Cold Light(3)

“The cabbie—they’ve moved him to Intensive Care.”

The smile faded: an all-too-familiar pattern falling into place.

“Mark wants to know, should he stick around or come back in?”

“He stays. As long as there’s any chance he’ll get some answers, he stays put.”



“Yes, sir,” said Naylor, hesitating. “Only …”

“Well?”

“I know it’s not … it’s just, he seemed a bit het-up about getting stuck there all day. The shops, you see, they close early some of them and …”

“And he wants to be let off duty to do a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping?”

“It is for his mother,” Naylor said, not believing it for a moment.

“Tell him he’ll be relieved in the usual way, as and when we can.”

“I’ll say you’re keeping it in mind, then.” Naylor grinned.

“If you like,” said Resnick. One of the scene of crime team was walking towards him; likely they were ready to winch the cab on to the waiting lorry and drive it away. The last thing Resnick wanted cluttering up his mind—thoughts of what Divine might be putting into someone’s Christmas stocking.





Two

She’d been getting things for the kids for months now. Oh, nothing much, not a lot, not expensive. Just, you know, little things that had caught her fancy—a Dennis the Menace T-shirt for Karl, bright red on black, a toy dog for the baby, yellow, with blue stitching for its paws and nose, not too big, soft, something she could cuddle up to in her sleep. Michelle had joined the Christmas Club at the shop on the corner, opposite the old Co-op. Putting by a pound a week, not telling Gary, slipping in when she was on her own.

As long as there was something there for the children Christmas Day, enough to make it feel special. Not that either of them really knew, not yet, what it was all about. Too young to understand. They had been to the fair, though, the one in the Old Market Square; walked around the Christmas tree in its red tub outside the Council House, staring up at the colored lights and the star at the top. A present from Norway or Sweden or somewhere, though no one seemed to know why.

Gary’d bought them a jumbo hot dog, running over with tomato sauce, onions crisped, some of them, till they were black and brittle. They’d sat on the wall behind the fountain, sharing it between them, Michelle blowing on a piece of sausage and chewing it a little before pushing it into the baby’s mouth. All around them, other kids with parents, kids on their own in gangs. Pushchairs and prams. Arms and coats to tug at. “Dad, can I have this?” “Can I have a go on that?” “Can’t I? Can’t I? Can I not? Oh, Mum! Dad!”

Michelle thought their Karl was like to carry on the same when he first saw the carousel, all the horses, brightly painted, prancing up and down. But she did his work for him, taking hold of Gary’s hand to ask him softly, “Do look at his face, you can see how much he wants to have a go.”

“You’re all right,” said Gary. “Just this once.”

They had stood back and waved at him, Michelle shaking the baby’s hand as well, and Karl, for all his smiles, had never quite felt sure enough to loose his grasp of the saddle and wave back.

“Snowman,” said Gary later, pointing at the figure in front of the dodgems with its yellow hat and gloves. “See the snowman, Karl?”

“Noman,” Karl had replied, excited. He had seen snowmen in his cartoons on TV.

“Snowman,” Gary laughed. “Not noman, you daft pillock! Snowman.”

“Gary,” Michelle said, starting to laugh herself. “Don’t call him that.”

“Noman!” sang out Karl, jumping up and down. “Noman! Noman! Noman!”

He lost his footing and went sprawling, bruising his face and grazing the fingers of the hand from which he’d earlier lost his glove. Not long after that they all caught the bus home.

Michelle looked up from what she was doing and listened; footsteps that might have been Gary’s outside on the street. As they went on past, she slid her hands back into the soapy water, washing out a few clothes in the sink. Natalie she’d put down half-hour back and mercifully she’d stayed. Last time she’d checked, Karl was belly down in front of the TV lost in a program about lions; at least he was quiet.

She lifted the clothes clear of the water while she emptied the bowl ready to rinse. She only hoped Gary would be pleased with what she’d got for him, a replica goalie’s shirt, twenty-eight quid it’d set her back; they’d kept it on order for her at the County shop, twenty-eight pounds less one penny.