John Harvey - Last Rites

“Eileen, come in. Come on inside.” Holding the door, he let her precede him. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

She shook her head and he motioned toward a chair, sat down himself.

“I’m sorry about Raymond.”

Eileen bit down into her lower lip. “I’ve just come from seeing the body.”

Ray-o’s mother had run off when he was four, his father had not been seen in years, his uncle dead by his own hand; Resnick supposed Eileen, in a manner of speaking, was his next of kin.

“They pulled back this sheet,” Eileen said, not looking at Resnick, but at the floor. “They pulled it back and he was just laying there like … like meat. Something they’d hunted and shot down, that’s what I kept thinking. Meat.”

When Resnick had first run across Raymond, the lad had been working at the abattoir close by the County ground, up to his elbows in tubs of guts, intestines, blood, and bone. The stink of it had clung to his hair, his body, had followed him everywhere, rank, like a second skin.

“I’m sorry, Eileen. Sorry you had to see him like that.”

“Whatever he’d done, whatever he was like, he never deserved that.”

She fumbled for a tissue and Resnick waited, patient. Noisily Eileen blew her nose. “Nobody’ll tell me, not really, tell me what happened.”

Resnick leaned slowly forward. “There was an armed robbery at the restaurant. Some shooting. Raymond, as far as we can tell, just happened to be there at the wrong time. Unfortunately he got in the way, the line of fire. Of course, we’re making inquiries, but for now that’s all we know.”

“It’s not right.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to bother, are you? Over Ray-o, I mean. You’re not going to be pulling out all the stops because of him.”

“Eileen, I assure you. We’re taking it very seriously.”

“Yeah? And so far you’ve got nothing, right? You go on about how he just happened to be there. I don’t think Ray-o’d set foot in that place in his life. I know him. I don’t think he would, not without a reason.”

Resnick bent toward her. “There’s nothing you can think of that would help, like you say, give us a reason for why he was there?”

“No.”

“Maybe if you thought about it …”

“I told you, I don’t know …”

“Okay.” He sat back again. “I’m sorry there isn’t any more I can tell you. Not now, anyway.”

Pushing the tissue down into her bag, Eileen got to her feet. “Don’t hold my breath, right?”

He waited till she was almost at the door. “Sheena, Sheena Snape, you know her a little, don’t you?”

“A bit. Yes, why?”

“She and Raymond, were they, you know, friends? Anything like that?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Only I was in the shop not so many days back and she was there. Raymond seemed embarrassed at me seeing them together. I thought there might be something going on between them, that’s all.”

Eileen shook her head. “Ray-o, he might not have been God’s gift, bless him, but he knew better than to get involved with a slag like that.”

“Business, then. I remember Raymond making out she was there to buy something, but she didn’t back him up. Maybe she was the one with something to sell.”

Now Eileen was looking at him hard. “And you think, whatever it was, it might have something to do with Ray-o getting shot?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know.”

“Honest?”

He looked at her questioningly.

“You tried to get round me once before, remember? When Terry was still alive. All nice and understanding. Getting me to inform against him, that’s what you were trying to do. Grass. Same as what you tryin’ now. You want me to go round Sheena’s, don’t you? Do your dirty work for you. ’cause you know, after what happened to her brothers, she wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

Resnick took a breath. “All I’m saying …”

Eileen raised her head. “I know what you’re saying. And I don’t want to hear.”

What Resnick heard was the quick closing of the door and footsteps, fast across the floor.

Maureen was serving a customer when Lorraine walked in, Maureen doing her level best to persuade a matronly body from Wollaton that gold chiffon was the very thing for her husband’s firm’s annual dinner. When she saw Lorraine, Maureen took a deep breath and carried on, Lorraine standing off to one side, feigning interest in a deep-green wool and silk mix jacket by Yohji Yamamoto, a snip at £499.99.

As soon as the customer had left the shop, Maureen went to Lorraine and held her tight. “Have you heard anything?” she asked, stepping away.

Lorraine shook her head. “That’s what I came to ask you.”

“I’ve not seen him since yesterday, yesterday early.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

“No.” Maureen shook her head vehemently. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. I don’t ever want to see that bastard again.”

Lorraine caught hold of Maureen’s hand. “Did he …” She was looking Maureen in the eye. “Did he hurt you?”

Maureen attempted a smile. “Not so’s you’d notice.”

“And you really don’t know where he went?”

“No. I haven’t a clue.” She gave Lorraine’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “I wish there was something I could tell you. But I’m afraid I don’t know anything.” She paused. “Except I’m glad he’s gone.”

Lorraine half turned toward the door. “If you do see him …”

“I won’t, but …”

“If you do, tell him to be careful, all right?”

When Lorraine walked up the brightly painted steps toward the car park, she could feel the unsteadiness vibrating in her legs.

The news on all channels carried extracts from the Chief Constable’s press conference: serious points, seriously made. Society. Responsibility. The public good. A number of drug-related incidents. The unfortunate spread of firearms. Firm policing. Trust. Decisive action. With a slow and deliberate movement, the Chief Constable removed his rimless spectacles and delivered his final sentences straight to camera. “There will be no no-go areas, no yielding of the streets to lawlessness. You have my word-the situation is under control.”

Somewhere between midnight and one, a maroon convertible slowed almost to a halt outside Planer’s casino, bass speakers booming, and from the rear seat a young black man hurled a homemade firebomb into the foyer.

It had started with a vengeance.

Millington was waiting for him with a face most undertakers would have given their eyeteeth for. “That young prison officer,” he said. “Evan.”

“What about him?”

“Couple pulled into a lay-by, early hours. Wore out, wanting a rest. Loughborough road, not so far short of Keyworth. Bloke got out, wandered over t’field edge for a piddle. Found Evan face down in the ditch. Back of his head stove in. Been there a good twenty-four hours, far as we can tell, maybe longer.”

Resnick cursed softly.

“What he was doing back in these parts, Lord alone knows.”

“Follow it up, Graham. Talk to whoever’s handling the investigation. Find out what you can. God knows how it fits in with all this, but if it does we want to know.”

Resnick had scarcely had time to read the night’s reports before Helen Siddons was on the line, her voice raw and tired.

“I’ve just sent Khan round to see you, Charlie, something else about our friend Finney. Just might be the lead we’re looking for. You wouldn’t have time to follow up on it yourself? That explosion last night, we’re jumping round like blue-arsed flies as it is.”

Khan had followed Finney up the Mansfield Road, assuming he was heading home. Instead, Finney had carried on driving, north out of the city. Some ten miles short of Newstead Abbey, he’d turned off on to a small single-carriage road, not much more than a track. Three-quarters of a mile along, Finney had parked close by a small house, a cottage. White walls, a garden, a small cobbled yard. Somebody’s home. Washing on the line and a child’s bike, a red tricycle, on its side near the front door.