Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims

by Lynda La Plante

  “Thanks, Kathy.” Tennison gave her a smile and a brisk nod. Halliday was now talking to Ray Hebdon, so Norma was free. “Any messages?” Tennison called to her.

  Hall had gathered some of them together for a pep talk. “I just want a quick word, okay? Can you keep dealing with as much of that backlog as possible, and those in court today—Please Give Times! Availability!” Lurking smiles as he adjusted the knot in his immaculate tie, lemon and gray diagonal stripes with embroidered fleur-de-lis.

  “Right, I want to give you all a serious warning. I know it’s been said before, but I’m saying it again—and I’ll keep on saying it. Some of these youngsters have fullblown AIDS. They know it! You know it—keep it in your minds. Please, I know you are all aware of the risks, but heed the warnings and the instructions you’ve all had concerning any form of confrontation. Biting is just as dangerous as one of them stabbing you with a hypodermic needle… .”

  Tennison was at the board, Norma at her elbow reading out the messages. The names of Jackson’s witnesses were ringed and ticked, a line in red through Martin Fletcher’s name. Billy Matthews had a tick and two question marks.

  “Oh, and Jessica from the newspaper, she’s the most persistent woman I have ever known!” Norma said, concluding her summary. “She says if you don’t have the time to return her calls, she will come in and see you at a convenient time.” The stocky girl shook her head, exasperated. “But she refuses to tell me what she wants.”

  Farther along, Haskons and Lillie were taking notes from the update bulletin board. Tennison said, “Next time she rings, tell her that unless she tells you what is so important …” She frowned up at the board. “The Jackson alibis … Alan Thorpe was drunk, why the query on Billy Matthews?”

  “He doesn’t remember where he was that night. We need to question him again—he might remember!” The inference being that if Norma could have ten minutes alone with him, he damn well would.

  Tennison returned to her desk. Otley breezed in and came straight up. He seemed to regard the morning briefing as optional, she thought crossly. Went his own sweet way. But as usual he hadn’t been idle.

  “Martin Fletcher virtually drowned in his own vomit. His blood alcohol was so high, it could have been bottled! Plus other substances.” He gripped the edge of the desk in both hands, leaning at an angle. His polyester tie, the knot askew, hung down limp and wrinkled. His suit looked as if it had been slept in. “He’d been sniffing from a gas lighter canister. They said if you’d put a match to him he’d have combusted!”

  Superintendent Halliday was standing at the doors, gesturing. Tennison craned her head around Otley to see that she was being summoned. She gave Otley a look, and with a sigh followed Halliday out. Now what?

  “So, where are the cream?” Otley drawled, punching Hall on the shoulder. He raised his voice. “That scruff Haskons and Co.?”

  Haskons nudged Lillie, and the pair of them turned from the board with wide grins.

  Hall said, “Their team’s checking into a mini-cab firm that’s a cover for a hire-a-cab and a Tom-thrown-in. New place just opened, Kings Cross.”

  “Inventive,” Otley remarked with a sly wink. “But who drives?”

  “You released Jackson? That means his alibis pan out?”

  “We’re still checking, still trying to retrace all the boys, take them through their statements again,” Tennison told him. All this was up on the board, so why the grilling? There was a hidden agenda here, though she was blowed if she could even hazard a guess.

  Tennison spread her hands. “I didn’t have enough to hold Jackson. Pity, because I think the kids are scared of him, covering up for him.”

  Halliday leaned back in his chair. “So Jackson is still the prime suspect?” Tennison nodded. “And Parker-Jones? You went to see him?”

  Again, that note of criticism, censure even, in his voice. It nettled her.

  “Yes, is there any reason I shouldn’t have gone to interview him?”

  “No,” Halliday said curtly. “Was the interview satisfactory?”

  “He was very cooperative—”

  She was interrupted. “Do you think it will be necessary to see him again?”

  Tennison put her head forward, frowning. “I don’t understand—are you telling me not to interview my main suspect’s alibi again?”

  “I saw the case board, you’ve three boys that gave Jackson an alibi.” He added flatly, “So stay off Parker-Jones.”

  Tennison straightened her spine, getting riled up now. “Am I in charge of this investigation or not?”

  “No. I am. So now I am telling you, back off him and stay off him. You are diverting and wasting time. If Jackson is your man, then get him. Concentrate on Jackson and wrap this case up.”

  She knew better than to argue. He was laying down the law, and he had the clout to back it up. This wasn’t the moment to have a flaming row. Besides, she had a hidden agenda of her own.

  From the reception area Tennison could see over the low partition to where Margaret Speel was talking to a woman with dyed blond hair and a sallow complexion, in her late twenties. The probation office was a dismal, depressing place. The carpet was worn thin and the furniture was scratched and shabby. An attempt had been made to brighten things up with posters, and one corner had been turned into a children’s playpen, a few cheap plastic toys scattered around, a little slide decorated with Mickey Mouse stickers. Somehow all this made everything seem even more pathetic. It reminded Tennison of an older woman trying to camouflage the ravages of time with daubs of garish makeup and youthful clothes.

  The receptionist was on the phone. She had been on the phone ever since Tennison arrived, nearly ten minutes earlier. Tennison looked at her watch and tried to attract Margaret Speel’s attention.

  “Did you look for the signs?” The probation officer’s voice carried over the partition, mingled in with conversations from other parts of the room. “I told you what to expect—if his speech is slurred, eyes red-rimmed. Has he got a persistent cough? Yes? Did you smell it on his breath … ?” She glanced up, raising her hand. “Just a minute, Mrs. Line.”

  She came around with her brisk walk, dark and petite, attractive in a pert, almost elfish way. Large thin gold loops dangled from her small white ears. “Is it Martin Fletcher again?” She gestured to some seats with hideous green plastic coverings.

  “No, he’s dead,” Tennison said, sitting down. “He was found last night, drug abuse.”

  Margaret Speel sank down beside her. “Oh, no …”

  Tennison got the impression that the probation officer wasn’t all that surprised. She waited a moment, then got straight on with it.

  “Do you know a Billy Matthews?” Margaret Speel nodded. “Is there any way you can get him off the streets?”

  “What do you mean, ‘get him off the streets’?” Margaret Speel said, testily repeating the phrase.

  “He has fullblown AIDS.”

  Margaret Speel looked plaintively to the ceiling and back at Tennison, twitching her mouth. “And just where do you suggest I put him?” She swept her hand out, as if Billy Matthews might possibly doss down on the threadbare carpet. “Oh, really! You know of one boy with fullblown AIDS, and you want him off the streets. Well—where do I put him? With the rest? Do you know where they all are? How many there are?”

  Tennison shook her head, smarting at her own blithe assumption, her own crass ignorance. The probation service had to deal with dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds. She only touched the tip of the iceberg. She got up and started to leave.

  “I suggest you contact Edward Parker-Jones, he runs the advice centre.” Margaret Speel was trying to be helpful, but her voice remained brusque. These people waltzed in, knowing nothing, and expected miracles. She was sick to death of it. “If Billy’s there, then I can try and do something for him.”

  Tennison nodded slowly. “What do you think of Edward Parker-Jones?”

  She wasn’t expecting such a simple question to p
roduce such a reaction. Margaret Speel’s eyes blazed fiercely.

  “He should be given a medal! It costs one thousand five hundred a week to keep really young offenders in an institution, and more staff than—”

  “Did you ever come into contact with a Colin Jenkins— Connie?”

  “No.” Her mouth snapped shut.

  “Do you know a James Jackson?”

  “I know of him but I have never had any professional dealings with him.”

  Pick the bones out of that.

  Tennison thanked her politely, but Margaret Speel was already striding off, and the Detective Chief Inspector imagined she could see steam coming out of her ears.

  Mark Lewis’s studio was off the Whitechapel Road, down a maze of streets behind the sooty redbrick Victorian edifice of the London Hospital. It was on the first floor above a Chinese take-away, and something of the exotic oriental influence had seeped upstairs to the photographer’s studio, which also housed his office and darkroom.

  Lewis minced rather than walked. An ex-dancer, he moved lithely and fast as lightning around the black-draped studio. Haskons and Lillie got dizzy just watching him zoom about the place—setting up his camera, arranging the lights just so, explaining to his model—a young black guy with an oiled gleaming torso, posing on a white pedestal—precisely what he was after with expressively floating gestures and a snapping of the fingers. But he was a professional, and good at his work, with a real feeling for it. There was also a steely quality to him, a certain watchfulness in his brown eyes, a thinning of the soft mouth, as if hinting that what you see is not all you get.

  He said he could give them ten minutes. He took them along a narrow passage into his office, the darkroom in one corner behind a plywood partition. It was a large room with a skylight, two of the walls covered in silk hangings with oriental motifs. There were paper Chinese lanterns, glass wind chimes floating in the still air, and brass gongs of different sizes. And under a miniature spotlight, a display of Buddhas, fiery dragons, and mythical Eastern gods.

  Next to the darkroom were several large cupboards, a row of filing cabinets, and a desk with a leather, gold-embossed appointments diary.

  It all seemed legit. To Lillie, Mark Lewis was exactly as he appeared to be—a poofter photographer with curled hair that was remarkably dark and lustrous, given his age, on the downward slope of forty.

  “Red curly hair, about five seven, slim build. His nickname was Connie, real name Jenkins,” Haskons said.

  He and Lillie were sitting on the couch. Mark Lewis had too much nervous energy to stay in one spot for long. He was continually on the move, a figure of medium height dressed in a black shirt, open at the neck, and tight-fitting black trousers, black socks, black moccasins.

  Haskons produced a photograph. “This was taken when he was about nine. We’re just trying to trace people that knew him, may have known where he lived.”

  “No need firing names at me. I don’t remember names—faces yes, I never forget a face. Now I am very busy, but if you can give an idea of the time he came to me, then you can look at all the portfolios—”

  He leaned over from the waist to squint at the photograph. “No. Don’t know him.”

  “Some time last year maybe?” Lillie ventured hopefully.

  Lewis went to the office alcove and returned, thudding down three huge albums onto the mosaic coffee table. Spinning around, he was off to the filing cabinets, plucking out brown folders bulging with glossy prints.

  “Don’t you keep a record of clients?” Haskons asked. “Dates of the sessions?”

  “Some don’t like to use their real name. I am strictly cash up front and cash on delivery—and I pay VAT and taxes,” Lewis said, giving them a direct look. “I run this as a legitimate business.”

  He dropped the folders on the coffee table, and was spinning off somewhere else. They couldn’t keep track of him.

  Haskons exchanged glances with Lillie. As detective sergeant, Richard Haskons was the senior of the two, but they had operated together as a team for so long that the question of rank never interfered in their working relationship. They both turned to watch Lewis.

  “… I just take the photographs. If it’s for publication, then I charge so and so. If it’s for a private collector, then it’s between myself and the client.” He swished aside a black curtain masking off the darkroom. “I print up all the negs, I do everything myself. I am, my dears, a one-man show. I had an assistant once,” he confided, “but—Trouble, with a big T.” He smiled briefly. “I’ll be in the darkroom.” He went inside and drew the curtain.

  The two detectives took an album each, turning the pages.

  At full throttle, Shirley Bassey suddenly shattered the peace and quiet, belting out, “The minute you walked in the joint, I could see you were a man of distinction …”

  DC Lillie nearly fell off the couch. Haskons was singing along at the top of his voice—

  “Hey, Big Spender … spend a little time with me.”

  After the far-from-veiled warning from Halliday, Tennison was on her mettle. It was the cock-handed way he had gone about it that riled her. Telling her to lay off Parker-Jones was as good as waving a red flag at a bull. The man had as much sublety as a sledgehammer.

  She called DI Hall into her office. She didn’t know whether Hall was Halliday’s man or not, but she intended to find out.

  “If it wasn’t Jackson—if I’ve been going in the wrong direction—then I need another suspect, another motive. And it was just something you said that I’m a bit confused about …”

  Arms folded, Tennison leaned against the desk, studying her shoes. Speaking slowly, as if thinking out loud, she went on, “If I remember correctly, you said the advice centre had been targeted before I came on board … did that include Parker-Jones himself?”

  “Not the man. It was more his boys. It’s where they all congregate, one of the first places for the really young kids.”

  Tennison’s “Mmmm,” was noncommittal. “And was it sort of inferred you all stay clear of him?”

  Hall fiddled with the knot in his tie. He wasn’t very comfortable, kept adjusting his position in the chair.

  Tennison looked at him. “Larry, if I have to initiate a full-scale swoop—that’s kids, Toms, pimps, punters—close down clubs, coffee bars, centres—and I am under pressure to get it under way, and …” She bent down to his eye level. “… Parker-Jones’s name keeps on cropping up.”

  “Yeah, but—” Hall’s poor tie was getting some stick today. At this rate it would end up as bad as Otley’s. “But we never found anything … look, I know this is off the record, okay? The Chief Inspector before you was warned off. Parker-Jones is a very influential man, got friends in high places, and we sort of backed off him.”

  Tennison pointed to the wall. “And this came from the Guv’nor?”

  Hall nodded, chewing his lip.

  “Okay, okay … and then Operation Contract got the green light for the big cleanup.”

  “Well, you know what happened—we knew it—waste of time.” Hall was stumbling over his words. “Chief Inspector Lyall was out, I think he’s in Manchester now. I honestly don’t think there’s anything subversive going on, but …”

  “But? There was a leak?” When he didn’t answer, Tennison got up and paced the office. “Come on, I’ve checked the charge sheets, nothing subversive? Somebody must have tipped off the punters, never mind the clubs!”

  “Off the record, I think we got close to someone with heavy-duty contacts,” Hall admitted, looking at her properly for the first time.

  Tennison stopped pacing. “You got a suspicion?” She brushed a hand through her hair, a faint smile on her lips. “No? Not even a possible?”

  “If I had I’d tell you, honestly.” His babyish round features put her in mind of an eager-to-please Boy Scout. He wasn’t Halliday’s man, she was convinced: too transparent. She believed him.

  “What about you?” he asked her.

 
Tennison laughed. “If I had, Larry, I wouldn’t be trying to wheedle it out of you. Okay, you can go, and thanks.”

  The Squad Room was unusually quiet. Some of the team had gone to the canteen for an early lunch, others were out chasing down leads. An impatient Otley was standing behind Norma, leaning over her as she spoke into the phone.

  “Good morning, can I speak to Chief Inspector David Lyall? It’s personal, could you say a Sergeant Bill Otley, Vice Squad, Soho … yes, I’ll hold, thank you.”

  Two desks along, Kathy was just finishing another call. “Okay, yes, I’ve got that. I’ll pass it on.” She put the phone down and called out, “Sarge?”

  Otley went over.

  “Sarge!” Norma yelled. “I’ve got him coming on the line now …”

  Otley scuttled back and grabbed the phone off her. “Go and help Kathy.” He turned his back on her and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “Dave? Listen, mate, I need a favor. Remember when you were here you thought you got something on a bloke—”

  “Sarge.” Norma was back. “Kath’s just got a call, tip-off from one of the street photographers. He reckons the guy we may be looking for is a Mark Lewis. Where’s your lads, Sarge?”

  “Just one second, Dave …” Otley turned furiously, jabbing his finger. “Bloody check the board—go on!” He cupped the phone, opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t. He looked up again. “Mark Lewis? Hang on a second, I think our boys are there now. Check it out.”

  Leaving him to his call, Norma went over to the board. Kathy joined her. “Who’s he talking to?”

  Norma tapped her nose. “Chief Inspector here before Tennison …”

  Kathy scanned the board, then pointed. “Mark Lewis. They’re seeing him this morning.” Her finger moved along, and she was suddenly excited. “Guv! This Mark Lewis, the photographer we got a tip-off about—he’s on the list from the advice centre.”