John Harvey - Easy Meat

“It’s all right, take your time.”

“I could see the way his neck was twisted off to one side …”

“Yes.”

“… and he’d, you know, messed himself. I mean, I could tell that he was dead, Nicky, dead already. It was too late. There was nothing I could do.”

“You took him down?”

“Not right away. I …”

“But you checked for vital signs?”

Matthews’s eyes were birds trapped in the space of Resnick’s gaze. “I didn’t know what to do. Whether I should touch him or not, I wasn’t sure. Elizabeth, she was … I said, she was on duty with me. I ran for help.”

Resnick struggled to keep his temper, keep the incredulity out of his voice. “You left him hanging? Without establishing that he was dead?”

Matthews scratched hard at the side of his face. “Yes, I mean, no, not for long. Just till …” He looked at Resnick imploringly. “He was already dead. He was.”

“You phoned the emergency services?”

“Yes.”

“You and not your colleague, Elizabeth.”

“I’m not … I’m not… It might have been Elizabeth, I’m not sure.”

Resnick steadied him with a hand on his arm. “All right. We’ll talk some other time. You can make a statement to one of my officers later. Now let’s not keep your Mr. Jardine waiting any longer.”

Hand on the banister, Matthews pulled in air gratefully, gathering himself together before leading the way.

The name had been written in black copperplate on white card-DEREK JARDINE-and slipped into the brass frame attached to the oak-finish door, more letters after it than in the name itself. The sound was hollow when Resnick knocked.

“Inspector.” Jardine raised himself from his chair to shake Resnick’s hand. “Please, take a seat.”

Beneath the curtained window and along one wall, shelves stood thick with books on social work and young offenders, bound copies of professional journals and reports. A write-on, wipe-off calendar bearing staff names and duties was fixed to the other side wall; beside it, without apparent pattern, an array of photographs; the youngsters, Resnick assumed, who had passed through Jardine’s hands. On top of the gray filing cabinet close by the director’s desk, framed by a browning ivy and a spider plant that had known better days, was a photograph of jardine himself in cap and gown, receiving an academic scroll.

Thirty years on, the face was more fleshy, thin lines had appeared, crisscrossing the nose and cheeks, blue like Roquefort cheese. Dark hair, graying at the temples, was receding; small flakes of dandruff decorated the shoulders of his dark-blue suit.

“Of course, this is terrible,” Jardine was saying and Resnick nodded, waiting for the second “terrible” to follow, which it predictably did.

“A young boy.”

“Yes.”

“A tragedy.”

He could be, Resnick thought, rehearsing the vicar’s empty speech. “Last night, this morning, when the incident occurred-you weren’t on the premises?” He hadn’t intended it to sound hostile, but from Jardine’s expression he could see that it had.

“I can’t be here all of the time, Inspector.”

“No, of course. I didn’t mean …”

“I left, in fact, quite late. Nine thirty or ten. My staff contacted me at home this morning when the … when Nicky’s body was discovered.”

“And that was Paul …”

“Paul Matthews, yes.” Jardine’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, chest pressing the edge of the desk. “Inspector, you do appreciate we shall be carrying out a full internal inquiry. I’ve discussed this already with the Director of Social Services. In the meantime, I must ask you not to question any of my staff unless either myself or a solicitor is present.” He settled back into the curve of his chair. “I have no doubt whatsoever, the inquiry will establish that, as far as we are concerned, correct procedures were followed.”

If the correct procedures had been followed, Resnick thought, then maybe a boy wouldn’t be lying out there dead. He said nothing, but jardine read the accusation, unmistakable in Resnick’s eyes.

“Nicky’s mother,” Resnick said, “she has been informed?”

When Resnick left the building less than ten minutes later, it was with a sense of relief. Graham Millington had arrived moments earlier and met Resnick outside, a few crumbs of toast still caught in his mustache. Easy to imagine Madeleine sitting her husband down at the kitchen table: “Graham, you’re not going off at this hour without something inside you. You know how your stomach plays you up when you do.”

“Straightforward enough, then?” Millington said, apprized of the details.

“Who knows, Graham? The lad’s dead, no two ways about that, but how and why …?”

“Topped himself, though, didn’t he? I mean, it was suicide?”

Resnick sighed. “That seems the most likely-at present.”

Millington looked back at him quizzically, eyebrow raised. “You’ve no reason to suppose …”

“No reason, Graham, to suppose a thing. But there’s a social worker in there, Matthews, ready to come apart at the seams. And the director, Jardine, getting the hatches battened down like he was in a time of siege.”

“Or cholera,” Millington said quietly.

“Sorry, Graham?”

“It’s a book the wife was reading …”

“I dare say, Graham. Anyway, stick around, keep Scene of Crime on their toes. Soon as they’re through, you can release the lad’s body to the hospital. Oh, and Graham, so you know, Jardine gave me the benefit of a lecture, no talking to the staff without his say-so.”

“And without a social services solicitor to hold their hand.”

“Most likely.”

“Ah, well,” Millington grinned ruefully, “do what we can, eh?”

“By the book, Graham. If there is anything amiss here, we’ll not want to let it slip away.”

Millington nodded and walked towards the entrance. The morning air was cold and the sky was an almost unbroken gray. Whatever had happened to spring, Resnick thought? At the end of the drive, he looked back towards the tall windows and saw the faces staring down.

It was still early on Sunday morning. Kevin and Debbie Naylor lay beneath the duvet, Kevin on his back, Debbie curled over on her side; softly, from the adjacent bedroom, the sounds of their daughter holding a long and complicated conversation with one or other of her stuffed animals.

“Kevin?”

“Hmm?”

“What you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

But just by reaching out a hand and touching him, Debbie could tell that he was lying.

“Kevin?”

“What?”

Debbie laughed and slid one leg across his, the laugh stifling against his chest.

“Deb.”

“Mmm?”

“She might come in at any minute.”

“Not if we close the door.” She moved her head again and her mouth found his nipple.

“Ow!”

“Sshh.”

“Is it, you know, all right?”

“Of course it’s all right.”

Some months ago Debbie had had a miscarriage; she didn’t want to wait too long before giving their only child a little sister or brother.

“Kevin?”

But Kevin was smiling as he rolled off his back towards her, the whole thing easy between them now, easier than it had ever been. Just for a second she tensed when he touched her but then quickly relaxed. His mouth at her neck, her breast, and then her hand around him, guiding him in.

Deftly, Lynn Kellogg fashioned for her mother the story of her Saturday night date; at seven on the dot, her young man, an accountant with a local firm of solicitors, had picked her up at the housing association flat where she lived. They had gone to see the new Alan Bennett play at the Playhouse. Well, not new actually, an old one revived, but with that actor her mum had always liked in The Likely Lads. No, not him. The other one. Yes, very good. Funny. And then they’d gone for something to eat at Mama Mia. Yes, tagli-atelle. Italian, that’s right. Very tasty. And, yes, of course she’d be seeing him again. No, she didn’t know exactly when.