Last Rites

Fourteen

Five forty-five. In his dream, Resnick is shackled into an old-fashioned pair of stocks in front of a full complement of constabulary and ordered to explain exactly how he will reorganize policing in the city after the millennium. Sweat lies slick along his back.

It took him several moments to recognize the voice of Anil Khan, now a member of Helen Siddons’s Major Crime Squad. “This escaped prisoner,” Khan was saying, “something just came through, I thought you might be interested.”

“What? A sighting?”

“Not that definite. An incident out at Field Head; small village, apparently, north of the A50. Out past Charnwood Forest, according to the map. Anyway, a man was attacked as he was backing his car through the gate, and the car stolen. The man was tied up with baling wire, taped across the mouth and eyes, and dumped in his own barn. Took him the best part of two days to get free.”

“Hurt?”

“Not too badly, apparently. Shaken up more, I think. Hungry. Dehydrated.”

Resnick was on his feet now, blinking himself fully awake. “What else was taken?”

“Aside from the car? Sixty pounds or so, all the cash he had with him. Keys, of course. Doesn’t have a credit card. Oh, and it looks as though whoever it was helped himself from the kitchen.”

“And you think it might have been Preston?”

“Right area, sir. Got to be a possibility.”

Resnick was trying to ignore one of the cats, nudging against him with its head. “How long ago was this reported?”

“Three this morning, Leicester. Someone a little slow perhaps, putting two and two together. Came through to us in error. I thought I should call you.”

“Okay. Thanks, Anil. I’ll get myself over there.”

“There’s a couple of officers out there from the local station. I told them you might be on your way.”

“Right, thanks. Oh, and the car, you’ve had it listed as missing?”

“Priority. Toyota estate, eight years old, maroon.”

“Good. And Anil, one more favor. Give it an hour or so, then ring Graham Millington at home. Tell him what’s happened and ask him to hold the fort till I get back.”

Resnick thanked him again and hung up. Before sticking his head under the shower, he called Carl Vincent and was slightly thrown when it was Vincent’s partner who first answered the phone. “Rise and shine,” Resnick said when Vincent himself came on the line. “May be nothing in it, but it might just be Preston has shown himself. Charnwood Forest. Down near your old patch, isn’t it? You can pick me up on the way.”

PC Kenny Rothwell was pale-faced, ginger-haired, his tie askew and the top two buttons of his uniform shirt undone. He made a poor attempt at fastening them as Resnick and Vincent approached.

“What’s the situation?” Resnick asked, identifying himself.

“Victim’s in there, sir. Winscale. Harry, I think. WPC Clive is with him.”

“Shouldn’t he be at the hospital?”

“He says not, sir.”

The house was small, most likely an old farm laborer’s cottage, once white plaster walls now various shades of patchy gray; small square windows with rusting metal frames. To the rear there was a large vegetable plot, a smaller one to the side and beyond this a chicken coop in need of some repair, and a low barn with a slanting roof. Reddish brown hens skittered half drunk, pecking hopefully at the hard ground.

“Whoever it was,” Resnick said, “he went in the house?”

“Looks like it, sir, yes. There’s food missing and …”

“So it’s been dusted for prints?”

“Not yet, sir, no. Scene of Crime are still on their way.” Rothwell managed to look guilty of tardiness on their behalf.

“No danger of anyone running round in there, getting their clammy hands all over everything?”

“No, sir. Mary … WPC Clive’ll make certain of that.”

Resnick looked past Rothwell toward the barn, where a small pile of logs had been stacked since winter. The early morning air was decidedly balmy, promising another warm day. “That’s where he was tied up?”

“Back there, sir, the barn, yes. Nothing’s been touched.”

“Okay. Carl, why don’t you and the constable go and take a look? I’ll talk to … Winscale, is that what you said?”

Rothwell confirmed that it was and Resnick walked past him toward the cottage.

The ceilings were low and even though Resnick negotiated the first beam successfully, he fell foul of the next. Standing in the small living room in her uniform skirt and blouse, WPC Mary Clive winced on his behalf.

Harry Winscale was sitting at a square, gate-leg table, head down, dark hair falling toward his eyes, cradling a mug of tea in his hands; he was wearing an old brown jacket over a green shirt, collar pushed up at one side. Resnick put him at between fifty and sixty years old.

“There’s tea in the pot,” Mary Clive said. “I could freshen it up.”

“Thanks.”

So far, Winscale had scarcely lifted his head. Resnick pulled out a chair from the near side of the table and sat down. When the man did finally look at him, Resnick inquired how he was, then asked him to tell what had happened in his own words, taking his time.

Winscale took a slow drink of tea. “It was ten, ten-thirty, I was coming back from the pub. Drove in, where I always stick the motor, up alongside the house. Bugger hits me, don’t know what with, but I doubt it were his fist. ’Fore I can get any balance, he’s grabbed ahold o’me, smacked my head a few times agin the roof of the car.” There was a scab, ridged, behind his ear, blood matted into his hair. “I recall him draggin’ me across into the barn, maybe he hit us again after, I don’t know. Next thing, it’s dark as buggery, like being down bloody pit, and I’m trussed up like a Christmas roast, some old bit of cloth stuffed in me mouth and taped across.” His eyes held Resnick’s. “Not a lot else I can say.”

“The man, what did he look like?”

“He were a big bugger, I’ll tell you that.” And then, as the WPC appeared at Resnick’s shoulder, “Beggin’ your pardon.”

“Tall,” Resnick asked. “Heavy-what?”

Winscale studied Resnick for some moments. “Tall as you, I’d say; close enough, anyway. Not near as fat.” Standing behind Resnick, Mary Clive suppressed a giggle. “Like running smack into a wall of anthracite, I’ll tell you that.”

“How about his face?”

“Not got a clue. Not really. Don’t forget it was coming fast dark. ’Sides which, it all happened so quick.”

“If I showed you a photograph …”

“Be wastin’ your time.”

“And the voice? He did speak?”

“A little, aye. Hard, you know. Like he was used to snapping out orders. Army, maybe, something of the sort.”

“Any kind of an accent?”

Winscale gave it some thought. “Nothing strong. Not as jumped out. If you’d said he was local, I’d not be surprised. Closer to Yorkshire than here, mind. Sheffield, say.”

“And there’s nothing else about him you can remember?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Winscale spread his hands on the table. “Seems to me, you got an idea, pretty much, as to who the bastard is already.”

Resnick pushed the chair back from the table. Whatever Mary Clive had done to the tea, it still tasted stewed, stewed and slightly sweet, but anything at that hour of the morning was welcome enough. “Your car,” he said to Winscale, “if you’re right and this is who we think, my guess is it’ll get dumped, likely not come to any harm. We’ll need to check it over, if and when that happens, but you’ll get it back in one piece.”

Winscale chuckled. “Best thing as could happen, far as I’m concerned, bastard thing gets wrapped around a tree somewhere, written off. Insurance can buy me some kind of van, four-wheel drive.”

“Don’t count your chickens,” Resnick said.

“Christ!” Winscale laughed. “Don’t tell me the bugger’s had them away as well.”

“Seems to be snapping out of it well enough,” Resnick observed, “considering.”

They were standing outside the front door of the cottage, the skies brightening around them, mist still waiting to be burned off the ground.

“Told me he was trapped beneath ground once,” Mary Clive said, “working down at the face. Some sort of cave-in, apparently. Sixty-two hours before anyone tunneled through wide enough to drag them out. This would have been a picnic compared to that.”

Resnick glanced round at the close rows of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, arched sticks of runner beans, tomatoes under a cold frame, the ragged gaggle of hens. He’d noticed a sign propped inside, ready to set out on the road: Fresh Farm Produce, Free Range Eggs. “Bought this with his redundancy money, I dare say. Put it to better use than some.”

“His wife left him after the strike. He bought this place soon after. Just enough for one, or so he says.”

Resnick smiled. She was a plain-faced young woman in her late twenties, stockily built; she had a ready smile and twice the confidence of her colleague.

“You seem to have got on with him pretty well,” Resnick said, nodding in the direction of the cottage. “Life story, almost.”

“Glad for someone to talk to after what he’s been through.”

“See if you can’t talk him into going to accident and emergency, have that wound checked out. Put a call through for an ambulance; better still, drive him yourself. He should have an X-ray, at least.”

She smiled back with her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.” Contacts, Resnick thought, tinted blue.

Carl Vincent was standing a short way off, talking to Rothwell. He broke off what he was saying and walked across toward Resnick. “What d’you think, sir? Our man or not?”

“Could well be.”

“But why make his move when he does? Why not wait till he’s farther down the motorway, closer to London?”

Resnick had been thinking about that. “Not so far from East Midlands Airport. Maybe fancies his chances of getting out of the country more from there, rather than getting caught up in all that extra security at Gatwick or Heathrow.”

“Need a passport, though, just the same.”

“Not so difficult,” Resnick said. “Even inside. Couple of thousand, that was the last price I heard quoted. Get you a passport so well put together you’d be hard put to tell the difference.” He smiled wryly. “No need to stop there, either. National Insurance number, credit account, invent yourself a new life for the right money. University degree, if it’s what you fancy.”

“And you think Preston would’ve been able to lay his hands on that kind of money?”

“I think he might. From what little I know, he could be the careful sort, keep a little stashed away.”

“He’d need help, then. Someone on the outside he could trust.”

“No doubt.” Resnick scuffed at the ground with the toe of his shoe, checked his watch. “Not a lot more we can do here. And no sense hanging around till Scene of Crime’ve tipped themselves out of bed. Too much like waiting for the kettle to boil. If they come up with anything, they’ll be in touch soon enough. We’d be best occupied closer to home.” He grinned. “Move now, we should have time to stop for a bit of breakfast on the way.”

Vincent smiled back, thinking, is that the motorway services, then, or the Little Chef on the A49? Two Early Starters, bacon crispy and well done, coffees, brown toast.