I’ve not done owt.’
‘Whatever charge, sunshine, we bloody like.’
‘You fucking would an’ all, wouldn’t you?’
As if to prove him right, two of them seize hold of him and bundle him back of their line, bending him sharply forward, arms tight behind his back.
There’s more coppers now, coming close, either side of the van.
‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers!’ Danny shouts and, throwing open the rear doors, jumps out, evades a grasping hand and runs for the nearest gap in the hedge: vaults over a fence and away.
Glancing back over his shoulder as he runs, he sees several of the others have done likewise, spreading out in all directions, police chasing.
The two coppers who started after him have given up and are standing there cursing at the mud that’s splashed up on to their uniform trousers.
Not really looking where he’s going, Danny trips over a piece of uneven ground and goes sprawling, the upper half of his body landing in a cowpat of staggering proportions. Tears of laughter running down his face, he scrambles up and stumbles forward, desperate to find a brook or stream or maybe a farmhouse with an outside pump, somewhere he can wash the worst of it away before getting back to the road and, with any luck, hitch a lift back to where he started.
18
RESNICK WOKE, TURNED on his side, squinting at the clock in the semi-darkness of the room. 6.43. Fifteen minutes, a little more, to lie there and pretend it was just another day. Rolling back, he dislodged the cat from where it had been sleeping, curled into the V of his legs. Funerals, he’d had enough. More than enough for a lifetime. Graham Millington, his old sergeant, had been the most recent. A stroke. His wife putting on a brave face, taking Resnick by the arm, blue veins at the back of her hand. ‘He loved you, Charlie, you know that, don’t you? Not that he’d’ve ever said. Not in a million years.’
Over the protestations of the vicar and a few of Millington’s near relations, she’d insisted on replacing ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Face to Face with God My Saviour’ with a selection of Petula Clark’s Greatest Hits, Millington’s coffin being carried towards its final resting place to the sound of ‘The Other Man’s Grass (Is Always Greener)’.
Worshipped Petula, Millington had.
Imagining him whistling along, Resnick had turned his head aside and wept.
He loved you, Charlie
.
It didn’t do to think about it, not overmuch.
No more than it did to think about Lynn. Except that he did.
On the day of her funeral, the traitorous bloody sun had shone practically from dawn till dusk, motes of dust dancing in front of the church windows, rose, silver and green. The ground inhospitable and hard. Tears drying on his face before they fell. And the youth who’d killed her – nineteen, not over-bright, desperate for respect – would be eligible, before too long, for parole. The possibility alive, for Resnick, of walking past him in the city, the opposite side of the street.
She had been in London, Lynn, a murder investigation, the last train from St Pancras home. When she’d phoned, Resnick had offered to meet her at the station.
No need. I’ll get a cab.
Too easy to accept her at her word, settle back into the comfort of the armchair, Bob Brookmeyer on the stereo, glass of good Scotch close to hand.
No need.
At the sink, he splashed water in his face, stared at his reflection in the glass.
Wearing a black suit, calf-length skirt, hair tied back with purple ribbon, white flower in her lapel, Catherine met him outside the chapel. Behind them, small knots of people slowly gathered. Dour men in borrowed suits shaking hands.
Sandford and Cresswell were there, too, both slightly awkward, out of place. Names to be gathered, addresses; some already known and logged, others new; interviews arranged.
Barry Hardwick was talking to a younger version of himself, Colin, it had to be, the spitting image; a thin woman in a black hat,
‘Whatever charge, sunshine, we bloody like.’
‘You fucking would an’ all, wouldn’t you?’
As if to prove him right, two of them seize hold of him and bundle him back of their line, bending him sharply forward, arms tight behind his back.
There’s more coppers now, coming close, either side of the van.
‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers!’ Danny shouts and, throwing open the rear doors, jumps out, evades a grasping hand and runs for the nearest gap in the hedge: vaults over a fence and away.
Glancing back over his shoulder as he runs, he sees several of the others have done likewise, spreading out in all directions, police chasing.
The two coppers who started after him have given up and are standing there cursing at the mud that’s splashed up on to their uniform trousers.
Not really looking where he’s going, Danny trips over a piece of uneven ground and goes sprawling, the upper half of his body landing in a cowpat of staggering proportions. Tears of laughter running down his face, he scrambles up and stumbles forward, desperate to find a brook or stream or maybe a farmhouse with an outside pump, somewhere he can wash the worst of it away before getting back to the road and, with any luck, hitch a lift back to where he started.
18
RESNICK WOKE, TURNED on his side, squinting at the clock in the semi-darkness of the room. 6.43. Fifteen minutes, a little more, to lie there and pretend it was just another day. Rolling back, he dislodged the cat from where it had been sleeping, curled into the V of his legs. Funerals, he’d had enough. More than enough for a lifetime. Graham Millington, his old sergeant, had been the most recent. A stroke. His wife putting on a brave face, taking Resnick by the arm, blue veins at the back of her hand. ‘He loved you, Charlie, you know that, don’t you? Not that he’d’ve ever said. Not in a million years.’
Over the protestations of the vicar and a few of Millington’s near relations, she’d insisted on replacing ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Face to Face with God My Saviour’ with a selection of Petula Clark’s Greatest Hits, Millington’s coffin being carried towards its final resting place to the sound of ‘The Other Man’s Grass (Is Always Greener)’.
Worshipped Petula, Millington had.
Imagining him whistling along, Resnick had turned his head aside and wept.
He loved you, Charlie
.
It didn’t do to think about it, not overmuch.
No more than it did to think about Lynn. Except that he did.
On the day of her funeral, the traitorous bloody sun had shone practically from dawn till dusk, motes of dust dancing in front of the church windows, rose, silver and green. The ground inhospitable and hard. Tears drying on his face before they fell. And the youth who’d killed her – nineteen, not over-bright, desperate for respect – would be eligible, before too long, for parole. The possibility alive, for Resnick, of walking past him in the city, the opposite side of the street.
She had been in London, Lynn, a murder investigation, the last train from St Pancras home. When she’d phoned, Resnick had offered to meet her at the station.
No need. I’ll get a cab.
Too easy to accept her at her word, settle back into the comfort of the armchair, Bob Brookmeyer on the stereo, glass of good Scotch close to hand.
No need.
At the sink, he splashed water in his face, stared at his reflection in the glass.
Wearing a black suit, calf-length skirt, hair tied back with purple ribbon, white flower in her lapel, Catherine met him outside the chapel. Behind them, small knots of people slowly gathered. Dour men in borrowed suits shaking hands.
Sandford and Cresswell were there, too, both slightly awkward, out of place. Names to be gathered, addresses; some already known and logged, others new; interviews arranged.
Barry Hardwick was talking to a younger version of himself, Colin, it had to be, the spitting image; a thin woman in a black hat,
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