Easy Meat (40 page)

“DC Khan and myself have just come from the police station,” Resnick said, each word spoken with especial care, “where one of your staff, Paul Matthews, has made a statement about the events leading up to the death of Nicky Snape on these premises.”

Jardine flinched and covered his mouth with the opened fingers of one hand.

Resnick nodded towards Khan, who took an envelope containing several sheets of paper from his inside pocket. “I would like you to read that statement now.”

Jardine hesitated before reaching out and taking the statement from Khan’s hand; he still avoided looking either officer in the eye.

“Read it,” Resnick said, “all of it, carefully, before making any response.”

Jardine’s eyes stalled at the end of the first paragraph and then started again. At the end of the second paragraph he glanced sideways towards the wall, the photographs where his career was smeared. By the time he had reached the end and had pushed the sheets away across his desk there were tears in his eyes but not enough.

“What Matthews says is basically correct?”

Jardine nodded: yes.

“He told you those youths had been in Nicky Snape’s room the evening he died?”

“Yes.”

“That in his opinion they had been bullying him, at the very least?”

“Yes.”

“And that in his belief that bullying had been of a sexual nature?”

“There is no proof …”

“But that was what he said?”

“Yes.”

“The staff member in charge?”

“Yes.”

“And you did nothing.”

Jardine glanced from Khan to Resnick and shook his head.

“You told Matthews to do nothing, say nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling me why that was?”

After a pause, Jardine said: “It would only disturb the smooth running of the home. I didn’t see what good would be served.”

“And why was that?”

Jardine looked at him directly for the first time. “Nicky Snape was already dead.”

On his feet, Resnick retrieved the statement from the desk. “Copies of this statement have been sent to the Director of Social Services, to Phyllis Parmenter, the member of the Social Services Inspectorate who chaired the original inquiry, and to the Crown Prosecution Service. Detective Constable Khan will question the youths named in the report as soon as you have arranged for a parent or legal representative to be present. Is that understood?”

Jardine nodded, head once more bowed, and Resnick, after a quick glance towards Khan, left the pair of them in the room. Now that it was done, he couldn’t wait to shed himself of the sad, corrupt smell of that room, that man, that institution.

One night on the thin mattress of the police cell had been enough to bring Frank Miller to his senses. Talking his way out of the blood on his boots, the voices on the tape, he knew would be difficult—and why? To save the hides of a pair of queers—he was sure they were, no matter how much they denied it—who just weren’t worth saving. Commit perjury for the likes of them! Bugger that for a game of soldiers!

So Miller began banging on the inside of his cell door a little after seven and by nine he was sitting back in the inquiry room with Millington and Naylor and a tape machine. The story he told was this: his brother-in-law, Ian Orston, had had words with some of the Irish who used this pub on London Road and had asked Frank and a few other mates to come and help sort them out. Teach them to pay some respect. Frank had tipped the wink to Gerry Hovenden, who, in turn, had enlisted Shane. But Shane had never showed, not then. And it was Ian who had brought along the baseball bat, a Christmas present to his kids.

They’d done the business in the pub.

Frank couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to walk on down to the river, maybe look in at the Trent Bridge Inn, but that’s what they’d done. After closing, they had all headed back across the bridge, pretty pissed by now and noisy, pushing one another around for the fun of it, because there wasn’t anyone else to push. Ian and himself had wandered off in front, aiming for lan’s place in the Meadows and going to take the path across the playing fields, back of the Memorial Gardens. It was somewhere around then, on the other side of the Trent, that the others must’ve met up with Shane, who was already in an argument with this bloke. The one who turned out to be the copper. Poor bastard!

Anyway, there was so much shouting Frank hadn’t been able to hear everything, except he remembered that Shane had accused the bloke of being queer—which was a bit rich, Frank thought, coming from him—and of trying to grab hold of Shane’s balls in the Gents. Next thing you knew they were all over him, shouting “Fucking poof!” and the like, kicking the shit out of him.

Frank and Ian had stood back on the path, watching. Frank fancying a bit of it himself, he didn’t mind admitting, but the way they were swarming round the bloke there was sod-all room.

And then Shane had broken away and came at a run for lan’s bat; gone back in there and smashed the bloke about the face like he wanted to take his head clean off. In the end, Gerry had pulled him away. Tried to give Ian back his baseball bat, but Ian said no way.

“I went over and looked at him,” Frank said. “Total bloody mess.” He shrugged. “That must’ve been when I got his blood on me boots.”

“And at no time while this was going on,” Millington asked, “did you raise a fist in anger or deliver a blow?”

“Me?” Frank Miller said. “Not one. You got my solemn word.” And he grinned.

Hovenden denied all of it: every word. The results of the tests on the fibers from the glove had still not returned. “Give him time to chew on it a while.”

“This Ian Orston,” Naylor called from over by the computer, “he’s got some previous. D’you want me to pull him in, see if his account tallies?”

“Yes, get on it now. Take Carl here with you, okay? And stay sharp, the pair of you.”

They were leaving when Resnick returned, sullen and sad-eyed. Millington waited while the kettle boiled and the tea had mashed before filling him in on all the details.

“Right, Graham,” Resnick said, fortified, “let’s get over to the Snape place, you and me, see if we can’t lay our hands on Shane. Mark, Lynn, you’d best be along for the ride.”

When Norma opened the door to Resnick, mid-afternoon, she was still wearing what she had slept in, an old dressing gown pulled loosely round her. One look at Resnick and she turned back into the house. The curtains in the front room were closed and the television on. Norma had one cigarette in her hand, another, forgotten, smoldering alongside cold toast.

“Norma,” Resnick said, “what’s happened? Are you all right?”

She looked at him as if she hadn’t properly heard what he had said.

“Norma, it’s Shane. Is he here?”

A slow shake of the head.

“We’ve got a warrant to search the house.”

“What do I care?”

Resnick nodded at Millington and Divine and they moved quickly towards the stairs. He waited until Norma had flopped down into the settee and then he switched down the sound on the TV; outside, in the backyard, the dog was barking frantically to be fed.

“Should I let him in?” Resnick asked.

Norma didn’t care about that, either.

He motioned for Lynn to stay with Norma while he tipped dog biscuits into a bowl and unlocked the rear door, careful to keep well to one side when the dog tore in. He could hear Millington and Divine moving around, heavy footed, upstairs. Back in the front room, he sat across from Norma, waiting for her eyes to focus on him.

“It’s serious, Norma, this time. That alibi you gave him, him and his pal, it doesn’t stand up.” Her eyes flickered as if still only half understanding what he was saying. “Where is he, Norma? Shane. Where is he now?”

Footsteps on the stairs were followed by a slow shake of Millington’s head, its expression telling Resnick they’d found nothing. Neither Shane nor any weapon: burned it or hidden it, Resnick thought. He was tempted to see the baseball bat floating off down the Trent, hurled there after Aston’s murder and never found—except for what had happened to Declan Farrell, the particular agonies he’d been put through.
A varnished implement, solid, hard.
They had searched along a half-mile stretch of railway line, between overgrown gravestones, in among bushes and across fields. Every dustbin, backyard, and cranny.

He smashed this bloke about the face like he wanted to take his head clean off.

Resnick pictured Shane standing there, sweat on his lip, breathing hard, hatred and anger bright on his face.

Why?

“Your Shane,” Resnick said, “when he’s not hanging round with this Gerry, are there any other friends he sees? Special, I mean?”

Norma didn’t answer.

“Girlfriends?”

“Sara Johnson,” Norma said scornfully. “Slag.”

“You know where she lives?”

Norma didn’t have a clue, couldn’t have cared less, but she thought she worked in the Viccy centre, in the Food Court, somewhere like that.

“Make sure the house is watched,” Resnick told Millington when they were back outside. “Front and back. And keep in touch with the station. Lynn, let’s you and me see if we can’t find this Sara Johnson.”

At the curb, he turned back. “Look sharp, all of you be on your guard. Think on what he’s maybe done. He’s young and he’s strong, likely he’ll not come easy.”

“Just give me the chance,” Divine said, once Resnick had gone. “Shane Snape, one on one, see how easy he comes then.”

Once in the Food Court, steering his way between the shopping trolleys and the prams, Resnick realized he had seen Sara Johnson before; she had served himself and Hannah with coffee and now she did so for himself and Lynn, strong, small espressos in waxed paper cups. They identified themselves and asked Sara if she wouldn’t mind answering a few questions; carried the coffees to one of the nearby tables and sat down, Sara, pretty in her pink uniform, a fine sculptured face and lazy eyes, seventeen.

Self-conscious, she lit a cigarette and wafted the smoke away from her face with her hand.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to Resnick’s question. “I haven’t seen Shane for a week or more now.”

“Sara, you do understand this is important?”

The tip of her tongue pressed for a moment against the underside of her upper lip. “I’m not a liar, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ve not seen him. Besides, he wouldn’t come round to me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Near them, a man in a shabby overcoat, once someone’s best, but a long time ago, was coughing repeatedly into the back of his hand, rough-edged and raw. It was enough to make Resnick’s throat sore. “Why d’you say that?”

“He just wouldn’t, that’s why.” There was irritation, mixed with amusement, in her eyes. “For one thing, on account of my old man can’t stand him, won’t have him inside the house, right? For another, I finished with him. Two weekends ago now.”

Resnick reminded himself not to ignore his espresso.

“Why did you chuck him, Sara?” Lynn asked.

Sara tilted back her head and released a thin plume of smoke. Her nails were painted, Resnick noticed, with some kind of varnish that glittered, like the sprinkles on an ice cream sundae. “We went out, right. The Sat’day. Going to the pictures, that’s what I thought, but no, he didn’t fancy that, so we went up the Malt House for a drink. After that, I don’t know where. The Dog and Bear? Anyway, after that we come back down the Square and Shane, he calls a cab, so I think, oh right, his mum must be out, back to his place, usual thing, as if that’s all he’s got on his mind. Blokes, you know. Though in Shane’s case, you had to sometimes wonder why he bothered. Anyway, I get in the cab and he tells me he’s not coming, promised to meet one of his mates. Give the driver a fiver and tells him to take me home. Well, I wasn’t having that. I told him if that was how he felt, maybe he should spend all his time with his precious mates and stop wasting it on me.” She looked at Resnick and gave a little shrug. “That was that.”

“How did he react?” Lynn said. “When you told him that?”

Sara glanced back over towards the counter where she worked. Watching her, Resnick caught himself wondering if she knew just how pretty she was. “He didn’t care,” she said. “I don’t think he ever did.”

The coughing had been joined by a small child’s shrill wailing and Resnick waited for the ensuing shout and slap. Through hidden speakers, a tinkly organ with percussion accompaniment was following “The Skye Boat Song” with “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?”

“Look,” Lynn said, lowering her voice, “I don’t want to pry, but you said, well, you implied, sex with Shane, it wasn’t all it might have been.”

Sara grabbed at her packet of Silk Cut and fidgeted back in her chair. “What d’you want to ask about that for?”

“Sara, I’m sorry, I know it’s personal, but believe me, we’re not asking for no good reason.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette and momentarily closed her eyes. “It was like, you know, he always wanted it, just never … well, not never, but … Everything was always okay when we, when he … Look, I can’t believe I’m sitting here telling you this, it’s like being on that, what d’you call it,
Ricki Lake Show.
But sometimes, well, let’s put it this way, what he was in such a hurry to start, he couldn’t always finish. How’s that for you?” She stubbed out her cigarette and hurried to her feet, glancing back again at the unattended coffee machine. “Now I’ve got to go, I’ll get fired. All right?”

“Yes, of course,” Lynn said, leaning back. “And Sara, thanks.”

Resnick watched her go, the tight swish of her legs inside her pink uniform. Why was it, since Hannah, he had begun again to notice these things?

“Good,” Resnick said. “You made a sight better job of that than I would.”

Lynn gave him a quick smile and drained her cup. They found a phone near the Mansfield Road exit and Resnick called the station; so far, there had been no sign of Shane. But twenty minutes previously, the fibers found inside the leather glove had been successfully identified as coming from Gerry Hovenden. Nothing now to stop them charging him with the murder of William Aston.