John Harvey: Last Rites

For the best part of three days, Helen Siddons sat across a table from Finney, the tape deck softly whirring, question after question meeting the same response.

“What was your relationship with Roland Planer?”

“No comment.”

“You were aware that, in addition to gambling, Roland Planer’s other principal business activity was the distribution of illegal drugs?”

“No comment.”

“How about Gold Standard Security? Liam Cassady? In what capacity did you receive payments from them totaling several thousands of pounds?”

Finney’s Police Federation lawyer coughed and leaned forward: “Detective Chief Inspector,” he said in the East London accent he found it useful to affect, “my client has made it clear it is not his intention to respond on these matters. As is his right.”

“Jesus, Charlie!” Siddons said, when she bumped into him in the corridor. “Why the hell take the right to silence away from every other sod and leave it with the likes of Finney? You know what’s going to happen as well as I do. The bastard’ll drag the investigation out as long as he can, get signed off with stress. Couple of years from now, he’ll get himself invalided out on a pension and there won’t be a bloody thing we can do about it.”

Resnick went to a dinner party with Hannah, some friends of hers from school, a couple with a house in West Bridgford, looking across open land toward the river. There was a psychotherapist there also, a graphic designer, a worker for the National Council for Single Parent Families. In between talking about their jobs and the wine and plays they’d read about but not actually seen, they discussed the apparent breakdown in law and order, the alarming rise in the use of guns.

“What’s your view, Charlie,” the therapist asked, forking up some asparagus. “This guy who was shot and killed. The police, your chaps, they didn’t need to take such extreme measures, surely?” He looked across at Resnick earnestly. “I’d love to know what you think.”

Resnick thought it was time he left. He touched Hannah’s shoulder as he passed and did exactly that. Tense in the car, angry, he thought he was driving home, but that wasn’t where he was heading.

Lynn opened the door to her flat, her hair pulled back, no makeup, a man’s white shirt torn at the collar, baggy jeans. “Something’s the matter,” she said.

“No.”

She closed the door behind him and he looked around the cluttered room; surfaces covered with boxes of old papers, photographs.

“The funeral?” he asked.

“Yesterday.”

He nodded.

“I could put the kettle on, some tea …”

But he was already reaching for her and she could never remember, nor could he, the path by which they made their way, clumsily, from settee to floor and floor to bed.

“This was my dad’s,” she said later. The shirt had somehow wound between them and Lynn tugged it free and shook it out, bringing it to rest like a flag across the pale-blue patterned quilt.

When she leaned forward, Resnick kissed her back, her side where it dipped between hip and ribs, her breast.

“I think’, she said brightly, “we could have that tea now, don’t you?”

He looked at the clock: it was past one, nearer to two.

When she stood in the doorway minutes later, naked, posing almost, a large mug in each hand, he felt-what? — excited? Proud?

“The funeral,” he said when she was back in bed, the pair of them sitting back against the pillows. “How was it?”

“Oh, strange. As if it wasn’t happening somehow, not to me. My mum, she was in a right state. You know, carrying on. I was so busy fretting about her … It’ll hit me in a few days, I expect.” Dipping her head, she kissed Resnick’s shoulder. “I was glad for him, I suppose. My dad. That he went when he did. Better than dragging on.”

He thought she was going to cry, but she sniffed and squeezed his arm, and reached again for her tea.

When he noticed the clock again, it was a quarter to three.

“Do you want to go?” Lynn asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

Waking again later, hunched up against him, Lynn said, “Charlie, why does this feel so comfortable?”

There was no reply: he was asleep.

When finally they woke, the pair of them, it was beginning to be light outside and Lynn was holding her father’s white shirt close against her face.

The Crown Prosecution Service informed Resnick that on the strength of what they’d seen so far, in the matter of illegally purchasing, carrying, or discharging a firearm in a public place with the specific purpose of causing injury, there was insufficient evidence for proceeding against Drew Valentine.

For receiving stolen goods and dishonestly assisting in their disposal, Gary Prince was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, automatically reduced to eighteen months. Vanessa immediately took a job as hostess on a cruise ship to the Azores.

At the inquest into the death of Evan Donaghy, the coroner returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

Paul Finney rose early, for a Sunday; the questioning had been going on now, one way and another, for almost two weeks. Siddons niggling away, bringing in his colleagues, friends, on and on, always holding the charge of bigamy over his head.

He made himself a cup of tea and sat for a while in the kitchen, scanning the sports pages. Notts all out for a hundred and twenty. What sort of a performance was that? The kids were down now, two of them anyway, in watching TV, and he made a big pot of tea for everyone, took a cup up to his wife, along with bits and pieces of the papers.

“Just off out for a spell. Back in an hour.”

Laura was painting the old cottage scullery, bright yellow daubed all over her hands and in her hair, and in Adam’s hair, too. “Let me just finish this bit here,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Why don’t we go for a walk first?”

They wandered down the lane and back, taking their time, Adam riding on Finney’s shoulders much of the way, kicking him with his heels, tugging at his hair.

He said no to a drink, said he had to be getting on.

“Tomorrow, then,” Laura said.

“I hope so, love.”

Finney drove south to Loughborough station, bought a KitKat in the little newsagent’s kiosk, and crossed the bridge to the southbound platform. “Please stand well back,” said the announcer, “the next train is the Midland Main Line express to London, St. Pancras, not stopping at this station.” Near the end of the short platform, Finney closed his eyes and stepped out into space.

He had posted letters to his wives and children; a letter, too, to Helen Siddons, a packet really, fat, registered. Like the good officer he had once been, Finney’s documentation was thorough, cross-referenced. Times, dates, places. Within an hour of reading through the material, photocopying it for safety, Siddons sought, and was granted, a meeting with the Chief Constable. Less than an hour after that, three Drugs Squad officers were arrested on charges ranging from the illegal possession of controlled drugs to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Norman Mann was placed under suspension pending the results of these and other inquiries.

Resnick had not spoken to Hannah since he walked out of her friends’ dinner party. He had phoned twice and left messages, but she had not returned his calls. Now he bumped into her, almost literally, crossing Upper Parliament Street, Hannah heading in the direction of the Theatre Royal, Resnick, hands in pockets, going the other way.

They hesitated, uncertain whether to carry on walking or what. Drivers sounded their horns. “This is stupid,” said Hannah, as much to herself as anyone, and pointed back toward the curve of pavement outside what had once been a bank and was now an Irish pub.