Read Online Darkness, Darkness by John Harvey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Harvey
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nods; gets to her feet.
‘It’s in a good cause,’ Waites says, ‘you know that.’
‘I know.’
‘Tell the lad behind the bar your next drink’s on me.’
Jenny smiles. ‘Another time. I’d best be getting back.’
If Edna reckons she can do it, she’s thinking, then maybe she can. It was listening to Edna, after all, that got her started, made her want to get involved herself. And if now, in turn, she could do that for someone else . . .
As she nears the door, she sees the young Yorkshire miner watching her from across the room. Dark eyes, red hair. What had her mother told her about men with red hair?
12
FIVE-THIRTY, RUSH hour on the motorway, close to the end of another day. Resnick flicked his headlights at the Range Rover waiting impatiently to overtake and, in response to the driver’s briskly signalled thanks, raised an acknowledging hand. Gentleman of the road.
No agreement yet on expenses, he was keeping a note of mileage, petrol. Nottingham–Worksop, Worksop–Nottingham. No car, either, not his own. The VW had been Lynn’s and, after letting it idle in the garage for months on end, he’d taken it along to auction; too many memories, too many trips out to Bradgate Country Park or Rutland Water.
The car he was driving, a Vauxhall of uncertain vintage, he’d borrowed from a friend of a friend who owned a garage out past Mapperley Top.
‘Won’t let you down, Charlie. Mark my words.’
So far, so good. But making that journey day after day for what? Two weeks? Three? Only thirty-five miles, but in traffic it could take more than an hour, an hour twenty. As a prospect it was unappealing. Take a room up in Worksop, that’s what he should do. B & B. Get that down on the expenses sheet, supposing there was one. Somewhere for the duration.
There was a Travelodge on the bypass west of the town, at the junction of the A57 and the A60. It was McBride who’d suggested it, shown him a picture on the computer. Set back off the road but not far enough, to Resnick it resembled an old people’s home twinned with a hostel for young offenders. Due to the closure of the Little Chef restaurant that had formerly shared the location, the website had informed him, takeaway breakfast boxes were available for him to enjoy in his room or on the move.
Perhaps he’d stick with the drive.
Besides, who’d feed the cat?
‘A favour, Charlie,’ Catherine Njoroge had said as he was leaving. ‘The family living in the house where Jenny’s body was found – Peterson – Howard and . . . Howard and Megan. Cresswell and Sandford have spoken to them already, taken a statement, but it wouldn’t hurt if you were to drop in, have another word. Giltbrook, that’s where they live now, more or less on your way home I’d’ve thought. Unless you’ve got something else on, of course.’
Something on? That’d be the
News at Ten
and before that, with any luck, the next round of
MasterChef
.
As the sign for junction 26 approached, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and switched to the inside lane.
The house was a small semi-detached a short distance beyond the centre of what had once been a village; now, thanks to the vast retail park the flat-pack giant shared with the likes of Boots, Pets at Home and, of course, Starbucks and Nando’s, it was better known as a suburb of Ikea. He and Lynn had driven out there one idle Sunday afternoon, Lynn thinking she might find something in Laura Ashley to wear to a colleague’s wedding and finding what, to Resnick, for whom shopping for anything other than food or CDs was anathema, came close to a contemporary definition of hell. Several hours he was prepared to spend browsing through the racks in Eric Rose’s Music Inn in the West End Arcade, but as much as fifteen minutes waiting while Lynn worked her way along a line of dresses was enough to bring him out in hives.
Howard Peterson answered the door a little self-consciously in an apron. Resnick introduced
‘It’s in a good cause,’ Waites says, ‘you know that.’
‘I know.’
‘Tell the lad behind the bar your next drink’s on me.’
Jenny smiles. ‘Another time. I’d best be getting back.’
If Edna reckons she can do it, she’s thinking, then maybe she can. It was listening to Edna, after all, that got her started, made her want to get involved herself. And if now, in turn, she could do that for someone else . . .
As she nears the door, she sees the young Yorkshire miner watching her from across the room. Dark eyes, red hair. What had her mother told her about men with red hair?
12
FIVE-THIRTY, RUSH hour on the motorway, close to the end of another day. Resnick flicked his headlights at the Range Rover waiting impatiently to overtake and, in response to the driver’s briskly signalled thanks, raised an acknowledging hand. Gentleman of the road.
No agreement yet on expenses, he was keeping a note of mileage, petrol. Nottingham–Worksop, Worksop–Nottingham. No car, either, not his own. The VW had been Lynn’s and, after letting it idle in the garage for months on end, he’d taken it along to auction; too many memories, too many trips out to Bradgate Country Park or Rutland Water.
The car he was driving, a Vauxhall of uncertain vintage, he’d borrowed from a friend of a friend who owned a garage out past Mapperley Top.
‘Won’t let you down, Charlie. Mark my words.’
So far, so good. But making that journey day after day for what? Two weeks? Three? Only thirty-five miles, but in traffic it could take more than an hour, an hour twenty. As a prospect it was unappealing. Take a room up in Worksop, that’s what he should do. B & B. Get that down on the expenses sheet, supposing there was one. Somewhere for the duration.
There was a Travelodge on the bypass west of the town, at the junction of the A57 and the A60. It was McBride who’d suggested it, shown him a picture on the computer. Set back off the road but not far enough, to Resnick it resembled an old people’s home twinned with a hostel for young offenders. Due to the closure of the Little Chef restaurant that had formerly shared the location, the website had informed him, takeaway breakfast boxes were available for him to enjoy in his room or on the move.
Perhaps he’d stick with the drive.
Besides, who’d feed the cat?
‘A favour, Charlie,’ Catherine Njoroge had said as he was leaving. ‘The family living in the house where Jenny’s body was found – Peterson – Howard and . . . Howard and Megan. Cresswell and Sandford have spoken to them already, taken a statement, but it wouldn’t hurt if you were to drop in, have another word. Giltbrook, that’s where they live now, more or less on your way home I’d’ve thought. Unless you’ve got something else on, of course.’
Something on? That’d be the
News at Ten
and before that, with any luck, the next round of
MasterChef
.
As the sign for junction 26 approached, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and switched to the inside lane.
The house was a small semi-detached a short distance beyond the centre of what had once been a village; now, thanks to the vast retail park the flat-pack giant shared with the likes of Boots, Pets at Home and, of course, Starbucks and Nando’s, it was better known as a suburb of Ikea. He and Lynn had driven out there one idle Sunday afternoon, Lynn thinking she might find something in Laura Ashley to wear to a colleague’s wedding and finding what, to Resnick, for whom shopping for anything other than food or CDs was anathema, came close to a contemporary definition of hell. Several hours he was prepared to spend browsing through the racks in Eric Rose’s Music Inn in the West End Arcade, but as much as fifteen minutes waiting while Lynn worked her way along a line of dresses was enough to bring him out in hives.
Howard Peterson answered the door a little self-consciously in an apron. Resnick introduced
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