Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(74)

“You’ve no idea where he might be now?” Resnick asked.

“Peter?” She shook her head. “I haven’t a clue.”

“And Jane never mentioned him? More recently, I mean.”

“Never, no.”

Careful to avoid cat and child, Resnick got to his feet. “If I could just borrow this, a few days? I’ll make sure it gets back to you in one piece.”

“I suppose so,” Diane said, a little surprised. “Can’t do any harm.”





Forty-one

“Peter Spurgeon,” Resnick said, holding out the blow-up reproduction of the photograph. “I don’t have to tell you it was taken a while ago.”

“Childhood sweethearts,” said Lynn, not quite able to keep the dismissiveness out of her tone.

“College, anyway,” said Khan.

“And we’re assuming they’ve kept in touch?” Lynn asked.

Resnick lowered the photograph onto the desk. “We’re assuming nothing. What we’re doing is checking as thoroughly as we can. Let’s see if we can track him down through vehicle registration; otherwise, it’s voting registers, directories, you know the kind of thing. And let’s check his college while we’re about it; there’s bound to be some kind of organization for former students and he just might belong.”

When the phone went some little while later, Khan identified himself, listened for a moment, then passed the receiver across to Resnick. “For you, sir. Something about a nun.”

Sister Teresa was waiting for Resnick outside the main doors, a dark gray shawl draped over a light gray dress, gray tights, and black laced ankle boots.

“You’re busy,” she said, reading some concern in Resnick’s face.

“No more than usual. Time for a cup of coffee, at least.”

“Ah, I’d best not. There’s two people to call on still, and then another of those meetings Sister Bonaventura’s forever hauling me off to. Christian Interface and the Diocese, something along those lines.”

Still smiling, she drew an envelope from her bag and from that lifted out a postcard. “It arrived yesterday. I thought you might want to see.”

Resnick glanced quickly at a picture of a young woman sitting among a lot of hats, before turning it over to read the reverse:

Your favorite, I think. Almost mine too. Entrance to exit it was a perfect afternoon. Thank you.

I thought you’d like to know, after your lecture, I’ve decided to be active in the cause of righteousness.

Till St. Ives,

Jerzy

“St. Ives?” Resnick said.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Just some foolishness.” She was, Resnick thought, perilously close to blushing.

“The rest of it, then …”

“I did as you asked, tried to show him that in helping you, he could only be helping himself.” She waited until she had Resnick’s eye. “That is right, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” Resnick said. “I think so.”

Teresa reached her hand toward the card. “You’ll not be needing this?” As he relinquished his grip of it, she replaced the card inside the envelope, the envelope safely inside her bag.

“Thanks for making the time,” Resnick said.

She slipped her hand for a moment into his and smiled.

Helen Siddons was shouting instructions down the corridor, a plethora of younger officers stumbling in her wake. Midway down the stairs, she paused to light another cigarette and that was when she spotted Resnick, on his way back into the building. “Charlie, how’s it going?”

As they walked, he filled her in on the progress of his end of the inquiry, letting her know just enough to see they hadn’t been wasting their time.

“Well,” Siddons had stopped outside the main computer room, hand to the door, “not that I want to knock you off your stride, but it looks like we’ve got a live one just crawled out of the woodwork. Went down for attempted rape six months after the Irene Wilson murder; released three weeks before that girl turned up in the Beeston Canal. Oh, and Charlie, we may have got a line on her, too. Dental records. Should have confirmation in a day or two.”

And with a wave of cigarette smoke she disappeared.

Carl Vincent finally got through to the Arts and Antiques Unit at the Yard after a solid fifteen minutes of trying. Tracking down Jackie Ferris took five minutes more.

On the line she sounded brisk and businesslike, prepared to give him exactly as much of her time as importance warranted, but no more.

“My DI,” Vincent said, “in a roundabout sort of way, he’s had a message from Grabianski. Seems as if he’s ready to push ahead. Could be soon.”

“Right. Maybe you should get yourself down here sharpish. Any problem with that?”

“None that I can think of.”

“Fine. Ring me as soon as you arrive.” Jackie Ferris hung up.

Holly had told Grabianski he should buy root ginger and lemons and make ginger tea; it would help to clear away a lot of the toxins that were troubling him. He was almost back from a trip to the fruit and vegetable stall, purchases in a small plastic bag, when he noticed someone sitting on the steps outside his building. It was Faron.

She was wearing a shiny silver dress and there were new gold highlights in her hair. Between the bottom of the dress and the expected clumpy shoes, her legs, thin in spangled tights, seemed to go on forever.