John Harvey - Off Minor

Skelton walked round from his desk towards the coffee machine. “The wife, Charlie. That’s where it is. The answer. If she’s the one who phoned.”

“We don’t know that for certain.”

Skelton shrugged. “Kellogg seemed pretty sure. You’ve got to talk to her at least. Meantime, get this down you.”

Resnick accepted the mug of coffee, holding it between both hands.

“If it is him, Charlie, Shepperd; if it’s him and you’re right, you know what that means for the Morrison girl?”

Nodding slowly, Resnick closed his eyes. The coffee Skelton had given him was stale and bitter and he drank it down, every mouthful.

Diana had made a point of asking Jacqueline to fetch the photo albums and the scrapbooks from home and eventually there were no other excuses to be made. Although she’d learned the truth, a version of it, from neighbors eager to outdo one another with tales about a drunken husband, ambulances, police and knives, Jacqueline elected for a lie: some youths had broken in and left the place in a bit of mess, next to nothing taken. Together, she and Diana sat in a corner of the day room, setting the books back as close as possible to how they’d been.

“Do you think,” Diana asked, holding a picture of Emily in one hand, “once I’m a little better, Michael will let her come to see me?”

“I hope so,” Jackie said, inclining her face away. “I think he should.”

Diana smiled. Of course, that was the way it had to be. After all, wasn’t it because of Emily that she was here? Because she wanted it to be all right between them; a precaution she had had to take to ensure nothing went wrong.

“Who’s this?” Jackie asked. “I thought it was Michael at first, but now I can see it’s not.”

Diana took the photograph and looked: a man sitting on a painted horse, a roundabout at the fair. Emily with her legs around the horse’s neck in front of him. In the whirl of movement, one thing is clear, the joy on the girl’s face as she angles back her head to laugh at the man behind her, holding her safe, her laughter and his smile.

“Geoffrey,” she said.

“Who?”

“Michael’s brother, Geoffrey. He used to come over every year, from where he lives, the Isle of Man, just to take Emily to Goose Fair.” Diana smiled again. She was smiling a lot today, Jacqueline noticed, the way she did when they were in Yorkshire; she took it as a good sign. “He couldn’t have been nicer to Emily if she’d been his own. I think Michael used to get quite jealous sometimes, but then isn’t that the way it always is, with brothers?”

“Men,” Jackie laughed. “Any men will do. Brothers enough, most of them, beneath the skin.”

Although they lived close by, Joan Shepperd hardly ever went into the rec. Oh, cutting through between Church Street and the Derby Road, especially if it was a nice day. But seldom to sit, as she was now, a bench down by the bowling green, near where the magnolia tree would blossom so beautifully in the spring. Such a shame it never lasted long. Some years one good wind was all it would take.

She could hear the voices of children from the swings, two sets now, the one beside the green, the other further up towards the gate. Always children there, it hardly seemed to matter the weather. A lot of them knowing her, of course, calling out if she passed by, “Mrs. Shepperd! Mrs. Shepperd! Miss! Miss!” Older children playing rounders, football. Men in tracksuits lapping round the path, circuit upon circuit, timing themselves. Others, like Stephen, not out to break any records, content simply to jog slowly, watch whatever was going on.

When she saw Resnick walking towards her, rounding the edge of the bowling green, raincoat flapping shapelessly about him, her first instinct was to look away, pretend that if she didn’t notice him then he would never recognize her. But she knew it was too late for that; knew, unlike the children she taught, that when you took your hands away from your face and opened your eyes, the bogeyman would not have disappeared.

Resnick sat alongside her, pulling his coat free. For some little time, neither spoke. Behind them, a sprinter train carried a fortunate few towards Mansfield, a town Resnick only visited when County were in the same division and playing away. On the last occasion, the snow had clamored in off the hills aboard a wind that had made a mockery of the game and threatened to cleave Resnick in two. Only by buying pasties, one after the other, and eating them from between gloved hands, had he preserved his fingers from frostbite.

“Somebody contacted us this morning,” Resnick said, “with some information. It had to do with your work and, by inference, your husband.”

Joan Shepperd continued to watch a mother pushing her child, no more than three, back and forth on one of the swings. The same repetitive rhythm.

“It was helpful, of course it was. We were truly grateful. Only I’m not sure it’s going to be enough.”

The mother was careful, Joan noticed, never to let the swing sail too high so that the child might become frightened, never to push it too hard.

“I would never give evidence against my husband, Inspector, even if I were convinced he had done wrong. Even if he had done terrible things. I could never bring myself to do that. Not in court and not to you. I’m sorry.”

Resnick sat there several moments longer, testing all the questions he might further ask inside his head. When he was sure none of them were right, he got to his feet and walked away.

This was the bit of the city Raymond hated most, from Millets and Marks all the way down to where Sara worked, past C amp; A. And as the week wore on it got worse. What with the veggie lot outside the church, pushing petitions in your face about political prisoners or factory farming, all the lefties expecting you to pay good money for a paper that didn’t have sport or tell you what was on telly, and then the cranks carrying placards and reading from the Bible, it was a regular nightmare. “Whole bloody lot of them,” his dad said, “want locking up.” Raymond didn’t usually go a bomb on what his father had to say, but in this case he’d got it about right.

He didn’t spot Sara at first, disappointed, thinking maybe she’d taken the day off, but then there she was, coming into the shop from the storeroom at the back. Raymond waited till she was refilling the sections before going inside.

Sara, who’d already seen him, seen him through the glass, carried on with what she was doing, even when he was standing at her shoulder.

“What’s going on?” Raymond asked.

“What d’you mean?”

“Why aren’t you talking to us?”

“You can see,” using the metal scoop to round out the strawberry delights, “I’m doing this.” Turning to face him: “Raymond, I’m busy.”

“I was only saying hello.”

“Hello.”

“Seemed stupid hanging around at home, you know, I was ready. I thought I’d come and see you, hang around outside.”

Sara glanced over at the manageress who was watching them with a face like alabaster; she moved along three bins and began to restock the old-fashioned bull’s-eyes. “There’s no need you waiting around anyway,” she said.

“I thought we were going out?”

“Yes, well, we’re not.”

“What d’you mean …?”

“Raymond, keep your voice down, do.”

“You said tonight was all right.”

“So it was. Only now it’s not.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got to help my mum.”

Raymond grabbed hold of her arm. “You mean you don’t want to see me. That’s it, isn’t it? Except you haven’t got the guts to come right out and say it.”

The manageress was coming towards them, a beeline across the floor, Raymond’s fingers were poking hard into her arm and she was sure they’d left a bruise already.