Last Rites (11 page)

They walked on toward the lifts. “Jason’s been on the critical list since they brought him in,” Sharon said. “They rate his chances as sixty-forty. He lost a lot of blood, but I don’t know if it’s just that. Maybe there’s some infection. They’re being cagey, not saying.”

“Any possibility of talking to him?”

Sharon shook her head. “They’ll page me if it looks like he’s rallying round.”

“And Valentine?”

Sharon laughed and rolled her eyes. “Fat bastard! I know him from when I was working vice. The kind who’ll piss all over your boots and tell you it’s raining.”

“What’s his story about putting a bullet in Jason Johnson’s neck?”

Sharon laughed. “According to him, he’d driven in there looking for a bit of peace and quiet. I think the actual phrase he used was ‘nocturnal meditation.’” She laughed again, caustically. “Talk about a little education being a dangerous thing. Specially for a nigger like Drew Valentine.”

Resnick looked at her sharply; he knew that if he’d used the word himself, Sharon would, at best, have reported him, at worst, taken a punch and then reported him.

“So according to this particular story,” she went on, “he’s chilling out under the stars, Jason and these two girls are up to who knows what in the comfort of their Sierra and then this other guy suddenly appears …”

“Other guy?”

“Exactly. This other guy appears through the trees—you’ll like this, it gets better—runs toward Jason’s car and bangs on the window. There’s a mess of shouting before Jason slides down his window and pow! Stranger pulls a gun and shoots Jason at close range.”

“Valentine have any suggestions as to what all this was about?”

Sharon shook her head. “He’s still figuring that out. What he does say, soon as he hears the shot, he jumps out of his car, the gunman runs off, and then, humane character that he is, Valentine hurries over to see if he can be of any assistance. Maybe he did St. John Ambulance when he was a kid in the Meadows. What he gets for his trouble is stabbed in the leg. I told him, Drew, that’s all the thanks you get for coming to the rescue like a good citizen.”

“And Jason, at the moment he’s in no position to give his version?”

“Not a word.”

“How about the girls?”

“So far, not saying a thing. Maybe a night in the cells will loosen their tongues. There were drugs in the car and Diane’s already got one charge of possession. We might be able to hold that over her, force some kind of a deal.”

The lift emptied out and Resnick and Sharon got in.

“Diane,” Sharon said. “You know Jason turned her out on the street when she was fourteen?”

“His own sister?”

“I asked him about that, one time when I had him in for pimping. Starts singing at me, ‘Family Affair’—you know that?”

Resnick shook his head.

“Sly and the Family Stone. Anyway, he tells me what he’s doing—proud of it, right?—helping his little sister get on in the world. And then he says, ‘Besides, she’s the only one of my whores ain’t ever holding out on me, not as much as a penny.’”

“You think he had Sheena working the street, too?”

“I don’t know. But to my knowledge, no.”

Resnick stood for a while, his head in his hands, fingers rubbing across his eyes. “Him and Valentine, quite a couple.”

“Yeah, true meeting of minds.”

“And Valentine’s story, you believe it?”

“If it was inscribed on tablets of stone,” Sharon said, “handed down from heaven with a choir singing, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Drew Valentine was in a private room with a uniformed officer sitting outside the door. Valentine was propped up against four or five pillows wearing a yellow Ted Baker shirt unbuttoned to the level of the sheets, his hair tied back in a ponytail. He was leafing through the pages of a style magazine, listening to music on his Walkman.

He grinned at Sharon as soon as she entered, choosing to ignore Resnick for as long as he was able. A small diamond in the shape of a star shone from his left ear, catching the overhead light.

“Hey, sister,” Valentine called over the sounds tearing at his ears, “how you doing?”

Sharon reached down, disregarding the hand stretched palm up toward her, and tugged the headphone jack from the machine.

“Hey! That’s Puccini, girl.
La Bohéme.
You can’t do that.”

“I’ve brought someone to meet you, Drew,” Sharon said, reaching for a chair. “Detective Inspector Resnick, my boss. And don’t call me ‘girl.’”

“Charlie, yeh.” He gave Resnick a swift appraisal. “Heard of you, man. Seen your picture in the paper.”

Resnick sat down at the opposite side of the bed. “So what gives?” Valentine said. “I mean, I don’t see no grapes or nothin’.”

“How about telling us what went on,” Resnick said, “out on the Forest? You and Jason?”

“Oh, man, I already told her that shit.”

“Your word, not mine.” Resnick leaned in closer. “Now, the truth, okay?”

“I’m tired,” Valentine said. “I shouldn’t be answerin’ no questions. You check with my doctor, see if that ain’t what he says. No stress, no hassle. I have to rest.”

“All in good time.”

“Man, this is harassment, no other word for it.” He eased himself back against his pillows. “You guys, always the same. Pulling the same old shit.”

“And I suppose you’re not,” Sharon said.

“Hey, girl…”

“I warned you not to call me ‘girl.’”

Valentine ran the tip of his tongue slowly along his lower lip.

“You could save yourself a lot of aggravation,” Resnick said, “if you came up with a story that fits the facts.”

But Valentine was reaching under his pillows for his mobile phone. “Or I can call my brief and he’ll be here in fifteen. And you know what his advice is gonna to be: nigger, button your lip.”

“You forget,” Resnick said, “whatever Jason says when he comes round …”

“If he comes round.”

“There are two other witnesses …”

“Whores.”

“Two witnesses who saw everything …”

“Out of their sad heads and, besides, they ain’t gonna tell you nothing.”

“There’s always the gun, Drew,” Sharon said. “Interesting if it turns up with your prints on it.”

Valentine’s face widened into the broadest of smiles. “That gun, yeh—interestin’ if it turn up at all.”

Resnick leaned in suddenly close, his face inches away. “I want you to think about this: one way or another we’re going to find out what actually happened. So which is easier? If we hear it from you first, or have to drag you in kicking and screaming once we’ve got all the facts? Maybe you should ask your brief that. Oh, and if I were you, I’d be praying Jason pulls through, or you may find you’re facing a murder charge.”

He got to his feet and Sharon followed suit. “Puccini, hmm?” Sharon grinned, dangling the wires of Valentine’s headset from her hand. “Tupac a little too strong for you these days, Drew? Big bad man, getting off on ‘Your Tiny Hand is Frozen.’”

As soon as he returned from the hospital, Resnick popped his head round the door of the holding cell where Sheena Snape was waiting to be interviewed.

He had good reason to know the Snape family well. The mother, Norma, struggling to bring up three kids more or less on her own, had already lost two sons: the youngest, Nicky, had been found hanging in his room while in local authority care; Shane, the eldest, was serving a life sentence for murder. Which left Sheena—and since Nicky’s death, Sheena had been running pretty wild.

When he entered the room she was sitting stubbornly on the floor by the far wall, knees hugged against her chest, pale skin blotchy and hair a tangled mess, wearing Doc Martens, from which the laces had been removed, and a skimpy orange dress.

“Are you okay?” Resnick asked.

No answer.

“Sheena, are you okay?” he asked again.

“What do you think? Or fucking care?”

“Is there anything I can do? Your mum, does she know you’re here?”

“Only if she’s been looking in her crystal ball.”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

Sheena spun her head like an angry cat. “Enjoy that, will you?”

“No.”

But Sheena was already looking away again, staring at the floor. “Do what you fucking like.”

Resnick went off and came back a few minutes later with a blanket, which he laid across the back of the solitary chair, where it remained, untouched. The uniformed officer relocked the door and shook his head. “Wants her mouth washed out. Ungrateful little cow.”

“She’s got,” Resnick said, suddenly angry, jabbing a finger against the man’s chest, “precious little to be grateful for. Something you might do well to remember.”

It was close to midday, and Resnick was eating a sandwich on the run when a fax came through from the Scene of Crime team that had gone out to Field Head. There were prints, mostly partial, but one clear forefinger, smack on the fridge door, and it matched, without question, that of Michael Preston.

Two hours later, Resnick about to leave his office for a twice-postponed meeting with Jack Skelton, a call was patched through to him from Central station; the security staff at Birmingham International Airport had found a maroon Toyota with badly rusted bodywork and a missing offside rear light, seemingly abandoned in the short-stay car park.

Sixteen

Resnick knocked on the door of Skelton’s office and went in.

Helen Siddons was standing, stony-faced, in front of the superintendent’s desk. She was wearing a blue-black suit with deep lapels, a black shot-silk shirt, and shoes with a definite heel. Her dark-brown hair was pulled back from her face and held with a large clip.

“Busy couple of days for you, Charlie, by all accounts.”

“Busy enough.”

Siddons’s mouth, Resnick realized, was the startling red of his damson jam.

“Helen’s been explaining her anxieties …” Skelton began.

“I’ve been telling Jack what’s going on’s a bloody farce. A bunch of cowboys using one another for target practice and where’s the fucking posse?”

“Helen’s proposing …”

“I’m sending a memo, with Jack’s support, to the Chief Constable, suggesting in the strongest terms he sets up a special Task Force to deal with drug-related shootings.”

“If that’s what …” Resnick began.

“Oh, come on, Charlie, what the hell else are they? And if we don’t do something now, we’re going to fetch up like Manchester or Bristol and worse.”

Resnick exchanged a glance with Skelton and neither man said anything. Siddons took a cigarette from her bag and lit it with a silver lighter. “What I want to see, pro-tem, while we’re waiting for the terms of reference of this Task Force to get sorted, is some sort of informal arrangement. Major Crimes, Drug Squad, yourselves—pool knowledge, act in conjunction where possible.” She blew smoke down her nose. “Nip these bastards in the bud.” Slowly, she looked from one man to the other.

“Helen would …”

“My squad could act as liaison …”

“You want the investigation run through you?” Resnick said.

Siddons angled her head backward. “Someone has to coordinate, else we’re all pissing in the wind.” She almost smiled. “We have the technology.”

“You’ve talked to Norman Mann about this?” Resnick asked.

“Not yet.”

“You think he’ll fall in?”

Siddons glanced toward Skelton’s desk and Skelton took an ashtray from a drawer and slid it toward her. “The kind of success rate his squad’s had recently, he should be taking help from the Brownies and grateful for it.” She stubbed out the long end of cigarette and hitched the strap of her bag higher on to her shoulder. “Thanks, Jack. Charlie. I’ll be in touch.”

Siddons outside the room, Skelton leaned his chair back till it was resting on its hind legs and, for a moment, pressed both hands hard against his cheeks.

“You don’t reckon maybe she’s biting off more than she can chew?” Resnick said.

Skelton rocked forward. “Her specialty, Charlie. Spit ’em out later.”

Resnick pulled up a chair and filled the superintendent in on developments. Despite a seemingly thorough search, no gun had been found on the Forest. Diane Johnson and Sheena Snape were still refusing to say anything.

“That sodding family, Charlie. Women like that—what’s her name?”

“Norma,” Resnick said quietly.

“Norma. Walking argument for bloody sterilization.”

Resnick tensed himself to argue back, but knew there was little point: a lecture from the super about the evils of single-parent families, about the last thing he needed.

Skelton got to his feet and turned to the window, looking out through the tops of the trees toward the tennis courts in the upper valley of the Park. Resnick wondered if the session was over, but no. “How about Preston, then?” Skelton said, turning. “This car at the airport, Birmingham. You think he’s off sunning himself somewhere, some beach in Spain?”

“Points that way.”

“You want to know what I think, Charlie? And I’ve seen him, remember, Preston. Spent time with him, too much.” Skelton had settled on one corner of his desk and was leaning forward, his face close enough for Resnick to catch the mixture of peppermint and tobacco on his breath. “He’s the kind who looks after himself, confident; thinks you can’t ever get to him, not here.” Skelton tapping his fingers briskly against his chest. “Not inside. The money from those robberies, I doubt he would’ve passed it all through his old man. I think he’d have kept something stashed away somewhere, invested even. When he went down, he’d have had somebody on the outside keeping it safe, keeping an eye. Passport, tickets, travel money—that’s what he’d have used for those.”

“I was thinking maybe the sister,” Resnick said.

“You’ve talked to her recently, I’m not in the best position to judge. After what happened to the father, though, she’d not be the most likely. Not to my way of thinking. More likely someone he used to run with.”

“Cassady’s the only possibility there, far as we know. And then there’s nothing to connect them, not recent.”

Skelton stood away from the desk. “Fly bastard, by all accounts. But as for Preston himself, I were a betting man I’d say he’s long gone, laughing at us from afar.”