Cold in Hand (3 page)

"Yes."

"Word to the wise." The doctor winked. "These next few weeks, keep your weight on your elbows, okay?"

Home, she slept.

Resnick, fearful of accidentally knocking into her, dismissed himself to the spare bed, where he lay fitfully, staring at the ceiling, getting up finally at two and wandering from room to room, unable to stop his mind from playing over what might have been.

Lucky, the doctor had said.

Nearly got myself killed.

If Lynn hadn't been in too much of a hurry to get home and still wearing the bulletproof jacket, she would likely have been where Kelly Brent was now, in the operating theatre, fighting for her life.

Resnick poured himself another Scotch and looked again at the Valentine's card Lynn had given him; a simple heart, red against a pale background. Written inside, in her sloping hand:
Still here, Charlie, against all the odds. All my love.
Then kisses, a small triangle of them, pointing down.

When Lynn had first moved in with him, the best part of three years before—and this after a plethora of overnights and occasional weekends, holidays, periods when they were close and others when they pulled apart, unable to decide—a friend of hers had sent her a CD by the singer Aimee Mann, the title of one particular track, "Mr. Harris," highlighted in green. The story of a younger woman falling in love with an older man, despite her mother's best advice. A father figure, the song goes, must be what she wants.

When they had first slept together, made love, himself and Lynn, it had been soon after her father's funeral, dead from cancer at not so much older than Resnick was now. A blessing, in a way, that he went when he did. Better than it dragging on. The pain. Death. Sooner or later, it came to us all.

I suppose, Resnick thought, we're programmed to think the oldest die first, fathers before daughters, mothers before sons. It's the way it most usually is. Anything else seems wrong. Aberrant. Yet in a split second yesterday, the time it takes to squeeze back on the trigger, propel a bullet from a gun, that could all have changed.

Lucky?

Resnick turned and looked around the room. A magazine Lynn had been reading left on the floor by where she normally
sat. Her bag hung over the back of a chair. A painting that she'd bought in a charity shop—a landscape of hills, bare trees, and snow—brought home and hung on the wall alongside the stereo. A photograph of her parents, leaning on a farm gate, looking out. A pair of slippers on the floor. Reading glasses. A glove. Clutter. Stuff. A life they shared.

This house he'd lived alone in for years, some of the rooms unused and thick with dust. Must rattle around in there, Charlie, like a pea in a drum. Find somewhere smaller, why don't you? Nice little flat. Take in a lodger, at least.

No, he'd say, I'm fine. Suits me just as it is.

And it did.

Until the day—the afternoon—he had heard her car, recognised the sound of the engine as it pulled up outside—the interior jam-packed, barely room for her to squeeze behind the wheel. Just a few boxes, Charlie, I'll go back later for the rest.

Now it was different: it was this.

Lucky?

At twenty-one minutes past three that morning, sixteen-year-old Kelly Brent, sixteen years and nine months, was declared dead at the Queen's Medical Centre, two operations unable to successfully repair the lacerated tissue and stem the bleeding, or to restore the flow of blood to the brain.

Lucky for some.

Resnick stood for a while at the bedroom door, listening to Lynn's breathing, before settling back into the spare bed and, against the odds, falling almost immediately to sleep.

The phone rang at twenty to seven, startling him awake: Detective Superintendent Berry from the Homicide Unit.

"Breakfast, Charlie? That Polish place up on Derby Road, still a favourite of yours? Thought we might have a little chat."

Five years Resnick's junior, Bill Berry was a hard-edged Lancastrian who had settled in the Midlands some twenty or so years before, without ever losing an accent that had been honed close to the Pennines, or an abiding interest in the fortunes of Lancashire County Cricket Club and Preston North End.

Much like Resnick himself, Berry had worked his way up through the ranks, the difference being that where Resnick's career had stalled, in part through his somewhat curmudgeonly resistance to change, Berry's had elevated him to the rank of Detective Superintendent.

Not without it being earned.

He was, in the old-fashioned argot of the trade, a good copper.

He had a full head of hair, a chiselled face and, since his last promotion, a taste for tailored suits that sat a touch uneasily on his rawboned, angular body. He was already at the table, leafing through the morning paper, when Resnick arrived.

"Charlie." He half-rose. "Good to see you."

The two men shook hands.

"In the news again for all the wrong sodding reasons."

Resnick grunted agreement. However hard the public-relations staff at Reputation Nottingham tried to put a positive spin on things, the public perception of the city these past years had changed. And not always for the better.

When it had been announced that London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympics, the joke had been that with several of the events being outsourced, the rowing would be at Henley, the equestrian events at Badminton, and the shooting would be in Nottingham. Robin Hood had now, it seemed, abandoned Lincoln Green for upmarket sportswear, developed a taste for crack cocaine, and, instead of his trusty bow, had a 9mm automatic tucked down into the back of his jeans.

Unfair or not, mud stuck.

"How's the lass?" Berry asked.

"Lynn? Well enough. Bruised ribs, nothing worse."

"Young bones," Berry said with a wink. "Soon mend, eh?"

"Something you wanted to see me about," Resnick said.

"You didn't catch local TV this morning, any chance?"

Resnick shook his head.

"Brent family out in force, bigging it up for the cameras. Breakdown in law and order, too many guns on the streets, police failing in their duty, the usual malarkey."

"They're angry."

"'Course they're bloody angry. And looking for someone to blame, I can see that. Schools, teachers, the courts, the council, probation, you and me—everyone except them-bloody-selves. Anything other than accept responsibility. Fathers, especially. No, easier to go off and raise a petition, start a campaign. Come Sunday there'll be a minute's silence out on Slab Square, and everyone'll go off feeling better about themselves, but what flaming good does it do? By evening kids'll be back out on the streets and it starts all over."

Resnick sighed. Education, wasn't that at the heart of it? Jobs, housing? Maybe the Brents were right to feel they deserved better.

"What was she, Charlie, this kid? Sixteen? Barely that. My kid or yours, she'd not be out there running with a gang, likely doing drugs, getting laid. Ask yourself why."

Resnick didn't have a daughter. If he had, he'd no idea what it would be like to help her live her life without due harm. Except that it would be hard.

"Let's order," Berry said. "Smell from that grill's making me fair starving."

He had bacon, sausage, and fried eggs, Resnick pancakes with a couple of rashers of bacon on the side. Coffee, rye bread. Resnick exchanged with the proprietress the few Polish pleasantries that came easily to the tongue. Since he'd started living with Lynn, his visits to the Polish Club had become less and less frequent; now months could pass without him ever stepping through the door.

"Kelly Brent's murder," Berry said. "I've drawn the short straw."

Resnick broke off a piece of bread and wiped it around the bacon juices that had collected at the side of his plate.

"I want you for my number two."

Resnick stopped what he was doing and looked at Berry squarely.

"Jerry Latham for office manager," Berry said, "and the outside team, that'd be up to you."

"Prentiss'd love that," Resnick said, popping the bread into his mouth.

"Fuck him," Berry said.

Derek Prentiss was the City Divisional Commander, accountable for balancing budgets and hitting an array of ever-shifting targets, one of which, relating to robbery, was currently Resnick's specific area of responsibility. Since he'd taken charge of the division's robbery squad, the number of offences was down, all right marginally, but improving further, even if the clear-up rate was, as yet, lagging behind. Prentiss wasn't going to be happy with anything that put those figures under threat.

"Besides," Resnick began, "with Lynn involved—"

"Outside team, Charlie, that's where I want you, like I said. No conflict of interest there. Any part she's got to play, evidence, whatever, you steer well clear."

"I don't know." Resnick shook his head.

"It's your patch, Charlie."

"Used to be."

"Youths likely involved'll be known to some of your lot, I'd not be surprised. Street robberies and the like."

"Possible."

"More than bloody possible." Berry speared a piece of sausage with his fork. "Come on, Charlie. Stop dicking me around. Bring one of your lads in with you, if it'd make you feel happier."

Resnick leaned back, pushing away his plate as he did so. "What you're not saying, Bill, behind all this flannel, Homicide's stripped so bare there's no bugger else. It's either me or a DI you don't know from outside."

Berry laughed. "Some clever bastard wheeled up from the Met. I'd love that, right enough. But no, that's not it. That's not it at all."

"No?"

"Charlie, Charlie. A bloke with a good head on his shoulders, someone I can bloody rely on, someone I can trust. That's why I want you."

"Is it? Bollocks!"

Berry laughed even louder. "Come on, Charlie. Kids thievin' mobile phones and MP3 players, old dears having their pensions snatched, that's not your mark. This'll get you out of the office for a bit, instead of shuffling bloody papers. Bit of real police work for a change. Let
me
put my feet up on the desk, instead."

Angling away, Resnick looked out through the glass at the traffic making its way up Derby Road from the city centre. For years he'd been stationed at Canning Circus, no more than a
stone's throw from where they were now, his squad handling everything from petty misdemeanours to murder. Not much time in those days for Best Value Programmes or monthly Performance Scrutiny Boards, little of the pressure of constantly changing Home Office directives.

What had Berry just said? Some
real
police work for a change.

"Prentiss," Resnick said, swivelling back round. "Even if I wanted to go along.
If.
He'll never accept it."

"Don't be so sure. I had a word with the ACC, before I rang you. He'd like to get this little lot sorted as soon as possible. Now what d'you say. In or out?"

Resnick hesitated, but he didn't hesitate for long. "In," he said.

"Good man. Now let's get out of here and get things started."

"Over my dead fucking body!" Derek Prentiss exploded.

The Assistant Chief Constable smiled a corporate smile. "I wonder, Derek, if we need to be so extreme."

If the Divisional Commander could have breathed fire from his nostrils, the reports on the ACC's desk would be singeing at the edges, about to spark into flame. "You know how long, sir, it's taken to get street robberies under control?"

"Of course, Derek, of course. And you know, from the last trimonthly report of the Performance Committee, that's not gone unnoticed. Far from it."

"Then why the—?"

"Because there are other priorities. And because now the robbery squad's on a more even keel, it shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for someone else to steady the ship. For a time, at least."

Fucking yachting metaphors, Prentiss thought. Just because you've got £40,000s' worth of motor cruiser moored on the Trent.

"A month or so, Derek," the ACC said. "That's all. With luck and a following wind, it could be even less. Then you can have him back refreshed. Not that he'll be on board forever, mind. There's that to consider. Can't be far off his thirty, our Mister Resnick, and then he'll draw his pension and be on his way without so much as a by-your-leave."

"Not forced to go, sir. Just 'cause his years are in."

"Wouldn't you?"

Too fucking right, Prentiss thought. "Not necessarily, sir. Not if I thought there was a job I could still usefully do."

The ACC gave him a look which suggested that was dubious at best, then glanced down at his desk. There was a meeting of the Corporate Governance Panel in a little over an hour, and before that he'd promised the head teacher of St. Ann's Well Nursery & Infant School he'd drop in and present a certificate to the children who'd raised the most money towards sponsoring a police horse called Sherwood.

"All right then, Derek. Thanks for stopping by. Your cooperation, as ever, much appreciated. I know you'll do your best to ensure it all runs smoothly."

"Yes, sir."

Bastard, Prentiss thought as he left the room, I hope your boat fucking sinks.

When Resnick nipped home, Lynn was sitting in a wicker chair near the bay windows at the front of the house, cushions at her back, reading a book.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he said.

"I got bored."

"And is that comfortable?"

"Not really."

He kissed her cheek. "How's it feel?"

She winced a little as she moved. "Could be worse. Long as I keep on with the painkillers, it's bearable."

"Get you anything?"

"Not right now."

He kissed her again.

"What's that you're reading?"

She held it up towards him.
This Book Will Save Your Life.

"Bit late for that."

Lynn smiled. "Not really that kind of book. Good, though." She folded down the corner of a page and set the book aside. "What did Bill Berry want?"

"The girl who was killed, he's leading the enquiry."

"And what? He wants to borrow some of your squad to bump up his numbers?"