John Harvey - Easy Meat

Curtains drawn, only a table lamp at the far side of the room burned its subdued light. Through the speakers, the sound of Steve Jordan’s guitar chording evenly above the rhythmic swish of Jo Jones’s brushes, while in the easy chair, the smallest of the cats nestling his head beneath his chin, Resnick slept, his breathing a soft counterpoint to the sounds of Sir Charles Thompson, gentling his piano through the tune of “Russian Lullaby.”

While Resnick had slept a house across the city had been torched and now stood gutted, the third instance of serious arson on the Bestwood Estate that month. The incident had taken place at two in the morning, four kids under the age of fourteen asleep upstairs, the youngest of them only escaping serious burns when his mother dropped him from the bedroom window into the arms of neighbors below. Certain in their own minds who had caused the fire, other members of the family had been intercepted on their way across the estate by hastily summoned police. A sawn-off shotgun and a pistol had been found beneath the rear seat of the car they had been driving.

As an excited local radio reporter informed Resnick that morning, an emergency meeting had been called at which the city housing chief and other officials would discuss with police additional ways of constraining an estate which was seemingly in the grip of mob rule. Resnick sighed as he buttered toast. He knew that extra officers had already been drafted in and that during the past few weeks alone there had been around fifty arrests; he also knew that most of those arrested would by now have been released on bail.

Interviewed by the reporter, the city council leader said they were preparing to take legal action against the eight families who were at the heart of the trouble: “We have no qualms about evicting,” he said. “The trouble is that we need witnesses-and witnesses can be intimidated.”

Resnick remembered his team going round Radford, door to door, trying to uncover information about the incident in which Nicky Snape had been petrol-bombed. After days of intensive questioning, it had proved impossible to persuade anyone who knew anything to make a statement. If Nicky could be put into hospital, so could they.

The result was a stubborn silence: distrust of the police; fear of reprisals.

Resnick opted for raspberry jam. While the other cats weren’t looking, he forked the last of the Whiskas into Bud’s bowl before throwing the can away. There was a note from Marian Witczak with the mail, reminding him in her ornate, slightly gothic hand, of the Polish Club dance that evening. Before his second cup of coffee, Resnick phoned the station and got a jubilant-sounding Kevin Naylor, the third of whose nights on observation with Reg Cossall had resulted in five arrests for drugs offenses, and three additional charges of passing counterfeit money and attempting to defraud the post office. Resnick could imagine Cossall’s obscene expressions of delight.

Well done,” he said to Naylor. “Good work. Now get off home and get some sleep. I’ll not want you propping your eyes open when you’re back on duty.”

Resnick had only that second put the phone down when it rang again. Instantly he recognized Millington’s somewhat nasal, bemused tone. In the background he could hear somebody practicing scales; after her triumph in the title role of The Merry Widow , Madeleine was preparing herself for the amateur operatic season once again.

“Morning, Graham. What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering,” Millington said. “You’ve not heard anything about upping staffing levels? Ours, I mean.”

Resnick hadn’t heard a thing.

“Just I caught a whisper things were lightening up; few new bodies transferring in. Thought Jack Skelton might’ve mentioned something. Only, if it’s a case of staking a claim, well, that team of ours has been overstretched for more time’n I care to remember.”

What his sergeant was preferring not to recall was the murder of Dipak Patel, several years before, stabbed in the street when he intervened in a street brawl, his attacker never identified, never apprehended.

“This whisper, Graham, you wouldn’t like to be more specific as to the source, I suppose?”

“Rather not, boss.”

Just so, thought Resnick, nobody likes to get caught talking out of turn. “Okay, Graham, thanks for the tip. I’ll give Skelton a ring now, see if there’s anything can be done.”

“Right,” said Millington, and then, barely disguising the smirk, “Off to the match this afternoon, I dare say? Another bit of history in the making.”

Resnick lowered the receiver onto Millington’s laugh. After a season in which the club had hired and fired almost as many managers as their strikers had managed goals, today’s game was County’s last mathematical chance of avoiding relegation. Resnick didn’t like to think about it.

He dialed the superintendent’s number and was greeted by Alice Skelton’s shrewish voice, each syllable like lemon rind squeezed through a grater. “Jack at home on Saturday morning, Charlie? Be reasonable. Why remain in the bosom of his family when there are stupid little golf balls to be hit about? Or in Jack’s case, more like skewed into a bunker.”

“Thank you, Alice,” Resnick said pleasantly, “perhaps you’ll tell him I called.”

He poured his second cup of coffee and drank it black, while reading the Review section of the previous day’s Guardian; not a natural choice of newspaper for Resnick-hardly the police officer’s friend-but recently they’d started a jazz CD review that was half-way decent. Dizzy Gillespie leading a big band that included Clark Terry, now that did sound interesting.

After telling himself he wasn’t going to go near the County ground, Resnick turned up with five minutes to spare and found a seat on the same side he had stood in previous seasons, Saturday after alternate Saturday, surrounded by the same loose group of moaners and celebrants with whom he had shared the dubious delights of being a Notts supporter. But now government edicts had been followed and the old place was transformed into a smart all-seater stadium, the price of admission had just about doubled, most of Resnick’s friends had drifted away, and after finding all that money for improvements, the club had failed to find a similar amount to improve the team.

On this particular Saturday there seemed to be at least two players in home team shirts-minimum wage recruits from a youth training scheme, most likely-that Resnick was at odds to recognize and, from the way they began playing, the rest of the side were none the wiser.

Trying to defend their goal, two County defenders collided with each other, jumping for the same ball. For Resnick it was the last straw. Fifteen minutes before the end, head bowed, he turned and headed for the exit, shoulder to shoulder with all those other supporters who had opted to do the same.

After that he knew a night in his own company was not a good idea: he considered phoning Hannah on the off-chance she wasn’t already going out, and if that were so she might consider going out with him. But by the time he had reached the main road, he had dismissed the idea from his head. Against all of his previous inclinations, he would go to the Polish Club instead.

He had bought the light-gray suit six years ago or more and in so far as he had a favorite, this was it; there was only one small stain that he could find, a dark patch near the lapel which mostly came away when he scraped at it with a fingernail. He ironed a pale-blue shirt and knotted his dark-blue tie with more than usual care. The bar in the Polish Club divided the large room into two unequal halves, and in the larger of these, the one with a small stage for the band, he found Marian seated at the bar.