Darkness, Darkness (6 page)

What caught Resnick’s attention, and what he kept going back to, was a portrait of an elderly Iranian woman, holding a framed photograph of her son, killed in the Iran–Iraq war. The young man’s portrait held out towards the viewer, and behind it, the woman, his mother, stony-faced and staring directly at the camera: proud, accusing, a memory she won’t let go.

THE POLICE STATION
was brick built, solid, municipal, set back from the road; small rectangular windows arranged neatly across the first two floors in rows, more generous use of glass beneath the sloping roof above. A short flight of steps led up to the entrance on the left, white railings, a canopy, reinforced glass doors; the Nottinghamshire Police crest fastened to the wall.

They’d driven up to Worksop in a pool car, Catherine at the wheel. Traffic on the motorway no better nor worse than usual, the day’s early promise of sunshine and brighter skies faded now into a neutral grey. Alongside, Resnick was content to sit and stare, this road a road much travelled, back in the days of the miners’ strike and after.

There’d been a woman, a woman he’d met during the strike, a social worker, and Resnick, not that long divorced, had, after some hesitation, entered into a brief and heady affair; an affair that had left him shaken when, almost as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Even now, all these years later, the sudden unexpected thought of her made him shudder as if touching, inadvertently, a length of bare electric wire, as if touching skin.

‘You all right, Charlie?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘You jumped, that’s all. Like someone had stepped on your grave.’

‘Perhaps they had.’

North of the Chesterfield turn-off, they swung eastward on the A619, finally joining the Mansfield Road before entering the town.

The room they’d been allocated was on the top floor, at the rear. A view out over the car park towards the Priory and a swathe of open space beyond. Desks, chairs, a single computer, two telephones, printer, dust in the corners, last year’s calendar on the wall. Behind the door a flip chart rested uneasily on an easel, the A1 sheets curling upwards at the bottom edge. Catherine gave a little shake of the head. What she’d hoped for was an interactive whiteboard, that at least; what she’d got was this.

John McBride had picked them up at reception; the divisional commander was at force headquarters at Sherwood Lodge and hoped to catch up with them later.

McBride was in his late forties, hair prematurely grey; an accident when the vehicle in which he’d been in pursuit of – a stolen four-by-four – had overturned, leaving him with a slight but permanent limp and an air of grievance against the world in general. More so if Partick Thistle had lost the previous weekend.

‘The lads, I’ll let them know you’re here.’ Though it was years since he’d spent any length of time back home, the faint barb of a Maryhill accent still underscored his voice.

When they were gathered, McBride planted himself in the most comfortable of the chairs, the one with the leather arms, padded, the window at his back. Daring Catherine to order him to move, give over the seat to her. His place, his manor; he was at home here, uppity bastards from the south of the county were not.

The young DCs, the lads, they didn’t count.

Alex Sandford was whippet-thin, a steady runner of half-marathons, training, when time allowed, for the real thing; his ambition the London Marathon in three years’ time, two if he were lucky, New York the year after that.

The older of the pair by just a couple of years, Rob Cresswell had joined the force after trying university and dropping out after a single term. He’d had spells following that on a supermarket management team and in automotive sales, but now he seemed settled, as if something had finally clicked. Maybe.

Introductions over, Catherine instructed Sandford to move the flip chart to a more central position, armed herself with marker pens and folded back the cover sheet to expose the plain page beneath.

‘Let’s make use of this since it’s here.’

In strong red she wrote the initials JH at the centre.

‘Jenny Hardwick, disappeared just before Christmas, nineteen eighty-four, aged twenty-seven, her body only recently discovered, at the rear of number twenty Church Street, just a few streets away from where she lived on Station Row. Cause of death, blow or blows to the head. Close to thirty years, a long time. Before, I dare say, either you, Robert, or you, Alex, were born.’

‘And you, boss?’ asked McBride with something approaching a grin.

‘A toddler,’ Catherine said. ‘Not that it’s any great concern of yours.’ But she said it with a smile.

McBride neglected to smile back.

‘So,’ Catherine said, ‘the first thing we need to do, build up as clear a picture as we can. People who knew her at the time, family, friends. She had a husband, Barry, now in his sixties, still alive, living in Chesterfield. Three children, Colin, Mary and Brian, all in their thirties. The first two we have an address for, for some reason not Brian.’ As she was speaking, she was adding names to the page with blue pen.

‘All right, Alex,’ she said, wanting to draw the attention away from McBride and get the others involved. ‘After that, the immediate family, where are we going to look? Who might we want to speak to next?’

Sandford reddened slightly, fumbled his first words. ‘Neighbours, ma’am, any close friends.’

‘And?’

‘And the place, ma’am, the, um, location. Where the body was found.’

‘Exactly. Good. Who was living there at the time. And more. The rear extension beneath which the body was buried, when was that added – around the same time or later? Whoever did the work, are they still in business? Perhaps who was living there did it themselves?’

She added two large question marks in purple.

‘The lassie was officially reported missing,’ McBride said. ‘Surely there’d have been an investigation at the time? Official?’

Catherine nodded. ‘I was just coming to that. Charlie, you were stationed up here then, close anyway. You know more about this than me.’

McBride muttered something beneath his breath that went unheard.

Briefly as he could, Resnick explained how his unit had functioned during the strike.

‘So, naturally,’ he said, ‘we heard bits and pieces about what might have happened. Gossip. Rumour. She was having an affair. He knocked her around. None of it, far as I could tell, based on much more than people’s fancy. Nothing that, without some corroboration, we should believe.

‘And John’s right, there was a missing person’s inquiry. Low-key. Local. In the light of what we know now, not near searching enough. But what you have to realise, amongst all that was going on – the levels of disruption, the extent of police involvement, the sheer numbers involved – one person gone missing, like as not done a runner – it was small beer at the time.’

‘This inquiry,’ McBride chipped in. ‘You said just local . . .’

‘Keith, Keith Haines. Village bobby, more or less. Lived right there, Bledwell Vale. Least till the strike took hold. Had his windows smashed in so many times, moved a safer distance away. Here, into town. After that, you can imagine, going round asking questions, with all that was going on, not easy. But the impression I had at the time – second- or third-hand at best, mind – he did what he could.’

Catherine looked across at McBride. ‘There’d have been a report. We could track it down.’

A faint smile on McBride’s face. ‘We could try.’

‘And Haines himself? Charlie, do you know?’

Resnick shook his head. ‘Mid-thirties then, my best guess. So sixties now. He could still be somewhere around, but . . .’

‘Could be six feet under,’ McBride said.

‘We need to know,’ Catherine said, adding his name with a flourish. ‘We need to know a great deal.’

McBride started to say something more, but thought better of it. Coughed and cleared his throat instead. Let the woman run the show as she sees fit: for now, at least.

‘Sergeant,’ Catherine said, ‘something you’d like to add?’

‘No, boss.’ Close to a growl.

‘Right, then. Charlie and I are off to Chesterfield, talk to Barry Hardwick. You can organise things here? Get Alex and Rob on the move?’

‘Manage that, boss. Do my best.’

Rather than drive straight off, Catherine motioned for Resnick to wait, took a packet of cigarettes from her bag and lit up, resting one elbow on the car roof. Resnick hadn’t even known that she smoked.

‘What is it with him, Charlie?’

‘McBride?’

‘Too young to be outranking him, is that the problem? Or just too black?’

‘Maybe that’s just the way he is.’

‘With everyone?’

Resnick shrugged.

‘Am I just being oversensitive? Is that it?’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Don’t say a lot, do you, Charlie? Not if it means taking sides.’

‘I didn’t know there was a side to take.’

‘No, you’re right.’ Stepping away from the car, she took one last drag at her cigarette before grinding it out with the underside of her shoe. ‘If there’s a problem it’s mine. Mine to deal with. One way or another. Now let’s go and look at that famous spire.’

Glancing back up at the building she glimpsed McBride at one of the upper windows, looking down.

It was just starting, lightly, to rain.

THE SPIRE COULD
be seen from a distance, through a mist of rain and low, faltering cloud. Seated atop the parish church of St Mary and All Saints, in the very centre of the town, it twisted as much as forty-five degrees from the perpendicular, leaning almost ten feet away from its true centre.

‘Story goes,’ Resnick said, ‘this blacksmith from Bolsover was shoeing one of the Devil’s cloven hoofs, drove the nail in so hard made the old Devil jump right over the church, grabbed hold of the tower to stop himself falling and twisted it into shape you see now.’

‘Is that the best you can do?’ Catherine said, laughing.

‘All right, how’s this? Young girl getting married in the church, comes down the aisle dressed in white from head to toe. Turns out it’s not for show, lass’d never as much as been kissed. News gets round, there’s a genuine virgin about to get wed, right there in Chesterfield parish church, the old tower’s so surprised, twists itself into a state to take a look.’

‘Charlie, come on.’

Resnick was laughing, too. ‘Stayed like that ever since, waiting for the next virgin to come tripping up the aisle. Till that happens it’ll not twist back.’

Catherine shook her head. ‘And the real reason? I suppose there is one?’

‘Some say it was down to using unseasoned timber, some due to an overloading of lead tile. Truth is, no bugger knows for certain.’

‘Not so much different to us, then.’

They were about to pass close to the church itself and turn into Saltergate. The rain, never strong, had more or less stopped. Hardwick’s address was a few streets along, past The Barley Mow.

‘Any luck,’ Resnick said, ‘we’re about to put that right.’

After knocking on the front door several times, ringing the bell, they tried the neighbours to either side. An elderly woman appeared at one of the upstairs windows, lined face, tightly permed hair.

‘Is it Barry you’re looking for? Because he usually gets back round about now.’

‘From the pub?’

‘Bless you, no. The allotment. Rain or shine, up there every day.’

Five or so minutes later he came into sight, astride an old boneshaker of a bike: donkey jacket – likely the same one that he’d worn all those years ago at the pit – cloth cap, boots, trousers tied fast at the bottom with string. Still a big man, he looked fit for his sixty-odd years, agile enough as he swung his leg over the saddle and lifted the bike up over the kerb, leaning it against the wall.

‘Police, is it? Been expecting you for yonks now, ever since inquest were opened an’ adjourned. Just some spotty-faced kid round taking a statement, stuff about Jenny, family history, what did I know about her disappearance. Knew bugger all, didn’t I? Same as you lot, I reckon.’

Turning back to the bike, he began unfastening his fork and spade from where they’d been tied to the crossbar.

‘Leave anything worth pinching up there an’ it’ll get nicked.’ He looked for a minute from one to the other. ‘Don’t suppose you’re here to tell me when her body’ll be released for a proper burial either?’

‘No,’ Catherine said. ‘I’m afraid not.’

He held her gaze a moment longer. ‘Aye, well, you’d best come inside.’

The house was small but tidy: boots lined up in the narrow hallway; pots on the draining board in the kitchen, waiting to be put away; not what you might expect, Resnick thought, from a bloke living on his own. If that’s what he was.

‘I’ll set kettle on,’ Hardwick said, shedding his outdoor clothes. ‘Best take a seat through there.’

On the narrow mantelpiece above the hearth was a framed photograph of Hardwick, his arms around three children, two boys and a girl, all happy, all smiling. Alongside, a young woman on the day of her wedding, the same girl grown, Hardwick beside her in his hired suit, beaming with pride.

No pictures of Jenny to be seen.

The tea, when it arrived, was dark and strong, as if he’d waved the milk at it, Resnick thought, and no more. Sugar decanted from the packet into an empty cup for the occasion. Hardwick helped himself to two spoonfuls and, after a momentary hesitation, added a third.

‘Thirsty work. This time of year, specially. Not that I’m complaining, mind.’

‘Keeps you busy,’ Resnick suggested.

Hardwick nodded. ‘Time hangs else.’

‘You live here on your own?’ Catherine asked.

‘Lad comes over a time or two. Colin, the oldest. Stays the night, sometimes the weekend. Side of that, just me, aye.’

‘You keep it nice.’

A smile rounded Hardwick’s face. ‘Margaret, lives a couple of doors down, she lends a hand. I see she’s not run short on fruit and veg, she pops in here couple of times a week, bit of dusting, hoovering, irons the odd shirt. Suits us both down t’ground.’

He supped some tea.

‘Colin,’ Catherine said. ‘We have an address in Derby.’