John Harvey - Off Minor

“Where is he now?”

“One of the plods is treating him to a cup of tea.”

“Thinking he knew who it was, lying there underneath all that debris,” Resnick said, “that doesn’t have to be so surprising. He’d have had to be a blind man not to have read about it, seen her face. And if he knew her anyway, by sight at least, there might have been more reason for her to stick in his mind than most.”

“But this other, sir …”

“Yes, I know. We’ll talk to him again, clearly.” Resnick suddenly conscious of the churning of his stomach, just because the morning with the pathologist had turned his mind away from food, that didn’t mean his body had to agree.

“Lynn?”

“Sounds a bit odd, right enough. Then again, if there was anything iffy, would he come right out and say it?”

“Stupid or clever,” suggested Millington.

“The girl,” Resnick said to Lynn, “Sara. Did she say anything about the youth’s reactions when they realized what they’d found?”

“Only that he was frightened. They both were. It took them over an hour, you know, before they made up their minds to come in and report it.”

“Did she say which one of them was hanging back?”

“Says it was the lad, sir.”

“Mark?”

“He never said exactly, just that they spent ages wandering around; he did say as the girl was upset, that’s why they went back to his place, calm her down before walking round here.”

“All right.” Resnick got to his feet and Divine and Kellogg did the same; Graham Millington moved his arm from the filing cabinet on which he had been leaning. “Mark, have another word with him, low key. Lynn, why don’t you sit in with them? See if you can establish just what his relationship with the girl was, supposing it was any more than he’s said. And that warehouse, maybe it was a place he’s used before, somewhere handy for a bit of fun after closing. Let me know how you get on.”

Resnick’s phone rang as they were going out of the door. He lifted the receiver from the cradle, but cupped a hand over the mouthpiece.

“The girl, Lynn, she’s not still here?”

“Afraid not.”

“No matter, we can talk to her later.”

Lynn took her time about turning away again, something she had to get off her mind. “I’m not sure if this is the way we’re thinking, but if this Raymond did know Gloria Summers was in that building, wouldn’t it have been the last place he’d have taken his girlfriend for a snog?”

“Depends,” Divine said quickly, “on just how much of a pervert he is.”

“So, Raymond, how was the tea? Okay? Good. This here’s my colleague, Detective Constable Kellogg. Like I say, we won’t keep you long now, just a couple of little things we need to get sorted.”

Raymond finally left the station at seven minutes after three. His shirt was stuck to his back with sweat and he could smell his armpits and his crotch with every movement, every step. Underneath the tangle of hair, his scalp itched. Pain reverberated, sharp and insistent, beneath his right temple, causing his eye to blink.

On and on they had gone at him, mostly the man, but the woman chipping in too, all the same questions, again and again. Gloria, Gloria. How well had he known her? When he said that he watched her, what did he mean? Perhaps he used to babysit? Help her grandmother with her shopping? Do odd jobs? Collect Gloria sometimes from school? How well would he say he knew her? The mother? Gloria. Would he, for instance, describe her as a friend? Daft! How could some kid of six be his friend? All right, then, Raymond, what was she? You tell us.

He wanted to go home and wash. Take a long bath, slow. He wanted something cold to drink. He bought a can of Ribena from the cob shop over the road and walked back across Derby Road to drink it, sitting with his back against the wall of the insurance offices.

She was a kid he’d noticed first through the shock of fair hair that seemed, more often than not, to spring from her head in all directions. Blue, blue eyes. Like a doll’s. Raymond wondered why he’d thought that? Never had a sister, never had a doll in his life. Handled one: held it. Once he’d spotted her-running along the street towards him, lolly waving in her hand, her nan, her mum he’d thought it was then, calling, “Be careful, be careful! Oh, for goodness’ sake do be careful. Oh, look what you’ve done. Just look at you now.”-he seemed to see her everywhere he looked. In the Chinese chippy, on the rec, waiting at the bus stop with a hand in her nan’s, swinging from it and kicking out this leg and then that, never still. One day he realized that if he angled his head from the window at a certain angle he could see one corner of the school playground. Gloria with all her little friends, laughing and shouting, playing games, skipping, two-ball, kiss chase.

Resnick had opted for the southerly route, leaving the A153 before the potential bottlenecks of Sleaford and Tattershall Bridge. B roads would take him past the furthest outreach of the fens, safely through Ashby de la Launde, Timberland and Martin Dales; after Horncastle the choice lay between Salmonby and Somersby, then it was Swaby, Beesby, Maltby le Marsh and he was there. Returning home, he’d promised himself the high road through the rolling Wolds; Louth and then the cathedral tower at Lincoln, its lights burning for miles through the steadily gathering swathes of mist.

That would come later. A necessary balm for what he was about to do.

Right now, there was a flask of coffee on the seat beside him, sandwiches in greaseproof paper he’d picked up from the deli. Emmental and slivers of prosciutto ham, so fine that they would fold back and wrap around a finger like gold leaf; a thick, ridged pickled cucumber, sliced and laid across corned beef, further spiced with a liberal splash of four-grain mustard. Four small cherry tomatoes, ready to burst into his mouth, sweet pulp and tiny seeds. Resnick slowed to allow a Land Rover to swing past on the broad stroke of a bend; another impoverished farmer late for the bank.

Fumbling the cassette one-handedly from its box, he slotted it into place and swiveled up the volume. The Basie Band in its first prime, 1940, America still to enter the war. A swirl of riffs teased along by the leader’s piano, the soloists stabbing and soaring, the last, Lester, leaning back against the beat.

Lester Young.

On the road with the band, he had avoided military call-up until 1944, when a presumed fan turned out to be a draft officer in disguise. Despite an examination which revealed syphilis and an addiction to alcohol, barbiturates and marijuana, Lester was inducted as Private 39729502. Within six months, he would be dishonorably discharged by a military court and imprisoned for almost a year. Prior to sentence, he was diagnosed as being in a constitutionally psychopathetic state: the condition for which ten months in the US Army Detection Barracks, Fort Gorton, Georgia was a guaranteed cure.

Resnick steadied the flask between his legs, unscrewed the cap, took a long swallow and rewound the tape so as to listen again to “I Never Knew.” One of those tunes Gus Khan likely tossed off at his piano between cigars. The trombone takes the first solo, sliding between slur and rasp: then it’s Lester, tenor angled steeply to the mike, paving his way with a stepping stone of single notes before striking for home with thirty-two bars of pride and beauty, making the melody, the moment, his own. Resnick could see him, in his mind’s eye, sitting back in the section with the slightest of nods, a too-thin man with reddish hair and green eyes, wearing a band jacket that is perhaps too large, while behind him the brass rises to its feet for the flag-waving finale.