sun. The weather forecasters had been talking of storm clouds coming in off the Atlantic, quickly changing weather patterns, but today there was no sign. Not this far inland.
Karen had toyed with the idea of taking somebody else with her, but in the end she had gone alone. Uncertain if the bell were working, she had knocked several times, called through the letter box, tried the bell again. Turning away, she had reached the gate when the front door opened and Resnick, cardigan mis-buttoned, stepped outside, blinking at the light.
'Hello,' she said, approaching. 'I'm Karen.'
'You're Karen Shields.'
'Yes.'
'DCI.'
'Yes.'
They shook hands.
'Bill Berry gave me a heads-up.'
'Of course.'
'You were here last night,' Resnick said.
Karen nodded.
'Walking the ground.'
'Yes.' It was all she could do to stop herself glancing sideways at the patch of grass where Lynn Kellogg had died.
'You took a taxi from the station. The same journey Lynn made that night.'
'Yes.'
Resnick nodded. 'It's what she would have done.'
'What you taught her.'
'You think so?'
'You were her DI when she first went into CID.'
Resnick's face showed mild surprise.
'I was talking to Anil yesterday. Anil Khan. He worked with you, too. Canning Circus, I think he said.'
Resnick nodded. 'You'd best come inside. There'll be things you want to know.'
The furniture in the front room was heavy-looking, the upholstery fussy and starting to fade. The gate-legged table seemed to Karen to come from another age. She wondered how much Lynn had felt the need to change things after she'd moved in and what resistance she'd met, if any.
'You lived here long?' she asked.
'Too bloody long,' Resnick said, but he said it with a smile.
Some women, Karen thought, would find that attractive, that quick self-deprecating smile, and would feel drawn to him, sympathetically. Would go over and rebutton his cardigan correctly. Pat him on the arm.
Not me.
'I can make coffee,' Resnick offered. 'Just no milk.'
'Black's fine.'
While he was out of the room, she glanced at the books on his shelves- Looking for Chet Baker, The Sound of the Trumpet, Straight Life, several books about Thelonious Monk; clustered together, a batch of paperback novels by Alice Hoffman and Helen Dunmore, which she assumed had been Lynn's; a couple of books she'd read herself, Beloved and The Lovely Bones. Beloved she'd read twice.
Alongside the books were several rows of CDs, jazz for the most part, with a leavening of Prince and Madonna and Magazine, which had come into the house with Lynn, she guessed. Part of her dowry. Amongst several box sets, she noticed one of Bessie Smith, and she was looking at this, just trying and failing to free the little booklet with her fingernail and thumb, when Resnick returned, coffee mugs in hand.
'Four CDs,' she said. 'You must be keen.'
'Tell the truth, I bought it a couple of months back, and I don't think I've listened to it more than once. And then not all the way through.' He handed one of the mugs to Karen and set down his own. 'It's a bad habit of mine. I see something like that-ninety tracks for twelve pounds or whatever-and it seems too much of a bargain to resist. Lynn reckons'-he caught himself and stopped-'Lynn used to say, where jazz was concerned, I had more money than sense.'
He lowered himself heavily into his usual chair and Karen sat in another, her back to the window.
'What happened to Lynn,' Karen said, 'I'm really sorry. I should have said right off, but… I don't know, words, they seem so… inadequate.' She inhaled sharply through her nose. 'We'll catch him, you know. Whoever was responsible.'
'I know.'
The coffee was strong and slightly bitter, too hot to drink quickly.
'My mother loved Bessie Smith,' Karen said. 'Other singers, too. Dinah Washington. Aretha. But it was Bessie she loved best.' She smiled. 'I must have known the words to 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' before I could recite 'Humpty Dumpty' or 'Little Bo-Peep.' Not that it ever did me a lot of good. As advice, I mean.'
'Take it,' Resnick said. 'Borrow it. Let me have it back whenever.'
'I might. Thanks. I just might.' If this new apartment she was moving into had an up-to-date TV, it would surely have a CD player, too.
'You'll be wanting to know how far we've got, unless someone's brought you up to speed already.'
Resnick shook his head.
She gave him a summary of what little they knew so far, and the main areas the investigation would be moving into. 'Is there anything that you think we might be missing?'
'Not that I can think of.'
'You know we'll be running an eye over old cases of yours?'
'Someone after payback? Getting at me through Lynn?'
'It's possible, isn't it?'
'Stretching it a little, I'd have thought. And besides, why go after her? Why not me instead?'
'Maybe whoever it was wanted to see you suffer. Cause you pain.'
'Like Howard Brent?'
'You think that's where we should be looking first?'
'Him or someone close to him, yes. Aside from whatever grudge he holds against me, he felt Lynn was responsible for his daughter's death.'
'This call he was alleged to have made.'
''Watch your back, bitch.''
'That's what was said?'
'Yes.'
'As I understand it, Lynn didn't recognise the voice. She couldn't say definitely it was Brent.'
'Not definitely, no.'
'And we still don't have proof. We don't know for a fact it was him.'
Resnick leaned forward abruptly. 'Look, he was convinced Lynn had used his daughter as a shield. He's on record as saying so. One way or another, she's gonna pay for what she's done. His words. 'One way or another, she's going to pay.''
'When they're angry, people say a lot of things. You know that. More often than not, it's just hot air, letting off steam.'
'Lynn's dead. That's not just words. That's fact.'
'And you think Howard Brent was responsible? Directly? I just want to be clear.'
'Directly? Personally responsible?' Resnick shook his head. 'It's not impossible, but no, I doubt if he actually stood there and squeezed the trigger himself.'
'You think he set her up, then? Paid someone to have her killed.'
'Paid, bribed, cajoled. Then put some distance between himself and what he knew was going to happen. Gave himself an alibi.'
Karen leaned back in her chair. Howard Brent was how old? Late forties? Fifty? He had a record for violence, she knew. Drugs, also, though only possession, not supply, and that in '89. Right when the first serious spate of
