Older, a man, though younger than now, his thoughts had skittered and soared and settled, finally, on those perennial mysteries, soccer and sex: when County got around to scoring would the earth move?
Sitting there in that side road beside Ian Carew, he thought about Ed Silver, slumped somewhere over an empty bottle of cider or wine, about where Carew had been between one forty-five and two-fifteen two nights ago; he wondered what his wife might have said into the telephone had he allowed her the time.
“Are you charging me?” Carew asked.
Resnick turned to face him. “What with?”
“He had sex with you, didn’t he?”
“What?”
“Did he have sex with you? Ian? Carew?”
“So what if he did?”
“Intercourse?”
“Yes.”
“This morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want him to?”
“Look, what difference …?”
“Did you want him to have sex, make love to you?”
“What?”
“Did you want it to happen?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“That I didn’t want him?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He laughed.”
“That was all?”
“He said he didn’t believe me.”
“And?”
“Said I was dying for it.”
“And?”
“And he hit me.”
“He forced you?”
“He grabbed me on the stairs …”
“On the stairs?”
“I was trying to run away, I don’t know, into the street. He caught hold of me and dragged me back here and dumped me on the bed.”
“You were still struggling?”
“I was screaming. I kicked him. As hard as I could, I kicked him.”
“What did he do?”
“Hit me again.”
“And then?”
“He had sex with me.”
“He forced you.”
“Yes.”
“He raped you.”
She started to cry again, soundlessly this time, her body still and not shaking; Lynn leaned over to comfort her but Karen shook her away. After several moments, Lynn stood up and went to the window. A large cat, pale ginger, sat perched on a fence post, catching the autumn sun where it fell between the houses.
She knelt in front of Karen and held her hand, both her hands. She said, “You’ll have to come to the station, see a doctor.”
Karen’s eyelids, violet-veined, trembled. “Have to?”
“Please,” Lynn said. “Please.”
“You’ve got an alibi,” Resnick was saying, “like a string vest.”
“I don’t need an alibi,” said Carew. What the hell did he think he was doing, bastard, breathing garlic all over him!
“That’s good to hear, if a little inaccurate.”
“And if you intend to keep me here any longer, I insist on seeing a solicitor.” Pompous now, Resnick thought. Practicing his bedside manner. Breeding coming out of him under stress. Likely he was Hampshire or Surrey; looks like those, he didn’t come from Bolsover.
“D’you know any solicitors?”
“My family does.”
“I’ll bet they do.”
Carew sneered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Probably not a lot.”
The sneer grew into a snort and Resnick’s irrational impulse to punch Carew in the mouth was frustrated by Lynn Kellogg’s tap at the car window. Resnick wound it down, responding to Lynn’s expression by getting out on to the pavement. Behind her, the door to the house was open. Here and there, up and down the street, neighbors were beginning to take an interest.
Resnick listened and when he glanced round at the car, Carew had shifted over in his seat and was checking his hair in the rearview mirror. Resnick radioed for Naylor to collect Lynn and the girl, take them to the station. “I’ll go on ahead,” he said. “With him. Make sure they’re ready for you.”
Lynn was staring at Ian Carew, who had resumed his former position and was staring straight ahead. A woman came out of one of the houses opposite, dyed hair, man’s overcoat open over shirt and jeans. Carew’s eyes followed her automatically, mouth ready to smile.
“How’s the girl?” Resnick asked.
Lynn shook her head. “As good as can be expected. Better, probably.”
Resnick nodded and climbed back into the car. “What now?” said Carew, midway between bored and angry.
Without answering, Resnick fired the engine, slipped the car into gear, executed a three-point turn and headed back towards the center of the city.
Thirteen
Ever since the problems with his daughter had come to a particularly nasty head, Skelton had abandoned his early morning runs. Now he ran most lunchtimes instead. In the mornings he would try and spend time with Kate, toying with a slice of toast as, absent-mindedly, she spooned her way through a morass of Weetabix and Shreddies, warm milk soaking in until what was left resembled Trent sludge. Skelton asked about her school work, teachers, school friends, anything but what he wanted most to know-where had she been the evening before, who had she been with? He sat and listened to her halting, half-hearted replies, scraping Flora across his toast and wondering how much she drank, if she were back on drugs? Sixteen and a half: what were the chances that she was still a virgin?
Skelton was on his way out of the station as Resnick drew up, opening the door so that Carew could get out. Two men in running gear and Resnick between them with trousers that were too loose above the ankles, too tight at the hips, a jacket on which he could do up one button with ease but rarely two. Moments like this could induce paranoia: the certainty that at some point of each day, at some time within the twenty-four hours, everyone else goes running, jogs, works out, lifts weights. Everyone.
“Charlie.” Skelton beckoned him to one side. “This Carew?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve not charged him?”
“Here of his own volition, sir. Happy to answer any questions that might help us with our inquiries.”
Skelton glanced over at Carew. “Happy?”
Resnick shook his head. “Cocky enough.”
“Don’t blow it, Charlie. Technicalities.”
Resnick changed position, shifting so that more of his back was towards Carew. “Just might be something else, sir. Went to the girl’s place this morning, pushed his way in, could be he raped her.”
Skelton’s face was stone.
“Lynn’s with the girl now, she’s agreed to be examined. Take it from there.”
“Ex-boyfriend, isn’t he?”
Resnick nodded.
“Difficult. Cases like that. Difficult to prove.”
Resnick turned towards Carew, motioned for him to go up the steps to the station.
“I’ll not be gone long,” said Skelton, moving around on the spot, warming up. “Make it a short one today.”
Oh, good, thought Resnick, following Carew towards the doors, just a quick four miles. Must remember when I get back tonight, fit in a few push-ups while I’m waiting for the omelet to cook.
A youth with gelled green hair and a gold ring through his left nostril was sitting opposite the inquiry window, dribbling blood and snot into his hands. At the window a middle-aged man in a suit, navy blue pinstripe, was explaining to the officer on duty exactly where he had left his car, exactly why he’d been stupid enough to leave his briefcase on the back seat. Inside the next set of doors, a uniformed constable was squatting down beside a girl of nine or ten, trying to get her to spell out her address.
The custody sergeant was in a heated argument with one of the detainees about the exact dimensions of the man’s cell and whether or not they contravened the Geneva Convention. Somebody was crying. Somebody else was singing the Red Flag. Not, Resnick assumed, someone on the Force. “You wouldn’t fucking believe it,” Mark Divine was saying on his way downstairs. “The whole place covered in brown sauce. Not just the kitchen, the living room, everywhere. Before they’d left they’d emptied half-a-dozen tins of baked beans into the bath.” The young DC he was with didn’t know whether to be skeptical or impressed. “Packet soup in one of them things you sit on.”