Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(13)

“Not down to me, you know that.”

“You could help.”

Wiggins stubbed out his cigarette and stopped himself halfway through tapping out another. “Filthy bloody habit.” Thinking better of it, he lit up anyway. “All right, Charlie. No promises, but …” He got to his feet, held out his hand. “You have another word with him before you go. Make sure he’s going to play it right. Penitent and contrite. You’ve already fixed a decent brief for him, I dare say.”

After arriving at Derby police station, Resnick had put in a call to Suzanne Olds. The solicitor was waiting for him in the corridor near the custody area and the police cells. Leather briefcase, tailored suit, legs long enough to turn heads.

“You’ve spoken to him?” Resnick asked.

“It’s not easy getting him to say much at all. Except he doesn’t care what happens to him, that’s clear.”

“About this?”

“Anything.”

“You’ll change his mind.”

“I’ll try.”

Resnick shook her hand. “I owe you for this.”

“I’ll make sure you pay.”





Seven

Lynn Kellogg was waiting for him in the corridor. Since passing her sergeant’s board, she had taken to wearing more severe colors, this morning an austere mid-calf skirt and matching jacket, flat black shoes, and a blouse like sour milk. She had let her hair grow out a little, but it was still short. A little makeup around the eyes, a touch on the lips.

“My transfer, sir …”

“I thought you might have been waiting for news about Mark. Or maybe you didn’t know.”

“Yes, Graham said.”

“And you didn’t care.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No? Probably not.” He started walking and Lynn followed, hurrying into step beside him.

“I know there wasn’t any love lost between us, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about what’s happened.”

Just not high on your list of priorities, Resnick thought. He was surprised to be accusing her of anything less than compassion.

“He is all right?” Lynn said.

“No. No, he’s not.”

They were almost at the stairs, a dogleg that would take them into a second corridor, the entrance to the CID room immediately ahead.

“It is three weeks now,” Lynn said, “since my transfer was supposed to have gone through.”

“These things take time.”

“I know, only …”

“You can’t wait to be away.”

She found a thread, loose on the sleeve of her jacket, and snapped it free. A uniformed officer came along the lower corridor, taking his time of it, and they stood back to let him pass.

“Now I’ve made up my mind, I think it will be easier, that’s all.” She was not looking at him as she spoke, looking everywhere but at his face. “For both of us perhaps.”

The daughter he had never had, the lover she would never be. It hung between them, largely unspoken, unresolved, so tangible that if either of them had reached out they could have touched it, grasped it with both hands.

“The Family Support Unit,” Resnick said. “I’ll give them a call. See what’s holding things up.”

“Thanks.” Lynn standing there, arms folded tight across her chest.

There was a message from his friend Norman Mann of the Drugs Squad to contact him whenever he got his head above water, nothing urgent; another from Reg Cossall—a drink some time, Charlie, bend your ear. Set this bastard job to rights. Someone, Naylor’s handwriting it looked like, had fielded a call from Sister Teresa, the time and a number and a promise to call again. Two routine faxes requesting information about young people gone missing: a fifteen-year-old girl from Rotterdam, last seen on the Dover ferry, a thirteen-year-old boy from Aberdeen.

The phone rang and, picking up, he identified himself. Miriam Johnson’s clear but genteel voice was easy to recognize.

“It was your associate, Inspector, that I was hoping to speak with. I remembered something, you see, regarding the paintings.”

“DC Vincent’s not here at the moment,” Resnick said. “Will I do?”

He could nip across to Canning Circus, pick up a double espresso, and take his time strolling down through the Park, breathe some air, stretch his legs.

She had rich tea biscuits waiting for him, symmetrically arranged on a floral plate, Earl Grey tea freshly brewed. “Milk or lemon, Inspector?”

“As it comes will be fine.”

They were sitting in the conservatory at the back of the house, looking out over a hundred feet of tiered garden, mostly lawn. Near the bottom was a large magnolia tree, which had long lost its blossom. Inside the conservatory, shades of geranium pressed up against the glass, herbs, inch-high cuttings in small brown pots.

“I can’t be certain this is relevant, of course, but I thought, well, if it were and I neglected to bring it to your attention …”

Resnick looked at her encouragingly and decided to dunk his biscuit after all.

“It would be some time ago now, more than a year. Yes. I was trying to get it clear in my mind before. You’re busy, of course, all of you, and the last thing I wanted to do was waste your time, but the nearest I could pin it down would be the early summer of last year.” Her gaze shifted off along the garden. “The magnolia was still in flower. He made specific mention of it, which is why I can remember.”