Wasted Years

Fourteen

“I did think that was nice of Mr Spindler, didn’t you?” Marjorie said. “Considerate. Calling round in person, to make sure we were all right.”

“About the least he could do,” Lorna replied, watching the older woman turn the key in the lock once, then twice.

“He is a busy man,” Marjorie said.

“And we just saved several thousand pounds of his company’s money.”

“You know, Lorna,” Marjorie said, dropping the keys down into her bag, “you really ought to do something about your attitude.”

“My att-’

“I sometimes think it’s the only thing holding you back.”

Lorna half-turned, vaguely aware of someone walking towards them across the street. Where the hell’s it got you, Marjorie? she felt herself wanting to say. All those years of backpedaling and going out of your way to be nice?

“Look at Becca, for instance.”

“What,” asked Lorna, more than a little steel in her voice, “has Becca got to do with it?”

“Look at the way she’s got on as fast as she has. I know she’s intelligent, degree and all, but why do you think she’s got where she has?”

Lorna stared at Marjorie’s doughlike face, waiting to be told.

“It’s because she knows how to behave towards people; especially people like Mr Spindler. She’s nicely spoken and she’s always well-turned out …”

“And if it would help her career, she’s not above taking Spindler into the back office and giving him a quick wank.”

“Lorna, really!” Marjorie flushed bright red from the nape of her neck to the roots of her hair. “I can’t imagine what you … I can’t believe … I’m going to pretend I never heard you say that.”

“Fine,” Lorna said. “Believe what you like.” And, turning fast on her heel, she came close to colliding with Darren, who had slowed his pace on hearing raised voices, but continued, nonetheless, towards them.

“I’m sorry, I …”

“’S’okay,” Darren said, chirpily. “No harm done, eh?” For a moment they were stationary, Darren close enough to see his new face reflected in the curved lenses of Lorna’s glasses. Lorna looking at him, this tall, skinny youth with the shorn head and the beaklike nose and those protruding gray-blue eyes.

“Closed up?” Darren jerked his head sideways towards the door.

“Half-five.”

“Well,” Darren shrugged, “call in another time, eh?” And he was walking on down the street, hands in his jeans pockets, whistling.

“You don’t know him,” Marjorie said. “Do you?”

“I don’t think so,” Lorna said, watching as Darren began to cross back to the other side of the pavement, lower down. But, somewhere inside, she felt that, yes, she did.

Resnick contacted the station, told Graham Millington to get Divine and Naylor down to the Meadows sharpish. If Keith Rylands was there, no sense letting him slip away because nobody was watching the back door. The sky seemed to darken abruptly as Resnick and Lynn Kellogg passed over the railway bridge on London Road, the carriage lights of short sprinter trains standing out clearly-commuters waiting to be shuffled back to Langley Mill, Attenborough, Alfreton, and Mansfield Parkway. Ahead of them the traffic slowed almost to a standstill. In the car alongside, a thirtyish executive in a white shirt, sleeves rolled back just above the wrist, added another Benson Kingsize to the pollution levels and listened to the up-to-the-minute traffic report on the local radio, confirming where he was and why.

“Heart attack before he’s fifty,” Lynn said caustically, glancing sideways.

“Maybe he takes long healthy walks,” Resnick said. “Off into Derbyshire. Couple of squash games a week and visits to the health club.”

“And I’m about to get put up to sergeant,” Lynn responded.

“You will. All in good time.”

“Meanwhile I’m still at the bottom of the pecking order, counting through my check stubs each time I go to Safeway.”

“You’re not doing so bad.”

“Aren’t I?”

“You’re still only twenty-five.”

“Twenty-six.”

“You’ll get there.”

Lynn eased the car forward a whole fifteen yards. “How old were you, when you made sergeant?”

Resnick could remember being summoned to the old man’s office, stomach bowling googlies all the way along the corridor, not being able to get the grin off his face afterwards, so that four hours later when Elaine opened the door to him she knew. “Nigh on thirty,” he said.

“And that was CID?”

Resnick shook his head. “Transferred back into uniform to get the promotion.”

“Can’t see me doing that. Rather stay where I am.”

“It wasn’t so bad. Good experience, really. And I was back in CID inside two years. Jack Skelton had just got bumped up as well; he was my Dl.”

Lynn laughed. “I can just see him, briefings every morning, checking how you were all turned out.” She shot Resnick a quick look. “Smart suit, well-ironed shirt, and tie.”

Resnick joined in with the laughter. “He tried.”

A gap appeared ahead in the traffic and Lynn accelerated smartly into it.

Divine was hard up against the back door, hoping against hope the suspect would try and do a runner; a strained groin had kept him out of the rugby squad for the past three games and he’d dearly love an excuse for landing a couple of good right-handers. Naylor sat behind the wheel of the second car, end of the alley. Resnick pulled on his raincoat and headed for the front, Lynn half a pace behind.

Before Resnick could try the bell, or use the knocker, the door opened and a bald man stumbled out, ripe with the smell of ammonia which comes from clothes steeped in stale urine and alcohol.

“Hey up!” Resnick stepped sideways swiftly, halted him with the flat of one hand.

“Wha-?”

“Reginald Rylands?”

“Na.”

“He does live here?”

The man’s head moved forward and back as his eyes tried to focus. “Downstairs. Try down … stairs.”

But, by then, Rylands was in the hallway, the head of the cellar steps, and walking forward. “You looking for me?”

Resnick showed his warrant card, identified himself and Detective Constable Kellogg.

“You’d best come in,” Rylands said.

“Be on m’way,” slurred the bald man, stepping between Resnick and Lynn Kellogg and on to the street.

“Is he okay?” Resnick asked.

Rylands nodded. “Long as nobody stands too near him with a lighted match.”

Inside the kitchen, Resnick turned down the offer of tea, took in the empty quart cider bottles on the floor, several days of unwashed pots and plates. Lynn hung back in the doorway, careful for the sounds of anyone making a dash for the front door.

“Something about the house?” Rylands asked. “One of the lodgers? I’m properly registered, you know, approved. Least, till the EEC start in on toilet bowls and sinks.”

“It’s not that.” Resnick shook his head.

“Then it’s Keith.”

“You tell me.”

Rylands eased a finger inside his mouth, scraped away at something stuck between his teeth with a nail. “Got to be, hasn’t it?”

“How’s that?”

“Always in trouble, isn’t he? This thing and the other.”

“And recently?”

Rylands shook his head. “No idea. ‘Less it’s motors, is it? Cars. Can’t keep away from them. That what it is?”

From one of the upstairs rooms came the strangulated tenor of Josef Locke and Resnick grimaced: popular films sometimes had a lot to answer for.

“You do know where your son is?” Lynn asked.

“No.”

“We understood that you did.”

Someone of similar musical tastes to Resnick opened a door above, shouted loudly, and then slammed it shut. Josef Locke faded back into insignificance.

Rylands looked with interest at the white fiber from the heart of last night’s chicken tikka, suspended from his finger end. “And who’d that be from?” he asked.

“We’ve just been speaking to Keith’s mother.”

“Oh, yes, the former Mrs Rylands, light of my life.”

“She seemed certain that Keith was here, staying with you.”

“And I thought he was staying with her and old Stuart, the handy man par excellence. Funny, isn’t it?”

“She said she hadn’t seen Keith for a couple of days.”

“Me neither.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“You heard right.”

“Since when?”

Rylands shrugged. “Thursday, Friday last week. You sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?”

Resnick’s expression suggested that he was.

“Well, I’ll just make one for myself, if you don’t mind.”

He was on his way towards the sink with the empty kettle, but Resnick was standing in front of him, blocking his way.

“We have reason to believe your son might have been involved in a serious matter.”

“I daresay. Now if you’ll …”

Resnick took the kettle from his hand and set it down. Lynn stepped to one side in the doorway to let Divine through. “Sorry, boss, getting dead bored out there. Thought I’d get to where the action was.” Reading the question in Resnick’s face, he added, “Kev’s out back, not to worry.”

Rylands had retrieved the kettle.

“Tea up, then, is it?” Divine grinned.

“No,” Resnick said. “It’s not. Not till we’ve got a few more answers.”

“Well, that’s it then, standoff. Afraid I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

Resnick could just smell the alcohol on his breath, not insistent, but there. Steady drinker now, he thought, controlled. Likely doesn’t start till eleven, eleven-thirty of a morning, no acceleration till late on, eight or nine at night.

“You know it’s an offense,” Divine was saying, “withholding information.”

“How can it be an offense if I don’t know anything?”

“You’ll not mind,” Resnick said, almost casually, “if we search the house.”

“Should I?”

“We’ll see, shan’t we?” Divine smiled.

“If you’ve a warrant. You did think to bring a warrant?”

“Too cocky by half, boss,” Divine said, nodding towards Rylands. “Been here before.”

“Have you ever been in trouble with the police?” Resnick asked.

“Who hasn’t?”

“Recently?”

Lynn Kellogg responded to footsteps on the stairs and moved out into the hallway; a man wearing stained khaki trousers and a Fair Isle jumper two sizes too tight was carrying a nondescript brown dog towards the door, one hand round the animal’s mouth. Before his objective was reached, the dog wriggled out of his arms and barked.

“No animals,” Rylands said to Resnick. “It’s in the rules. Plain. So daft he thinks I don’t know he’s smuggling it in and out.”

“This trouble …” Divine began.

“Let’s get back to your son,” Resnick said.

Rylands’s shoulders slumped and this time Resnick allowed him to fill the kettle, set in on the gas. “You any of your own?” he asked Resnick. “Kids?”

Resnick gave a quick shake of the head.

“If you had, maybe you’d understand. I don’t suppose you ever stop caring for them, feeling something, but … the rest of it, the day to day, the way they’re fucking up their lives.” He stood with his eyes closed for as much as twenty seconds. “If I knew where he was I’d tell you. Time inside, real time, he might learn a lesson. If not, least happens, he’ll be out of harm’s way. Not able to do anything stupid.”

“You think he might?”

“Only every sodding day.”

“Then you would tell us where he was?”

“If I knew,” Rylands said. “Like a shot.”

“You’ll not mind, then, if we take a look around?” Divine said. “Warrant or not?”

“Forget it, Mark,” said Resnick, beginning to turn away. “He’s not here, it’s okay.” And to Rylands, turning in the kitchen doorway, “If you do see him, what you might do, persuade him to come in. Own accord, go better for him.”

Rylands nodded.

“Barring that, give me a call. Resnick. Detective Inspector.”

Rylands nodded again. “I’ll remember.”

Behind him, the kettle was starting to boil.

“You get a whiff of him?” Lynn asked. They were outside on the pavement, the opposite side of the narrow street, looking back at the house. “Like he worked in a brewery.”

“Starting to feel a bit sorry for him,” Divine said, “way he was going on about his lad.”

“You and Kevin,” said Resnick. “I want you keeping the place under surveillance. All night if necessary. My guess, the youth’s been staying here and he’ll be back.”