John Harvey: Lonely Hearts

You’re under a lot of pressure now .

She looked over at Carole’s empty chair, stood for a while at the window, cool of the glass against her forehead.

…as soon as I read it…

She wanted to ring Resnick, but he must be busy otherwise he would have called her himself. Besides, what could he do other than listen sympathetically, and was that what she wanted from him? Or herself? Leaning on him the first time anything went wrong? How could she say, Charlie, this is moving too far too fast, I think we have to back away a little, and, at the same time, Charlie, I need you?

Rachel went back to the telephone, stared at it for some seconds, and finally picked it up.

“Jane, you put a call through to me a short time ago. A man.”

“Yes, Miss Chaplin.”

“He didn’t give you, he didn’t say his name, I suppose?”

“No, Miss Chaplin, I’m sorry.”

“All right, Jane, and thanks. Oh, look, I know it’s not policy, but there’s no chance you gave him an outside number for me?”

“No, Miss Chaplin. You know we never give out home numbers to clients.”

“I know, but did he ask?”

“No, Miss Chaplin.”

“Thanks, Jane. I’m leaving soon, so no more calls, okay?”

But when she replaced the phone, Rachel continued to sit there, hearing the voice, over and over, something in it laughing at her, teasing, and something else, some quality of speech that she could not define yet which kept prompting her memory.

If you’ve got someone to help out tonight, I’ll call again .

“CID. Resnick.”

Why was it there was invariably a call just as you were about to go off shift?

“Yes, I know her. Yes.”

He had been leaning sideways in his chair, one knee resting against the edge of the desk, but now, instantly, he was straight and alert, free hand prising the top from a pen as he listened.

“Yes, understood,” Resnick said. And then: “How serious?”

His mouth tightened and, for a moment, still listening, he squeezed the bridge of his nose and his eyes closed.

“Is she…can she talk? I mean…Got it. Yes, I’ll be right there. Ten minutes, fifteen at most. Thanks.”

He dropped the receiver back on to its cradle, grabbed his coat from the back of the door. Lynn Kellogg was typing up the report of an interrogation she’d been involved in that afternoon, each laborious page initialed and signed.

“Lynn!”

“Sir?” she answered, getting to her feet.

“City Hospital. Intensive Care. Let’s go.”

Carole’s car was not outside, so she obviously hadn’t got back from her visit as early as she’d hoped. Rachel had wanted to talk to her, but the prospect of taking a drink and soaking in a hot bath appealed to her almost as much.

The phone was already ringing when she slipped her key into the lock. Against logic, the back of her throat went dry. Shutting the door, she bolted it. Stupid! What was she getting so paranoid about? Sliding back the bolt, she settled for the chain instead, then smiled at herself. Good old liberal half-measures!

At the far end of the hall, the telephone was mounted on a bracket, a small hessian-covered pinboard beside it, a pad on a circular table below, pencils and biros in a hollow donkey marked “A present from Skegness.” A joke, Carole had explained.

Rachel stared: whoever it is; they can’t ring for ever.

Carole, Charlie, whoever it is.

When she had steeled herself to answer it regardless, the tone stopped and the suddenness of the silence shocked her. The house was so quiet. Rachel checked in the kitchen and the living room and she was right, Carole didn’t have any vodka. Well, okay then, a large gin and tonic with ice and a slice of slightly decaying lemon, and maybe she could start to unwind, relax. Rachel made her drink and then hurried upstairs to run the bath. Five minutes later she had perched the glass between bottles of shampoo and conditioner, dropped her clothes on the chair by the door, and lowered herself into foaming, hot water, steam already beginning to frizzle the ends of her dark hair.

…that’s why you need to unwind, be relaxed…I’ll call again .

Phones rang and were answered .

Resnick showed his warrant card at reception and he and Lynn Kellogg were pointed towards another door, a corridor, a lift.

“When was she admitted, sir?” Kellogg asked. “Early hours of this morning.”

Their feet clicked loud on the tiled floor.

“Why did it take them so long to contact us?”

“Sounds as if notification went out, but nobody made the connection to us. It wasn’t until she said herself…”

“Still took her a long time, sir. Likely more than twelve hours.”

“Who knows?” Resnick said, pushing the lift button. “Who knows what state she’s in?”

There were double doors at the entrance to the intensive care ward, the first of which was kept locked. They rang and waited for a nurse to take them through.

Wrapped inside two towels, Rachel came down with care: the heat and the alcohol had made her a little dizzy. A cup of coffee was what she needed and by then Carole should be home, it was surprising she wasn’t there already.

As Rachel was crossing the hall, the phone began to ring and, by instinct, she picked it up.

“Hello, Carole?”

“Feeling better now, away from the rigors of the working day?”

Rachel slammed the receiver against the wall, struck it, twice, against the cradle before finally forcing it down into place.

“Bastard!” she yelled. “You bastard!”

She ran back up the stairs, nearly losing her footing once; pulled on her clothes, rubbed at her wet hair; downstairs again, she picked up the local paper she had stepped over earlier, folded inside the front door. Squatting there she rifled the pages: Cars for Sale, Household Goods, Funeral Services , there, Lonely Hearts . Shaking, her finger traced down the column.

“Oh, God!”

Rachel swallowed.

Attractive Professional Woman wants to hear from imaginative men with interesting ideas to help her unwind. Rachel.

She tore at the paper, pummeled it, beat at it with her hands.

Between the bandages and the widths of tape, between the carefully arranged pillows and the sheet, it was difficult to see much that was recognizable as Sally Oakes. Where her jaw had been broken, it was clamped in a wire frame.

Only the eyes were clear, but closed.

The doctor stood with Resnick at the foot of the bed; Lynn Kellogg sat as close as the drips would allow, glucose and blood.

“She was found in the road. Taxi driver on his way back to base. Said she stumbled out and collapsed right in front of him, all he could do not to run her over. He picked her up and brought her into casualty. Better if he’d left her there and phoned for an ambulance, of course, but it’s always easy to see clearly after the event.

“Then again, he had no way of knowing the extent of her injuries. Blood about the face and clothing, there must have been a lot of that, but I suppose he thought, you know, falling, drunk. Naturally, there would have been no way, simply by looking, of knowing about the internal injuries, their extent.”

Listening, looking, Resnick said nothing.

The cats had come running the instant they heard the key turn in the lock. Dizzy-he would be the first-Pepper, Miles, and-what was the scrawny one called? — Bud. Rachel pushed the door to and bent down, favoring Bud with an especial stroke. Dizzy showed her his backside and headed for the kitchen.

Rachel hung the keyring Resnick had given her from her index finger and followed, the other cats sliding in and out of her feet. It struck warm inside the house and she felt something about it that was immediately welcoming, quite different from Carole’s home which was always oddly vacant when Carole herself wasn’t there-like a place that had been sold a long time ago and was still waiting for the new owners to move in.