Naylor was faster than his sergeant and had the underside of one foot wedged inside the door while Mrs. Fossey was still trying to push it shut.
“Lloyd, Lloyd! It’s the police!”
From inside there came the sound of at least two radios playing, tuned to different stations; a banging of doors and feet heavy on the stairs.
Naylor pushed his warrant card around the edge of the door. “I’m Detective Constable Naylor,” he said, “and this is Sergeant Millington. We have a warrant …”
“Watch it!” shouted Millington and landed his left shoulder midway up the door so that it sprang inwards, knocking Fossey’s young wife back to the foot of the stairs.
“Shit!” yelled Millington.
Fossey was on his way out through the French windows, still zipping up the front of his trousers. He had a briefcase under one arm, car keys in his hand and no shoes on his feet.
“Lloyd Fossey,” Millington began, but Fossey wasn’t listening. So much the better. The sergeant wasn’t as fast as five years ago, but over the length of your above-average suburban garden he was fast enough. One fist grabbed Fossey’s collar and jerked him back hard. Case and keys tumbled towards the winter lawn and Millington’s other arm tightened into a head lock.
Kevin Naylor had finished helping Fossey’s wife to her feet and guiding her in the direction of a box of multi-colored tissues; as he came down the garden, the cuffs were ready in his hand.
“What d’you reckon?” Divine asked for a third time, sullen-faced.
Lynn Kellogg shrugged and looked towards the upstairs windows.
Divine used the knocker sharply, pounded on the woodwork with his fist. The back door had yielded nothing either.
“He can’t have slept through this lot,” Divine said angrily.
“Doesn’t mean he’s not in there,” said Lynn, “hoping we’ll just go away.”
“Fat chance!”
He was giving serious thought to battering the door down when the black-and-white pulled up just ahead of the CID car and Andrew Savage got out.
“Look who’s back from a night on the tiles,” said Divine softly, the smile returning to his face.
Savage had taken a few paces away from the curb before he realized what was going on. The cab had begun to pull clear and Savage jumped back at it, waving an arm and shouting. He landed one blow on the roof as the driver gave him the finger and accelerated away.
Savage made a run for it, sprinting towards the bridge that humped over the canal. Car headlights drew gold and silver lines along the boulevard beyond. Already there were two fishermen hunched beneath green tarpaulin alongside the water. Divine loved all this. It was Saturday afternoon again and Savage was the opposing wing forward, desperate to make the winning try. Divine’s mouth was open in a full-throated roar as he dived, tackling Savage sideways into the railings of the bridge. No sooner were the pair of them down on the pavement than Divine was scrambling up again, knee hard in Savage’s groin, foot on his forearm, fingers poking straight for his face-all good sporting stuff.
Savage cried out and tried to wave his arms, signaling enough.
Divine hauled him up and whirled him round, throwing him smack against the upper railing, bending him down over it, one hand firm to the base of his neck while he wrenched his arms behind his back.
“What kept you?” he grinned to Lynn Kellogg over his shoulder.
Lynn looked at him and shook her head. Divine’s face was glowing. Once they were back at the station he’d sink two egg-sausage-and-bacon sandwiches and make the whole business sound like Twickenham or Cardiff Arms Park. Or South Africa.
By ten Grice was bored. The television was all men in corduroy jackets talking earnestly about amoeba or reruns of documentaries about New Forest ponies. Not even Playschool or some such, with young women in short skirts who bent their knees just enough and talked baby talk. A walk into the city would clear his head and he could stop by the video shop and take out 91/2 Weeks or that other one, where she walks away from the bandstand in that white skirt and it flaps open wide to her pants, the one where she’s getting her lover to kill her husband. He’d recognize it from the box.
If he still felt like it, he could even wander back into the estate agent’s and see if that woman was there, the one with the Aussie accent and the red heels. Grice wondered what it would cost to get her to pay a house call? He could provide the massage lotion and the towels. All she’d need to bring …
“Trevor Grice?”
Grice gave a little jump, hadn’t seen the man coming. Turning fast he was staring into this slim face. Asian, apologetic almost. Tall for their kind, wiry most likely. Grice was reckoning his chances as he made the unmarked car opposite, saw a uniformed officer hovering at the far end of the street.
“Yes,” Grice said. “What’s up?”
“I’d like you to come with me to the station,” Patel said.
“All right,” said Grice, starting to walk with him towards the car, “why not?”
As they drove off Grice looked back through the rear window and saw an old woman in gym shoes, standing in the middle of the road and cackling her head off. Stupid cow!
Thirty-two
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Only if something’s wrong …”
“Jerry, I’m telling you.”
“Okay, okay. It’s just you seem a little …” He let his finger ends glide along the dimpled flesh inside her upper arm. “It doesn’t matter.”
“A little what?”
“Tense, I suppose.”
“Because I didn’t come?”
“No, not that.”
“No?” Maria laughed.
“Well,” Grabianski elbowed his way lower and kissed between her breasts, below. “That might have had something to do with it.”
“Listen,” she said, plucking at the thick hair at the back of his head, she liked the feel of it, strong, like wire almost, “if you knew how long it had been … since I came with a man, anyone but myself, then you, you wouldn’t be so worried.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Or so quick to notice.”
“Maria …”
“Hm?”
“Nothing tense down there.” His face was pressed against her belly, tasting the residue of sweat down there, saltiness of the skin in amongst where those fine dark hairs rose up like a half-opened fan.
Maria couldn’t see, but she guessed that his eyes were closed and thought that now he might take a nap. Harold had gone out of the house this morning like a man who’d dreamed himself in the dock watching the judge reach for the black cap-then woke up and discovered he hadn’t been dreaming at all. Whereas she had taken her second cup of coffee up to the bathroom and enjoyed a good soak while Simon Bates worked his way towards “Our Tune.” Getting ready for Jerry Grabianski: lying there, pampered by bubbles and perfume and warm water; there, she could imagine it continuing forever. Even allowing herself to, encouraged it. Fantasies, too, not the kind with handcuffs and leather, but real Mills and Boon doctors-and-nurses stuff; the penniless artist who turns out to be the son of a rich laird and has a castle in the Western Isles. At her age. Her fantasy, and she didn’t want to lose it too soon: you’re not going to get your hands on a lot worth having at your age, Maria, so when you do …
Grabianski stirred and settled.
Maria smiled and glanced at the clock. If he dozed for another half an hour, she would get up and go downstairs, make them both hot chocolate, some of those nice biscuits she’d bought from Marks, maybe she could talk him into sharing yet another bath. Two or three a day she’d had since this had begun; Maria started to giggle but didn’t want to wake him-what a psychiatrist would have to say about all that sudden desire for cleansing, her and Lady Macbeth both.