She winked at Patel and made a sinuous movement which caused her cape to slide further back from her shoulders. Patel was doing his best not to stare at the turquoise heart, but it drew his dark eyes like a magnet.
“Touch it if you want,” she grinned, moving closer. “Real smooth. Like a baby’s bum.”
She supposed; she didn’t think she had ever got near enough to know and she’d be pleased to keep it that way. This one, though, this little rabbit with his great startled eyes, ready to bolt at her first false move-well, somehow she’d never got around to bonking any Asians.
“No?”
Through the clipped dark hair of his mustache, she could see the drops of sweat beginning to gather. Rather him, she thought, than the chinless wonder, leering away at the back.
“No, well. I’d best leave the message with you, then. If that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
“Might not be nothing special, only, Shirley, you see, my friend that got…” She shrugged, not wanting to say the word. “She told me once about this bloke she met, all right he was, good-looking and everything. That’s not the point, though, is it? Point is, she met him through one of them ads. You know the kind-glamorous blond, simple tastes, anxious to meet well-hung yacht owner.” Her brittle laughter broke loud across the almost empty room. “Poor bloody Shirley! Little Miss bleedin’ Lonely Hearts!”
Eighteen
Was it something about his generation, the fact of living alone? He chose two potatoes from the rack and washed off the surplus dirt before beginning to peel. Most people he knew, worked with, they operated in couples: that was the way it still was. For the rest, though, finding someone or making it work, which was the most difficult? He thought of Rachel, of the two of them in the enclosed space of his car, a tiredness he had not noticed before in her eyes. Dizzy was winding in and out between his feet and he picked the animal up and set her down again across the room. All the things he might have said; the warmth of her arm through her sleeve. It’ll sort itself out. Usually, he supposed, things did.
When he reached up on to the shelf to take down the grater, he noticed that Pepper had fitted the curve of her body inside the largest aluminum pan, only the last inches of her tail curling over the rim.
No matter what, his mother had made latkes on Monday evenings, grating the potato as finely as if she had been turning a precision tool. The smaller pile of onion would stand ready in its dish, the egg beaten, oven warming. In a saucepan, thickened with flour, gravy from the weekend’s meat bubbled slowly.
Happy or miserable-mostly, Resnick realized, thinking back, resigned-his mother, once married, would have known no other option. Like her potato pancakes, regularly she made her bed and once that was done there was nothing else but to lie down in it.
Resnick gave the mixture a final stir and began to grease the bottom of the heavy frying pan. There were still a few slices of smoked Polish ham in the fridge, a spoonful of sour cream.
“Dizzy! If you end up getting trodden on, don’t blame me.”
He was sliding the spatula under the nearest latke to turn it when the phone began to ring. The outside was crisp yet not too thick and didn’t crumble when he lifted it up, set it back down.
“Dizzy!”
The cat retreated beneath the table and regarded him balefully.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Surprised that Jack Skelton had not called already, Resnick was anticipating the superintendent’s voice until his hand touched the receiver and he knew it would be Rachel. Distressed, needing to talk.
“Hello?”
It was Patel. Resnick recognized that careful voice instantly. He listened for several moments and then, “How long ago?” he asked, and, “Is she still there?”, finally, “She was certain?”
Resnick kept the phone in hand and depressed a finger to break the connection. It was he who would have to call Skelton.
“Different game now, Charlie. Different rules.”
It was still shy of seven-thirty and they were on the steps outside the station. Skelton was wearing his dark executive blue and with good reason. There was an extra shine to his shoes and a messianic glint in his eyes that made Resnick wonder if he moonlighted as a lay preacher on his days off.
“This is where we see the technology swing into action.”