John Harvey - Cold Light

While he was in the kitchen, Lynn slipped into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, ran a comb through her hair. She was more than ordinarily flushed.

“Till I see you again, then,” said Michael, over by the door.

Lynn turned the handle to let him out. “Phone me, next time. I don’t always want surprises. Phone me first.”

He kissed her deftly on the cheek and stepped outside. “You best get back in quickly, you don’t want to be letting in the cold.”

She could hear his footsteps echoing down the stairs as she locked and bolted the front door. Resnick picked up his phone on the seventh ring; faintly, in the background, Lynn could hear music playing. “Hello,” she said. “It’s me, Lynn.”

“It’s not your dad,” Resnick said. “Nothing’s happened?”

“No. It’s the investigation.”

“Nancy Phelan?”

“Mmm.”

“What about it?”

“I could explain easier if we met somewhere. It’s not too late for a drink.”

“The Partridge?”

Lynn glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes.”

“Done.”

She set the phone back down and it was some sixth sense, a split second before she heard the sound, that swung her round.

When Michael had gone into the kitchen for a glass of water, he had slipped the catch on the window that led on to the walkway. “Now I wonder,” he said, “exactly what you and your colleague were going to talk about. Over your friendly pint.” He had an old-fashioned tire jack in his hand, wrapped around with rubber and cloth; if he could avoid it, he didn’t want to damage her face. Not unless he had to: not yet.

“Michael …” she began.

“No,” he said, smiling even as he made that slow shake of the head. “Don’t waste the words.”

She made a lunge past him but his arm was fast and the jack struck her twice, the first time high on the shoulder, hard enough against the bone to make her scream; the second blow was to the back of her head as she fell, face first, unconscious, to the floor.

“Well, now, Mr. Resnick,” Michael said towards the telephone, “let’s see how good a good copper you really are.”

Resnick had not been in long when Lynn rang, back from a couple of hours at Marian Witczak’s house in Mapperley, listening to her account of New Year’s Eve at the Polish Club. She had dropped a note through his door earlier, inviting him, and Resnick, partly through guilt at having let her down, partly to avoid another evening frustratedly anticipating the glories of his Billie Holiday box set, had accepted. In Marian’s drawing room, comfortable in armchairs guarded by ornate antimacassars, the ghost of Chopin hovering around the grand piano, Resnick had sipped plum brandy and listened to what he had missed-the politics, the polkas, the member who had drunk his way through fifteen flavors of vodka before clambering on to one of the tables and re-enacting the Polish cavalry’s defense of Krakow down to the last despairing fall.

He had walked home with lengthening strides, head clearing rapidly in the cold air. Time enough to find a little supper for an insistent Dizzy, grind and brew coffee, before answering the telephone and hearing Lynn’s voice. Going back out again, especially for another drink, was close to the last thing he wanted, but he knew she wouldn’t be suggesting a meeting unless it were important. Resnick dialed the DG taxi number from memory and lifted his topcoat from where it hung in the hall.

Both bars of the Partridge were fairly full and Resnick checked them carefully, right and left, before settling for a half of Guinness and a seat between an elderly man whom Resnick knew by sight, nursing his last pint of mild for the night, and a group of four who were still arguing their way through last Saturday’s match, ball by ball. When his own glass was more or less empty and there was still no sign of Lynn, Resnick went to the phone and dialed her number. No reply. He checked with the station to see if, for whatever reason, she had gone there. No one had seen her since early evening. Resnick finished his drink and picked up another cab, across the street by the clock from the old Victoria station.

No lights showed through the windows of Lynn’s flat, no response to knock or bell. When he peered into the glass and saw his own face reflected there, he saw a fear that so far he could only feel, not understand. The door had not been double-locked and he considered gaining access with the credit card that otherwise he rarely used, but noticed, when he looked again, the catch on the kitchen window was unfastened. No difficulty hauling himself up and through the space, flicking on the light.

“Lynn?”

Two glasses stood on the metal drainer, freshly rinsed. A corkscrew, cork still attached, lay beside a sheet of crumpled tissue. Resnick found the bottle in the main room, unfinished, on its side; a little wine had spilled out on to the carpet and made a stain, still damp. The coffee table had been shunted aside, the chair pushed at an odd angle against the wall. There was a second cluster of stains, darker and less sweet; Resnick touched the tip of his finger against the carpet and lifted to his nostrils the unmistakable taint of blood.

Graham Millington was at the head of the stairs, talking with two of the uniformed men they’d pulled in from routine duties. One of those nights when club brawls would either peter out of their own account or end in more than tears. Millington had been asleep in front of the television when the call had woken him, his wife tucked up already with a cup of Horlicks and a biography of Henry Moore. “What d’you call that?” he’d asked, looking over her shoulder at a photograph of one of Moore’s sculptures. “Hole in heart patient?” “Isn’t there football on, Graham?” she’d asked, long-suffering. She had been right: Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southend United. Millington had felt his eyes going before the first yellow card.

“They don’t appreciate being dragged away from their shut-eye,” the first constable was saying.

“I don’t give a bugger what they appreciate,” said Millington, “not till we’ve something more than nothing.”

It was Divine, not a happy man himself, called out just three short moves away from maneuvering last year’s Miss Ilkeston past checkmate, who came up with the first witness. His knock brought Corin Thomas to the door of his flat, smelling more than slightly of beer, overcoat on, chip pan in his hand. “Soddin’ central heating’s packed up again,” Thomas said. “Too much to hope you’ve come to fix it?”

Divine told him it was. “You’re dripping oil,” he pointed out, “all over the lino.”

“Better come in, then.” Once the chips were starting to sizzle, Thomas told him what he had seen, a man and a woman, pretty much clinging to one another, going down the stairs past him and staggering over towards a parked car.

“Didn’t occur to you to report it?” Divine asked.

“Love it, wouldn’t you, if, I jumped on the old phone every time someone round here got half-pissed.”

“Is that what you thought they were?”

“She was, no mistake. Hardly keep her feet at all, if he hadn’t been half-carrying her. All but went over, the pair of them, more than once.”

“The woman,” Divine asked, “you recognize her?”

“Oh, yes. That one from lower down. Kellogg. One of your lot, isn’t she? What all the hoo-ha’s about, I suppose.”

“What about the man?” Divine asked. “Ever seen him before?”

Corin Thomas shook his head.

“Sure?”

“Yes. It was dark, but, yes, there’s lights enough down there. Good enough to make out someone you know.”

“You could describe him, though?”