Thirty-nine Frank Carlucci couldn't be certain how long he had lain there before he realised the woman wasn't coming back. However much sexual anticipation he was experiencing, the effect of innumerable whisky sours had meant that the meeting between his head and a pair of the hotel's comfortable pillows had so far resulted in one thing only.
The woman was. he seemed to remember thinking, taking one hell of a long time in the bathroom, but aside from that, he didn't recall very much at all. A sound that, he now realised, might have been that of the room door opening or closing, and that was all.
Sitting up first quickly, and then, as his head informed him speed was ill-advised, cautiously he looked at his watch. Too dark too see. Reaching across, he snapped on the bedside lamp. Blinking, then squinting, he tried again. A quarter past one. He had scarcely been asleep any time at all.
Easing himself off the bed, he checked the bathroom, the door to which was wide open and, of course, it was empty. Only then, with sinking desperation, did he scrabble on the floor for his jacket and fumble his wallet out into the light. He knew what remained of his English cash and all his credit cards would be gone, but, contradicting him, they were there, the money, as far as he could tell, intact.
Back in the bathroom, he splashed cold water in his face and then wondered why he was bothering. Cathy was bound to be asleep in their own room by now, another 220 hotel across the city, and what was to be gained from waking her, he didn't know. Better to face her the next day with a fresh face and a good story.
Frank hung the Do Not Disturb sign outside the door, climbed back into bed and inside five minutes he was snoring, first lightly, then loudly.
They had been parked across the street some ten minutes, Norman Mann smoking two Bensons while he and Resnick listened to one of Sharon's anecdotes about policing deepest Lincolnshire.
'Go into some of those places,' Sharon said, 'and I'd know how my relatives felt, getting off the boat at Tilbury in the 1950s. ' Or mine, Resnick, thought, in 1938. Except, of course, that they'd been white.
'Well, what d'you think, Charlie? Shall we give it a pull?'
Resnick pushed open the car door and stepped out on to uneven paving stones. Apart from a stereo playing too loud a half-dozen doors down, the street was quiet. The end terrace to the right, facing north, had stone cladding on the front and side walls, window frames and ledges which had been newly painted, yellow, and a small sign attached to the front door to show that the householders were members of the local Neighbourhood Watch. The house opposite had a derelict washing machine upside down outside in the scrubby front garden, one of its upper windows covered in heavy-duty plastic where the glass had been broken and not replaced, and at least a dozen milk bottles beside the front door, each containing a varying amount of mould and algae.
'So, Charlie no call to be much of a detective here, eh?'
'Give me a minute,' Sharon said at the space where the front gate should have been.
'I'll get round the back.'
Once she had disappeared from sight, the two men slowly walked towards the door. When Resnick rang the bell it failed to work; he knocked and no one answered, but from the sound of the television they knew somebody was at home. Norman Mann leaned past him, turned the handle and pushed and the door swung grudgingly inwards.
'Thanks very much,' he said with a wink, 'we'd love to come in. '
They followed the sound of amplified voices into the front room.
Three youths, status unemployed, were watching a video of Naked Gun 2'/^ amongst a plethora of beer cans and empty pizza boxes and the faint scent of dope.
What the fuck? '
Resnick showed them his identification, while Norman Mann walked past them towards the television set and switched it off.
Hey! You can't. '
'You live here?' Mann asked.
Yeah. '
' All of you? '
Yeah. '
'Who else?' Resnick asked.
One of the youths, his head partly shaven, a trio of silver rings close in one ear, got awkwardly to his feet. 'Look, you gonna tell us what's going on? What the fuck this is all about?'
'Easy,' Mann said.
'We ask questions, you answer them. So, now who else is there, living in the house?'
The youth looked round at his mates before responding. 'There's Telly, right, up on the first floor at the front…'
'He's not here now,' put in one of the others.
'Off home to see his old man.'
'Who else?' Resnick said.
Two of them exchanged quick glances; the man with the 222 shaven head stared at a stain in the carpet, one amongst many.
'You won't let on?' he finally said.
'To who?' Norman Mann asked.
'And about what?'
'The landlord. See, the bloke as was up there moved out and he left it to us to let out the room.' A few more shifty looks wove back and forth.
'On his behalf, like.'
'And you forgot?'
'No, well, we got someone in, all right…'
Norman Mann laughed.
'Just a bit slow in letting the landlord in on it?'
'Something like that.'
'Well, I know how it is, lads,' Mann said.
'Busy life like yours.
Going down the video shop, cadging fags, jerking off, signing on.
Understandable, really, you've never quite found the time. ' One of the youths sniggered; the others did not.
'This unofficial tenant,' Resnick said.
'Got a name?'
'Marlene.'
'Kinoulton?'
'Yeah, that's right. Yes.'
There were footsteps outside and then Sharon walked into the room.
'Back door was open. Didn't reckon anyone was about to do a runner.'
'Here,' said the shaven youth.
'How many more of you are there?'
'Hundreds,' Norman Mann grinned.
'Thousands. We're taking over the fucking earth!'
The room Marlene Kinoulton had rented was on the first floor at the back. No lights showed under the door and when Resnick knocked there was no response. A hasp had been fitted across the door and a padlock secured.
'Have that off in two ticks,' Norman Mann said, flicking it up with his forefinger.
'And have anything we find ruled inadmissible by the court,' Resnick said.
'Let's wait for the morning, get a warrant.'
'Suit yourself.' Norman Mann looked quite disappointed. He was more of a knock-'emdownand- reckontheconsequences-afterwards man himself.
'I'll babysit the place the rest of the night,' Sharon offered, once they were back downstairs.
'If she's around, she might come back.'
