A Darker Shade of Blue (14 page)

‘No.' Fear in her eyes. ‘He knows, doesn't he? He knows where I live.'

‘Okay,' Resnick said, holding open the car door. ‘Get in.'

Less than ten minutes later they were standing in the broad hallway of Resnick's house, a small commotion of cats scurrying this way and that.

‘Charlie …'

‘Yes?' It still took him by surprise, the way she used his name.

‘Before anything else, can I have a bath?'

‘Of course. Follow the stairs round and it's on the left. I'll leave you a towel outside the door.'

‘Thanks.'

‘And that trick with the bathroom window,' he called after her. ‘I wouldn't recommend it twice in the same evening.'

Taking his time, he grilled bacon, sliced bread, broke eggs into a bowl; when he heard her moving around in the bathroom, the water running away, he forked butter into a small pan and turned the gas up high, adding shavings of Parmesan to the eggs before they set.

Eileen appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing an old dressing gown he scarcely ever bothered with, a towel twisted around her head.

‘I thought you should eat,' Resnick said.

‘I doubt if I can.'

But, sitting across from him at the kitchen table, she wolfed it down, folding a piece of the bread in half and wiping the last of the egg from her plate.

Uncertain, Pepper and Miles miaowed from a distance.

‘Don't you feed them, Charlie?'

‘Sometimes.'

Eileen pushed away her plate. ‘You know what I need after that?'

‘A cup of coffee?'

‘A cigarette.'

She stood in the rear doorway, looking out across the garden, a few stunted trees in silhouette and, beyond the wall, the land falling away into darkness.

Resnick rinsed dishes at the sink.

When she came back inside and closed the door behind her, her skin shone from the cold. ‘He's one of yours,' she said.

Resnick felt the breath stop inside his body.

‘Vice, at least I suppose that's what he is. The sauna, that's where I saw him, just the once. With one of the girls. Knocked her around. Split her lip. It wasn't till tonight I was sure.'

‘You scarcely saw him in the van. You said so yourself.'

‘Charlie, I'm sure.'

‘So the description you gave before …'

‘It was accurate, far as it went.'

‘And now?'

‘He's got – I don't know what you'd call it – a lazy eye, the left. It sort of droops. Just a little. Maybe you'd never notice at first, but then, when you do … The way he looks at you.'

Resnick nodded. ‘The driver, did you see him there tonight as well?'

Eileen shook her head. I don't know. No. I don't think so. I mean, he could've been, but no, I'm sorry, I couldn't say.'

‘It's okay.' Now that the shock had faded, Resnick caught himself wondering why the allegation was less of a surprise than it was.

‘You don't know him?' Eileen asked. ‘Know who he is?'

Resnick shook his head. ‘It won't take long to find out.'

In the front room he sat in his usual chair and Eileen rested her back against one corner of the settee, legs pulled up beneath her, glass of Scotch balancing on the arm.

‘You'll go after him?'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘On my word?'

‘Yes.'

She picked up her drink. ‘You'll need more than that, Charlie. In court. The word of a whore.'

‘Yes. Agreed.'

The heating had clicked off and the room was slowly getting colder. He wondered why it didn't seem stranger, her sitting there. Refilling both their glasses, he switched on the stereo and, after a passage of piano, there was Billie's voice, half-broken, singing of pain and grieving, the pain of living, the loving kiss of a man's hard hand.

‘Sounds like,' Eileen said, ‘she knows what she's talking about.'

Less than ten minutes later, she was stretching her arms and yawning. ‘I think I'll just curl up on here, if that's the same to you.'

‘No need. There's a spare room upstairs. Two.'

‘I'll be okay.'

‘Suit yourself. And if any of the cats jump up on you, push them off.'

Eileen shook her head. ‘I might like the company.'

It was a little after two when she climbed in with him, the dressing gown discarded somewhere between the door and the bed. Startled awake, Resnick thrashed out with his arm and only succeeded in sending the youngest cat skittering across the floor.

‘Budge up, Charlie.'

‘Christ, Eileen!'

Her limbs were strong and smooth and cold.

‘Eileen, you can't—'

‘Shush.'

She lay with one leg angled over his knee, an arm across his midriff holding him close, her head to his chest. Within minutes the rhythm of her breathing changed and she was asleep, her breath faint and regular on his skin.

How long, Resnick wondered, since he had lain with a woman like this, in this bed? When his fingers touched the place between her shoulder and her neck, she stirred slightly, murmuring a name that wasn't his.

It was a little while later before the cat felt bold enough to resume its place on the bed.

‘Is there anywhere you can go?' Resnick asked. ‘Till all this blows over.'

‘You mean, apart from here.'

‘Apart from here.'

They were in the kitchen, drinking coffee, eating toast.

‘Look, if it's last night …'

‘No, it's not.'

‘I mean, it's not as if—'

‘It's what you said yourself, at the moment everything's hanging on your word. It just needs someone to make the wrong connection between you and me …'

‘Okay, you don't have to spell it out. I understand.'

The radio was still playing, muffled, in the bathroom. Politics: the same evasions, the same lies. As yet the outside temperature had scarcely risen above freezing, the sky several shades of grey.

‘I've got a friend,' Eileen said, ‘in Sheffield. I can go there.' She glanced down at what she was now wearing, one of his shirts. A morning-after cliché. ‘Only I shall need some clothes.'

‘I'll drive you round to your place after breakfast, wait while you pack.'

‘Thanks.'

Resnick drank the last of his coffee, pushed himself to his feet. ‘You'll let me have a number, in case I need to get in touch?'

‘Yes. Yes, of course.'

She took one more mouthful of toast and left the rest.

*

They were gathered together in Resnick's office, the clamour of the everyday going on behind its closed door: Graham Millington, Anil Khan and Sharon Garnett. Sharon had been a member of the Vice Squad before being reassigned to Resnick's team and had maintained her contacts.

‘Burford,' Sharon said once Resnick had relayed the description. ‘Jack Burford, it's got to be.'

Millington whistled, a malicious glint in his eye. ‘Jack Burford – honest as the day is long.'

It wasn't so far from the shortest day of the year.

‘How well do you know him?' Resnick asked.

‘Well enough,' Sharon said. ‘We'd have a drink together once in a while.' She laughed. ‘Never too comfortable in my company, Jack. A woman who speaks her mind and black to boot, more than he could comfortably handle. No, a bunch of the lads, prize fights, lock-ins and lap dancers, that was more Jack's mark. Gambling, too. In and out of Ladbroke's most afternoons.'

‘These lads, anyone closer to him than the rest?'

She gave it a few moments' thought. ‘Jimmy Lyons, if anyone.'

‘Left the force, didn't he?' Millington said. ‘About a year back. Early retirement or some such.'

‘There was an inquiry,' Sharon said. ‘Allegations of taking money to turn a blind eye. Massage parlours, the usual thing. Didn't get anywhere.'

‘And they worked together?' Resnick asked. ‘Burford and Lyons?'

Sharon nodded. ‘Quite a bit.'

‘Lyons,' Resnick said. ‘Anyone know where he is now?'

Nobody did.

‘Okay. Sharon, chase up one or two of your contacts at Vice, those you think you can trust. See what the word is on Burford. Anil, see if you can track down Lyons. He might still be in the city somewhere, in which case he and Burford could still be in touch.'

Millington was already at the door. ‘I'd best get myself out to Carlton, see how they're getting on. You'll not want them dragging their feet on this.'

By four it was pretty much coming into place. The carpet fibres found beneath Clara Marston's fingernails matched the floor covering throughout the upstairs of the house off Westdale Lane. And traces of blood, both on the carpet and in the bathroom, were identical with that on the girl's clothing.

The house had been let a little over two years back to a Mr and Mrs Sadler, Philip and Dawn. None of the neighbours could recall seeing Dawn Sadler for a good six months and assumed the couple had split up; since then Philip Sadler had been sharing the place with his brother, John. John Sadler was known to the police: a suspended sentence for grievous bodily harm eight years before and, more recently, a charge of rape which had been dropped by the CPS at the last moment because some of the evidence was considered unsafe. Unusually, the rape charge had been brought by a prostitute, who claimed Sadler had threatened her with a knife and sodomised her against her will. What made it especially interesting – the arresting officers had been Burford and Lyons.

Lyons was still in the city, Khan confirmed, working with a security firm which provided bouncers for nightclubs and pubs; rumour was that he and Burford were still close. And Lyons had not been seen at work since the night Clara Marston had been killed.

Resnick crossed to the deli on Canning Circus, picked up a large filter coffee and continued into the cemetery on the far side. Burford and Lyons or Burford and Sadler, cruising the Forest in the van, looking for a likely girl. Finally, they get her back to the house and somewhere in the midst of it all things start to go awry.

He sat on a bench and levered the lid from his cup; the coffee was strong and still warm. It had to be Burford and Lyons who had sex with the girl; Sadler's DNA was likely still on file and no match had registered. So what happened? Back on his feet again, Resnick started to walk downhill. Burford and Lyons are well into it when Sadler takes it into his head to join in. It's Sadler who introduces the knife. But whose blood? Jimmy Lyons' blood. He's telling Sadler to keep out of it and Sadler won't listen; they argue, fight, and Lyons gets stabbed, stumbles over the girl. Grabs her as he falls.

Then if she doesn't do the stabbing, why does she have to die?

She's hysterical and someone – Burford? – starts slapping her, shaking her, using too much force. Or simply this: she's seen too much.

Resnick sits again, seeing it in his mind. Is it now that she struggles and in desperation fights back? Whose skin then was with those carpet fibres, caught beneath her nails? He sat a little longer, finishing his coffee, thinking; then walked, more briskly, back towards the station. There were calls to make, arrangements to be put in place.

*

Burford spotted Sharon Garnett the second she walked into the bar, dark hair piled high, the same lift of the head, self-assured. It was when he saw Resnick behind her that he understood.

‘Hello, Jack,' Sharon said as she crossed behind him. ‘Long time.'

Some part of Burford told him to cut and run, but no, there would be officers stationed outside he was certain, front and back, nothing to do now but play it through.

‘Evening, Charlie. Long way off your turf. Come to see how the other half live?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Get you a drink?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘Sharon?'

Sharon shook her head.

‘Suit yourself.' Burford lifted the shot glass from the counter and downed what remained in one.

Without any attempt to disguise what he was doing, Resnick picked up the glass with a clean handkerchief and deposited it in a plastic evidence bag, zipping the top across.

‘Let's do this decent, Charlie,' Burford said, taking a step away. ‘No cuffs, nothing like that. I'll just walk with you out to the car.'

‘Suit yourself,' Resnick said.

‘Decent,' said Sharon. ‘That word in your vocabulary, Jack?'

Millington was outside in the car park, Anil Khan.

‘You know I'm not saying a word without a solicitor,' Burford said. ‘You know that.'

‘Shut up,' Resnick said, ‘and get in the car.'

When Lynn Kellogg hammered on the door of Jimmy Lyons' flat near the edge of the Lace Market, Lyons elbowed her aside and took off down the stairs smack into the arms of Kevin Naylor. Blood had already started to seep through the bandages across his chest.

John Sadler had skipped town and his brother, Philip, claimed no knowledge of where he might be. ‘How about Mrs Sadler?' Millington asked. ‘Been a while, I understand, since anyone's clapped eyes on her.' Philip Sadler turned decidedly pale.

Under questioning, both Burford and Lyons agreed to picking up Clara Marston and taking her back to the house for sex. They claimed they had left her alone in the upstairs room, which was where Sadler, drunk, had threatened her with a knife and then attacked her. By the time they'd realised what was going on and ran back upstairs, he had his hands round her throat and she was dead. It was when Lyons tried to pull him off that Sadler had stabbed him with the knife.

Burford claimed he then used his own car to take Lyons back to his flat and tended his wound. Sadler, he assumed, carried the dead girl out to the van and left her on the Forest, disposing of the van afterwards.

Without Sadler's side of things, it would be a difficult story to break down and Sadler wasn't going to be easy to find.