Still Waters

Thirty-seven

Thinking about Jill, the way she had looked when he had left that morning, Khan overshot his exit from the motorway and had to drive south another seventeen miles before he could make a turn. The Dray Horse was a sprawling three-story building whose white stucco frontage had long since turned a carbon monoxide shade of gray. There were two car parks, one to either side, pot-holed and in need of resurfacing. Even the horse itself had seen better days, plodding along in front of a bulging brewery wagon, shoulders straining, head bowed, paint flecked and faded on a sign which swayed creakily in the burgeoning east wind.

Khan left his car facing the road and rattled the handle on the front door. The sign written in white paint above his head read Lawrence Gerald Fitzpatrick, licensed to sell wines and spirits. Khan was about to try the bell when he saw someone approaching through the mottled glass.

“If it’s a drink you want, you’re too early; if it’s something you’re selling, we’re not buying.”

He was a bearded man who wore his belly the way a camel wears its hump, except at the front. The whiskers around his mouth were stained reddish-brown with nicotine.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

“Depends who’s asking.”

Khan identified himself and the man shook his head. “Them lights you saw on, round midnight was it? That was just the bar staff clearing up. And if it’s the music, well, the renewal license is in the post.”

“It’s not that I’ve come about, it’s the phone.”

“Bloody hell! Sending the likes of you out here for that now, are they? I stuck a check in first class mail, Sat’day.”

Patient, Khan explained why he was there. The telephone matching the number Mollie had passed on to Resnick was, indeed, out in the hall, directly across from the ladies toilet. The gents, smelling richly now of disinfectant, was farther along. The harness that kept the phone attached to the wall had worked itself loose by a couple of screws, and the mouthpiece, originally cream, was now virtually black with the residue of phlegm and so much bad breath. A calendar listing the dates of the principal Newmarket race meetings hung from the wall at a convenient height for doodling and several neat pornographic conceits shared its margins with a myriad of numbers and barely decipherable messages.

“I’ll have to borrow this,” Khan said, indicating the calendar. “You’ll get it back all in good time.”

“Aye, when it’s good and out of date, I’ll wager.”

Khan took out his notebook and began to copy down the irregular curve of telephone numbers that had been written directly onto the wall. By the time he had done a quick check in the local directory, he’d ascertained two-thirds of them belonged to taxi companies, and one of the most frequent of the others seemed to connect with a sauna and massage parlor in Saffron Walden.

“I wanted to ask you,” Khan said, “about a call that came through here just after eleven thirty the Saturday before last.”

“Morning or night?” Fitzgerald asked.

“Morning. Ring any bells?”

Fitzgerald thought back; from the pained expression on his face it wasn’t something he bothered with too often. “No,” he said finally, “can’t say as it does. You could ask Len, though. He’s in later. He might have picked up on something.”

Len Bassett was a soft-spoken man in his late fifties who walked slightly on a slant as the result of a replacement hip. He came up with three possibilities more or less straight off: a market gardener from Burwell who sometimes used the pub to take orders, a commercial traveler in fancy goods who provided all and sundry to corner shops and sub-post offices from Lowestoft to Northampton, and that bald feller, tall, you know the one I mean, Lawrence, always carrying one of them black briefcases wherever he goes, never lets it out of his sight. What’s his name now? Small whisky and ginger ale, that’s what he has. Grants, Bells, Teachers, doesn’t care. Once you’ve smothered it with ginger ale, tastes the same anyway.

“You can’t remember his name?” Khan asked.

Neither man could.

Khan set two of his cards on the bar counter. “If either of you do remember anything more, I’d appreciate it if you got in touch.”

The men looked at one another. “Right,” they both said.

Khan stopped off on the A45 near Fen Ditton and bought some cut flowers; if he made good time getting back, he might take a chance and nip to the flat before reporting back to the station. It was Jill’s day for the late shift at Central and with any luck she might still be around.

Alex Peterson’s dental surgery was on the raised first floor of one of those large, bay-fronted buildings on College Street, leading down the Hill to Wellington Circus. The receptionist viewed Resnick with suspicion, a man trying to muscle in on the appointments list by dint of waving his warrant card around. But after some discussion on the intercom, Peterson’s dental nurse, a young Muslim woman with her head and lower face covered above her white uniform, came through and informed Resnick in a soft voice that if he could wait for just five minutes, Mr. Peterson would be able to see him.

Five minutes, as they do in dentists’ waiting rooms, became fifteen. Peterson emerged in conversation with a middle-aged woman holding a handkerchief to one side of her face and doing her best to look brave despite the pain.

“Inspector …”

“If there’s somewhere we could talk privately?”

Peterson led him back into the surgery, from which the nurse had now disappeared. “You’ve found something? About what happened?” His voice was anxious, the dark hollows scooped below his eyes suggested tears, lack of sleep. The lingering smell in the room-metallic, medicinal-brought Resnick suddenly back to his childhood, be brave, this is going to hurt just a little bit.

“Really, it’s a question,” Resnick said. “It may be nothing.”

“Go on.”

“Your wife, as far as you know, did she have friends in the Cambridge area? Newmarket, possibly. Somewhere around there. There was no one on the list you gave us.”

Peterson blinked. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“It might not be important …”

Peterson’s hand was on Resnick’s arm; his breath, mint-flavored, on his face. “Tell me, please.”

“A phone call she may have made, that’s all. We can’t even be certain it was her.”

“But you think she made a call to Cambridge, that’s what you’re saying? I don’t understand. When was this? Is that where you think she might have gone?”

“As yet we just don’t know.”

“But it must be important, otherwise why would you be here?”

Resnick sighed. “I’m here because we’re checking everything, every little thing that might give us a lead to what happened.” He looked at Peterson for a moment. “Believe me, as soon there’s anything definite, I’ll let you know.”

“Really? I’d like to believe that was true.”

“Your wife was killed,” Resnick said. “I’ve no way of knowing how that must feel. But I do know how important it is to understand what happened. And why. You have my word. If this leads anywhere, I will keep you informed.”

Slowly, Peterson nodded. “Thank you. And I’m sorry if …”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Back at the Ropewalk there were two messages waiting: one from Lynn to say that she had tracked down Prentiss’ ex-girlfriend Patricia Falk in Peterborough and arranged to meet her; the other was from Hannah-monkfish with grilled aubergine, how did that sound? Resnick thought it sounded good.