Darkness, Darkness: (Resnick 12) by Harvey John

Author:Harvey, John [Harvey, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2014-05-21T23:00:00+00:00

30

TIME STOPPED. THE man standing in the middle of the pavement, assured, smiling. Catherine with a hand to her lips, not quite touching. Resnick, off to one side, uncertain, waiting.

A photograph: not seen, untaken.

‘Abbas, you shouldn’t do this.’

The merest of shrugs. ‘You didn’t answer my calls.’

‘My choice, Abbas.’

‘You could have been sick, taken ill, I didn’t know, anything could have happened.’

‘And if I were . . .?’

‘Then, of course, I should know.’

‘Sick, ill, whatever . . . whatever happens to me, Abbas, it is no concern of yours.’

‘You know that’s not true.’ He moved forward quickly as he spoke, his hand circling her wrist.

‘Abbas, let go.’

For all that she is tall, he is taller still. Well-muscled beneath the fine lines of his suit. Sleek, the word that comes to Resnick’s mind as he watches.

‘Abbas . . .’

He tightens his grip instead.

‘I think you should let go,’ Resnick says. ‘Move away.’

There are people watching now, a few. A woman with a buggy across the street; an elderly man with a shopping trolley; a pair of uniformed officers hesitating on the police station steps.

‘Who’s this?’ the man called Abbas says.

‘Never mind,’ Catherine says. ‘Just go.’

‘You’re taking a turn for older men, perhaps? A change from the real thing.’

‘Abbas, you’re making a scene. Please go.’

‘We need to talk.’

‘We have nothing to say.’

His fingers are still around Catherine’s wrist. Resnick puts a hand on his elbow and he knocks it away. One of the two uniformed officers has started to walk cautiously towards them. Two small children and a teenager in a grey hoodie, who may be in charge of them and may not, make their way along the opposite pavement, oblivious. One of the children points at the old man’s shopping trolley and laughs. The woman with the buggy is still where she was, rooted to the spot, agog.

Resnick takes hold of the man’s arm again and this time he doesn’t let go.

The man stares at him, their faces close. Something aromatic on his breath.

Nothing else is said.

The man lets go of Catherine’s wrist and turns away.

Pale marks like bone against her skin.

Something has passed between the man and Resnick in the moment before he released his grasp. A moment of recognition? A warning?

He has turned on his heel and walked away, the old man with the shopping trolley pulling it aside to let him pass.

‘Everything okay?’ the police constable enquires.

‘Are you all right?’ Resnick asks.

In response to both she nods her head. Determined, even though he can no longer see, not to let her former lover have the satisfaction of somehow knowing she is rubbing her wrist to ease the pain.

They found a pub near the town centre, open early, breakfast still being served, the smell of toast and bacon, cooking oil that had been used too many times, unchanged; a table outside, wrought-iron painted white, the kind you find in a garden centre; not warm out, no sun, but this was so that Catherine could smoke. Which she did, two cigarettes almost down to the filter, one after the other, no conversation.

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