Off Minor

Twenty-eight

Resnick was on his way back into the building with a chicken breast and Brie on rye, a sardine and radicchio with crumbled blue cheese, when he almost collided with a woman standing at the inquiry desk. She was backing away from the square of window, set so low down that you risked slipping a disc bending towards it.

“Oh, sorry!”

“Sorry!”

Resnick lost one of the sandwiches from his grasp, made a lunge towards it and missed. One of his feet slid out from underneath him so that, off balance, he slipped almost to the floor. Clutching the other sandwich to his chest, he steadied himself against the woman, one hand gripping her not insubstantial thigh. If both noticed this, neither saw fit to mention it.

Apologizing again, Resnick pushed himself to his feet. Meanwhile, the woman retrieved his straying sandwich, all save for some curls of lettuce which had sprung clear.

“You wouldn’t be Inspector Resnick?” she asked.

Do you mean, Resnick wondered, that I have a choice? “The man at the desk said you’d be back at any minute.”

“Here I am,” said Resnick. “Not before time. What was it about?”

“The little girl. Emily-is it? — Morrison.”

Resnick dumped the brown paper bags on his desk and turned to look at his visitor. She was a little over medium height; dark, almost black hair pierced with gray and cut against the nape of her neck. She was wearing a loose skirt, dark blue, a paler blue sweater under a maroon jacket with deep pockets and padded shoulders. Resnick couldn’t be certain, but he thought she might be wearing contact lenses. He put her in her late thirties, early forties and he was underestimating by a good five years.

“I’m Vivien Nathanson,” she said.

All these years and Resnick was still uncertain about shaking hands: did it matter that ten minutes later the person had become a suspect in some heinous crime or was confessing to acts which made the imagination reel? He offered coffee instead.

“I don’t suppose I could have tea?”

“Of course.”

“Black?”

“Given the usual state of the milk, safest choice.” Resnick called into the CID room and Divine stirred himself from the shadow of Miss December to oblige.

“I heard an appeal on the radio as I was driving to work. At the university. I teach.”

She didn’t look as if she cleaned the floors.

“Canadian Studies.”

Resnick was mystified. He hadn’t realized there was such a thing as Canadian Studies. What was there to study, after all? Great Canadian inventors? The life cycle of the beaver? Trees? He knew an ambitious detective sergeant from Chesterfield who had arranged a sabbatical for himself, working with the Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta. Reckoned to have spent most of his time watching snow melt.

“You’re interested in the identity of a woman seen near where the girl disappeared. I think it might have been me.”

Divine knocked on the door and brought in the tea.

“Where’s mine?” Resnick added.

“Sorry, sir. Never said.”

“I was in the crescent on Sunday afternoon, some time between three and four. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific.”

“Visiting?”

“Walking.”

“Just walking?”

Vivien smiled. “I don’t suppose you know a writer named Ray Bradbury, Inspector?”

Resnick shook his head. “Is he Canadian?”

“American. From Illinois, I believe. And do …” as she moved to sip her tea “… start on your lunch.”

Resnick opened the bag containing the chicken breast and Brie. He wondered how long she was going to take to get to the point but had already decided, within reason, he didn’t much care.

“Anyway,” she was saying, “in one of his stories a man is arrested by a prowling police car for walking alone through this neighborhood. Meandering. Suspicious enough in itself to be considered a crime. When he attempts to argue back, make his case, he finds it’s impossible. The police car is fully automated, no human being inside.”

“Is that what’s called a parable?” Resnick asked. Vivien Nathanson smiled. “More an extended metaphor, probably.”

“And I’m the inhuman policeman?”

“I hope not. How’s your sandwich?”

“Terrific.” He gestured for her to take a piece, but she declined.

“Too far into my pre-Christmas diet to stop now.”

“What were you doing? While you were walking.”

“Oh, thinking.”

“Lectures and the like?”

“Uh-huh. Among other things.”

Resnick found himself wanting to ask which other things. “While you were passing through the crescent, did you see anyone of Emily Morrison’s description?”

He passed a picture across his desk and she looked at it carefully before answering no.

“And you didn’t see anything unusual going on around the Morrison house?”

“I don’t know which one that is.”

“The woman who was seen, some of the reports suggest she was showing a special interest in the house.”

“But I don’t know …”

“You said.”

“I think,” Vivien Nathanson said, “unless lam very much mistaken, the tone of this conversation has changed.”

“A girl gone missing: it’s a serious matter.”

“And I’m under suspicion?”

“Not exactly.”

“But if I had a specific reason for being in that area at that time, if, for instance, I were calling on a friend at Number, oh, twenty-eight or thirty-two …” She stopped, seeing the reaction on Resnick’s face. “That’s the house, isn’t it? Thirty-two. Where they live? The Morrisons.”

Resnick nodded.

“I didn’t know.”

He didn’t say a thing, but watched her; a hint of alarm undermining her manner, not a seminar any longer.

“But you didn’t see the girl?”

“No.”

“Any girl?”

“Not that I remember.”

“And you would remember?”

“Possibly. Probably.”

“How about a Ford Sierra?”

Vivien shook her head. “I’m afraid the only time I’d notice a car is if it ran over me.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“But I did see a man.”

Jesus, thought Resnick, has she been playing with me all this time?

“He might even be the one you’re looking for. On the radio, it mentioned someone who was running.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was crossing over, you know, towards the footpath that leads through to the canal. He bumped right into me, almost knocked me down.”

Like downstairs, Resnick thought, though he had been the one falling. “Your mind on other things?” he asked.

“To a degree. But he was most at fault. Just wasn’t looking where he was going.”

“Where had he been looking?”

“Back over his shoulder.”

Resnick could see the curve of the street clearly in his mind, the direction Vivien had been heading, the path the runner had been following. A man running with his head angled back the way he had come, back in the direction of Number 32.

Resnick could feel tiny goose-pimples forming all along his arms, hear the shift of register in his voice when he spoke. “You could give us a description?”

“I think so.”

“Detailed?”

“It was only for a moment.”

“But close.”

“Yes, close.”

Resnick was already reaching for the phone. “What I’d like to do, as well as taking your statement, arrange for an artist to come to the station, make a drawing under your advice. See how close we can get. Okay?”

“In that case,” smiling as she leaned forward, “if I’m going to be here all that time, I will have half of this sandwich.”