Otley had a house, but not a home, to go back to. If he was there now he’d have been sitting in an armchair, can of beer in hand, watching some old crackly movie on TV, the remains of an Indian take-away in a polystyrene tray at his feet. Same difference. Except here he had a reason and a purpose, or anyway the illusion of having them.
The video was very amateurish. Wobbly camera work, hollow soundtrack, pathetic acting. It was set in a school classroom, half a dozen boys in ties and blazers at old wooden desks, a schoolmaster in mortarboard and gown, wielding a cane. He didn’t look like a schoolmaster, more like a barrister, Otley reckoned, or maybe a senior politician. He had snowwhite hair and bulging watery eyes with heavy bags, a slightly misshapen nose that looked as if it had been broken when he was a young man, its bulbous end reddened by threadlike blood vessels.
The “schoolmaster” whacked the desk with the cane. “Any boy who disobeys me will be severely punished!” Booming fruity voice, the vowels of the privileged public school class.
Otley zapped back and reran the sequence. Connie was in the front row, looking very innocent in his school blazer and striped tie, his mop of red curls cascading over his forehead. Behind him, and partly hidden, was Billy Matthews. Alan Thorpe, with the ragged blond bangs, was sitting farther back.
“Any boy who disobeys me will be severely punished!”
Otley pressed a button, holding the picture in freeze-frame. He rolled it on, held it on Connie’s face. Rolled it on and held it. Billy Matthews. Rolled it on and held it as each of the boys’ faces came in view.
There was a quick tread in the corridor and DI Hall poked his head in. “Skipper … Billy Matthews.”
Otley looked at him in silence. “Is he dead?”
Hall came in, shaking his cropped head. “He’s got a bronchial infection. He’s back at Charing Cross Hospital where the nurse—real old battle-ax—pointed out they would not or could not take responsibility for him as he persistently discharged himself. Once on the seventeenth, again last night, and …”
Otley gave a snide smile. Hall frowned. “Did you hear what I said?”
On the screen, the “schoolmaster” was standing in front of Connie, hand held out, demanding his homework. Otley’s face had the ghost of a smile as he watched it.
He said softly, “Seventeenth? Night Connie died? Right?” He nodded slowly. “Discharged? Discharged himself? What time? So he couldn’t have been at the advice centre, yes?” He stuck his thumb up, pointed his index finger at Hall. “Yes! Lovely … Edward Parker-Jones was very specific about our Billy.”
Otley freeze-framed the picture and pointed. “Alan Thorpe! He was too drunk to remember—so we got to find those other two lads and Jackson’s screwed!” He bounced up, clapping his hands. “Fancy a hamburger?”
Hall pulled a long-suffering face. “Hey, come on, Skip. You know what time it is? I came off hours ago …”
Otley was bending down, changing the tape. He said cheerfully, “On yer bike, then. See you tomorrow!”
Hall went. Tomorrow was less than an hour away. He speculated idly whether the Skipper curled up in the chair or bedded down on the carpet.
Tennison sat with Detective Chief Inspector David Lyall in the grill room of the Piccadilly Hotel. The excellent dinner they had just consumed was on Tennison’s expenses, so Lyall hadn’t stinted himself. He didn’t stint himself on anything, so far as Tennison could see: prodigious drinker, heavy smoker, and he’d gobbled up the mints that came with the coffee as if frightened they’d melt in front of his eyes.
He was rather handsome in a seedy way, with a fine head of graying hair, but of distinctly disheveled appearance. His dark gray suit was speckled with cigarette ash, his tie pulled loose, shoes scuffed and unpolished, and his fingernails were a disgrace. Tennison wouldn’t have cared if he had B.O. and farted like a brontosaurus providing he came up with some answers.
She took a document file from her briefcase. It contained the faxes Otley had dug up on the two boys in the children’s homes, Anthony Field and Jason Baldwyn.
“I suggested to Halliday this morning that Operation Contract should be quietly put to bed. You worked on it for six months, didn’t you?”
Lyall lit up, nodding through the smoke. “I worked for six months, doing surveillance on all the areas we targeted, right. On the night earmarked for the big swoop, we got no more—less than on a usual busy Friday night.”
He had a phlegmy smoker’s voice, and she thought she could hear his chest wheezing. Lyall drained his glass of wine. He made a face, but went on to refill it to the rim.
“Don’t like the vino …” He took a deep slurp and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Anyway, three clubs were empty, apart from the hostesses. Course there was a leak, where the fuck, excuse me, where it came from, inside or out, I honestly can’t tell you, and I was”—he elbowed the air—“out faster than a greyhound.” He looked moodily at his wine. “I prefer a Scotch.”
“Did you target Parker-Jones personally?” Tennison asked.
Lyall chewed on his cigarette, gulping in smoke. He found something on the tablecloth to interest him. “Why do you ask that?”
Tennison tapped the file. “I know it was you sent the faxes to Otley about this case up here and one in Cardiff.” She watched him closely.
“Look, I’m going to be honest with you.” Tennison automatically took that to mean he was going to lie through his teeth, but DCI Lyall surprised her by reaching into his battered briefcase and putting a thick file down on top of hers. His gruff voice dropped to a growling mutter.
“I photocopied these before I left, just more or less to protect myself, if there was any shit …” He gave a half shrug. “Sorry, but I didn’t want to shoulder the entire blame, right? There’s some kind of cover-up—now, I don’t know who it’s connected to, and to be honest I don’t want to know.” He sucked hungrily on his cigarette. “Dig into these. I think it goes way back maybe before me. Halliday’s a bit of a puppet.” His streaky gray eyebrows went up. “Chiswick pulls the strings.”
It only rubber-stamped what she already knew. The warning signs were all over the Soho Vice Division, big as billboards for anyone with eyes to see. “So there is a cover-up,” Tennison said, leaning in.
Lyall looked over his shoulder. The fact that the restaurant was almost empty didn’t encourage him to say any more. Tennison thought of an inducement that might. She signed the bill, and ten minutes later she was handing him a miniature bottle of Whyte & McKay from the mini bar in her room. Seated in one of the low leather chairs next to the teak table, Lyall accepted it with undisguised relish.
“Ah, that’s more like it, ta.” He poured the entire contents into his glass. Tennison sat down with her own glass of Scotch, tempered with a little soda. Lyall took a healthy sip and smacked his lips, watching her over his glass.
“I’ve heard very good things about you. That you’re not scared into backing off anything. Well, I am.” He wasn’t shamed by the admission; a small shrug and that was all. “They’ll be demoting lots of us in our rank, and I happen to know there’s a Superintendent vacancy coming up. So, you take this.” He nodded to the file. “I’m sorry, but I’m lookin’ out for my future. This Sheehy inquiry’s gonna put the flutter around.” He drank, and stared into his glass. “Only ones safe will be those with thirty years’ experience. I don’t fancy being demoted. Worked hard enough for the DCI rank as it is.”
The hard drinking and general scruffiness didn’t mean that he wasn’t a good copper, Tennison thought. Her gut feeling told her that he was a good ’un. Plus, he wouldn’t have been shunted up north if he was a gutless pushover or plain incompetent.
Lyall’s head whipped around as someone knocked. Tennison went to the door and opened it. Dalton held out a small plastic bag with a chemist’s logo on it.
“One toothbrush, paste—and I thought you might need this.” He shook the bag. “It’s makeup remover.”
“Oh, very thoughtful.
How much do I owe you?”
She stepped back to get her purse, pushing the door wider.
“Receipts are in the bag. It’s the type my girlfriend uses,” Dalton said, pointing to it. He looked up and saw Lyall. “The remover …”
Tennison gestured as Lyall rose to his feet. “This is Detective Chief Inspector David Lyall. This is Detective Inspector Brian Dalton.”
The two men acknowledged one another from a distance. Tennison counted out change and handed it over. “Your room okay?” She smiled, holding up the bag. “Thanks for this!”
Dalton hovered in the doorway, waiting to be invited in. “Room’s fine … er …” He raised his hand in a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”
There was no use waiting, because Tennison closed the door on him. She didn’t see Dalton’s blink of surprise, though Lyall did. On her return she tossed the bag of toiletries onto the bed. “I didn’t expect to stay overnight.” She sat down, hands laced around her knees, leaning forward. “There was a leak, wasn’t there?”
Lyall’s answer was a cool, rather ironic smile.
“How did you get on with Bill Otley?” Tennison asked.
“Good man, one of the old school, hard worker.” Lyall drained his glass and set it down. “He tell you that?”
“Yes.”
Lyall took out a cigarette. He offered the packet. “You smoke?”
Tennison shook her head, which turned before she knew it into a nod. She took one and accepted a light. Lyall’s faint ironic smile was still in place. “I reckon I’ve done my favor.” He tapped the file and got up, holding out his hand. “So, good luck to you.”
They shook hands, and Tennison walked him to the door.
“Where, just as a matter of interest, is the vacancy?”
Lyall chuckled throatily. “Want in on the fast track, do you? I’d get your skates on.” He prodded her gently on the shoulder. “Area AMIT, one of the eight. Everybody can’t go up, but I’m gonna give it my best shot. Good night, love.”
Eight Area Major Incident Teams in the London Metropolitan region, but which one? Lyall wasn’t saying.
Clutching his battered briefcase under his arm, trailing smoke, he went off. Tennison slipped the chain onto the door. She stood there thoughtfully for a moment, and then went to the phone by the bed and dialed room service.
“Room forty-five. Could I have a pot of coffee and … do you have cigarettes?”
She went over to the table and picked up the thick file, holding it in both hands. From experience she knew there was about four hours’ solid reading here. She hung her suit jacket over the back of a chair, switched on the free-standing domed lamp, settled herself, and dived in.
The doorman wore a red plush uniform with gold braid epaulettes. Behind him stood two heavyweight characters in white dinner jackets, arms folded in the regulation manner, guarding the elevator entrance to the Bowery Roof Top Club. Looking like a million counterfeit dollars, Red sashayed toward them across the marble-floored lobby, hips swiveling, the purple globes swinging from his ears like miniature golf balls. Haskons and Lillie followed, accompanied by Ray Hebdon, who appeared insignificant and nondescript in his dark suit alongside their plumage and finery.
As one of the Bowery’s artistes, Red got the royal treatment. The doorman thumbed the button, the bronze-colored doors slid open, and a moment later the four of them were on their way up to the top floor.
Red adjusted his wig in the smoked glass mirror wall of the elevator. “Well, that part was easy,” he breathed in a quivery sigh. He dabbed his shiny nose with a tissue. “Now it’s the third degree—I must be out of my mind, I’m sweating.”
Inside his tight corset, so was Haskons. He stared at himself in the mirror. All that he recognized were his eyes, gazing back at him in a kind of stricken glazed terror. Completing his midnight-blue ensemble, he wore long satin gloves up to the elbow, with large flashing rings on his gloved fingers. A dinky gold shoulder bag with thin gold straps dangled at his waist. His feet were killing him.
Lillie’s face was lost in fluttering ostrich feathers. The rest of him was a shimmering vision in puce lamé, a V-split up the back of the dress almost to his panty line. His short blond wig kept slipping over one eye, and it was the devil’s own job trying to tug it straight, the false red nails getting snagged and entangled. Also, he was dying for a piss. He suddenly wondered how, with these bloody pointed nails, he was going to manage that simple act. He might do himself a serious mischief.
“It doesn’t stop on any of the other floors,” Red said, pointing to the indicator panel.
“I know,” Hebdon said, giving him a surly look.
Haskons had already had second thoughts. He was on about his fourth or fifth. “Red—if we want to leave, is this the only way?”
But Red was more preoccupied with the appearance of his two protégés, inspecting them critically, a pat here, a tweak there.
“Well,” he observed crisply, an eyebrow raised, “I doubt if you’ll pull anything, but that said, I think it’s a good job.”
“How do we work it then?” Haskons asked, dry-mouthed.
“I won’t be on until about twelve-thirty. Then I have another show—at Lola’s, two o’clock.” He wagged a finger. “But I will need the wigs back, so I’ve left the main front door key under the old scraper thing …”
“Don’t you have a spare set?”
“No, I’m not a permanent fixture,” Red said tetchily. “But I’m working on it.” He groomed himself in the mirror with little fluttery movements, and moistened his lips. “I’m also really nervous. Why I said I’d do this …” He shook his head at himself. “Names—what are you calling yourselves? And voices, don’t put anything on … we don’t …”
“What you calling yourself?” Haskons asked Lillie.
Red pointed to Haskons. “You be Karen. You …” He frowned at Lillie. “Jackie’ll do. Remember, this is my life. This gets out, and it won’t be worth living. Don’t fiddle with the wigs.”
The doors opened. Red straightened up, head high, shoulders back.
“Here we go, eyes and teeth, luvvies.”
Queenlike, he sailed out into the foyer, Karen and Jackie traipsing behind like two dowager duchesses.
Tennison’s resolve had been busted wide open. She was halfway through her second pack already, the room a blue mist of smoke, the ashtray spilling over onto the table. Two silver coffeepots, one empty, one half full but nearly cold, were on the tray with two dirty cups.
Crouched over, a cigarette sticking out of her mouth, she was frowning with concentration as she listened to Connie’s voice on the headphones. These were the conversations Jessica Smithy had taped, which Tennison had heard a dozen times before. But in light of the information supplied by DCI Lyall she was hoping desperately to make new connections, ferret out some tiny fact that until now had seemed obscure or unimportant or both.
“… no, I mean top brass—there’s judges, barristers, Members of Parliament.” The innocent little voice that had the impervious quality of a six-inch steel nail driven through it. “I know them all, but I’m not stupid, Miss Smithy. I need some guarantee.”
Tennison flipped back over several pages of scrawled notes. She searched on the table among the scattered photocopies. Checking, cross-referencing, matching Connie’s assertions with the file that Lyall had hoarded and kept locked away as his own insurance. It was here somewhere, she was convinced, in these tapes and documents. The clean, clear, direct line that connected Connie and Vera Reynolds and Mark Lewis and Jimmy Jackson and Edward Parker-Jones and … and who else? Who else?
Tennison lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old one. She leaned forward, eyes shut, listening to that young-innocent-old-cynical voice.
“I got the names of high brass, Miss Smithy, they’re all in it. Young boys, kids … they only want really young kids.”
12
“Brian! Have you missed me?”
Arms held wide, fingerti
ps all aquiver, Red floated across the foyer to the handsome receptionist with the slicked-back ponytail and Vandyke beard, gelled to a glistening point.
Red posed before him, one hip thrust out. “Now, I’ve got one member, this youngster …” He indicated Hebdon with a graceful wave of the hand. “And two from Hampstead Garden Suburb.” He giggled and fluttered his eyelashes coquettishly. “No, we’re old friends … is it okay?”
Brian wasn’t too sure. He was giving Haskons and Lillie a close, gimlet-eyed examination.
To divert attention, Red was practically doing his stage act right there in the foyer. Twirling around, high-pitched to the point of hysteria, he squealed to Hebdon, “Show your member, darling.” He leaned forward over the desk, trying to cover his jangling nerves with a breathily confidential whisper.
“Now, I know this is naughty, but these are very old friends of mine. And, Brian, daahhhling, we’ve only got one member!” He rolled his eyes theatrically under azure lids. “Oh, I’m so tired of that gag.”
“Members sign,” Brian said, handing the pen to Hebdon. He stared hard at Haskons and Lillie, who were hanging back, attempting to merge into the wallpaper. “Are they for the cabaret?”
Red let out a little trill of amusement. “No, dear, but they just want to learn from me! Don’t they all? You remember that bitch that came up with me a few months ago—she’s only ripped off my act!”
Brian checked Hebdon’s signature against his membership file on the computer screen. He gestured the party to go through, but he still needed some convincing about Karen and Jackie. His eyes never left them. “There’s no table free, not until after one, but there’s a booth, far side.”
Red linked arms with Haskons, sweeping him on, and ushered Lillie quickly forward. “Booth will be fine, we’re not staying long, just until my act’s over …”
He pushed the two of them on ahead, toward a doorway swathed in red velvet, and leaned back to Brian.
Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims Page 17