Cold in Hand

Thirty-four

The market was no more than five or so minutes' walk from the Central Police Station, and Resnick guessed that at that time, not long past opening, there would be fewer customers at the Italian coffee stall than usual. There might initially be just two: Karen Shields and himself.

Karen was wearing a black jacket with deep, pouched pockets, black jeans, and a kingfisher blue satin shirt. As she strode between stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables and on past the various flower stalls and the stall selling everything-vacuum-cleaner bags and electrical odds and ends to Jim Reeves's Greatest Hits — the sight of her had been enough to turn most heads, female and male, and to draw forth a couple of old-fashioned wolf whistles, to which she gave a prompt single-digit response.

Resnick had watched her approach, far from blind, despite everything, to the striking nature of her appearance.

"Cappuccino?" he said, once she'd settled onto the stool beside him.

"Espresso."

"Single?"

"Double."

She waited until it was in front of her before turning towards him and asking, "Exactly which part of 'unfit for duty' don't you understand?"

"Daines?"

"What do you think?"

"I never said it was anything official."

"Nor that it wasn't."

"Just asking a few questions. No law against that, last I heard."

"What I heard, you did more than ask questions."

"Not really."

"Practically accused him of conspiring to suborn witnesses."

"'Suborn'? That was his word?"

"Intimidate, is that better? Threaten?"

"The word doesn't matter."

"You really think that's what he did? You think he'd go that far?"

"Don't you?"

Karen didn't answer.

"Daines," Resnick said, "how many times have you met him?"

"Just the once."

"And what did you think?"

Karen gave it due consideration. "He was sure of himself-not cocky, but sure of himself nonetheless. Polite. Maybe a little offhand." She set down her cup. "He certainly wasn't going to give anything away."

"Did you trust him?"

She sipped her espresso. "I don't know." She paused, thinking back. "He didn't give me any reason not to."

"But your gut feeling?"

"I'm not sure I had one."

Resnick wasn't sure if he quite believed that. "Lynn didn't trust him. He made her feel uneasy."

"Maybe that's because he was coming on to her."

Resnick's eyes narrowed sharply.

"The flowers," Karen said. "He sent her flowers."

"A get-well thing. After she was injured."

"Come on, Charlie. It's okay to call you 'Charlie'?"

Resnick nodded.

"You think that's all it was? You think if you were the one who'd ended up in hospital, he'd have done the same? Sent flowers?"

"You suggesting there was something between them?" Resnick's voice was tight, just this side of angry.

"No, no. Not for a moment. But if there were flowers, there might well have been other things. Not tangible, necessarily. I don't mean boxes of chocolates, things like that. But looks, suggestions, the odd remark. The occasional invitation. Drink after work, something of that sort. Enough to get under her skin."

Resnick's face was like stone.

"She didn't mention anything?" Karen said.

"Nothing like that, no."

"Then she would have dealt with it herself." A wry smile came to her face. "It's something you learn, something you get used to, men hitting on you. Learning how to cope. Usually somewhere around year six of primary school."

Resnick had finished his coffee and he ordered another. A man with a long, horse-shaped face, a regular, took a seat at the far side of the stall and, settled, nodded at Resnick, who nodded back.

"I loved her," Resnick said quietly. "More than I would have thought possible. And to me… to me, she was beautiful. I could sit, just sit, and look at her and that's all… all I needed. But she wasn't… what she wasn't…" He turned his head aside and Karen thought he was going to cry, but he sniffed and straightened up and carried on. "She wasn't the kind men set their caps at. Hit on, as you put it."

"You did."

"Not really." He managed a smile. "More the other way round. Though God knows why."

Karen laughed. "Women don't get hung up on the superficial, that's why. The way a guy looks, what he wears. We see beyond that, you know, right down into the soul."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Absolutely." She laughed again. When she took up with the Taylor Coombeses of this world, just about the last thing she was looking for was soul. Well, maybe soul of the Stax and Motown kind. "Besides," she said, "the woman men won't hit on in the right situation hasn't yet been invented."

Resnick shook his head. "If Daines were interested in Lynn, and I'm not saying he was, I think it would have been for some other reason."

"Such as?"

"I'm not sure. But from what little I know about him, and that's mostly from Lynn, admittedly, the impression I've got is of someone who uses people whenever he can. Cultivates them, if you like. For whatever he can get out of them. Favours. Information. Anything as long as he keeps the upper hand. When he found out-and God knows how, his connections must be pretty wide-that she'd been getting a friend to ask a few questions about him, his whole attitude towards her changed."

"Changed how?"

"He went out of his way to warn her to keep out of his business. Threatened her, I suppose you could say."

"Threatened? How?"

"Appeared one night, outside the pub. 'Don't make me your enemy,' that's what he said."

"And she took it seriously?"

"It made her angry. More than that, I'm not sure."

Karen swung round on her stool. "It's a long way from making a threat to… to being involved in taking someone's life."

"Agreed."

"But that's what you're suggesting."

"I think there could be a connection. I don't know. Daines. The whole Zoukas business. Andreea Florescu."

Karen tossed back her head. "We're looking at it, Charlie. Believe me. But not so long ago, you were positive Howard Brent was responsible for Lynn's death. Absolutely adamant."

"Yes, I know."

"And now, suddenly-"

"It's not sudden."

"Now, suddenly, you've changed your tune."

Resnick sighed and swivelled towards her on his stool. "It looks like that, I know, but-"

"What it looks like, you're so desperate to find Lynn's killer that you're lurching around all over the place, first one suspect, then another. And all this about Daines being somehow involved, too much of it is conjecture. Supposition. Even his threatening Lynn, it's just hearsay."

"She didn't make it up."

"Charlie, come on, that's not the point. The point is proof, evidence, something that might stand up in court."

Karen's eyes were bright and alert, her voice urgent without being loud. Probably the last thing she needed was another large espresso, but she ordered one anyway.

"We've talked to Howard Brent again," Karen said, once the coffee had arrived. "And we've spoken with one or two of his associates. Not that any of that's got us anywhere. I've had a few feelers out back in Jamaica, but so far they've come back empty. And there's still nothing coming back off the street. Anil's been talking to the people at the hotel where Andreea Florescu was working, but aside from some vague mention of her heading down to Cornwall, there's nothing. Same with the staff at the place where Bucur's studying."

"Nothing else?"

Karen shrugged. "We're still chasing down the Sierras, but so far, apart from inadvertently stepping on someone with a nice packet of heroin in his wheelbase, there's nothing. Nothing useful."

"How many still outstanding?"

"A dozen? And we're still trawling back through yours and Lynn's old cases without too much luck. Except for one of yours, maybe. I was going to ask you. Barry Fitzpatrick. Ring any bells?"

Resnick smiled, remembering. Not that it was all that pleasant a memory. Barry Edward Fitzpatrick was a doper and a part-time drunk who trawled the back streets looking for a front door that had been left unwisely open-someone who'd nipped down to the corner shop and left it on the latch, or who was just across the street, nattering with one of the neighbours. Fitzpatrick would duck in and lay his hands on whatever he could. Anyone saw him, it'd be, "Sorry, missus, thought it was my pal's place, lives round here somewhere," and he'd be off before they realised he'd nabbed their purse or pension book or the cash for the tallyman from under one of the ornaments on the mantelpiece.

"It was nine or ten years back," Resnick said. "The case you're referring to. Fitzpatrick was up to his tricks one day-Sherwood, I think it was. Lady of the house comes back in from the yard at the rear, she's been seeing to her window boxes, front and back, and there's Fitzpatrick, china candlestick in one hand, two ten-pound notes that had been resting underneath it in the other. She's well the wrong side of seventy, an inch or two maybe over five foot. Sprightly, though. Grabs ahold of Fitzpatrick and starts to lay about him with the trowel she's got in her hand. He panics and hits back with the candlestick. Breaks it over her head and keeps on hitting. Old skulls are brittle. Thin. He kills her. Doesn't mean to, but there it is. I brought him in, I remember. Went down, if my memory serves me, for fourteen years."

Karen nodded. "He was released early February."

"And you think-"

"Convicted murderer, possibly bearing a grudge."

Resnick shook his head. "Barry Fitzpatrick was a coward who wouldn't say boo to the proverbial goose unless he was drunk, and even then he was never really violent. Doubt if he's ever held a gun in his life, never mind fired one. What happened to that old lady, that was out of fear, nothing else. And to think of him going after Lynn to get at me, well, prison might have changed him, sharpened him up, even, but not that much. Not ever."

"Tick that one off, then."

"I think so."

Karen looked at her watch.

"What are you going to do about Daines?" Resnick asked.

"Am I going to do something?"

"I don't know."

"Let me think about it, Charlie."

"Okay."

She reached for her bag, but he raised a hand. "Coffee's on me."

"Thanks." She took a step away. "Words of advice?"

"Yes?"

"Go home. Paint the house, inside and out. Take a holiday. Give yourself time. 'Unfit for duty,' it means what it says."

In the short distance between the Victoria Centre and the police station, the heavens opened, and by the time Karen was safe inside, she was half-drenched, her hair in rats' tails.

"Turned out nice," Ramsden said, amused.

"Fuck off, Mike."

"Now or later?"

"Later."

She gave him the gist of her conversation with Resnick and he listened attentively, nodding here and there, frowning at others.

"What do you think?" she asked when she'd finished.

He jutted his head to one side. "It's not as if we're not following that line already."

"What we've been doing is looking for Bucur and the woman and getting nowhere."

"You've got a better idea?"

Karen nodded. "We might try getting at it from a different angle. Dixon, DCI, ring any bells?"

"Dixon? Dock Green? Bit long in the tooth by now, isn't he?"

"Very funny."

"Used to watch that, you know," Ramsden said. "As a kid. Saturdays, wasn't it? Dixon of Dock Green. Saturday teatime." He laughed. "Now there's a real old-fashioned copper for you."

"Your inspiration, was he, Mike?" Karen sounded amused. "What made you want to join the Force?"

"Get out of it! Sweeney, that's what did it for me. Jump in the motor, chase some villain halfway 'cross London, bang him up against the wall, get a couple of good whacks in when he tries to run. 'Right, son, you're nicked.'"

"I can just see it. But just for now, if you could see your way to doing something more pedestrian, why not get on to Dixon for me. Central Task Force. See if he'll agree to a meeting."

Ramsden whistled. "Playing with the big boys."

"They handle most firearms trafficking. Won't hurt to see what he's got to say, even if it means Daines finding out we're going behind his back. If he has got anything to hide, it even might shake him up a little. Gets panicky, he might always do something foolish, give something away. And if not-well, a few bruised feelings, soon smooth over."

"Okay, I'll get to it." At the door, Ramsden paused. "Resnick," he said, "now he's passed along this latest brainstorm of his, you really think he's going to sit back and let us get on with it?"

Karen didn't answer.