John Harvey - Easy Meat

“What you can do,” Miller said politely, politely for Miller, “fuck right off. And poke me in the arm again and I’ll break every finger in your fuckin’ hand. Understood? I know my rights better’n you.” It was understood.

A knock on the door fetched Resnick out of the room and the expression on Naylor’s face told him the news faster than words.

“Fuck!” Resnick said, not a word he often used, or lightly. It seemed certain that the surplus blood found on Aston’s body had come neither from Hovenden nor Miller.

He was on his way back into the interview room when Khan appeared at the end of the corridor, smiling: not all news was bad. After listening he sent Kevin Naylor in to sit with Millington-he wanted to confront Jardine himself.

The suit was different, double-breasted with wide lapels, dark with a narrow pinstripe running through, but the amount of dandruff that had fallen from Jardine’s graying hair was the same. The veins etched into his nose stood out more prominently, the corners of his eyes were watery, clouded yellow.

He began by offering Resnick his hand and when it was refused, sat back behind his desk and folded his arms across his chest.

“DC Khan and myself have just come from the police station,” Resnick said, each word spoken with especial care, “where one of your staff, Paul Matthews, has made a statement about the events leading up to the death of Nicky Snape on these premises.”

Jardine flinched and covered his mouth with the opened fingers of one hand.

Resnick nodded towards Khan, who took an envelope containing several sheets of paper from his inside pocket. “I would like you to read that statement now.”

Jardine hesitated before reaching out and taking the statement from Khan’s hand; he still avoided looking either officer in the eye.

“Read it,” Resnick said, “all of it, carefully, before making any response.”

Jardine’s eyes stalled at the end of the first paragraph and then started again. At the end of the second paragraph he glanced sideways towards the wall, the photographs where his career was smeared. By the time he had reached the end and had pushed the sheets away across his desk there were tears in his eyes but not enough.

“What Matthews says is basically correct?”

Jardine nodded: yes.

“He told you those youths had been in Nicky Snape’s room the evening he died?”

“Yes.”

“That in his opinion they had been bullying him, at the very least?”

“Yes.”

“And that in his belief that bullying had been of a sexual nature?”

“There is no proof …”

“But that was what he said?”

“Yes.”

“The staff member in charge?”

“Yes.”

“And you did nothing.”

Jardine glanced from Khan to Resnick and shook his head.

“You told Matthews to do nothing, say nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling me why that was?”

After a pause, Jardine said: “It would only disturb the smooth running of the home. I didn’t see what good would be served.”

“And why was that?”

Jardine looked at him directly for the first time. “Nicky Snape was already dead.”

On his feet, Resnick retrieved the statement from the desk. “Copies of this statement have been sent to the Director of Social Services, to Phyllis Parmenter, the member of the Social Services Inspectorate who chaired the original inquiry, and to the Crown Prosecution Service. Detective Constable Khan will question the youths named in the report as soon as you have arranged for a parent or legal representative to be present. Is that understood?”

Jardine nodded, head once more bowed, and Resnick, after a quick glance towards Khan, left the pair of them in the room. Now that it was done, he couldn’t wait to shed himself of the sad, corrupt smell of that room, that man, that institution.

One night on the thin mattress of the police cell had been enough to bring Frank Miller to his senses. Talking his way out of the blood on his boots, the voices on the tape, he knew would be difficult-and why? To save the hides of a pair of queers-he was sure they were, no matter how much they denied it-who just weren’t worth saving. Commit perjury for the likes of them! Bugger that for a game of soldiers!

So Miller began banging on the inside of his cell door a little after seven and by nine he was sitting back in the inquiry room with Millington and Naylor and a tape machine. The story he told was this: his brother-in-law, Ian Orston, had had words with some of the Irish who used this pub on London Road and had asked Frank and a few other mates to come and help sort them out. Teach them to pay some respect. Frank had tipped the wink to Gerry Hovenden, who, in turn, had enlisted Shane. But Shane had never showed, not then. And it was Ian who had brought along the baseball bat, a Christmas present to his kids.

They’d done the business in the pub.

Frank couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to walk on down to the river, maybe look in at the Trent Bridge Inn, but that’s what they’d done. After closing, they had all headed back across the bridge, pretty pissed by now and noisy, pushing one another around for the fun of it, because there wasn’t anyone else to push. Ian and himself had wandered off in front, aiming for lan’s place in the Meadows and going to take the path across the playing fields, back of the Memorial Gardens. It was somewhere around then, on the other side of the Trent, that the others must’ve met up with Shane, who was already in an argument with this bloke. The one who turned out to be the copper. Poor bastard!

Anyway, there was so much shouting Frank hadn’t been able to hear everything, except he remembered that Shane had accused the bloke of being queer-which was a bit rich, Frank thought, coming from him-and of trying to grab hold of Shane’s balls in the Gents. Next thing you knew they were all over him, shouting “Fucking poof!” and the like, kicking the shit out of him.

Frank and Ian had stood back on the path, watching. Frank fancying a bit of it himself, he didn’t mind admitting, but the way they were swarming round the bloke there was sod-all room.

And then Shane had broken away and came at a run for lan’s bat; gone back in there and smashed the bloke about the face like he wanted to take his head clean off. In the end, Gerry had pulled him away. Tried to give Ian back his baseball bat, but Ian said no way.

“I went over and looked at him,” Frank said. “Total bloody mess.” He shrugged. “That must’ve been when I got his blood on me boots.”

“And at no time while this was going on,” Millington asked, “did you raise a fist in anger or deliver a blow?”

“Me?” Frank Miller said. “Not one. You got my solemn word.” And he grinned.

Hovenden denied all of it: every word. The results of the tests on the fibers from the glove had still not returned. “Give him time to chew on it a while.”

“This Ian Orston,” Naylor called from over by the computer, “he’s got some previous. D’you want me to pull him in, see if his account tallies?”

“Yes, get on it now. Take Carl here with you, okay? And stay sharp, the pair of you.”

They were leaving when Resnick returned, sullen and sad-eyed. Millington waited while the kettle boiled and the tea had mashed before filling him in on all the details.

“Right, Graham,” Resnick said, fortified, “let’s get over to the Snape place, you and me, see if we can’t lay our hands on Shane. Mark, Lynn, you’d best be along for the ride.”

When Norma opened the door to Resnick, mid-afternoon, she was still wearing what she had slept in, an old dressing gown pulled loosely round her. One look at Resnick and she turned back into the house. The curtains in the front room were closed and the television on. Norma had one cigarette in her hand, another, forgotten, smoldering alongside cold toast.