Cold Light (23 page)

Dana persuaded Liza to order a fresh pot of tea and joined her in a relaxing gossip about winter cruises to warmer climes and the painful necessity of maintaining a neat bikini line. By the time they parted, Liza to visit her clandestine lover and Dana to lug her bags of shopping the remainder of the way back to Newcastle Drive, it was almost six o'clock.

Dana had opened her packages, put her new blouse carefully away, folded her new Next underwear inside the appropriate drawer, slipped the Sting CD on to the machine and started it playing. Poor old Sting, she wished he could stop worrying about the world and write another song like “Every Breath You Take.”

The bottle of chardonnay she was saving for later safe in the fridge, she opened a Bulgarian country white she had bought at Safeway, fancying a little something to take the edge off the waiting. One mouthful made her realize that she should have something to eat as well. Tipping the contents of a carton of potato and watercress soup into a pan to heat through, she found the last of the Tesco muffins at the back of the freezer and sliced it in two ready to toast.

She ate the soup in the kitchen, thumbing through some old travel brochures; before she had finished her second glass of wine she had got as far in the quick crossword as three across, nine down and it was still well short of seven o'clock. Over an hour to go and that was if he arrived on time. In desperation, she phoned her mother, who, thank heavens, was out. Oh well, Dana thought, when all else fails, run a bath.

Undressed, she picked up the Joanna Trollope paperback a friend had given her for Christmas, the gift tag poking out so she could remember who to thank. The mirrors were already hazed in steam as, with a gasp of pleasure, Dana settled herself in. She read a chapter of the book, scarcely taking it in, dropped it over the side, and closed her eyes. Charlie, she decided, was almost certainly a figment of her imagination. At least, the Charlie she had rolled around with, cuddled up to in her bed, the one who had stared at her with shocked and startled eyes the moment before he came.

It was half-past seven by the time she climbed out and began to dry herself. In the circle she had cleared with her towel in the glass, Dana caught herself wishing, not for the first time, that she could lose six or eight pounds.

When she tried it on with her new skirt that buttoned down the side, the apple green shirt looked exactly right. What it needed, of course, was a different pair of tights. Nancy had a pair, she remembered, dove gray, that would be perfect. Well, of course, had she been there she would have said go ahead.

She lifted Sting off the stereo, settled Dire Straits in his place, and crossed to Nancy's room. When she opened the door, the silver crochet top that Nancy had been wearing Christmas Eve was on a hanger hooked outside the wardrobe door, the short black skirt had been folded neatly across the back of a chair, her silver-gray tights were draped over the wardrobe mirror, and her leather boots were in the middle of the floor.

Cold clung to Dana's arms and neck like a second skin.

Thirty

There was a clean suit he'd found, charcoal gray with a narrow red stripe, still in its plastic cover from the cleaner's; a light blue shirt that didn't need too much ironing and missing only one button from its cuffs. Near the back of the drawer Resnick found the dark blue tie that Marian had given him in desperation for a similar function two years before. Maybe three. When Resnick held it under the light there were faint spatterings of what was probably bortsch, dried into the fabric, and he scraped at these, more or less successfully, with his thumb.

Already it was ten past eight and the cab he'd ordered for a quarter to still hadn't arrived: New Year's Eve. Bud was nudging round his feet and he bent to scoop the small cat into the air and carried it across the room, nuzzled against his cheek. The battered album cover on the table showed a smiling Thelonious Monk waving from the back of a San Francisco tram. Scratched and worn, the pianist was noodling his way through “You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart.” Resnick remembered buying it on the way back from watching County lose a two-goal lead in the last five minutes of a game; winter it had been, frost that had never left the railings, and cups of Bovril at half-time, gripped tight to let the warmth seep into his hands. Sixty-nine? Seventy? Resnick had taken it home and played it, both sides, beginning to end, then through again, fascinated. Only the second or third Monk LP that he had owned.

He was about to call the cab company and complain when he heard the taxi draw up outside; he switched off the stereo, switched off the light, picked up his topcoat in the hail, patted his pocket for his keys. One foot into the chill night and the phone was calling him back.

“When?” he asked, interrupting abruptly. “When was this?”

The duty officer told him what she knew.

“All right,” Resnick said, interrupting again. “Make sure scene of crime have been alerted. Contact Graham Millington, tell him to meet me there. I'm on my way.”

Dana's first instinct, after phoning the police, had been to run. Get herself out of the flat, anywhere outside, lock the doors, and wait. She had asked first for Resnick by name; being told that he was no longer there, she had explained as carefully as she could; no ordinary intrusion, no ordinary burglary. Fortunately, the officer she had spoken to had been sufficiently quick-witted to make the connections Dana left implicit.

“Please, whatever you do,” the officer had said, trying not to alarm Dana any more than she was already, “don't touch anything.”

She felt foolish standing out in the hall, exposed in the street; after no more than a few minutes, she let herself back into the flat and tried not to keep staring at the clock. She had touched the wine bottle and her glass enough times already and, anyway, she didn't think the police would be interested in those; pouring herself a drink, for the first time in ages she found herself craving a cigarette. Her hand shook as she brought the glass to her mouth and wine tipped over wrist and fingers, darkened the sleeve of her apple green shirt.

“God,” she said to the wails, “now I'm becoming a sloppy drunk.”

And all, she thought, well before my fortieth birthday. Reaching out to steady herself, she sat carefully down. Nancy was as many years short of thirty. Dana sighed. She had struggled to understand the implications of what had happened and then she had struggled not to. She put down the wine and looked at her watch.

There were two police cars there when Resnick arrived, successfully blocking his cab's progress along Newcastle Drive. He wasted no time telling them to repark, ordered the one whose lights were still flashing to turn them off. Millington had got there a few minutes before him and was standing close against the entrance to the flat, earnestly talking to the officer in charge of the scene of crime team. Leaving them to it, Resnick walked quickly past.

Dana was in the center of the living room, standing, hands down by her sides. As soon as she saw Resnick she pitched against him and he caught her like he had before, only this time the circumstances were different; there were three plain-clothes men in the room readying cameras and other equipment, and all Resnick could do was hold her while she cried. Two of the men winked at one another and then they kept their eyes averted and got on with their job. The items of clothing that had reappeared would be photographed in place and then tagged and bagged for special attention, after which the rest of the flat would be dusted for prints, pored over for fibers, anything which didn't belong. Nancy's room and the door to the flat were prime targets, entrance and exit; however careful people tried to be, it was unusual to leave no trace. The problem would be making that trace count.

“Want me to give Lynn a ring?” Millington said at Resnick's shoulder, eyeing the way Dana was continuing to clutch hold of him. “Bring her in to give a hand?”

“No need,” Resnick said. “Not now. She's enough on her plate as it is.”

He spoke quietly to Dana, mouth close against her hair, and when she lifted her face towards him, he led her into the kitchen and helped her to sit down.

“Will you be okay for a minute? I ought to take a look.”

She fashioned a smile and nodded.

“I'll be right back,” Resnick said.

He left her there and joined Millington in the doorway to Nancy's room. From where it was still hanging outside the wardrobe, the silver top caught the flash from a camera and spun it back into Resnick's eyes.

“
How's it been? You been having a good time?
”

Long legs, a sequined silver bag, a smile
.

“
Well, Merry Christmas, once again. Happy New Year
.”

Skirt, top, boots, tights. The skin along Resnick's arms burned cold. “Any sign of a bag?” he asked.

“What kind?”

“So big.” He made a shape, the size of a hardback book, with his hands. “Not everyday, fancy. Silver sequins on both sides.”

“Dress bag, then.”

“If that's what they're called.”

“Matching the top.”

“More or less, yes.”

The scene of crime officer shook his head. “Not so far.”

Resnick asked Dana if she'd seen Nancy's bag and she said no. The flat would have to be searched anyway, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and if it were anywhere it would be found.

“I'm going to get changed out of this,” Dana said, indicating the button-through skirt, the shiny green shirt. “I feel stupid.”

“You look fine.”

“I'm going to change anyway.”

She came back out of the bedroom wearing blue jeans and a loose white sweater, blue canvas shoes on her feet. Her hair she'd tied back with a strip of patterned cloth.

“It couldn't have been Nancy, could it?” she asked. “Brought them back herself?”

“It's not impossible.”

“Not likely.”

“No.”

“Then it was him.”

Resnick looked at her.

“Whoever she went off with. Whoever took her away. He was here in this flat.” Fear shivered, alive, across her eyes.

One of the scene of crime team came towards them and Resnick turned aside to speak to him.

“No sign of forced entry. Not anywhere. Most likely used a key.”

Resnick nodded. Nancy's key would have been in the missing bag.

“Why would he do this?” Dana asked, as the officer walked away. “Why go to all this trouble? What's the point?”

“I don't know,” Resnick said. “Not yet. Not for certain.”

“He's showing off, isn't he? Being clever. That's what it is.” Dana folded her arms across her chest, fingers clenched tight. “Bastardl'

Outside, officers were knocking on doors, ringing bells, beginning to talk to neighbors, those who were still home, asking if they had noticed anything unusual, seen anyone they hadn't recognized coming into the building, hanging about outside. Dana had been out of the flat from mid-morning until early evening; whoever had brought Nancy's things into the flat could have done so at any point during that time. Not so far short of eight hours.

Resnick was thinking again about Nancy's clothing, what had been returned. “How about underwear,” he said. “I don't suppose you've any idea what she might have been wearing?”

“You mean, exactly?”

“Yes.”

Dana shook her head. “Not really.” She shrugged. “Something nice.”

“When they're through in there, would you mind taking a look? Through the drawers. Wherever she kept things like that. You might just notice something, you never know.”

“Of course.”

“Is it okay,” Resnick asked, “if I use your phone?”

“Go ahead.”

As he dialed the number he looked back to where Dana was now sitting on the arm of the settee, hands on her thighs, wide pale face close again to tears.

Alice Skelton had been waging a silent war of attrition throughout the evening, pointedly ignoring her husband in front of the two couples who were their guests. By the start of the main course, she was well on the way to being drunk and had taken to insulting him openly.

“Jack, here,” she proclaimed, passing the redcurrant jelly, “was the man for whom the term anally retentive was invented.”

Skelton disappeared to fetch some more wine. His guests wished they could do the same.

When the phone rang a little while later, Skelton was on his feet before the second ring, praying it was for him.

“It's probably her,” Alice's taunt chased him from the room. “The ice maiden. Wishing you a happy New Year.”

It wasn't; it was Resnick. Skelton listened for long enough, then told Resnick to meet him at the station as soon as he could finish up where he was.

“Something urgent?” Alice mocked. “Something they can't possibly handle without you?”

Skelton apologized to their guests and headed for the door.

“Give her my love,” Alice shouted after him. And quietly, into the aubergine parmigiana, “The stuck-up bitch!”