Cold in Hand (7 page)

Resnick nodded. "Nothing special, then?"

"Not really."

For several minutes they ate in silence. Chet Baker faded into something more sprightly, Bob Brookmeyer and Jimmy Giuffre playing "Louisiana," an old favourite Resnick hadn't listened to in years.

The youngest of the cats was hovering hopefully beneath the table, rubbing its back from time to time against one of the legs.

"This is good." Resnick indicated his plate.

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I didn't mean—"

"Yes, you did."

He grinned. "I'm sorry."

"So you should be."

He poured what was left of the White Shield into her glass.

"Preliminary forensic report came through from Huntingdon as I was leaving. Gun was firing home-packed bullets using discarded empty rounds. Lethal enough, but they don't have the same power." He pointed at her with his fork. "Hence the bruised, not broken ribs."

"Didn't help Kelly Brent."

"No. No, it didn't."

"How about the make of gun?" Lynn said. "Anything on that?"

"Converted air pistol, most likely."

"Brocock?"

"That's what they're thinking."

"Cheaper than chips a while back. Could well be."

Resnick nodded. It was just such a weapon that young Bradford Faye had used to avenge his sister, a Brocock ME38 Magnum, his for £115, the deal set up in the back room of a pub, money changing hands there and then and the weapon handed over in the car park later that evening, by a kid who couldn't have been more than eight or nine. With a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds found carrying guns, underage gunrunners were being used more and more.

"Seconds?" Lynn indicated Resnick's virtually empty plate.

"No, thanks, I'm fine."

"You sure? There's another piece of chicken. Some more rice."

"Oh, go on, then."

"How's the rest of it going?" Lynn asked when she came back in.

"Falling-out over a lad at the heart of it. DJ called Brandon Keith. According to Joanne Dawson, he'd dumped Kelly for her a week or so back, and Kelly'd taken it badly. Said a few things about Joanne which were, shall we say, less than charitable, some of them finding their way onto a few walls near where Joanne lives. As a result of which—and, again, this is Joanne's version—she suggested herself and Kelly meet and have a little chat, clear the air, so to speak."

"And brought along a few friends for company."

"Yes. And Kelly did the same."

"Radford versus St. Ann's. Nice."

"Still, from what Joanne said, what started out as a lot of verbals turned nasty when Kelly produced a knife. Thirteen stitches to one side of her face to prove it, to say nothing of another seven or eight in her arm."

"And we're thinking it was one of her crew had the gun?"

"Likely. Long way from what she's saying, though, Joanne." Resnick eased back his chair. "Claims no one she knew was carrying a gun. Didn't really see the shooter, no idea who he was. Not one of her mates, she's certain of that."

"You'll talk to her again?"

"Oh, yes."

"How about this Brandon?"

"On his way down to Bristol when it happened, spot of DJing in a club down there. Really cut up about what happened to Kelly, close to tears talking about it to Anil, apparently."

"He backed up Joanne's story, though? The row between her and Kelly."

"After a fashion. 'Joanne Dawson,' he said. 'That skank. I only did her 'cause she was beggin' for it.'"

"Nice man."

"Charming."

"You want apple pie? There's some left from last night."

"Why not?"

After washing up and clearing away, they read the paper, watched television; Resnick listened to some more music, reading for the second time a book by Bill Moody about Chet Baker, while Lynn took a bath. She was just coming back into the room in her dressing gown when the phone rang.

"Probably another of your well-wishers," Resnick said as Lynn lifted the receiver.

"Watch your back, bitch." And the line went dead.

He waited till mid-morning, the first time he could really get away, anger still simmering inside him. When he arrived at the house, it was empty, no one answering the door. He was just leaving when a neighbour looked up from cleaning his car and told him where they were. Resnick thanked him and went across the street, walked a little way down and waited some more.

It wasn't long till he saw them: the Brent family making their way back from a two-minute silence at the spot where Kelly had been killed.

Several dozen friends and neighbours walked behind them in a slow procession, teenage friends of Kelly's clutching stuffed animals and bouquets of flowers, a local councillor and the minister from the Baptist church bringing up the rear.

Howard Brent was immaculate in a black suit, black shirt, black tie, his only adornment a diamond stud in his left ear. His wife, Tina, walked beside him, head down, the spirit drained out of her. Behind them, the two sons, Michael and Marcus, stared ahead, serious-faced. Michael, with his glasses and his small goatee, reminded Resnick of photographs of a young Malcolm X.

If Brent noticed Resnick amongst the bystanders who were standing here and there along both sides of the street, watching the procession file past, he gave no sign.

Resnick waited until they had arrived at the house, Tina and the younger boy going immediately inside, while others stood shaking Brent's hand and offering a few last words of condolence and sympathy.

Within minutes, only a dozen or so, including the Baptist minister, remained, spreading from the pavement out into the street. Most of the onlookers had drifted away.

As Resnick walked towards them, Michael Brent detached himself from the group and stood directly in front of him, blocking his path.

Automatically, Resnick reached for his warrant card. "I'm—"

"I know who you are," Michael said, cold contempt in his eyes.

"I need to talk to your father."

"My father is busy. This is not the right time." The young man's voice was loud and firm.

"I still need—"

Marcus pushed past his elder brother. "What? You deaf, i'n it? Not the right fuckin' time."

"Marcus!" Howard Brent's voice stopped the youth in his tracks. "Get inside."

"I—"

"Inside. Now."

Marcus scowled and slouched away.

"Now," Howard Brent said, moving to stand at his elder son's shoulder, "what seems to be the trouble?"

"I've told him he's not welcome here," Michael Brent said.

"Two minutes," Resnick said. "That's all I need."

"And I said no."

"Michael." Brent placed a hand on his son's elbow. "It's all right. Please go back into the house."

"You know you don't have to—"

"Michael, please. Look to your mother."

The young man stared hard at Resnick, then walked away.

"This so important you have to come here now?" Brent glanced round. "My family, my friends."

"Last night," Resnick said, "you made a call."

"I what?"

"You called my house and left a message. A message for the person I live with."

"I dunno what you talkin' about," Brent said.

"You don't remember what you said?" The colour was rising on Resnick's face, his body tense. "'Watch your back, bitch.' That's what you said."

"You're crazy." Brent began to turn away. "Crazy."

Resnick stopped him with a hand against his chest. "Three years, wasn't it? What you went down for? Aggravated assault. Beating some poor bastard within an inch of his life."

A smile crossed Brent's face, as if remembering what he had done. "He asked for it," he said. "And that was a long time ago. Another life, you understand?"

Resnick moved closer. "Lynn Kellogg. You come near her, try to speak to her, you as much as walk down the same side of the street, I'll have you inside so fast, your feet won't touch the ground."

"What charge?"

"Any charge I like."

"You threatening me?" Brent said. "In front of all these people, you're threatening me?"

"A warning, that's all."

For a long moment, Brent held his stare. "We done here?" he said then, stepping back. "'Cause I got friends waiting. The minister, come to pay his respects."

Smile replaced by a sneer, he turned away.

***

"For God's sake, Charlie, what were you thinking?"

They were facing one another in Bill Berry's office, the room untidy, impersonal, as if the Detective Superintendent had merely borrowed it for the afternoon.

"What the hell got into you? Accusations without a shred of proof. Threats in front of a dozen witnesses. Like some cowboy."

Resnick shrugged heavy shoulders.

"Letting your feelings run amok."

"He needed telling," Resnick said.

"There are ways."

"That was my way."

"Jesus, Charlie! Conflict of interest, remember? You and Lynn." Berry pushed both hands up through his hair and sighed. "Sit down, for Christ's sake."

"If I'm on the carpet—"

"And don't be clever. Just sit the fuck down."

Resnick sat.

Both men continued to sit, silently, directives and graphs and papers spread across the desk between them, until Berry leaned forward in his chair. "Before seeing you, I spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes with the Assistant Chief, explaining to him why, at the present time, you shouldn't be suspended from duty."

Resnick said nothing.

"As the ACC was at pains to remind me, I was the one who argued for you to be pulled out from behind that desk of yours to be number two in this investigation. And then this."

Resnick still said nothing.

"I mean, when you went after him like that, the way you did, what did you think was going to happen?"

"I thought it would make him think twice before doing it again."

"The phone call?"

"Yes, the phone call."

"You don't even know if it was him."

"It was him."

"She didn't recognise the voice. She didn't recognise his voice, how could she?"

"It was him."

Berry slammed both hands down hard against the desktop, sending papers ballooning. "And if it was.
If
it was. Supposing for a moment, in the absence of any real evidence, you're right, you think that makes it okay for you to confront him in front of the whole sodding community? Threatening him like some vigilante, Steven fucking Seagal on a white horse. Jesus Christ! You know what this man's like, you know how much he loves the sound of his own voice, how much he thrives on publicity."

Resnick looked away.

"The first thing Brent did after you left him was contact every radio and TV station in a hundred-mile radius. The
Post
has got a picture of him on the front fucking page, serious and responsible in his best suit, alongside some old one of you they've pulled from the files, showing you on your way into court looking as if you're wearing someone else's clothes."

"All of that—" Resnick began.

Berry ignored him, steamrollering on. "The Chief Constable's had the chair of the Police Authority breathing down his neck, the Professional Standards Committee demanding a special meeting. To say nothing of the African Caribbean Family Support Project and the Racial Equality Council practically camping outside his door. Shall I go on?"

Resnick hoped not.

"Because this murder investigation is at a crucial stage, and only because of that, you're left clinging onto your job by the skin of your teeth. But if you step out of line once more, you're finished, washed up and hung out to dry. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Then get the fuck out of here."

Resnick did as he was told.

The investigation moved on slowly. Anil Khan took Catherine Njoroge with him when he went to talk to Joanne Dawson a second time, hoping Joanne would respond more readily to a woman. The house was one of the few in the street that wasn't at least partly boarded up. Joanne's father answered the door, a short, shaven-headed man in Lonsdale sportswear, a gold chain around his neck and carpet slippers on his feet.

"What's this now?" he said, looking from one officer to the other and back again. "United fucking Nations?"

Joanne was sitting in a darkened room, curtains drawn, hiding, as best she could, the injuries to her face. Despite Catherine's presence, she didn't tell them a great deal more than she had before. It was Kelly as started it, weren't it? Going mental when she'd heard about her going with Brandon, calling her slag and whore and worse. Meeting up, like, that'd been to sort it out, not for no fight. Taken some mates with her, 'course she had, don't go down no St. Ann's on me own, no way. When they got there, everything had been cool at first, just a lot of shouting, not much more, then Kelly come out with the knife.

Whoever'd fired the gun, she didn't know who he was, never saw him, blood streaming down my fuckin' face, how could I? Just heard the noise, the shots, you know, and then everyone screaming. Kelly's laying there, blood streaming out of her. Sorry for her in a way, I's'pose, the lyin' bitch, but then, she never should have started it, should she?

"The boy who fired the gun," Catherine said, one more try before leaving, "someone said he was wearing Radford colours."

"No," Joanne said. "I don't think so. Don't see how he could be. Ask any of them I was with and they'll tell you. Not one of our lot, no way. You ask 'em. Go on."

Ask they did, and kept on asking.

Stone wall.

Seventeen of the twenty-three shown on CCTV had been identified and all but one of those interviewed, some on two separate occasions. More than half had had run-ins with the police before, a few anti-social behaviour orders, supervision orders, nothing too serious. The missing names were still being chased down. Meantime, Marcus Brent's college had confirmed that on the day of the shooting his group had been visiting a supermarket warehouse in Wellingborough.

Resnick sat at his desk, subdued.

He read reports, listened to officers, shuffled schedules, prowled the corridors like a wounded bear.