Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(88)

Peterson gripped the table hard and sat back down; as soon as he reasonably could, he slid his hands from sight, hoping no one would see how they were beginning to shake.





Forty-seven

One simple question and answer, repeated, with slight variations, again and again.

Naylor: After you’d dropped her off, did you actually see her go inside the house?

Driver: I saw her go up to the door, yeah, there’s these steps, you know, leading up. And like I say, she’d been in a bit of a state. But then, when I saw her on the step, I thought, like, she’s gonna be fine and I drove away. I never actually, what you’d say, saw her go inside, no. No way.

Peterson’s solicitor, Maxwell Clifford of Clifford, Taylor, and Brown, didn’t even bother talking to Resnick direct; his first call was to the chief constable designate, who referred him to Malachy, who took great delight in chewing out his DCI, getting in a passing shot to the effect that she wasn’t having much luck with her other suspect either and maybe she should consider tossing everything up in the air and starting again. His tone made it clear that tea lady was the kind of thing he had in mind.

Alex Peterson stepped back out onto the pavement of the Ropewalk less than three hours after he had been marched in, turning down the polite offer of a ride home in a police vehicle in favor of a brisk stroll along Park Terrace and Newcastle Drive and then home.

“Now then,” Helen Siddons smiled maliciously, cupping a hand in the direction of Resnick’s balls. “Not so golden after all.”

Resnick was pleasant with Hannah when she called, and although he felt himself sounding cold, pleasant was the best he could do. He felt as flat as water trapped in a rusted sink, flat and stale. Jealous husband, violent man, love spurned: it had been so simple. Perhaps it still was.

When he arrived home, there was no Dizzy to greet him, preening himself on the side wall. Inside the house, there was the unmistakable reek of cat piss; someone was telling him something and he’d better listen quick. Coffee he ground fine and made strong, the first thing he did after feeding Pepper and Bud, pausing to give the smaller one a touch of the cosseting he seemed to need. Of Miles and Dizzy, so far, there was nothing to be seen.

In the living room with his coffee, having found only a few sad slices of salami at the back of an almost empty fridge, he pulled down his old album of Monk playing solo piano—fractured, dissonant, ends refusing to be tied. “Monk’s Mood.” It suited him perfectly.

Slumped in the armchair, he almost failed to register the phone when it rang.

It was Lynn, plain and matter of fact. “There’s a woman, says she spoke to you this morning? At the railway station.” Gill Manners, Resnick thought. “Anyway, she says she’s remembered.”

“What exactly?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Okay, where is she now?”

“Still at the station. Till half past eight, she said.”

“Right, I’ll get along.”

“Is this likely to be important?” Lynn asked.

Resnick hesitated. “I don’t know.”

The moment he set the phone back down, hand still on the receiver, it rang again.

“I forgot,” Lynn said, “Mark called. He may have something but he’s not sure. He said he’d be in the Market Arms; till closing I shouldn’t wonder.”

“All right,” Resnick said. “Pick him up, bring him to the station. I’ll meet you there. Soon as you can.”

He went out leaving his coffee unfinished, the record still playing.

Gill Manners’ husband was a bristling, fit-looking man with strong wrists and small, almost delicate hands. Gill looked womanly beside him, motherly, a bright yellow apron sailing across capacious breasts.

“Harry reminded me, Mr. Resnick, when he got back after lunch. Where I saw that woman you was asking about. Jane, is it? Yes, Jane. Anyway, it wasn’t here at the station. No, not at all. The market, that’s where it was. The wholesale market, you know. Well, we’re down there every morning come five, Harry and me.”

Just when Resnick was expecting more, she stopped. “And that’s where you saw her?” he asked.

“Like I said. The morning after you was asking about, the Thursday.”

“And this was close on five?”

“I was just parking up. So, yes, ten minutes either way. She was standing by this car, estate, dark blue, black. Wasn’t no farther off than, oh, here to them doors.”

Twenty yards, Resnick thought, no more than twenty-five. When he looked across, there was Lynn heading their way, Divine hanging back by the entrance. “She was on her own?” Resnick asked.

“No. With this bloke. Bald. Tall. ’Course I don’t know what’d been going on, not exactly, but they’d been having some kind of row, you could tell. Tears an’ all, the pair of them. Got themselves worked up into a right state. Soon as they saw me get out the van, he said something to her and they got back in the car. Looked at me though, she did, before she done so. Dreadful, she looked. Dead miserable. But it was her, the one in the picture, I’d swear.”

“And the man?”

“Forty, forty-five.”

Lynn took a copy of the Polaroid from her bag.

“Yes,” Gill exclaimed. “That’s him. That’s the bloke there.”