Lonely Hearts (32 page)

He’d taken Lynn Kellogg out from the University and sent her off to talk with Sally Oakes, see if there wasn’t something else to be learned. The girl would most likely agree to make a statement now, but to what avail he still wasn’t certain.

Graham Millington turned away from Divine, still laughing, intending to answer a telephone, and spotted Resnick.

“Got a minute, sir,” he said, hurrying forward.

Mark Divine picked up the phone instead.

“He’s a hot one,” Millington enthused. “No two ways about it.”

“You thought that about our friendly neighborhood wrestler,” Resnick reminded him.

“Sloman,” scoffed Millington. “Still wouldn’t trust him further than Big Daddy could throw him.”

“But this is different?”

“Inspector Grafton’s pretty set on him, any road.”

“Graham, we all get set on anything that looks more than halfway possible. We all want to see this thing over. Either that or some other woman’s going to finish her evening like Shirley Peters and Mary Sheppard.”

“I know, sir, but…”

“I would have bet a couple of months’ pay away it was Macliesh, domestic violence, open and shut. You went after Sloman because some of the facts seemed to fit, because he looked as if he could have done it. What’s different here?”

What’s the matter with the man, Millington thought? He’s beginning to sound more like counsel for the defense.

“For one thing, sir, there’s his mental history. I mean he’s not only a psycho, he’s a self-confessed sexual maniac into the bargain.”

“Confessed to the thought, not the deed.”

“He says.”

“Do we know any different?”

“There’s a psychiatrist’s report. According to that, if he comes off his drugs then he’s likely to be as randy as a buck rabbit in season.”

“The psychiatrist said that?”

“More or less. I mean, that was the gist of it.”

“Thanks for the translation.” Irony was wasted on Millington.

“Then there’s this business with Shirley Peters. He admits writing to her, owns up to going out to meet her. Now that’s a Monday night just three weeks before she was killed.”

“But he still hasn’t admitted more than that?”

“Of course he hasn’t. He’s not stupid, is he?”

“I thought he was. I thought that was the point.”

“What I’m saying, sir, it doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t fit. All the other women he contacted, he went ahead and met. The only one we know came to any harm, the one who was murdered, oh, no, he walked away, didn’t he?”

“Then why mention it in the first place?”

“Sir?”

“Why tell us he as much as knew her?”

“The inspector reckons it was because he thought we had a list of who he’d written to, thought we’d got hold of the letters, I suppose. That way, he’d have to admit something, but no more than he hoped to get away with.”

“And all the time you were interviewing him, he never broke down on that part of his story, that he took one look at Shirley Peters, turned tail, and never saw her again?”

“No, sir.”

“And your verdict on that, Graham?”

“No doubt in my mind, sir,” said Millington without hesitation. “He’s lying.”

Resnick wrote a memo for Lynn Kellogg, another for Patel, asking for a summary of what they’d learned as soon as possible. When he phoned Skelton, the superintendent was closeted with the chief constable, doubtless doing his best to pacify him and promise an early result. The DCl was there and Resnick asked him if they were anticipating making an arrest.

“Simms, you mean? Grafton’s sex offender.”

“That’s the one.”

“Unofficially, Charlie, I think the word is imminent. Unless you’ve turned up something stronger.”

Resnick assured him that he hadn’t.

“Not holding out on us, Charlie?”

“Not for a minute,” said Resnick and rang off. What he would say at the next briefing session might be another matter, but for now he needed time to think.

A little over an hour later he was sitting in his favorite chair with Bud curved round the back of his neck, purring head tucked up against Resnick’s chin while his tail coiled across it from the other side. He was listening to the animal’s contented breathing, the occasional vehicle passing too fast along the road outside. There had to be a way of pulling it all together, but as yet he couldn’t determine what that was. There had to be something he could do with a quarter of aging mushrooms and half a red pepper that was more interesting than slicing them finely and folding them into yet another omelet.

When he allowed himself to be convinced that there wasn’t, he lifted Bud gently down and went to call Rachel.

She came to the phone after Carole had all but given him the third degree.

“I’ve just been interviewed for a very exclusive position,” said Resnick, “only I don’t know what it is.”

“Sorry,” Rachel explained, “she’s interceding for me with Chris.”

“What’s up?”

“Oh, he was waiting for me last night when I got back.”

“After I left you?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus!”

“It could have been worse, I suppose. He was upset. At first he was angry and then he was, well, violent, I suppose you’d have to say.”

“He didn’t strike you?”

“No. Nothing like that. Carole got me inside, he hung about getting wet and then disappeared. He’s tried ringing me a few times and I don’t know if it’s to be abusive or to apologize, because so far I’ve managed to avoid him.”

“There’s nothing you want me to do?”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“Except what I called for.”

“Which is?”

“To save myself from another mushroom omelet.”

“Charlie!”

“You said it was my turn to ring you.”

“I didn’t mean less than twenty-four hours later.”

“You weren’t that specific.”

“I know. But, anyway, I’ve eaten.”

“Oh.”

There was a silence and then Resnick said: “What were you going to do?”

“An early bath and then bed.”

Great! thought Resnick. Do it here!

“Did you hear what I said, Charlie?” Rachel asked when there was no reply.

“I was just thinking about it.”

“You’re not turning into a dirty old man on me, are you?”

“Come over,” said Resnick.

“What for?”

“To meet the cats.”

She didn’t say anything for several seconds and then what she did say was, “How can I resist?”

The introductions went as well as could be expected. Dizzy treated her to his rear view within seconds, but that aside the cats were as polite as they usually were when Resnick had guests, which wasn’t often.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Vodka and tonic?”

“Difficult.”

“Gin?”

“Ah…”

“What have you got?”

They sat on the settee with two glasses of Black Label and Art Pepper on the stereo playing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” Resnick didn’t tell her the title, he thought that might be going too far, but he did point out the link with Pepper the cat and he was starting to tell her something else when she leaned across him and placed her finger to his lips.

“Charlie…”

“Um?”

“Shut up and let me listen.”

When he refilled their glasses, he found a worn copy of Sinatra’s
Songs for Young Lovers
. Rachel waited until it got to “Someone to Watch Over Me” before asking, “Charlie, are you trying to seduce me?”

“Am I?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No.”

“Are you being honest?”

“Usually.”

“And now?”

“Absolutely.”

“Only if you are, trying to seduce me I mean, I haven’t got my cap in.”

“Oh.”

“And I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of woman who takes it with her wherever she goes.”

“Absolutely not.”

“But I do happen to have it in my bag.”

“Ah.”

He took her whisky glass and she kissed him; when he had set both glasses down, she kissed him again.

They kissed one another.

After some time had elapsed and two of the cats had tried to find some purchase on their shifting laps and given up, Rachel took Resnick’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Don’t you think it’s time you showed me the bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’d better point me at the bathroom on the way.”

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Rachel waited fully fifteen seconds and when the bathroom mirror didn’t provide her with an answer she flushed the toilet and switched out the light.

“Are you all right?”

“Mmm.”

“No, really?”

“I suppose not.”

Resnick sighed and rolled over on to his side; his eyes were closed and his breathing was loud and too fast. He waited until it had steadied and then opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

“Charlie…” Rachel snuggled beneath the crook of his arm, laying her arm across his body, the curve of her hand on his belly. “…it doesn’t matter.”

Resnick didn’t reply.

“Honestly.”

“Um.”

She turned her head in towards him and kissed first his side and then, slowly, his chest, all the way to the hair that gathered thickly at the middle of his rib cage and tasted of salt and sweat.

“Don’t think about it.”

What Resnick was thinking about was Sally Oakes, her scrubbed face and her skinny body and her voice.
No. He hurt me
. And behind that, like an echo that was off-key but always present, a little girl sitting in a room with dolls:
Yes. It hurt me
.

Rachel moved until she was lying with her body half covering his and he softly stroked her back from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine.

“Charlie,” she said in a murmur, “don’t stop. That’s lovely.”

And after that she didn’t say anything because she was asleep.

When she woke it was pitch dark, she was alone in the bed and the luminous hands of her watch told her it was close to half-past two. She slipped out from under the covers without disturbing the cat that slept near the foot of the bed, curled in on itself.

She found Charlie in the nursery, with his face up against the window, gazing out into the dark. Rachel pressed her cheek into the middle of his back and her arms wound around him. After a little while he turned to her and when she kissed him, she could feel the tears, not yet dry on his face.

“What are you crying for, Charlie?” she said.

“The children.”

“Which children?”

“All of them.”

Thirty-One

“Charlie.”

“Um?”

“Charlie.”

He turned against her, no more than half awake and startled by her voice, her closeness, the warmth and smoothness of her skin.

“There’s something on my head.”

“Oh.” Reaching up, one of Resnick’s hands inadvertently brushed against her breast. “Dizzy, come down. Come on.”

He prized the cat carefully away, wary that Dizzy’s claws would become entangled with the curls of Rachel’s hair. Setting the cat down on the floor, Resnick waited for him to jump back and when he did, pushed him more energetically away. The fur of his tail fluffed out, Dizzy sulked out of the room.

“Jealous,” Resnick said.

“He’s no need to be.”

“He’ll get used to it.”

Rachel ran a finger down the inside of Resnick’s arm. “He won’t have to.” Looking at her, close enough to see himself reflected in her eyes, Resnick’s fingers closed around hers.

“What time is it, Charlie?”

He brought her arm up in the bed until he could read the hands of her watch. “Ten-past six.”

“I have to leave by seven.”

It was already five-to and Rachel was drinking coffee and putting on her eye shadow; in the bedroom, Resnick was sorting through his shirts.

“You were married, Charlie. Why didn’t you have any kids?”

“The only time we might have was right afterwards, the first year or so. But then it was me, I was the one who wasn’t sure, wanted to wait. I was just getting into the job, I suppose, maybe I was frightened of the disruption, the responsibility, I don’t know. Later, well, later it was different. There were other things on her agenda.”

She could see him through the mirror, loosening the top of his trousers to tuck in his shirt, watching her.

“How about you?” Resnick said.

Rachel was checking her diary, one arm in her coat: they were standing in the hall.

“Young professionals; it wasn’t an issue.”

“And now?”

“Now, I don’t think about it, not often, and, when I do, I still don’t know if I want any. Sometimes…” She pushed the diary down into her bag and finished fastening her coat…“But then I’ve never been sure enough or I suppose by now I would have done something about it.”

She felt him looking at her and knew what he was thinking. It didn’t make her feel comfortable.

“Bye, Charlie.” She opened the door. Outside it was still quite dark.

“I’ll call you.”

“No.”

Rachel watched as anxiety narrowed his eyes. “It’s my turn to call you.”

Jack Skelton had either found the time to buy a new suit or discovered one in the back of his wardrobe that Resnick didn’t remember. He went through the briefing session even more briskly than usual. The blowups of the bodies were still tacked to the wall; the map enlargements with their annotations in red and blue marker; now two ten by twelve photographs of Leonard Simms, one a right profile, the other frontal. In both he looked startled, his eyes protruding slightly from their sockets, cheeks drawn in as if catching breath.

“What I shall say to the press is this: a man has been helping us with our inquiries into the deaths of Shirley Peters and Mary Sheppard, neither he nor anybody else has been charged, but we do confidently expect an arrest will be made shortly.”

“Shortly,” said Colin Rich. “Why not now?” As usual it was difficult to tell whether he was asking a specific question or thinking aloud.

The superintendent chose to answer. “To present, Simms has been here voluntarily. He asked to see his doctor and that was arranged, but always said he didn’t want a solicitor. Now he seems to be changing his mind on that score and I’m not convinced we have enough evidence on which to charge him. He’s still denying any actual contact with the Peters woman and in no way have we been able to link him with the second murder.”