Lonely Hearts (18 page)

“As long as you’re still willing to talk.”

“About Macliesh?”

“Unless there’s anything else you…”

“Macliesh.”

“All right.”

“You’ve got him banged up for doing that woman.”

“He’s in custody.”

“Not for long.”

“How’s that?”

“I mean, for all I care about the bloke, he could stay there. It’s where he’s come from and he’ll be back, one way or another. They always are. Don’t know how to get on in the world, his sort. No idea of, you know, coming to terms with it.”

“The time I’m interested in…”

“The Monday night, right? When it happened. According to the papers, anyway. Has to be.”

“Has to?”

“That’s when Macliesh has got me pulled in for his alibi.”

“You saw him on the Monday?”

“Met him here. In the bar. Him and Mottram.”

“Mottram?”

“Scouser.”

“Friend of yours or Macliesh’s?”

“Macliesh’d never set eyes on him before. I know him from the States. Used to go over, every year, bodybuilding contests, exhibitions, Mister Universe.”

“Mottram was a body-builder?”

Warren smiled and showed his inlaid tooth. “If Mottram stood still on a grating, he’d go down it. No, he was working with a couple of fighters, corner work; he was a good cuts man. Then his fingers went.”

“Started to shake?” said Resnick. “Stiffened?”

Warren was still smiling. “Got into an argument with this bloke who had an ax.”

Resnick thought about it: not for too long.

“What was he doing here? In the city.”

“Drifting around. Bumming what he can. He’d been in that day, earlier. I told him to stick around and see what Macliesh came up with.”

“One thing I don’t see,” said Resnick. “How Macliesh was talking to you in the first place? I don’t see the connection.”

Warren pulled a sweater up from the floor and slipped it on; the sweat was beginning to dry cold. “If I’m going to carry on talking…” He glanced at the closed door, “…it’s just inside this room right? There’s nothing else here to interest you, just Macliesh. Right?”

Resnick nodded.

Both men knew that the policeman would not forget whatever Warren told him, that he’d file it away, worry over it, use it how and when he could. They also knew that whatever was said, there would be no witnesses.

“Time to time,” Warren said quietly, “if there’s a job wants doing that might need a little muscle, people will put people in touch with me. It’s nothing organized, just word goes round the clubs. Late, you know. They see me on the door in a made-to-measure suit, bow tie, looking hard. Like I say, people talk to people. I don’t know who Macliesh talked to except that he ended up talking to me.”

“That Monday?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We went down to this Italian restaurant along the street and he’s going on about this warehouse out on the industrial estate, drawing maps all over napkins like a bad movie. There’s security patrolling the place, that’s why he wants me to hold his hand. Reckons he’s got a stone-cold market for this stuff, computer parts, some bits and pieces of junk, I don’t know.”

“This was Macliesh’s idea? Top to bottom?”

“Of course,” Warren grinned. “What d’you think?”

“What happened?” Resnick asked.

“There’s security there all right, uniformed bloke in a van, probably done time himself, dog with him, some kind of attack dog, I don’t know one from another except I hate all of them. Vicious bloody things. Then Macliesh starts seeing burglar alarms all over the place, reckons they must be on the direct to your boys. Real panic. We hang around for a bit, drive away, back, drive away again. By now he’s not so sure about off-loading the stuff. Mottram’s well down a bottle of malt whisky, well down, and I’m looking another wasted night square in the eye.” Warren rocked back in his chair. “It’s a blow-out.”

Resnick nodded. “Hours? How long was Macliesh in your company?”

“Met him here, eight, half-past, by the time it was all over, half-one, two. Waste of bloody time.”

“You’ll sign a statement?”

Warren looked at him for a couple of moments, finally sighed. “Not if it means going to the station, but, yes, I suppose so.”

Resnick stood up. “The officers who were in before, I’ll get them to come down.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Warren shrugged massive shoulders. “Fair enough.”

At the head of the stairs, Warren said, “Give your best to Georgie, then?”

“Don’t bother.”

Seventeen

Vera Barnett had already told them. As soon as she stepped into the airless hallway, faint with furniture spray and lily-of-the-valley, Rachel knew. The dry turning of locks and fumbled chains had taken minutes; the obscured murmurings of apology and frustration from behind the door. She sat in a wheelchair, uncomfortable, blue slipper-socks pulled over wrinkled tights, a plaid rug laid across her lap. Most of the curl had gone from her hair and it clung like a wig, ill-fitting and gray. She was staring at the swollen knuckles of her hands as though they had betrayed her once again.

“Mrs Barnett, I…”

“I haven’t got the strength.”

“That’s all right.”

“Is it?”

Rachel moved towards her, a half-smile. “I see the chair arrived.”

“It’s no good.”

“It looks fine.”

“It’s no good.”

Rachel moved around the older woman, taking the handles of the chair. “You’ll soon get used to it.”

“To being a cripple.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What else am I doing in a wheelchair?”

Rachel started to back the chair round, wanting to move out of the hall. The sounds of muffled tears came from another room, intermittent.

“We talked about that, Mrs Barnett. About how it might help you while the children are here, so you don’t have to go chasing after them all the time and wear yourself out.”

“You talked about it.”

Rachel applied pressure to the handles and the chair rose up on its rear legs so that she could swing it round.

“Be careful!”

“I am. Don’t worry.”

When the front wheels touched ground again, lightly, Vera Barnett groaned.

“Let’s go into the living room,” Rachel said.

“You won’t get it through the door. Not without banging.”

“I’m sure we can manage.”

“It’s too big.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Not made for it, places like this. They’re not designed for cripples and invalids. Those wheels will take all the paint off, marks and scratches. It isn’t going to be any good.”

Rachel brought the chair round adjacent to the electric fire, pressed her foot down on the brake, and sat on the Parker Knoll chair opposite. “If you really don’t want it, Mrs. Barnett, I could call through to the department in the morning and ask them to come and take it away again.” She looked at her evenly. “Is that what you want me to do?”

Vera Barnett didn’t say anything. She fidgeted her hands along the edge of the rug and looked at the bars of the fire. Apart from the scrape of the older woman’s breathing, the only sound was the single repeated tick of the clock on the mantelpiece, between Luke’s school photograph and a china dog.

“How are the children?”

Vera Barnett closed her eyes. “How do you think they are?”

Rachel continued to look at her. The sound of crying rose up with a sharpness that broke on a silence of its own.

“Their mother taken away from them.”

“Did you tell them how…?”

“I told them she’d been in a accident. A motor accident. While she was out.” She looked at Rachel accusingly, expecting to be accused. “What did you want me to say? That she’d been killed by some monster. Raped and killed. Murdered. Is that what I should have said?”

Rachel shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “No.”

“Quick and done with, that’s what it was. Peaceful. That’s what…that’s what…” Her fingers were rubbing against the canvas at the side of the chair. “She didn’t feel any pain.”

Rachel guessed she had been holding in the tears for a long time, too long, and now they came in sobs that made the bones in her chest and head ache. Rachel stood beside her, one arm lightly against her shoulder, a hand between her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Vera Barnett repeated, over and over as her body shook. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t be like this with you.”

“Yes, you should.”

“It’s not your worries.”

“Yes, they are.”

Luke was standing outside the open door, not daring to come into the room. He was wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with a blue and yellow Snoopy that had run in the wash.

Rachel smiled at him reassuringly.

Vera Barnett’s eyes were clenched shut as if trying to stop up the tears. Her fingers clasped at Rachel’s, failing to grip, and then they began to pat at the back of her hand instead, light and awkward.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she was still saying. “I’m sorry.”

Rachel looked away from her towards the doorway and Luke had disappeared. “It’s fine,” she said. “Cry. It will do you good.” Despite herself, she glanced at the clock on the mantel, the slowness of time.

“It’s for you, sir.”

Resnick hesitated near the top of the stairs as Patel looked down at him expectantly.

“It’s that solicitor, sir.”

“Olds?”

“Yes, sir.”

Resnick pushed back his sleeve, looked at his watch. “I’m late already.”

“She’s being really persistent. This is the fourth time in the last hour. Her office has been trying to get hold of you all…”

“Tell her to speak to the super.”

“Superintendent Skelton’s left, sir.”

Resnick continued downwards. “So have I.”

Patel’s reply was less distinct. As he slipped the catch and went through the station entrance, Resnick could not help but think there were times when his young DC failed altogether to approve of him.

Across the road, near the lights, the placard read CITY SLAYER AT LARGE. The vendor slid a last edition from beneath the plastic sheeting that was keeping his papers dry. Resnick crossed back towards the car park, reading as he walked.

Police are still probing the tragic and gruesome death of a young mother, whose body was found severely battered in the garden of her own home in the early hours of the morning.

Resnick pulled the car keys from his pocket. The front of the paper was dark with rain. As he dipped his head, water dribbled down the inside of his collar and on to his neck.

The man heading the police investigation, Det. Supt. Jack Skelton, said there was no apparent connection with a recent murder of another young woman, found strangled in her home. A man is still believed to be helping police with their investigations into this earlier crime.

“Careful, careful. Oh, please God, be careful!”

Rachel lifted her firmly, one arm bracing the spine, the other beneath the thighs, the hardness of bone through too little flesh. The bathroom was narrow, too narrow of course to admit the wheelchair, and the toilet at the far end, beyond the bath. On her own, Vera Barnett traced a careful progress, steadying herself with towel rail and wall, turning only once, one arm leant against the cistern, lowering herself painfully down. Once seated, she stayed there, waiting for her breath to steady, steeling herself for the same process in reverse. Often, it seemed to take all the strength from her and this evening she had no strength to give.

Rachel ignored the wincing and muttering and scooped skirt and petticoat back at the last moment, helped to ease knickers towards the knees.

How weak she was, that she should permit these intimacies to Rachel, a person that she scarcely knew and trusted less.

“All right, you can leave me now.”

“Let me know when you’re through, I’ll give you a hand.”

“I shall be able to manage. I shall have to when you’re not here. However else d’you think I get on?”

“Call me,” said Rachel, closing the door. “If you want.”

She went and looked in on the children. Sarah lay curled into a ball, facing the wrong way in the bed; the covers were a tangle leaving her mostly uncovered. Her thumb was in her mouth way past the middle joint. Luke had pressed himself up against the wall, mouth open, breathing through his nose. Maybe it wouldn’t work, letting them stay here with their grandmother; maybe her condition had deteriorated too far to allow it. If they could be certain of enough support, she would recommend giving it a few days, a week. Once she realized what there was to be gained from coping, her strength of will might be enough. Despite everything, Rachel thought, she was a resolute woman, Vera Barnett.

Rachel bent carefully down and rearranged the clothing over the little girl. Close, she allowed herself for a moment to touch the child’s cheek, the back of her hand against the smooth warmth of her skin. Sarah stirred, the rhythm of her breathing changed but she did not wake.

When she went out of the room, Rachel left the door unclosed by some inches. In the bathroom, Vera Barnett was on her feet, forcing one foot in front of the other as she leaned sideways against the wall.

“You needn’t bother,” she said, when Rachel went to take her arm, but she did nothing to resist her.

She was seated in the living room with the television on and Rachel was mashing tea when the doorbell rang.

“Whoever can that be?” called Vera Barnett. “Don’t let anybody in. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I won’t.”

“I think it might be the police,” Rachel said.

“How’s it going?” Resnick asked, shuffling off his damp coat.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Could be worse.”

“Kids?”

“Sleeping now.”

“You told them?”

Rachel nodded towards the open living-room door. “She beat me to it.”

“How’s she standing up?”

Rachel smiled. “Sitting down.”

They were keeping their voices low, whispering really, close in someone else’s house, strange sort of intimacy.

“How are you?” Resnick asked. He was having to stop himself from reaching out a hand, touching her.

“We’d better go through,” Rachel said.