Easy Meat

Ten

Resnick caught a couple of hours’ sleep in his office, chair pushed back, legs forcing a space for themselves among the reports and memos that littered his desk. When he woke it was to the sound of Graham Millington clattering the kettle and treating the otherwise empty CID room to a muted rendition of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

Resnick had his first mug of tea in his hand before realizing that the phone had failed to ring: Doris Netherfield had survived the night.

“What’s all this I hear about Serious Crimes?” Millington asked, lighting only his second Lambert and Butler of the day. The expression of unalloyed martyrdom that Madeleine assumed if ever he dared to smoke at home was no longer anything he could bear to watch.

“Going on around us, Graham, all the time.”

Millington narrowed his eyes through the spiraling cigarette smoke: what the hell was the boss doing, cracking jokes at this hour of the morning? He presumed it had been meant as a joke.

“You know what I’m on about,” Millington said, “this new Serious Crimes Unit.”

Resnick sighed. “Yes, and the answer is, I don’t know a whole lot more than you.”

“But if you were to guess?”

“I’d reckon it’ll get as far as finance, someone will throw a fit about resourcing new office space, extra personnel, and it’ll get lost on its way back to the drawing board.”

Even as the words were being spoken, Resnick wasn’t certain how far he believed them; but neither did he want to face the ramifications the establishing of the squad might have for his career. And not solely his own, Millington’s as well.

Divine and Naylor arrived within moments of each other, Divine chirpier than the bags beneath his eyes suggested. “Tea mashed, then, Sarge?” he said, reaching for his favorite mug, decorated with a fading cartoon about rugby players and odd-shaped balls.

As usual, Naylor was quiet, easy even among four people to forget that he was there. It was a characteristic that, in the right circumstances, made him the good detective he could be.

Millington caught Resnick’s glance towards his watch. “Uniform backup?” he asked.

Resnick shook his head. “Let’s not start World War Three, Graham. It’s only one youth, after all.”

A sardonic smile played round the edges of Millington’s mouth. “Well, that’s okay then, i’n’t it? Piece of piss.”

In his panic to get away from the Netherfields’ house, Nicky hadn’t even realized the iron railing was still in his hand. Quickly, he had dumped it in the nearest bin and continued to run. Only when he was within sight of his own home did he stop, chest tight, tears stinging his eyes. Only then did he consider the blood that was splashed across his clothes and staining his face and hands. No way he could go in like that, no way. Backtracking, he climbed into a garden and took two towels from the line, leaned against a wall deep in shadow and rubbed at his skin, his shirt, and jeans. It was still likely that if he went home now someone would be up: Sheena, listening to Blur and looking at some stupid magazine; Shane slumped down in front of a video, Jean Claude Van Damme or Bruce Lee; his mum, sewing buttons back on Shane’s shirts or lost in a world of her own, reading one of her trashy romances, Mills and sodding Bloom.

Keeping clear of main roads, quick to cross away from any passersby, Nicky walked and walked, trying not to think about what might happen, what had happened, what he would do if the man or the old woman died.

When he finally turned his key in the front door, legs aching, it was gone two. All of the lights in the house were out. Quick to slip off his boots, Nicky was on his way to the stairs when he heard a muffled groan from the front room: slowly undulating shapes stretched along the settee; his brother was shagging Sara Johnson yet again.

On another occasion, Nicky would have stayed there and watched, but now there were more pressing things. In the bath-room he locked the door before switching on the light.

Jesus Christ!

He might have thought that black wouldn’t have shown the stains so clearly, but there was no denying them, thick patches that seemed to have been thrown across his shirt and T-shirt as if he had ridden a mountain bike fast through mud. More across the top of his jeans. And the blood was not only smeared across his skin, it was sticking to his hair. Nicky stripped to his underpants and socks; took off the socks. He thought about rinsing the shirt out in the sink, letting the jeans, perhaps, soak in the bath, but realized there was too little time and anyway, it would never work. He fetched a bin liner from the kitchen and bundled the clothes inside. First thing in the morning, he would get them good and lost. Burn them, that was the thing.

Oh, shit! Footsteps on the stairs. The door handle turned but didn’t give.

“Hang on a minute,” Nicky said.

“Nicky?” Shane’s voice. “That you?”

“Yeh, I shan’t be long.”

“What the fuck you doin’ in there?”

“What d’you think?”

Nicky waited until his brother had walked away before returning to the sink. At least the water was still hot. He found an old scrubbing brush beside the bath and lathered it with soap. He would have to wash his face, clean between his fingers, beneath his nails, shampoo his hair. As he looked into the reddening water, he saw the woman’s gray head breaking below him, felt the impact of the blows reverberating back along his arms. Who’d have thought the old girl had as much blood in her as this?

Why didn’t he run? Take whatever money was in the house, what he had himself and run. A bus to Manchester, Glasgow, London, anywhere. He could lose himself in London, knew kids who had. Kids who came back with stories of money and crack, of picking up punters on Victoria Station or at Funland in Leicester Square. Doing the kind of stuff Martin Hodgson would have been out doing last night. At the back of his throat, Nicky felt himself beginning to retch. The sensible thing was to stay here. Bugger off and they’ll take that as telling them, fair and square, sticking two and two in their hands and saying, right, what’s that? No, the thing to do was stay cool, get rid of the clothes, go to school.

Just as his mum was getting up, Nicky fell fast off, sucking at his thumb.

Norma was down in the kitchen when the cars arrived, two of them, Naylor and Divine, hurrying round to the back to cut off any possible escape. If she heard them, taking the carton of milk from the fridge, she gave no sign. Sitting down here with a cigarette, quiet, a fag and a cup of tea was the best part of the day.

First up the path, Resnick stood aside, allowing Millington to ring the bell and knock. The sergeant paused, then rang the bell again.

“Bloody hell! Who’s this?” But Norma, padding to the front door in her slippers, knew whoever it was, the news would not be good. Seeing the two men standing there, Resnick, whom she recognized, Norma felt a sudden pain fire, sharp, across her chest.

“Your Nicky,” Millington said. “Is he in?”

“Of course he’s bloody in.” But she was not looking at Millington, but at Resnick, trying to read the expression in his eyes.

“You can see where it’s heading, Norma. Clear as I can myself.” Resnick’s words, the last time he had been to her house.

“What d’you want him for?” Norma asked.

“One or two questions,” Millington told her, “about what he was up to last night.”

“Last night he was here,” Norma said, “along of me, all evening.” It was a response as automatic as drawing breath.

“I think we’d best ask him that,” Millington said.

Norma stood her ground, not knowing what to do.

Resnick shifted half a pace towards the doorway. “Norma, I think maybe you should let us in, don’t you?”

Millington wandered off into the front room and then the kitchen, while Resnick stood with Norma near the foot of the stairs.

“He’s still in bed, then?”

“’Course he bloody is.”

Resnick set his hand upon the banister and she took hold of his wrist. “You call him, then, Norma. Fetch him down.”

At the edge of his eyeline, Millington had reappeared, slowly shaking his head.

“Norma,” Resnick prompted.

Heavy, she turned and called Nicky’s name; set her foot upon the stairs and called again.

In his room, Nicky was instantly awake and throwing back the clothes.

“Nicky, it’s the police.”

He grabbed a pair of old jeans and was still pulling them on as he threw up the window and scrambled out onto the sloping roof above what had once been the outside lavatory.

“Nicky!”

First Resnick, and then Millington, elbowed past Norma and took the stairs at a run.

Nicky slithered down the steeply angled roof, dislodging tiles as he went. One of his hands caught at the old iron guttering and it broke. Twisting as best he could, Nicky half-jumped, half-fell and then he was away, jumping the old rabbit hutch and vaulting the gate, straight into Divine’s arms where the detective waited behind the wall.

From the upstairs window, Resnick watched as Nicky swore at Divine and struggled, until Naylor had his arms behind him and between them they’d put on the cuffs.

“Kick me again, you little bastard,” Divine said, “and I’ll have your balls for breakfast.”

Resnick, closing the window, didn’t hear. Shane was out on the landing, pulling a pair of cords up over his boxer shorts. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“It’s okay, nothing to bother you.”

“Well, s’pose I want it to bother me?”

“I’d remind you what the magistrate said, last time you were up in court.”

“Fuck the bastard magistrate!”

“I dare say.” Resnick sighed. “Now why don’t you go downstairs, look to your mum? Make her a cup of tea if nothing else.”

Shane pushed past him and slammed the bathroom door shut behind him.

Norma was in the kitchen, head in her hands.

“I’ll take a look round,” Millington said, and Resnick nodded and went to put the kettle on himself. Within five minutes, Millington had found the bin liner full of bloodied clothes stuffed under Nicky’s bed.

“Take them in,” Resnick said. “Let forensic have them, first thing.” He glanced at Norma. “I’ll be along directly.” He fished out the used tea bags, tipped the lukewarm tea down the sink, and set to making some fresh.