“I have no recollection of any such conversation.”
“Nor of the detective constable reaching into the rear of the vehicle and grasping my client’s testicles in his hand and twisting them so viciously that my client cried out and kicked the back of the seat and, finally, almost lost consciousness.”
“No.”
“You were not aware of any of these things I have described taking place?”
“No.”
“In which case, sergeant, my client must be lying?”
“It seems possible …”
“And the doctor who examined my client at the police station and found signs of severe bruising on and around the area of his testicles, he was lying too?”
“That’s not for me to say.”
“You are not saying very much at all, are you, sergeant?”
“I am giving evidence as to what happened as best I remember …”
“So you keep saying. And, as the court is becoming distressingly aware, your memory, sergeant, is not of the best. Neither, apparently, are your powers of observation.”
Smarting, standing there in the witness box in his slightly shabby suit and his freshly stained tie, looking neither directly at the barrister questioning him nor at the judge, but directly in front of him, Resnick made no reply.
“You were in the vehicle?” the barrister asked.
“Yes.”
“Sleeping.”
“Driving,” Resnick said. “I was driving. My attention was on the road, the other traffic. I was concentrating on what was going on outside the car, rather than the inside.”
“How convenient!” The barrister made no attempt to contain his sarcasm.
“Well,” Resnick said, “it meant that we reached the station without accident.”
“In which case, sergeant, I suppose we should congratulate you on a job well done. I’m sure that after this, your superiors will look favorably on any request you might make to continue your career in traffic control.”
Resnick’s eyes narrowed and, behind his back, his hands clenched and unclenched several times.
“Thank you, sergeant. I have no further questions. You may step down.”
Half an hour later, Resnick was across the road in the County Tavern, washing down a cheese and onion cob with a pint of draught Guinness. He’d already had two whiskies at the bar to catch his nerves and his head was still throbbing. Rains was the last man he wanted to see coming through the door and there he was, bouncing up the steps to where Resnick was sitting, flashing a smile to match the watch strapped to his wrist.
“Owe you one, Charlie. Several, in fact.” His open hand pounded Resnick on the back. “Word is you stonewalled in there like the best. Place in the next Test if you don’t watch out.”
He held out his hand and Resnick ignored it, bit down into what was left of his cob.
“So, then, Charlie, I’m buying. What’s it to be?”
“Nothing.”
Rains pressed both hands together flat, as if praying, raised them till they were resting against his mouth: a familiar gesture. “Okay, have it your own way.” He took a step back. “That supermarket blag-we’ve got a meet tonight, half-seven.”
Resnick watched him go, a tall man, an inch under six foot, slim-hipped, expensive suit, dark hair professionally styled and cut, twenty-nine years old.
What Rains had actually said to the terrified youth in the car was: “There’s half a dozen more down to you, you pathetic little arsewipe, and if you don’t cough for the lot of them, I’ll whip your grungy little bollocks off with a pair of secateurs.”
Twenty-Two
The gang had robbed a Securicor van of eight thousand pounds, give or take the small change. They had driven a Transit into its path in the loading area outside the new Sainsbury’s superstore and three men with stocking masks had jumped out of a BMW which had skewed to a halt hard behind it. Shoppers had scattered towards safety, leaving laden trolleys abandoned. If the youngest of the security guards had not taken it into his head to be a hero, it would all have gone as smoothly as the two similar raids the gang had carried out in the preceding months.
But, for whatever reason, misguided or noble, the twenty-five-year-old part-time archeology student had hurled himself at the legs of the nearest robber, bringing him down, the money sack that he’d been carrying tumbling clear.
In the confusion and clamor that followed only these things are certain: the robber who was rugby tackled suffered a damaged kneecap, which, when the atmosphere was damp, bothered him to this day; the money sack somersaulted into the path of a small girl, little more than a toddler, who was running from her mother, stopping her in her tracks, causing her, in fact, to topple against it, her young body keeping it secure and reducing the gang’s haul by approximately one-fifth; the nearest of the other masked men to the incident, immediately and without hesitation, brought the sawn-off shotgun he was carrying to his shoulder and fired both barrels into the guard’s face and body. Several hours of surgery succeeded in removing almost all of the Double Nought pellets from his neck and cheek, shoulder and chest, and he was deemed fortunate to be left alive.
Fourteen detectives and numerous uniformed officers had been devoting most of their waking hours ever since to tracking the gang down. A lot of overtime and a lot of shoe leather and, for those of them with wives or lovers, a lot of broken promises and recriminations.
“Elaine, look, I’m sorry …” Resnick said into the phone.
“What?”
“I’m going to be back late.”
“Why are you telling me, Charlie? Late’s what you always are.”
“This might be later.”
She made no attempt to suppress the sigh. “If you’re any later than quarter to eight in the morning, I’ll have left for work.”
Resnick saw Reg Cossall watching him as he set down the receiver. “Bastard, i’n’t it, eh, Charlie?”
Resnick slowly shook his head.
“After my third time,” Cossall said, lighting another Silk Cut, “I thought as how I’d got it sussed. Never give ’em a reason to expect owt, they won’t be disappointed.” He blew smoke at the ceiling and laughed low in the back of his throat. “Cow shoved off anyhow. Took one of my suits, that good Crombie coat I had, shirts, socks, trousers, piled ’em all up in the back garden, chucked a can of paraffin over, and burned the bloody lot. Women! Different bloody race, Charlie, and it don’t pay to forget it.”
“All right, gentlemen. Settle down now. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Jack Skelton, two years an inspector, transferred up from Stevenage, and still pretty much an outsider, was on his feet and looking round the room expectantly. A nice result here was what he needed to get his feet under the table and he was going to push everyone as hard as it took until it was over.
What they had, Reg Cossall reckoned afterwards, was about as much use as a eunuch in a brothel. They were in an after-hours drinking club on Bottle Lane, crowded round a table in the last of a succession of small rooms, Cossall and Resnick and Rains and four or five others. Any pretence at moderation, just a pint before hitting the road, had long since flown out the window. Now it was spirits, doubles, Resnick dodging the occasional round, wanting to pace himself, knowing all he had to do was get up and leave, knowing that once you’d passed a certain point it’s the hardest thing in the world.
Skelton had been with them in the pub earlier, his shout, a few pleasantries, and then the suburbs awaited. But Jack Skelton had rank for reason, had a young kiddie, a girl named Kate, waiting for him to kiss her good night; he had a wife, something in hospital administration, professional woman. Expectations he had to fulfill.