Graham Millington was at the head of the stairs, talking with two of the uniformed men they’d pulled in from routine duties. One of those nights when club brawls would either peter out of their own account or end in more than tears. Millington had been asleep in front of the television when the call had woken him, his wife tucked up already with a cup of Horlicks and a biography of Henry Moore. “What d’you call that?” he’d asked, looking over her shoulder at a photograph of one of Moore’s sculptures. “Hole in heart patient?” “Isn’t there football on, Graham?” she’d asked, long-suffering. She had been right: Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southend United. Millington had felt his eyes going before the first yellow card.
“They don’t appreciate being dragged away from their shut-eye,” the first constable was saying.
“I don’t give a bugger what they appreciate,” said Millington, “not till we’ve something more than nothing.”
It was Divine, not a happy man himself, called out just three short moves away from maneuvering last year’s Miss Ilkeston past checkmate, who came up with the first witness. His knock brought Corin Thomas to the door of his flat, smelling more than slightly of beer, overcoat on, chip pan in his hand. “Soddin’ central heating’s packed up again,” Thomas said. “Too much to hope you’ve come to fix it?”
Divine told him it was. “You’re dripping oil,” he pointed out, “all over the lino.”
“Better come in, then.” Once the chips were starting to sizzle, Thomas told him what he had seen, a man and a woman, pretty much clinging to one another, going down the stairs past him and staggering over towards a parked car.
“Didn’t occur to you to report it?” Divine asked.
“Love it, wouldn’t you, if, I jumped on the old phone every time someone round here got half-pissed.”
“Is that what you thought they were?”
“She was, no mistake. Hardly keep her feet at all, if he hadn’t been half-carrying her. All but went over, the pair of them, more than once.”
“The woman,” Divine asked, “you recognize her?”
“Oh, yes. That one from lower down. Kellogg. One of your lot, isn’t she? What all the hoo-ha’s about, I suppose.”
“What about the man?” Divine asked. “Ever seen him before?”
Corin Thomas shook his head.
“Sure?”
“Yes. It was dark, but, yes, there’s lights enough down there. Good enough to make out someone you know.”
“You could describe him, though?”
Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t exactly stare. Minding me own business, like. But, yes, the bloke, he’d be closer my height than yours. Five seven, eight. Far as I remember, darkish hair. Forties, maybe. Didn’t get that good a look at his face.”
“Recognize it if you saw it again?”
Thomas thought about it as the chip fat bubbled. “I might. Couldn’t say for sure.”
“Shame,” Divine said, “but you’re going to have to have your chip butty another time.” Reaching across, he turned off the gas. “I know you’ll want to help; do whatever you can.”
Resnick and Skelton were leaning on the balcony outside Lynn’s flat, while Scene of Crime operated the proverbial fine-tooth comb. Most of the windows were lit up around the courtyard. Men and women, uniformed and in plain clothes, moved with purpose from door to door, up and down stairs. Breaths of both men blurred white on the air.
“No good, Charlie,” Skelton was saying. “No way we can be even close to sure. She rings you, wants to talk about Nancy Phelan. Sometime in the next-what? — forty-five minutes, she’s disappeared.”
“And you don’t think there’s a connection?” Resnick was experiencing difficulty keeping his voice under control.
“We don’t know there was any connection. Whatever happened, could have been sheer coincidence …”
“We don’t have to know there’s a connection, we can work it out for ourselves. Making those kind of connections, that’s what we do. Or have you forgotten we’re supposed to be bloody detectives?”
Skelton fidgeted his wedding ring round his finger. “Charlie, you’re not in danger of letting your feelings get the better of you here?”
Resnick gazed, amazed, around the room. His breathing was ragged and loud. “We’re not supposed to think, now we’re not supposed to feel, what the hell are we supposed to do? Other than keep fit and wear a clean sodding tie!”
“Charlie.” Skelton laid a hand on Resnick’s arm, lowered his voice. “Charlie, I know what you’re feeling. Think a lot of her, I understand that. All I’m saying, what we mustn’t do, go off at half cock. Wasted time, wasted effort, she’d not thank us for that.”
Resnick hung his head. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Forget what I said.”
“Most likely has to be,” Skelton said, “either she had someone round for the evening, few drinks, got nasty, out of hand. Either that, or someone broke in, there was a struggle …”
“I can’t buy that. Why wouldn’t he just take off soon as he got the chance?” Resnick looked Skelton in the eye. “The first, maybe, yes, possible.”
“But you still think it’s more?”
“Yes.”
“You think it was him. Whoever did for the Phelan girl.”
“Yes.”
“But, how, Charlie? How, for God’s sake? Somehow, some fluke, she got to know him? Found out who he was? Goes some way to stretching the imagination.”
“Suppose,” Resnick said, “it worked the other way. Suppose he was the one who got to know her?”
Get Corin Thomas talking and it was difficult getting him to stop; all the way back to the Canning Circus station, he kept Divine and the driver less than enthralled with accounts of where he’d been earlier that evening (a desultory trip round the city center pubs, looking for women), where he’d been the previous year on holiday (a fortnight of days eyeing up the talent on the beaches, all the while becoming red as a Forest shirt, followed by a desultory trip round the night clubs, looking for women), and what it was like driving a single-decker for Barton Buses. Poor bastard, Divine thought, no wonder he hated being dragged away from his chip supper, highlight of his tossing week.
Inside the station, they shut Thomas up long enough to sit him down in a corner of the CID room, tell him what he had to do. Divine and Naylor had spent a good couple of hours with the appropriate officer, trying to get the photo-fit to do precisely that. Problem was, part of the problem, once you got past the color of the hair and the shape of the mouth-small, both of them were agreed, turning down a little at the edges-there wasn’t a lot about the individual calling himself Reverdy that was remarkable. Except, that is, for the eyes. And the one thing Divine and Naylor could not agree on was the color of the eyes.
Not that eye color seemed to faze Corin Thomas over much. “You realize I never got much of a look? I mean, you do realize that?”
They understood.
“And the light out there …?”
They understood about the light.
“Well, in that case-and I wouldn’t want you to hold me to this, not in court, like, not something I’d want to swear about on a Bible-but, yes, I’d say, what I’d say, the bloke I saw going across the courtyard with that mate of yours, I’d say, yes, it could be him.”
“Boss,” Divine stood beaming at Resnick’s door, “the bloke from the Little Chef, him and the one who’s got Lynn-looks like they might be one and the same.”
“Right.” Resnick was on his feet, on the move. “Just got confirmation from Manchester CID. The car he was driving belonged to Reverdy right enough. Stolen some time in the last ten days. Owner was away. Holiday. Insurance documents in the glove compartment.”
“Think he pulled the same stroke again?” Divine asked. “Lifted something to pull this?”
“Likely. Let’s check the lists. See if you can tickle the witness’s memory about the car. We might have one or two more by now, corroboration.”