John Harvey - Cold Light

“You’d better be going,” Dana said, releasing herself and moving past him to where she kept the tissues at her desk. “God, I must look a mess.”

“You look fine.”

Dana sniffed and summoned up something of a smile. “Only fine?”

“Terrific.”

“Did you know I’ve got another job?”

He shook his head.

“Yes, in Exeter. Starting next month.” She laughed. “Andrew gave me such a wonderful reference, they could hardly understand why he’d agree to let me go.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Resnick said.

“In Exeter?”

“Now.”

Dana sighed. “Oh, yes. I’ll be … I’ll be fine. Just like you said. Fine.”

Resnick squeezed both of her hands, kissed her softly on the mouth. “Phone me, if things get bad.”

Michelle had sat down early with the baby, thinking it had to be almost time for Neighbours ; what she got was the last third of the news. Some black woman standing in front of some farm buildings, answering questions to the camera. Michelle thought it was something about-what was it? — Salmonella or mad cow disease until the photograph of Nancy Phelan appeared top left of the screen. Quickly, she shushed Natalie down and leaned forward to turn up the sound. Almost immediately, the picture switched and there was this man, round-faced, sad-looking, Michelle thought, speaking about the same thing. Detective Inspector Charles Resnick, read the caption bisecting his tie. “Deep regret,” he said, and “renewed effort,” and when the interviewer, out of sight, asked whether he thought Nancy Phelan’s death had come about as a direct and unfortunate result of police incompetence the inspector’s mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed, and he said: “There’s no way of knowing if that’s the case. Any attempt to suggest otherwise would be pure speculation.”

Not that that was going to stop it happening.

Back across the Trent, Robin Hidden had disconnected his phone but could do nothing about the steady stream of local newsteams and reporters who beat a path to his door. Finally, he clambered over three sets of gardens, sneaking between rose bushes and around artificial ponds, until he found a path back on to the street.

He bought a paper at the newsagents to get change and rang Mark’s number from memory. His friend had been replacing some tiles in his bathroom and had heard what had happened on The World at One . “Why don’t you come up?” Mark said, without waiting to be asked. “I’ve still got some time off. We could have another go at Helvellyn. Three thousand feet up in the snow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Course I’m sure.”

“I’m not exactly going to be good company.”

“Robin, for heaven’s sake! What else are friends for?”

There were tears already in the corners of Robin’s eyes. Across the paper, the headline read MISSING GIRL’S BODY FOUND and underneath, POLICE PLAN FAILS. Just after dawn today , the report began, the body of Nancy Phelan, missing since Christmas Eve was discovered, naked and apparently strangled, buried in the mire of …

Numb, Robin walked on till he came to the footbridge over the river, turned down past the Memorial Gardens, and continued on until the roundabout by the old Wilford Bridge. Shoulders slumped, he leaned on the masonry to catch his breath. Through the sour gray of the day, all he could see was the image of Nancy, that last time together, getting out of the car and walking away. The air stuck in his lungs like a fist.

Going by on a bike, rod resting across the handlebars, a fisherman turned his head and stared at him curiously.

Robin pushed himself on, without any real aim, down through the close streets of the Meadows until he came out near to the railway station. Although he had only the clothes he stood up in, he knew he wasn’t going back to the flat. Mark could lend him an anorak, his spare pair of boots, he’d done it before. The ticket and anything else he needed, he could pay for with the credit card in his wallet.

Forty-five minutes to wait for a train, Robin bought an orange juice from the buffet and carried it along to the end of the platform, collar buttoned up against the curl of the wind. The train that would carry him across country was one of those little Sprinters, two carriages at most, but if he stood where he was, before long one of those expresses would come hurtling in. He looked through blurred eyes at the dull shine of the rails, heard Nancy’s name falling softly from his lips.

The briefing room was cramped and airless, too small for the number of officers clustered inside. Pinned along one wall, stretching away from a color photograph of Nancy Phelan, smiling and alive, were grainy black and white 8?10s of her in death. Other photographs showed the location where her body had been buried, strips of colored tape pinned to them, marking spots where tire tracks had been found, so far unaccounted for, a boot mark, incomplete and etched into a hardened ridge of soil. A map of Lincolnshire and East Anglia showed the two roadside restaurants where the ransom money had been left, the locations north and south of a line that swung gently eastwards as it traced, inland, the curve of the coast around the Wash. Almost directly between, circled in red, was the spot where the pig farm was situated and where Nancy’s body had been found.

“Stinks of stale farts in here,” Cossall said, moving towards the rear of the room.

Divine looked offended. “Only just let that one go.”

Along the corridor in the computer room, extra civilian staff were in place, entering and accessing the information obtained so far, including what Helen Siddons had retrieved from the investigation into Susan Rogel’s earlier disappearance. All this would be checked against the national Holmes computer. Once connections were established, it was from here that fresh action would be generated.

“More sodding paper,” as Cossall liked to put it, “than you’d need if you had four hands, two arses, and a bad case of diarrhea.”

Jack Skelton had recently returned from a press conference where he’d come within an inch of losing his temper. To listen to the most prevalent line of questioning, you’d imagine that Nancy Phelan had been abducted and murdered by a combination of the city’s police force and the Conservative government through the good offices of the Home Secretary.

Wearing a black suit, hair pinned back, shoes with a slight heel, Helen Siddons was leaning slightly towards him, talking earnestly.

Resnick sat with eyes closed, arms folded across his lap, trying to ignore the way his stomach was rumbling while he marshaled his thoughts.

Skelton nodded to Helen, who stepped smartly away, got to his feet and signaled for silence. “Charlie, what have we got so far?”

Notepad in hand, Resnick got to his feet, moving towards a more central position. “Right, preliminary pathologist’s report states death by asphyxiation; bruising consistent with the use of a leather belt or similar, no more than a centimeter and a half across. Marks under the hair, towards the back of the skull, left side, consistent with a fierce blow to the head. Whichever weapon was used, it may have been padded or covered in some way, as, although the bruising’s severe, there are only minimal cuts to the skin. Other bruising, particularly to the arms, legs, and back suggest Nancy struggled with her attacker, possibly in the immediate time before she was strangled.”

“Good for her,” said a voice from one side.

“Much sodding good it did her. Poor cow!” said another.

“Probable scenario, then,” Resnick went on, “for whatever reason, either he’s coming for her or she’s trying to make her escape, the two of them struggle, he subdues her with a blow to the head, strangles her while she’s unconscious.” There were other permutations, worse still.