houses, cigarette hanging from his lips.
'Away with you, girl,' he had said, Lynn lecturing him for the umpteenth time about the dangers of cancer.
'There's not a thing wrong with these lungs of mine and you know it. Doctor told me so. So, less you see me pulling down these overalls and smoking out my backside, bugger all for you to get aerated about, is there?'
Lynn hoped he was right. She thought, hearing a bit of the old fire back in his voice, that probably he was.
'Yes, Mum,' she said now. And,
'No, Mum. That's okay. He's doing fine, just fine.'
A psychological process in which painful truths are forced out of an individual's consciousness six letters. With her mother prattling on like that, Lynn couldn't, for the life of her, think what it was.
'Frank?'
Cathy Jordan rolled off her stomach and reached towards the clock radio, angling it in her direction. Jesus! She hadn't intended to sleep so late.
'Frank? You in the bathroom or what?'
No reply. Most likely he was off swimming, maybe found a gym downtown to press a few weights. Cathy eased herself up on to one elbow and dialled room service, ordered fresh orange juice and coffee, croissants and jam. If she was going to pig out most of the morning, she might as well enjoy it. Give some thought to what she was going to say that afternoon, not that it would be any different from what she'd said half a hundred times before.
The one thing Marius didn't like, the thing he could barely stand, the way she would introduce him as her nephew all the time. As if somehow she were ashamed of him, felt a need to explain. Secretary, that would have been something; personal assistant. She hardly referred to him by either of those titles any more, though, naturally, they explained what most people imagined his function was. And it was true.
Dorothy's correspondence, he saw to that; appointments, meetings with publisher or agent, requests for interviews by the media, any and every little thing. Most people looked at him, accompanying her everywhere, helping her off and on with her coat, pulling out her chair, and they assumed one thing.
About him. Poor Marius, camp as a clockwork sixpence, gay through and through. Well, if only they knew.
He had the oil ready now, a mixture of sweet almond and camellia, scented with dewberry, her favourite. It was just a matter of warming his hands. He knew she was waiting for him, towel spread over the sheet, face down, patient. Undemanding. Most of the world, Marius thought, didn't realise how beautiful old people could be. Their skin. Lightly freckled, the delicacy of fine lines patterned like honeycomb: he thought Dorothy had lovely skin.
FR1; Thirty-two When Resnick's wife had entered into an affair, she had been driven to it; driven by what had disappeared from their own lives, by passion. It had also been a sign: clear, not negotiable. This is over for us; I want out Of course, it had not been clean, nor without pain. It rarely is. But clear, yes, that's what it had been.
Whether passion had driven Jack Skelton beyond the bounds of propriety with the self-possessed DI Helen Siddons during her brief sojourn in the city, Resnick had no way of knowing. He had only seen the looks, the late- night conversations conducted in corners, the lingering glances. What the superintendent would have seen in her, attractiveness and intelligence, both well honed, was easier to judge; aside from the fact that Skelton was her senior officer, what might Siddons have seen in him? She was not, Resnick thought, the kind of person to commit to any action unless it contained an advantage. And if passion was what had been at stake there, would passion for Jolly Jack have been enough? Enough for her to risk losing her footing on the fast track towards the top? Not too many points for engaging with a superior in an extramarital affair; not unless that superior was of the rank of assistant chief constable at the very least.
God, Charlie, Resnick thought, as he approached the Skelton house, you're getting cynical in your old age. It must be Sundays, that's what it is. All that bell-ringing and sanctimonious ill will. All those cars queuing to get into DIY cent res
He was pleased finally to have arrived, to have parked behind the Volvo in Skelton's drive, climbed out and automatically locked the door, walked towards the house in his response to the superintendent's early summons.
'Had breakfast, Charlie?'
Resnick nodded, yes.
'You'll have some coffee, though?'
'Thanks.'
Skelton's daughter, Kate, was sitting with her feet drawn up under her, in one of the easy chairs in the L- shaped living room. Walkman in place, the usual tinny whispers escaping, she sat reading an A-level textbook, occasionally scribbling a biroed note in the margin. His wife, Alice, with an expression for which the word sour could have been invented, had barely stopped to greet Resnick as he entered; hurrying on past him and up the stairs to the first floor, from whence the whining suck and bump of the vacuum cleaner could now be heard.
All the little nudges, Resnick thought, that make a home, that make a marriage.
He and Skelton sat on stools in the kitchen, alongside what Resnick guessed the brochures called a breakfast bar; the smell of grilled bacon was tantalising on the air and a scrambled egg pan had been left in the sink to soak. Resnick tried to remember the last time he had seen the superintendent unshaven.
'Sure you won't have anything?'
'No, thanks. I'm fine.' Resnick accepted the coffee and drank some without tasting.
'You've seen the Sundays?' Skelton asked.
Resnick shook his head.
'Always try hard not to.'
'What with this bloody crime festival being here, and now the murder, they're having a field day. Already got us down as the most violent city in the country. Load of bollocks! Give a roomful of monkeys a set of statistics and a computer and they'll prove bloody anything. Anyway, goes without saying, the chief constable's been breathing down my neck for a result. Invited Alice and myself out to his place this afternoon, high tea.'
Resnick smiled; the thought of Alice Skelton having to put on her best frock and be polite to people she probably despised, was something he'd rather imagine than actually see.
'Laugh all you want, Charlie, while they're carving into the Yorkshire ham on the lawn, I'm going to be carpeted inside, good and proper. Unless you've got something you've yet to tell me.'
Resnick wished he had.
'Marlene Kinoulton, she's still our best shot.
About the only shot we've got. '
'And she's disappeared.'
Resnick shrugged.
'May not mean a great deal. Sounds as if she's never in one place for long. You know how it is with these girls, some of them, all over the shop.'
'If I could say we had confirmation of her identity, that would be something, but so far not a bloody thing.'
Resnick drank some more coffee.
'It's amazing to me, though I suppose by now it shouldn't be, just how unobservant most people are. Close on sixty potential witnesses we've questioned so far. Vast majority of them, couldn't even place Farieigh as being there at all, despite the fact he must have spent a total of over two hours that evening, downstairs in the hotel, either in the restaurant or the bar. Of those that did remember him, half of them have no recollection of his having been with a woman, and those that do… well, it's a lottery if she was fair or dark, Caucasian or Chinese.'
Skelton reached up towards one of the fitted cupboards, lifted out a bottle of cooking brandy, tipped a shot into what was left of his coffee and pushed the bottle in Resnick's direction, where it stayed, untouched. Little 184 early in the day for his boss to be hitting the hard stuff, Resnick thought. He said nothing.
Skelton said,
'At least that business with the letters, threats to that woman, Jordan, that seems to have died down.'
Muffled but on cue, Resnick's bleeper began to sound.
