TENNISON
Also by Lynda La Plante
Twisted
Wrongful Death
Backlash
Blood Line
Blind Fury
Silent Scream
Deadly Intent
Clean Cut
The Red Dahlia
Above Suspicion
The Legacy
The Talisman
Bella Mafia
Entwined
Cold Shoulder
Cold Blood
Cold Heart
Sleeping Cruelty
Royal Flush
Prime Suspect
Seekers
She’s Out
The Governor
The Governor II
Trial and Retribution
Trial and Retribution II
Trial and Retribution III
Trial and Retribution IV
Trial and Retribution V
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
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Copyright © La Plante Global Limited, 2015
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Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-4050-1
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-4053-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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I dedicate Tennison to the wonderful
Dame Helen Mirren, who gave the character
DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect
worldwide recognition.
Acknowledgements
I am very fortunate to have Suzanne Baboneau and Ian Chapman of Simon & Schuster, who are always encouraging and a delight to work with, as my publishers. I am very grateful for the tremendous support from all the team there. They have so much talent and enthusiasm, and in particular I’d like to thank Matthew Johnson, who designed the jacket and endpapers. He is very creative and I was thrilled when I received the first copy as the jacket was exactly as I saw it in my mind. Working hard behind the scenes are Emma Capron and Jane Pizzey and I give huge thanks to them both. Also to Louise Davies for her editorial advice and guidance, and Toby Slade-Baker at Studio 32 for his help with the music.
Music has played a big part in the writing of Tennison, not only transporting me back to the 1970s, but being able to include one of my favourite songs, ‘Nights in White Satin’, written by Justin Hayward. Thank you, Justin, for your generosity in allowing me to use the lyrics.
I have also been fortunate to have a great team around me at my new production company, La Plante Global. Running the company is Nigel Stoneman, and I have found working alongside him a joyful and productive experience. My Personal Assistant, Tory Macdonald, has taken so much stress out of my life; her organisational skills are quite extraordinary.
Two other people have been a constant support in writing Tennison. I have been fortunate to work alongside Callum Sutherland (Cass) for many years on numerous television series and novels. His wife Anne also helped greatly with the research of this book. Both were stationed in the East End during the ’70s, Callum at Hackney itself, so their input has been invaluable. My thanks, too, go to the Metropolitan Women Police Association and I am grateful for the assistance of Beverley Edwards, Eileen Turnbull, Siobhan Elam, Gina Negus, Janice Gammon, Wendy Rowe, Monica Tett, Valerie Lowe and Kathi Broad. Also, my thanks go to Dr Ann Priston and Brian Rankin of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences for their advice.
I’d like to thank Stephen Ross and Dan Ross at Ross Bennett Smith for their continuing support. Robin Hilton and James Sully at Sheridans for their outstanding legal and professional advice. Camilla Campbell and Robert Wulff-Cochrane who have proved to be an exciting and enjoyable partnership for La Plante Global. Kevin Lygo for his enthusiasm and belief in Tennison. Thanks also to Peter Fincham, Steve November and Victoria Fea at ITV for all their encouragement and support.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE AFTERMATH
NEW DAY – NEW CHALLENGE
PERMISSIONS
TENNISON
CHAPTER ONE
It was Monday afternoon and Jane was sitting in her usual seat at the rear of the top deck of the 253 bus, as it travelled up Mare Street in Hackney. Popping the single plastic earphone into her ear, she turned on her prized Zephyr pocket radio, which she had treated herself to after her first month’s wages in the training college. She tuned into Radio Caroline on Medium Wave, and although she knew it was a pirate radio station, it didn’t bother her as she was a huge fan of the rock music they played. The DJ, Spangles Muldoon, announced that the next song was the Janis Joplin hit ‘Piece Of My Heart’. Jane was a big Joplin fan, and often reminisced about how lucky she had been to see her in concert at the Royal Albert Hall for her eighteenth birthday. Although she had been sitting in the gods it had been an electrifying and unforgettable experience, watching Joplin strutting and dancing, all the time holding the audience spellbound through the power and emotion of her amazingly soulful voice. As the song began Jane turned up the volume.
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,
But I’m gonna, gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby . . .
You know you got it, if it makes you feel good . . .
Jane was singing along to herself when the bus suddenly jerked to a halt, causing her to lurch forward and nearly drop her radio. She peered from the window and sighed – it was still raining. The light drizzle when she got on the bus had now turned to a dark-skied downpour. She wished she’d worn her uniform cape, but she always kept it at the station in her locker. When Jane had first arrived at Hackney Police Station as a probationer her reporting sergeant had advised her not to stand out on public transport wearing ‘half-blues’. You didn’t want to be recognized as a copper, he’d said, and have an egg chucked at you, or be forced by a bus conductor to step into a trivial situation that might escalate because you were ‘Old Bill’. Instead she wore a buttoned-up black trench coat to hide her police uniform, and was carrying her police hat in a plastic carrier bag. Jane looked at her watch and saw that it was twenty to two. She was due on parade at two o’clock for a late shift until 10 p.m. She glanced at the mirror by the stairs and saw an elderly man being helped on board by the conductor. She had three more stops before she had to get off at the station in Lower Clapton Road.
It often amused her to think of the time years ago when she had been driven to Hackney by her father, who had some business to attend to. He had gestured to the rundown housing estates and shaken his head in disgust, saying it was a part of London he detested. Jane, aged fourteen, couldn’t help but agree with him. Compared to Maida Vale, where they lived, it looked like a dump and seemed a very grey and unfriendly part of London. She recalled being horrified reading newspaper articles about the trial of the notorious East End brothers, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, and how they had lured Jack ‘the Hat’ McVitie to a party in Hackney where Reggie stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and body with a carving knife.
Jane smiled to herself at the irony. Little could she have imagined back then that her first posting as a probationary WPC, aged twenty-two, after sixteen weeks at the Metropolitan Police Force’s training college in Hendon, would be in the very area she considered a dump!
She suddenly sprang up, realizing that in her daydreaming she had missed her stop. Clattering down the stairs, she shouted to the conductor.
‘I’ve gone too far – I need to get off.’
‘Not a lot I can do about it, love – you should pay more attention. I’m not allowed to ring the bell in between stops, so you’ll have to—’
Jane couldn’t wait and as soon as the bus slowed down at the traffic lights she swung her job-issue black-leather handbag over her shoulder and jumped off. The grinning conductor wagged his finger disapprovingly. Jane had no option but to run the quarter of a mile back down the road to the station; she knew she would be drenched by the time she got there. Pulling up the collar of her trench coat she put her head down and set off. Seconds later, she bumped straight into a woman, which sent her reeling backwards and knocking the woman’s umbrella into the road. Her brown paper carrier bag of groceries split open, spilling tins of soup, apples, bananas, potatoes and a loaf of bread onto the wet pavement.
‘Oh no! I am so sorry,’ Jane said.
The woman shook her head as she looked down at her groceries and the ruined carrier bag.
‘Oh my God, you bleedin’ well ran into me – now what am I gonna do?’ she exclaimed in a strong Cockney accent.
Apologizing profusely, and feeling somewhat embarrassed, Jane surreptitiously took her police hat out of the plastic bag and stuffed it in her handbag. She bent down and started picking up the groceries, placing them inside the empty bag.
‘I’ll get me brolly.’ The woman stepped off the pavement without looking.
‘Mind the traffic!’ Jane called out anxiously and stood up.
She gently grabbed the woman by the arm before instinctively holding her hand up to stop the traffic and retrieving the umbrella herself.
‘Is it still working?’ the woman demanded.
‘There’s no damage,’ Jane said, opening and closing the umbrella to check the spokes. ‘Here, you use it so you don’t get soaked.’
It took a while for Jane to pick up the potatoes as they, along with the now bruised apples, had rolled into the gutter. Her hands were soon cold and muddy, and she had to wipe her face which was wet from the torrential rain.
Holding up her umbrella the woman gestured impatiently. ‘Just put the cans of soup in, never mind the vegetables . . . Oh, don’t tell me, the bread’s split open as well.’
‘I’m really very sorry. I’ll pay for everything that’s damaged.’
Far from being disgruntled, the woman gave a wan smile.
‘No need. Besides, all this new decimal stuff confuses me. It was much easier when everything was in shillin’s.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to see you go short.’
‘Don’t look so worried, luv. I do office cleaning and the bread was only to make a sandwich for work.’
Eager to be on her way, Jane stepped a few paces back and, clutching her now wet and bulging handbag, wondered what state her police hat would be in.
‘I have to go – I am so sorry.’
The woman suddenly started gasping and heaving for breath.
‘Are you all right?’ Jane asked with concern.
‘No, gimme a minute . . . it’s . . . me asthma.’
‘Do you live nearby?’
‘Ashburn House.’
‘That’s off Homerton Road on the Pembridge Estate, isn’t it?’
The woman nodded and took more deep breaths. ‘It’s the shock . . . you runnin’ into me.’
‘Long way to walk, you sure you’ll be all right?’
‘Let me . . . get me . . . breath back first.’
‘I’ll help you home.’
The Pembridge was a notorious council estate built in the 1930s. Jane had been to it a few times on incident calls. It consisted of eight five-storey blocks of grimy brick and contained a thousand flats. The residents were of different ethnic backgrounds, but predominantly white. Families of six lived in two-bedroom flats. Drug dealing, fights, vandalism and graffiti were part of daily life, and the stairwells served as urinals for drunks.
Jane carried the groceries over one arm as the woman leaned heavily on the other, constantly stopping to catch her breath. By the time they had walked up to the third floor of Ashburn House and along the landing leading to Flat 44, the woman was breathing so heavily that Jane thought she was going to faint.
On entering the flat she helped the woman out of her mac and gave it a couple of swishes outside to get rid of some of the water before hanging it over the folded wheelchair that was leaning against the wall in the hallway. Jane asked where the kitchen was. The woman pointed to the room on the right.
‘You go and sit down and rest and I’ll pop these groceries in the kitchen for you,’ Jane told her with a warm smile.
‘Would you be a luv and make me a cuppa tea with milk and three sugars?’
‘No problem,’ Jane said, although she was desperate to get a move on as she was already late for work. She hooked her handbag over the wheelchair.
Entering the kitchen Jane was surprised by the amount of expensive modern equipment. In one corner there was a Hotpoint front-load washing machine with a matching tumbler-drier on top of it. Next to that stood a dishwasher and an upright fridge with a separate freezer compartment. The room itself was spotlessly clean with a Formica-topped table and four matching chairs to one side.
Having filled the kettle Jane put it on the gas cooker which, like the other appliances, looked fairly new. She got the teapot, sugar, cup and saucer from the cupboards, then took the milk from the fridge and placed everything on the kitchen table. She noticed that there was a council rent book in the name of Mrs Irene Bentley on the table. Under it there was a Green Shield Stamps Gift Collection catalogue, along with some other magazines. Jane picked up the gift catalogue and
flicking through it saw that it was filled with the latest kitchen appliances, televisions, entertainment systems, sports goods and clothes. It struck Jane that it would take more than a few Green Shield Stamps books to purchase any of the electrical goods on offer.
The sudden whistling of the kettle made her jump. Replacing the catalogue she noticed that there was a brochure for Wolf power tools, and another for Hilti power tools, which made her suspect that the woman’s family were in the building trade.
‘Oh ta, luv, just what I need after me ordeal . . . a nice cup of Rosie.’ The woman was lying down on the large sofa and she sat up as Jane handed her the tea.
‘You’re looking a lot better, Irene.’
The woman laughed and a drop of tea dribbled from her mouth. ‘Cor blimey, I haven’t been called that in years. Been known as Renee ever since I was a nipper.’
‘Sorry, I saw your rent book and just assumed.’
‘Did you now? Bit nosy of yer, and never assume, luv, always ask.’ She slurped at her tea.
The lounge was modern and comfortably furnished. The thick fitted carpet was a maroon colour with swirling yellow rings, and there was a wing chair that matched the sofa. Against the wall on one side of the room there was a large teak storage cabinet, and a matching dining table and four chairs.
‘You have a very nice flat.’
‘Me boys look after me.’
Jane heard the front door being opened, then slammed shut, followed by a few seconds’ silence and then the sound of heavy footsteps.
‘Ma? Eh, Ma? Where you at?’ a man’s voice bellowed.
Jane turned and saw a tough-looking dark-haired man in his thirties swaggering towards the living room with his hands deep in the pockets of his black donkey jacket. He stopped abruptly just inside the door and looked at Jane. She could see from the way he filled the doorframe that he was big and muscular. His nose resembled a boxer’s and he had a square-set, unshaven jaw.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’ he asked, looking Jane up and down with disdain. She noticed his eyes were dark and penetrating.
Renee was sipping her tea so Jane took the opportunity to explain her presence.
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