Wasted Years (22 page)

“Yes.” Resnick sat back down, shaking his head. “I suppose that’s the thing to do.”

“D’you want to stay here tonight? You know there’s plenty of room.”

Resnick accepted gratefully, realizing that it was no more than temporary respite: a night on the couch away from what still had, painfully, to be faced.

They ate breakfast at Parker’s, Resnick sure he would have no appetite, but something—the smell of bacon?—making him ravenous the moment he walked to the counter. Ben Riley settled for tea and a sausage cob, looking on amused as Resnick tackled black pudding, back bacon, canned tomatoes, double egg, chips, and beans.

“Jesus, Charlie. Good job you don’t get cuckolded often. You’d be over eighteen stone.”

“It’s not funny, Ben.”

“I know that. What d’you think I’m cracking jokes for?”

Resnick sawed off a slice of black pudding, wiping it round in the tomato juice before transferring it to his mouth; one of those things, if you didn’t think what it was made from, it could taste wonderful.

“Happen we’ll hear from Finch today,” Ben Riley said without much conviction.

Four firemen, just off night watch, came in talking about a fire on the industrial estate they were all persuaded was arson.

“What worries me,” Resnick said, “drifts on too long, Skelton might get cold feet, have him pulled in before Prior’s in contact. That happens we’re back to square one.”

“He’ll allow forty-eight hours, got to.”

Resnick shook his head, forked up the last of his beans. “No got to about it.”

“Should have played squash with him,” Ben Riley grinned. “Sweat your way into his good books.”

“Yes.” Resnick eyed his empty plate. “Can just see me chasing a little green ball after that lot.”

“If you want to stay over again,” Ben said when they were on the pavement.

“Thanks. Best not. Sooner or later it’s got to be faced. Sooner’s the better.”

“Who you trying to convince, Charlie? Me or you?”

One question Resnick did know the answer to.

Resnick had to take a statement from a thirty-year-old curate who’d witnessed a mugging on his way back from a parochial visit. Another case he was working on. They sat the best part of an hour in a draughty church hall decorated with Sunday School paintings and posters advertising a fund-raising dance for the end of Lent. As he sat listening, taking notes, asking questions, Resnick tried to imagine Elaine and himself visiting someone like this to discuss their problems. That or a marriage guidance counselor. Was that what you did when you could no longer speak to one another? Talk through a third party? He was only now beginning to realize they hadn’t been communicating: what they’d been doing, opening their mouths, pronouncing words.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the curate. “Could you just say that again?”

When he got back to the CID office there was a sheaf of messages on his desk, the last of them, written hastily in blue Biro,
Finch
and a six-figure number. At the bottom, the initials, barely legible, RC.

Reg Cossall was out interviewing a remand prisoner at Lincoln Prison. Resnick dialed the number on the paper and after thirty rings no one had answered. He tried again on the quarter-hour for an hour and when somebody eventually picked up it was a girl of around nine or ten who told him he was calling a public call box on Valley Road.

Resnick thought about driving out there and decided against it. Chances were Finch might ring in again and if he did it was better if he were there to take the call. So he did paperwork, tried not to look at his watch, kept an ear open for Cossall’s voice on the stairs.

When Cossall finally returned, he was unusually subdued. The young man he’d been out to see, two days short of his twentieth birthday, had tried to kill himself that morning by puncturing his wrist with the broken end of a fork he’d stolen from the dining hall. When that hadn’t worked he’d broken it again and pushed the pieces down his throat. “All the bastard’d’ve got was six month suspended. Likely probation.” But something about it had got even to Cossall—that degree of self-inflicted pain.

“Reg,” Resnick said, approaching. “You took this message. Finch.”

“Yeh. Wants you to ring him. Regular cat on hot bricks, sound of it.”

“I tried. Call box. No one there.”

“That’s ’cause you tried at the wrong time then, isn’t it?”

Resnick showed him the note. “How was I supposed to know the right one?”

Cossall took the slip of paper from his hand. “Sorry, Charlie. Must’ve forgot to write it down.”

“You haven’t forgotten what it is?”

“No way. Three o’clock. Four o’clock. On the hour.”

It was seven minutes past four. Resnick dialed the number, held his breath, willing the receiver to be picked up.

“Yeh?”

He thought he recognized the voice as Finch’s, but he wasn’t sure. “Martin Finch?” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“DS Resnick,”

“Why the hell didn’t you phone before?”

“Never mind that, I am now. What have you got?”

“He’s been in touch. I’m meeting him tonight.”

“He still wants to buy?”

“There’s something coming up. Pretty soon. Wants it bad. Tried putting him off, tomorrow, but no, got to be tonight or he’ll go someplace else.”

“Tonight’s fine. Where’s the meet?”

Finch’s voice was like a leaf. “I’m going to be all right here, aren’t I? You’re not going to get me mixed up in this? If Prior ever susses …”

“Listen, I’ve told you. You won’t even be involved.”

“Involved to the sodding eyeballs, that’s all!”

“Relax. We won’t go near him when he’s with you. Anywhere near you. Nobody ever has to know …”

“He’ll know.”

“Just tell me,” Resnick said, letting the firmness back into his voice, “where the meet’s arranged for, place and time.” Nodding into the telephone then, “Uh-huh, uhhuh,” writing the details carefully down.

Skelton was not long off the squash court; his hair, prematurely starting to gray a little, was brushed back flat upon his head and his face was flushed. He was wearing a navy blue track suit and white Adidas shoes with green piping. “One thing I’m not prepared to countenance, letting him take delivery of a weapon and then using it to commit a robbery. It’s not on.”

“Our information suggests whatever’s going down, it’ll be pretty soon. That time, we can keep him under observation, twenty-four hours. As soon as he moves, we move too.”

“And all that needs to happen is we put one foot wrong, someone gets shot, maybe this time they get killed, where does that leave us? I’m sorry, Charlie, the risks are too high. Walk into the super’s office with that and I’m as like to walk out again with a flea in my ear as anything. No, we’ll do the simple thing and we’ll do it right.” Skelton looked at his watch. “Incident room, eight o’clock. Make sure everyone knows.”

Back in the CID office, Resnick phoned Elaine.

“Look,” he said, “tonight, something’s come up. I’m sorry. I’ve no idea what time I’ll be back.”

“How convenient,” Elaine said and hung up.

Thirty-Three

Ruth climbed out of the bath, water streaming down her thighs. She’d lain in there too long, idling with her thoughts, the skin on her fingers ridged and puckered. Reaching for a towel, she rubbed a circle on the steam-covered mirror with her fist. Jesus! Like waking up and discovering you’d turned overnight into your mother. She wound a white towel about her head, began to pat her legs dry with another.
How’s it feel, then, after all that time, not being able to sing?
Cocksure bastard with his hands round the glass, nails even and smooth like they’d been manicured, long fingers.
How’s it feel?

“Ruthie, you going to be all night?”

The look in his eyes when he took her hand and pressed it against him. Bastard! Excited, she hated him for that.

“Ruthie!”

Every night I’m kept waiting,
she started singing to herself, face blurred in the mirror, gaunt and unfocused.
All those dreams and wasted tears …

Prior knocked loudly on the door. “There’s other people in this house, you know.”

“Couple of minutes.”

“You better be.”

There’d been other people, right enough, same old faces along with a few new ones; conversations that petered out the minute she walked into the room. Phone calls that would be terminated at the least chance of being overheard. Something new was in the offing, something big, and he wouldn’t say anything about it till it was over. Then there’d be the bragging—“Ought to’ve seen their faces” or “Like a bleeding dream, Ruthie, clockwork wasn’t bloody in it”—the celebrations with champagne swilled down like water and holidays to exotic places. The lies. “Papers. Ruthie, you know what they’re like, blow it all up out of proportion. Hardly laid a finger on them.” And last time: “All an accident, never should’ve happened. Wouldn’t’ve done if he hadn’t took it into his head to be a sodding hero. Me? Ruthie, come on! When did you ever know me as much as touch a gun?” God! The lies. How she hated the same old, senseless lies.

“Ruth!”

“All right!” She wrenched the door open and moved quickly past, into the bedroom, Prior’s voice trailing behind her.

“Jesus! What you been up to in here? Like a bloody sauna!”

Ruth closed the door and unwound the towel from her body, draping it over the end of the bed. In the full-length mirror her breasts were getting smaller, the flesh over her hips and around her thighs was thickening. Sighing, she closed her eyes.
All those lonely wasted years.
Rain’s face, wide-eyed with honesty even as he lied.
I like you. Talking to you.
The beginnings of a well-trained smile edging his face.
You deserve better, that’s all.
Well, she wasn’t going to get it if she stayed where she was now with Prior forever breathing down her neck.

Resnick was to be in the lead car with three others, Hallett and Sangster and a new lad called Millington. Skelton would be in car two with Maddoc and McFarlane and Terry Docker. “Your show this, Charlie, I’m just along for the ride.” The third car contained Rains and Cossall and Derek Fenby. Uniforms were providing extra backup, sealing off the area around the Prior house once the time was ripe. Resnick had asked for Ben Riley and got him. One officer in each car was armed.

The first car alone would stand close watch on the pub, where two plainclothes officers were already stationed, borrowed from outside the city so there was less chance of them being recognized. As soon as the deal had gone down, the other cars would close in.

“All right,” Skelton said, “nobody loses their head. We want a result here, not gunfight at the OK Corral.”

A couple of officers politely laughed.

“Charlie? Last thoughts?”

Resnick was on his feet. “Thanks, sir. I don’t think so. We all know what we’ve got to do.”

“Yes,” said Reg Cossall, “make sure that bastard Prior goes down for a long time.”

There were cheers for that.

“Ruth?” He’d changed into light blue slacks, dark crew neck sweater under a brown leather coat. Tan shoes with tassels. Where’s the gold chain, Ruth thought? “I’m off out. Shan’t be long.”

She swung her legs down from the settee. On the TV an off-duty surgeon was performing an emergency operation with the assistance of one of the night cleaners and a hastily sterilized Swiss army knife.

“Going to the club?”

“No,” Prior said and winked. “See the well-known man about the well-known dog.”

Ruth looked back at the screen. “Is this the dog that takes a .38 caliber bullet or the one that prefers shotgun shells?”

Prior laughed as he closed the door; over the sound of the TV she could hear him doing a really bad Presley impression down the hall. Now or never, Ruth thought, might be just about right.

The pool tables in the side room were crowded round with onlookers, the occasional shout at a lucky shot or a bad miss rising above the general noise. At the back of the main bar a woman in a floral dress was plying coins into the electronic fruit machine as if feeding a long-lost child. The juke box cut in with a sudden burst of eighties’ techno-pop, fighting it out with the landlord’s tape of Western theme tunes which was playing through the speakers above the bar.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Prior asked as Finch made his second return from the gents in fifteen minutes. “Got the runs or what?”

“This ale,” Finch said, holding up the glass. “Goes through me like nobody’s business.”

“So stop bloody drinking it,” said Prior, who was sticking to Scotch and water, nibbling his way through a packet of nuts, shells overflowing the metal ashtray. “Anyway,” he said, puffing back his jacket sleeve to see his watch, “almost time we weren’t here. Got the wife to get back to, know how they are.”

“Give her one,” Finch laughed nervously.

Prior scowled and pushed back his chair. Coins spilled from the fruit machine so liberally that the woman couldn’t hope to catch them in her hands. “Parked round the back?”

“Yes,” Finch said. “Hang about while I finish this.”

Prior took the glass from his hand and set it down. “In your own time. Let’s do this now.”

They walked out past the pool players, half of them sixteen at best. There’d been something in the
Mirror
that morning about underage alcoholics, Esther Rantzen or Anneka Rice or one of them setting up a telephone helpline. “Any kid of mine …” Prior had started over his scrambled eggs, but the look on Ruth’s face had shut him up. Far as the pair of them knew any kid of his hadn’t been born yet.

“Just left the pub,” the detective said into his two-way radio. “Rear car-park, the pair of them.”

The shotgun was wrapped in a length of wool blanket, sheathed inside thick plastic; the notes were in fifties, rolled tight and held in place with a rubber band. The exchange took less than forty seconds. “Okay,” Resnick said into the handset. “We’re on.”

Fed up with TV, Ruth had climbed onto a dining chair, scrabbled about in a box on the top shelf in the alcove, above Prior’s Brian Ferry albums, his Rod Stewart and his Elvis Presley. Paperback books by Wilbur Smith and Jeffrey Archer. The corners of the cover had got bent, one of the edges torn. 1972. She could remember going into the recording studio still. Manchester. Driving up there with Rylands, through the Peak and along the Buxton Road. Four tracks and it had taken them the best part of a day. Cold in the studio and she’d found it difficult to pitch in key, sent Rylands scurrying out from behind his drum kit to buy a quarter-bottle of brandy.