John Harvey - Cold Light

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t exactly stare. Minding me own business, like. But, yes, the bloke, he’d be closer my height than yours. Five seven, eight. Far as I remember, darkish hair. Forties, maybe. Didn’t get that good a look at his face.”

“Recognize it if you saw it again?”

Thomas thought about it as the chip fat bubbled. “I might. Couldn’t say for sure.”

“Shame,” Divine said, “but you’re going to have to have your chip butty another time.” Reaching across, he turned off the gas. “I know you’ll want to help; do whatever you can.”

Resnick and Skelton were leaning on the balcony outside Lynn’s flat, while Scene of Crime operated the proverbial fine-tooth comb. Most of the windows were lit up around the courtyard. Men and women, uniformed and in plain clothes, moved with purpose from door to door, up and down stairs. Breaths of both men blurred white on the air.

“No good, Charlie,” Skelton was saying. “No way we can be even close to sure. She rings you, wants to talk about Nancy Phelan. Sometime in the next-what? — forty-five minutes, she’s disappeared.”

“And you don’t think there’s a connection?” Resnick was experiencing difficulty keeping his voice under control.

“We don’t know there was any connection. Whatever happened, could have been sheer coincidence …”

“We don’t have to know there’s a connection, we can work it out for ourselves. Making those kind of connections, that’s what we do . Or have you forgotten we’re supposed to be bloody detectives?”

Skelton fidgeted his wedding ring round his finger. “Charlie, you’re not in danger of letting your feelings get the better of you here?”

Resnick gazed, amazed, around the room. His breathing was ragged and loud. “We’re not supposed to think, now we’re not supposed to feel, what the hell are we supposed to do? Other than keep fit and wear a clean sodding tie!”

“Charlie.” Skelton laid a hand on Resnick’s arm, lowered his voice. “Charlie, I know what you’re feeling. Think a lot of her, I understand that. All I’m saying, what we mustn’t do, go off at half cock. Wasted time, wasted effort, she’d not thank us for that.”

Resnick hung his head. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Forget what I said.”

“Most likely has to be,” Skelton said, “either she had someone round for the evening, few drinks, got nasty, out of hand. Either that, or someone broke in, there was a struggle …”

“I can’t buy that. Why wouldn’t he just take off soon as he got the chance?” Resnick looked Skelton in the eye. “The first, maybe, yes, possible.”

“But you still think it’s more?”

“Yes.”

“You think it was him. Whoever did for the Phelan girl.”

“Yes.”

“But, how, Charlie? How, for God’s sake? Somehow, some fluke, she got to know him? Found out who he was? Goes some way to stretching the imagination.”

“Suppose,” Resnick said, “it worked the other way. Suppose he was the one who got to know her?”

Get Corin Thomas talking and it was difficult getting him to stop; all the way back to the Canning Circus station, he kept Divine and the driver less than enthralled with accounts of where he’d been earlier that evening (a desultory trip round the city center pubs, looking for women), where he’d been the previous year on holiday (a fortnight of days eyeing up the talent on the beaches, all the while becoming red as a Forest shirt, followed by a desultory trip round the night clubs, looking for women), and what it was like driving a single-decker for Barton Buses. Poor bastard, Divine thought, no wonder he hated being dragged away from his chip supper, highlight of his tossing week.

Inside the station, they shut Thomas up long enough to sit him down in a corner of the CID room, tell him what he had to do. Divine and Naylor had spent a good couple of hours with the appropriate officer, trying to get the photo-fit to do precisely that. Problem was, part of the problem, once you got past the color of the hair and the shape of the mouth-small, both of them were agreed, turning down a little at the edges-there wasn’t a lot about the individual calling himself Reverdy that was remarkable. Except, that is, for the eyes. And the one thing Divine and Naylor could not agree on was the color of the eyes.

Not that eye color seemed to faze Corin Thomas over much. “You realize I never got much of a look? I mean, you do realize that?”

They understood.

“And the light out there …?”

They understood about the light.

“Well, in that case-and I wouldn’t want you to hold me to this, not in court, like, not something I’d want to swear about on a Bible-but, yes, I’d say, what I’d say, the bloke I saw going across the courtyard with that mate of yours, I’d say, yes, it could be him.”

“Boss,” Divine stood beaming at Resnick’s door, “the bloke from the Little Chef, him and the one who’s got Lynn-looks like they might be one and the same.”

“Right.” Resnick was on his feet, on the move. “Just got confirmation from Manchester CID. The car he was driving belonged to Reverdy right enough. Stolen some time in the last ten days. Owner was away. Holiday. Insurance documents in the glove compartment.”

“Think he pulled the same stroke again?” Divine asked. “Lifted something to pull this?”

“Likely. Let’s check the lists. See if you can tickle the witness’s memory about the car. We might have one or two more by now, corroboration.”

“Right, boss.”

“Kevin,” Resnick called.

“Sir?”

“Copies of that photo-fit, priority. Big a distribution as we can.”

“Straight away.”

As Naylor set off, Resnick pulled a copy of Reverdy’s statement; the Cheadle address wasn’t an invention, like a lot of practiced liars, this was a man who’d found it paid to stick close as possible to the truth. Resnick was reading through the pages as he walked back to his office, wondering which elements might lead them where they had to go before it was too late.

Lynn had woken with a dull pain somewhere in her head and a taste like cleaning fluid in her mouth. At least, the way she imagined it tasted. Probably, it was the smell. As soon as she had had the thought, her neck and shoulders spasmed forward and she threw up. Christ! Wet, on the inside of her leg. Looking down, Lynn saw her leg was bare. The pain in her head was sharp now and more precise, high at the back of her skull. Her eyes watered and stung and a rope of spittle and saliva hung from her mouth. She began the move that would allow her to wipe it away, but of course her hands were tied. Clasped. When she shook her arms, which were stretched behind her back, she recognized the clink and touch of handcuffs.

Oh, Christ!

Lynn blinked her eyes into focus. She was inside a caravan, secured to one corner, something-a chain, she guessed, twist her head as she might, she couldn’t see-attached to the handcuffs prevented her from moving more than inches either way. She had been stripped down to her cotton top and blue knickers and there were goose bumps all the way along her legs. That and the pale trail of her own vomit, as if snails had slithered their slow way across her thighs. At least, she thought, I followed my mother’s advice about accidents and underwear. You never know … She knew, this was no accident. Oh, I don’t think there’s any such thing as blind coincidence do you? Suddenly, she was shaking, startled by tears.

“You’re awake, then?” Michael was standing in the doorway, a tray balanced on the fingers of one upturned hand. “Considering the time of year, it’s a beautiful day.”