Darkness, Darkness (15 page)

‘We questioned him as soon as we knew she’d gone missing. After she was found, of course, brought him in again. Reckoned he’d been drinking, one or two pubs, town centre, which checked out, more or less. After that, drove round in his mate’s car for a while, showed up in another pub later, the pair of them, not so far off closing time. After that, according to his story, he went back home to bed. Living with just his dad, mother had moved out long since.’

‘And the father backs up his story?’

‘Heard him come in, couldn’t swear to the time. Not a lot of love lost between the pair of them, truth to tell.’

‘You mentioned his mate’s car – he didn’t have a car of his own?’

‘Borrowed his old man’s from time to time. When they were speaking.’

‘And that evening?’

‘Father’d used it himself earlier. Wayne could’ve taken it later, gone off looking for Donna. Nothing we could ever prove.’

‘She was killed how?’

‘Blow or blows with a heavy object to the back of the head.’

Resnick nodded. ‘Jenny Hardwick, the same.’

‘Dragged the river searching for something the killer might have used and thrown away. From the nature of the wound, some kind of implement, hammer, maybe, iron bar. DNA testing was seriously starting just about then – a year later, you’ll remember, Charlie, eighty-eight, those murders down in Leicestershire, first time it was used to secure a conviction – but in the end we came up with nothing. Nothing to say he saw her again after she left for Sheffield early that evening.’

‘This Wayne, he’s still around?’

Bryant shook his head. ‘Less than three years later, motorway pile-up, six of them in a Ford Fiesta, two up front, four in back. Wayne had been sitting next to the driver, no seat belt – almost goes without saying – killed outright. One of the four in the back got a broken neck, serious injuries the rest of them. Driver walked away scot-free, barely a scratch.’ Bryant shook his head. ‘Makes you wonder.’

‘Angel looking over him.’ Barbara’s voice from the kitchen.

‘You still earwigging?’

‘Turning these chops, that’s what I’m doing. Eating in just about five minutes. Paul, you’d better get that table laid.’

‘The driver,’ Resnick said, ‘just to round off the story . . .’

‘Other vehicles involved, blame difficult to assign. First off, far as I know, they were going for manslaughter, but that was dropped down to dangerous driving. Eighteen months and disqualification from driving. Maybe got off easy.’

‘Least he was alive.’

‘Still is, far as I know.’

‘Grub’s up!’ Barbara called. ‘Charlie, you want another beer?’

‘Best not.’

‘Wise. And no more cop talk till we finish eating, okay?’

‘What d’you want to do?’ Bryant said. ‘Talk about babies instead?’

Swivelling, she gave him a quick peck on the back of the neck. ‘Left it a bit late for that, sweetheart. Not that I’d put it past you for trying.’

‘What d’you reckon then, Charlie?’ Paul Bryant asked. ‘Michael Swann. Going to take it any further?’

They were outside, affording Bryant the opportunity for a runty little post-supper cigar. Clouds swivelled around the moon overhead; a scattering of stars, distant, indistinct.

‘Might run with it a while longer.’

‘Similarities aside, not a lot else linking him in with Donna, your lass neither. Distance, especially. Not his area at all. North-west, isn’t that right?’

Resnick nodded. ‘Fleetwood will have concocted some theory for that as well, I don’t doubt.’

‘He’s not said?’

‘Playing his cards close to his chest.’

‘SIO in the Swann inquiry, you’ll be talking to him next?’

‘Can’t do any harm.’

Bryant took a last pull at his cigar before stubbing it out. ‘Now you’ve got me interested, keep me in the loop. Let me know how it pans out.’

‘I’ll send you a postcard to Spain.’

‘I just hope, Charlie Resnick,’ Barbara said, over their shoulders, ‘you’re not thinking of sneaking off without giving me a hug.’

‘Wouldn’t think of it.’

She held him close. ‘Look after yourself, you big ox.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Before he’d gone as much as a mile down the road, there were tears nudging at the corners of his eyes, waiting to be blinked away. Other people’s happiness, it could be a bastard at times.

JENNY’S PARENTS HAD
been driving over to see them, just the second time since they’d moved out to Ingoldmells.

‘Twelve we should be there by,’ her mother had said, ‘twelve or thereabouts. Lunchtime, I suppose. Don’t you go bothering for us, though, just a nice cup of tea. I dare say we’ll stop and have a sandwich on the way.’

Jenny had had to smile. What was it, eighty miles? A couple of hours’ drive from the coast? Couldn’t be much more, even in a clapped-out old car like theirs. But for her mother, ever since Jenny and her sister Jill were little, any and every journey, anything more than a quick visit to friends in the next village, or the weekly trip to the Co-op in Worksop, had to be planned like a major campaign. Sandwiches, a flask of tea, orange squash for the girls, a blanket in case it got cold or they wanted to sit on the grass by the side of the road; always some plasters and a little round tin of Germolene – her mum’s favourite cure-all antiseptic – on the off chance anyone should cut themselves or fall and graze a knee; and, of course, a jerrycan full of petrol in the boot. If her mother had been in charge of Captain Scott’s expedition to the Pole, Jenny sometimes thought, it might not have been the brave disaster it turned out to be.

By twelve o’clock, however, there was no sign.

Twelve-thirty.

One.

After dropping the kids off at school that morning, Jenny had popped in at the Welfare, explained to Edna she’d not be there in the middle of the day.

She was hanging out the washing – a decent wind, even though it was a shade overcast – when she heard the phone. Her mother’s voice, strangely distant. They’d been stopped by police on the A57, just short of the county boundary. Stopped and turned back. Along with practically everyone else. Her dad had protested, told them straight out they didn’t have the right. Police state, that was what he’d said, what it was coming to. If I hadn’t pulled him away, her mum said, I think they’d have arrested him, there and then.

In the end they’d turned round and come back home – what else could they do? Next time, they’d come by bus, bus from Lincoln. Police wouldn’t turn that back, surely? Not public transport.

Some words about the children – Brian’s cold, Mary’s funny tummy, Colin getting into trouble at school – and Jenny set down the phone, time to start thinking about what they were all having for tea. Something more substantial for Barry when he got back off shift.

‘Not still making his meals for him, surely?’ one of the women from the support group had said. ‘Starve him out, that’s what you want to do. Either that or let him make his own.’

‘Likely be the same thing,’ said someone else.

Jenny knew it wasn’t that simple. It was only because Barry was still working, bringing home good wages, that there was food on the table. Ample compared to many that she knew.

‘There!’ Barry had said, just a few days before, slapping his wage packet down in front of her. ‘Take it, go on, take it. Take your bloody housekeepin’ and spend it putting food in our kids’ bellies an’ clothes on their backs, then fuck off down the Welfare and tell folk them as carry on working are no’but scabs and traitors. It’s a wonder the words don’t curdle in your mouth and make you sick.’

And that evening, when Peter Waites, half-jokingly she thought, had invited her to join them up on the platform, she had shaken her head and declined.

‘Nowt amiss?’ he’d asked later, last knockings and the crowd beginning to clear.

‘No, no. Just a bit off colour, that’s all.’

‘Women’s troubles, then, is it?’

‘Fuck off, Peter,’ she’d said and laughed.

Now, with the kids due back any moment, Colin and Mary between them with the task of picking up young Brian from the nursery class and shepherding him home, Jenny was caught wondering about the future – their future, hers and Barry’s – what it might be like when finally the strike was over, as one day surely it must be, and some kind of normality returned.

How possible would it be for them to pick up where they’d left off, carry on as before?

And if it were, was that what she wanted?

What she wanted now?

She shook her head.

There was mince, there were onions, a carrot or two, potatoes; in an hour or so there would be cottage pie.

THE SPADEWORK WENT
on. Snippets of information filtered from the various interviews that had been carried out were recorded, cross-referenced, assessed for further action. A picture of life in Bledwell Vale three decades previously, in so far as it involved Jenny and Barry Hardwick, their colleagues, their adversaries and their family, began, bit by bit, to emerge. Names of people who were now well scattered, some deceased. Addresses to be searched for, phone calls to be made.

Just as gradually, perhaps more so, a timetable of the work carried out at the rear of the Peterson house, where Jenny’s body had been found, was taking shape; what had proved impossible to compile so far was a list of names of those who’d worked with Geoff Cartwright on the job. One or two names only, and those at second-hand.

Cartwright himself, it had now been confirmed, had, indeed, emigrated to Canada in the late eighties and had been granted citizenship in 1996. From the records, he had married an Ingrid Marshall in 1993 and the couple had divorced in 2002. Having moved on from Alberta, Cartwright’s last known address was in the province of Saskatchewan, but that was now three years old. Liaison with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was continuing.

A Danny Ireland, meanwhile, had been placed at an address in Fort William, on the west coast of Scotland.

McBride found Alex Sandford at the drinks machine, about to give it a good kicking for ingesting his small change when he was seeking something warm and wet to help digest his energy bar and giving out nothing in return.

‘Much as I’d like to be revisiting the land of the brave, it’ll be your good fortune, yours and Cresswell’s, to make that journey instead. Make sure to call the local force beforehand, let them know you’re coming. Wouldn’t like to see you arrested for trespassing in what, to all intents and purposes, is a sovereign country.’

When McBride arrived back at his desk, it was to find Catherine Njoroge waiting.

‘Michael Swann, mean anything?’

McBride shook his head.

‘Sentenced for three murders, nineteen ninety-seven. Warrington, Preston, Carlisle. Perhaps you could dig out some basic information. I imagine more than one force would have been involved, initially at least, but it would be good to know who was in charge of the overall investigation.’

‘And this is needed, boss, because . . .?’

Catherine just stopped herself saying because I say so. ‘Because it may be relevant to our inquiry,’ she said.

‘Prioritise this, should I, then or . . .?’

‘End of the day would be good. Or sooner.’

‘See what I can do, boss.’

‘You do that, Sergeant.’ She knew she probably shouldn’t have said that either. Hated the way McBride, with just a look, a turn of phrase, could get under her skin. And knew it, too. Relished it, even.

Resnick had tried the mobile number Fleetwood have given him three times without success. It was mid-afternoon when Fleetwood called him.

‘Now you’ve had time to mull it over, do some basic checks,’ he said, before Resnick had the chance to speak, ‘what do you think?’

‘I’m not convinced.’

‘Who’ve you spoken to so far?’

‘What makes you think I’ve talked to anyone?’

‘You rang me. I doubt you’d be doing that if you were kicking it out of court completely.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Bryant, have you spoken to him?’

Resnick said that he had.

‘A good copper. Solid, as far as that goes. But not, I suspect, with a great deal of imagination.’

‘As a theory, Michael Swann – let’s just say he wasn’t over-impressed.’

‘Now there’s a surprise.’

‘It’s the location,’ Resnick said. ‘That’s what it comes down to. It just feels wrong. Breaks the pattern. South Yorkshire, North Notts. Both a long way from the M6.’

There was a pause before Fleetwood spoke again.

‘There is something. You’d find out for yourself, sooner or later. Always supposing you went ahead.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘For several periods between nineteen eighty-four and nineteen eighty-eight, Michael Swann worked as a minicab driver in Sheffield. Easy reach of where both Jenny Hardwick and Donna Crowder were killed.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

‘I thought, if you were taking me as seriously as you should, you’d have found out for yourself.’

Before Resnick could reply, he had broken the connection.

‘He’s playing games,’ Catherine said. ‘Wants to feel in control.’

They were sitting on open ground by the canal, a racket of crows rising and falling from the trees nearby. Catherine sucking an extra-strong mint in lieu of a cigarette, trying not to crack it too soon with her teeth; Resnick sat with a takeout cup of coffee, grown cold. Beyond the trees they could just see the old fire station tower and the blue-grey flour mills behind.

‘He’s messing us around, Charlie.’

‘From his point of view, there’s little use him laying out what he knows, step by step. Not without sufficient back-up, corroboration. What he wants is for us to find out for ourselves. Give it credibility. That’s what he needs.’

‘His problem, not ours.’

‘Agreed. But as long as it might help . . .’

‘You think we should push on further, then?’

‘It’s a line of inquiry. Legitimate, I’d say. And, right now, we’re not exactly overwhelmed with other possibilities. Besides, if we ignore it, and it turns out he was right all along . . .’

Attracted by the silver on the wrapper from Catherine’s mints, which had fallen to the ground and been blown a short way off by the wind, a large crow hopped warily towards it, picked it up in its beak and carried it away into the trees.