Patel pushed his tongue up against the back of his teeth, trying to ease away the last remnants of Milky Way. You could sit for just so long watching cream-colored breezeblock without going into a trance. Meditation. Hadn’t he been toying for ages with the idea of taking it up? He could hear them in the canteen if ever they found out. Yeah, great, Diptak, what comes next? Swallowing fire? Sleeping on nails? Except that they never called him Diptak. Or much else. To his face, anyway. He picked up his camera as two men in blue overalls came out of the nearest building and almost immediately set it down again. The men settled themselves up against the wall, facing what sun there was, unpacked their sandwiches, unscrewed their flasks. Patel wondered how long he could go before opening the empty orange juice container under the seat to take a pee.
“I think they must have got in through here.”
“Yes,” murmured Divine, “most likely.”
He stood at the window of what estate agents liked to call a utility room, looking out over a quarter-acre of lawns, fruit bushes, shrubs with unpronounceable Latin names and flowers fading down into wooden barrels. Beyond that, on a lower level, was a full-sized tennis court, complete with green wire surround and floodlights. He wondered where they kept the swimming pool. Probably down in the basement, along with the steam room and the jacuzzi.
“You will do your best to catch them?”
Daft cow, standing there in some sort of silk dressing gown, rings down her fingers enough to open a branch of Ratners and a bit of tangerine cloth round her head like she’s thinking about joining a very select order of nuns.
“Yes,” said Divine, choking back the word “madam.” “We’ll do what we can. You’ll let us have a full list of what’s missing, of course?”
The doorbell chimed four bars of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
“Excuse me,” she turned smoothly away, “that must be the cleaning woman.”
Oh, yes, thought Divine, coming in the front door too, must have had good references. He was glad he’d forgotten to wipe his feet on the way in.
Lynn saw Kevin Naylor sitting on his own at the far side of the canteen and wasn’t sure whether to go and sit with him or not. Up until recently she would have had no hesitation, but lately Kevin had been short with her, abrupt and eager to keep his distance. She knew there were problems at home with Debbie, with the baby. There had been an evening when they might have talked about it, Kevin and herself, almost had. Tired, he had come back to her flat for coffee, but instead of talking he had fallen asleep. Waking, he had only hurried away, half-guilty. Lynn recalled from that evening her hand momentarily against Kevin’s upper arm. What had that been about? And asking him back-coffee? Come back for coffee? She thought about Karen Archer saying that to Fletcher after the Medics Ball, that or something like it. What had he understood by that?
There had been a film they’d shown on the TV, a year or so before, between the adverts. A young woman moving around her flat, making sure the bedroom door was open, clear view of the bed; the camera on the man’s face then, suggesting what he was thinking, condoms, AIDS, wouldn’t you like to stay the night? Was that what Kevin had been afraid of? She doubted it. She took her cup of tea and pulled out the chair opposite him. If he didn’t want to talk to her, he could get up and move away.
“How did it go at the hospital?” she asked.
“It’s your wife, sir,” called someone as Resnick left his office.
“What?”
“Your wife.” A young DC leaned back from his desk, holding a receiver aloft.
“Don’t be so bloody daft!”
Resnick shouldered his way through the door and hurried down the stairs. He was already late for his appointment with the DCI. He wondered whether Ed Silver had woken and, if so, if he were still in the house. Remembering his remark about the cleaver, Resnick felt a twinge of apprehension on behalf of his cats. No, he thought, stepping out on to the street, if he tries anything funny Dizzy’ll soon sort him out.
Ignoring his car, Resnick crossed in front of the traffic at an ungainly trot and set off downhill past the new Malaysian restaurant, raincoat flapping awkwardly around him.
“Kevin,” said Lynn, unable to lift the testiness from her voice.
“What?”
“We’ve been sitting here for almost twenty minutes and you’ve either said nothing or gone on about some nurse you reckon fancied you.”
“So?”
“So I thought we were supposed to be comparing notes, seeing if we’re any closer to understanding why that doctor was attacked.”
“Funny. I thought we were having a tea break. Bit of relaxation. Besides, I never asked you to sit here.”
“Maybe you’d prefer me back in uniform-just a different kind.”
“Maybe I would.”
When she stood up, Lynn scraped her chair back loudly enough for several others to turn around. “If you’re thinking of going over the side,” she said, “I should keep it to yourself.”
“What’s the matter, Lynn?” said Naylor. “Jealous?”
“You bastard!”
She pushed her way between the close-set tables, the backs of jutting chairs, her normally ruddy cheeks redder still.
“What’s up?” said Mark Divine, all mouth and mock concern. “Getting your period?”
Lynn Kellogg rocked back on her heels, swiveling to face him. Divine standing there with his tray balanced over one arm, the rest of the canteen watching.
“Yes,” she said, “matter of fact, I am.”
Once before, in the CID room, she’d struck out at him, smack across the face, marks from her fingers that hadn’t soon faded. She moved a half pace towards him now and his arm went up instinctively for protection. There was a large glass of milk on the tray, a cream cake, pie and chips.
Lynn reached out and took a chip. “Thanks, Mark. Nice of you to be so concerned.”
The roar from the rest of the canteen cowboys was still loud around Divine as he found a seat, echoes of it following Lynn all the way back along the corridor.
“Espresso?”
“Large.”
Resnick looked at the girl as she turned away. Short hair like bleached gold at the tips, mud at the roots. Two silver rings in her left ear and a fake diamond stud at the side of her nose. He hadn’t seen her before and he wasn’t too surprised. Mario would take on a girl, teach her to work the machine and then she’d leave.
“Thanks,” he said as she set down the small cup and saucer, brown and white. He gave her one pound thirty and she looked surprised. “Half’s for the next one,” Resnick explained.
“Tomorrow?”
“Ten minutes.”
There had been a period of almost six weeks when the stall had closed down and Resnick had felt bereft. Usually, when he went to the indoor market near the Central police station and shopped at either of the Polish delicatessens, or bought fresh vegetables, fish, he would stop off at the Italian coffee stall for two espressos. Sometimes-the luxury of half an hour to kill, more than usual to read the paper in-he would have three and spend the rest of the day tasting them, strong and bitter, at the back of his throat. Then, suddenly, no warning: it was closed.
Resnick had asked around. He was, after all, a detective. There were rumors of grand changes, expansion, everything from toasted ham and cheese to microwaved lasagna. One morning, local paper under one arm, half a pound of pickled gherkins, soused herring and a dark rye with caraway in a carrier bag, it was open again, Mario himself behind the counter. There were new covers on the stools, fresh red and green paint on the counter, the cappuccino machine had been moved from one side to the other. Everything else seemed the same. Resnick had greeted Mario like a long-lost brother, a material witness he had never thought would show up at the trial.