Living Proof (27 page)

"In the paper," Susan said.

"The woman they mink's been stabbing all those men."

"On the game, isn't she?"

"So it says."

The microwave pinged and David slid the warm croissants on to plates.

It was warm enough again for them to sit out in the garden, make use of the deck chairs Susan had picked up on sale at Homebase. He picked up the paper from where Susan had left it and carried it back to his chair. Centre columns, page three.

"Marlene Kinoul- ton, doesn't have much of a ring to it, does it? Not exactly stunning, either. Can't quite imagine who'd want to shell out for her."

"Really?" Susan said, pouring the coffee.

"I should have thought she was just your type."

David laughed.

"What on earth's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know, one of those raddled creatures you fantasise about, short on morals and long on hearts of gold. I can remember you dragging me off to see Cutter's Way ..: " Jeff Bridges. "

'. just for the scene where Lisa Eichhom looks so pained and awful after he's walked out on her. What did you say? You'd never seen a woman looking so bereft. "

"Or beautiful.1 " Right. " Susan broke into the croissant with her fingers. " And then she gets killed. "

David raised an eyebrow and passed her the jam.

"Goes with the territory."

"Prostitutes and whores, you mean? Victims."

"I suppose."

Susan looked at him hard.

"I wonder why they're always the ones you fancy so much?"

A butterfly landed for an instant on David's sleeve, then fluttered off towards the cotoneaster.

"I liked Julie Andrews once."

"You were seven. And you're avoiding the issue."

"Is it an issue?"

Susan brushed crumbs from the front of her blouse.

"It might be."

David wriggled his lean body against the striped canvas. Just when he was having a nice, relaxing morning for a change.

"Then I suppose it's to do with oh, you know what it's to do with fallen angels, forbidden fruit."

"Like her?" Susan said, nodding in the direction of Marlene Kinoulton's picture in the newspaper.

"But you don't fancy her,"

"That's different."

"Why? Because she's not pretty, screen-star pretty?"

"For God's sake, Susan, because she's real. And because what goes with her is real."

"Such as?"

"How long a list do you want? Herpes, gonorrhoea, Aids."

"Oh," Susan said, 'for a moment I thought you were talking about commitment. "

"Commitment? To a whore?"

"Yes. Why not? That's what it is, after all. You start off fancying her, you decide to pay for her, you end up sticking a condom on your cock and sticking it inside her. I'd say that called for quite a lot of commitment, wouldn't you?"

David had jerked to his feet, spilling coffee down one leg of his trousers and across the seat of the deck chair "Christ, Susan, what's this all about?" He couldn't remember her so animated, so angry.

Susan put down her cup and plate, folded her hands across her lap.

"The night before last, I went out and picked up a man."

David stared at her, mouth slightly open. Just stared. As if hearing it for the first time, he heard the harsh, bright call of the magpie on the overhanging branch of their neighbour's pear tree.

"I picked him up in a bar and we went to a hotel."

David turned towards the bottom of the garden, walked five paces, turned back around.

"Look, Susan, I'm sorry, I can't deal with this now. I have to go."

All she could do was shake her head from side to side and laugh.

Hurrying past her into the house, David froze at the entrance to the hall. Where was his briefcase? Where were his keys? What was going on with his life?

"David," Susan touched his arm and he flinched.

"David, look at me." And she leaned back against the front door the way she thought Claire Trevor might have done, Barbara Stanwyck or Jane Greer.

"I didn't tell you so that you could deal with it. It's done. Over. I just wanted you to know."

As he tried to push past her, reaching for the handle to the door, she added, close to his ear,

"I thought you might look at me differently, that's all."

He hesitated for a second before tugging at the door and Susan stepped to one side, letting him go.

She was still standing in the hallway when she heard the car start, tyres spinning a little as it sped away. She hadn't told him exactly how drunk she had needed to be, the way excitement and revulsion had tasted in her mouth; nor about the way her face had looked in the bathroom mirror before she had decided to cut and run.

Susan looked at her watch: nine seventeen. They would have realised at school by now she wasn't coming in. She was surprised they hadn't phoned. In the living room, she poured herself a generous glass of gin, lit a cigarette: isn't that the kind of thing Lisa Eichhom would do? Claire Trevor. Barbara Stanwyck. Jane Greer. All those women who rarely made it in one piece, through to the final reel?

Resnick sat at the coffee stall, taking his time through his second espresso of the morning. A sudden shower had surprised him as he was walking his way down from the Woodborough Road and he had ducked into the market by the rear entrance.

Marlene Kinoulton's photograph was prominently displayed on the front page of the local paper. All of the previous night's searching had brought them nothing but sore feet and abuse. Urgent messages had gone out to Leicester, Sheffield, Derby, the other cities where it was known she had worked. It was too early to gauge the extent and accuracy of public response, though early signs were far from promising; what had come through via the information room so far had been patchy and poor. Nowadays, it seemed, unless you went on television, Crimewatch UK or one of those, chances of lighting a fire under the public were poor. And he supposed, in time, if Kinoulton weren't traced, that was what would happen. Actors and a film crew and a researcher asking to interview him so that they could get it just right.

"Later tonight, on Crimewatch UK, the intriguing story of the missing prostitute and the hotel-room murder..."

A woman with a child of under two clinging to her skirt, climbed on to the vacant stool next to him, lifted the child into her lap and stuck a dummy in its mouth. Directly across from where he was sitting, a man he had put away for two stretches for burglary, joked with one of the Asian stall holders over a cup of tea. He did not acknowledge Resnick, nor Resnick him. When the festival was over and all the visitors and writers and film makers had returned to wherever they had come from, this was what it would come back to. People who lived here; who did what and to whom?

"Another espresso, inspector?"

"Thanks. Better not." Lifting the small cup to his mouth, he swallowed down what was left. Dark and bitter, why was it so good?

Cathy Jordan and Frank Cariucci had tiptoed around each other, exchanging no more words than were necessary. Neither of them wished to begin a conversation that could reopen old wounds and, in all probability, inflict new ones. Mollie Hansen had phoned earlier to enquire whether Cathy were happy to be interviewed on Kaleidoscope that evening, she had to ring John Goudie back and let him know.

Now Mollie was there at the hotel, making sure that the travel arrangements to London were clear; after the radio programme, there was a book signing in the Charing Cross Road at Murder One, at which point the publicist working for Cathy's UK publisher would take over and Mollie was in the clear. That is, she could get on with attending to the rest of the festival.

She was leaning against the counter at reception, just through speaking to Cathy on the internal phone, when Resnick came in.

"Not more trouble?" she asked, intercepting him with a guarded smile.

"No." He realised he was staring at her and looked away.

Mollie laughed.

"My God! You don't like it, do you?"

"What?"

"And now you're embarrassed to have noticed." She 254 had had a small stone filled in the right side of her nostril, bright blue.

"Not at all," Resnick blushed.

"You don't approve, body adornment?"

He shook his head.

"I don't suppose I've ever thought about it. I was surprised, that's all."

Mollie smiled.

"Do you like it, though? Be honest. I'd like to know what you think."

"I think you looked fine before."

It was Mollie's turn, almost, to flush.

"You're here to see Cathy?"

He nodded.

"Just quickly. I shall't be long."

"If I hang on," Mollie said,

"I don't suppose I could scrounge a lift?"

"If I had the car with me you could."

"Never mind. Some other time maybe?"

"Maybe."

"Well," backing away, 'see you around, I guess. Come to a movie, why don't you? "

"I'll try."

Mollie raised a hand, fingers spread, and turned towards the doors.

By the time she had walked from sight, Resnick was standing by the lifts, watching the numbers descend.

When Resnick got out of the lift on Cathy Jordan's floor, Frank Carlucci was waiting to get in. The two men exchanged cursory nods before Frank, hands in pockets and ample shoulders hunched, stepped inside and the doors closed behind him.

Cathy opened the door on Resnick's first knock and was surprised to see him standing there and not Frank.

"Sorry. Figured you for the penitent husband, back to crave forgiveness."

"Does he have something to be forgiven for?"

Cathy's mouth turned upwards into a smile.

"Don't we all? And wouldn't life be a deadly bore if we did not?" She moved aside to let Resnick enter.

"But in Frank's case, this particular case, I have no idea." She shrugged.

"Going on his track record, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Innocent as charged."

Cathy grinned.

"Guilty."

"Marius likewise."

"He owned up?"

Resnick nodded.

"The letters as well?"

"Yes."

Cathy's fist punched the air.

"The bastard! The snivelling lousy bastard!"

"He got a friend in the States to send the letters for him; everything that happened over here was down to him. He swears he never had any intention of carrying any of it through. Just wanted to frighten you. shake you up; make you think about what you were doing."

"Frighten me?"

"Yes."

"The little shit!"

"As far as it's possible to tell, my guess is he's telling the truth.

It's difficult to see him as actually dangerous, more of a nuisance. "

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were building up to telling me you're about to let him go."

Resnick stood there looking at her.

"Jesus! You are! You're going to give him a friendly pat on the head and a warning. Be a good slime bag and don't do it again." She turned, shaking her head.

"I can't believe it. I can't lucking believe it!"

"Dorothy Birdwell insists she won't press charges. Also, she's paid to have the room set back to rights and the hotel's keen to avoid any adverse publicity."

Cathy's face was white with anger.

"Which just leaves 256 me, right? And who the fuck am I, that you should give a good goddamn?"

Resnick took a pace towards her, then a pace back. "Cathy," he said.

"What?"

"Whatever you decide to do, it's unlikely, given all the circumstances, that the GPS will recommend prosecution."

"Shit!" Cathy crossed the room to the whisky bottle, poured a stiff shot and carried it back with her to the set tee

"So what will happen to him? Exactly."

"Most likely, he'll be bound over not to repeat this or any other behaviour."

"And then he'll walk?"

Resnick nodded.

"Yes."

Cathy took one sip at her Scotch and then another. "Where is he now?

You've still got him in custody? "

"Yes, why?"

All energy, Cathy jumped to her feet.

"Fine. I want to see him."

"I don't know..."

"Come on, just see him, right? One final time. Tell him goodbye."

Resnick looked a long way short of convinced.

"Inspector ... Charlie ... Surely it's the least you can do? After all, I'm not exactly about to stick a knife in him, pull out a gun."

"I still don't know..."

"Please."

"All right. But just five minutes. No more. And I shall have to be there all the time."

Cathy smiled at him with sweetness dropped in acid. "But of course."

The police cells were full so Naylor had stuck Marius Gooding in one of the interview rooms and turned the key.

ic'" " Half an hour," he had said.

"Forty-five minutes. Tops."

Marius had been there for not far short of three hours. Silent, a uniformed officer had brought him a cup of tea and a copy of a three-day-old Daily Mail, which Marius had read through several times, cover to cover.

When Resnick entered, he was quickly on his feet, a protest forming on his lips; then, when he saw who was with him, he remained silent.

"Hello, Marius," Cathy Jordan said, not halting until she was an arm's length away.

"Been treating you okay, have they?"

Marius looked at her, eyes refusing to focus; Resnick had remained near the door and was picking at something that seemed to have lodged on the cuff of his shirt.

"I just wanted to see what you looked like, remember you, in case there was any chance I might have the misfortune of running into you again. And to thank you. No, really, I mean it. Thank you for showing me how low a piece of phlegm like you can go. Exciting, though, was it, Marius? Give you a little hard-on? Thinking up all that stuff in those letters you sent me. Writing about it. What had happened to those women. Those kids." A fleck of spittle had landed on Cathy's chin and with the back of a hand she wiped it away.

"Must have known those books of mine pretty well, Marius, to quote them so well. So accurately."

Marius didn't want to look at her, but he wasn't able to look away.