But Resnick voiced none of these things: instead he asked Lynn about her parents, her father’s health, the poultry farm. Nodding at her responses, anticipating, no doubt, the plump capon that would make the journey back from her pre-Christmas visit and find its way from the waste bin of Resnick’s office, first into his refrigerator and eventually his oven. Lynn slowed to a halt outside Resnick’s house.
“Early start, sir?”
“Absolutely.” A quick smile and he was gone, a blur of white as his hand came up to stroke the first of his cats to run along the wall.
Lynn brought the car around and headed back along the Woodborough Road, the night suddenly clear and pitted with stars. Naylor’s car was parked at the curb between the Lace Market theater and the probation service car park, waiting.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“Nonsense. Of course you should.”
Behind the housing association flats where Lynn lived, someone, probably the Old Angel, had applied for an extension and the throb of bass was overridden at intervals by the shrill screech of over-amplified guitar.
“Someone’s idea of a good time,” Lynn smiled.
Nervous, Kevin Naylor said nothing.
There was a single can of Heineken in the fridge and Lynn offered to share it, but Naylor shook his head. She put on the kettle instead and found some music that might be more appropriate, Joan Armatrading, though she doubted it was Kevin’s cup of tea.
“How long ago did it happen?” Lynn asked, and, as he toyed with a tipped Rothmans and his lighter, passed him a saucer and said, “Here, use that.”
“I know it sounds stupid, but it’s hard to say. I mean, it’s not as if I came off shift one day and she’d got everything packed up and gone. It was more gradual, months. First off, she’d take the baby there, leave it longer and longer each time. Fair enough, I mean, I didn’t like it, not a whole lot, still, fair enough, she’d been, like, depressed, since the baby and she wasn’t getting much sleep, so if it was over there, well, at least Debbie caught a few hours’ rest, we both did.”
The kettle whistled and Lynn went to the kitchen. “Don’t stop. I can hear what you’re saying.”
But he waited, anyway, till she was back in the room.
“Sugar?”
“Thanks, two.”
“You were saying, the baby was sleeping over at Debbie’s mother’s.”
“Right. Next thing, she was staying there herself. Evenings, I’d get back …”
After a pint or two with Divine, Lynn thought.
“… and she’d not be there. In a while she’d phone, say she’d gone over to collect the baby, but she was fast off, asking for trouble to wake her, why didn’t she just stay the night, come back in the morning?” He glanced across at Lynn’s attentive face. “I’m not sure when it was she stopped coming back. I don’t know. We were snowed under. To be honest, I was glad to get home and not have to bother, not with Debbie, not with the baby, not with anything. Just sit there for a bit, you know, let your mind clear, off to bed knowing no one was going to be shaking you awake this side of morning.”
Lynn was looking at the patterns in the rug. “Sounds to me, as if maybe you got what you wanted.”
“It wasn’t what I wanted.”
“You didn’t try to stop it.”
“I told you, I didn’t know …”
“Your own wife and kid?”
“All right,” on his feet, “I didn’t come here for this.”
Lynn, standing, facing him. “What did you come here for?”
The richness of the singer’s voice, the same phrase over and over, slow build of intensity. All either of them had to do was take that first forward step, reach out and touch the other’s skin.
“Well?” Lynn said.
“I don’t know. I thought …”
“Yes?”
“No, I don’t know.” With a shake of the head, he moved back across the small room and sat down.
“You wanted to pour it all out, how badly she’s treated you, and me to sit here and listen, agree with you.”
“Probably.”
“Well, what I’ve heard, I do agree with you. Up to a point. Whatever Debbie’s playing at, it doesn’t sound as if facing up to things is one of them. But it also sounds as if you let her go.”
“She didn’t need much letting.”
“No, maybe. But what she did need, what she just might’ve wanted from you was somebody saying no. I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that what she was waiting for all along was for you to tell her what you felt.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Kevin, and if you don’t either, well maybe that’s part of the problem. But my guess is, all the time she was waiting for you to say, look, don’t do this. I want you here. I want us to be here, together.”
Naylor lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the other.
“When you didn’t …”
“How d’you know I didn’t?”
“Oh, Kevin.” Lynn shaking her head. “When you didn’t say anything, she thought that meant you didn’t want her. Her or the baby. So it was easier to stay with someone who did. And with someone who would help.”
“I did help.”
“With the baby?”
“Yes.”
“What? Helped with the feeding? Played with her? Changed her?”
“Yes. If I was there.”
Despite herself, Lynn knew that she was smiling.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny.”
“Then what the hell’re you laughing for?”
“I’m not laughing.” But she was; laughing until she leaned forward and steadied herself by holding his hand.
“Oh, Lynn,” he said, voice thickening as he gave her hand a squeeze.
“Kevin,” she said, “nice as it might be, it wouldn’t solve anything.”
“What? I didn’t …”
Lynn laughed again and got to her feet, releasing herself. “Have you talked to her? Recently, I mean.”
“I’ve tried.”
“How often?”
“Once.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s our business, we’ve got to sort it out for ourselves.”
“I don’t want to be nasty, Kevin, but it doesn’t sound as if you’re making a great job of it.”
“Thanks very much!”
“Kevin, you’re impossible!” Bending low, she kissed him deftly near the top of his head. “I’ll give her a call, see if she’ll meet me for coffee, a drink.”
“She’ll only think I’ve put you up to it.”
“So? If nothing else, it’ll mean you’re trying to do something. It’ll mean that you care.”
Kevin sat and finished his drink and his cigarette; Joan Armatrading clicked off into silence. “I’d better make a move,” he said.
“Sure,” Lynn said, relieved that the one he was finally making was the one towards the door.
Stephen Shepperd turned towards the person lying beside him and slipped an arm around her, cuddling close against her warmth. “I’m sorry, Mummy,” he breathed into her back. “I’m sorry.” And although Joan Shepperd lightly stirred, it is unlikely that she heard.
Thirty-four
Resnick had been up since before six, padding around the house between bathroom and bedroom and back again, persuading Pepper out from the airing cupboard, where he had made a nest for himself in the deep blue of the towels. Downstairs, he unbolted the door and let Dizzy in out of the still black morning. Cats fed and coffee ground, he went in search of a clean shirt. If Stephen Shepperd had almost collided with Vivien Nathanson, why had he lied? If he had been there in the crescent, would there have been time and opportunity enough for him to have abducted Emily Morrison? Where could he have taken her and why? Resnick sliced rye bread with caraway, three small rounds, and set them in the toaster, side by side. Sighed as he saw both Dizzy and Miles eating from Bud’s bowl, the smallest of his four cats, destined to be smaller still. Push them away with his foot, they’d be back seconds later. Instead he scooped Bud up in one hand, nuzzled him under his chin and sprinkled a handful of dry food on the work surface, standing the cat down next to it to eat. Coffee not quite ready, he began to slice the Jarlsberg for his toast. What he wanted to know, what they hadn’t yet asked, exactly when that Sunday afternoon Stephen Shepperd had arrived back home, the time his wife had next seen him. He spread margarine on the toast, scraped some back off with the knife and returned it to the packet; he overlapped the cheese across, cut a chunk of garlic sausage from the fridge and put that on top; what he would have liked, a tomato, but they had all gone, what he was tempted by, a smear of mayonnaise. A hand pressed against his stomach was enough to help him to resist. What had Stephen Shepperd said about swimming being good exercise? Maybe he should take it up? A few leisurely lengths each morning before work. He must send someone along with the Identikit picture, see if they recognized Stephen, if they could remember him being there on Sunday afternoon. He carried his toast and coffee through to the other room, wondering if Skelton would be up yet, whether he should call.