'Too bloody right,' somebody said.
'The answer might be found in the cases she's been involved in, recent or in the past. Someone bearing a grudge. Which brings us-I know, I know-to the death of Kelly Brent, whose father, apparently, made various wild threats and accused DI Kellogg of being instrumental in his daughter's death. Obviously we need to talk to him as soon as possible, and the fact that he's dropped out of sight makes that all the more urgent still. So let's redouble our efforts to bring him in. Check all his contacts, relations, whatever you can. But… but… while that's going on, let's not get carried away into thinking if we find him, we get a result. Let's look at those other cases DI Kellogg had been working, dig around, find out what we can.'
There was a palpable rise in sound, as some of the team took that as a signal to move away.
'Another thing, important. Could be vital. DI Kellogg's movements the evening she was killed. She'd been returning from London. Why? What was she doing there? Was it work or personal? Who did she see? Who knew she was travelling back when she did? Anil, that's up to you. I'm hoping to speak to DI Resnick later today, and anything useful I learn, I'll pass along. Okay?'
'Yes, boss.'
'And the rest of you, there's another question: Why did the murder take place where it did? Why elect to kill her outside her own home?'
She gave them a few moments to think before carrying on.
'That short walk from the far side of the street to the front door, that's the only point in the journey that evening when Lynn Kellogg would have been alone and not surrounded by other people. Not only that, but the street itself is quiet, it's narrow, rarely used except for access, and there are no buildings at all to the rear, so the killer could have waited unobserved.' She looked up, looked around the room. 'Reasons enough? What do you think?'
Coughing, low-level murmuring, uncertain glances. Catherine Njoroge took a hesitant step forward.
'Yes, Catherine?'
'I'm not sure how relevant this is, boss, but I was just thinking, whoever it was shot Lynn, they would probably have known that DI Resnick was there, in the house. If they knew that, then they must have known that he'd be the first to find her.'
'Go on.'
'Well, maybe what happened, it was meant for him as well. To hurt him. And maybe-I don't know, this might be taking things too far-but couldn't it, at the same time, have been some kind of warning? 'Nowhere's safe, we can reach you anywhere, even at home, where you feel safest.''
''We,' Catherine,' Karen said. 'Who's the 'we'?'
Catherine shook her head. 'I don't know, boss. It could be Howard Brent, after what he said, but I don't know.'
'All right. And thank you, Catherine, good point. So we might have to look back through DI Resnick's cases as well, beyond the most recent, I mean. Villains he's put away-'
'Hundreds,' someone said.
'Anyone recently released from prison who might be bearing a grudge. Let's check. And good luck, okay? Sharp eyes, hard work, and good luck, we'll get it sorted.'
With the team dismissed, Karen went off into a huddle with Mike Ramsden, Anil Khan and the office manager to firm up schedules and make sure that procedures were in place to prioritise and process information as it came in.
Once that was settled, she had to retrace her steps from the night before.
Twenty-six
Resnick had been awake since a quarter past five, when he had first stirred, shivering, in his bed. Both the pillow and bottom sheet were soaked through with sweat and his hair was matted to his scalp. The youngest of the cats had been sleeping on the bed, just as it had before Lynn had moved in, and when Resnick straightened slowly and swung his legs round towards the floor, it shrilled a protest and jumped down reluctantly.
Lynn's reading glasses, the ones she had had prescribed but rarely used, were on the cabinet at her side of the bed, along with several hair bands in different colours, an empty water glass, the hand lotion she applied each night last thing, and the book she had been reading but would never finish.
This Book Will Save Your Life.
Not now it wouldn't.
Resnick swept it away with one hand and sent it skittering across the floor.
It was still dark outside, and for a moment he had to ask himself how much time had passed since Lynn had died. How many hours? How many days?
Through the window he could see shadows from a distant streetlight and the shapes of trees and, below, the stone wall and gravelled path and the stubbled grass of the front garden all marked off with tape.
Let her go.
The young paramedic with his earnest, freckled face, kneeling beside him, Resnick's hands still interlocked across Lynn's chest.
You have to let her go now. Let her go.
In the bathroom, he stood beneath the shower and turned it to full, letting the water beat over him; he stood there until it began to run cold, then stepped out and towelled himself down, grateful for the steam that hid his reflection in the mirror.
Back in the bedroom, he dressed slowly, the same clothes as the day before. When Lynn had first moved in, he had teased her about the quantity of clothing she had brought with her, enough, he had said, to fill the wardrobe on her own and demand her own chest of drawers.
'What on earth are you going to do with all this lot?' he had asked. 'Start a shop?'
And then, later, after she had been living there for a while-'Why don't you sort through this stuff and chuck some out? It's not as if you ever wear most of it, anyway. Give it to Oxfam or something. It's just taking up space.'
As if that mattered.
As if space were what they were short of.
He hadn't realised it was time.
The fabric of the blue cotton dress she had worn on holiday burned like silk against his hand.
Despite the fact that he had pulled on a thick sweater over his shirt and a worn old cardigan over that, he was still cold. The kitchen window, which, save for the fiercest weather, he was wont to open the moment he arrived downstairs, was still locked shut. The central-heating thermostat was set high. It had been like this the previous day, too, a coldness that chafed his bones: save for those moments when he could feel his face begin to flush, his skin prickle and, for no reason, he broke out in a sweat.
This morning he managed the coffeepot, but not the toaster.
The card she had given him was still there, corners bent and a little grease-marked now, tucked between the sugar and the flour.
Still here, Charlie, against all the odds.
Well, no…
Tears sprang to his eyes and he had to grab hold of the worktop to stop himself from shaking.
The cup, when he lifted it from the shelf, slipped through his hand to the floor and broke.
He couldn't go on like that.
He couldn't go on.
Cold or not, he pushed open the back door and went out into the garden, the sky striped with purple, red, and grey. Traffic sounds merging with the close call of birds; a dog barking, sharp and insistent, at the far side of the allotments; from somewhere, faint and troubled, the cry of a child.
There were things he needed to do, decisions to be taken, calls to be made. He pressed his thumb against the rough wall at the garden edge until it began to bleed.
It had developed into a fine early-spring morning, blue sky scattered here and there with wisps of cloud, pale
