'Please.'
'All right. But just five minutes. No more. And I shall have to be there all the time.'
Cathy smiled at him with sweetness dropped in acid. 'But of course.'
The police cells were full so Naylor had stuck Marius Gooding in one of the interview rooms and turned the key. ic'' ' Half an hour,' he had said.
'Forty-five minutes. Tops.'
Marius had been there for not far short of three hours. Silent, a uniformed officer had brought him a cup of tea and a copy of a three-day-old Daily Mail, which Marius had read through several times, cover to cover.
When Resnick entered, he was quickly on his feet, a protest forming on his lips; then, when he saw who was with him, he remained silent.
'Hello, Marius,' Cathy Jordan said, not halting until she was an arm's length away.
'Been treating you okay, have they?'
Marius looked at her, eyes refusing to focus; Resnick had remained near the door and was picking at something that seemed to have lodged on the cuff of his shirt.
'I just wanted to see what you looked like, remember you, in case there was any chance I might have the misfortune of running into you again. And to thank you. No, really, I mean it. Thank you for showing me how low a piece of phlegm like you can go. Exciting, though, was it, Marius? Give you a little hard-on? Thinking up all that stuff in those letters you sent me. Writing about it. What had happened to those women. Those kids.' A fleck of spittle had landed on Cathy's chin and with the back of a hand she wiped it away.
'Must have known those books of mine pretty well, Marius, to quote them so well. So accurately.'
Marius didn't want to look at her, but he wasn't able to look away.
'Might make a point of asking your therapist about that, your fascination with all those nasty incidents you profess to hate. That is, after you talk to him about your mother, your relationship with her.'
He flinched as if he had been struck and clenched both hands fast by his sides.
'Got to be something there, right? Explain this thing you've got for old women.'
'Cathy,' Resnick said, moving forward.
'I think that's enough.'
'No,' shaking her head.
'No, it's not nearly enough.'
Lightly, he placed a hand on her shoulder.
'It'll have to do.'
She tilted her head towards him and smiled.
'Okay. Okay, Marius. No hard feelings, maybe. Well, not too many. And I do hope, whoever the shrink is you go to see, he can help you sort yourself out.'
She looked at him and the first vestiges of a grateful smile appeared at the edges of Marius's eyes.
'Here,' Cathy said softly.
'Have this to remember me by.' And, with a fast swing of the arm, she hit him hard across the face and he rocked backwards, the ring on her finger opening a cut deep below his eye.
Resnick grabbed her but she was already stepping away.
'Well,' she said, 'let's see if your DPP or whatever it is, reckons it's worth prosecuting me for that. '
Releasing her, Resnick pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to Marius to hold against his face. Then he opened the door and called along the corridor for someone to administer first aid.
Cathy paused in the doorway.
'Then there's a tooth for a tooth, Marius. You remember that one, don't you?'
They stood on the steps outside the police station, watching the traffic playing ducks and drakes with the traffic lights around Canning Circus.
'I tricked you,' Cathy saaid.
'For that, I'm sorry.'
'You had that in your mind all the time?'
'Pretty much.'
'I should have known.'
Quickly, she glanced at him.
'Maybe you did.'
Resnick didn't reply.
A pair of uniformed officers exited behind them and walked around the corner to the official car park.
Cathy offered Resnick her hand and he took it in a firm grip.
'That book of mine,' Cathy said, 'if you ever finish it, you could always drop me a line, let me know what you think. '
'Of course.'
They both knew, whatever his intentions, he most probably would not.
Cathy gave him her card regardless and he slipped it down into the top pocket of his coat.
'See you then.'
'Yes, see you.'
For some minutes he stood and watched her go, a tall woman with cropped red hair, wearing a red silk shirt, blue jeans and heeled boots, walking away.
At a little short of nine the next morning, Sarah Farleigh was sitting in Resnick's office, black leather handbag resting in her lap. She was wearing a black suit that looked new, hemline stretched across her knees.
'Asked to see you, sir,' Naylor explained outside.
'In the circumstances, I thought you'd not mind.'
'Okay, Kevin. That's fine.'
There was a moment to look at her, through the glass, before she turned. One of her hands moving distractedly from her side to the brooch on the lapel of her coat, from the corner of her mouth to a stray twist of hair.
'Sarah.' As he entered she rose and came towards him and, although he held out his hand, she moved inside it and gave him a brief hug.
Where her face had rested on his sleeve, it had left a smudge of make-up and, stepping back, she brushed it away.
'Is there any news?'
'News?'
'The woman have you caught her?'
'Not yet.' Resnick went round behind his desk and sat down.
'I don't suppose you've any idea why she did it?'
'Not really. Not till we talk to her.'
'And if you don't?'
'We will.'
'You sound sure.'
'Murders,' Resnick said, 'one area where our clear-up rate is good. '
'I thought that was usually the what do you call it? family ones?'
'Domestics. Yes, I suppose it is. More often than not' Sarah had resumed her seat and retrieved her bag from the floor. Now she opened it and took out a photograph, square and a little creased, bent at the edges.
'I don't know what I was doing, looking through stuff of Peter's, I suppose, and I found this.' She leaned forward and placed it on the desk, for Resnick to swivel round.
It showed Sarah and Ben Riley in a rowing boat, Sarah leaning back, her face, sharper-featured than now, smiling out from beneath the brim of a large, white sun-hat. Ben had the oars in his hands, a cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth. He looked the phrase leapt immediately to Resnick's mind, somewhat archaic, but appropriate – as pleased as Punch.
'You know where that was taken, don't you?'
Resnick looked again. There was a small, curved bridge in the background, flowering shrubs.
'It's up by the university, isn't it?
