Maureen Prior from Serious Crime. His patch, their concern. Their case more than his.
Outsides, the sky had lightened a little, but still their reflections as they sat were sharp against the window’s plate glass.
Maureen Prior was in her early forties, no nonsense, matter-of-fact, wearing loose-fitting grey trousers, a zip-up jacket, hair tied back. ‘So what do we think? We think they were targeted or what?’
‘The girl?’
‘No, not the girl.’
‘The brother, then?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ The computer printout was in her hand. ‘He was put under a supervision order a little over two years back, offering to supply a class A drug.’
‘That’s when he’d be what?’ Khan asked ‘Fifteen?’
‘Sixteen. Just.’
‘Anything since?’
‘Not according to this.’
‘You think he could still be involved?’ Resnick said.
‘I think it’s possible, don’t you?’
‘And this was what? Some kind of payback?
‘Payback, warning, who knows? Maybe he was trying to step up into a different league, change his supplier, hold back his share of the cut, anything.’
‘We’ve checked with the Drug Squad that he’s a player?’ Resnick asked.
Maureen Prior looked over at Khan, who shook his head. ‘Haven’t been able to raise anyone so far.’
The detective inspector looked at her watch. ‘Try again. Keep trying.’
Freeing his mobile from his pocket, Khan walked towards the far side of the room.
‘How soon can we talk to Jahmall, I wonder?’ Resnick said.
‘He’s most likely still in surgery. Mid-morning, I’d say. The earliest.’
‘You want me to do that?’
‘No, it’s okay. I’ve asked them to call me from Queen’s the minute he’s out of recovery. There’s an officer standing by.’ She moved from the desk where she’d been sitting, stretching out her arms and breathing in stale air. ‘Maybe you could talk to the family?’ She smiled. ‘They’re on your patch, Charlie, after all.’
There were bunches of flowers already tied to the post into which the car had crashed, some anonymous, some bearing hastily written words of sympathy. More flowers rested up against the low wall outside the house.
The victim support officer met Resnick at the door.
‘How they holding up?’ he asked.
‘Good as can be expected, sir.’
Resnick nodded and followed the officer into a narrow hall.
They’re in back.’
Clarice Faye sat on a green high-backed settee, her youngest daughter cuddled up against her, face pressed to her mother’s chest. The middle daughter, Jade, twelve or thirteen, sat close but not touching, head turned away. Clarice was slender, light-skinned, lighter than her daughters, shadows scored deep beneath her eyes. Resnick was reminded of a woman at sea, stubbornly holding on against the pitch and swell of the tide.
The room itself was neat and small, knick-knacks and framed photographs of the children, uniform smiles; a crucifix, metal on a wooden base, hung above the fireplace. The curtains, a heavy stripe, were still pulled partway across.
Resnick introduced himself and expressed his sympathy; accepted the chair that was offered, narrow with wooden arms, almost too narrow for his size.
‘Jahmall — have you heard from the hospital?’
‘I saw my son this morning. He was sleeping. They told me to come home and get some rest.’ She shook her head and squeezed her daughter’s hand tight. ‘As if I could.’
‘He’ll be all right?’
‘He will live.’
The youngest child began to cry.
‘He is a good boy, Jahmall. Not wild… Not like some. Not any more. Why would anyone…?’ She stopped to sniff away a tear. ‘He is going to join the army, you know that? Has been for an interview already, filled in the forms.’ She pulled a tissue, screwed and damp, from her sleeve. ‘A man now, you know? He makes me proud.’
Resnick’s eyes ran round the photographs in the room. ‘Shana’s father,’ he ventured, ‘is he…?’
‘He doesn’t live with us any more.’
‘But he’s been told?’
‘You think he cares?’
The older girl sprang to her feet and half-ran across the room.
‘Jade, come back here.’
The door slammed hard against the frame.
Resnick leaned forward, drew his breath. ‘Jahmall and Shana, last night, you know where they’d been?’
‘The Meadows. A friend of Jahmall’s, his eighteenth.’
‘Did they often go around together like that, Jahmall and Shana?’
‘Sometimes, yes.’
‘They were close then?’
‘Of course.’ An insult if it were otherwise, a slight.
‘And his girlfriend, she didn’t mind?’
‘Marlee, no. She and Shana, they were like mates. Pals.’
‘Mum,’ the younger girl said, raising her head. ‘Shana didn’t like her. Marlee. She didn’t.’
‘That’s not so.’
‘It is. She told me. She said she smelled.’
‘Nonsense, child.’ Clarice smiled indulgently and shook her head.
‘How about Shana?’ Resnick asked. ‘Did she have any boyfriends? Anyone special?’
The hesitation was perhaps a second too long. ‘No. She was a serious girl. Serious about her studies. She didn’t have time for that sort of thing. Besides, she was too young.’
‘She was sixteen.’
‘Too young for anything serious, that’s what I mean.’
‘But parties, like yesterday, that was okay?’
‘Young people together, having fun. Besides, she had her brother to look after her…’ Tears rushed to her face and she brushed them aside.
The phone rang and the victim support officer answered it in the hall. ‘It’s Jahmall,’ he said from the doorway. ‘They’ll be taking him back up to the ward any time.’
‘Quickly,’ Clarice said to her daughter, bustling her off the settee. ‘Coat and shoes.’
Resnick followed them out into the hall. Door open, Jade was sitting on one of the beds in the room she and Shana had obviously shared. Aware that Resnick was looking at her, she swung her head sharply towards him, staring hard until he moved away.
Outside, clouds slid past in shades of grey; on the opposite side of the narrow street, a couple slowed as they walked by. Resnick waited while the family climbed into the support officer’s car and drove away… a good boy, Jahmall. Not wild… Not any more. The crucifix. The mother’s words. Amazing, he thought, how we believe what we want to believe, all evidence aside.
On the Ilkeston Road, he stopped and crossed the street. There were more flowers now, and photographs of Shana, covered in plastic against the coming rain. A large teddy bear with black ribbon in a bow around its neck. A dozen red roses wrapped in cellophane, the kind on sale in garage forecourts. Resnick stooped and looked at the card. For Shana. Our love will live for ever. Michael. Kisses, drawn in red biro in the shape of a heart, surrounded the words.
Resnick was putting the last touches of a salad together when he heard Lynn’s key in the lock. A sauce of spicy sausage and tomato was simmering on the stove; a pan of gently bubbling water ready to receive the
