Easy Meat (18 page)

Now she lifted herself up onto one arm and was surprised to find that she was still shaking a little; she had not made love to anyone since Jim and that already seemed longer ago than it was. So strange, the first time with anyone new; after the first blind excitement of caressing and undressing, the clumsiness of finding that fit, the almost stubborn awkwardness of it. She remembered in a film she had seen once—Robert De Niro, was it, and Uma Thurman?—charging at it headlong, a mêlée of arms and legs and sheets that ended up with the pair of them, startled and breathless, on the floor. And, of course, in movies there was never that embarrassing non-conversation about the condoms. Which of you, if either, has them and are they within reach? The answer had been on the upper shelf of the bathroom cabinet, behind the mouth ulcer gel and the spare dental floss, down on the second floor.

She noticed Resnick’s breathing change and thought he might be asleep again, until, fleetingly at first, he opened his eyes.

“What time is it?”

Hannah narrowed her eyes towards the digital clock on the floor. “A quarter to four.”

Resnick eased himself up onto his elbow and lay facing her, this woman he scarcely knew who had invited him into her bed. He felt honored and would have liked to have told her so, but couldn’t quite find the words. He kissed a corner of her mouth instead.

“Do you have to go?”

“I ought to, soon.”

“An early start?”

“Responsibilities.” He smiled. “Cats. And I have to change out of this suit. That suit.” The trousers were somewhere between the bed and the stairs.

“And if you stay the night,” Hannah said, “it might mean something more.”

He looked at her; in this light her eyes were gray-green, stone polished by water. “Might it?”

With a swift movement, she was out from beneath the duvet and on her feet. “We’ll see.”

Resnick watched her walk, barefooted, across the floor; the dark ends of pubic hair visible between her legs before she disappeared behind the door.

In the kitchen they sat and drank tea while the light slowly changed behind the window, Resnick dressed in everything save his suit jacket, Hannah in a T-shirt and chenille dressing gown, dunking stale dark chocolate biscuits, all she had been able to find. How, Hannah thought, had she ever kept chocolate biscuits long enough to go stale? Her self-control must be better than she’d imagined. Until tonight.

Resnick sat listening for the sound of a car engine; the cab company had told him twenty minutes to half an hour. When he heard it on the road near the rear of the house, he quickly swallowed down the last of his tea.

Slippers on her feet, Hannah walked with him along the narrow alley to where the driver was waiting.

“I’m not much good at one-night stands,” she said.

“Neither am I.” He didn’t know if that were true.

She held two of his fingers tight inside her hand. “Then I’ll see you again?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. If that’s what you want.”

On the pavement, he kissed her softly on the mouth and she kissed him back; she watched as the car drew away, out onto the Boulevard, indicator blinking orange light. Well, Hannah, she thought as she turned back towards the house, so the earth didn’t move, what did you expect? At the gate, she laughed lightly. “You didn’t even see stars.”

The phone was ringing when Resnick entered the house.

“Charlie, where the fuck have you been?”

Taken aback by the ferocity in Skelton’s voice, he didn’t know how to respond.

“Where the hell was your bleep?”

There on the hall table; he had forgotten to transfer it into the pocket of his suit.

“What’s happened?” Resnick finally asked.

“Bill Aston,” Skelton said, his voice like sour milk. “He’s dead. Some bastard’s killed him.”

Twenty-one

You could see the lights of the emergency vehicles once you passed the corner of Meadow Lane and approached the bridge; patches of muted color bleeding out into the day. Mist hung in low gray rags over the surface of the river. Rain teased the air. A temporary covering had been set up on the flat spread of grass of the Embankment, a tent of ill-fitting orange plastic around which lighting had been quickly rigged. Figures wearing dark-blue overalls were already examining the surrounding ground on hands and knees. At the perimeter of the scene others were gathered in knots of conversation, heads bowed. It was Skelton who turned away from one of these and moved towards the road to meet Resnick, more than tiredness darkening his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, Charlie! Where were you?”

“When was he found?” Resnick asked, scarcely breaking his stride.

“An hour since.”

“What was he doing here?”

“Walking his dogs. They’re back there in one of the cars.”

Millington was there, Divine, Reg Cossall, gray-haired, hands deep in the topcoat he seemed to wear whatever the weather; other officers, in uniform and without. Resnick pushed one of the flaps of plastic aside with an arm and ducked inside. The police surgeon turned his head towards Resnick and then away. Whatever had been used to batter Bill Aston’s head and face had been heavy and hard and wielded with frequency and great force. Beneath a coagulation of blood and hair and bone, it seemed as if the top of his skull had been stove in completely. Lower down, more bone, sharp-edged, splintered through the skin. The globe of one eye, iris and retina, lay, barely attached, among the bloodied pulp of what had been Bill Aston’s cheek.

Resnick had to will himself to stay there, bent over, as long as it took. There were mud and grass stains thick on the dead man’s clothes, sports jacket and gray trousers, striped shirt. A smear of earth thick on the fleshy palm of his right hand. One of the nails, the finger end, deeply split. One of his shoes was missing, something the vibrant yellow of dog shit, sticking to the heel of his woollen navy sock.

“Time of death?” Resnick asked.

Parkinson removed his spectacles, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Between four to six hours ago. Around one o’clock.”

Resnick nodded and swung out of the tent to where Skelton stood smoking a cigarette. “All right,” Resnick said, “what do we know?”

The superintendent waited until they were up on the road, the houses opposite—mock-Tudor, mock-Gothic, mock-something—at the end of their deep gardens, mostly dark. Skelton lit a fresh cigarette from the nub end of the last.

“This youth found the body around three a.m. He’d been sleeping rough, down by that bandstand, other side of the memorial gardens. Woke up, started to wander, keeping out the cold. That was when he heard the dogs, barking and whining. Followed the sound to the body, so he says.”

“Called it in?”

A shake of Skelton’s head. “Not straight away. Panicked. Ran off. While later—says he’s not sure how long, half an hour, maybe more—he went back. Took another look. That was when he phoned.” For a moment, Skelton turned his head, down towards the river, the splash of birds disturbing the water. “The two lads who arrived first, uniform patrol, they had no idea who he was. It was only after the ambulance had arrived, one of the paramedics found his wallet, kicked it up from the grass. About the only thing left in it, his warrant card. That was when all hell broke loose.”

“The youth who found him …”

“At the station now. Being questioned. First reports, seems straight enough.”

“And Aston’s wife?”

Again, Skelton shook his head. “Would you want her to see him first like this?”

Cold air slithered down into Resnick’s lungs like a wave; he could already see Margaret Aston’s slow-collapsing face, the lance of pain that stripped across her eyes.

“She’s not reported him missing? Made inquiries, anything?”

For a second, Skelton’s eyes were closed. “Not as far as we know.” And then, “You know her, Charlie, don’t you? Socially, I mean.”

“Not well. Not for a long time.”

Skelton nodded; not well was better than not at all. “There’ll be an incident room set up at the station, Charlie. Whoever it was, we’ll get him.”

“Yes.” It was almost fully light now to the east. Resnick sighed and began to walk back in the direction of the bridge.

“Charlie?”

“Yes?”

“You talked with him, didn’t you? Aston. About the inquiry? That kid Snape’s death.”

Resnick nodded. “Just last night.”

“There wasn’t anything he said … Nothing he said about it that might lead you to believe, well, that it had anything to do with this?”

“No. Nothing. But …”

“But?”

Resnick recalled the almost glib ease with which Aston had seemed to be accepting the social services’ version of Nicky Snape’s death; had there been anything murky going on, Aston didn’t seem to have been aware of it—unless something had come to light between his conversation with him in the pub and the attack. “No,” Resnick said. “Not as far as I know.”

Skelton released a slow breath of relief. “Mugging, then. Out on his own, late at night, someone saw their chance.”

“Yes,” Resnick said. “Likely that’s how it was. We’ll see.”

Resnick stood with his back half towards the front door as the next-door neighbor eased his BMW out of the drive and onto the road. Birds were making a racket in the trees. The lock clicked open and as the door swung inwards, Resnick turned.

“Bill, I swear you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on, never mind our keys …” Seeing Resnick, only half recognizing him, she faltered into silence.

“Hello, Margaret.” He made a move, unthreatening, towards her.

“Bill, I thought he’d gone out early. With the dogs. To … to …” But she had been a policeman’s wife long enough to know this moment, to have rehearsed it often enough in the long flat hours before dawn.

“Margaret, why don’t you let me come inside?” Stubby, short, pink dressing gown tied round her, curlers in her hair, she stood her ground, challenging him for the truth.

“Margaret, I’m sorry …”

She opened her mouth to scream, drowning out his words.

“… he’s dead.”

Resnick caught hold of her and held her close, muffling her screams against his chest. Three minutes, more. When he was able, he shuffled her far enough into the hallway to push the door shut at his back. It smelled of lavender in there, strong, like soap on his fingers, the palms of his hands. His shirt was damp with Margaret Aston’s tears.

“Tell … tell me what happened.”

“Why don’t we go and make …?”

Her voice was shrill and angry. “I don’t want …! I want to know.”

Resnick took her arm, his hand steady beneath her elbow. “All right, but let’s at least sit down.”

The living room was at the rear of the house, fussy with tasteful ornaments and family photographs; the curtains, had they been fully drawn, would have revealed French windows and beyond those some eighty feet of flower beds and tidy shrubs, well-groomed lawn. As it was, they sat in facing chairs in the shadowy half-light, Margaret’s face angled towards the other armchair, empty by the span of fireside, the one in which, Resnick guessed, her husband would more usually have sat.

He told her such details as were known, restricting the description of Aston’s injuries to a minimum. She listened, straining towards him, head angled slightly to one side, her hands in her lap never still.

“Bill,” she said, when Resnick had finished. “Poor Bill. Whatever has he ever done to deserve this?”

“Nothing, Margaret. Nothing.”

She was on her feet. “I want to see him.”

“Later, Margaret. Why not let it wait?” Gently, he led her back to the chair. On his feet, he went to the windows and let light into the room.

“When you came to the door,” Resnick asked, “just now. You thought it was Bill, back from walking the dogs?”

“Yes?

“But when this happened, as far as we can tell, it was near the middle of the night. One or two.”

He waited while she assimilated this.

“Yes, he … Sometimes he couldn’t sleep. Not right away. So he’d go out again, a walk, anything rather than lie there. He hated that; there was nothing he disliked more. And this past couple of years it had got worse, much worse. That was why we moved, he moved across the hall; separate rooms, you see. That way, if Bill was troubled with his insomnia, he wouldn’t feel guilty about waking me.” She plucked at the hem of her dressing gown, some end of cotton she alone could see. “Not that I ever minded. Not …” And she was lost to tears again, flapping Resnick away when he came near.

He went to find the kitchen and left her there, unembarrassed in her own grief. If Bill Aston had gone out last night after midnight, taking the dogs with him, she would not have thought it unusual; and if she had slept through till morning, possibly gone to look for him in his room and found him not there, she could have imagined him up early, taking a stroll, nothing sinister or alarming there.

The tea was ready in the pot when Margaret, red-eyed, came into the room. “I do want to see him, now. You must take me to see him.”

On his feet, Resnick tried the beginnings of a smile. “Let’s have a cup of this, why don’t we? I’ll call the hospital, then drive you over. All right? Margaret, is that okay?”

She stood, staring at him, lost between table and door. How long till it was ever okay again?

Twenty-two

Eleven forty-four: cigarette smoke hung like a gray-blue cloud from the center of the windowless room. Enlarged photographs of Aston’s body had been tacked to the wall. Color. Black and white. High, to the right, a picture which had been taken eighteen months before, Bill Aston at the retirement party for a colleague, champagne glass held aloft, dinner-jacket and tie, smiling and alive.

At right angles to these, a blown-up map showed the precise spot on the Embankment where the body had been found; a second map, larger scale, delineated the parameters of the area—the deep southerly curve of the river, forming an almost perfect U between Trent Bridge and the old Wilford viaduct, the Memorial Gardens and flat, open recreation grounds which led up to the predominantly council-owned Meadows residential area in the north; south, the civic blandness of County Hall and then more open ground, playing fields and schools. Farther along, a fully detailed map of the city and its surroundings had been marked with Aston’s home, the office where he had been based, the local authority accommodation where the Snape inquiry had been carried out. On the far side of the photographs, also attached to the wall, were the two white boards on which the principal lines of inquiry would be followed and marked. A pair of linked video monitors had been set up at the rear; two computers, one of them on line with the national Home Office computer, stood ready to access and disseminate information.