Resnick sat.
Both men continued to sit, silently, directives and graphs and papers spread across the desk between them, until Berry leaned forward in his chair. 'Before seeing you, I spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes with the Assistant Chief, explaining to him why, at the present time, you shouldn't be suspended from duty.'
Resnick said nothing.
'As the ACC was at pains to remind me, I was the one who argued for you to be pulled out from behind that desk of yours to be number two in this investigation. And then this.'
Resnick still said nothing.
'I mean, when you went after him like that, the way you did, what did you think was going to happen?'
'I thought it would make him think twice before doing it again.'
'The phone call?'
'Yes, the phone call.'
'You don't even know if it was him.'
'It was him.'
'She didn't recognise the voice. She didn't recognise his voice, how could she?'
'It was him.'
Berry slammed both hands down hard against the desktop, sending papers ballooning. 'And if it was. If it was. Supposing for a moment, in the absence of any real evidence, you're right, you think that makes it okay for you to confront him in front of the whole sodding community? Threatening him like some vigilante, Steven fucking Seagal on a white horse. Jesus Christ! You know what this man's like, you know how much he loves the sound of his own voice, how much he thrives on publicity.'
Resnick looked away.
'The first thing Brent did after you left him was contact every radio and TV station in a hundred-mile radius. The Post has got a picture of him on the front fucking page, serious and responsible in his best suit, alongside some old one of you they've pulled from the files, showing you on your way into court looking as if you're wearing someone else's clothes.'
'All of that-' Resnick began.
Berry ignored him, steamrollering on. 'The Chief Constable's had the chair of the Police Authority breathing down his neck, the Professional Standards Committee demanding a special meeting. To say nothing of the African Caribbean Family Support Project and the Racial Equality Council practically camping outside his door. Shall I go on?'
Resnick hoped not.
'Because this murder investigation is at a crucial stage, and only because of that, you're left clinging onto your job by the skin of your teeth. But if you step out of line once more, you're finished, washed up and hung out to dry. Clear?'
'Clear.'
'Then get the fuck out of here.'
Resnick did as he was told.
The investigation moved on slowly. Anil Khan took Catherine Njoroge with him when he went to talk to Joanne Dawson a second time, hoping Joanne would respond more readily to a woman. The house was one of the few in the street that wasn't at least partly boarded up. Joanne's father answered the door, a short, shaven-headed man in Lonsdale sportswear, a gold chain around his neck and carpet slippers on his feet.
'What's this now?' he said, looking from one officer to the other and back again. 'United fucking Nations?'
Joanne was sitting in a darkened room, curtains drawn, hiding, as best she could, the injuries to her face. Despite Catherine's presence, she didn't tell them a great deal more than she had before. It was Kelly as started it, weren't it? Going mental when she'd heard about her going with Brandon, calling her slag and whore and worse. Meeting up, like, that'd been to sort it out, not for no fight. Taken some mates with her, 'course she had, don't go down no St. Ann's on me own, no way. When they got there, everything had been cool at first, just a lot of shouting, not much more, then Kelly come out with the knife.
Whoever'd fired the gun, she didn't know who he was, never saw him, blood streaming down my fuckin' face, how could I? Just heard the noise, the shots, you know, and then everyone screaming. Kelly's laying there, blood streaming out of her. Sorry for her in a way, I's'pose, the lyin' bitch, but then, she never should have started it, should she?
'The boy who fired the gun,' Catherine said, one more try before leaving, 'someone said he was wearing Radford colours.'
'No,' Joanne said. 'I don't think so. Don't see how he could be. Ask any of them I was with and they'll tell you. Not one of our lot, no way. You ask 'em. Go on.'
Ask they did, and kept on asking.
Stone wall.
Seventeen of the twenty-three shown on CCTV had been identified and all but one of those interviewed, some on two separate occasions. More than half had had run-ins with the police before, a few anti-social behaviour orders, supervision orders, nothing too serious. The missing names were still being chased down. Meantime, Marcus Brent's college had confirmed that on the day of the shooting his group had been visiting a supermarket warehouse in Wellingborough.
Resnick sat at his desk, subdued.
He read reports, listened to officers, shuffled schedules, prowled the corridors like a wounded bear.
When he'd phoned Lynn to check how she was and given her the gist of what had happened, she thought at first he was winding her up, spinning a yarn. 'What on earth were you thinking about?' she asked, when she realised it was true.
'I don't know. I wasn't, probably. Not clearly, anyway.'
'You're telling me!'
'I just felt-I don't know-angry. Felt I had to say something.'
'But then? You shouldn't have gone anywhere near him, especially not then.'
'I know, I know.'
'And don't you ever let me hear you say you were doing it on account of me.'
Resnick rang off.
Five minutes later, he called back to apologise, and then, only partly mollified, went scowling off to the canteen.
He was heading back towards the Incident Room, bacon sandwich and a large tea later, when he met Catherine Njoroge coming from the other direction.
'I never thanked you for the other day,' Resnick said.
She looked back at him, uncertain.
'Outside the Brent house. I might have had a go at him. You stopped me from doing something stupid.'
Catherine smiled. 'Perhaps I should have been there today?'
Resnick grinned, despite himself. 'Word gets around.'
'We're only human,' Catherine said.
'Contrary to rumour.'
Catherine smiled again and started to walk on, then stopped. 'Have you spoken to Michaelson, boss?'
'Not recently.'
'I think perhaps you should.'
Frank Michaelson was wiry and quite spectacularly tall, six-seven or — eight, depending on whom you believed. From an early age, when his height had become apparent, his teachers and sports coaches had tried their best to talk him into playing basketball, but running was Michaelson's thing, distance running in particular. Marathons, half-marathons, cross-country, 10K. Show Frank anything with a K at the end of it, the joke went, and he'll be stripped down to his shorts and lacing up his running shoes before you've drawn your next breath. Handy, he liked to point out, when it came to chasing little buggers through the back alleys off the Alfreton Road.
When Resnick found him, he was crouched over one of the computer screens, his body bowed practically in two.
