Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims

by Lynda La Plante

  Tennison nodded abstractedly, trying to get her train of thought back on the tracks. Vera appeared, clicking her handbag shut, followed by Norma, who pointed along the corridor. “Down the staircase and right …”

  Kathy hurried through the double doors from the opposite direction. “Guv, there’s a couple of messages—that reporter again, Jessica Smithy. I’ve told her to contact the press office but she’s really pushy, insists she wants to talk to you. So does Superintendent Halliday, and there’s …”

  She was interrupted by the loitering Otley, who’d gone beyond fed up to plain pissed off. “Guv? How do you want to work it?”

  Tennison waved Kathy away. “Leave them on my desk,” she said sharply, tiredness nagging at her. Kathy looked hurt, but Tennison couldn’t be bothered. “I’ll talk to Martin first,” she answered Otley.

  Having set off for the stairs, Vera was back, clutching her bag, in a distressed state.

  “You are going the wrong way, Vera,” Tennison said with the forebearance of a saint. “The main exit is back down the corridor.”

  “I wanted to talk to you!” Vera burst out, on the edge of panic hysteria. “You see, if it gets out that it was me who told you …”

  “You didn’t tell me anything, Vera,” Tennison said, tight-lipped.

  Vera suddenly flinched. Her eyes grew large and round. Terrified, she stared past Tennison to where Jackson was being escorted toward them by Inspector Hall and a uniformed officer. Backing away, Vera whispered hoarsely, “Don’t you let this go, don’t stop. Please, don’t let this go, you dig deep, don’t let it go …”

  Jackson had seen her, and Vera saw that he had. She kept on backing away, and then turned and scurried off. She looked back, once, at Tennison, naked fear in her eyes, and vanished down the staircase.

  Otley stood aside as Jackson was taken into the interview room. He waited by the door, watching Tennison dithering in the corridor.

  “Where’s Martin Fletcher?” she asked irritably.

  “Room D oh six,” Otley said, and when she dithered some more, he said loudly, as if she were deaf or stupid, “It’s the one next to the coffee machine!”

  Tennison took three paces and stopped. “Where’s the bloody coffee machine?” she said through gritted teeth, but the door had closed.

  Halliday came through the double doors. He went past at a clip, not breaking his stride. “Colin Jenkins. Can you get me the full case records to date?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tennison said. “Where’s the coffee machine?”

  “Make sure you get everything to me ASAP. That’s firsthand, Chief Inspector,” Halliday said over his shoulder. “I don’t want anything sprung on me. That understood? I’ll be in my office …” He disappeared around a corner, his voice floating back, “Downstairs on your right.”

  Stumping down the stairs, Tennison made a silent screaming face.

  5

  Martin Fletcher’s bruised face had matured over the past twenty-four hours. The blow on his forehead had ripened into a huge purple swelling. His cut lip was an angry puffy red. The gash on his cheek had crusted over, weeping yellowish pus. A plug of bloodstained cotton was stuck up his left nostril.

  Head sunk between his shoulders, he sat in the interview room, smoking, continually flicking at the filter tip with a gnawed-down thumbnail. The ashtray had overflowed onto the tabletop. Nearby, the unwinking red light of the tape recorder glowed like a tiny ruby.

  A uniformed officer stood by the door. Next to Martin sat his probation officer, Margaret Speel. She was in her early thirties, neat and unfussy in a light gray suit, with an oval small-boned face and frizzy black hair cut in severe bangs just above her eyes. She leaned toward him, bowing her head to be on a level with his.

  “You understand the question, Martin? Now, we’re all getting tired, we’ve all been here a long time …”

  Tennison looked up from the report in front of her. It was after six in the evening, it had been a hectic yet frustrating day, and under the harsh strip lighting she knew that she must have looked like a worn-out old hag. She certainly felt like one. She tried again.

  “Martin, last night you talked to Sergeant Otley and Inspector Hall, and you told them that the man who attacked you—”

  “No! That was words put in me mouth.” Martin sniffed loudly. “I never told nobody nuffink—and that is the Gawd’s truth.”

  Tennison plowed on. “You also said that the man’s name was Jackson and that he specifically asked you if you knew where Colin Jenkins was—”

  Again Martin jumped in. “No—I never said that—never.” He took a swift drag, his fingers trembling, showering ash everywhere. “What happened was … you know that escalator top of King’s Cross station? I was comin’ down, me coat got caught like, and I fell forward.” He ducked down to demonstrate. “I hit me head on the stairs, and then, when I got up, I fell over again and hit me nose. Nobody hit me.” He stared at her, one eye swollen and bloodshot.

  “So you lied to the police officers who questioned you?” Tennison said quietly.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” He grew bolder. “Yeah, I lied ’cos … ’cos I’m underage—I mean, they really scared me like, and …”

  “Martin, did you know Colin?”

  He glanced sideways at Margaret Speel and then took another deep swift drag, a single plume of smoke issuing through one nostril.

  “Yeah, not like—well, red-haired bloke, wasn’t he? Quentin House, he was there wiv me, now he’s burnt like a crisp!” Due to his cut lip his grin was lopsided, showing the black gap of two missing front teeth. “That’s a joke goin’ round—Quentin Crisp, famous poofter …”

  “Have you ever had sex with a man?”

  “Me? Nah!”

  “What about a blow job? Ever been paid for doing that?”

  Martin shrugged. “Few times, when I’m broke like, but I’m not into that. I got other means of employment.” He was sounding cocky now, starting to brag.

  “Such as?”

  “Breakin’ and enterin’, nickin’ cars, radios. Beggin’—do a bit of that.” He smirked. “Sell my life story to the newspapers.”

  Tennison looked at Margaret Speel, whose expression remained exactly the same: in fact hardly any expression at all, apart from a slight cynical twist of the mouth, that must be part of the job description, Tennison thought.

  Martin was laughing. “I can nick a motor, go for a joyride, an’ you lot can’t do nuffink!”

  Tennison snapped her notebook shut.

  “You listen to me, Martin. You think you can play games with us, lie to us, and it’s all a joke. Well, it isn’t. Colin Jenkins has no one to claim his body, no one to bury him.” Tennison stood up. Martin wouldn’t look at her. “Nobody cares about Colin Jenkins but us.”

  Absolutely seething, Tennison went up the stairs and strode along the corridor, muttering to herself, “I have just about had enough of this bloody place—kids can run riot over us without—”

  Otley was leaning against the wall outside interview room D.03 having a smoke. He eased himself into his usual round-shouldered slouch as Tennison stormed up.

  “—Is Jackson in here?” she snapped, jerking her thumb.

  “He denies knowing Martin Fletcher,” Otley said.

  “And Martin Fletcher denied his entire statement! Can we hold Jackson on attempting to pick up that boy at the station?” Otley shook his head. “So we’ve got nothing on him … ! No prints from Vera’s flat?” Otley shook his head. “Nothing off the possible weapon?”

  “Nope, nothin’,” Otley said, still shaking his head.

  For just an instant Tennison seemed to deflate before his eyes. Then she rallied, straightened up, took a deep breath, brushed a hand through her hair, and jabbed her finger at the door. Otley pushed it open.

  She had expected Jackson to be a nasty piece of work and she wasn’t disappointed. What she hadn’t expected was his overweening confidence bordering on insolence. He was sprawled back in the chair a
s if he owned the place, long legs splayed out, leather jacket undone, blowing smoke rings into the thick blue haze that filled the room. Cigarette stubs floated in the cups of cold coffee on the table. He couldn’t be bothered to look up as she entered, heavy-lidded eyes in the long, pockmarked face glazed with boredom, scruffy mop of hair sticking up in spikes. He leaned back, blowing another lazy smoke ring.

  “Open the window,” Tennison rapped out to Hall. “Shut the door,” she told Otley. Jackson sniggered. Bossy bitch.

  She whipped around on him. “And you, take that smile off your face! Because I am going to book you and send you away, Jackson, for a very long time.”

  Jackson looked at Hall as if to say, Where the fuck did you dig this twat up from? He looked at Tennison and then dropped his eyes to the Marlboro packet he was turning slowly over and over. He said in a calm, controlled voice, “What am I supposed to have done?”

  “One—you were caught approaching a juvenile. Two—attempted murder of another juvenile, Martin Fletcher, and three—that you did on the night of the seventeenth murder Colin Jenkins.”

  Jackson stubbed out his cigarette and rose to his feet wearing a pained, crooked smile.

  “SIT DOWN!!”

  Sighing, he dropped into his seat. Still amused, he watched the manic Tennison dragging out the vacant chair with a clatter, picking up the laden ashtray and banging it into the wastebasket. She threw it down on the table, turning to Hall. “You’ve read him his rights?” Then to Otley, “Sergeant, has he given you his contact number for his brief yet?”

  She sat down opposite him, scanning his statement sheet, cheeks slightly flushed. “What’s your address?”

  “Flat four, Addison Lane Estate, my mother’s place …”

  “And your full name is James Paul Jackson, yes?”

  “Yes, that’s my name.” He turned the packet over slowly, as if it were a tricky, delicate operation.

  Tennison went down the sheet. “Unemployed … arrested …” Hardly audible, she read on. “No charges, no charges, no charges … you are very well known to the Vice Squad, aren’t you?” She closed the report. “You’ve been very lucky until now,” she said, smiling, the boss congratulating a promising recruit before dumping on him from a great height. “Because obviously we couldn’t formally charge you until we had interviewed Martin Fletcher.”

  The smile vanished. Hard-eyed now, she let the silence hang.

  Jackson looked at Hall, then at Tennison. He opened the packet and eased out a cigarette. Slow and deliberate, with a steady hand, he picked up his lighter. The phone rang. Hall reached for it and had a whispered conversation.

  “I never touched Colin Jenkins,” Jackson said, sucking the smoke deep. “I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t at Vernon Reynolds’s flat full stop.” He sighed, shaking his head, still very full of himself. “End of questions.”

  “But you admit that you attacked Martin Fletcher on the night of the seventeenth—”

  “I was at the advice centre,” Jackson stated calmly, flicking ash. “Ask Mr. Parker-Jones, he saw me there. There was also a kid called Alan Thorpe, and I got three or four more witnesses to prove I was there.” Again the heavy sigh, glancing around the room. “This is ridiculous, waste of time.”

  “Why did you want to find Colin?”

  “I never found him. I admit though, I was looking for him. Martin must have told you that. I was looking for Connie, but—I—never—found—him.”

  “Advice centre,” Tennison said, making a note. “Why were you looking for Colin Jenkins?”

  Jackson closed his eyes momentarily and opened them the barest slit, staring straight at her. “He owed me some money.”

  “How much?”

  “Couple of hundred.”

  “Couple of hundred?” Tennison said, eyebrows raised. “But you are unemployed! That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yes, that’s why I wanted it back.” Jackson rubbed his unshaven chin and leaned forward. “Look, I’ll be honest with you.” He cleared his throat, big confession coming up. “Sometimes I … do the odd trick, I mean work is really hard to come by, you know? And my mum, she gets behind with the rent … so, I blow a few blokes, an’ I don’t like it when some kid nicks my dough.”

  Tennison laced her fingers together and stayed silent. She wasn’t going to waste an ounce of breath on this kind of bull. She heard another of Otley’s long-suffering sighs. Hall leaned over and murmured that the Super wanted to see her in his office.

  “I’m not going to lie about Martin,” Jackson said, waving his cigarette about carelessly. “I guess I just lost my temper. You tellin’ me he’s gonna press charges? Martin? No way.” He was staring at her, tugging his earlobe, as if he was trying to figure something out. “Like you said, it was a lot of money… .”

  Tennison said nothing. He sounded brash and cocksure, right enough, but she sensed that underneath the swaggering bravado he was getting rattled. Good. Get him rattled some more.

  “I’m not sayin’ anything until I got a brief. Because you …” Finger jabbing, fleshy lips twisting. “You’re not listening to what I’m sayin’.”

  Very businesslike, Tennison collected her things together and stood up. She said to Inspector Hall, “I think Mr. Jackson should be taken to the cells until we have, as he has requested, contacted his brief, and we have verified his alibi for the night in question.”

  “Right, let’s go through your witnesses,” Otley said. “Names, Jackson.”

  Tennison went out. Hall looked to Otley, patting his tie. She was sailing bloody close to the wind. She’d nearly charged him with murder without a shred of real evidence.

  Jackson was making a brutal job of stubbing his cigarette in the ashtray. He glared up at Otley. “What’s her name?”

  “One dead rent boy, Chief Inspector, is not going to bring the entire department to a standstill, is that understood?”

  Halliday stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking out onto a darkening Broadwick Street. It was the vacant hour, lost in no-man’s-land between the exodus of the office workers and the first stirrings of Soho nightlife.

  Tennison was taken aback. “I wasn’t aware of any standstill—

  “Just let me finish, please.” Halliday swung around, an abrupt movement that betrayed his edginess. Usually neat to the point of fastidiousness, his tie was slightly askew and his short fair hair was ruffled as though he’d been combing his fingers through it. He placed his pale, freckled hands on the back of his swivel chair. “As Colin Jenkins’s death is now a homicide, I suggest we hand it over—”

  “But we have …”

  “—to the correct department.”

  “But we have a strong suspect in custody,” Tennison protested. “And far from any standstill, we are making progress. The reason I am interested in Jackson is because of the direct link to Operation Contract.”

  The Superintendent released a small sigh. “Go on.”

  “Jackson’s well known to Vice, and has in actual fact been questioned on numerous occasions. If he did murder Colin Jenkins, I think it will act as a strong lever for more information.” She hesitated, knuckles tapping her palm. “There’s also an advice centre that keeps cropping up, run by a man called Edward Parker-Jones.”

  “Operation Contract at no time initiated an investigation into Edward Parker-Jones …”

  “I wasn’t contemplating any investigation into Mr. Parker-Jones. But he is my suspect’s alibi, and the longer we have Jackson locked up, the easier it’ll be to question the kids.” Tennison was furious with herself that she sounded to be pleading, and didn’t know why the hell she should have to. “Look, you did say that my priority was Operation Contract …”

  “All right,” Halliday conceded. He rubbed his forehead and swung the chair around to sit in it. “Just keep me informed if there are any new developments.”

  Tennison nodded and left the office. Halliday sat down, drumming his fingers. He stared at the closed door for a moment,
picked up the phone and started to dial.

  As Tennison closed the door to Halliday’s office, Kathy came up.

  “Guv, have you got a second? You asked me to check back if Colin Jenkins had been brought in. Well, he was—but he used the name Bruce Jenkins, charged with soliciting.”

  “So who did the interview?”

  “Sergeant Otley. But it was almost a year ago, and he was underage, so a probation officer took over from our department. I’ve traced her,” Kathy said, “but she’s not much help. She’s sending the report in.”

  “You remember anything about him?” Tennison asked.

  Kathy shook her head glumly. “No, sorry …”

  She went off, leaving Tennison gazing dully at the dark green wall opposite. She felt totally drained. Her brain had seized up, and she felt unable to connect one coherent thought to another. She started to drag herself back to her office next door when she heard Halliday talking on the phone, his voice faint but distinct.

  “… how can I tell her to back off something if it has a direct link to the bloody job she was brought in to do?”

  Tennison looked up and down the corridor and leaned in.

  “If she isn’t suspicious now, she would be if I pulled her off it,” Halliday said, sounding exasperated. After a pause he went on, “She knows nothing, because I’m sure of it. We’ll just make damned sure it stays that way.”

  The receiver went down and rapid footsteps thudded on the carpet. Tennison made it to her door just as Halliday’s door opened. She nipped in and gently pushed the door to with her fingertips, seeing him pass by through the crack. She clicked the door shut.

  Otley had been on the bevvy the night before. His gaunt face was grayer and even more deeply lined than usual, eyes like piss-holes in snow. Nonetheless he was enjoying himself. He kept sneaking wicked little grins at Hall, whose return smile was rather lukewarm.

  It was the 9:30 A.M. briefing in the Squad Room, and the entire team—with the exception of DCI Tennison and WPC Kathy Trent—was assembled, paying close attention to Commander Chiswick. Halliday was there, the Colin Jenkins autopsy report and forensic lab reports on the desk in front of him. There was also a new face. Otley recognized him as Detective Inspector Brian Dalton—dark, tanned, with sleepy brown eyes that had the women turning somersaults, Otley reckoned. A real handsome bastard.