have been, seen with someone else’s eyes, the furniture heavy and largely in need of replacement. On the ground floor, at the front, was the living room, comfortable and large, in which Resnick would sometimes sit late, listening to music, occasionally finding something that interested him on the TV. Past the middle room—a dumping ground for boxes and old magazines, whatever Resnick could not bear to throw away—was the kitchen, large enough to house a scrubbed dining-table, a miscellany of pots and pans, an antiquated stove, a refrigerator stuffed with packages from the deli, cat food, and bottled beer.
The stairs, broad, with carved wooden banisters, curved up from the center of the house towards Resnick’s bedroom, the bathroom, other rooms he rarely entered, were less often used. At the top of the house one room had been reduced to bare boards, layers of wallpaper stripped from the wails and not replaced. A man Resnick had been pursuing, a murderer, William Doria, had killed himself there, in front of Rachel Chaplin, a woman whom Resnick had thought, however briefly, he might have loved. Resnick had labored to remove the stains of blood from his sight, but that was all and not enough; they hung still in that room on the air, floated like feathers, pink-tinged and soft, that brushed his face and stirred his memory, would not let it rest.
Resnick rarely went there, climbed those stairs. He had tried moving once, thought of it many times, but somehow he had stayed. A family house, though he had no immediate family, unless you included the cats and he did not. Cats were cats and people people and Resnick knew the difference, he was clear on that. To all intents and purposes, he lived in just three rooms and let the rest succumb to dust.
When he arrived home that evening on foot, after buying Millington and the CID team a quick round in the pub, the black cat, Dizzy, was waiting for him, as usual, atop the length of wall. Automatically, Resnick reached out a hand to stroke the animal’s glossy fur, but Dizzy turned away from his touch and, tail raised, presented Resnick with a fine view of his backside as he ran along the wall and then sprang down towards the door, anxious to be fed. A neat encapsulation, Resnick thought, of man’s relationship with cats.
Inside, two of the others, Miles and Pepper, threaded themselves between his legs as he walked towards the kitchen, sifting through the mail he had picked up from the floor. Bud, the fourth and last, eternally young and stupid, lay wedged, for no apparent reason, midway through the cat door, mewing pathetically. Dropping straight into the bin the usual conglomeration of circulars and catalogs, advertisements for a double CD or cassette collection of Songs that Won the War , and invitations from his bank to come in and discuss his financial affairs, Resnick bent down and prized open the cat flap and Bud came sprawling through.
Fifteen minutes later, he had fed them, ground coffee, and set the kettle on to boil, improvised a sandwich from scraps of stilton, a few fading leaves of rocket, a rasher of cold, cooked bacon, and the last of a jar of mayonnaise. The Post had arrived, offering free tickets to Butlins, free flights to Spain, six hundred pounds’ worth of holiday vouchers and free beer. Pretty soon, Resnick thought, the entire population of the city would be off sunning itself and singing “Viva Españia!” and the crime figures would take care of themselves.
In the front room, he dropped into an easy chair and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the night was gathering close around the windows, the coffee was cold but still drinkable, and the sandwich—the sandwich tasted just fine. As he ate it he stared across the room at his recent acquisition, a brand-new CD player to complement his stereo; his nightly project, working through the tracks of the ten-disc Billie Holiday set he had bought himself the Christmas before last.
What would it be this
The stairs, broad, with carved wooden banisters, curved up from the center of the house towards Resnick’s bedroom, the bathroom, other rooms he rarely entered, were less often used. At the top of the house one room had been reduced to bare boards, layers of wallpaper stripped from the wails and not replaced. A man Resnick had been pursuing, a murderer, William Doria, had killed himself there, in front of Rachel Chaplin, a woman whom Resnick had thought, however briefly, he might have loved. Resnick had labored to remove the stains of blood from his sight, but that was all and not enough; they hung still in that room on the air, floated like feathers, pink-tinged and soft, that brushed his face and stirred his memory, would not let it rest.
Resnick rarely went there, climbed those stairs. He had tried moving once, thought of it many times, but somehow he had stayed. A family house, though he had no immediate family, unless you included the cats and he did not. Cats were cats and people people and Resnick knew the difference, he was clear on that. To all intents and purposes, he lived in just three rooms and let the rest succumb to dust.
When he arrived home that evening on foot, after buying Millington and the CID team a quick round in the pub, the black cat, Dizzy, was waiting for him, as usual, atop the length of wall. Automatically, Resnick reached out a hand to stroke the animal’s glossy fur, but Dizzy turned away from his touch and, tail raised, presented Resnick with a fine view of his backside as he ran along the wall and then sprang down towards the door, anxious to be fed. A neat encapsulation, Resnick thought, of man’s relationship with cats.
Inside, two of the others, Miles and Pepper, threaded themselves between his legs as he walked towards the kitchen, sifting through the mail he had picked up from the floor. Bud, the fourth and last, eternally young and stupid, lay wedged, for no apparent reason, midway through the cat door, mewing pathetically. Dropping straight into the bin the usual conglomeration of circulars and catalogs, advertisements for a double CD or cassette collection of Songs that Won the War , and invitations from his bank to come in and discuss his financial affairs, Resnick bent down and prized open the cat flap and Bud came sprawling through.
Fifteen minutes later, he had fed them, ground coffee, and set the kettle on to boil, improvised a sandwich from scraps of stilton, a few fading leaves of rocket, a rasher of cold, cooked bacon, and the last of a jar of mayonnaise. The Post had arrived, offering free tickets to Butlins, free flights to Spain, six hundred pounds’ worth of holiday vouchers and free beer. Pretty soon, Resnick thought, the entire population of the city would be off sunning itself and singing “Viva Españia!” and the crime figures would take care of themselves.
In the front room, he dropped into an easy chair and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the night was gathering close around the windows, the coffee was cold but still drinkable, and the sandwich—the sandwich tasted just fine. As he ate it he stared across the room at his recent acquisition, a brand-new CD player to complement his stereo; his nightly project, working through the tracks of the ten-disc Billie Holiday set he had bought himself the Christmas before last.
What would it be this
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