Easy Meat (26 page)

As he was starting to read it, Hovenden came into the house, wiping his hands on a piece of rag.

“Oh,” he said, seeing what was in Shane’s hands. “You found that.”

“I didn’t know you was into politics,” Shane said.

“Yes.” Gerry Hovenden shrugged. “Now and again.”

Standing in the queue at the sandwich counter across the street, Resnick pondered on a largely fruitless day. He had driven out with Khan to the house in Colwick where Paul Matthews lived. At first, the place had been so quiet, they’d thought nobody was at home, but then Matthews’s mother had come through the side gate that led from the rear of the house. A birdlike woman in a yellow dress. Paul, she informed them, had been terribly upset by what had happened—that poor, poor boy—Resnick had assumed she was referring to Norma’s son and not her own, but wasn’t sure. The doctor had signed him off work, nervous exhaustion, yes, that was right, signed him off with medication and told Paul to take a rest. Ordered him. He had gone down to stay with a favorite aunt, in Wales, South Wales, Rhossili Bay. Resnick knew it, perhaps? Resnick did not. Ah! Beautiful, still a little wild, you know. And quiet, this time of the year. So restorative, the sea.

“Color blind,” Khan had said, back in the car.

“Mmm?”

“Color blind. Every word she said was aimed directly to you. I don’t think she knew I was there.”

Elizabeth Peck certainly had not been there either. Her house, one of those new pseudo-Georgian places off Wilford Lane, was locked up tight. Blinds pulled, curtains drawn, burglar alarm armed, not one, but two Banham locks on the front door. The neighbors knew her but not well; knew, at least one of them did, that she had gone away. Holiday. She did not know where. Or when she might return.

Resnick had considered dismissing Khan to the farther reaches of the Welsh coast to talk to Matthews, but for now opted to keep that particular powder dry and save on travel expenses to boot. It was Elizabeth Peck whom Bill Aston had spoken to and now Resnick wanted her to speak to him. What he sent Khan off to do was establish whether or not she owned a car; then check with the travel agencies, East Midlands Airport, the railway station, see if he couldn’t get a line on where she’d gone, when she might be expected back.

Before Resnick could carry his sandwich into the comparative privacy of his office, Naylor intercepted him, his day looking up at last. “This shoe stuff, sir, inconclusive’s putting it mildly. But I had them look again at the markings and one thing’s pretty much agreed. Whoever was wearing the boots, you can tell from the movement, variations in pressure and the like, he was the one did most of the damage, really heavy blows that did for Aston, he was the one.”

“Good work, lad. Well done.”

He was just about to bite into the sandwich, stray mayonnaise already on the cuff of his shirt, when Millington knocked and entered.

“Any luck, Graham?”

“Not a lot, still claiming not to know any names, but he’s agreed to go down to Central and look at some photos, may come up with something that way. Did catch a word with one or two regulars who were in there on the Saturday when the fight broke out, though. Confirmed these lads throwing their weight around had been at the match earlier in the day. Regular supporters by the sound of it.”

“Right, Graham. Tell Mark to contact that pal of his in the Football Intelligence Unit, set up a meeting.”

Millington was scarcely out of the door when Lynn Kellogg came in. Resignedly, Resnick pushed the sandwich back in its paper bag and shut the bag in his desk drawer.

“I’ve been going over that breakdown I did,” Lynn said. “Aston’s last twenty-four hours. And there’s one period I’m not clear about. He met you in the Partridge on the Friday evening to talk about Nicky Snape and didn’t get back to the house until pretty late, between eleven thirty and midnight Mrs. Aston said.”

“And I left him at around half nine, sitting with half an inch of mild.”

Lynn nodded. “According to Mrs. Aston, he said he was there talking to you the whole time. Made a point of it.”

Resnick shrugged. “She could have been getting confused.”

“She might. Or Aston might have lied.”

Resnick looked at her seriously. “In which case he’d likely have had good reason.”

“I thought,” Lynn said, “before taking it any farther, I’d pop out there and talk to Mrs. Aston again, see if she’s still saying the same. If that’s okay with you.”

Resnick was already reaching for the phone. “I’ll call her first, then ride out with you. We can ask her together.”

Thirty-one

Stella Aston met them at the door, wearing jeans and an oversized sweater; her hair hung slightly damp against her shoulders, washed and imperfectly dried. She smiled a greeting and stood back to let Resnick and Lynn enter, but there was a tiredness behind the smile that she couldn’t disguise.

“Mum’s been lying down,” she said. “Why don’t you come through to the kitchen? She’s just getting dressed. I don’t suppose she’ll be very long.”

Stella made instant coffee, chatting with just a slight awkwardness to Lynn, Resnick off to one side, staring out at the garden. Although he imagined it had not long since been done, the grass would soon be in need of cutting again.

When Stella carried over Resnick’s cup, Lynn watched her, without knowing exactly what she was looking for, a change of expression on her face, the way she smiled.
You think she could have had a crush on him:
Petra Carey’s words. Well, why not? Others had, Lynn was certain. Fleetingly, Stella’s fingers, surely by accident, brushed against the back of Resnick’s hand.
Little girls love their fathers. Usually they replace them with other men. But if that other man’s too much like her father, what she ends up feeling is guilt.
More of Petra Carey’s words.

Petra bloody Carey! What I might do, Lynn thought, is cancel my next appointment, not go back at all.

By the time they had finished their coffee, Margaret Aston had come downstairs and was waiting for them in the living room, the curtains pulled mostly across. No matter how much powder and foundation she had used, she had not been able to hide the extent to which she had, in these last days, yielded herself up to tears.

“Margaret,” Resnick said gently, “are you sure you’re up to this?”

“Yes, thank you, Charlie. I shall be fine.”

Seated on the carpet close by her chair, Stella reached up and patted her mother’s hand.

“Mrs. Aston,” Lynn began, “you remember there was a phone call your husband made, late on the Saturday afternoon?”

“Yes, of course. Someone rang him and he called them back from the hall.”

“Why did he do that?”

Margaret Aston shook her head. “They hadn’t finished their conversation, I suppose.”

“Yes, but, why go out into the hall? Why not ring them back from where he was? The same phone the person had called in on.”

Margaret Aston looked bemused; she transferred her gaze from Lynn to Resnick and slowly back again.

“I mean,” Lynn persevered, “wouldn’t that have been the simplest thing to do?”

“I really haven’t given it any thought, but Bill had his reasons, I’m sure.”

“What were you doing, Mum, at the time?” Stella asked, looking round.

“Oh, I don’t know, dear. Reading, I suppose. Yes, I was, a book from the library, I can’t remember …”

“There you are, there’s your answer,” Stella said. “Dad didn’t want to disturb Mum’s reading, that’s what it was. Nothing sinister at all.”

Resnick and Lynn exchanged glances.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been able to remember, Mrs. Aston,” Lynn said, “who it was your husband spoke to? You couldn’t when we talked before.”

She shook her head. “As I told you then, Bill never mentioned who it was. But it’ll have been someone from the Church, I’m sure. For years he’s been a lay-preacher. Quite famous, isn’t he, Charlie, you would know. Famous for it.”

Nodding agreement, Resnick leaned forward lightly in his chair. “I wonder, Margaret, does the name Elizabeth Peck mean anything to you?”

She gave it several moments’ thought. “No. No, I can’t say that it does. But I expect you’re about to tell me that’s who Bill was speaking to, is that it?”

Resnick nodded. “It was her number that he called.”

“So who is she?” Stella asked, the beginnings of agitation in her young voice.

“A social worker. She’s employed at the place where Nicky Snape died.”

“Well then, of course,” Margaret Aston said, seizing on it quickly, “that’s why she would have wanted to talk to Bill. The inquiry. And why he would have been careful to have spoken to her in private. Confidentially. He was very scrupulous about things like that, Bill, even from me. Charlie, you should know that yourself.”

“The trouble is, Margaret, that only makes it more difficult to understand why he would agree to a long, private conversation with one of his principal witnesses. Especially when it was so clearly off the record.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure he will have made a note at least.”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve been through all of his papers, notebooks, everything. There’s nothing about any such conversation having taken place.”

Margaret Aston sighed; she seemed to have shrunk even deeper into her chair. “Stella, dear.” Touching her daughter’s shoulder. “I’m feeling very tired. I wonder, would you help me back up to bed. Charlie, you’ll excuse me, I know.”

Resnick and Lynn stood as Stella assisted her mother to her feet. Resnick opened the door and as Margaret, leaning on her daughter’s arm, passed by him, he asked a further question. “One thing, Margaret. What time was it Bill got back here on the Friday night?”

She stopped. “Almost midnight. A quarter, ten to. You should know, Charlie, it was you he was with. I remember him coming in and coming up to my room, I was in bed by then of course. Knocking gently on the door to make sure I was still awake. He sat on the bed for a moment and held my hand, told me what a nice evening he’d had. Charlie, he’d enjoyed talking to you. You could see it, see in his face, some of that old life again. Long time since I’ve done that, love, he said. Me and Charlie Resnick, closed the bar together. I shall sleep well tonight, he said, and kissed me here, on the top of the head, before saying good-night.”

Unusually, Resnick took the keys and slid behind the wheel. Less than half a mile down the road he signaled right and pulled in outside a small parade of shops. Lynn imagined that he intended to get out, buy a newspaper, or go to the off-license for beer. But engine idling, he sat there, forearms resting on the wheel.

“You think she’s lying?” he said finally. “Holding something back?”

“No.”

“Telling the truth, then?”

“Yes. As she sees it. All she knows, yes.”

Resnick released a slow breath. “It would be easier perhaps if she were lying, if she knew there was something going on.”

“And is there?”

As Resnick turned to face her, a middle-aged man coming out of the newsagent stopped and stared at the car, only slowly starting to walk away,
Post
rolled inside his hand. Resnick saw him and wondered what they looked like, himself and Lynn, another mismatched couple, caught in the middle of an affair, one of them married, most likely him.

He had observed couples often enough himself, had leaped, sometimes inappropriately, to the same conclusions. Most usually, though, he had been right: lovers caught in their own cold, sticky web.

“You think it’s the woman? Peck?”

“How d’you mean?” Resnick asked.

“Well, you know …”

“That he was having an affair? Bill?”

“That is what you were thinking, isn’t it? The path you’re going down.”

“But with Peck?”

“Why not?”

Resnick shook his head, came close to a smile. “He’d only known her less than a week.”

Lynn’s turn to smile. “Come on,” she said. “How long does it take?”

Instead of answering, Resnick turned towards the windscreen and stared out. What he was thinking of, what he was seeing, was Hannah that first time, walking across the front of the school towards her slightly battered red VW, pausing to speak to those two kids, firm enough, not without understanding; the way, after they had spoken, she had placed her briefcase on the roof of the car and then turned back to face him, that flash of red, visible in the swirl of her hair. Her smile.

How long does it take?

For a brief period—what was it? Four years ago now, slightly more?—he would have thought of Rachel Chaplin at that moment, after that question. For a long while, before and since, it would have been Elaine.

“Even so,” he said, “it’s doubtful Bill would have had the chance during the inquiry to speak to her alone.”

“The interview?”

Resnick shook his head. “Khan was there all the time.”

“Then it was to do with the inquiry, maybe something she felt she couldn’t say at her interview.”

“Because she was afraid?”

“Possibly, yes. Or maybe it was something she didn’t know at the time, that she only learned later.”

“Then why on earth did Bill break the habit of a lifetime and not note it down?”

They looked at one another along the front seat of the car. Three kids, one not much more than seven or eight, went past on roller blades, heads bent forward, arms swinging professionally out.

“You think it’s something personal, don’t you?” Lynn said.

“I don’t know. I suppose I do, but I still don’t see how that could have worked. Time, access …”

“Maybe,” Lynn said, “it wasn’t, you know, an affair. At least, not yet. What if there was just a connection, somehow, between them? Something they were just starting to—I don’t know what you’d call it—explore.”

“What? In his own house in the middle of the weekend with his wife in another room?”

“Wouldn’t some people find that exciting? The possibility of being found out.”

Resnick gestured with open hands. “I wouldn’t know.”

“And you’d know Bill Aston? Well enough to be sure?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No.”

“Him and his wife, they’ve got separate rooms, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”