Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(29)
“What about the other business?” Resnick asked. “This deal with the Yard.”
Skelton patted his pockets for his cigarettes, remembering yet again that he’d given up. “Passed it by the powers that be. Fretting about possible expenses, overtime, you know the kind of thing, but basically, yes, just so long as you don’t think they’ll give us the run-around, take all the credit, you can move ahead.”
Resnick nodded. “I thought I’d get Carl Vincent on board. He’s been following up the original theft. Even knows something about art.”
“Tend to, don’t they, Charlie. His sort. That way inclined, if you catch my drift.”
“Jackie Ferris,” Resnick said. “I’ll put her in the picture. Give her a call.”
He finally got through to her at four thirty in the afternoon, Jackie busy following up several leads that had come her way earlier in the day.
“Good,” she said briskly, when Resnick told her they could go ahead. “That’s grand.” And then, “Your pal Grabianski, my best information, he’s been cozying up to a character named Eddie Snow. Could be using him to get shot of the Dalzeils.”
“And Snow, you think he could be implicated in this forgery business?”
“It’s a strong possibility, yes.”
Resnick told her a little about Carl Vincent, his reasons for wanting to get the DC involved.
“Fine. Why don’t I come up to you this time? We can go over the ground.”
“You’re sure?”
“Why not? You can show me round the castle. Introduce me to Robin Hood.”
Sixteen
Carl Vincent was seventeen days shy of his twenty-ninth birthday; old enough still to be a DC, almost too old if you considered that he was bright, quick, good at what he did. Of course, it didn’t help that Vincent was black. In Leicester, a city with a famously large Asian population where he had served for most of his career, it had been less than convenient that he was quite the wrong shade of black, the kind whose origins trace back to the Caribbean, rather than Bangladesh or Pakistan.
Strangely, one thing that didn’t seem to have stood in the way of Carl Vincent’s promotion was the fact that he was gay. It had not been a factor simply, because, until he had transferred the thirty or so miles further north, nobody inside the Job had known. From his first posting, Vincent had established a routine which kept his private life precisely that. On those rare occasions when he visited a gay club, he was careful to ensure there were no other officers present; the one time he was spotted and later challenged, Vincent passed off his visit as work, an undercover checkup on an informer, and his explanation was accepted. He had never had a relationship with another officer; he abjured cottaging; he was not a member of the Lesbian and Gay Police Association. There was nothing in the way he walked, stood, or spoke that was in any way effeminate or camp.
But almost immediately after he had joined Resnick’s team, something occurred, a murder case they were working on, which necessitated him declaring his sexual preferences and then, more or less at Resnick’s suggestion, coming out to the whole squad.
There was a nasty irony, he thought, behind the fact that the only officer who seemed to have problems accepting his gayness was Mark Divine. An irony compounded when it was Vincent who arrived first on the scene of Divine’s attack and fought off his assailant; Vincent who covered Divine gently with a soiled sheet and held him, albeit briefly, in the cradle of his arms.
For this day’s meeting, Vincent had chosen a loose, lightweight wool suit the color of pale sand and a dark blue shirt shading toward black. He wore no tie. Fashion-conscious, Skelton would have observed: trendy. That way inclined, his sort, if you catch my drift.
Jackie Ferris had opted to travel by train and divided her journey between reading printouts from the Electronic Telegraph about a hundred and sixty-one paintings that had gone missing from the Ministry of Defence collection and the new Stella Duffy. Of the two, the Duffy had quite the best sex.
She had been to see her read once, Stella Duffy, a bookshop somewhere in Covent Garden. All red hair and floating white cotton. When one of the audience had asked her if she was worried about reactions to the lubricious love scenes, her response had been to tell the story of her mother in New Zealand, who after reading Calendar Girl, had informed her that she was going to come back to earth as a lesbian because clearly they had more fun.
Well, Jackie thought, discarding her cup of complimentary InterCity tea, it was a point of view not to be sneezed at.
Resnick had dispatched Carl Vincent to meet her at the station; he picked her out right away, a brisk figure in a brown and white button-through dress and broad-lapeled linen jacket, soft leather briefcase tucked under one arm.
“DI Ferris? DC Vincent. Carl. Local CID.” He held out a hand and grinned. “Welcome to the city.”
“Thanks. Jackie Ferris, detective inspector. Arts and Antiques Focus Unit, attached to the Yard’s Specialist Operations Organised Crime Group. Not that I’m trying to pull rank.”
“Absolutely not.”
“And I usually get roses.” She was smiling broadly.
“I’ll bet. But for now it’s a lift to the Castle Museum. The boss thought it’d be easier to talk there than in his office.”
“Fine,” Jackie said, Vincent steering her toward his car. “Give me a chance to look at their Bomberg.”