Darkness, Darkness (22 page)

‘Hurry, please, you’ve got to go.’

Bustling around him now, while he slowly tucks himself in, zips himself up.

‘Okay, okay . . .’

She shepherds him towards the back door, slips back the bolt.

‘See you again, then . . .’

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘No, you won’t. Don’t think it because it’s not going to happen.’

‘Didn’t enjoy it much, then?’ he says, grinning. ‘All that carrying on.’

‘Out. Now. Go.’

Pushing him, she shuts the door more or less in his face. Hurries to the bathroom and strips off her clothes; runs warm water over a flannel and wipes her belly, wipes between her legs. Smell him, she can smell him, smell the pair of them. Jesus Christ, if she can, so will Linda when she brings back Brian. So will Barry. So will the kids.

‘Please, Mum, what’s that funny smell in the kitchen?’

It’s not funny.

She laughs, despite herself. Applies deodorant, a quick spray of the perfume Jill gave her the Christmas before, quickly dresses. Takes the air freshener from the toilet and uses it liberally above and around where they’ve been. Where they’ve been making love – no, fucking, for Christ’s sake, that’s what it was – where they’ve been fucking on the kitchen floor.

She’s taking the freshener back when the doorbell rings.

Linda with Brian and her own four-year-old; Brian hurling himself at her, arms reaching up; Linda’s lad hiding behind her legs, too shy to show his face.

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ Jenny says.

‘Ooh, yes,’ says Linda, ‘that’d be lovely.’

TREVOR FLEETWOOD LIVED
on Moorland Road, midway between the university campus and the Grand Mosque, an upper-floor flat in a tall terraced house overlooking Woodhouse Moor. His name beside a bell which didn’t appear to work. In the absence of a knocker, McBride shouted upwards and was rewarded, after his third attempt, by Fleetwood’s head and shoulders appearing through an opened window.

Recognising Resnick, he signalled that he would be down.

The linoleum that covered the centre of the stairs had worn almost translucent with use. Dust huddled in the corners of each step. The bannister rail smooth as marble to the touch.

‘About all the press,’ Fleetwood said, when they reached the landing. ‘I meant to warn you.’

‘Did you fuck!’ McBride growled.

Resnick said nothing.

They followed Fleetwood into a broad, high-ceilinged hall. It could have been a display from a small municipal museum in need of funds. On a walnut table at the centre, next to what Resnick thought was probably an aspidistra, a stuffed animal with a pointed face, sharp teeth and a patchy white coat – some kind of weasel – reared up inside a glass dome. Extravagantly framed Victorian oils crowded the heavily papered walls, portraits and sombre landscapes, small children walking away into the sunset down an avenue overhung with trees, holding hands.

‘I got lumbered with a lot of my mother’s stuff after she died,’ Fleetwood explained. ‘Keep meaning to do something with it, sell it, stick it on eBay – one thing and another never get around to it.’

The main room was bay-windowed, wide, almost every conceivable surface – oak table, a pair of leather settees, sideboard, an old green filing cabinet, two armchairs – piled high with papers: newspapers, pages of manuscript, magazines. Only a second table, positioned in the bay, survived relatively paper free: two computers, one a desktop, one laptop, a printer, a cordless phone in its base.

Bookshelves covered one wall.

‘I mean what I said. My understanding was they were going to hold off another few days at least. The
Post
wanted a jump on them, I suppose. Then, once it was out there . . .’ He made a gesture of helplessness. ‘The rest followed.’

‘And your books,’ McBride said, ‘went flying up the bloody charts.’

‘Not of my doing. Out of my hands.’

‘That’s why you’ve been all over the Web this last twenty-four hours – Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and the rest – lordin’ yourself to the fuckin’ nines.’

‘It’s called earning a living.’

‘It’s called takin’ the fuckin’ piss.’

‘Why don’t we,’ Resnick suggested, giving McBride a warning look, ‘all take a breath, sit down and talk?’

‘Aye,’ grumbled McBride, ‘if we can find somewhere to fuckin’ sit.’

‘First things first,’ Resnick said, once they were all three settled. ‘All that stuff you were feeding me, the photograph of Donna and so on, was that all just bait to get us interested or what?’

‘No. Not at all. Anything I told you, I told you in good faith.’

McBride made a sound of deep disbelief.

‘It’s still all conjecture, though, isn’t it?’ Resnick said. ‘For all your efforts, you’ve not come up with one piece of solid evidence that ties Swann in to either crime.’

‘Not surprising, surely. There’s a limit to what I can do on my own. You’re the ones with the resources, after all.’

‘Meantime,’ McBride said, ‘this side of libel, you can say the first thing that comes into your head.’

Fleetwood allowed himself the beginnings of a smile.

Resnick let the silence hold a moment longer. ‘Just how long was it after we left,’ he said, ‘that Swann made the call?’

‘What call?’

Resnick glanced towards the phone in the bay. ‘You needed his confirmation we were there. Some idea of what we’d asked, what had been said. Without that, whatever story you were spinning to the press, it was never going to fly.’

Fleetwood looked a little less than comfortable; looked away.

‘You want me to check with the prison?’ Resnick offered. ‘There’ll be a record of outgoing calls.’

Fleetwood was already shaking his head. ‘No, no need.’

‘What I can’t help wondering, why he’d be so keen to do that, when you’re busy setting him up for two more murders?’

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘What d’you mean,’ McBride exclaimed, ‘he doesna know?’

‘As far as he’s concerned, any interest the police have got in linking him to further crimes, that’s come from them, not me. If I’m asking him questions, he thinks it’s to refute whatever the police might be claiming, not the other way about.’

‘Leaving you cleaner than a pig shitting in church.’

‘He thinks I’ll help him towards his appeal for parole.’

‘At the same time as putting him in the frame,’ McBride said with a grudging hint of admiration. ‘You’re a tricky wee bastard, right enough. But once he clocks all this ballyhoo about how you’re going to write a book accusing him of two more murders, how’re you fixin’ to wriggle out of that?’

‘I’ll find a way.’

‘I bet you will.’

‘But unless,’ Resnick said, ‘we come up with something tangible linking Swann to those crimes, that book’s not going to get written.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Fleetwood said with a smile. ‘I just write a different book. About a killer and sex offender who paid his debts to society, served his time and got paroled back into the world, despite police attempts to link him to further crimes.’

‘You think you’ve got your bread buttered both sides, don’t you?’ McBride sneered.

‘Using my wits,’ Fleetwood said. ‘Manoeuvring things to my best advantage, no law against that.’

‘No?’ Anger flashed in McBride’s eyes. ‘How about wasting police time, under section five, sub-section two of the Criminal Law Act? You want to suck on that for starters?’

‘You think? The CPS won’t give it the time of day and you know it.’

‘Right,’ Resnick said, rising. ‘That’s us done. Come on, John, I think we’ve said what we had to say.’

As Fleetwood got to his feet, Resnick took a pace towards him, pointed a finger.

‘Word of advice – tread carefully. Any further communication between yourself and Michael Swann, anything germane to any ongoing investigation, come straight to us with it. Otherwise you could see yourself looking at a charge of perverting the course of justice.’

‘It’s always been my policy,’ Fleetwood said, po-faced, ‘to liaise closely with the police wherever possible. And whatever the circumstances.’

‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ McBride said dismissively. ‘No call to get off your fuckin’ high horse to open the door. Besides, I’d not like to see you slip down all them stairs.’

McBride lit up the moment they were on the pavement. ‘What’d you reckon to that?’

‘I can see why they keep you chained to the desk most of the time. Letting a Rottweiler out without its muzzle.’

‘That was nothing. You should see me when I’ve a drink or two inside me.’

Resnick laughed.

‘What?’

‘Just amusing, seeing you steering so close to the stereotype.’

‘Wait till tomorrow, I’ll come in wearing ma kilt an’ a fuckin’ sporran.’ He winked. ‘That’ll give yon Kenyan lassie something to think on.’

Resnick walked around the car. ‘The Kenyan lassie, John, as you call her. Cut her some slack, okay? The job’s difficult enough without you making it more so.’

AFTER YET ANOTHER
session in the DCI’s office at Central Station, Catherine doing whatever she could to deflect blame for the recent flare-up of publicity on to Fleetwood’s devious machinations and away from Resnick and herself, there was agreement on the way forward. The information, such as it was, linking Swann with the Sheffield area would be handed over to the South Yorkshire Force, where a cold case team was preparing to review the investigation into Donna Crowder’s murder. They would take evidence, Catherine assumed, from Trevor Fleetwood and interview Swann under caution. Anything with possible implications for their own investigation, they would continue to pursue.

She had spoken to Barry Hardwick, taking care to stress that reports in the media of a link between his wife’s death and a convicted serial killer were little more than media rumour and conjecture. They would, as a matter of course, take the possibility of any link seriously, but, as things stood, there was little if any evidence to suggest that Michael Swann was involved in any way in Jenny’s murder.

Bledwell Vale, the Christmas of 1984.

So long ago.

Now Catherine was having tea with the woman who had been Jenny’s daughter’s best friend, only too happy to be sitting there in the relative quiet of a suburban garden.

In a good light, Nicky Parker could pass for a lot less than her actual age, which had to be thirty-seven, thirty-eight, within touching distance of forty. This was a good light. Clear air. The afternoon sun carrying a little warmth for a change and the temperature higher than it had been for days. Weeks, it seemed. The two of them sitting in deckchairs in Nicky’s garden, only the second or third time they would have tried that this year. Nicky wearing a striped Breton top and nicely fitting blue jeans, her hair cut in a neat bob, not a hint of grey, and, unlike her friend Mary, for whom age had done no real favours, looking all of late twenties, not a scrap older.

The house was in an area of West Bridgford called Lady Bay; midway along a street of houses which looked out over the meadows leading down towards the Trent.

Nicky had met her at the door and ushered her through a small, tiled hall – wellington boots, buggies, waterproofs, a scattering of toys – and on through the kitchen into a neat but busy garden: flower beds, shrubs, herbs growing in an old decommissioned sink. A wooden table and chairs.

‘It’s lovely,’ Catherine said.

‘It’s affordable,’ Nicky replied with a quick smile. ‘Just about. And since they built a defence wall along the Trent a few years back, there’s no call to pump out the cellar every time there’s a flood warning. So, yes, you’re right, it’s lovely. A day like this especially.’ The smile broadened. ‘If you’re foolish enough to buy somewhere sitting on a flood plain, you get what you deserve.’

She left Catherine to her own devices and re-emerged a short time later with a fully laden tray.

‘I’ve brought an extra cup for Richard, in case he gets back from the university and wants to join us. I hope that would be all right? He said something about finishing early.’

‘That’s where he works, the university?

Nicky nodded.

‘Nottingham Trent or the other?’

‘The other. Carved out of Portland stone. Some of it, anyway. Associate professor of culture, film and media.’ She smiled. ‘Sounds grander than it is.’

‘And you?’

‘I work at a local nursery in the mornings. With the really little ones. Our Lottie goes there, which makes everything a lot easier. William’s at primary.’

‘Following in your mother’s footsteps, then?’

‘In a way. Though with me it’s more changing nappies, reading
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
until I can recite it in my sleep. And do.’

She poured the tea, held out a plate of scones.

‘Yours?’ Catherine said, slipping one on to her plate.

‘I wish. Birds Confectioners, on the Avenue.’ She smiled. ‘More of a proper West Bridgford mum, I’d have baked them myself.’

‘Your mum, is she still teaching?’

‘Joyfully retired.’ Nicky glanced at her watch. ‘Just settling down to a hand of bridge round about now.’

‘It was through her you met Mary, I suppose? If she hadn’t been teaching there, in the Vale, you wouldn’t have gone to the same school at all.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And, from what Mary said, you used to spend a lot of time there, at the house?’

‘Almost every day.’

‘So you must have seen quite a bit of her parents, too?’

‘Her mother, yes. Jenny. I was really upset when I heard what had happened. It was horrible.’ She took the butter knife, split a scone. ‘I didn’t see nearly as much of her father. Most of the time he was off at work – at least, I imagine that’s where he was – and when he wasn’t, well, I think he kept well out of our way. Two giggly girls, who can blame him?’

‘You were a handful, then?’

Nicky smiled. ‘I’m sure we were. Racing around, shrieking. Singing. What was that song? “Girls Just Wanna . . .”’

‘“Just Wanna Have Fun.”’

‘That’s right. Singing it at the tops of our voices, bouncing up and down on the settee. Sooner or later, Jenny would come in and ask us to calm down. Mary’s dad’s sleeping, that’s what she’d usually say. And then we’d tiptoe round, hush, hush, hush, you know, all exaggerated, creeping past the bedroom. Pretending there was some kind of monster the other side of the door.’