John Harvey - Easy Meat

Miller worked security in the clubs, pubs; squeezed himself into a cheap dinner-jacket or a shiny fake-satin jump suit with a matte black headset crammed down onto his head like a crown of thorns and he was in business. Smiling face, raised hand-not now, sunshine, looking like that, no way, try the place down the street, patience, let’s have a little patience and an orderly line. Quite often they’d look at Frank-not so tall, more than a little overweight, out of condition, had to be pushing thirty-and think, you fat bastard, you’re not going to tell me what to do, where I can go, no way. Frank loved that. Kids giving him some mouth, showing off for the scrawny tarts they’d have up against some back wall later, a quick shag before a late-night curry and the long walk home. He loved the look on their sweaty faces when they finally gave him a push, threw a punch, and he didn’t give ground. Frank smiling before he started punching back.

Once in a while, he had to admit, things would get a little out of hand; when they did, whoever was in charge-no hard feelings, Frankie, eh? — they’d have to let him go. No sweat. There was always another pub, another door, another Saturday night. And if not … well, there were other things. Mate of a mate needing a bit of muscle, friend of a friend. He had this arrangement with a bloke who lent out money, you know, when the talking bank wasn’t talking no more, council suing for rent arrears and the bailiffs on their way in. Of course the interest was high, what did they think this was? Social fucking security or what? Frank had a way of making sure the debt was paid; or, if not, ensuring folk saw the error of their ways.

Frank Miller? Bit rough, but underneath it all, decent enough. Tell you what, any trouble, he’s the one I’d want alongside. Frankie. Good bloke, really, good bloke.

Frank was in his local pub in Heanor, not hurrying his last pint, when Gerry Hovenden came in wearing leathers, helmet in his hand.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Miller asked. “Look like the rats’ve had your balls for breakfast and now they’re startin’ on the rest.”

“It’s Shane,” Hovenden said, short of breath, near to knocking an empty glass from the table as he sat down.

“What about him?”

“The law, they’ve got him. Picked him up this afternoon.”

“What the fuck for?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, have I?”

“Then calm down. May not be anything at all. You know what coppers are like. Shane, he’s done time, right? They’ll have him in for nothing at all.”

“I know, but …”

Frank Miller’s hand clamped itself round Hovenden’s thigh, squeezing at the muscle behind the knee. “He won’t talk, your mate Shane. And if he does, without dumping himself in the shit, what can he say?”

Hovenden blinked, catching his breath, trying not to notice the pain in his leg, Miller’s thumb weeviling away against the bone.

“Trust him, don’t you?”

“Yeh, yes, yeh, of course.”

Miller released his grip and tapped Hovenden on the arm, a couple of times playfully with his fist. “Nothing to worry about, eh, then?” He lifted his pint. “I’d get you one in, only they called last orders a while back. ‘Sides, drinkin’ and driving. Don’t want you coming off that bike of yours. Loss to the human race, Gerry, you taking a tumble round Cotmanhey and fetching up in the Erewash Canal.”

Resnick hadn’t forgotten Hannah’s message: he thought he’d make himself a sandwich first and then give her a call. Indoors long enough to prize Pepper out of the vegetable steamer in which the cat had contrived to get stuck, he reversed the order and she was engaged. Oh, well. Lollo rosso, cucumber, watercress; goat cheese; a tin of anchovies which he opened, pouring off some of the oil, and then mashed the contents into a thick paste with black pepper and some dried basil; the last few pieces of sun-dried tomato fished from the jar and cut into strips. Johnny Hartman drifting through from the other room, Howard McGhee on trumpet. His friend Ben Riley had sent it out of the blue from New York. Charlie, down here on a visit. Got myself conned into seeing the new Eastwood movie and actually liked it. Well, almost. Anyway, this guy sings all over thes oundtrack and I thought you might like him. Always assuming your technology is up to it. Your friend, Ben. Ben, sounding more acclimatized with every postcard, every year. And now, Resnick’s technology was fine.

He cut bread, covered it with lettuce and the other salad things, spread over that the anchovy rnixture and sun-dried tomato, finishing up with thin circles of cheese.

While he was waiting for the grill to warm, he went back to the phone: still engaged. At the last minute he dribbled thick, green olive oil across both slices of bread and, licking his fingers clean, opened a bottle of Old Speckled Hen out of the fridge.

Johnny Hartman, deep-voiced: “They Didn’t Believe Me.”

This time when he tried the phone it rang and rang and rang.

Why couldn’t he see Shane Snape joining in with a bunch of yobs for whom queer-bashing was a legitimate sport? Trying not to get too much of his supper over the front of his shirt, he broke off a corner of crust, scraped it through the anchovy paste, and offered it to a mewing Bud. One of those coincidences: as the track ended, the telephone rang. Hannah, Resnick thought, reaching round for the receiver; Hannah calling him. Or else it could be Lynn.

It was neither. “Sir?” Carl Vincent’s voice, as recognizable to him already as the regular members of the team. “Sir, I think you’d best come in.”

The man sitting in Resnick’s office was forty-two or — three; his hair was medium brown; quite thick, slightly long at the back and in need of a trim, perhaps, where it was beginning to curl around his ears. He had a neat beard, tight to the jaw line; spectacles without rims. He was wearing what seemed to be a good suit, navy blue, one narrow stripe of a darker blue alongside one of gray. The knot of his tie was precise and unfashionably small.

“This is Mr. Cheshire,” Vincent said, standing between Resnick and the door.

Resnick nodded and when Cheshire offered his hand, Resnick shook it, observing the slight tremor, the patchiness of sweat.

Resnick moved behind his desk and sat down; motioning for Vincent to close the door and do the same.

“Why don’t you tell the inspector,” Vincent said, “just what you told me?” And then, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

Cheshire’s accent was regulation, well-educated, whatever local variation might once have been present was now almost totally submerged. “Ever since I read the story in the newspaper,” Cheshire said, “the man who was attacked in the Recreation Ground, I’ve been considering coming to see you. You see, I couldn’t be certain, positive that it was the correct thing to do.”

“If you’ve got information for us, Mr. Cheshire, anything that might help us with what happened …”

“No. No, you see …” A nervous glance round towards Vincent, who nodded encouragingly. “It isn’t about that, at least not directly.”

“Go on.”

“Several months ago, six, six to be exact, six months and seven days, I was attacked by a man on the Promenade alongside the park, the same park.” Cheshire removed his glasses from his face and rested his head forward at an angle into the palm of his hand. “I was … I was struck to the ground and almost throttled from behind. I was threatened with what would happen to me if I screamed … and then I was forcedly … I was raped, Inspector, that’s what happened. Six months, a little more than six months ago.”

It was quiet in the room, just the breathing of three men above the barely audible electric hum.