Cold Light

Five

“Things not so good at home,” was that what Resnick had said? Lynn smiled grimly, changed down, and indicated that she was taking the next left. Not so good could be measured by the way her mother had stood, tight-lipped and close to tears, still stirring the last of her Christmas puddings with only days to go. Other years, there would have been at least three of them, fat in their white basins, ready in the cupboard by the end of October.

“It’s your dad, Lynnie,” all she had said.

Lynn had found him mooching between the hen houses, an unlit cigarette loose between his lips, fear in his eyes.

“Dad, whatever is it?”

The electrical equipment used to stun the birds before slaughter had malfunctioned and, at the height of the busiest season, forty-eight hours and several thousand pounds had been lost before it was set to rights. Worse for her father, before the fault was discovered, some hundred force-fed capons had been doused alive in scalding water, their throats slit, feathers plucked-he would wake at four, against all logic, reliving their screams. “Come on, Dad,” Lynn had said, “there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

She should have known there was something more. On the morning she left, she found him in the kitchen at first light, hand round a mug of well-brewed tea. “It’s the doctor, Lynnie. He says I’ve to go to the hospital, see this consultant. Something here, in my gut.” He had stared at her along the table and Lynn had hurried from the room before he could see her cry.

It was a little after four in the afternoon and the dark was starting to close in. Still you could read, graffitied in two-foot-high letters on the Asian shopkeeper’s wall, Keep Christmas White-Fuck Off Home. Lynn glanced at the street atlas again and readied herself for another three-point turn.

Michelle had not been home long. The buses had been overloaded with shoppers and those whose working day had finished in the lunchtime pub; sporadic bursts of carol singing, most often with the words changed to crude parody, drifted down from the upper deck. A ginger-haired man, still wearing his postman’s uniform, sat with his legs out into the aisle, performing conjuring tricks with a deck of cards. As they were veering across the roundabout at the end of Gregory Boulevard, a businessman, wearing a gray pin-stripe suit and a red and white Christmas hat, had leaned wide from the platform of the bus and lost his lunch beneath the wheels of the oncoming traffic.

Natalie had fallen asleep, rocked by the vehicle’s motion, and Karl had sat close, clinging to the sleeve of Michelle’s coat, wrapped in the wonder of what was going on around him. When the postman leaned across and magicked a shiny ten-pence coin from behind Karl’s left ear, the small boy squealed with delight.

“Whatever’s happened to him, poor lamb?” Michelle’s mother had asked, pointing to the swelling puffing out the side of Karl’s face.

“He fell,” Michelle had said quickly. “Always rushing at everything. You know what he’s like.”

“Aye,” her mum had said. “Bit of a madcap, like his dad.”

There were Christmas lights in some of the windows as they walked back up the street towards home; tiny red and blue bulbs glinting from plastic trees. A neighbor called out a greeting and Michelle felt a sudden rush of warmth run through her. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad place after all. If they could just see off the winter, it really could be a new start.

She had called out opening the front door, expecting Gary to be back; the queue at the Housing must have been even longer than he’d thought. Quickly, she’d got the children changed, shipped Karl off in front of the TV with some bread and jam while she spooned rice and apple in and around the baby’s mouth. Once fed, she’d put her down and tend to the fire, get it going before Gary returned, settle down to watch Neighbours with a fresh pot of tea.

The knock on the door was clipped and strong and though her first thought was that Gary had mislaid his key, it didn’t sound like his knock at all.

“Michelle Paley?”

“Yes.”

“Detective Constable Lynn Kellogg. I’d like to talk to you a minute, if I could.”

Michelle took in the warrant card, the neat dark hair, the sureness of the stance, cheeks that showed red in the light spilling from the house.

Lynn glanced past Michelle into the room and saw the beginnings of a fire, a cartoon Dracula on the television, volume turned low. On a carpet that had seen better days, a mousy little kid with both legs in the air behind him, squinted round.

“You’ll be letting in the cold,” Lynn said. Michelle nodded and stood aside, closing the door behind Lynn as she walked in, pushing the folded square of rug back against it to keep out the draught.

Lynn unbuttoned her coat but made no move to take it off.

“What’s happened?” Michelle said, sick to her stomach, fearing the worst. “It’s Gary, isn’t it? Is it Gary? Is he all right? Tell me he’s all right.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Lynn said.

Michelle swayed a little as she felt her legs starting to go.

“Nothing’s happened to him,” Lynn said. “You don’t have to worry. Nothing like that.”

Michelle did sit, uneasily on to the sofa, reaching for the arm to steady herself down. “He’s in trouble, then,” she said.

“He’s at the station,” Lynn said. “Canning Circus. He was arrested earlier this afternoon.”

“Oh, God, what for?”

Lynn was conscious of the small boy, leaning back against the legs of the TV set, paying them all his attention. “There was a disturbance, at the Housing Office …”

“A disturbance? What kind of …?”

“It seems he threatened the staff, physically. At one point he locked himself in a room with one of them and refused to let her out.”

Michelle’s face had drained of what little color it had.

“I don’t know yet,” Lynn said, “if he’ll be held overnight. It’s possible. We thought you ought to know.”

“Can I see him?”

“Later. I’ll give you a number you can ring.”

Upstairs, the baby began crying and then, just as abruptly, stopped.

“Did he hit anyone?” Michelle asked.

“Apparently not. Not this time.”

“What d’you mean?”

“He’s done it before, hasn’t he? He’s on probation.”

“That was ages ago, what happened.”

“A year.”

“But he’s changed. Gary’s changed.”

“Has he?”

Karl was rocking backwards and forwards as, on the screen above him, a fading football manager vouched for the splendors of British Gas.

“That’s your little boy?” Lynn asked.

“Karl. Yes.”

“What happened to his face?”

Divine thanked the sister from Intensive Care and replaced the receiver: Mr. Raju had returned from Recovery, was sleeping, sedated, his condition critical yet stable. It was unlikely he would be strong enough to speak with anyone until the morning.

“You’ve not changed your mind, then?” he said, as Naylor crossed the room behind him.

“About what?”

“Bringing Debbie along tonight.”

Naylor dropped two folders on to his desk: transcripts of interviews pertaining to the taxi driver’s assault. Several thousand words and still no clear identification. Two youths in boots and jeans, much like many others. “Why should I?” he said.

Divine’s grin was broad as a dirty joke and about as subtle. “Last chance for a bit of spare this side of the stuffing.”

“Forget it, Mark, why don’t you?” Naylor flipped open the first file and began to read. It had taken all of his persuasion getting Debbie to agree to come with him. “You don’t want me there,” she’d said, “getting in the way. You’ll have a lot more fun on your own.” Times were, back when things were going wrong with their marriage, Naylor would have been the first to agree. Jumped at it, the chance for a night out on his own, with the lads. Now it was different; he felt it was different. “All right,” he had told her, “if you don’t want to go, I’ll stay home.” That had done the trick.

Now he looked at his watch, the workload on his desk; best give Debbie a quick call.

Lynn was sitting in Resnick’s office, telling him about her visit. Earlier, Resnick had interviewed first Gary James and then Nancy Phelan, conversations in still, airless rooms with the tape machine ticking digitally across the long afternoon. Gary had been alternately contrite and angry, constantly bringing things back to rotting wood and sagging doors and damp that ran down the insides of walls.

“You realize,” Resnick had said, “behaving the way you did, it’s not going to do your case any good.”

“No?” Gary had said. “Then tell me what is.”

Unable to answer, Resnick had handed him over to the custody sergeant and now he sat sulking in one of the police cells.

Nancy Phelan was adamant that Gary had done nothing to really hurt her, she had never felt in any actual danger. It had simply got out of hand.

“Then he didn’t strike you?” Resnick had asked.

“No.”

“Never as much as touched you?” A pause and then, pressing her fingers to her scalp, “I suppose he did grab my hair.”

“And you weren’t frightened?”

“No, he was.”

Resnick thought about that as he listened to Lynn describing the marks on the boy’s face, the swelling that had all but closed one eye, the bruise coming out strongly, yellow and purple and darkening.

“She said, the mother, that he’d fallen,” Resnick said. Lynn nodded. “Running out the back door. The door was actually off, I don’t know, she and Gary, they were putting it back on when the boy came running. Went smack into it.”

“It’s plausible, surely?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t believe her?”

Lynn crossed and recrossed her legs. “In different circumstances, I might. But this Gary James, his record …”

“Nothing to suggest any violence towards the children.”

“Something must have got him in a state before he got to the Housing Office. Something more than simply having to wait.”

“Well …” Resnick got to his feet, walked round from behind his desk. Through the glass he could see Divine speaking into the telephone, Kevin Naylor painstakingly making notes, the pen in that awkward-seeming grip he used, as if it were an implement he was still struggling to control. … “Best have a word with social services.” He checked his watch. “If they’ve knocked off early for the day, you can try the emergency duty team.” Though not for long, he thought, rumor was that with the next wave of cuts they were to be axed. Which would mean the likes of Karl waiting till past Boxing Day.

Lynn paused at the door. “James, sir, are we keeping him in?”

Resnick made a face. “Christmas. I’d not want to, not if it can be avoided.”

“But if the boy’s at risk?”

“I know. Let’s get someone round there, get him to a doctor, have him properly examined. Till then young Gary James can kick his heels.”

“Right.” Lynn stepped out into Divine’s raucous laughter and the sound of an ambulance going past outside, another victim of the festivities on the way to Queen’s. She paused near her desk and turned back towards the open door to Resnick’s office. “I don’t suppose there’s any good trying to talk to his probation officer? Might throw some light, one way or another.”

“You could always try,” Resnick said. His expression suggested she would probably be wasting her time. Relationships with the probation service were not the most trusting, either way; and this wasn’t the most propitious of times.

“I’ll check anyway,” Lynn said over her shoulder, “see whose client he is.”

“Pam Van Allen.”

Lynn was looking at him.

“I gave Neil Park a call. Earlier.”

“But you’ve not spoken to her, sir, Van Allen?”

Resnick shook his head.

“You don’t mind if I …”

“You go ahead.”

Back at his desk, for a moment Resnick closed his eyes; he could see her walking out of sight, Pam Van Allen, a meeting that had turned out badly, her hair glinting silver-gray against the light. “Pressure, Charlie,” her senior, Neil Park had said later. “Male, high-ranking, used to telling people what to do and expecting them to do it. She resented it.” Resnick didn’t think he would have any luck there. If Lynn could talk to her, so much the better. Even so, he found himself staring at the phone, part of him wanting to call.

“Sir,” Lynn knocked on his door and pushed it wide enough for her head to lean in. “She’s gone home for the day. For the holiday.”

“All right,” Resnick said, “we’ll hang on, see what social services have to say. Oh, and Lynn …”

“Yes?”

“This business at home-whatever it is-if you need to talk about it …”

For the first time in a while, she found something close to a smile. “Thanks.”

Back across the CID room her phone once again was ringing. Someone was humming “Silent Night.” From somewhere, Divine had acquired a paper hat, red and green, and he was wearing it as he read off an entry from the VDU, a sprig of mistletoe poking hopefully from his breast pocket.