Still Waters (10 page)

“Tomorrow,” Grabianski repeated. “First thing.”

Back out on the street, Grabianski could feel the sweat, slicked over his body like a second skin.

Resnick had called Hannah three times and each time got her machine. Bored, he watched fully fifteen minutes' television in the hotel where he was staying, one of several fending off dilapidation close to Euston station. A bus took him through the low-rent ravages of King's Cross to the Angel, where Jackie Ferris had recommended a restaurant near Chapel Market. Cheapish and good.

It turned out to be French, the cooking done behind the counter in a space no bigger than a half-size snooker table. He settled for the onion soup, then lamb's liver, which was tasty and tender, a nice pinkish turn of blood drifting into the accompanying rice and courgettes.

The names Jackie Ferris had given him, printed out neatly on a single sheet, were folded inside the smart new notebook he had requisitioned from the stationery manager that morning:

Hugo Levin

Bernard Martlet

Maria Rush

Martin Sansom

Edward Snow

Vernon Thackray

David Wood

All with London numbers save Martlet, who lived in Brighton, and Thackray, whose address was in Aldeburgh. But Resnick knew that already: it was Thackray who had called on Miriam Johnson, offering to buy the paintings; Thackray whose line was now, seemingly, disconnected.

He struggled to say no to
crème brûlée
, accepted losing with a brave face, and asked for a double espresso and the bill. According to Jackie, the club he was going to was only a short walk away and he didn't want to miss the first set.

There was no way Resnick could have known, but Grabianski's grandmother—not the Polish one, but the English—had brought him here, to Chapel Market, on her rare trips north of the river. Cheap vegetables, stockings, birthday cards, and cheese, off they would go, staggering home, weighed down with bargains and with young Jerzy struggling to keep his string bag from dragging on the ground. But not before they had shuffled into the eel and pie shop for steak and kidney pie and mash, Jerzy's head just level with the counter and the edge of his white china plate.

The street that Resnick walked along was thick with refuse from that day's market, crates and boxes interlaced with bright blue paper, rotting oranges, grapes, onions oozing pus.

The Rhythmic was on the left-hand side, beyond where the market proper ended. The main room was large, larger than Resnick had anticipated, the half immediately facing him set out with tables for dining. He had time to buy a bottle of Budvar and find leaning space along the side wall before the lights dimmed and, after a brief announcement, Jessica Williams came on stage.

Tall, red-haired, and wearing a long, loose flowing dress, she sat at the piano and for a moment fidgeted with the height of the stool. Even before she began playing, fingers hesitating above the keys, Resnick had noticed the size of her hands. Then, without introduction, she launched into “I Should Care.” Almost deferentially at first, brushing the tune around its edges, feeling her way freshly into a melody she must have played—and Resnick heard—a hundred times. Ten minutes later, when she had exhausted every variation, left hand finally rocking through a stride pattern that would have made James P. Johnson or Fats Waller beam with pleasure, she finished to a roar of disbelieving applause.

And paused, eyes closed, waiting for the silence to resume. This time it was a slow blues, building from the most basic of patterns to a dazzling display of counterpoint that recalled for Resnick an old album he had bought by Lennie Tristano—“C Minor Complex,” “G Minor Complex”—bop meets Bach. After that, she clearly felt relaxed enough to talk, and played her way through two sets of standards and originals that held the crowd's—and Resnick's—attention fast.

By the time he walked back out into the London night some hours later, he knew he had been in the presence of something—someone—special.

I should care
, the words came to him,
I should let it upset me
. When he dialed Hannah's number from the callbox on the corner, the answerphone had been switched off and it rang and rang and rang till he broke the connection with his thumb.

Fourteen

Resnick had been sitting there no longer than it took to prize the top off his first cup of coffee, when he saw Jackie Ferris approaching from the opposite corner of the square. This morning she was wearing a tan raincoat, open over a rust-red cotton sweater and blue jeans. Black and white Nikes on her feet.

It was a well-kept space surrounded by railings, flourishing shrubs, and trees; flower beds marked the perimeters of close-cut grass. The cafeteria was a low prefabricated building in the northeast corner, a paved crescent in front of it dotted with tables and chairs. On all sides, red or green buses trailed one another through the heavy morning traffic and the pavements were busy with people on their way to work.

“You found it okay, then?”

“No problem.” Russell Square was less than a ten-minute stroll from Resnick's hotel.

Jackie nodded toward his cup. “Ready for another?”

“Not yet.”

Resnick leaned back against the metal chair and waited; the coffee was slightly bitter but at least it was strong. Jackie re-emerged with a polystyrene cup of her own and two slices of toast on a paper plate. Before trying either toast or coffee, she lit a cigarette.

“So how was last night?”

“Fine.”

“Enjoy the jazz?”

“Very much.”

Watching Jackie Ferris take her first bite, Resnick wished he had ordered himself some toast.

“You know, I read something about her. Jessica Williams, right? One of those magazines. Took her—what?—twenty years before she could get any sort of proper recognition. She'd play around these bars, California somewhere—Sacramento, I think that's what it said—just waiting for a break. Anyway, according to what I read, it wasn't just the fact that she was a woman held her back. More that she was gay.” She looked across the table at Resnick, squinting a little behind her glasses. “Did she make anything of that, last night?”

Resnick shook his head.

“And you wouldn't have known, you couldn't tell from the way she played?”

“I don't see how.”

“No.”

Jackie stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. “It's easy to get fooled sometimes, you know? You look at someone like k.d. lang filling Wembley Arena umpteen times over and you think things have changed, but really it's not true. I don't know, but how many jazz players are there, women who've really made it, got through to the top? Not singers, but musicians.”

Barbara Thompson, Kathy Stobart, Marian McPartland—Mary Lou Williams, of course, Melba Liston—that Japanese pianist whose name he could never remember. “Not many,” Resnick said.

“Man's world, eh, Charlie? Even now.”

“Maybe.”

“Like the police.”

“I thought things were getting better.”

Jackie Ferris laughed. “How many women, what percentage, inspector and above?”

“There's you for one.”

“And don't think it didn't cost me, Charlie. What, you don't want to know.”

Resnick finished his coffee and held up his empty cup. “Time for another?”

“Plenty.”

This time, he remembered the toast.

“I've talked to my boss,” Jackie said. “This is the way we'd like it to play out.”

The CID room was empty, save for Lynn worrying away at an electronic typewriter that should have been pensioned off a long time back. Resnick stood in the doorway, wondering how long it would take till she was forced to recognize that he was there.

“The Family Support Unit,” Lynn said finally. “I went down to see them myself. They've given me an interview, Friday. Half-nine. If that's all right.”

Resnick nodded. “That's fine.”

He went into his office and closed the door. Before he could sit down, the phone rang; it was Suzanne Olds.

“Mark Divine,” she said. “He got bail.”

Resnick breathed a slow sigh of relief.

“They made a condition of residence, of course.”

“The flat here in the city?”

“Yes. Banned from visiting Derby city center or any nightclub anywhere this side of the trial. Forbidden from contacting or interfering with any of the prosecution's witnesses. All pretty much what you'd expect.”

“And Mark?”

“Said if they thought they could tell him what he could do with his own time, they had their heads up their arses.”

“He'll calm down.”

“Maybe.” She sounded less than confident.

“I'll call round,” Resnick assured her, “have a word. He'll see sense in the end.”

From the tone of her reply, Suzanne Olds didn't seem convinced.

Resnick ran the gauntlet of traffic across to Canning Circus and haggled over which kind of mustard to have with a honey roast ham and Emmenthal sandwich, a generously proportioned dill pickle on the side. He was carrying this back into the building as Jack Skelton, shoes shining like there was no tomorrow, came hurrying down the stairs.

“Off to Central, Charlie. Something's come up with these Serious Crime appointments. Pow-wow with the chief. Ride with me, you can always get yourself a lift back.”

Sitting next to Skelton in the back of the car, Resnick brought him up to speed on the situation with Divine, and outlined the details of his meeting with Jackie Ferris.

“Huh,” Skelton grunted, “the Yard'll not be helping us monitor your pal Grabianski and dole out expert advice, without wanting plenty in return.”

“A little information,” Resnick said, not quite believing it. “Some forgery scam they're interested in. They've got the idea Grabianski might lead them to the people involved. Whatever we get out of him, they want us to feed back to them.”

“And that's all?”

Resnick shrugged. “So far.”

Skelton took a roll of extra-strong mints from his pocket and popped one into his mouth. “Well, run with it for now. But don't commit more than we can afford. And watch they don't give you the run-around. Smart bastards, the lot of 'em. Treat us like country cousins if we give them the chance.”

Resnick still had his sandwich, more squashed than perhaps was comfortable but the taste would be pretty much the same. When he sat down on the bench across from Peachey Street, the winos who sojourned there daily, dawn to dusk, looked at him askance. He washed it down with a brace of espressos at the Italian coffee stall nearby and talked Aldo into letting him use his phone.

Just back from work, Hannah's spirits rose at the sound of his voice.

There was cucumber and dill soup in the freezer and they ate it with rye bread Resnick had picked up after leaving Aldo's; later, a mixed salad dressed with honey and olive oil, a chunk of Wensleydale cheese and narrow slices of plum tart. When Hannah went upstairs to work for a while, Resnick called Graham Millington at home and got his wife instead. The sergeant was out for the evening and wouldn't be back till late; seeing one of his informants, Madeleine thought, unable quite to disguise the distaste in her voice.

Resnick took off his shoes, put his feet up on the settee, and fell asleep listening to Bonnie Raitt.

“I thought you liked this?” Hannah said a little later, waking him with a glass of wine. Bonnie and Sippie Wallace were joking their way through “Women Be Wise.”

“I do.”

“And this?” leaning over him.

“Mmm,” he said, recovering his breath, “I like that, too.” In bed, after they had made love, she told him about Jane, about the bruise above her kidneys, the state she had been in.

“You're sure it was Alex?”

“Who else would it be?”

Slowly, Resnick rolled onto his side to face her. “And she hasn't said anything to you before?”

“No. I had no idea. I mean, I knew he bullied her, verbally—we talked about that—but not … not this.”

Resnick stroked her shoulder. “She should report it officially. Make out a complaint. And if she hasn't done so already, go to her doctor, or to the hospital, one or the other.”

Hannah moved closer, her breast resting against the inside of his arm. “I think she's frightened of going to see anyone. What Alex might do if he found out.”

“If she doesn't, it could be more frightening still.” Hannah turned onto her back. “You couldn't talk to him? Unofficially, I mean?”

“It's difficult.”

“But if he's hitting her, if you know he's hitting her …”

“Unless she makes a complaint …”

“He can do as he likes.”

“I didn't say that.”

“As good as.” Hannah was sitting up now, legs drawn up to her chest.

He reached for her arm and she shook him off.

“Don't.”