Free Lonely Hearts by John Harvey Page A

I did.” She moved a half-pace towards him. “Look,” she said, touching her finger to her mouth. “Watch my lips move.”
    “I’m sorry about the other evening,” Resnick said, trying not to keep watching her mouth now and finding it difficult.
    “You said.”
    “I hope I didn’t dig you out of bed when I phoned?”
    “You did.”
    “But not—what’s his name?”
    “You know very well. It’s Chris. And we’re not going to start that again, are we?”
    “I thought we might go and have a drink.”
    “I’ve promised Mrs. Taylor I’d go along with her and collect Sharon. I ought to stay with them for a while.”
    “Later then?”
    Resnick watched her weighing it up, uncertain what was being held in the balance.
    “Seven?” Rachel said finally.
    “Okay. Where d’you want to go?”
    “You’d better choose this time,” she said, amused.
    “D’you know the Partridge?”
    “Mansfield Road?”
    “That’s the one.”
    Nodding, she turned away and walked back to where Mrs. Taylor was waiting. Resnick figured he would have ample time to check back at the station and find out what progress Millington had made with Macliesh. In all likelihood, he’d been bearing down on him so hard that by the time Resnick arrived there’d be a confession, signed, sealed, and witnessed. It might be enough to earn the sergeant his promotion and get him off Resnick’s back.
    On his way to the street, Resnick checked his watch. If he was lucky there’d just be time to nip home and feed the cats as well.
    “Bloody hopeless!”
    Graham Millington was sitting on the center block of desks, one foot pushed out against a convenient chairback; he had a plastic cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other and looked as though he’d thrown his clothes in the tumble drier without bothering to get out of them first.
    “Thought you’d given up,” Resnick said.
    Millington stared down at his hands. “Which one?”
    “Can I have a word, boss?” The late-shift sergeant was hovering close to Resnick’s shoulder, three plastic bags and a half-dozen ten-by-eight photographs in his hands.
    “Come on in.”
    Ten minutes later, when Resnick and the sergeant emerged, Millington was still in the same position.
    “Are we drinking Divine’s Scotch again?” Resnick asked.
    Millington nodded.
    Resnick took the bottle from the drawer, thinking as he did so that come January First he would have to say something to Divine about his taste in calendars. Surely he wasn’t the only one in the office who found month after month of jutting breasts objectionable? Maybe he should have a word about it with Lynn Kellogg.
    He tipped a little of the whisky into the sergeant’s cup.
    “How about you, sir?”
    Resnick shook his head. “Later.” And then: “I take it he didn’t break down and reveal all.”
    “I was the one fit for sodding breaking down.”
    “How come?”
    Millington looked at him. “What d’you think it’s like spending the entire afternoon with a man who won’t answer a single question?”
    “Quiet?” Resnick said quietly.
    Clever bastard! Millington thought.
    “Why isn’t he talking?” Resnick asked.
    “If he won’t open his bloody mouth, how’m I supposed to know?”
    “Take it easy, Graham.”
    “Sorry, sir.” Millington levered himself off the desk, started feeling in his pockets for his cigarettes. “It’s so bloody infuriating. Sitting there listening to the clock ticking round. You want to reach across the desk and shake it out of him.”
    Resnick took the cigarette out of Millington’s fingers and slid it back into the packet for him; the packet he dropped down into the side pocket of the sergeant’s rumpled jacket.
    “You didn’t?” Resnick said, only just a question.
    Millington shook his head. “I think he’d have been more than happy if I had. Had a go at him, I mean.”
    “Pretty cool for a man who’s supposed to have a violent temper.”
    “Perhaps he’s only tough with