John Harvey - Cutting Edge

“Yes.”

“Bit of a habit with you, isn’t it? Teaching women a lesson.”

Suzanne Olds was fast to her feet. “Inspector,” she said, “I want to talk to my client, please. Privately. Now.”

Out on the circus, the lorry driver and the owner of the blue van had got into an altercation about lane and blame. One of the more maternal of the traffic wardens had offered to look after the little boy while his grandmother made her statement and the boy had taken a bite out of her calf. When the AA man with a tow truck tried to attach the crane to the rear of the van, its owner backed off from his argument with the driver of the lorry to ask him politely what in fuck’s name he thought he was doing. The AA man said if he needed to ask that there must be a six-inch square vacuum in the center of his head where his brain was supposed to be. The van owner punched him in the face, whereupon he was promptly arrested by Ginger Houghton, who had been standing less than six feet away, watching. The crane was set in place, the back of the van swung round a shade too quickly so that the doors swung open and cartons of cigarettes began to tumble out.

“Any idea where your DS is?” Houghton asked from the door of the CID room.

“Sorry,” answered Patel from the midst of a half-ream of computer printout.

“Only when you see him, tell him we’ve got a vanload of fags he might be interested in, bloke in the cells he might want to talk to.”

The sun might have packed it in for the day, that didn’t mean it was getting any cooler. It was muggy instead. Suzanne Olds had removed her suit jacket and the cotton of her blouse was sticking to her; anywhere else, any other time she might have slipped into the ladies and removed her tights, but not now, not today.

“The name wasn’t Amanda?” Resnick asked.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“How can I be? I don’t know what it was. That’s the point.”

“Then it could have been?”

“Yes. I suppose so. It could have been anything.”

“Amanda Hooson.”

Carew scraped his chair until it was at right angles to the desk.

“Do I have to answer that?” he said, looking at Suzanne Olds.

“You already have.”

“Right.” Carew looked back towards Resnick. “Right?”

Resnick nodded at Divine and Divine slid a 10" x 8" from inside a paper wallet and set it center table. “No,” Carew said, barely looking. “That’s not her.”

“Not?”

“The girl I was meeting. That’s not her.”

“One o’clock.”

“What about it?”

“Saturday. The Buttery. One o’clock.”

“What?”

“You were meeting her?”

Carew was half out of his seat, eyes fixed on Suzanne Olds who shook her head and slowly he sat back down.

“Amanda,” Resnick said again.

“Inspector,” said Suzanne Olds, closing her notebook, fastening her fountain pen. The watch on her wrist was gold and told the phases of the moon. “My client has been questioned now for a little over two hours. He’s entitled to refreshment, a break.”

“Amanda Hooson,” said Resnick flatly.

“No,” said Carew, “I don’t know her. No. No. No. No.”

Resnick glanced at Divine, who reached into the wallet and removed a slim black book inside a plastic wallet and handed it to Resnick, who unfastened the wallet and lifted out the diary and opened it at the page marked by a thin strip of light brown thread and, placing it on the desk in front of Carew and pointing, read: Buttery. 1pm. Ian .

“I insist,” Suzanne Olds said, still pointing at her watch, standing now alongside her client’s chair. “I really must insist.”

“You know how many men there must be at the university called Ian?” Carew asked. “Never mind the medical school. Have you got any idea?”

“I wonder,” asked Resnick, feeling oddly relaxed now, “how many of those lans bothered to avoid police surveillance on Saturday lunchtime in order to go for a drink?”

“Inspector!”

“I wonder how many of them, within the last ten days, have been given an official police warning after attacking and in all probability sexually assaulting a young woman?”

In the bad old days before PACE, Carew might have been questioned through the night; kept awake by interchanging pairs of detectives until he was too tired to know what he was saying, so exhausted that he would say anything if it meant he could get some sleep. In some places Resnick was pretty sure such things still went on. On Jack Skelton’s patch, especially with someone as sharp as Suzanne Olds looking over his shoulder, Carew was assured his hours of undisturbed rest, usually to be taken during the night.

But, Christ, he was a difficult bastard to shake, impossible so far to break down and maybe that was because, beneath it all, there wasn’t anything to break. He’d quizzed men who were belligerent before, and clever, men for whom the interview was a challenge, a situation where you dug in your heels and won at all costs. He still hadn’t been able to disentangle two thoughts in his mind: Carew was guilty of something; but try as they might they were not going to prove that he was guilty of this.

And if he were, what about the others? Fletcher? Dougherty? Motivation? Opportunity? Resnick crossed the street. Inside the entrance to Aloysius House, Jane Wesley was standing up to a stubbly young drunk with odd shoes on his feet and the behind falling out of his trousers.

“Look,” Jane was saying, “I’m sorry, but I’ve already told you. You can’t come in here in that condition.”

“What fucking condition’s that?”

“You’ve been drinking. This is a dry house.”

“Of course I’ve been drinking. What the fuck else should I have been doing?”

“While you’ve got that much alcohol inside you …”

“Are you saying I’m drunk? Is that what you’re fucking saying? ’Cause if it is …”

Resnick tapped him on the shoulder and the man turned faster than he should have been able and aimed a head butt into Resnick’s face. Instinct swung his face away, enough for the man’s forehead to clash with the protective corner of bone at the corner of Resnick’s right eye. The man stumbled back against the doorway, blood beginning to run from a cut above his nose.

“Oh, God!” Jane Wesley said, quietly, a reflex sigh.

“Who in fuck’s name d’you think you are, pal?”

Resnick told him.

Contempt seared the man’s face. “What’s it now then? Assaulting a police officer? Eh? Resisting arrest?”

Resnick said nothing, didn’t move.

“Resisting fucking arrest, eh? That what you fancy?” He turned and smacked his head against the inside of the door jamb, trying for a second time when Jane shouted out and tried to push herself between him and the door and Resnick caught hold of him by the arms and swung him round.

“Hey!” called the man. “Hey!” A light in his eyes. “Don’t you fucking manhandle me! Enough fucking damage already, you! This …” He went unsteadily back across the wide pavement, pointing towards the blood that was now running freely down his face. “Fucking this! You see that? You see that? Fucking police, bastards, they never change. Never change. But I’ll see you done for this, I’ll see you lose your fucking job over this. Bastard!”

“Okay, Charlie. Why don’t you step inside, out the way while I get this sorted?” Ed Silver by Resnick’s side, looking shaved and close to sober in a jacket Resnick was sure he recognized.

The two men looked at one another, a small crowd on the pavement becoming less small every moment, the drunken accusations pouring on and on.

“Go on, Charlie.”