Last Rites

Twenty-two

The youth with a ring through his nose was sitting cross-legged on sheets of cardboard in the estate agent’s doorway, a sandy-haired dog coiled close alongside. As Resnick approached, he held out a hand and pleaded for change.

You and the rest of us, Resnick thought. There were a couple of pound coins in the side pocket of Resnick’s coat, a smattering of silver. “Here.”

The dog growled, low in its throat, and the youth wished Resnick a good night.

The restaurant was at the other end of the pedestrianized street and Resnick had passed it many times without being tempted inside. The menu, attached discreetly to the wall, had faded to the point where it was difficult to read. Antipasto … risotto … pesca-tore. Resnick climbed the lean flight of stairs and found himself in an almost empty room with an extravagant mural along one wall, somewhere Mediterranean where the sea was always blue and the sun never set. Vines, presumably plastic, dangled from a trellis overhead. On each table, empty chianti bottles sat garlanded in dusty candle wax.

By one of the windows, a couple, married but not, Resnick instinctively felt, to each other, maintained a silent vigil over their linguine al alfredo. Near the far wall, a middle-aged man sat toying with his spaghetti and reading from a fat book he seemed almost to have finished. The night’s other customers had long gone.

A waiter wearing regulation black and white, his apron, unstained, tied high above his waist, moved to intercept Resnick and addressed him by name. “Your friend, she is already here.”

Resnick followed him past the entrance to the kitchen, along a little dog-leg corridor and up another short set of stairs into a second room.

Chairs were stacked on all the tables save one.

“Charlie, good. You found it, then. I was just beginning to wonder.” Helen Siddons, hair pinned up, little makeup, a shirt buttoned to the neck, gestured toward the empty chair and as Resnick was sitting, filled his glass. “Barolo. Not bad for the price.”

Resnick nodded and, shrugging off his suit jacket, hung it from the back of his chair.

“It was good of you to ring me.”

He shrugged. “I thought it was the way you wanted it played.”

“Even so …” Half smiling, she swiveled the single menu in Resnick’s direction. “Why don’t we order first? It’s all pretty much your bog-standard Italian. But if you value your lower bowel, steer clear of the prawns.”

Once the waiter had disappeared, Resnick told her about Valentine and Gary Prince.

“That’s it?” she said when he’d finished. “Beginning to end, that’s all you’ve got?”

“So far.”

Siddons shook her head. “Rumor and conjecture, Charlie. And not a lot of either.”

“But if we can link Valentine through Prince to the gun …”

“If. If. The last I heard, the gun was still missing.”

Resnick leaned closer. “We have to work with what we’ve got.”

“You’ll turn Prince over?”

“First thing.”

Siddons lifted her wineglass. “You might strike lucky.”

“If we can link Valentine to the weapon that shot Johnson …”

“Big if, Charlie.”

“Johnson’s just about fit enough to answer questions.”

“And you think he might dump Valentine right in it?”

“If someone had just put a bullet through my head, I think I would, don’t you?”

Siddons cut into her veal. “That would depend if I thought he was going to do it again.”

For some minutes, they ate in silence.

“Those two girls,” Siddons said, “Jason’s sister and her mate, did you ever get anything out of them?”

“A lot of abuse, not much else.”

“They’re not still in custody?”

Resnick shook his head. “Didn’t seem a lot of point.”

Siddons pushed her plate aside and lit a cigarette. “There’s more?”

Resnick drank some more wine and told her about Paul Finney. She liked what she was hearing, he could tell. A Drug Squad officer on Cassady’s payroll and Cassady providing security for clubs where so much illegal drug activity went down: it was a start, a way in, a weak link in the chain.

“Anything else, Charlie? Coffee, dessert?”

“I’ll have an espresso, double. Thanks.”

“Join me in a brandy?”

Resnick shook his head.

Fifteen minutes later, Helen Siddons slid her credit card between the folded halves of the bill. “Your shout next time, Charlie, okay?”

The youth and his dog were curled against each other, sleeping in the doorway.

“Poor bastard,” Siddons said, nodding in the boy’s direction.

“Amen to that.”

“Got your car, Charlie?”

Resnick shook his head.

“Come on then, mine’s just round the corner. I’ll give you a lift.”

As they turned on to the Woodborough Road, Siddons leaned a little to the left and rested her hand on Resnick’s knee. “I know you could have gone elsewhere with this. Norman Mann, for instance. You’re pals. I know that. And I’m grateful. I’ll not forget it.”

Resnick sat there wondering exactly what his friend Norman would think of this particular evening’s work. Siddons changed gear sharply, signaling right. Maybe it was the brandy, but whatever the reason, she was driving too fast. Probably she always did. In just a few minutes, they were pulling up outside Resnick’s house, its shape bulked dark against the night sky.

Resnick opened the door and got out on to the pavement and, with a pert trill, Dizzy jumped down off the stone wall and trotted toward him.

“A sight more than some of us get,” Siddons said wryly, “someone to greet us at the front door when we get home of a night. Even if the first thing they do is stick their arse in our face.” She laughed. “Sweet dreams, Charlie. Have one on me.”

Resnick raised a hand as the car pulled away from the curb and then, bending low, he listened until the sound of the engine had faded beneath Dizzy’s insistent purr.