Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(46)

Nods and half-spoken promises; each of them had made some attempt at getting close to Mark Divine in the weeks following his attack and each had been rebuffed.

“Right,” Resnick said, “what’s outstanding?”

Millington cleared his throat. “Them post office raids, I’ve got three names now, likely involved. Best information says they’re revving up to try again, Gedling this time out. Must’ve got sick of Beeston.”

“Don’t blame them,” Lynn said acidly. She had spent an uncomfortable six months rooming there before moving into her present flat.

Millington went on, ignoring her. “Liaising through Central. Harry Payne’s got half a dozen from Support Department on standby. Any luck, we’ll take ’em as they leave.”

Resnick nodded and turned his attention to Kevin Naylor, who was fumbling his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, draped across the back of a nearby chair.

“These incidents of arson,” Naylor said, continuing to flick through pages, “one of the blokes involved … Cryer … that’s it, Cryer, John Cryer …”

“Auto theft, isn’t it?” Millington interrupted. “His speciality. The Cryer I’m thinking on? Gone down, oh, twice now.”

“Cryer and this other feller,” Naylor continued, “Benny Bailey …”

“I knew a Ben Bailey,” Vincent chipped in. “Leicester. Credit cards, though, that was his thing.”

Resnick had known a Benny Bailey, too, known of him: a bopper whose first job had been trumpet with Jay McShann. He didn’t suppose that was the same Bailey either.

“Anyway,” Naylor was saying, “seems Cryer and this Bailey had an arrangement, lifting high-end motors, and shipping them across to the continent.”

“Enough to bring them in, Kevin?” Resnick asked.

“Waiting on a fax from the ferry company. Copy of their manifests.”

“Okay, keep me posted. Lynn, what about these warring parties back of Balfour Street?”

“Pretty much calmed down now. Court injunctions helped and getting the eldest youth from the one family shut away on remand’s been no bad thing, either.”

“Good. Have a word with the local uniforms, ask them to keep an eye. Meantime, we’ll be getting an official report today,” Resnick said, “woman gone missing. Jane Peterson. Mid-thirties, teacher at that comprehensive by the Forest. Not been seen since late Saturday afternoon. Husband claims no knowledge of her whereabouts, where she might be. I’ve spoken to him. Relatives, close friends, they’ve all been checked.”

“Boyfriend?” Lynn asked. “Lover?”

“Not as far as we know.”

“What did she take with her?” Vincent asked.

“Pretty much what she was standing up in.”

“Bank account, credit cards?”

“We’re checking that today. There’s a list of colleagues at work needs following up on, another of more casual acquaintances, friends. Lynn, I thought while you’re still here, you might drop by the school. Phone the head first, usual thing.”

“Okay.”

“Carl, just as long as that business in London’s hanging fire, maybe you can pitch in as well?”

“Right.”

“What with that woman we found floating in the Beeston Canal,” Millington said, “and this recent job out Worksop way, you’re not reckoning that’s what we’ve got here?”

“Let’s hope not, Graham.”

“’Cause if it is, it’ll be out of our hands. Just the kind of thing Serious Crimes’ll want to cut their teeth on.”

Everyone looked across at Lynn, who was busy searching inside her desk for a new notebook, any old biro.





Twenty-six

Since Resnick had last been in the building, Mollie Hansen had moved office. No longer squeezed into a shoebox room where her desk was overlooked by a near life-size poster of k.d. lang, Mollie now shared the top floor of the narrow building with her assistant, a large photocopier, and a fax, the assistant at that moment being occupied elsewhere.

“Hello,” she said brightly, as Resnick’s head and shoulders appeared above the top of the stairs, “what are you doing here?”

For answer, Resnick held up two polystyrene cups of cappuccino and a paper bag containing a brace of toasted teacakes.

“Ooh, bribery and corruption,” Mollie grinned, “I thought that usually worked the other way round.”

Setting the cups on the desk and depositing the bag, dark where the butter had leaked, onto an old copy of Screen International, Resnick swung across a chair and sat down.

“It’s too much to hope this is purely a social call,” Mollie said. She was wearing a short slate blue dress and bright blue plimsolls with stars on their heels.

“Not exactly.”

“How about not at all?”

He smiled and levered open his coffee, only spilling a very little onto the top of Mollie’s desk.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “it’ll just merge in with the rest.” Her teacake was excellent, slightly spicy, and generous enough with butter for it to run down the outer edge of her hand, causing her to dip her head and lick it away. All that was left to consider now was the etiquette of using her tongue on the chocolate nestling inside the lid.