Easy Meat (31 page)

“Thanks, Mum,” grimaced Sheena, stubbing out her cigarette. “For sharing that with us.”

“Yes, thanks, love.” Peter grinned. “Just what I need to give me an appetite for these eggs. P’raps I should have them scrambled after all.”

Sheena leaned over the side of her chair and mimed being sick.

“What I could do with …” Norma began, lighting up herself.

“Is a fag and a nice cup of tea.” Peter began it and with Sheena joining in, they finished in unison.

“You two seem perky,” Norma said, filling the kettle at the sink.

“Been getting on all right, haven’t we, Sheena?”

“Okay, yeh.”

“Then I’d best not ask you, young lady, why you’re not at work, had I? Spoil this grand mood you’re in.”

“Leave her be,” Peter urged, bending forward and carefully spooning the first of his eggs from the pan.

“Or where,” Norma went on, “you got another new jacket from? And don’t waste your breath telling me it’s borrowed. Or that you bought it from what you’ve earned, ‘cause the number of hours you’ve been working lately, it’s you that’ll be owin’ them instead of the other way round.”

“Norma, love, leave it.”

“’S all right for you, you’ll be off out of here soon enough. I’m the one whose pocket’ll hurt if she gets her cards.”

“Yeh, well,” said Sheena with a sniff, “shows what you know, ’cause I already did.”

“What! You soft cow, what’s the matter with you? What d’you want to go and do that for?”

“I didn’t do it, did I? It were done to me.” Sheena swung her legs round from the seat of the empty chair, revealing a new pair of ankle-length black boots, still bright from their first shine.

“You what? And what about those shoes?”

“What about them?”

“You nicked them, that’s what. No two ways about it. You and those fancy new friends of yours. You want to watch out, my girl, else you’ll end up inside.”

“Yeah? Well, a fucking lot you care.”

Norma coming to stand over her now: “I’ve told you before, don’t use that language to me.”

“No?” Sheena on her feet, face jutting forward into her mother’s. “I’ll use what language I sodding like. You don’t own me, you know.”

“Is that right?” Norma swung her arm wildly, and if she hadn’t ducked into it instead of away, Sheena would never have got hit. As it was, the heel of her mother’s hand caught her hard alongside her mouth and she stumbled away, bleeding from her lip.

“You bitch!” Sheena yelled. “You bloody bitch!”

Norma let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a howl and weighed into Sheena with both hands, Peter saying, over and over, “Sheena, Norma, cut it out” and doing his best to drag Norma back; Sheena covering her face with her arms and Norma crying now, Norma and Sheena both crying. “Sheena, Norma, stop it now.” Peter carrying on till Norma turned on him and pushed him clear across the kitchen. “Stop whingeing on, you pathetic little shit. You get on my nerves something rotten, you sodding do.”

Sheena seized her moment and ran from the room, up the stairs into the bathroom, where she locked the door and sat on the loo seat, arms gripped to her sides, shaking with anger and fear.

She hadn’t stolen the boots, Diana had, from Dolcis the other afternoon. And as for the jacket, there they’d been, the whole gang of them, walking down through the city center by Debenham’s, when this girl came down the street in the opposite direction and Janie had reached out and grabbed her by the hair and told her to take off her leather jacket, she was having it, and the girl, of course, she said, no way, so Janie pulled her hair tighter, then pushed her hard up against the wall and when she bounced back smacked her in the face with the heel of her shoe and told her to take off the fucking jacket, which now, no problem, the girl did, Janie bowing and laughing and saying, how kind, thank you so very much, and, now that her shoe was back on, giving the girl a good kick before carrying on across the street, not running or nothing, jacket round her shoulders; top of the street, Janie’d stopped and looked at herself in the mirror, crap, she’d said, I look like fucking crap in this, and she’d tossed it over to Sheena, here, you have it, it’d look all right on you, and pranced on across the street in front of the traffic, expecting it to stop for her, which, of course, it did.

Awesome, Sheena had thought. Fucking awesome!

And she still thought the same now, sitting there on the loo, almost able to feel the bruises coming out on her arms and neck.

Khan and Naylor stood respectfully across from Resnick’s desk and told him about their conversation with Paul Matthews; told him and then waited patiently for his response. It was interesting, Resnick had thought as he listened, how the pair of them were seemingly alike in some ways, yet different: with Naylor, you felt the deference was natural, in part a product of a lack of confidence, whereas Khan seemed to be reining himself in, not wanting to seem pushy or overbright.

“He reckons he might’ve saved Nicky Snape’s life if he’d acted quicker, that’s at the root of it, then?”

“Yes, sir,” said Naylor. “Seems that way.”

“You don’t think there’s anything more?”

Naylor shook his head, but Resnick was looking at Khan.

“I don’t honestly think we could have got anything more from him that day; he was in a pretty het-up state. But I’m sure he’s not told us everything,” Khan said after a moment. “Not yet.”

“And you think he will?”

Khan nodded. “I hope so. For his sake as well as ours.” He allowed himself a slight smile. “Kevin here’s not always going to be around to stop him throwing himself off the edge of the cliff.”

“You gave him your number, in case he decides to contact you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Meantime, let’s have a closer look at Jardine. Dig around in his background a little. Previous appointments, whatever you can find. Let’s see if there are any other reasons for him wanting to keep this all under wraps. Okay?”

As the two men turned to leave the office, Naylor automatically stood aside to let Khan through the door first.

It was almost an hour later that Resnick met Skelton near the head of the stairs, Skelton just back from a meeting with the Assistant Chief. They were discussing the meeting when Carl Vincent walked along the corridor in front of them, heading towards CID.

“How’s he settling in, Charlie?” Skelton asked, voice low.

“Early days yet. But okay, far as I know.”

“No trouble, then? On account of his color. You know the sort of thing I mean.”

Resnick knew well enough what it would have been like in days not so long past: whispering campaigns, closed ranks in the canteen, loud references to spooks and sooties, nignogs and monkeys, spades and coons. Pakis. And the jokes—What do you call a nigger in a three-bedroom semi? A burglar. Bananas and travel brochures advertising holidays in Africa, the West Indies, all the personal details filled in, those and worse left for black recruits to find. Once, hanging down from the locker-room ceiling, a white sheet with eye holes cut in the manner of the Ku-Klux-Klan. The bad old days.

“I’ve not heard of anything going off.”

Skelton nodded thoughtfully. “And you’ve talked to Vincent himself?”

“Just about to. Off to see Shane Snape, check an alibi he’s given for a mate, I thought Vincent could ride along. I’ll have a word on the way.”

“What you mean is, Charlie, you thought he could be your driver.”

Resnick grinned. “That, too.”

There were roadworks south on the Ilkeston Road and an articulated lorry had got itself wedged across the entrance to Garden Street, so they cut left along Kimboulton Avenue, down Ashburnham, past the brightly painted nursery and the recreation ground, swinging out onto the Boulevard and then over the crossroads, through the lights.

“How’s it compare, then?” Resnick asked. “To Leicester?”

Vincent smiled gently, an eloquent shrug of the shoulders.

“Have you been getting any hassle?”

Vincent looked at him, perhaps for longer than he should, considering he was at the wheel. “You mean on account of being black?”

“That’s what I mean, yes.”

“It’s cool.”

“You mean there hasn’t been any, or there has and you’re not bothered? You can handle it.”

“Nobody’s spoken out of turn, no—what’s the term?—racial epithets.” Quickly this time, he glanced across the front seat. “Would you expect me to report it if there were?”

“Yes,” Resnick said. “Yes, I would.”

Vincent nodded, thinking it over. “Which turning?” he asked. “Must be pretty soon now. On the left, yes?”

It was Peter who answered the door, a slight figure in a singlet and a pair of old cords, absurd almost with his little belly sticking out from below his concave chest. Resnick identified Vincent and himself and by that time Norma was there, filling out the hall. From inside came the sounds of the two fifteen from Doncaster.

“How’s it going, Norma?” Resnick asked, friendly. Norma thinking he had come about Sheena, worried the stupid gillifer had got herself caught in the Broad Marsh Centre, some uptight store detective feeling her collar the minute she set foot outside the shop. But no, not this time.

“Your Shane,” Resnick said. “He around?”

He was in his usual place when home, stretched out on the settee in front of the TV, can of Carlsberg within reach. Most days, if he didn’t come out ahead at the bookie’s, he didn’t finish up so far behind.

He looked round at Resnick with flat, cold eyes; took in Vincent and dismissed him with a glance. The signs of the beating he had taken at the hands of the Turvey boys were fading but had yet to disappear.

Resnick nodded in the direction of the television and Vincent went round behind the settee and turned the volume down; horse with a white noseband seemed to be winning by seven or eight lengths. “That pal of yours,” Resnick said. “Gerry Hovenden.”

“Yeh, what about him?” Shane watching the screen, the last runners fading past the post.

“Last Saturday night, you gave him an alibi.”

“So?”

“I thought now he wasn’t here, you might change your mind. Remember things a different way.”

“You’re not saying I lied?”

“Loyalty,” Resnick said, “it’s a funny thing.”

“Mum,” Shane said, pushing himself up onto one elbow, raising his voice towards the kitchen, “where was I Sat’day last?”

“Here,” Norma answering with prompting, walking through. “Here with that pal of yours. Gerry. Brought back those videos, remember?
Elm Street
and that other one. Horrible bloody things!” And then, looking at Resnick. “He was here, Mr. Resnick. They both was.” Waiting for him to say otherwise.

What Resnick did was move closer to where Shane was sitting, sit down himself, on the arm of the settee. “You into the same things as him, Shane? Aside from horror movies, I mean. Combat 18 and the like. Extremist stuff. Fascist rallies, racist attacks.”

Shane shifted his glance over towards Vincent, standing easily near the back of the room, and then back again.

“’Cause if you were, I’d be surprised. Thought you had more brains than to be taken in by stuff like that.”

Shane made a circling motion with his shoulders before looking back towards the screen and the winning jockey, dismounting in the unsaddling enclosure. After a moment, he reached for the remote and switched the sound back up.

“Take it carefully,” Resnick said, back on his feet. “Don’t get yourself into any trouble you don’t need to.”

Shane didn’t budge; gave no indication that he heard or heeded Resnick’s advice.

Norma walked with the two detectives to the door. “The old girl,” she said, “the one, you know, my Nicky …”

“Doris. She’s getting slowly better, Norma. On the mend. They both are, her and her husband.”

Norma nodded. “Good. I’m glad for that at least.”

Resnick and Vincent walking away then, back to the car, Vincent unlocking the doors and the pair of them getting in, kids along the street and parents at their windows, watching.

“What in Christ’s name,” Norma shrilled at Shane the minute she got back in, “have you been up to now?”

“Relax,” Shane said. “First horse of the afternoon just come in, twenty-five to one.”

Thirty-six

As luck would have it, Stella Aston had answered the phone when Resnick called; yes, of course she’d meet him, how about the Town House? Did he know it? That street off Bridlesmith Gate. Low Pavement, is that what it was called?

It was. Resnick got there early, one of those places he had walked past numberless times in the last three or four years. Slim, pale wooden tables and waitresses who were studying fashion at Trent University; either that, or they were sixth formers from the High School, giving off equal quantities of good breeding and disdain. Inside, casually smart young men, whose designer socks and underwear, Resnick guessed, cost more than he spent on clothes in a year, lolled back in dark glasses and looked cool. An elegant young mother—or was it the au pair?—fed what looked like purple yogurt to a toddler in a high chair. One elderly woman, gray hair unraveling round her lined face, sat unhappily over the remains of her toasted sandwich, looking as out of place as Resnick felt.