mixture of superannuated cloggers and earnest youngsters, none of them showing much wit or ambition, until, the interval not far off, they went close with a twenty-five-yard volley which the Notts goalkeeper did well to tip over the bar.
'Bloody hell!' Millington said. 'That was a near thing.' And then, glancing sideways, 'Come on, Charlie, they're not playing that badly.'
Resnick was sitting there, shoulders hunched, tears running soundlessly down his face.
The second half was better; the team talk seemed to have worked. Instead of being endlessly booted high up into the heart of the defence, the ball was played out wide to the wings and then whipped across, Jason Lee making his presence felt in the goalmouth, elbows and experience counting equally. It seemed as if they must score-a Lee header bounced back off the post, a shot just cleared by an outstretched boot-and then, with less than five minutes to go, there was a melee in the home goalmouth following a corner, and the ball squeezed over the line.
Visiting supporters, collected behind the far goal, chanted and jeered. A few of the home fans jeered and gesticulated back, while others, heads down, started to leave. Resnick and Milling-ton, stoics both, waited till the bitter end.
'Nice to know some things don't change,' Millington said, as they were walking away from the ground. 'Still know how to throw three points away just this side of the final whistle.'
At the station, they shook hands. Millington was catching a train down to Leicester, meeting up with another old colleague before travelling back to Devon the following day.
'Look after yourself,' he said.
Resnick nodded, forcing a smile. 'Do my best.'
Instead of taking one of the waiting taxis, he opted to walk.
John Harvey
Cold in Hand
Thirty-one
Resnick couldn't understand the volume of traffic noise drifting off the main road, nor the fact that the light making its way through the curtains was so bright-not until he checked the bedside clock and found it was a few minutes short of eleven o'clock. The first decent sleep he'd had in ages.
And he was hungry, too.
After a brisk shower, he laid strips of bacon along the grill, whisked eggs in a bowl with pepper and salt and a couple of shakes of Tabasco, and while the omelette pan was heating, set the coffeepot on the stove.
Breakfast over-or had that been lunch? — he called to ask about the release of Lynn's body for burial. Given the circumstances and the fact that the cause of death was scarcely open to question, the coroner said he would happy to arrange for a second postmortem himself, after which the burial could go ahead. All he needed was an okay from the Senior Investigating Officer, confirming that no arrest was imminent.
Resnick thanked him and dialled the Central Police Station to speak to Karen Shields, but had to content himself with leaving a message. Bill Berry took his call next, but sounded so awkward and ill at ease that Resnick made an excuse and rang off.
Nothing for it but to walk into town.
The indoor market in the Victoria Centre had been in danger of being closed down several times, half of the stalls having fallen empty or changed hands, until a last-minute effort and a lick of paint had just prevented the whole enterprise from collapsing completely. The coffee stall which Resnick had patronised for more years than he cared to remember had an air now of being abandoned, and the few customers sitting disconsolately around it looked like passengers stranded at an airport from which flights no longer departed.
He drank his espresso slowly and read the report of the match in yesterday evening's paper. Notts's misery at the last. He could remember when it hadn't always been like that, but that memory was fading fast.
His mobile rang so rarely that he failed to realise at first that it was his. Karen Shields was returning his call: if he wasn't doing anything special, why didn't he come into the station and she'd bring him up to speed?
Walking into the building, he felt like a man with the plague. Officers he knew by sight and who knew him at least by name turned their backs when they saw him approaching and busied themselves elsewhere; others shook his hand and offered condolences without ever once looking him in the eye. Only Catherine Njoroge made a point of seeking him out and asking how he was coping, then listening to the answer as if she cared.
Karen Shields, he noticed, had pinned a photograph above her desk of a woman he took, from the resemblance, to be her mother, alongside a grainy picture of Bessie Smith downloaded from the computer.
'How was it?' she asked. 'Coming in?'
Resnick shrugged heavy shoulders. 'I hadn't realised being in mourning was a contagious disease.'
'People are embarrassed. They don't know what to say, so they end up saying nothing at all.'
He pulled out a chair and sat opposite her and she noted the deep shadows around his eyes.
'You've not been sleeping.'
'Not till today.'
'It'll pass.'
With time, he imagined she'd be right: what was extraordinary would become normal, and he would carry on.
'I was speaking to the coroner earlier,' he said. 'It needs your say-so before arrangements can be made for the funeral.'
Karen nodded. 'We're still some way off making an arrest. And besides, I can't see there's anything for any defence to get specially exercised about. I'll call him first thing.'
'Thanks.'
'You must find it frustrating, knowing the investigation is going on and not being able to be a part of it.'
'I didn't at first. I don't think I was able to concentrate on anything. Didn't seem to be able to think clearly at all.'
'And now?'
'You could try me.'
She reached for a file and slid it across the desk. 'This came through last thing yesterday.'
It was a printout of the report from Huntingdon. The markings identified the weapon used as a 9mm Baikal IZH-79 pistol and confirmed that both bullets had been fired from the same gun.
'The reason for keeping the report back an extra day,' Karen said, 'they were double-checking the markings against the database. A batch of same guns was seized in a raid last spring.'
'Seized by the Met?'
'Met and Customs, both.'
'SOCA, then?'
'Not exactly. At least, I don't think so. SOCA wasn't launched until April, and this operation went down in May and would have been set up a long time before that.'
'You're following it up?'
Karen nodded. 'I've spoken to one of the officers involved, and he's passed on a message to the DCI who was running the Met end of things. He's on a course somewhere, but he's promised to give me a call back. From what I understand, there've been several small batches of these weapons making their way into the country for eighteen months or more. Some have been intercepted, but not all.'
'And the ones that weren't could be anywhere by now.'
'Absolutely.'
'There's no word about the shooter coming in off the street?' Resnick asked.
'Not so far.'
'If anybody knew anything, you'd have thought there'd be a whisper by now.'
'One of the local firms has offered to put up a reward for information.'
'It might help. Difficult to say. Danger is, you'll get people clogging up the lines who know next to nothing, but'll make stuff up in the hope of getting their hands on the money.'
'I know.'
Resnick shifted in his chair. 'Still no sign of Brent, I presume?'
'Nothing. As far as we know, he's still in Jamaica. We're liaising with the police there as much as we can, but it's not easy. And he's not the only one missing.'
