Cold in Hand

Twelve

"The arrogant, self-centred bastard, standing there with that smug smile stuck on his face, as if he'd just sold me several thousand pounds' worth of double bloody glazing."

Lynn had gone straight from Sherwood Lodge to Resnick's office, interrupting a late meeting, Khan and Michaelson taking the temperature quickly and leaving.

"I thought you quite fancied him," Resnick said lightly.

"It's no bloody joke, Charlie."

"I know."

"Zoukas out on the streets, no matter what sort of conditions, it sticks in my throat."

"There must have been a reason, some kind of explanation?"

"Explanation?" She dropped her voice an octave in imitation. "'Viktor Zoukas is a small but integral part of an ongoing major investigation, and it is important for the progress of that investigation that he remains free at this time.'"

"At this time?"

"Yes."

"That's what he said?"

"Yes."

"Daines?"

"Principal Officer Daines."

"That's his rank?"

"Civil Service grades in SOCA. Tells you what you need to know."

"And he didn't give you any more details than that?"

Lynn shook her head. "The last thing he wanted, he assured me, was for me to feel shut out from what was going on."

"Good of him."

"But because the investigation was at quite a delicate stage, he couldn't say a great deal more right now, though he fully intended to bring me up to speed as soon as he possibly could."

Resnick shifted in his chair. It was a long time since he'd see Lynn so openly angry, and with such apparent cause. "What did the ACC have to say?"

"Oh, some waffle about the importance of cooperating with a national organisation. Seeing the wider picture-you can imagine. From what I could make out at the conference I went to, SOCA have had precious little to do with Forces outside London. Won't be doing the Chief Constable any harm politically if we're one of the first. Help shift attention away from kids shooting themselves on the streets."

"You're getting cynical in your old age," Resnick said.

"And you're not?"

"Just older."

Lynn went over to the window and looked down towards the street. A large crane was being manoeuvred towards the entrance of the adjacent building site, blocking the traffic in both directions.

"Kelly Brent." She turned back into the room. "Any progress?"

Resnick sighed. "The words 'brick' and 'wall' come to mind."

"No word from Gregan about a possible shooter?"

"Not so far."

"Something'll break sooner or later."

"You have to hope."

Lynn turned towards the door. "I'd better go."

"Okay."

"See you at home."

Resnick nodded. "If you see Frank or Anil-"

"I'll ask them to come back in."

Andreea phoned Lynn the following day, her voice shaky, her accent thicker. The Witness Care Officer had informed her of the adjournment, thinking perhaps that it might put her more at ease.

"Where are you?" Lynn asked. "Are you phoning from London?"

No. She was there, in the city, at the bus station.

"Wait where you are," Lynn told her. "Wait there and I'll find you."

She was sitting on one of the benches, head covered by a patterned scarf. Since Lynn had last seen her, she seemed to have lost weight. Her face had become thinner, more gaunt.

As Lynn approached, she looked around anxiously, then grabbed at her arm. "I did not want to come here, but I have to see you. I am afraid."

"It's okay." Lynn disengaged herself. "It's okay. Let's go somewhere where we can talk."

The Victoria Centre was beginning to empty, some of the shops already closing, their shutters being pulled down and locked for the night. Lynn steered Andreea along the upper level and onto the covered walkway that crossed Upper Parliament Street; down then past stalls selling electrical goods and discount batteries and cheap clothes. A few hundred metres and a few more corners, and they were on Broad Street and there, across from the arts cinema, was Lee Rosey's, Lynn's little oasis in the city centre.

She'd stumbled on it by chance, a small cafe with no more than six or seven tables running to the back and a few stools by the front window looking out on to the street. Arranged neatly on the shelves along one wall were fifty or more different kinds of tea, everything from Assam and Ceylon through peppermint or chamomile to cinnamon and hibiscus. You could get coffee if that's what you wanted, and the coffee was okay, smoothies also, but tea was the thing, the proprietor going against the trend; not coffee but tea.

Generally, Lynn liked to keep the place to herself, not go there with anyone associated with the job. Most of the regular customers seemed to be patrons of the cinema opposite or students from one or other of the nearby colleges, but at that time of the evening there were only a few stragglers left: a young man using his laptop by the window, a young woman leafing through a book about photography while she listened to her iPod, a couple sharing a piece of coffee cake and staring into each other's eyes the way only adolescents could.

"Please," Andreea said, "what happened-I don't understand."

"You mean the adjournment?"

"Yes."

"It's difficult to explain."

"You think he is not guilty?"

Lynn breathed out slowly. "No, it's not that, it's… Look, Andreea"-touching her hand-"I'll be honest with you. I don't fully understand everything myself. But Zoukas, in the end he'll pay for whatever he's done, I assure you."

"And me?" Andreea said. "What of me?"

"You'll be fine. Nothing will happen to you."

"But now that he is free-"

"He's not free; that's not true. He has to report to the police all the time."

"But he knows that it was me who would speak against him at the trial."

"Look, Andreea." Lynn leaned closer. "You don't know that. And even if he did, right now the last thing Zoukas is going to want to do is draw more attention to himself. He'll be going out his way to stay clean."

She glanced up as somebody came into the cafe. "Besides, he doesn't know where you are."

"You don't think he can find out, if he wants?"

"London's a big place."

Andreea shivered. "I don't know."

"Andreea, listen. Listen. Listen to me. Go back to London. Keep your head down. Stay where you are. Nothing's going to happen to you. I promise. Okay?" She squeezed Andreea's hand. "Andreea. Okay?"

"Yes." A smile, hesitant and quick with doubt. "Okay."

When Lynn got home, having seen Andreea safely back onto the express coach to London, what she had wanted most was a drink. Resnick moved the casserole he'd been reheating down to the bottom of the oven, lowered the gas, and opened a bottle of red.

Lynn downed most of the first glass as if it were water.

"Jesus, Charlie! What was I doing?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Making promises like that. Again. Promises I can't keep."

"You really think she's in danger?"

"I think she could be. If Zoukas wants to be sure she won't speak out."

"You think he can find out where she is?"

"It depends. If she's drifted back into the same kind of work, it's more than possible. It depends how wide his connections go. Andreea's got a friend she was telling me, from Romania, working in a hotel down in Cornwall. She might see if she can find work down there later in the year."

"A shame she can't go now."

"I know."

Resnick reached across and refilled her almost-empty glass. The streetlight was sending a dull orange glow into the room, where only the small lamp on the shelf above the stereo was burning.

"You think that's what happened to Kelvin Pearce? Someone looking out for Zoukas threatened him in some way?"

"Either that or paid him off."

"No sign of him yet?"

Lynn shook her head.

They continued to sit there, each to their own thoughts, while the room darkened further around them.

"You ready to eat?" Resnick said eventually.

"We'd better. All this wine's going to my head."

On his way out of the room he paused to put some music on the stereo. Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank. One of the first jazz bossa-nova sessions, 1953. Shank's alto, sinuous and precise over the intricate filigrees of Almeida's guitar. Perfect in its way.

He carried his glass out into the kitchen, turned up the temperature of the oven, and set two plates to warm. How long after eating, he wondered, before they were both in bed?