Lonely Hearts (29 page)

“Not yet, sir.”

“Tell you what to do,” said Resnick.

Millington stopped outside the door and waited.

“DI Grafton’s pinning his hopes on a one-time psychiatric patient who ducked out on a date with Shirley Peters. See if you can get a word with him, find out why.”

Millington shrugged. “Didn’t fancy her.”

“Or he’s lying about walking away from her without as much as a hello.”

“I’ll get on to it, sir,” said Millington, pushing open the door.

“Sooner rather than later.”

Instead of following his sergeant into the office, Resnick turned down the stairs in the direction of the street.

Once you’d tossed out the junk mail, there wasn’t a great deal left. Resnick ignored the persistent cries of his cats long enough to grind some coffee and dump it in the filter. A bit of Basie would serve to cleanse the good Major from his mind: there wasn’t a moon in the sky anyway, just a drizzle of rain, falling like fine gauze through the dark.

“Dizzy! Eat that fast and you’ll have indigestion the whole evening.”

There was a letter from a long-stay prisoner he’d nicked and seen sent down to Parkhurst, two sides of recycled paper explaining how he’d found peace through Buddha, though it hadn’t done anything about the quality of the food. In a brown envelope, a second reminder about his subscription to the Polish Association. Resnick lifted his elbows and flexed his shoulders backwards, seeking to do something about the stiffness along his spine. He took his coffee black with a shot of Scotch, carrying it, along with the remaining letter, to his favorite armchair. The postmark was local, the writing small enough to have had the postman reaching for his spectacles. Resnick slit the top of the envelope open with the end of his spoon.

Dear Charles
,

I am not certain if forgetting the enclosed was a trick of the memory, or merely a straightforward attempt to ignore my own sentimentality. In either case, be so kind as to destroy it when it is of no further use to you
.

Sincerely
,

Marian Witczak

Resnick slipped the card from beneath the paperclip which held it to the sheet of writing paper. It was cream in color, an expensive, satiny surface, smooth to the touch. Pepper burbled at the side of the chair and jumped on to Resnick’s lap where he turned twice and settled.

My Dear Marian
,

I can only hope uour evening was as pleasant as mine. I cannot recall attendinq a concert with a companion who was both as charming and as apposite as yourself!

Let us both look forward to the time when the future presents us with as suitable an occasion for mutual delight and stimulation
.

In friendship and admiration—

William Doria

A quarter of an inch from the bottom of the card, a horizontal line was broken at its center by the embossed burgundy letters
W.J. Doria
. Above, the writing was in matt black ink, so studied that each word seemed drawn rather than written. The circles of the os and as were beautifully rounded, precise and not extravagant; only in the capitals was there a flourish, a sense of abandonment—the way the lower stroke of the
L
swerved beneath the rest of
Let
, the sweep of the
W
in his own name, continuing until it almost met the
D
of
Doria
, dipping to dot the
is
along the way.

When Resnick had stared at the card long enough, he reached sideways towards his coffee cup, disturbing a disgruntled Pepper, who jumped clear of his legs in disgust.

He was bringing the cup to his lips when the phone rang, startling a splash of lukewarm coffee over the front of his shirt.

“I was about to ring off.”

“Sorry. I was busy pouring coffee over myself.”

“I hope you didn’t miss your tie.”

“No chance,” said Resnick, rubbing at it with his free hand.

“Just want to be able to recognize you when I see you.”

“I thought you’d given up on me.”

“I had.”

Resnick shifted his weight from one foot to the other, switched the receiver from left to right. Was she serious?

“I’ve been trying to phone you,” Rachel said. “Either you’re somewhere else and nobody knows when you’ll be back, or they don’t know where you are anyway.” She paused. “Charlie, you haven’t given instructions that I’m to be given the runaround, have you?”

“Why would you think I’d do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I was sure you’d call me and you didn’t.”

Resnick didn’t say anything.

“You didn’t try me at home, did you?”

“You told me not to.”

“I know.”

“What’s wrong with…?”

“I think it’s time we went out to dinner, Charlie.”

He was smiling. “You think so.”

“Don’t you?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“It’s twenty-past seven.”

Resnick looked across the room. “Is that relevant?”

“It is if you’re going to meet me at eight-thirty.”

“Tonight?”

“You haven’t already eaten, have you?”

“No, but…”

“Fine. I get to choose the restaurant.”

“How come?”

“I’m paying.”

“Oh, no. If we’re…”

“Charlie, just listen to me. It’s a celebration. My treat. All right?”

He was picturing her that first day he had seen her at court. How could a disembodied voice conjure up so clearly the dark fall of hair against collar and face, the smallest splash of blue against brown leather?

“What are we celebrating?” he asked.

“Wait until I see you.”

“Okay. Do you want me to pick you up, meet you, what?”

“Meet me.”

“Where?”

“Between the lions, of course.”

What had Colin Rich said about the idiots out there? “Aren’t we a little old for that kind of thing?”

“Speak for yourself, Charlie!”

He had been.

“Half-eight, then,” he said.

“I’ll try to be fashionably late,” Rachel said, a laugh in her voice.

“Not too fashionable, it’s raining.”

“Charlie, I promise you, we won’t notice.”

He wondered what she would say if she could see him standing there, grinning like—yes, Colin Rich had been right for once—like a happy idiot.

“Oh, and Charlie…”

“Um?”

“Whatever you’re wearing…”

“What about it?”

“Change it.”

Twenty-Eight

To the north of the Old Market Square was the site of the Black Boy Hotel, designed by Watson Fothergill and where Resnick and his friend Ben Riley used to drink early on a Saturday night before things started to move too fast. Now it was an expanse of ugly brick wall barely disguised as a Littlewood’s store. On the south side the front of the Running Horse hotel was dated 1483, but the rubble behind it was more recent. On their rare trips up from Hayward’s Heath to visit, his in-laws had stayed there and complained about the service and the sound of the traffic.

The steps between the stone lions were peopled with punks and kids in leathers, girls in coats from Top Shop or Miss Selfridge trying not to keep looking at their watches, a couple of lads in shirtsleeves being “tough.”

Half of them, Resnick thought, have me figured for a copper on duty, the rest are imagining something worse. He knew Rachel was in the square before he saw her, a tensing of the nerve-ends turning his head and opening his eyes. She was crossing behind one of the fountains, hands resting easily inside the pockets of her camel coat, face glowing in the street lights and the shine of wet paving. The heels of her boots clicked a crisp rhythm against the steps as Resnick stepped out to greet her. Her hair was up and her face lifted towards him, smiling.

“See. I’m not late.”

“Not very.”

The corner of her mouth when it brushed against his cheek was almost warm, though her face was cold.

“Come on,” Rachel said, linking her arm through his and turning him to walk up King Street. “We’re going this way.”

He had no sense of it still raining.

The restaurant was on the first floor, alongside a Chinese supermarket. There were tables lining both sides of an L-shaped room, most of them occupied. The waiter who took their coats said, “Good evening, Miss Chaplin,” in a voice that was already more East Midlands than either Hong Kong or Peking. He showed them to a table by the window and Resnick knew that this was where she usually sat, those times she had been there with Chris Phillips, possibly with others too; her place, her territory, her celebration.

A waitress in starched white brought Resnick a bottle of Chinese beer and Rachel a vodka and tonic.

“Cheers,” Resnick said, lifting his glass. “To whatever.”

“Independence,” Rachel said.

The waiter opened large, leather-bound menus in front of them and stepped discreetly away.

“I’d never seen you as anything else,” said Resnick.

“All I can say is, I wish others saw me through your eyes.”

“You mean Chris?”

She drank a little more vodka. “We had it all spelled out, the two of us. What it was about and what it wasn’t. Lots of dos and don’ts. Top of the list: don’t become possessive, don’t become dependent. We spent evening after evening talking it through, testing one another, what we thought we wanted.” She laughed disparagingly. “Making lists.”

Love, Resnick wanted to ask, what about love?

“Lists are all right for Tesco’s,” he said.

“And as long as you remember to take them with you.”

“You’re saying Chris got forgetful?”

She shook her head. “We both did.”

Resnick was wondering for how much of his marriage his wife had lain aside her ten-point plan: how to find true happiness in easy stages and still be one of the six percent in the country to own a dishwasher.

“Eighteen months…”

That long, thought Resnick.

“…and it was as if nothing had ever been said. We were like everyone else. What time will you be back for a meal? Saturday night we’ve been invited to a party, to dinner, a wedding anniversary.”

“Sounds pretty normal.”

Rachel looked at him over the rim of her glasses. “Normal, Charlie? Is that the way you live?”

“The way I live may not be altogether through choice.”

“All right, but still that choice is yours.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be so certain?”

She didn’t answer. “I’d stopped thinking of myself as myself,” she said. “I wasn’t me, I was part of a couple.” She finished her drink. “I didn’t like it.”

“Couple or not,” said Resnick, “I can’t see you—what?—feeling threatened, submerged, losing your identity.”

“Nor could I until it began to happen.”

The waiter was hovering, an encouraging smile around his eyes.

“Well, Rachel Chaplin,” Resnick said, taking her hand, “there’s no doubt in my mind exactly who you are.”

“That’s what I’m banking on,” Rachel said, moving her hand away to turn a page of the menu. “Now, shall I tell you what’s good…?”

The monkfish and black beans spat and sizzled from a patterned iron plate.

“Sit back, Charlie. No sense in spoiling a clean shirt.”

It had taken him minutes to find one, dry and rumpled and needing water splashed liberally over it before it could be ironed. He had used his thumbnail to remove a blob of horseradish sauce from his best tie, dark red with diagonal white stripe. The shoes that he had quickly rubbed over had soon had the shine splashed out of them while walking to meet Rachel.

Rachel was wearing a pale blue blouse, ruffed and tight at neck and wrists. Silver drop earrings that caught the light whenever she tilted her head.

“Stop staring at me, Charlie,” she scolded, not seeming unhappy about it at all.

“It’s difficult,” he said.

“Don’t waste your breath, Charlie. It doesn’t suit you.”

“What?”

“Whatever you were about to say. Flattery.”

“All I was going to say was…”

“Charlie!” She pointed a chopstick towards him, admonishingly.

“All…”

“Just don’t!”

He grinned and diverted his attentions to lifting rice to his mouth. Even if you picked the bowl up from the table and lowered your mouth it wasn’t easy. Broccoli, pieces of chicken, slices of pepper, they were easy, but rice…

“How long do you think you’ll stay there?” he asked.

“At Carole’s? I don’t know. Till I feel it’s time to move or until I sense that I’m getting in the way.”

“Then you’ll get a place of your own?”

“Yes,” she said. “What else?”

Keep your eyes on the food, Resnick ordered himself, and don’t say it. Don’t as much as think it, because if you do, she’ll know.

She knew anyway.

Men! Rachel thought, with a slight shake of the head. Why do they never learn?

“It upset you, didn’t it?” Rachel asked between mouthfuls. “The verdict.”

Resnick took his time before answering. “Only because it made me think about it again.”

“Then you still don’t want to talk about it?”

“No, far from it. I do—with you—only…I don’t know what I want to say.”

“Or think? What do you think about it, Charlie, the sentence?”

“That it wasn’t enough. That it could never be enough.”

“Charlie, what good…?”

“I know, I know. All the arguments. Revenge and not reform. Lock a man up and the longer he’s inside the worse he’ll be when he comes out.”

“You say it as though you know it without believing it.”

Resnick picked up the wine bottle and Rachel set her hand over the top of her glass; he refilled his own.

“There’s nothing that clear-cut. I understand about the loss of dignity, about recidivism…”

“But your job…”

“And what I do, more often than not, more often than probably I think is wise, results in criminals being shut away. It’s what happens, Rachel. It’s the law, part of it. At the moment you can’t have one without the other, and if I believe in most of what I do, I seem to have to accept the rest.”