He screwed the form into a ball and dropped it in the bin, pulled another one towards him. If he and Debbie no longer had a marriage, why the guilt that he’d been feeling creeping home? How much did that guilt bring to the excitement of what he’d done?
“Now then, Charlie,” Skelton said. He was retying the lace of his Nike Air Tech shoes, the ones with pockets of inert gas in the soles to help with shock absorption. Nigh on a hundred pounds and worth every penny. “Seems these lads of yours might be on to something. Whispers young Divine’s been picking up about some kind of French involvement in these robberies, didn’t look to be panning out at first. Sight too fanciful, aside from anything else. But rechecking passenger flight lists into East Midlands, back from Birmingham, could be something to it.”
Resnick nodded, increasingly conscious that mayonnaise was beginning to seep through the brown paper bag in his hand.
“Thought we might let the pair of them fly over, Paris. Little gentle fraternization. See if they can tie things together.”
“Millington and Divine?” Resnick said with vague incredulity.
“Bound to happen more and more. Just wait till that bloody tunnel’s up and running.”
“Even so.”
Skelton decided to do a little gentle limbering up on the spot. “They’ll cope right enough. Besides, Graham Millington, got a bit of a thing for languages, hasn’t he?”
“I think that’s his wife.”
“Oh, well, he’s no fool. He’ll cope.”
Resnick transferred the sandwich from one hand to another, set it down on the ground and Skelton was likely to land one of his size tens on it. “I was more concerned about Divine. My guess, he travels about as well as the average English soccer fan. Out of his head before the plane’s started circling Orly Airport.”
Skelton was bracing himself against the wall, stretching his hamstrings. “He’s the one put in all the spadework, Charlie. Credit where credit’s due.”
Resnick shrugged and stepped back. “Your decision, sir, not mine.”
“Yes, well, I’ll give some thought to what you say. Any movement on this other business you’ve got yourself stuck on? Prior, is it?”
Resnick nodded. “Due out any day. I’m keeping an eye.”
Skelton lifted first one foot then the other hard against his buttocks. “Bit of a sideshow, isn’t it, Charlie? My way of thinking. Wouldn’t want to explain away too many man-hours boxing with shadows. Chasing old ghosts. Eh, Charlie?”
The superintendent moved off with a sprightly step, leaving Resnick to walk heavily up the stairs towards his office. As Resnick knew, ghosts could be real enough and you ignored them at your peril.
“Wondered if you’d spoken with your Pam Van Allen?” Resnick said, when he’d raised Neil Park on the phone. “Since she and I had a chat.”
“Only briefly.” Something about the connection made it sound as if the senior probation officer were standing in a deep hole. “I got the impression she resented the degree to which you were putting her under pressure.”
“I didn’t think that’s what I was doing at all.”
“Come on, Charlie. You’re male, more experienced, high-ranking, used to telling people what to do and expecting them to do it. Other ways of applying pressure than waving a big stick.”
“It wasn’t what I intended,” Resnick said.
“I daresay. All I’m saying is, whatever you were hoping for, you might just have pushed her the wrong way.”
“It shouldn’t be to do with any of that,” Resnick said. “All I want is for her to be aware of the risks …”
“What you want is for Prior to stay locked away.”
“It’d make life a lot easier all round.”
“But not for him, eh, Charlie? Not for Prior.”
“Look …”
“Sorry, Charlie. Rushed off my feet. Got to go.” The voice fell lower into the pit and finally disappeared, leaving Resnick staring at a dead telephone and a half-eaten chicken and Jarlsberg salad sandwich.
Kevin Naylor had walked around in his lunch break, window shopping in Saxone’s and the Camera Exchange and what had once been Home Brothers but was now a bizarre floating market offering T-shirts, three for?5.00, assorted CDs?2.99 each. When he finally convinced himself to make the call, he was so worked up the coins fell between his fingers and rolled across the floor.
“Debbie?”
He knew if her mother answered he was sunk and the pleasure at hearing his wife’s voice would have been hard to fake.
“Kevin?”
Debbie was surprised to hear his voice at all, never mind the tone; surprised to the point where she came close to seeming pleased herself. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea, though,” she interrupted him, “you coming round.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Kevin said, taking the bit between his teeth. “What I thought was, you could ask your mum to look after the baby, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Meet me in the city. Go somewhere for a meal. Somewhere nice.”
There was a silence at the other end of the line and Kevin braced himself for the worst, but “All right,” Debbie said, still sounding doubtful. “I’ll have to check with Mum, though.”
“I’ll meet you in Yates’s,” Kevin said, quick before she could change her mind. “That upstairs bar. You know, looking out over the square. Debbie? Okay?”
“Yes, I suppose …”
“Eight o’clock. See you. Bye.”
He rang off before she had a chance to say anything more. In the small rectangle of glass at the center of the box, he could see his eyes were unusually bright and there was perspiration on his skin. He knew, without having to look, that his hands were shaking.
Forty
Something about the Citroen DS had always rated Keith’s attention. Not that there was anything special about the performance; plenty of run-of-the-mill motors would whip you along the fast lane of the motorway in half the time. It was more the look of it, that smooth front which helped to make the whole machine seem longer than it really was. And the suspension. Keith had read up on it once, a wet afternoon going through the motoring magazines in the library on Angel Row. What had it been now? Hydrophonic? No. Hydromatic? Anyway, hydro-something, one of those, nitrogen gas and fluid, he remembered that. Like riding on air.
He’d come close to nicking one before, this great DS 23 Pallas, right-hand drive, 5-speed manual gearbox; he’d spotted it gliding off the ramp from the NCP car park at the top of Barker Gate. Practically wet himself, hadn’t he? Hung out there morning and afternoon the next five days, hoping to get close to it again. No such stinking luck.
But today, sheltering by the bus stops below the Broad Marsh from a sudden shower, he’d seen another, black with whitewall tires, queuing to get into the multi-story opposite. DS 21, fuel injection, semi-automatic. High on the top floor, sandwiched between a Fiat Uno and a Metro, that was where he found it. Smooth to the touch. Half an hour and the floor would be full, few motors driving in and out. Keith gave it a quick kiss on the roof for luck and scurried away to the stairs to wait.
All Darren could do that morning, sitting across from Keith in the West End Arcade, not to tell him to fuck off out of his life and have done with it. Keith, fussing around with the ketchup bottle, jinking little dollops of it over the inside of his sausage cob, forever trying to talk him out of it. Too risky. Too close to the last time. Too likely to end up getting caught. That was what Keith was pissing his pants about, getting sent back inside. Knowing they’d be after his arse the moment his feet hit the floor. Miserable little bastard, days like this, Darren was forced to think it served him right. Days like this he thought he should have let Keith go ahead and hang himself, no great loss to the world.
Finally, Darren had had enough. “Listen,” he’d said, grabbing Keith by the front of his jumper, “half-two, top of King Street, you be there.”