Thirty-Two
“If you were going to hit anyone,” Ben Riley said, “you should have had a crack at him.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” Resnick said.
Ben Riley shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that. And, by my reckoning, nine out of ten people’s think the same.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re right.”
“Come on, Charlie. It’s a bit late to be bloody reasonable. And he was, if you’ll pardon the expression, screwing your wife.”
“Not a crime.”
“Isn’t it?”
Resnick got up from the table and started to pace haphazardly about.
“For God’s sake, Charlie, have a drink.”
“Better not.”
“Some coffee then.”
“All right.”
“I’ve only instant.”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
Ben had been ironing shirts when his friend had arrived, bending over the board with a bottle of Jameson close to hand and a celebration of George Jones’s ten years of hits in the cassette deck. He’d switched it off when the doorbell had rung and hadn’t felt moved to turn it back on. He doubted if Resnick was ready for “Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half as Bad as Losing You),” never mind “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will).”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You want me to go round, talk to her?”
Resnick shook his head.
“You’re sure? ’Cause I will.”
“Thanks, no. It’s hard to see how it would help. It’s something we’ve got to sort out for ourselves.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He pointed at the bottle and Resnick shook his head. “Just give it a little time, eh?”
“Yes.” Resnick sat back down, shaking his head. “I suppose that’s the thing to do.”
“D’you want to stay here tonight? You know there’s plenty of room.”
Resnick accepted gratefully, realizing that it was no more than temporary respite: a night on the couch away from what still had, painfully, to be faced.
They ate breakfast at Parker’s, Resnick sure he would have no appetite, but something-the smell of bacon? — making him ravenous the moment he walked to the counter. Ben Riley settled for tea and a sausage cob, looking on amused as Resnick tackled black pudding, back bacon, canned tomatoes, double egg, chips, and beans.
“Jesus, Charlie. Good job you don’t get cuckolded often. You’d be over eighteen stone.”
“It’s not funny, Ben.”
“I know that. What d’you think I’m cracking jokes for?”
Resnick sawed off a slice of black pudding, wiping it round in the tomato juice before transferring it to his mouth; one of those things, if you didn’t think what it was made from, it could taste wonderful.
“Happen we’ll hear from Finch today,” Ben Riley said without much conviction.
Four firemen, just off night watch, came in talking about a fire on the industrial estate they were all persuaded was arson.
“What worries me,” Resnick said, “drifts on too long, Skelton might get cold feet, have him pulled in before Prior’s in contact. That happens we’re back to square one.”
“He’ll allow forty-eight hours, got to.”
Resnick shook his head, forked up the last of his beans. “No got to about it.”
“Should have played squash with him,” Ben Riley grinned. “Sweat your way into his good books.”
“Yes.” Resnick eyed his empty plate. “Can just see me chasing a little green ball after that lot.”
“If you want to stay over again,” Ben said when they were on the pavement.
“Thanks. Best not. Sooner or later it’s got to be faced. Sooner’s the better.”
“Who you trying to convince, Charlie? Me or you?”
One question Resnick did know the answer to.
Resnick had to take a statement from a thirty-year-old curate who’d witnessed a mugging on his way back from a parochial visit. Another case he was working on. They sat the best part of an hour in a draughty church hall decorated with Sunday School paintings and posters advertising a fund-raising dance for the end of Lent. As he sat listening, taking notes, asking questions, Resnick tried to imagine Elaine and himself visiting someone like this to discuss their problems. That or a marriage guidance counselor. Was that what you did when you could no longer speak to one another? Talk through a third party? He was only now beginning to realize they hadn’t been communicating: what they’d been doing, opening their mouths, pronouncing words.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the curate. “Could you just say that again?”
When he got back to the CID office there was a sheaf of messages on his desk, the last of them, written hastily in blue Biro, Finch and a six-figure number. At the bottom, the initials, barely legible, RC.
Reg Cossall was out interviewing a remand prisoner at Lincoln Prison. Resnick dialed the number on the paper and after thirty rings no one had answered. He tried again on the quarter-hour for an hour and when somebody eventually picked up it was a girl of around nine or ten who told him he was calling a public call box on Valley Road.
Resnick thought about driving out there and decided against it. Chances were Finch might ring in again and if he did it was better if he were there to take the call. So he did paperwork, tried not to look at his watch, kept an ear open for Cossall’s voice on the stairs.
When Cossall finally returned, he was unusually subdued. The young man he’d been out to see, two days short of his twentieth birthday, had tried to kill himself that morning by puncturing his wrist with the broken end of a fork he’d stolen from the dining hall. When that hadn’t worked he’d broken it again and pushed the pieces down his throat. “All the bastard’d’ve got was six month suspended. Likely probation.” But something about it had got even to Cossall-that degree of self-inflicted pain.
“Reg,” Resnick said, approaching. “You took this message. Finch.”
“Yeh. Wants you to ring him. Regular cat on hot bricks, sound of it.”
“I tried. Call box. No one there.”
“That’s ’cause you tried at the wrong time then, isn’t it?”
Resnick showed him the note. “How was I supposed to know the right one?”
Cossall took the slip of paper from his hand. “Sorry, Charlie. Must’ve forgot to write it down.”
“You haven’t forgotten what it is?”
“No way. Three o’clock. Four o’clock. On the hour.”
It was seven minutes past four. Resnick dialed the number, held his breath, willing the receiver to be picked up.
“Yeh?”
He thought he recognized the voice as Finch’s, but he wasn’t sure. “Martin Finch?” he said.
“Who’s that?”
“DS Resnick,”
“Why the hell didn’t you phone before?”
“Never mind that, I am now. What have you got?”
“He’s been in touch. I’m meeting him tonight.”
“He still wants to buy?”
“There’s something coming up. Pretty soon. Wants it bad. Tried putting him off, tomorrow, but no, got to be tonight or he’ll go someplace else.”
“Tonight’s fine. Where’s the meet?”
Finch’s voice was like a leaf. “I’m going to be all right here, aren’t I? You’re not going to get me mixed up in this? If Prior ever susses …”
“Listen, I’ve told you. You won’t even be involved.”
“Involved to the sodding eyeballs, that’s all!”
“Relax. We won’t go near him when he’s with you. Anywhere near you. Nobody ever has to know …”
“He’ll know.”
“Just tell me,” Resnick said, letting the firmness back into his voice, “where the meet’s arranged for, place and time.” Nodding into the telephone then, “Uh-huh, uhhuh,” writing the details carefully down.
Skelton was not long off the squash court; his hair, prematurely starting to gray a little, was brushed back flat upon his head and his face was flushed. He was wearing a navy blue track suit and white Adidas shoes with green piping. “One thing I’m not prepared to countenance, letting him take delivery of a weapon and then using it to commit a robbery. It’s not on.”