Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(34)
“Problems, then?”
Findley moved the mouthpiece closer and lowered his voice. “Organization, management, public relations, he’s a f*cking marvel. But ask him to find his left armpit of a Sat’day night, I doubt he’d manage it with a flashlight and an OS map, large scale.”
“This girl in the canal,” Resnick said, “how much do you know?”
“Not a lot. Not soddin’ enough. Somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two or twenty-three. Been in the water nigh on four hours when she were spotted.”
“What’s that make it?” Resnick broke across him. “Two thirty? Two?”
“Thereabouts.”
“And this blow to the head …”
“Would it have finished her if her lungs hadn’t filled with water? Up to yet, no word.”
“But your best guess?”
A hesitation, Findley clearing his throat, and then: “What’s your interest, Charlie? Special, that is.”
Succinctly, Resnick told him about the body that had been found the night of the Milt Jackson concert, though he kept the musical references to himself. As he remembered, Brian Findley’s tastes revolved round “Apache” by the Shadows, “Diamonds” by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. Footwork, Charlie, that’s what amazes me, the co-ordination. That Hank Marvin, all them intricate dance steps in his winkle-pickers and he’s playing the tune on his guitar the whole time.
“Similarities, then, that’s what you’re thinking,” Findley said.
“Maybe.”
“Computer’s like as not spewing them out downstairs about now.”
“How about sexual assault?” Resnick asked. “Any sign?”
“Still swabbing the orifices, Charlie. No official word.”
“But unofficially?”
“Got to be quids on, don’t you think?”
What, Resnick thought, had Hannah been saying? Always there in the background, women being violated. “You’ve got no farther with the identification?” he inquired.
“Reports of a young woman in town this last couple of days, asking for work. Casual, you know the kind of thing—pubs, burger bars. She was in the place on the canal yesterday evening, warehouse they’ve tarted up into some kind of disco, looking for a job there. Manager says he had nothing, had to turn her down. Sorry, though. Quite fancied her. Australian, apparently. One of these round-the-world tours they go in for all the time.”
“How in God’s name did she end up in Worksop?” Resnick asked.
“Go anywhere, don’t they? Where the spirit moves them. Walkabout, isn’t that what they call it?”
“Aborigines, I thought.”
“Not this one. Whiter than the wife’s mother’s toilet bowl.”
“You might keep me posted,” Resnick said. “Anything develops as might tie in this end.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks. And the notes from down here, you want me to send them through?”
“Likely no need. If the computer’s not picked up on it already, I can access them from here.”
“Okay, Brian,” Resnick said. “Keep in touch.”
“You too.”
A woman, Resnick thought, favorite to run Serious Crimes, which woman was that? He had bought his lunchtime sandwich and espresso at the deli near the station and carried them over into the cemetery, where he was now sitting, sharing his alfresco meal with several dog-eared angels and the spirit of Amy Maude Swinton, whose tenure on this earth had been less than twenty-one years.
A woman.
Since deciding not to apply for the DCI’s post himself, Resnick had tried to seal himself off from the crosscurrents of speculation, informed and otherwise, which radiated between Central station and its various satellites. But of the hundred and nine serious applications, fifteen had come from women, somehow he had heard that. He had no idea how many, if any, had progressed onto the final shortlist, nor who they were.
He was just about to congratulate himself on getting through both halves of a ham and mozzarella with mustard and mayonnaise on rye without mishap, when he noticed an unsightly splurge on his right thigh.
Nineteen
“Listen,” Resnick had said, Hannah beginning to make yawning noises behind her book and shift position at the other end of the settee, “you won’t take this the wrong way …”
“But you don’t want to stay.”
Resnick shrugged and smiled.
“Well,” Hannah said, setting the book on the floor and getting to her feet, “the cats will be pleased.”
“You don’t mind?”
Hannah shook her head. “Of course not.” She nudged the book with her foot. “I can go to bed with this.”
“Another cheery tale?”
“A fifty-year-old man in prison for attacking little girls and a young woman who likes sex with eleven-year-old boys.” She saw the frown darken his face. “It’s life, Charlie, you know that better than most.”
“All the more reason I’d not want to read about it.” He was looking down at the book on the floor. The End of Alice by A. M. Homes. On the cover an old monochrome picture of little girls in ballet clothes had been artfully dismembered so that their bodies skipped and cavorted above the title, and their faces, shiny and alive, appeared below the author’s name.