Darkness, Darkness (20 page)

‘So it could,’ Catherine said. ‘Full acknowledgement of what you’ve done wrong. That’s what they’ll want to hear. Clear the decks. Show remorse.’

‘What I’ve done? I’ve paid for what I’ve done. And what you’re doing is throwing every unsolved murder in the book at me in the hope one of them’ll stick. Well, it’s not going to happen.’

Unsteadily to his feet, Swann shuffled back towards the door, signalling through the glass.

‘We might come and see you again,’ Catherine said, standing. ‘When you’ve had time to think. Or if you want to speak to us, it’s easily arranged.’

But Swann was no longer listening.

‘Visit over?’ the prison officer said from the doorway.

‘Visit over,’ Resnick said.

JENNY WAS ELATED,
exhausted, unable to tell exactly which way she was going, what exactly she was feeling, which way was up. Tonight had been the night of her first speech from the platform – Peter Waites had finally persuaded her – only there in the Vale, admittedly, people for the most part she knew, men and women who would never have been there, listened, had they not been fully in support of what she was saying. But even so, once she had got over the frozen moment when Peter had introduced her, the yawning gulf between where she was sitting and the microphone at the front of the stage, seemingly impossible, too vast, too daunting to cross; once the first words had broken, startled, from her mouth, thoughts racing ahead, worrying, worrying would she remember, would she remember what she’d been rehearsing incessantly these last few days since Peter had told her, invited her to join him on the platform; realising, even as the exact words of the prepared speech slipped away from her and she struck out on her own – what she felt, what she really felt important, what mattered – realising then, all the faces turned towards her, listening, listening, knowing she had them, had them in the palm of her hand. Her own bloody hand!

Sweat running down her back, her top sticking to her, near transparent, sweat between her legs, itching, clinging; her hair damp with it, eyes bright. The applause, a few people on their feet, loud, continuing.

‘Where’s your old man?’ someone shouted. ‘Back home, hiding?’

Peter Waites shook her hand heartily and when, finally, she stepped offstage, Edna Johnson enveloped her in a hug.

‘I knew you could do it. Fair made me proud.’

Walking home, two brandies later, sounds of congratulation still ringing in her ears, she found herself scanning again through the rows that had been spread out in front of the stage, searching through the faces. For one moment, earlier, she thought she’d seen him, there amongst the group of men standing by the side wall, but when he turned again, the hair was different – not red but reddish brown – the face rounder, the eyes not seeking out her own.

Barry scarcely glanced up when she came into the room.

‘The kids—’ she began.

‘In bed long since.’

She waited for him to look up from the paper, ask, even, how it had gone.

‘I’ll be getting off to bed myself then . . .’

‘You do that.’

The flap of the paper like a slap across her cheek.

CATHERINE HAD PUT
down a deposit on the flat less than three days after first seeing it. Someone will snap it up before the week’s out, the estate agent had said, and, for once, Catherine had thought that was probably right. Borrowing the capital she lacked from her parents had been the only difficult part; having to go cap in hand when she was well into her thirties.

‘Don’t they pay you in the police force?’ her father had asked. ‘Promotion and all, I thought you’d have been coining it by now. It’s not as if you’re living down here in the south-east, after all. That I could understand.’

‘Your father and I,’ her mother had said, smiling, ‘had been looking forward to you supporting us in our old age.’

‘Ah, well,’ Catherine had said, returning her smile, ‘there’s always the state pension, the winter fuel allowance. That’s without all those investments Daddy’s been cleverly making over the years.’

‘Economic downturn, haven’t you heard?’ her father said. ‘Not worth the paper they’re printed on.’

‘I don’t know,’ Catherine said, looking pointedly round. ‘You don’t seem to be doing too badly.’

‘How much exactly,’ her father had finally asked, ‘is it you want?’

She told him.

‘I thought property in Nottingham was cheap?’

‘Some is.’

‘Let me have your account details. Email them, that’s best. I’ll have the money transferred.’

So there she was, a top-floor flat on the Ropewalk, tastefully converted. No throwing out all the old with the new. Oak floors and sash windows: open-plan living room, kitchen in steel and chrome, en-suite bedroom. Views out across the city to the front; from the rear she could look high over Park Valley towards the Trent and beyond that to hills and open fields.

Long enough living there now to feel comfortable, comfortably at home. Looking forward to it at the end of the day. Close the door; close out the world. The world she dealt with as part of her job.

Somehow Michael Swann kept sneaking back.

The way he had stared at her. Wasn’t she used to being stared at enough? But this had been different. Knowing what he had done, this apparently mild-mannered man, what he had done to three young women, women who, for some reason, had put their trust in him.

A pussycat compared to some . . . just look at me . . . Not hurt a fly
.

When he had rested the tips of his fingers against his own softly wrinkled skin and moved them gently along, she had felt his touch on her arm.

Man with a van. No job too small
.

Could she imagine him, the early hours of the morning, driving along the Sheffield Road? Perhaps he’d just dropped off a fare in Rotherham and was on his way back when he’d seen her, Donna, thumbing a lift on the opposite side of the road. Driven a short distance further before executing a three-point turn.

‘Need a ride, love?’

‘No, you’re all right,’ Donna might have said. ‘I’m spent up.’

‘No worries. Just hop in. No skin off my nose.’

Is that how it had been?

The scene played out in her mind. Easier with Donna – they knew more, easier to fill in the spaces, connect the dots.

But Jenny . . .

With Jenny they still knew next to nothing of the circumstances leading up to her death. A little rumour. A little insinuation.

Donna Crowder, though – almost as soon as she was mentioned, Swann had called the interview to an end. Perhaps they should go back, interview him further, under caution. Resnick could talk to Paul Bryant again, ransack his memory . . .

But Donna Crowder’s case, she told herself, was somebody else’s – or would be if the investigation were reopened – and not her own.

Through the window, the lights of the city were like something from a movie, something more glamorous than the place she knew to be real. Six months she’d patrolled the streets: drunks, junkies, homeless teenagers with nowhere to go; men in raucous groups shouting lewd suggestions across the road; women with skirts that barely covered their buttocks, holding on to each other so as not to go – what was that charming English expression? – arse over tit.

Cold, Catherine turned up the heating a notch, fetched a glass from the kitchen; a bottle of red wine – Barolo – on the table waiting to be opened.

Why not?

The CD she’d been listening to recently was still in the player and she flicked it to life with the remote. Bach Cello Suites, Pablo Casals. She had bought it after seeing a film about a string quartet. Rather wonderful, really. Christopher Walken, suffering from Parkinson’s. Catherine Keener, whom she’d seen several times before without realising they shared a name.

There was a scene in which Walken is talking to a group of young music students he’s teaching: telling them of meeting the famous Pablo Casals. Then playing, unaccompanied, as Casals had, a passage from the Cello Suite No. 4.

Catherine didn’t think she’d heard anything more striking, more beautiful.

On the disc it was the same. Casals recorded in Paris in 1939. The year before the German army invaded the city. So many years before she was born.

Her mobile rang and she picked it up.

Abbas.

She declined the call.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes.

It rang again. Different tone. A text this time.

I’m at your door.

It was as though she had pins and needles in her arms, her fingers, her toes.

The message, staring at her.

Why should she believe him? How could he have got her address? As soon as she asked herself the question, she knew the reply: her parents, of course. She could see him, smart, smiling, winding her mother around his little finger, shaking brisk hands with her father, man to man.

‘I thought, since I was going to be in Nottingham – not for long, just passing through – it would be a nice gesture to call on Catherine. Nothing heavy, just to wish her well, see how she is. Make it something of a surprise.’

Oh, yes, they would like that. A shame, they’d always thought, the two of them hadn’t been able to work it out. Catherine, really, she’d been the problem. Perhaps this time . . .

She sipped a little more wine, set down the glass.

Walked, barefoot, towards the door.

Leaned her head against it, listening.

Listening for what?

His breathing?

All of a sudden he kicked, kicked against the base of the door and her head jerked back.

‘Catherine! I know you’re there.’

Another kick; the sound of fists, hammering.

‘Catherine!’

If he carried on like that, he’d raise the neighbours; one of them would phone the police. She imagined two uniformed officers arriving, dragging the protesting Abbas away, asking her to open the door . . . perhaps they would recognise her straight away, perhaps not.

‘Catherine!’

She unlocked the door, stepped aside, waited for him to enter. Closed the door behind him.

Watched as he walked through into the living room as if nothing untoward had happened. The same Abbas: smart, handsome, strong; more self-confident, Catherine thought, than anyone she had ever met.

‘It’s nice,’ he said, looking round, appraising. ‘A little impersonal, maybe. Like a budget hotel room, I suppose. No, that’s unfair.’ Smiling. ‘Three stars at least.’

His eyes focused on the Barolo.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me a glass?’

‘Abbas, what do you want?’

‘I said, a glass of wine. A glass of wine and a little civilised conversation. Is that too much to ask?’

‘And after that you’ll go?’

‘Of course.’

She was half-afraid he might follow her into the kitchen, but when she returned with an empty glass, he was lounging back on the settee, legs outstretched, one expensive shoe hooked over the other.

‘Tortelier?’ he asked, with a nod towards the stereo, where the Bach was still playing.

‘Casals.’

‘Tortelier’s better. The eighty-three recordings, not the later ones.’

Seeing her expression, he laughed. ‘All right. Absolute bullshit, I know. Eighty-three, ninety-three, who knows, who cares?’

Catherine poured wine into his glass, not too much; refreshed her own. Sat in the Eames-style chair between the settee and the door.

‘What brings you back to the East Midlands?’ she asked. ‘Or have you been here all along?’

‘I could say it’s to see you, but that would just be more—’

‘More of your bullshit.’

‘Exactly.’

Abbas smiled a practised smile. Good teeth – mostly, if Catherine remembered correctly, his own.

‘So are you going to tell me?’ Catherine said.

‘What?’

‘Why you’re here?’

He uncrossed his legs, swivelling round until he was facing her across the table. ‘Even in this benighted part of the country, there are still people one can do business with. Though, all too often, it’s buying up their sorry little failing companies before they go under completely.’

‘Not out of charity, I imagine.’

‘Hardly.’ Another smile. ‘Helps put them out of their misery.’

The CD came to end. Abbas was on his feet, moving towards the window overlooking the Park Estate.

‘Those big houses down there – the Park Estate – mansions some of them. I was reading about it the other day. You know who they were built for? Those Victorian Gothic monstrosities? People with ideas, ambition. Captains of industry. Coal barons. Lace. Where would they be today? China? India? The Gulf?’

‘You could always join them.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘Abbas, I don’t care where you are. Just as long as—’

‘As long as I stay away from you.’

‘Exactly.’

Sitting easily back down on the settee, he lifted his glass, raised it towards her as if in a toast, and drank. Looked at her over the rim.

‘You know, you’re a very silly girl sometimes.’

‘I’m not a girl.’

‘Semantics. Woman, then. What does it matter? You know what I mean.’

‘I don’t think I do.’

‘You realise the life we could have—’

‘Yes, Abbas.’

‘And yet you choose this. This anonymous little flat. Your grubby little job.’

‘Abbas, I think you should go.’

‘I’m just trying—’

‘Please . . .’ Rising to her feet. ‘Just go.’

‘Very well.’ He looked at the glass. ‘Shame to leave this all the same.’

Setting down the glass, he stepped around the table; stood beside her. She could smell his cologne, the oil in his hair.

‘Goodbye kiss . . .?’

As he leaned his head towards her, she twisted hers away.

‘Abbas . . .’

He caught hold of her wrist. Her arm. Pressed his face against hers.

‘You remember how we used to make love . . .’

She struggled to free herself and he pushed her back against the wall.

‘Abbas!’

‘The way you used to scream.’ He was fast up against her, forcing his leg between hers. Whispering in her ear. ‘Nobody else can make you come like that. You know it. Nobody.’