John Harvey: Still Waters

Carl Vincent, aside from the cases of benefit fraud and receiving stolen property that were weighing down his case file, was continuing to check through local antique shops and auction rooms, just in case whoever had taken the Dalzeil paintings had done so without either a ready outlet or any real sense of their worth.

Resnick’s regular early-morning meeting with the superintendent had been postponed; Jack Skelton was in Worcester, along with officers from forty-three other forces, attending a meeting to launch a joint investigation into the murders of some two hundred women, which, over the past ten years, had gone unsolved.

“This floater, Charlie,” Skelton had asked, glancing through the file. “Beeston Canal. Anything to add?”

Not a thing.

Now Resnick wandered out into the CID room, spoke briefly with both Millington and Naylor, glanced over Lynn’s shoulder at the report she was preparing, finally paused by Vincent’s desk and watched as the list of auction houses scrolled up the screen of the VDU.

“Any luck?”

“Nothing so far. More than half don’t seem to know who Dalzeil was. It’s like giving art history lectures by phone.” Vincent grinned. “Open University, strictly first level. But so far, no one’s owning up to being approached. Nothing that fits our bill, at least.”

Resnick nodded. “Okay. Stick with it for now. I’ll follow up a few things of my own.” He had a contact in the Arts and Antiques Squad at New Scotland Yard who might be able to help.

“Sir?” Lynn Kellogg swiveled round from where she was sitting. “I couldn’t have a word?”

“Sure. Ten minutes. Just let me make one call.”

Back in his office, Resnick was midway through dialing the Yard number when Millington burst through from the outer office, scarcely bothering to knock. Anxiety was clear in his eyes.

“Mark Divine, boss. Stupid bugger’s thrown a fit by t’sound of it. Gone off half cock in some nightclub. Glassed someone for starters. And there’s talk he had a knife. Right now he’s banged up in Derby nick.”

“Christ!” For a moment, Resnick closed his eyes. “All right, Graham. I’ll get over there myself. You hold the fort here.”

“Long as you’re sure.”

Resnick barely nodded, hurrying to the door.

“Sir …” Lynn was on her feet, watching her chance for pinning Resnick down about her transfer go storming past.

I was right, Resnick was thinking, hurrying down the stairs and out through the rear exit to the car park: the whole damn squad’s falling apart.

Divine sat slumped forward on the narrow bed, elbows on knees, head in hands. The interior of the cell had been painted a dull shade of industrial gray. The stink of urine seemed to seep through the walls.

“How’s he been?” Resnick asked.

“You mean since he sobered up?” The custody sergeant was singularly tall, taller than Resnick by several inches, and most of those extra inches in his neck. When he spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbed awkwardly above the collar of his uniform shirt.

“That’s what this is then, drunk and disorderly?”

“He should be so lucky.”

“But he was drunk?”

“Either that or popping Es. Regular one-man rave.”

Resnick stood back and the sergeant slotted the key into the lock, the inward movement of the door surprisingly smooth. Divine didn’t look up straight away and when he did the jolt of recognition twisted on his face and he punched the skimpy mattress with his fist.

“Mark …”

Divine blinked and looked away. Bruising hung purple from his mouth and around his eyes; a cut that angled deep across his cheek had been held in place by steristrips.

“He’s been to the hospital?”

“Doctor saw him here.”

“What about an X-ray?”

The custody sergeant shrugged.

“And the injuries, they were sustained where?”

“Over half the city center, looks like. Two or three skirmishes in pubs before the nightclub where things really got nasty.”

“Not here, then?”

“Eh?”

“I said, Sergeant, those injuries to the face, no way they could have been sustained when he was in custody?”

The sergeant held his gaze for fully ten seconds. “Didn’t exactly come quietly. Meek and mild. Might’ve taken a bit of time, getting him subdued.”

“Time?”

“And energy.”

“Force then?”

“Reasonable force, yes.”

Resnick’s turn to stare.

“Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984; section one hundred and …”

“I know the section, Sergeant.”

“I’m sure you do, sir.”

“And I’m sure whatever happened, whatever reasonable force was used in making the arrest, it’s all been logged.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Sergeant, you can leave us now.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

When Resnick sat down on the bed, Divine flinched. All those months and the memory of it clear like burning, raw inside him. Cold sweats when his body turned against him, wrenching him. The shame. Like a knife inside him. Skin on his skin. Cunt and whore. Carl Vincent delicately covering him.

“Mark?”

Divine’s voice so quiet, even that close, Resnick could not be certain he had spoken.

“Can I get you something? Cup of tea? Cigarette?”

When Divine looked back at him, his eyes were bright with tears.

Resnick’s counterpart was bluff, busy, sandy haired. Working in cities less than twenty miles apart, they knew one another by sight and reputation, little more. To Barrie Wiggins, Resnick was a bit of an oddball, soft round the edges, not the sort you’d opt to sink a few pints with after closing, swapping stories. Wiggins, Resnick knew, enjoyed a reputation for being hard as High Peak granite, the sort who still liked to be out with the lads on patrol of a Sat’day night, roll up his sleeves and pitch into a bar-room fight. One of the best-known anecdotes about him, how he got hold of some ex-miner clinging to his right to silence, slammed his head down into a desk drawer and squeezed tight till the man changed his mind. It was an anecdote that Wiggins liked to tell about himself.

“Bloody mess, Charlie. No two ways about it. Your lad, got himself in a right bloody mess.”

“Tell me,” Resnick said.

Wiggins shook a packet of Benson Kingsize in Resnick’s direction, raised an eyebrow at his refusal, lit one for himself and inhaled deeply. “Leaving aside the scraps he was into in half a dozen pubs beforehand, it’s the ruckus at Buckaroos that’s the dog’s fucking bollocks.”

Resnick had driven by the place several times in the past: a sprawling nightclub with a kicking stallion in pink neon over the door and bouncers who wore bootlace ties with their DJs.

“None of this corroborated, of course. Not fully. Not yet. My lads out asking questions now. But the way it seems, your lad was abusive to the bar staff right from the start; he asks this girl to dance and when she says no, drags her out onto the floor anyhow. She manages to pull away and when he comes after her, lobs her drink in his face. Your boy slaps her hard for her trouble.” Wiggins tumbled ash from the end of his cigarette. “When security shows up, he sticks a pint glass in one of’em’s face.”

“Provocation?”

“Like I say, we’re asking questions. No problem there. More witnesses than you can shake a stick at.”

“And the injuries?”

“Seventeen stitches in some other poor bastard’s face. One lad with a cut across his hand, tendons severed, doubtful if they’ll mend. When the first uniforms arrived, that was when he pulled the knife.”

“What knife?”

“Stanley knife. Inside pocket of his suit.”

“And he used it, is that what you’re saying?”