Off Minor (25 page)

Thirty-four

Resnick had been up since before six, padding around the house between bathroom and bedroom and back again, persuading Pepper out from the airing cupboard, where he had made a nest for himself in the deep blue of the towels. Downstairs, he unbolted the door and let Dizzy in out of the still black morning. Cats fed and coffee ground, he went in search of a clean shirt. If Stephen Shepperd had almost collided with Vivien Nathanson, why had he lied? If he had been there in the crescent, would there have been time and opportunity enough for him to have abducted Emily Morrison? Where could he have taken her and why? Resnick sliced rye bread with caraway, three small rounds, and set them in the toaster, side by side. Sighed as he saw both Dizzy and Miles eating from Bud’s bowl, the smallest of his four cats, destined to be smaller still. Push them away with his foot, they’d be back seconds later. Instead he scooped Bud up in one hand, nuzzled him under his chin and sprinkled a handful of dry food on the work surface, standing the cat down next to it to eat. Coffee not quite ready, he began to slice the Jarlsberg for his toast. What he wanted to know, what they hadn’t yet asked, exactly when that Sunday afternoon Stephen Shepperd had arrived back home, the time his wife had next seen him. He spread margarine on the toast, scraped some back off with the knife and returned it to the packet; he overlapped the cheese across, cut a chunk of garlic sausage from the fridge and put that on top; what he would have liked, a tomato, but they had all gone, what he was tempted by, a smear of mayonnaise. A hand pressed against his stomach was enough to help him to resist. What had Stephen Shepperd said about swimming being good exercise? Maybe he should take it up? A few leisurely lengths each morning before work. He must send someone along with the Identikit picture, see if they recognized Stephen, if they could remember him being there on Sunday afternoon. He carried his toast and coffee through to the other room, wondering if Skelton would be up yet, whether he should call.

“Not exactly a lot to go on, Charlie. Our word against his he was there at all. And if he was, what does it prove?”

“If he was,” Resnick said, “why’s he lying?”

“Someone else, perhaps, illicit assignation. Last thing he wants to do, admit the truth in front of his wife.”

“The whole of Lenton couldn’t have been at it, sir, Sunday afternoon.”

“According to my wife, who sees the world increasingly through the eyes of Andrea Newman’s novels, it’s what most people are doing any afternoon.”

Skelton knew the dangers of making the wrong move too soon. Set against that, the almost certain knowledge that the more time passed before finding the girl, the less chance there was of finding her alive, and the more likely he was to come under criticism.

“We’ve not come up with a lot else, have we, Charlie?”

Slowly, Resnick shook his head. “Sod all, sir,” he said.

Lorraine Morrison opened the door to Lynn while her finger was still pressed to the bell. Whatever Lorraine had tried doing to her hair that morning hadn’t worked; a green and yellow rugby shirt hung loose outside her jeans, sports shoes on her feet.

“Have you found her?”

Lynn shook her head.

“But you’ve got some news?”

“Not really, not much.”

“We saw the drawing last night on the news; it was in the paper as well. There must be something.”

“A lot of phone calls, yes. We’re sorting through them now.”

“Well, then.”

“Lorraine, what you have to realize, people who respond to items like that, they do so for, oh, a whole lot of reasons. Some think it’s a way to get noticed, some want to get their own back on their neighbors, others call in and suggest something stupid just for a joke, a laugh. Never mind somebody has to check them all out.”

The disappointment in Lorraine’s face was so palpable you could reach out and touch it.

“There is one possibility, though. Look, I mean, nothing to get your hopes up about, not really. But we think we might have a line on somebody. Probably only a witness, though, at best.”

Now it was clear Lorraine didn’t know what to feel and Lynn, who knew she’d overstepped the line saying anything this early, felt responsible for offering the girl something that she’d immediately taken away.

“How’s Michael?” she said.

“He went to work. Decided last night and then, this morning, changed his mind. I had to push him out of the house in the end, but anything will be better for him than moping around.”

Lynn glanced at her watch. “How about a quick coffee, then? I’ve just got time.”

There was no doubting the small look of pleasure on Lorraine’s face as Lynn eased the front door to and they started towards the kitchen.

“Michael’s brother phoned not long before you came,” Lorraine said. “I was glad Michael was out. I suppose he’s full of the right intentions, but all Geoffrey seems to do somehow is put Michael into an even worse mood.” She gestured for Lynn to sit down. “But perhaps that’s the way families are? I don’t know, I was the only one. How about you?”

“Afraid so,” Lynn said. “Just me.”

“You don’t like it?”

“When you’re growing up, I suppose it’s not so bad. All that love and attention. It’s when you’re older, when your parents are getting older, that’s when it can get a bit more worrying.” That’s when, she thought, the chickens start coming home to roost.

Joan Shepperd had woken that morning to the faint electrical sound of drilling, pushed out a hand and felt the pillow on her husband’s side of the bed, still damp. Down in the cellar which he had equipped as a workshop, Stephen was bending, not over a drill, but a plane, turning lengths of timber. On one of the shelves his old portable radio was tuned to Radio Two, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstein, that song that used to be so popular all those years ago. They must be dead now, the pair of them, Joan thought, either that or in their seventies. Eighties, even. She seemed to recall hearing that one of them had died, couldn’t for the life of her remember which one.

“Stephen, do you want any breakfast?”

Very well, let him pretend he hadn’t heard. Stay down there all day if that was the way he felt. She closed the cellar door as the whine of the tool Stephen was using drowned the final chorus of the song.

“Passing Strangers,” is that what it had been?

Today, Joan thought, would be a good day for All-Bran and some dried fruit, apricots and prunes.

“What d’you call that?” Millington had asked, setting the
Mail
aside to lean over the book his wife was looking at so earnestly.

“What the artist calls it is
Double Nude Portrait.
”

What Millington could see, opened out over their breakfast table, was a middle-aged woman, not a stitch on her, leaning back in front of a gas fire, breasts sliding sideways in either direction, legs apart and one knee raised. Seated behind her and gazing down through a pair of round-framed spectacles, was this equally naked bloke with a vaguely hairy chest and what looked like the leftovers of an erection.

“Nice thing to have on the breakfast table,” Millington said.

“I think they’re on the floor, Graham.”

“I can see that, toasting themselves in front of the gas.”

“I think it’s oil, Graham.”

“Gas.”

“The tutor said it was oil; a Vector oil heater. It was the artist’s own.”

“Yes? So what else did he have to say about this? Your tutor.”

“
She
said it was an act of religious contemplation.”

“Um. So what’s this, down here at the bottom? Looks like a piece of raw meat.”

“It’s a leg of lamb. Or was it mutton?”

“Religious, too, is it?”

“I think it’s suggesting a contrast between the two, the one just for eating and the other …” She stopped, a faint blush showing on her neck. “I’m really not sure, Graham.”

“No, well, you’ve got it nearly right, I reckon.” He leaned closer to the title. “Stanley Spencer.
Double Nude Portrait: the Artist and his Second Wife.
Didn’t say anything, your tutor, as to how he disposed of the first one?”

The exterior of the Victoria Leisure Center, on the corner above the wholesale market, smelled of rotting vegetables and poverty; inside the smell was of chlorine and Brut. Divine held his identification up to the glass panel at reception and when he had the girl’s attention, slipped a copy of the drawing through the opening.

“What about him?” the girl asked, trying not to notice Divine doing his best to get a good look down her front.

“Know him? Regular or anything?”

She picked it up and held it closer to her face. Can’t be much more than eighteen, Divine thought, eyesight should be better than that.

“I think so,” she said.

“He comes here?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure.”

“Well, you’re pretty,” Divine said.

She gave him a look that would have stopped a ferret at fifty feet.

“What, then?” Divine carried on, undeterred. If you never gave it a go, you never knew. “He use the baths or what?”

“Swimming, yes, I’m pretty … I’m almost certain.” Leaning back in her chair, she called through to the inner office. “Les, this bloke’s a regular, isn’t he?”

Les came out with a bundle of towels in both arms, a well-built man in his fifties with graying hair. “Never seen him before,” he said, looking through the glass at Divine.

“No,” said the girl, “not him. Him.”

“Oh.” Les dumped the towels and took hold of the drawing. “Yes, him, two or three times a week. Main pool.”

“Any idea when he was here last?” Divine asked.

Les and the girl exchanged glances, both shook their heads.

“Sunday?”

Les reached for his towels. “Could’ve been Sunday.”

“You working then?”

“Me, not Sunday, no. One in four and that’s one too many.” He pointed at the book on the counter. “See who was on Sunday. Morning?” he said to Divine. “Or afternoon?”

“Afternoon.”

“Freda,” said the girl. “It was Freda.”

They found Freda in the women’s changing rooms, doing duty with a long-handled broom. “Get all kinds left in here, you know. Everything from Tesco’s chicken tikka sandwiches, still Cellophane-wrapped, untouched, to a pack of contraceptive pills with only six missing. There’s someone’ll be going white round the gills come the end of the month.”

Divine showed her the picture.

“Stephen,” she said. “Nice bloke. Always time for a bit of a chat. What about him?”

“Was he in Sunday?” Les asked. “Afternoon?”

“Not unless he’s been practicing limbo dancing. Wouldn’t get past me any other way. “Sides, like I say, liked to chat. No, he wasn’t in this weekend. If he was, I’d’ve seen him.”

“You’re sure of that?” Divine asked.

Freda leaned forward against her broom, fixed Divine with her eyes. “What do you think?” she said.

Patel and Naylor spent the best part of the day sorting through the responses to the artist’s impression, throwing out the too obviously false, the one who claimed it was his father-in-law, another who swore that it was the bastard of a manager who’d refused him a loan at the bank. Four pointed in the direction of Stephen Shepperd; one, a neighbor, mentioning the fact that he’d seen him running round Lenton Rec; a man who used to work with him identifying him by name.

Jogged by the fresh publicity, two people contacted the station about the unaccounted-for Ford Sierra. As a result Naylor delved into the phone book for the address of a Bernard Kilpatrick, owner of a sports shop out at Bulwell, currently living round the corner from the White Hart.

At the shop it appeared to be half-day closing and no one was picking up the home phone and answering, so Naylor was all for going round there, get him out to the police station, but Millington’s hand on his shoulder kept him where he was.

“You sit tight with that little lot. I’ll see if I can run Mr. Kilpatrick to ground. Never know, might sink a quick half in the White Hart while I’m about it.”

As it was, Millington never got his drink. Bernard Kilpatrick, engine oil on his arms and state-of-the-art tool kit spread over the pavement, was making some minor adjustments to the carburetor. He straightened up as Millington drew nearer and prepared to swap stories about the unpredictability of cars generally, engines in particular. Even something as normally reliable as a G registration Ford Sierra.

Thirty-five

“What I want to know, car’s that close Randall could hit it with a throw from cover point, how come none of our lot spotted it? Even if they weren’t using their eyes, what was wrong with questions? Ford Sierra owners, isn’t that what we’ve been looking for? Whatever happened to checking vehicle ownership through the damned national computer? God alone knows how many man hours, how much overtime’s gone into this already, and it takes some civilian to tip us off.

“Well, thanks very much to Joe Public, thanks indeed, but meanwhile, what in hell’s name’s been going on?”

Jack Skelton was not a happy man. He’d summoned his senior officers first thing and it wasn’t to pass out commendations. Skelton had dispensed with his normal shirt-sleeve order, brisk and businesslike yet approachable, and was standing there glowering at them from behind his desk in a suit sharp as battle armor, tie knotted so tight as to endanger his blood supply.

“All right, let’s make up for sloppy work with some hard graft, some application, a sight more diligence. Charlie, I want that lecturer in here this afternoon if you have to carry her in on your shoulders, let’s get Shepperd in an identification parade sharpish. Meantime, background on him and his wife; as many questions asked about this couple as we can. Neighbors, friends, colleagues, let’s pay particular attention to the people who responded to the Identikit. Bit of an odd set-up, from what Charlie’s said, sounds as if the wife might know more than she’s letting on. Let’s get her on her own, see if she’ll open up. Rattle her if you have to, rattle anyone and everyone. There’s one child on this patch dead, another missing. For Christ’s sake, let’s do what we’re paid for and do something about it.”