Cold in Hand (24 page)

He couldn't remember, later, leaving the ambulance or entering the hospital—just that he was suddenly there and in the corridor, and a doctor was standing in front of him, putting out both hands as if to restrain him, and speaking all the time, explaining, while behind him they were wheeling her away, not walking, hurrying, almost running.

A nurse led him to a place where he was supposed to wait.

Another brought a cup of hot, sweet tea and the smell and taste of the tea and the taste and smell of blood made him retch, and the nurse helped him to the men's room where he threw up into the lavatory bowl and then knelt there on the damp floor, his forehead resting against the cold, spattered edge of porcelain, listening to his own breathing as it slowed and slowed until he felt he could push himself to his feet, just, and
turn, steadying himself for a moment against the cubicle door, before walking the four long paces to the sink and splashing cold water again and again in his face, a face that, in the mirror, looked more like a mask than it did his own.

"Lynn," he said. And again, "Lynn, Lynn!"

The nurse was waiting outside, anxious, and she led him back to where there were others, also waiting, faces he knew and vaguely recognised, faces showing sympathy, concern, and then the doctor stepped between them and Resnick knew what he had known ever since he had seen her body, one arm flung out, one leg folded beneath her on the path; ever since he had forced his breath into the cold, bloodied void of her mouth.

Lynn Alice Kellogg, pronounced dead, 23:35.

The sun came out and went back in. Somewhere south of Leicester and still some thirty minutes from her destination, a brief flurry of rain washed across the train window and when it faltered to nothing and a smidgeon of sun reappeared, Karen looked in vain for a rainbow. Some kind of a sign. She'd led an investigation into the death of a fellow officer before. Also a woman, a Detective Sergeant in SO7, Organised and Serious Crime. Her body had been found amongst the tangled undergrowth beside a disused railway line. Multiple stab wounds: forty-odd years old and half her life still ahead of her.

Now this.

Karen leafed again through the pile of papers Sherry had downloaded from the Web and thrust into her hands as she was leaving. Alongside basic information about the structure of the Nottinghamshire Force and the two most recent Police Authority reports, more encouraging words about the county extolled a heritage which spread from Byron and Robin Hood to Paul Smith and Brian Clough, and which had spawned, amongst other notable items, HP Sauce, ibuprofen and the Bramley apple. Well, Karen thought, just watch out for the worm.

At Radcliffe, just a few miles short of the city, the Trent had overflowed its banks into the neighbouring fields, leaving cattle to wander, disconsolately, through edges of cold grey water, while, close alongside the train tracks, the power station leached smoke up into the already-grey sky.

Taking first a mirror from her bag, Karen used a brush to apply a few last touches to her makeup. Silk shirt, black suit from Max Mara which had sent her credit limit hovering perilously close to red, boots with enough of a heel to lift her above most men she'd be likely to meet and level with the rest, she was ready for whatever the remainder of the day would bring.

At the AMT in the station forecourt, she bought an espresso and drank it swiftly down.

There was a car waiting to take her to the Force headquarters at Sherwood Lodge. Karen let the young PC place her bags in the boot, sat back, and snapped her seat belt into place.

Another officer waited at the entrance to escort her to the office of the Assistant Chief Constable. Assistant Chief Constable (Crime), as it said on the door. Flanking him were Bill Berry, wearing a pale grey three-piece suit that might have looked good on a younger man, and the Chief Superintendent responsible for the Nottingham City division. The ACC held out his hand with a few words of welcome and the hope she'd had a pleasant enough journey. Karen nodded, it had been fine; she said no to coffee, but yes to water. Sat and waited.

"Bill," the ACC said, "why don't you fill in the details?"

Berry cleared his throat and set his cup aside. The facts, such as they were known, were brutal and sparse. One officer dead, another in mourning: one bullet to the upper body, another to the head. Two cartridge cases had been found at the scene. The neighbours had been canvassed, the taxi driver who had driven DI Kellogg from the railway station had been questioned; a vehicle found abandoned some three-quarters of a mile away was being examined in the supposition that it might
have been used in the killer's getaway. A postmortem had been arranged for the following morning.

"Any suspects?" Karen addressed the ACC directly.

"Not immediately."

"Except—" Bill Berry began.

"Except?"

After a nod from the ACC, Berry cleared his throat again. "There was a shooting a few weeks back, a teenage girl killed. DI Kellogg was wounded in the same incident. The girl's father blamed Kellogg for his daughter's death. Publicly. He and DI Resnick had a couple of run-ins on the subject afterwards. One of which was also public. Quite a bit of bad feeling between them echoed in the local press."

"This Resnick," Karen asked, "what's his involvement here?"

"He was my number two on the investigation," Berry said.

"Into the girl's death?"

"Yes."

"He was also," the Chief Superintendent added, speaking for the first time, "Lynn Kellogg's partner."

"Partner, as in living together?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Karen nodded, understanding. "Complications," wasn't that what Harkin had said? Her Assistant Commissioner back in the Met, not a man to use words lightly.

"The father," Karen said. "The one you mentioned. He's been questioned?"

"Gone AWOL, apparently," Berry said. "No one in the family claims to know where."

"Convenient," Karen said tartly.

"Absolutely. Though this wouldn't be the first time he's just walked out without notice, apparently. Last occasion, he didn't come back for several years."

"But we are looking?"

"Oh, yes, we're looking."

Great start, Karen was thinking, number-one suspect does a runner, and no one knows where to find him.

"I understand," she said, "there's a team assembled?"

"Yes. The same one, give or take, as was working the girl's murder."

"That's sorted?"

"CPS're still a tad leery, but yes, bar the shouting. Lad called Lee Williams. Picked him up for armed robbery, post office out on the edge of the city. Fell into our lap, really." He grinned. "Way it happens sometimes, if you're lucky." He waited a couple of beats. "I daresay you'll want your own bagman."

"Yes, sir. I might feel a bit marooned, otherwise."

"It is a man?" Berry held back a smile.

"Oh, yes," Karen said. Mike Ramsden would have been quick to take a swing at anyone who called him anything else.

"There's a press conference in forty minutes," the ACC said, "and I'll want you there. Any problems?"

"None at all, sir," Karen said.

Media interest was widespread. The killing of a police officer—a woman officer, especially—was still rare enough to be big news. The nationals were there in force, print and TV news. The room was packed, close to overflowing. After giving the bare details of the shooting, the Assistant Chief Constable spoke of the determination of his officers to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"To this end," he said, "Detective Chief Inspector Shields, from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command of the Metropolitan Police, will be assisting in the investigation."

Karen looked up with a half smile which was captured by a dozen cameras and reproduced by sources as diverse as the EuroNews television channel and the local
Ilkeston Advertiser.

The ACC spoke of the great sense of loss felt by the Force at Detective Inspector Kellogg's death, and went on to outline the qualities and characteristics she had brought to the job.

"Lynn Kellogg," he said, "had worked her way up through the ranks, always exhibiting a combination of resourcefulness and intelligence, leavened by good humour and common sense. She was, as she proved on numerous occasions, an extraordinarily brave officer, second to none in her dedication and commitment to the highest standards of the Force, and it was an honour to have served with her as a member of my command."

As Karen watched, a bulky, broad-shouldered man, quite dishevelled, clothing awry, lurched up from one of the rows near the back of the room and, shouldering bystanders aside, pushed his way out through the rear doors.

"It is the firm determination," the Assistant Chief concluded, "of every one of us on this platform, and of every officer in this Force, to bring those responsible for this heinous crime—the shooting of an unarmed officer in cold blood—to justice as soon as possible."

When Resnick had finally returned from the hospital in the early hours of the morning, he had stumbled around the house blindly, throwing open doors to rooms he barely recognised. Once, in the bathroom, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, shaggy-haired, unshaven and hollow-eyed, without knowing who he was. In the kitchen, he found the sections of the stovetop coffeepot on the drainer and started to reassemble them before giving up, the task too great.

Lynn.

Lynn.

The word stuck, like something vast and indigestible, in his throat, and he thought that he might choke.

Without his knowledge, time passed.

The cats, who would normally have fussed around his feet, steered clear, as if aware of his distress.

Marooned in the living room, he found his way falteringly to the shelves holding the stereo and pulled a CD out from the rack, but left it unplayed.

"You want me to meet you at the station?" he had asked.

And then her voice, jarred out of focus by the background noise of the train. "No need. I'll get a cab."

No need. No need.

You're sure?

Sure.

Oh, Christ! It came to him like a knife blade slipped cold against the heart. If he had gone, if he had gone ... if, instead of listening and accepting what she'd said—pleased to hear it really, if he were honest, half-pleased at least, no need to get up from his easy chair and venture out into the relatively cold night air, no call to stop listening to Brookmeyer's sour trombone relishing the chords, the melodies of "There Will Never Be Another You"—if instead what he had done—as in the first flush of their relationship he would have without fail—was to have hurried from the house to the car and made sure he was at the station well before the train arrived, waiting at the head of the stairs and gazing into the mass of passengers as they bustled towards him, seeking out her face, the smile that his presence would produce when she saw that he was there after all, the look of pleasure that would become a kiss, an embrace, her arms, her body, clinging to his—if he had done all that, Lynn would most likely be alive now.

But...

No need. I'll get a cab.

You're sure?

Sure.

Oh, Jesus! Sweet, sweet fuck! What had he done? What had he failed to do?

He stood there, numb and shivering, lost in the centre of the room, while grief shocked through him like cold waves breaking over his battered heart.

Karen had spent the afternoon and early evening taking soundings, getting her bearings. She spoke briefly to the SIO in charge
of the case Lynn Kellogg had been working on immediately before her death, the double murder out at Bestwood, wondering if there might be any connection, then pulled together as many as she could of the team which had investigated Kelly Brent's death—Anil Khan, Catherine Njoroge, Frank Michaelson, Steven Pike. She had them take her through the circumstances of the shooting, the accusations made by the victim's family, the circumstances leading, haphazardly, up to Lee Williams's arrest.

After reviewing what was so far known about Lynn Kellogg's murder, she sat in the canteen with the young PC who had been the first officer to arrive at the scene, still shaken by what he had found. Then, on a borrowed computer, she studied a map of the specific area, the narrow, winding road—little more than a lane—which led off the main Woodborough Road towards the house where Kellogg and Resnick had lived—and where she had died.

Two shots.

Head and heart.

A professional hit, Karen thought. Paid for, organised, preordained. Either that, or blind luck. That close, she reasoned, and given a steady hand, it would have been difficult to miss.

Time would tell.

She resisted several offers of dinner in this restaurant or that in favour of room service at the hotel, amazed as ever how it can take the best part of an hour for most self-respecting kitchens to rustle up a toasted-cheese sandwich. Her room was small and neat and clearly not designed with a near-six-foot woman in mind; no way her feet weren't going to stick over the end of the bed, and she had to bend almost double to get her head under the shower. And whoever had decided a bright raspberry bedspread adorned with cream squiggles went with bright purple curtains, biscuit-coloured walls and a ruby red carpet, needed, she thought, to retake her final exam in interior design. But at least, as the hotel literature proudly proclaimed, it was
only two minutes' walk from the railway station. Handy, if she changed her mind.

From tomorrow she had been promised a serviced apartment with a fully equipped kitchen, an LCD digital television, wireless broadband and breathtaking views across the city.

She could scarcely wait.

She'd phoned Mike Ramsden earlier and given him the good news: there was a train out of St. Pancras at 6:35 that would get him into Nottingham at 8:29. The first meeting with the enquiry team was set for 9:00
A.M.

"You know what you are, don't you?" Ramsden growled.

"Aside from your boss?"

"Yeah, aside from that."

Karen laughed. "See you tomorrow, Mike. Best have breakfast on the train."

All those thoughts rolling round in her head, she didn't reckon on getting to sleep easily, and she was right. After fifteen minutes of restless rolling and turning, she threw back the covers, splashed cold water on her face, rinsed her mouth, pulled a stiff comb through her hair, and put on a sweater, jeans and padded jacket. New Balance trainers on her feet. Two minutes to the railway station was just about right.