“Why did he lie about going swimming?”
“If he did.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Even if we know he wasn’t at the baths, even if we knew he lied about that, we don’t know for certain what else he did. The rest is supposition and rumor and whatever may be twisting away inside your gut.”
“Isn’t that all it often is?”
Skelton nodded. “Agreed. But before we can do anything, we need something more substantial. Because if you are right, the last thing we want to do is give him the same kind of get-out we just handed to Kilpatrick.”
Resnick nodded and got to his feet. “Kid gloves, sir.”
“Better be.”
Outside in the corridor, Suzanne Olds was taking a break from the interview room, smoking a cigarette. A tall woman wearing a light gray tailored suit, an expensive leather bag hanging from one shoulder, she watched Resnick’s approach with interest, one eyebrow quizzically crooked. Head down, Resnick walked past, only just hearing the solicitor’s quiet, “I see crash courses in terrorizing the innocent are back in the manual.” He didn’t turn, didn’t falter; in the CID room he left instructions that Graham Millington should under no circumstances leave the station without seeing him first. The kettle was warm and he made himself coffee, taking it into his office with the intention of reviewing his conversations with Stephen Shepperd. Unwillingly, he found himself thinking of Vivien Nathanson instead; of the poem she had read. Reluctantly, he opened the drawer and took out the book, turning to the page. Infinite, unfathomable desires.
Thirty-nine
Lorraine had spoken to her mother three times that day; Michael had called twice from work, the second occasion on a portable phone that had kept breaking up, reducing his conversation to a sequence of barely related sounds. The same person claiming to represent one of the national tabloids had offered her fifteen thousand for her story of a young mum’s grief, conditional on exclusivity, a thousand now, four more when the body was found, the remainder on publication. As usual, Val Patterson called round for a coffee and a chat, stayed long enough to eat half a packet of Lorraine’s chocolate digestives-“The last one, I swear, not doing a thing for my figure”-and smoke her own cigarettes-“Last one, I swear it, ruining my lungs.” The assistant manager at the bank had rung to see how she was-“No, you stay out, stay at home until you feel you want to come back in. Your decision, your decision absolutely.” Lorraine had tried to speak to Lynn Kellogg at the police station, either her or Inspector Resnick, but both had been busy. She had taken down the curtains in the bedroom in order to reline them, something she had been meaning to do for ages, and now they lay in swirls around the sewing machine, unpicked and, since then, untouched.
When the doorbell sounded, her first thought was that it was Michael, home early, although, as she hurried down the stairs, why hadn’t he got his key? She blinked at the woman she found standing there, not recognizing her, shorn of context, as one of Emily’s teachers.
“Mrs. Morrison, Joan Shepperd. I hope you don’t mind my calling?”
“Oh. No. Of course not. I …”
“I was going to sooner. I wanted to, only …”
The two stood there looking at one another self-consciously, for all the world like mother and daughter. “Please,” Lorraine said, stepping back, “won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, I didn’t mean …”
“No, please, come in.”
While Lorraine boiled the kettle for tea, Joan Shepperd passed complimentary remarks about the house, the neatness of the kitchen, the pattern on the china, wondering all the while just why it was she had come, what, exactly, she was hoping to find.
“Emily was a …” she began, stumbling to correct herself. “She is a bright child, interested in everything. Since the term began, you can really see the progress.”
Lorraine smiled a reply.
“Nothing’s been heard?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And you’ve no idea …?”
“Not really. None at all.”
Joan tasted the tea, asked Lorraine about Michael, about Emily’s mother. “She’s in hospital,” Lorraine said. “She’s not been well for some time. I don’t think she knows what’s happened.”
When Joan Shepperd looked up, tears were sliding down Lorraine’s face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really shouldn’t have come. It was thoughtless of me, it’s only upsetting you.”
“No,” Lorraine shaking her head, “I’m afraid I do this all the time. Sometimes, I don’t even notice.” She pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket and began opening it out. “I went to pay the window cleaner yesterday and the same thing happened; he stood there, looking at me gone out. I just hadn’t realized.”
She dabbed her cheeks and patted her eyes, blew her nose and asked Joan Shepperd if she wanted another cup of tea.
“No, thank you. That was lovely.” She surprised herself by reaching for Lorraine’s hand. “I wanted you to know how sorry I am, about Emily. I do think about her a lot.”
Tears returned to Lorraine’s eyes and she moved away to stand by the sink, turning on the tap so that the water dribbled out. Emily was: Michael had said the same himself only last night, there in that room. Emily was. Was it only the police, then, who thought there was some chance she might yet be found alive? Or were they, too, merely going through the motions, unable to admit what in their hearts and minds they knew, that wherever she now was, Emily was surely dead?
“It can’t go on.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like this. Ignoring me.”
Stephen was standing at his work bench, in the cellar, back towards the stairs. “I’m not ignoring you, I’m working.”
Joan looked at the fleshiness of his neck, the breadth of his shoulders, hunching forward, despising him. Promises he had made and broken.
“What did the police say?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what happened this afternoon?”
“Nothing. They made me stand in a parade, a line of men to see if this woman recognized me.”
“Which woman?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? Anyway, it was all a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
Turning now to face her, swiveling from the waist. “What I said, she didn’t recognize me. She couldn’t. I wasn’t there.”
“Where?”
Stephen had swung back again and was reaching towards the bench. “I was swimming,” he said and bent over his bench, working the wood steadily until he had heard his wife’s feet moving away, the door closing. There was something so special about the touch of newly turned wood, its smoothness, the slight warmth left from the lathe, like blood beneath young skin.
The Partridge was busy enough for all the seats to be taken, both bars with groups standing, the occasional lone drinker nursing his pint of mixed between both hands. It had been Vivien’s suggestion, a pub she knew and sometimes used, one which had long been a favorite of Resnick’s, one of the diminishing few where all attempt at conversation wasn’t lost to karaoke and disco. They found a space near the rear wall between a group of adult education students practicing their Spanish-how did you ask for a pint of mild and a packet of cheese and onion crisps in Madrid? — and the usual collection from the poly, wearing Oxfam overcoats and whinging on about the cost of CDs and how difficult it was to get decently pissed on a grant.
“I used to teach a class round the corner,” Vivien said.
“Canadian studies?”
“Not exactly. Women and Utopia. Or was it Utopias? I can’t remember.”
She was wearing a green cord skirt and a rust-colored sweater with a crew neck; a light cotton coat hung open from her shoulders. She had surprised Resnick, who had almost gone ahead and ordered a dry white wine, by asking for vodka and tonic.
“You don’t work there any more, then?”
She shook her head. “I was just filling in. Working at the university part-time and waiting for somebody to move on or die.”