Cutting Edge

Nineteen

No more than a couple of hundred yards to Central Station, Resnick slid the Manhattan’s staff list across to Fenby, five names, all of them needing to be checked.

“This one,” Resnick said. “Maura Tranter. She’s working this lunch time. I’ll nip back over, see her myself.”

Fenby nodded slowly, the same speed at which he did everything. A Lincolnshire man with thick hair and a ruddy complexion, Fenby had grown up boot-deep in mud, face to face with the easterlies that came scudding in off the North Sea and cut through the Wolds like a rusty scythe.

“Report direct to you, then?” Fenby said.

Sir, Resnick thought. “Yes,” he said.

Divine, with the help of two uniforms, was checking out any taxi drivers using the rank near where the incident had occurred, staff who would have been working at the other clubs and pubs in the area, restaurants and car parks, the toilets themselves.

NURSE FIGHTS FOR LIFE was the headline in the local paper. Victim of an apparently motiveless attack … It could have been worse. The last thing Resnick wanted to read were panic stones about some Midlands Slasher, intent upon carving up the NHS more speedily than Kenneth Clarke.

He took the escalator up beside Miss Selfridge and entered the market via the meat and fish. No time for an espresso, he paused at the first of the Polish delicatessens and allowed himself a small treat, deciding between the three kinds of cheesecake always a problem.

“This business last night,” said the man running the stall, “that’s for you to sort out?”

Pointing at the middle tray, Resnick nodded.

“I’m surprised you’ve time even to think of eating.”

Resnick lifted the white paper bag from the glass counter and hurried between the flower stalls, heading for the far exit, the second escalator that would carry him down again, landing him close to the entrance to Manhattan’s.

It was busy already, plenty of people with time to drink as well as eat, the money to make it possible. There was a spare stool towards the end of the bar and Resnick maneuvered towards it and sat down. He was always surprised when he went into a place like this, especially in the middle of the day, how many men and women under thirty could afford, not simply to be there but to be in fashion, able to pay the rising cost of keeping up appearances.

Haves and have-nots: trouble with his job was, likely you spent so much time with the have-nots, it was easy to see them as the norm, be surprised when you found yourself surrounded by those for whom the system, supposedly, worked.

“What’s that?” said the young woman behind the bar, pointing at the bag Resnick had set on the counter.

“Cheesecake,” said Resnick. “Cherry topping.”

“Can’t eat your own food in here.”

“I’m not eating it.”

“That’s what I said.”

She had an open face, cheeks a hungry squirrel could have hoarded nuts in; her hair was in a lavish disarray it had taken ages to arrange. Her accent placed her east of Kimberley, but north of Ilkeston.

“Are you Maura?” Resnick asked.

“Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Sunday afternoons. The rest of the week I’m Leslie.”

Resnick thought it best not to inquire why. “Maybe your manager told you to expect me?”

“You’re not the detective?”

“Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays.”

“What happens Sundays?”

“I rest.”

When she smiled, Maura’s cheeks puffed out still further, for all the world like Dizzy Gillespie playing trumpet. “According to Derek, you’re fat and fifty and dressed like something out of the ark.”

Sooner that, thought Resnick, than someone who looked as if he should be inside it. “No wonder you didn’t recognize me,” he said.

“Right, you’re not so fat.”

“Thanks.”

“Not like some we get in here: half a hundredweight of cholesterol on feet.”

“Hey, Maura …” called somebody along the bar.

“I’m busy,” she called back.

“This is the man.” Resnick unfolded the photocopy of Karl Dougherty and turned it towards her.

“Four halves of lager, pint lager shandy, orange juice, pineapple, tomato juice with Worcester sauce and a Cinzano and lemonade-if you can tear yourself away.”

“What about you?” Maura was looking at Resnick, not the photograph. “Fancy anything?”

“Budweiser. Thanks.”

“For Christ’s sake, Maura …!”

She sighed and swore not quite below her breath. “Is there a problem here?” Derek Griffin appeared at Resnick’s shoulder sporting a different tie and a piqued expression.

“No problem,” Maura said brightly.

“No problem,” said Resnick.

“You do get paid to work here, you know,” said Griffin.

Maura raised an eyebrow theatrically. “Just,” she said.

Griffin turned away. Maura set a bottle and an empty glass at Resnick’s elbow, opened the bottle, tapped the picture of Dougherty with a false finger nail and said, “I’ll be back.”

“Now,” she said, moving along the bar, “what was it? Four small lagers …”

Resnick retreated and found another seat amongst the other lunchtime drinkers: well-groomed young salespeople from River Island, gray men in lean gray suits from Jessops talking earnestly about the partnership, bank clerks of both sexes from Barclays and NatWest. Dougherty had been here not so many hours before, enjoying a drink like these, maybe laughing, maybe not. He glanced over at the toilet sign, midway along the side wall. Was there anything strange in leaving here and going straight into the public lavatory across the road? If he did go straight there, that is? And besides, Resnick could remember, with embarrassment now and not pleasure, evenings when negotiating a path home via every toilet in the city center had still not been adequate to prevent him slipping into an alley, urinating against the wall.

“Hi!” Maura pulled over a stool and sat close beside him, orange lipstick on the rim of her glass like a kiss, on the filter tip of the cigarette she held in her other hand.

“Sure this is okay?” Resnick asked.

“Don’t fret.”

“I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“That’s what the last one said.” Laughing.

“No, I mean it.”

“So did he. So he said. But then they all do. Try it on, lie. You expect it. Funny thing was …” She angled her mouth away to release a small stream of smoke, eyes staying on him. “… he said he was one of your lot, a copper.”

“And he wasn’t?”

“Milkman. Dale Farms. Hardly the same, is it?”

Resnick grinned.

“’Bout the only thing that interested me, really. The policeman bit.” She leaned back and moved her head so that her hair shook. “Got a thing about authority, you know?”

“Tell that to your boss.”

“Derek? No, I mean the real thing. Not some little tosser spends half his time trying to push you around and the rest round the back, jerking off in front of the mirror.” She drank some gin and tonic. “You need something to push against, you know? Otherwise where’s the fun. Anyway, this bloke, the milkman. I thought he might be it.” She laughed loudly enough to make several people break off their conversations and stare. “Till I went back to his place and talked him into putting on his uniform.”

“Maura!” came the shout from the bar.

“All right, all right.” She finished her drink in a swallow and stood up, leaning down until her hair covered her face. “Yes,” she said, tapping the picture of Dougherty, “he was in here, last hour before closing. Him and another guy, comes in quite a bit. Peter, Paul, one of those names. Don’t know if they were having a row or what, but they were getting loud, I remember that.”

“You didn’t hear what they were saying?”

Maura shook her head.

“You think any of the other staff might have?”

She shrugged. “Possible. Ask.”

“I will.”

“Maura!”

“Got to go.”

Resnick pushed himself up. “Right. Thanks for your help.”

Maura started to move away, then stopped. “The other feller. Paul, Peter. I think he must work round here. Comes in lunchtimes, three or four days a week.”

“You sure he’s working?”

“He wears a suit.” She grinned. “Wouldn’t use it as a floorcloth myself, but to him it’s a suit.”

“Anything else special about him? Except for bad taste?” Standing there, Resnick was conscious of the creases in his bagged trousers, the stain on his jacket lapel.

“Hair.”

“What about it?”

“Not a lot of it. For someone his age.”

“Maura!”

“All right!”

Resnick picked up the photocopy and the now sweaty bag, dark where the fat from the cheesecake had run through.

“Look in again some time,” Maura said. “When it’s not so busy.” A toss of the head and she was heading back towards the bar. Outside it had started to drizzle and a thin film of water was collecting across the gray pavements. Breaking into an awkward trot to avoid a double-decker turning up into the square, Resnick sensed the bottom of the bag begin to break. A vain grab failed to prevent the cheesecake from falling, squashed, into the gutter, leaving Resnick licking cherry topping from his fingers on the corner of the street.