Rough Treatment (18 page)

“Hallo,” he said, lifting the receiver, dropping it. “Hallo, who is this?”

“Sir? Sorry to disturb you, sir. It’s Millington. Something like the Tong wars, sir. I thought maybe you’d want to come in.”

Resnick rubbed at his eyes and groaned. “Ten minutes, Graham,” he said. “Quarter of an hour.”

“What on earth,” he said aloud, addressing three cats, searching for his trousers, “does Millington know about Tong wars?” He stepped into one leg, maneuvered towards the other. “Must have been another evening class his wife took.”

Seventeen

“Kevin,” Resnick called across the room.

“Yes, sir.” Naylor looked up from what he was doing, the shaft of a pencil pushed through the sprocket hole of an audio cassette, carefully winding back the loop of overflowed tape. What was the use of recording interviews if the technology let you down?

“Finished checking those insurance companies?”

“Sir. It’s all typed up, I had it…” He set down cassette and pencil and started to shuffle papers across his overcrowded desk. The phone close behind him burst to life and, instinctively, he turned towards it, stopped, went back to his search.

“Later, Kevin, later. Just tell me—anything worth following up? Any clear connections?”

Naylor shook his head. Abruptly the ringing tone shut off, to begin again when he was in mid-sentence. “Five different companies, four of them national, no more than two homes insured with the same people.”

Disappointment evident momentarily in the set of his mouth, Resnick moved away.

“But, sir …” Naylor was on his feet, one arm extended.

“Can’t somebody answer that?”

Patel and Divine started up from different sides of the office.

“A couple of them did use the same broker … might be something there, sir?”

“Check it out,” said Resnick without enthusiasm.

“Oh, and sir …”

“Go on.”

“When the insurance people did an examination, wanted security brought up to scratch, the broker, he recommended Fossey.”

There wasn’t a lot that morning with a chance of making Resnick smile, but that little tidbit came close. “You’re on your way to see this broker?”

“Right after I’ve sorted this, sir.”

Resnick nodded. “Good.”

“Sir,” Divine had his fingers over the mouthpiece, “something about a peeping Tom.”

“Downstairs. Uniform.”

“They transferred the call up here, sir.”

“Transfer it back down again.”

Divine shrugged, did as he was told.

Before Resnick could retreat into his office, Millington had wearied his way through the main door. Cold coffee was slopping over the sides of the polystyrene cup in his hand. The skin below his eyes resembled washing left too long in the rain.

“Kevin might have turned up something new on friend Fossey,” Resnick told him.

Right then it wasn’t what the sergeant wanted to hear. He wanted a change in the rota that would give him instant forty-eight-hour leave; he welcomed dreams of featherweight duvets and mattresses that both supported yet absorbed body weight; the repatriation of all citizens of Chinese extraction, effective as from two months previous; hot coffee in a real cup.

“Thought you’d be interested,” said Resnick.

“Right now …” began Millington, but thought better of it.

“Enough on your plate,” suggested Resnick and Millington looked at him sharply, suspicious it was a joke in bad taste.

“Half of them boxing clever, the others too thick to be worth a shovel load of horseshit!”

“Graham?”

“My grandad—every time a horse and cart appeared in the street, he used to go rushing out with his dustpan and brush. Marvelous for the garden, so he said.”

“Excuse me, sir.” It was Patel, politely at Resnick’s shoulder. “The duty officer says there’s a Miss Olds in the lobby, wanting to see you.”

“Ms. Olds,” Resnick said, rearranging the first syllable. “Get that right and she might not gobble you up for breakfast.”

Patel flushed, embarrassed. Mark Divine, just within earshot, grinned and looked interested.

“This anything to do with your investigation, d’you think, Graham?”

Millington sighed. “Very likely, sir.”

Resnick signaled towards his office door. “Make sure I’m up to date, then.” To Patel he said, “Apologize to Ms. Olds, see if she wants tea or anything. Stall her for ten minutes. Okay?”

Patel didn’t have a lot of choice.

“Anything you can’t handle …” Divine called after him, and then, to the room in general, “Way that boy blushes, what’s the betting he’s still a bleedin’ virgin!”

It was still short of 8.30. Millington and a team of six officers had been interviewing customers and staff from the Chinese restaurant since the early hours of that morning. Eight people had been taken to casualty by ambulance, three detained, one of those undergoing surgery to stop serious bleeding and sew back into place several fingers that had been severed by an ax. Until an hour ago, Patel had been at the hospital.

So far, the leader of the gang that had been responsible for most of the injuries, to say nothing of hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage, was sticking to his story. Paid him to go in there and make trouble? No one had paid him anything, not so much as a couple of luncheon vouchers. The ax? Happened to have it with him, didn’t he? Back that day from a friend, borrowed it to take down this old plum tree in his garden, sour as old maid’s piss. Wielding a dangerous weapon? What would you do, half the sodding Red Guard coming at you waving meat cleavers? Turn the other fucking cheek?

The lads that had been with him were either too much in his thrall or didn’t know anything anyway. For half of them, it hadn’t been so much different from the end of any Saturday night.

The manager was chain-smoking French cigarettes, butterfly stitches over one eye, left arm resting in a broad-arm sling. He knew nothing about a family feud. Nothing. The last time he had seen Mr. Chao and his son they had been sitting together, a family occasion, very pleasant, smiling; Mr. Chao had taken his son’s arm as they talked.

The witnesses mostly confirmed that it had been the men, rowdy and loud, who had started the trouble. As to what had been said, who had actually threatened whom, they were more vague. Except for one, the kind of witness Millington wished he could get in the dock a sight more often. Big fellow, took a couple of knocks himself, but not the sort to bruise easily. Odd sort of name, Czech, Polish, one of those.

“This bloke, sir, the one I was telling you about …”

“Customer who went wading in?”

“Polish I think.”

“Local?”

Millington didn’t know. “Name’s Grabianski. You don’t know him, I suppose?”

Resnick shook his head.

“Wondered if you’d be interested in having a few words. Expressing thanks, as it were. Not often you get a member of the public chiming in when there’s that sort of shindig going on.”

“Maybe later,” Resnick said. “Keeping Suzanne Olds off your back ought to be a first priority. There’s no suggestion we’re charging Chao for anything? I assume that’s why she’s here this hour of the morning.”

“Wish I could say we were, sir.”

“Bringing him in for questioning?”

Millington looked doubtful. “Without one of these laddies breaks down, points a finger …”

Resnick got to his feet. “All right, Graham. Time to invite Ms. Olds to share the mysteries of the breakfast canteen.”

Millington’s head turned at the door. “If it’s down to a triple-decker egg-and-bacon sandwich, sir, brown sauce, think of me.”

Suzanne Olds had once treasured dreams of a career as an internationally feted ice-skater: ice-dance champion of the world, the tears engendered by the national anthem not yet dry on her cheeks as she signed the forms that would turn her into a professional sensation. She had been at the rink every evening after school. Saturday mornings, Sundays; her parents had paid for her to visit Austria, Colorado; coaching bills had rivaled their mortgage. Sacrifices they had made for her: no second cottage in the south of France, no winter family holidays, all those mornings driving her to practice, collecting her. For what? A fantasy, but whose? Sunday afternoons in front of the television, old black-and-white films in which Sonja Henie shook her Shirley Temple curls, laced up her skates and danced into the arms of Tyrone Power, applause, the final credits, more of a fortune than ever she could dream.

At fifteen, at Streatham, Suzanne Olds went for a triple axle and never made it.

Simple as that.

After three operations on her knee, the consultant had said, enough. Suzanne went on to university, history and economics. By twenty-eight she was driving a company car, had a first-floor flat off Fulham Broadway; she was confident and articulate and looked good in a tailored suit, she did her homework, knew statistics; Suzanne Olds and market research were made for one another.

In the aftermath of her thirtieth birthday, she turned down a serious proposal of marriage and dictated her resignation. The following morning she applied to read law at LSE.

“Why are you bringing me here?”

“All the interview rooms are full.”

“What’s wrong with your office?”

“I thought you’d like some breakfast.”

She looked at Resnick from beneath lowered lashes. “Coffee,” she said. “Black.”

He grinned and shuffled a few paces along the queue. Neither salmonella nor listeria had quenched the police appetite for endless fried eggs, bacon, sausages, brittle toast or fried bread mired in fat.

“Here,” said Resnick. “In the corner, a bit of peace.”

She still knew how to wear a suit and most eyes followed her like magnets.

“Lucky sod!” said one officer too loudly as Resnick went by. The look he received was enough to make his sausage cob stick in his throat.

“I presume this isn’t social?” Resnick said, sitting down.

“I gave up on that front long ago.” She tried the coffee; it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. “Where you are concerned.”

In truth, she’d never really started. Nothing beyond a few polite inquiries as to the inspector’s marital status, a handful of chance meetings, once an invitation to a legal dinner that Resnick had turned down.

“It’s Mr. Chao, then, is it?”

“Naturally, he’s concerned about what happened last night. Also, any implications that might, incorrectly, be drawn.”

Resnick smiled. Suzanne Olds was an elegant woman; when the cards lay that way, an intelligent adversary. He was only a little older than she, only a few inches taller. She leaned back in her chair and balanced her cup across the fingers of one hand. Her hair had been swept back and pinned in place; she was wearing a crisp white blouse with a loose black bow at the throat, a charcoal gray suit with a slight flare to the skirt and black brogue shoes with solid heels.

“Implications,” Resnick teased.

“Let’s not waste time being naïve, Inspector. Your officers have already expended a great deal of energy and man-hours attempting to prove my client’s involvement with that unfortunate fire in his son’s premises.”

“Your client?”

“Mr. Chao has a retainer on my services.”

“To cover any eventuality.”

“Exactly.”

“And the service you’re performing for him on this occasion?”

“To express his regret that such a thing should happen at all, even though, of course, he was in no way culpable. Neither Mr. Chao nor his staff. To promise you that he has instructed those working for him to give the police their fullest cooperation.”

“And the cooperation of Mr. Chao himself?”

“Inspector, my client simply happens to be the owner of the premises where this fracas took place. He was not present at the time and neither he nor his immediate family are in any way involved. Why should Mr. Chao make himself available to the police in this matter?”

Resnick took his time; when he had finished talking to Suzanne Olds there were others waiting who were less stimulating. “If what you say is true, Ms. Olds, why should he call you so early in the morning and prioritize your expensive time?”

“Shall we say,” she replied, leaving her coffee far from finished, brushing an imaginary speck from her suit skirt before standing, “Mr. Chao achieved his considerable position in the business community by being both far-sighted and cautious.”

All right, thought Resnick, okay: for now, let’s leave it at that.

There were three messages waiting on Resnick’s desk: Rees Stanley had phoned to discuss what progress had been made regarding the burglary of his house and would call back at eleven; the superintendent was due at Central Police Station this side of lunch and he wanted to talk to Resnick before leaving; Jeff Harrison had rung through twice and would be ringing back.

Resnick pushed open the door of the main office. “This message from DI Harrison …”

“Came through to me, sir.”

“Any idea what he was after, Lynn?”

“Didn’t say, sir.” Her round face was rounder when she smiled. “A pint of Mansfield?”

Hmm. From what he remembered, Jeff was strictly a spirits man. Doubles, at that. The occasional chaser. Coppers’ tables in the back room of some bar or other.

Stanley, Skelton, Harrison: Resnick decided he would go and talk to—what was his name?—Grabianski. One of the newer members of the Polish community, perhaps.

Eighteen

When the phone rang, Harold Roy was sitting with a tomato juice, trying to concentrate on his camera script. If it wasn’t going to take them half the morning to take out that flat, it was worth putting in a third camera to get the reverse close-ups. At least that would give the vision mixer something else to do, aside from the
Independent
crossword and buffing her nails.

“Yes,” he said into the receiver, responding to Alan Stafford’s voice. “Yes, of course I’m listening.”

So, from beyond the doorway, was Maria, though there was little enough for her to hear. What she could see was her husband wiping away the sweat that formed on his hands, dabbing along his trouser leg. Within less than two minutes, the conversation was over and all Harold had said had been “Yes,” another four times.