John Harvey: Last Rites

Rarely, there was no music in the room. The curtains were still pulled back and though the light was starting to go, it was far from dark. They sat in the same easy chairs that Resnick and Elaine had bought, second-hand, at the start of their marriage, too comfortable to replace. The wine, indeed, was fine, though neither of them had so far gone beyond the first glass.

“I think,” Lynn said, “what I think now, although they never said, not outright, when they let him come home before, it was because there wasn’t anything more they could do for him. The cancer, it had spread too far.” She was sitting quite upright, legs tucked under her, running her fingers through the smallest cat’s fur as she talked. “But then-I don’t know-the pain got so much worse, suddenly, and they took him back in. His skin, it had become really yellow again, this kind of murky, bilious color; the thing they put in, inside him, to clear the obstruction to his liver, maybe it wasn’t working. Not properly.”

Reaching down, she took a sip of wine.

“When I got there, Mum was just sitting beside the bed, crying. Not making any sound, hardly, just crying. Dad was hooked up to all this stuff and he had a mask over his face. To help him breathe. One of those hard plastic masks.

“I don’t know how much anyone had said to Mum, if they’d said anything at all. She was so upset, confused, I doubt if she would have taken it in if they had. After a while, I went off and found a nurse and she told me as well as his liver, he was suffering from kidney failure. They’d made him as comfortable as they could. She didn’t think he was in too much pain. She said if I could stay a while longer the doctor would come and see me, explain.”

The clock across the room seemed unnaturally loud. Resnick moved the wineglass around in his hand, but didn’t drink.

“The doctor, when he came, he looked so young. Too young to be doing what he was doing. But he was nice, nice to Mum especially. There must be something you can do, she said, and he patted her hand. All we can do now, he said, is make sure he’s comfortable, not suffering any pain. I’m still not sure she understood what he was saying, what it meant. She kept on at him, you will do something, operate. He’d been sitting with her, on the edge of the bed, and got up and looked down at Dad, who’d been sleeping all the way through this. He’s lived a good life, he said, let him go in peace. No heroic measures. It wouldn’t be right, believe me. It wouldn’t do any good.”

“I’m sorry,” Resnick said.

Lynn sighed and rubbed a hand across her eyes as if to brush away tears, but for now there were none there.

“I sat with him, holding his hand. Talked, just a little, but I don’t know whether he heard. The sound of my voice, perhaps. Maybe he recognized that. Once or twice, he moved his head as if he wanted to try and say something and I leaned over and lifted away the mask, but all he could do was make these sounds, sort of low in his throat. His mouth, it was all dry; the skin flaking back from his lips.

“I do think he knew that we were there, Mum and me. The nurse said, why don’t you go? Go home for a while, get some sleep. But I couldn’t.” She sniffed and fumbled a tissue from inside her pocket. “Just before the end, he squeezed my hand, tried to. He …”

She stopped and looked, helpless, across the room. Resnick moved and, half-kneeling, held her till her face dropped forward on his shoulder and she cried. Sobbed.

And when the worst of it was over, her skin warm against him, his shirt wet from her tears, he kissed her on the neck and she twisted up her face and kissed him close alongside his mouth where her fingers had caught years before. “Lynn.” He said her name and she kissed him again, lips moving over his, the first touch of her tongue. “Lynn.” She wriggled her mouth away and he said, “I’m getting a cramp in my leg, I’ve got to move.” And then she laughed and so did he, and they were sprawled, half on the chair, half on the floor, the cat clambering between them.

“My wine,” she said, still laughing, though there were tears smudging the corners of her eyes. “I don’t think I can reach it from here.”

Resnick could, just, and he leaned across and handed it to her and they both drank, from the same glass, until it was empty. Then Lynn looked at him squarely and said, “I should go” and he said, “You don’t have to, you know,” and she said, “1 know. Thank you. But I think I will,” and she started to disentangle her legs from his until they were standing face to face, the dark around them, not quite touching.

At the door, he checked she was okay to drive and she assured him she’d be fine. He asked when was the funeral and she told him three days’ time. He almost said, did she want him to come, but held his tongue.

“Thanks.” She had the car keys in her hand.

“What for?”

She smiled. “Supper. The bath.”

“Take care.”

“You, too.”

He stood there watching as the tail-lights of her car faded around the curve in the road, and longer than that, trying to recapture the feeling of her mouth on his, Dizzy watching him reproachfully from his perch on the stone wall beside the path.

Cassady had cleared out his safety deposit box at the bank, transferred five thousand from his personal account into the one he shared with his wife and withdrawn the rest. Walking back to where he’d parked the car, he punched a number on his mobile phone. “Jacky. Yes, it’s me. On the way now. Right. Yes, love you too.”

She arrived in Cinderhill first, fair putting the wind up Preston. Jacky breezing in with her own key, hold-all slung over one shoulder. “Hi, you must be Michael. I’m Jack. Jacky.” Smiling as she held out her hand.

More than a touch of the tar brush about her, Preston thought, skin a sort of Milk Tray color, though she sounded north of the border. A looker, though-tight jeans tucked down into her boots, white top that could have been put on with paint.

“That the wife?” he asked, when Cassady arrived twenty minutes later.

“Don’t,” Cassady said, “be so fucking stupid!”

Jacky kissed Cassady on the mouth and lightly cupped his crotch.

“It’s like Dodge City out there all of a sudden,” Cassady announced. “Not that it’ll do us any harm. But we’ll make our move tonight, Michael, I’m thinking. Not tomorrow.”

“Why the rush?” Preston asked.

“My inside man. A mite nervous all of a sudden, too many of his colleagues buzzing round, asking questions.” He looked at Preston. “That’ll not affect your plans? For after, like?”

Preston shook his head: now everything was so close, the sooner the better.

Planer owned a pied-à-terre in west London and a villa in the Algarve; where he lived was a listed building in Southwell, the house set back from the road, a brick archway with an electronically operated wrought-iron gate barring access from the street.

It was a fine night, clear yet mild. Even this short distance from the city it was possible to see more stars in the sky. They would need, Cassady had said, no driver tonight, no extra risk. This not being a case of in and out, piston sharp. Preston was pleased with that. Pleased to be sitting there in the passenger seat of the BMW, the short barrel of the Uzi hard against his knee. Two thousand it had cost, Liam had been sure to tell him. Two grand and worth every penny.

“How much longer?” Preston asked.

Cassady looked at his watch, the details illuminated green in the dark of the car. “Two thirty,” he said. “We go in at two thirty.” He angled his wrist round toward Preston. “Four minutes from now.”