“Then why mention it in the first place?”
“Sir?”
“Why tell us he as much as knew her?”
“The inspector reckons it was because he thought we had a list of who he’d written to, thought we’d got hold of the letters, I suppose. That way, he’d have to admit something, but no more than he hoped to get away with.”
“And all the time you were interviewing him, he never broke down on that part of his story, that he took one look at Shirley Peters, turned tail, and never saw her again?”
“No, sir.”
“And your verdict on that, Graham?”
“No doubt in my mind, sir,” said Millington without hesitation. “He’s lying.”
Resnick wrote a memo for Lynn Kellogg, another for Patel, asking for a summary of what they’d learned as soon as possible. When he phoned Skelton, the superintendent was closeted with the chief constable, doubtless doing his best to pacify him and promise an early result. The DCl was there and Resnick asked him if they were anticipating making an arrest.
“Simms, you mean? Grafton’s sex offender.”
“That’s the one.”
“Unofficially, Charlie, I think the word is imminent. Unless you’ve turned up something stronger.”
Resnick assured him that he hadn’t.
“Not holding out on us, Charlie?”
“Not for a minute,” said Resnick and rang off. What he would say at the next briefing session might be another matter, but for now he needed time to think.
A little over an hour later he was sitting in his favorite chair with Bud curved round the back of his neck, purring head tucked up against Resnick’s chin while his tail coiled across it from the other side. He was listening to the animal’s contented breathing, the occasional vehicle passing too fast along the road outside. There had to be a way of pulling it all together, but as yet he couldn’t determine what that was. There had to be something he could do with a quarter of aging mushrooms and half a red pepper that was more interesting than slicing them finely and folding them into yet another omelet.
When he allowed himself to be convinced that there wasn’t, he lifted Bud gently down and went to call Rachel.
She came to the phone after Carole had all but given him the third degree.
“I’ve just been interviewed for a very exclusive position,” said Resnick, “only I don’t know what it is.”
“Sorry,” Rachel explained, “she’s interceding for me with Chris.”
“What’s up?”
“Oh, he was waiting for me last night when I got back.”
“After I left you?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus!”
“It could have been worse, I suppose. He was upset. At first he was angry and then he was, well, violent, I suppose you’d have to say.”
“He didn’t strike you?”
“No. Nothing like that. Carole got me inside, he hung about getting wet and then disappeared. He’s tried ringing me a few times and I don’t know if it’s to be abusive or to apologize, because so far I’ve managed to avoid him.”
“There’s nothing you want me to do?”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“Except what I called for.”
“Which is?”
“To save myself from another mushroom omelet.”
“Charlie!”
“You said it was my turn to ring you.”
“I didn’t mean less than twenty-four hours later.”
“You weren’t that specific.”
“I know. But, anyway, I’ve eaten.”
“Oh.”
There was a silence and then Resnick said: “What were you going to do?”
“An early bath and then bed.”
Great! thought Resnick. Do it here!
“Did you hear what I said, Charlie?” Rachel asked when there was no reply.
“I was just thinking about it.”
“You’re not turning into a dirty old man on me, are you?”
“Come over,” said Resnick.
“What for?”
“To meet the cats.”
She didn’t say anything for several seconds and then what she did say was, “How can I resist?”
The introductions went as well as could be expected. Dizzy treated her to his rear view within seconds, but that aside the cats were as polite as they usually were when Resnick had guests, which wasn’t often.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Vodka and tonic?”
“Difficult.”
“Gin?”
“Ah…”
“What have you got?”
They sat on the settee with two glasses of Black Label and Art Pepper on the stereo playing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” Resnick didn’t tell her the title, he thought that might be going too far, but he did point out the link with Pepper the cat and he was starting to tell her something else when she leaned across him and placed her finger to his lips.
“Charlie…”
“Um?”
“Shut up and let me listen.”
When he refilled their glasses, he found a worn copy of Sinatra’s Songs for Young Lovers. Rachel waited until it got to “Someone to Watch Over Me” before asking, “Charlie, are you trying to seduce me?”
“Am I?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No.”
“Are you being honest?”
“Usually.”
“And now?”
“Absolutely.”
“Only if you are, trying to seduce me I mean, I haven’t got my cap in.”
“Oh.”
“And I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of woman who takes it with her wherever she goes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But I do happen to have it in my bag.”
“Ah.”
He took her whisky glass and she kissed him; when he had set both glasses down, she kissed him again.
They kissed one another.
After some time had elapsed and two of the cats had tried to find some purchase on their shifting laps and given up, Rachel took Resnick’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Don’t you think it’s time you showed me the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’d better point me at the bathroom on the way.”
“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Rachel waited fully fifteen seconds and when the bathroom mirror didn’t provide her with an answer she flushed the toilet and switched out the light.
“Are you all right?”
“Mmm.”
“No, really?”
“I suppose not.”
Resnick sighed and rolled over on to his side; his eyes were closed and his breathing was loud and too fast. He waited until it had steadied and then opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.
“Charlie…” Rachel snuggled beneath the crook of his arm, laying her arm across his body, the curve of her hand on his belly. “…it doesn’t matter.”
Resnick didn’t reply.
“Honestly.”
“Um.”
She turned her head in towards him and kissed first his side and then, slowly, his chest, all the way to the hair that gathered thickly at the middle of his rib cage and tasted of salt and sweat.
“Don’t think about it.”
What Resnick was thinking about was Sally Oakes, her scrubbed face and her skinny body and her voice. No. He hurt me. And behind that, like an echo that was off-key but always present, a little girl sitting in a room with dolls: Yes. It hurt me.
Rachel moved until she was lying with her body half covering his and he softly stroked her back from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine.
“Charlie,” she said in a murmur, “don’t stop. That’s lovely.”
And after that she didn’t say anything because she was asleep.
When she woke it was pitch dark, she was alone in the bed and the luminous hands of her watch told her it was close to half-past two. She slipped out from under the covers without disturbing the cat that slept near the foot of the bed, curled in on itself.
She found Charlie in the nursery, with his face up against the window, gazing out into the dark. Rachel pressed her cheek into the middle of his back and her arms wound around him. After a little while he turned to her and when she kissed him, she could feel the tears, not yet dry on his face.