Easy Meat (15 page)

“All right,” Norma said. “All right.”

He reached a hand to touch her but she pulled away.

At six thirty that evening, Bill Aston plunged into the Portland pool and swam the first of twenty slow, deliberate lengths. After showering and drying himself down, he drove the short distance to the Victoria Embankment and walked the Jack Russells along the north bank of the Trent. All things considered it had not been too bad a day.

Khan’s girlfriend was seven years his senior. Light-skinned, lithe-limbed, and blonde, Jill was a divorced woman with three kids who were spending the night at her sister’s. She had trained as a dancer, worked as a model; now she was a part-time receptionist at Central Television and did a dance class four afternoons a Week. Khan liked to imagine he could still smell the sweat on her body.

“What was he like, then?” Jill asked. “This bloke Aston you’re working with?”

“After he’d got over the color of my skin, d’you mean?”

She reached out to stroke his chest. “What’s wrong with your skin? It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, well.” Khan grinned. “You’d not expect Bill Aston to feel the same way about it as you now, would you?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jill laughed.

“Not him. I doubt he’s got the imagination.”

Jill raised her legs and slid her bottom a little farther down the bed. “What’s he doing in charge of the inquiry into this kid’s death, then?”

But by then Khan was in no position to answer.

Eighteen

“Old-Fashioned Love.” The opening growl from Vic Dickenson’s trombone sounds like the fanfare from a fairground barker, but once piano and bass have settled into their gentle stride, he nudges the melody along respectfully enough, just the odd hint of jaunti-ness to keep sentimentality at bay; then, rolling out from the lower register with that tart huskiness that marks his playing, Edmund Hall takes the tune through a second chorus before the clipped notes of Ruby Braff’s trumpet start to lengthen and unwind. Which is as far as Resnick gets, because now the phone is ringing and he reaches awkwardly towards it, fiddling the remote onto pause and then dropping it into his lap, where an aggrieved cat wakes with a start and jumps to the floor, one paw tipping the saucer that holds a half-finished cup of coffee growing cold.

“Hello?”

“Charlie. Thought you weren’t there.”

Friday night, Resnick thought, where else would I be?

“Wondered how you were placed for this drink we mentioned?”

Resnick angled his wrist around to look at his watch: twenty-five to nine. “You’ll be wanting me to trek out there, I suppose?” He wondered why it had always been difficult to take them seriously, the suburbs south of the Trent.

“No need, I’m in the city. Just tidying up a bit of paperwork.” Aston paused. “The Partridge, that’s your watering hole, isn’t it?”

“As good as any.”

“Nine o’clock, then?”

“Best make it quarter past.”

“All right, Charlie. See you there.”

Resnick retrieved his cup and rose to his feet, releasing the pause into the beginning of Sir Charles Thompson’s piano solo. Bud’s head nudged repeatedly against the backs of his legs as he stood there listening, the cat urging him to sit down so that he could jump onto his lap. Only after the second trumpet solo and Dickenson’s closing trombone coda, lazy but exact, did Resnick open the tray and drop the CD back in its case, switch off the stereo, carry cup and saucer into the kitchen to rinse, open the fridge on a well-honed impulse and lift out a slice of ham, wrap it around the last half-inch of Emmenthal cheese, something to nibble while he put on his coat and hesitated in a doorway, patting his pockets for his wallet, money, keys.

For whatever reason, the Partridge failed to attract the Friday night gangs of youths who marauded through the city center, clad, whatever the weather, in shirt-sleeves or the shortest of skirts, growing noisier and noisier as they moved from pub to pub, more and more obscene. Even so, it was crowded enough for Resnick and Bill Aston to take refuge in the deep V of the public bar, opposite the door to the Gents.

“Sure that’s all you want, Charlie? Not fancy a chaser?” Resnick glanced at the bottle of Czech Budweiser and shook his head.

“Drop of Scotch, no?”

“Thanks, Bill, I’m fine.”

Aston himself was sitting with a half-pint of mild, which Resnick knew from experience he would nurse through the coming half-hour, or however long the conversation took.

Not wanting to shout it out for all and sundry, needing to be heard above the rise and fall of Friday night conversations, Resnick hunched his shoulders forward and leaned in. Aston listened attentively, a nod here and there, while Resnick filled him in on the Snape family background, a relationship that had begun for Resnick when, as detective sergeant, he had questioned Shane about the provenance of two dozen video cassettes that had been in the youth’s sports bag when a uniformed officer had stopped him at past two in the morning, crossing Radford Boulevard. Nicky had first come to Resnick’s official attention at the age of eleven, when he was caught climbing through the skylight of a neighbor’s house. At Norma Snape’s request, Resnick had given the boy a royal rollocking; enough to put the fear of God into him, that was how Norma had described it, though it could only be said to have worked in that, as far as anyone knew, Nicky had never since that day set foot inside a church. Other people’s houses, that had been a different matter.

“Poor little bastard,” Aston said feelingly. “Growing up like that, never stood a chance.”

Resnick leaned back and lifted his glass. “She did her best.”

Aston shook his head. “Never going to be good enough, though, is it, Charlie?” And Resnick drank his beer steadily, while Aston delivered his sermon on the breakdown of the social fabric and the lost virtues of the two-parent family. When it was over, he excused himself and went first to the Gents and then to the bar.

“The inquiry, Bill,” Resnick asked, emptying the second bottle into his glass. “How’s it all going?”

“Oh, shouldn’t take long to wrap it up, I’d say. Seems all pretty much above board.”

Resnick regarded him skeptically. “No funny business, you think? Nothing untoward?”

“No, Charlie, not so far as I can see. Oh, supervision might’ve been a mite lax the night he died. But if it’s reasons you’re looking for—ill-treatment, bullying …” Aston gave a quick shake of the head. “Doesn’t seem to have been the case.”

“No clear reason, then? For him to do what he did.”

“Not mind readers, Charlie. Not as if he left a note, nothing like that. The other lads, those that knew him, the youth in his room, all swear he never said a word about what he meant to do. Moaned on a bit, like; complained. But then that’s just par for the course.” Aston finally supped the last of his mild, froth sliding back down the glass. “Couldn’t face up to being put away. If you ask me, that’s what it was. He just couldn’t face the thought of going to prison, poor little sod. Terrified. Just a kid, you see. Missed his mam.”

Resnick waited until a sudden splurge of laughter from the table alongside had died down. “Social services see it the same way?”

Aston nodded. “Pretty much. Right down the line.”

I bet they do, Resnick thought, stains enough on their copy-book already. He was on his feet, half his beer still untouched. “At least there’s nothing to prevent the body being released. His mother’ll be pleased.” He held out his hand. “Take care, Bill. And give Margaret my best.”

Out on the street, Resnick crossed in the direction of what had once been Bobby Brown’s Café and was now another boarded-up testament to free enterprise and the price you eventually had to pay. He thought about picking up a cab from outside the Victoria Stakis, but decided he would walk instead. If Aston had found nothing suspicious, then maybe there was nothing to find. Why, then, did Resnick find that so difficult to believe?

By the time he had reached the Sikh temple he was starting to feel vaguely peckish and began inventorying the contents of his refrigerator, he thought there might be enough left for a decent sandwich before turning in. He could sit up a while longer and listen to those Vic Dickenson sides again: “Runnin’ Wild,” “Keeping Out of Mischief Now.”

“Here, take another one of these prawns while they’re still going.”

“No, it’s okay …”

“Go on. I’ve had more than my share already.”

“All right, then. Thanks.”

Lynn had two attempts at lifting the king prawn from its chili sauce, before setting down her chopsticks and resorting to a fork.

“Good, aren’t they?”

“Great.” Actually, they were too spicy for Lynn’s taste, but she wasn’t about to say. It had been Sharon’s idea, the pair of them having a night out together, and the choice of the restaurant had been Sharon’s too. They had met earlier and had a couple of glasses of white wine in one of the wine bars near Lynn’s flat in the Lace Market, moving on when the place had begun to get really crowded and the offers of drinks from predatory males had been more than they could shrug off or gracefully turn down.

In the end, Sharon had rounded on one of the more persistent—a good few years younger than herself and certainly no taller—caught hold of him by the lapels of his mid-blue, beautifully tailored Kenzo suit, and told him that if he wanted to get sorted in front of his mates by a woman who taught a class in self-defense and close combat, he should just carry on as he was. She could tell from his wilting body language which option he was going to choose. Sharon straightened him out, brushed him down, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek; the man blushed deep red and retreated into the huddle of his friends.

“Don’t you hate all that?” Lynn asked, once Sharon had perched back on her stool.

“Want to know the truth?” Sharon grinned. “Actually I enjoy it.”

Now they were at a window table in Ocean City looking out at four lanes of traffic heading north up Derby Road. They were still attracting more than their fair share of sidelong looks—two youngish women eating alone—one black, one white, and Sharon in a long, loose denim skirt, a denim shirt over a soft gray fitted top, was the focus for most of them. If in some respects that left Lynn relieved, in others it didn’t help at all. Just about the last thing you needed, self-image at the low ebb, was playing second fiddle to someone who was not only sure of herself, but looked great into the bargain. And was nice with it.

Lynn could imagine their laughing conversation back in the wine bar, those blokes who’d fancied themselves in with a chance. “Mine’s okay, pal, but I wouldn’t go near yours on a dark night with a stick.”

“Here,” Sharon said, tipping the bottle of Australian Chardonnay over Lynn’s glass. “You might as well finish this off, too.”

Lynn laughed. “I shall be pissed.”

“Not working tomorrow, are you?”

“No, thank God. Nor Sunday, neither. Not unless anything major crops up.”

Sharon raised her glass. “Lucky you. We’re top-handed tomorrow night. Boss wants a bit of a crackdown. Scare the balls off the curb crawlers, promise to print their names in the paper, send letters home to their wives. Haul in the girls and keep them overnight, pack them off bright and early with a two-hundred-quid fine. All that does, send them back on the streets to earn some more.” With a flourish, she finished her wine. “Sometimes I think the magistrates do more to keep the trade going than the pimps.”

Lynn nodded and popped the last piece of oyster mushroom into her mouth.

“Right,” Sharon said, looking round for a waiter. “A couple of banana fritters, coffee, and they can phone a cab for us. Drop you off on the way to mine.” She winked. “All tucked up before midnight, eh, safe and sound.”

Curtains drawn, only a table lamp at the far side of the room burned its subdued light. Through the speakers, the sound of Steve Jordan’s guitar chording evenly above the rhythmic swish of Jo Jones’s brushes, while in the easy chair, the smallest of the cats nestling his head beneath his chin, Resnick slept, his breathing a soft counterpoint to the sounds of Sir Charles Thompson, gentling his piano through the tune of “Russian Lullaby.”

Nineteen

While Resnick had slept a house across the city had been torched and now stood gutted, the third instance of serious arson on the Bestwood Estate that month. The incident had taken place at two in the morning, four kids under the age of fourteen asleep upstairs, the youngest of them only escaping serious burns when his mother dropped him from the bedroom window into the arms of neighbors below. Certain in their own minds who had caused the fire, other members of the family had been intercepted on their way across the estate by hastily summoned police. A sawn-off shotgun and a pistol had been found beneath the rear seat of the car they had been driving.

As an excited local radio reporter informed Resnick that morning, an emergency meeting had been called at which the city housing chief and other officials would discuss with police additional ways of constraining an estate which was seemingly in the grip of mob rule. Resnick sighed as he buttered toast. He knew that extra officers had already been drafted in and that during the past few weeks alone there had been around fifty arrests; he also knew that most of those arrested would by now have been released on bail.

Interviewed by the reporter, the city council leader said they were preparing to take legal action against the eight families who were at the heart of the trouble: “We have no qualms about evicting,” he said. “The trouble is that we need witnesses—and witnesses can be intimidated.”

Resnick remembered his team going round Radford, door to door, trying to uncover information about the incident in which Nicky Snape had been petrol-bombed. After days of intensive questioning, it had proved impossible to persuade anyone who knew anything to make a statement. If Nicky could be put into hospital, so could they.

The result was a stubborn silence: distrust of the police; fear of reprisals.

Resnick opted for raspberry jam. While the other cats weren’t looking, he forked the last of the Whiskas into Bud’s bowl before throwing the can away. There was a note from Marian Witczak with the mail, reminding him in her ornate, slightly gothic hand, of the Polish Club dance that evening. Before his second cup of coffee, Resnick phoned the station and got a jubilant-sounding Kevin Naylor, the third of whose nights on observation with Reg Cossall had resulted in five arrests for drugs offenses, and three additional charges of passing counterfeit money and attempting to defraud the post office. Resnick could imagine Cossall’s obscene expressions of delight.