Darkness, Darkness (8 page)

There was a Travelodge on the bypass west of the town, at the junction of the A57 and the A60. It was McBride who’d suggested it, shown him a picture on the computer. Set back off the road but not far enough, to Resnick it resembled an old people’s home twinned with a hostel for young offenders. Due to the closure of the Little Chef restaurant that had formerly shared the location, the website had informed him, takeaway breakfast boxes were available for him to enjoy in his room or on the move.

Perhaps he’d stick with the drive.

Besides, who’d feed the cat?

‘A favour, Charlie,’ Catherine Njoroge had said as he was leaving. ‘The family living in the house where Jenny’s body was found – Peterson – Howard and . . . Howard and Megan. Cresswell and Sandford have spoken to them already, taken a statement, but it wouldn’t hurt if you were to drop in, have another word. Giltbrook, that’s where they live now, more or less on your way home I’d’ve thought. Unless you’ve got something else on, of course.’

Something on? That’d be the
News at Ten
and before that, with any luck, the next round of
MasterChef
.

As the sign for junction 26 approached, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and switched to the inside lane.

The house was a small semi-detached a short distance beyond the centre of what had once been a village; now, thanks to the vast retail park the flat-pack giant shared with the likes of Boots, Pets at Home and, of course, Starbucks and Nando’s, it was better known as a suburb of Ikea. He and Lynn had driven out there one idle Sunday afternoon, Lynn thinking she might find something in Laura Ashley to wear to a colleague’s wedding and finding what, to Resnick, for whom shopping for anything other than food or CDs was anathema, came close to a contemporary definition of hell. Several hours he was prepared to spend browsing through the racks in Eric Rose’s Music Inn in the West End Arcade, but as much as fifteen minutes waiting while Lynn worked her way along a line of dresses was enough to bring him out in hives.

Howard Peterson answered the door a little self-consciously in an apron. Resnick introduced himself and showed identification.

‘Best come in . . .’ Stepping back to let Resnick enter. ‘Megan’s on lates this week, my turn in kitchen. No complaints, mind. Just as well one of us is, eh? In work, I mean.’

‘Don’t let me get in your way,’ Resnick offered.

‘Peelin’ spuds, that’s all. Come on through.’

They sat at a round table, Formica topped.

‘I’ve not long mashed tea . . .’

Resnick shook his head, declined. Why was it, whenever a police officer called round, invariably the first thing the person they were calling on did was hustle off to the kitchen to make tea?

Learned behaviour, he supposed, all those cop shows on TV.

Peterson topped up his own cup, dribbled in milk. ‘I told those two lads of yours all I could. Not sure if there’s a great deal I can add.’

He made a face. ‘Livin’ there all that time an’ not knowin’. Not knowin’ what were there. Fair makes your skin crawl.’

‘From what I understand,’ Resnick said, ‘the extension, it had been in place for some time?’

‘Winter of eighty-one, two. Put it up myself with a mate . . .’

‘A mate?’

‘Geoff. Geoff Cartwright. We worked together down pit. Megan’d been on to me to do somethin’ about the wind as used to get into back of house. Whipped round there somethin’ dreadful. Regular whirlwind. She thought maybe somewhere for the washing machine an’ all that gubbins – utility room, that what they call ’em? That’d keep it out. And me, I’d always hankered after a bit of a conservatory. Plants, seedlings, you know. Ended up neither one thing nor the other. More trouble than it was worth, truth be known. An’ that’s without . . . well, without, you know . . .’

He shook his head.

‘My fault, most like, mine and Geoff’s. Foundations never set right. Slabs we’d used on surface, paving slabs you know, always uneven, kiddies trippin’ over ’em, hurtin ’emselves. And then there was that performance with the drains. Went out there one morning afore work and the whole bloody lot was under half a foot of water. Not just water, neither.’

He paused to sup some tea.

‘Coal Board sent somebody round eventually. Sorted drains, at least. Took their time, mind.’

‘This was when?’

‘November, would have been. November of eighty-four. Not a time I’ll bloody forget, not ever.’

‘And after the drains had been fixed, it was you and Geoff set the place to rights?’

‘When we could. Still working, both of us, down the pit. No reason not. Been a ballot, we’d’ve been out, no two ways about that. But as it was . . . mortgage to pay, kiddies to clothe, Megan just with this bit of a job, mornings, pin money, nothin’ more.’

He looked across at Resnick, as if wanting confirmation he’d done the right thing.

‘At the end though, it was just Geoff more or less on his own. Plus whatever help he could get.’

‘You’d had enough by then or what?’

‘Away, weren’t we? That Christmas. Strike, it were getting Megan down, affecting her health. Her folks, they had a caravan, North Wales. We went there. Time we got back, around New Year, everything was shipshape out back. Bristol fashion. Geoff pleased as punch. Never have managed it all on his own, but, back then especially, no shortage of blokes grateful for a few days’ graft, cash in hand. Did a good job, mind. Never give us a bit of trouble, not till the day we left.’

‘And that was to come here?’

Peterson nodded. ‘Not a lot of choice in the end. Joined the UDM, didn’t I? Eighty-five. Oh, not just me, plenty of others. Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Thought to secure jobs, jobs for life. Load of bollocks that turned out to be. Government, Coal Board, used the UDM to screw the rest of the miners and then screwed us in turn.’ A wry smile crossed his face. ‘At least I got redundancy, more than most of those other poor bastards. Helped buy this.’

He glanced around. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever really got used to it, but staying where we were . . . long memories, some people. Resentments, buried deep. One minute folk’d be nodding at you in pub, asking after the missus, the kids, next they’re lobbing a brick through front window, painting Scab in foot-high letters on your door.’ He sighed. ‘None of that here. Kingdom of bloody Ikea. Nor much else, either. Not that I should be complaining. Give Megan a job, right off. Part-time, mind, but work all the same. Kids off our hands long since, it’s enough.’

He pushed back his chair. ‘Leaves me time to go fishing. Peel spuds.’

‘And Geoff?’

‘Buggered off, didn’t he? Canada.’

‘Bit more extreme than Giltbrook.’

‘That’s for certain. Kept in touch at first, you know, sent the odd postcard or two. Christmas card one time.’ He gave a shake of the head. ‘Must be getting on twenty years since I heard. Could be anywhere by now. Could be dead.’

‘And those cards . . .?’

‘Long gone. I wrote back just the once, I remember. Always meant to keep in touch, but you know how it is.’

‘A long time ago, I know, but you wouldn’t still have the address? Written down somewhere? An old address book?’

‘Unlikely. But if you think it’s important, I could look around. See what I can find.’

‘Thanks. I’d be obliged.’

‘I will do then.’

He walked Resnick to the door. ‘No disrespect, but you must be near retiring age yourself, I’d’ve thought. Runnin’ a pub somewhere, corner shop, that’s what they do, coppers, isn’t it, when they pack it in? Used to, any road.’

Resnick shook his hand. Turned the car around and headed back towards the motorway.
No shortage of blokes grateful for a few days’ graft
. What chance was there of finding out who had worked with Geoff Cartwright at the rear of 20 Church Street, all that time ago? Cartwright and whoever else had been giving him a hand. Laying paving stones: safe, neat, secure. Those days between Christmas and New Year, 1984. Nights when the site would, in all probability, have been left unguarded and open.

So far they had no clear motive; if you disregarded the husband, which at the moment he was inclined to do, no clear suspect. As Catherine Njoroge had put it, they were no wiser about the reasons for Jenny Hardwick’s murder than people were, centuries later, about the circumstances that lay behind Chesterfield’s twisted tower.

HE’D BEEN THINKING
about her more than ever, these last few days. That was the way it seemed, though he could never be sure. Most times she was just there, somewhere close beneath the surface of his mind. His skin. As if, sometimes, he could reach out and touch . . .

It was the job, of course that’s what it was. This job. Working with a woman, a major investigation; working with Catherine Njoroge, though it would be hard to find two women less alike than Catherine and Lynn. Save that they were good police officers both, good at their job.

He remembered the first murder case they had worked on together, Lynn and himself; Lynn new to the squad, keen, young. The body she’d almost stumbled over in the rear garden of an otherwise unexceptional inner-city house; a young woman wearing her wounds like ribbons in her hair. By the time Resnick had arrived, it had been covered from sight, a single high-heeled shoe close by, black, new.

Lynn had been inside, shaken, pale; when he stepped towards her, she had fainted into his arms, fingers of one hand caught fast against his mouth.

‘There are those,’ she said to him years later, ‘who reckon I did it on purpose. Brazen hussy! Throwing myself at the boss’s feet.’

‘Think that, then they’re fools.’

‘Had to get you to notice me somehow, didn’t I?’

‘Likely’ve managed it of my own account.’

‘Eventually.’

‘Time enough.’

Something inside him locked tight.
Had we but world enough and time.
Where had that come from? Dredged up from school. Three years they’d lived together: twice those years now since she’d died.

He slowed at the roundabout, not wanting to continue home, back to the house they’d shared, but almost nowhere in the city was innocent of their lives, their time.

‘What are you frightened of, Charlie?’ she had asked him once.

The answer, of course, was everything. Scenes that played out in his head. Returning home one evening to find her standing in the hallway, suitcase packed and ready, keys in her hand. A note left on the mantelpiece, his name neatly written.

Dear Charlie . . .

A thousand scenes of leaving and never the one chosen.

From inside the house, the sound of a car backfiring.

But it had not been a car.

Not a car at all.

When he closed his eyes he could see her falling.

He had never seen her fall.

By the time he had reached the door and wrenched it open, Lynn’s body lay crumpled on the path, legs buckled beneath her, arm outflung, her blood seeping, unstoppable, into the ground.

The first shot had struck her in the chest, close to the heart; the second had shredded part of her jaw, torn her face apart.

Resnick pulled slowly over towards the kerb, shut off the engine and, resting his head against the steering wheel, closed his eyes. Five, ten minutes before his breathing had steadied enough for him to resume his journey.

The cat was waiting for him on the low stone wall.

Inside, he shrugged off his coat, walked the house from room to room.

Made coffee and left it untouched.

Finally, in the living room, he burrowed through the shelves of albums and CDs, searching, not for something calming, consoling, nothing that might trigger a memory, happy or sad, but this: the Eric Dolphy/Booker Little Quintet
Live at the Five Spot
, New York, 16 July 1961. Track three. ‘Aggression’. Sixteen minutes and forty seconds.

Resnick in the middle of the room, listening, slowly racking up the volume.

Louder, then louder.

Still listening.

By the time it reaches Dolphy’s solo, the bass clarinet screaming, squawking, keening – the sound so fierce, so intense – he is no longer capable of thought, just feeling.

Fists clenched tight, absorbing the music’s anger, he takes it for his own: this stuttering explosion of anger and pain.

Only when the music has stopped do the other sounds of the house slowly start to re-emerge: the central heating switching off and on, soft rattle of water in the pipes, the upstairs windows vibrating as a car goes past too fast; the cat brushing against his legs as it weaves in and out, impatient to be fed.

THERE’D BEEN RUMOURS
for days. Weeks. The government had had enough. Time for a showdown. Stop the miners, the striking miners, in their tracks. Break the strike once and for all. Show them who was boss. Tales winding back on the grapevine from London of meetings between government officials, the Home Office and British Coal. Rumours of rumours plucked out of the air.

Less than thirty miles from where Resnick was stationed, the picketing of the coke works at Orgreave, just south of Sheffield, simmered on. Since the end of May, convoys of lorries, often with a police Range Rover at their head, and protected by police on the ground, had been passing into the works through lines of pickets, loading up, then carrying the coke away to the steelworks at Scunthorpe, some forty miles east.

Neither side was about to back down.

The numbers of pickets increased.

Tony Clement, the assistant chief constable in charge of operations in South Yorkshire, asked the NRC for more support.

What became increasingly obvious to Resnick and his team was that strike action around the pits in their immediate area had become less and less, as more and more pickets were diverted north to Orgreave: a strategy both the Notts and South Yorkshire police were happy to endorse. If there was going to be a showdown, that, Resnick thought, was where it would be.

At the end of May, mounted police at Orgreave had gone into action against the miners for the first time, a phalanx of eight horses charging into the midst of a large group of pickets which had a snatch squad of half a dozen officers surrounded. Predictably, reasonably, the pickets scattered and ran.