John Harvey: Still Waters

Naylor fancied something from the barrow close alongside and treated himself to a couple of bananas, one for now, one for later. It gave the drivers a laugh anyway, everything from, “Okay, punk, make my day,” to the inevitable, “Is that a banana in your pocket, officer, or are you just here to arrest me?”

He dropped his peel in the nearest ornately decorated, black-painted bin and, photograph in hand, continued working down the line. Second was a young Asian who scarcely seemed old enough to be in charge of a cab without a minder. Naylor had even half a mind to check his license, but the thought went away the moment the driver tapped his finger twice against Jane Peterson’s face and said, in a strong local accent, “Yes, I had her in my cab not so long back. Remember her, right. Picked her up, yeah, at the station, and took her to an address in the Park. Those newish places up near Derby Road. Flats, are they? Houses? I don’t know. But you know where I mean, right?”

“You’re sure it was her?” Naylor asked.

“Yeah, she was-I don’t know-she was all worked up about something, right? Dead nervous. Dropped her money all over the inside of the cab when she was fixing to pay me. I jumped round and helped her, like, pick it up.” He looked at Naylor, open faced.

Feeling the adrenaline starting to kick in, but keeping it all nice and simple, nonetheless, Naylor noted the driver’s name and address, then asked him, not putting too much into it, the other things he needed to know. Yes. The date and time checked and so did the address.

“Here,” the driver said, “this is important, yeah? All this stuff you’re asking. I bet there’s got to be some reward, right? Or else maybe I’ll get to be in one of them programs on tele, yeah? True crime.”

But Naylor was no longer listening.

Just Resnick, Lynn, and Naylor in the office on the Ropewalk: close to old times.

“You think he’s got his details right, Kevin?” Resnick said.

“Didn’t seem to be in any doubt, sir.”

“Which means,” said Lynn, “she caught the later train, the six fifty-two. And according to the guard Steve spoke to, it was in on time. Two or three minutes at most to get to the cab rank; allowing for traffic, what, another ten minutes to the Park? Fifteen tops. She’d have been home by quarter past seven.”

“Quick bath, change, mash tea, and settle down to EastEnders ,” Naylor grinned.

“Likely, Kevin,” Resnick said, “she had more pressing things on her mind.”

The receptionist in Alex Peterson’s surgery was half out of her seat in protest when she recognized Resnick and held her tongue. Lynn was standing close behind him, Naylor at the door.

“This patient,” Resnick said, “how much longer will he be?” Flustered, she looked from her desk to the clock behind Resnick’s head, then back to her desk again. The telephone sounded and she let it ring. “I don’t know, it should have been over, let me see, at quarter past. But his next appointment’s waiting and there’s somebody else Mr. Peterson’s promised to try and fit in. I’m sorry but I really don’t think he’ll have time to talk to you till the very end of the afternoon.”

Resnick leaned toward her, close across the desk. “Explain to these people there’s an emergency. Apologize. Don’t make a fuss.”

“Well, I don’t know, I don’t really see how I can.”

“Do it. And don’t bother telling Mr. Peterson, we’ll do that for ourselves.”

“Oh, but you can’t …”

The Muslim nurse was holding out a metal cup at the end of a tube for the patient to spit into; Peterson was making notes in small, precise writing on the man’s chart. When Resnick appeared in the doorway, the dentist hesitated a little before finishing what he had begun.

Since his wife’s death, he had used his work more than ever as a way of exerting control; not only over those around him, those he came into regular contact with, but over himself, his emotions. He had accepted condolences from colleagues politely and they had not sought to intrude; the letters from Jane’s family he had acknowledged with a cold, formal hand. Mourning was something to be held at bay for as long as possible, allowed only privately and then in small doses, like a glass of strong Scotch sampled alone and late, just himself and the moon. Grief frightened him: it threatened to undo him.

“If you’ll give this in at reception, Mr. Perry,” Peterson said. “Make another appointment for, oh, two weeks’ time. We’ll see how that’s settling down.”

Lynn stepped aside in the doorway to allow him past.

“Govinda,” Peterson said, “let us have a minute, will you?”

With a slight uncertainty, the nurse left the room. There was a smell of mint and analgesic; a distinct but faint background hum.

“Inspector …” Peterson began, offering his hand. When Resnick made no move to accept it, he took a step back, one hand resting on the head of the chair. “Somehow I don’t get the impression you’ve come simply to give me news.”

“There has been a development,” Resnick said.

“You’ve made an arrest?”

“Not yet,” Resnick said. The pause before he spoke alerted Peterson to his meaning.

“We’d like you to come with us and answer some questions,” Resnick said.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Methodically, Peterson fastened the cap on his pen and clipped it inside the breast pocket of his jacket. “Is that merely a request or am I the one about to find myself under arrest?”

“Whichever you want,” Resnick said flatly. “Whichever it needs.”

Peterson stared at him, then slowly shook his head; taking off his jacket, he slipped on a navy blazer in its place. Outside on the pavement, just before getting into the back of the waiting car, Peterson turned to Resnick and said quietly, “What is it, sheer spite? Or have you simply run out of other ideas?”

They sat him in the same room as before and made him wait. In search of Helen Siddons, Resnick found her in the squad office, tearing a strip off a group of officers whose background checking she’d found to be less than diligent. The details of Aloysius James’s story were beginning to look particularly frayed, and, emboldened by his solicitor, James was proving a less tractable suspect than they had imagined.

Resnick waited till the air had cleared a little, then filled her in quickly on the day’s discoveries. “You’ve got him in now?” Siddons asked, frowning.

Resnick nodded.

“Fancy him for it, don’t you? Have all along. Topping his wife. That anger getting out of control.”

“It’s possible.”

“If you’re right …” She shook her head. “Christ, Charlie, they don’t call you Golden Bollocks for nothing.”

Almost before Resnick had closed the door, Alex Peterson was out of his seat. If leaving him there dangling had been intended to make him nervous, break down his resistance, it hadn’t worked; what it had done was steady his mind, steady his nerve.

“I thought this was urgent; I thought this was something that couldn’t wait. You drag me down here in the middle of the afternoon, prevent me from treating my patients, and for what? So I can sit here for half an hour with a cup of stewed tea and, presumably, somebody outside the door to make sure I don’t run off.”

“You’re at liberty,” Resnick said, “to leave whenever you wish.” Pulling out a chair, he sat down, Lynn to his left. “You’ve been kind enough to agree to answer our questions, assist with our inquiries. You are not under arrest.”

From the look in Peterson’s eyes, it was clear he was deliberating what to do: make to go and see what happened, force the issue and become embroiled in a farrago of blundering officialese, solicitors, even handcuffs for all he knew; or stay and see it through, debate, defend. As much as anything, it was the latter which appealed. He sat back down and even smiled. “How can I help?” he said.