Lynda La Plante_Prime Suspect 02

by A Face in the Crowd

  Vernon stared at her, his wife huddled against him; muffled, broken sobs shuddered out of her. It was all Tennison could manage not to look away. “While we were waiting in reception?” Vernon said.

  “Yes.”

  Vernon closed his eyes, his throat working above his collar and tie. He opened his eyes, and a spasm passed over his face. He said huskily, “Lady. May you rot in hell for that.”

  With a stiff, jerky movement he turned away, and half carrying her, steered his wife to the door. Tennison came forward, holding his hat and glasses. He slipped the glasses into his overcoat pocket and took his hat. “Thank you,” he said politely.

  Tennison stood in the doorway watching as they wandered off aimlessly, two lost souls numb with anguish.

  “Where are they going?” Burkin asked, appearing at Tennison’s side.

  “I don’t think they know. Arrange a car for them,” she said. “I think Mrs. Allen may well need to see a doctor. Probably they both do.”

  Burkin nodded, about to do her bidding, when he noticed her face. “Are you okay, Guv?”

  “Right away, please, Frank.”

  Burkin went after them, leading them out.

  Tennison leaned weakly in the doorway for a moment. She felt nauseated, as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. She went back into her office.

  Kernan had taken off his jacket and shoes and was lying on the leather sofa in his office, listening on the phone to Commander Trayner. He’d crunched three aspirin and swilled the mush down with neat whisky. He shaded his eyes, waiting for it to take effect, as he half-watched the television picture, the sound turned low. The by-election count was still going on. It was going to be a close one.

  At one time, Kernan reflected, in the dim and distant past, he’d been a copper on the beat. A real policeman. Doing real police work. Now he was trapped and tangled up in bleeding internal politics and PR and career moves, like a fly in a sticky web. On top of which he had a murder investigation that threatened to go off the rails, a dead black boy in the cells, and a rowdy DCI who’d been caught fucking a junior officer. He shut his eyes, and through the dull pounding in his head, tried to concentrate on what the commander was saying.

  “Has the family been informed? Good …”

  Immaculate in a dark-blue suit, pale cream shirt, and polka-dot tie, Trayner stood in the hallway, keeping one eye on the TV in the living room. He’d invited the Thorndikes around to dinner, and they were sitting with his wife Dorothy, lingering over brandies and Harrods’ mint crisp wafers, while they watched the election result.

  “What about MS15?” Trayner asked. “Well, get onto them right away.” He passed a pink, plump hand over his smooth glossy hair, graying at the temples. “David Thorndike should lead the investigation, which is good news for us,” he said glibly.

  At the mention of his name, Thorndike swivelled around in his chair, sharp nose in the air, all ears. Trayner winked and favored him with a conspiratorial smirk.

  “Absolutely.” Trayner was nodding, agreeing with Kernan. “A complete bastard—but a complete bastard who is the most likely candidate to take over from you if you get the move upstairs.” He added silkily, “And that will surely depend on how you handle this business from now on …”

  Dorothy had turned the sound up, and Trayner said, “One moment,” leaning towards the living room door as the party official stepped up to the microphone.

  “Kenneth Trevor Bagnall, Conservative … thirteen thousand, one hundred and thirty-seven.”

  “Not enough,” Trayner muttered tersely, shaking his head.

  “Jonathan Phelps, Labour … sixteen thousand, four hundred …”

  The rest was drowned in a storm of cheering from the Labour supporters in the hall. Phelps, smiling broadly, had both fists raised in the air. Trayner turned his back on it.

  “Did you hear that?” he said into the phone. “It’s in David’s best interests to stop Southampton Row being dragged through the mire. Keep me informed.”

  He hung up. Thorndike came through, buttoning his jacket. “Well, we’d better be going.” The two men looked at one another. Things might work out after all. The MS15 investigation, with Thorndike in charge, couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment, everything considered. If nothing else, it would cast a cloud over Tennison’s promotion prospects. And if Thorndike could perform a damage limitation exercise on the Met’s reputation, impressing the powers-that-be, he’d come out of it smelling of roses.

  Trayner patted him on the shoulder, and Thorndike responded with his thin-lipped watery smile. “Looks like I’ve got an early start in the morning,” he said.

  “I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get, I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get …”

  “Stop that!”

  Tennison sat at her desk, her elbow on the blotter, her head propped in one hand. She tapped the ash off her cigarette and put it to her lips. She inhaled deeply and breathed out, the smoke pluming from her nostrils. The tape reel slowly turned, semaphoring plastic gleams under the lamplight with each revolution.

  “I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get, I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get …”

  “Tony, just stop it, man!”

  Tennison closed her eyes and took another long drag.

  This was worse than she had feared. Much worse. What in heaven’s name had possessed Oswalde? Why had he allowed it to go on? Pushing and pressuring the boy when it was obvious that he was stricken with hysterical panic, teetering on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown? What the hell was he trying to prove? That black coppers were superior to white ones? Or that he had nothing to learn from the Gestapo?

  The procedures laid down under PACE were quite explicit, and this interview was a case-book study on how to disregard every one of them. Whoever was appointed from MS15 was going to have a field day.

  “That’s enough. Can I have a word with you, Sergeant Oswalde.” Burkin’s voice.

  “In a minute.”

  “Now, Sergeant Oswalde!”

  Tennison mashed her cigarette next to the five stubs and switched off the tape.

  10

  Tennison had the nine a.m. briefing put back to nine fifteen. First she wanted Burkin in, and she told DS Haskons to send him along as soon as he arrived. He came in, pale and hollow-eyed, a shaving nick on his chin, and stayed standing and silent while she tore into him. The second time in under two weeks; it was getting to be a bad habit.

  “I’m not talking about Oswalde’s part in this,” Tennison stormed at him. She stayed on her feet, pacing, because if she sat down she’d have had the cigarette packet out. “You and Mike Calder had the authority to stop those interviews. Instead, you let them continue—no, better still, you let Oswalde interview the boy on his own while you sat by the telephone waiting for me to do your job for you—”

  She broke away to answer the door. It was Haskons.

  “Ready when you are, Guv.”

  “Right.” She closed the door and walked around Burkin to the desk. He was looking carefully at nothing in particular, as long as it wasn’t her. She didn’t care what he was feeling, or what he thought of her; this was a professional matter; she was expected to do her job, and she expected him to do his.

  “The rank of inspector is supposed to mean something, Frank. It carries responsibility. It’s supposed to denote a certain authority.” She stared up at him, hands clasped at her waist. “You won’t make excuses. You’ll face the music like a man. That’ll be all.”

  Burkin turned and left the office.

  He went directly to the Incident Room, where Muddyman was perched on the corner of a desk, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup. The other members of the team were lounging about, and Muddyman was saying, “I don’t understand it—we’re at Harvey’s bedside getting a confession and meanwhile Oswalde’s off chasing Tony. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “His ass is grass,” said Rosper, the jive slang specialist, with a shrug.

&nbs
p; Haskons was more sympathetic. “It’s a dreadful thing to have happened. You carry that around with you for the rest of your life,” he said.

  Still smarting from his encounter with Tennison, Burkin didn’t see why anyone else should be let off the hook. “The spade should be suspended. I mean, why was he brought here in the first place?”

  “You know why,” Muddyman said.

  “To talk to his people,” Jones said.

  “Yeah … and now one of them’s dead and it’s down to him,” Burkin growled. He looked around the circle of faces, aware that not all of them were convinced. “Look, I’m not exaggerating or nothing,” he told them stridently. “That boy was really weird, I mean climbing the walls, screaming and shouting, like mental or something. And believe me, I tried to tell him …”

  “Yeah, course you did, Frank,” Haskons said, nodding, as if Burkin was insisting that Santa Claus really did exist.

  The discussion dried up as Oswalde entered the room. No one greeted or looked at him, and he didn’t seem to care either way, going straight to his desk and sitting down. He was a stranger in a strange land, no use seeking sympathy or comradeship around here.

  A moment later Tennison arrived. The men gathered around. The mood wasn’t one of sweetness and light.

  “Morning everyone.” Her gaze swept over them—Burkin, Muddyman, Lillie, Rosper, Haskons, Jones—and last of all Oswalde, who was standing on the edge of the circle.

  “I expect you’ve all heard about the events of last night. Just to clarify. Tony Allen hanged himself in cell Number seven—using strips of his own clothes. I informed his parents shortly afterwards. Now, obviously we can expect some adverse publicity. I’m told we can also expect an internal inquiry led by DCI Thorndike to begin almost immediately.”

  There were dark looks and a few suppressed groans. Those who knew Thorndike didn’t like him. Those that didn’t know him were well aware of his reputation as a cold-blooded bastard, a career policeman who’d never collared so much as a shoplifter.

  “Needless to say, I regret what has happened, but Operation Nadine continues …”

  Lillie raised a hand. “But surely, ma’am, if Harvey’s confessed—I mean, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Quite frankly, I’m not convinced by David Harvey’s version of events.”

  This was news to Muddyman. He said, “Admittedly, there are some inconsistencies, Guv …”

  “Inconsistencies?” Tennison raised an eyebrow. “He said she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was. He said he put a gag on her—there was no trace of a gag.”

  “He could have removed it,” Muddyman pointed out. “It could have rotted away.”

  “Yes, it could have,” Tennison conceded. With the possible exception of Oswalde, she was aware that she was in a minority of one. The rest of the team agreed with Muddyman: the case was signed, sealed, and as good as delivered. She went on, “Harvey said he killed her in the kitchen, but the fragment of tooth was found in the front room.”

  Muddyman had an answer for that too. “Perhaps there was violence in the front room—he said he hit her—before the murder took place. Perhaps he moved the body after …” He spread his hands. “I mean, he did say he hit her.”

  “ ‘Perhaps.’ ” Tennison said doubtfully. “ ‘Perhaps’ won’t stand up in court. I’m not sure the confession of a dying man will stand up in court either.”

  “He knew her hands had been tied with a belt.”

  “Yes—and he said ‘my’ belt.” That was something that had nagged at her. Tennison appealed to them. “Does the belt we found look like something Harvey might wear?”

  Muddyman patiently went through it, counting off on his fingers. “She was wrapped in polyethylene sheeting. And there was a plastic bag buried with her. And he said the body remained above ground—which ties up the maggots and that … none of those details were mentioned in the press!”

  By now most of the team was nodding. It was an open-and-shut case. The evidence was overwhelming, whatever inconsistencies there might be. Murder was a sloppy business, not a scientific theorem.

  “Look,” Tennison granted them, “I’m as certain as you are that Harvey was involved. Most probably in the disposal of the body. But I’m not sure he killed her. We need to go over Harvey’s statement with a fine-tooth comb. We need to examine what Tony Allen said—”

  “You won’t get much there, Guv,” Burkin interrupted. “I know, I was there.”

  “You may have been there,” Oswalde said derisively. “You obviously weren’t listening.”

  “… Sir.”

  Oswalde glowered at him. “Sir.”

  “Frank,” Tennison said with a touch of asperity, “don’t you think it’s a bit late to be pulling rank?” She faced them. “Now listen. We messed up. Very badly. Which means we’ve got to work twice as hard from now on. Why, if he wasn’t involved in the actual murder of Joanne, would Harvey involve himself in the burial of the body? Can we connect Tony Allen with David Harvey? A connection strong enough for Harvey to confess to a murder he didn’t commit.”

  She gave each and every one of them a hard searching look.

  “I want to go back to Eileen Reynolds. I want evidence. I want corroboration. I want to solve the case.”

  And with that, ignoring their muttered grumbles, she dismissed them.

  Thorndike got out of the Rover, briefcase in hand, and waited while his driver locked the car. Together they strode briskly to the main entrance of Southampton Row. One of Esme Allen’s customers, the middle-aged woman with silvery hair, was in the act of placing a small bunch of flowers on the steps. She straightened up, tears streaming down her face, and turned to go. The two MS15 officers exchanged a look and went inside.

  “DCI Thorndike, DS Posner to see Superintendent Kernan,” Thorndike informed the young PC behind the duty desk. “We’re expected.”

  The PC pressed the buzzer, releasing the glass-paneled door reinforced with steel mesh, and they passed inside.

  Barely three hours’ sleep made Tennison edgy and fractious; and what she didn’t need right now was Thorndike’s oily, unctuous presence and smarmy twitterings. God, how she despised the man. Closer acquaintance had only increased her dislike. Sitting opposite him in the interview room, watching him fuss with his papers, she really had to control herself, fight the impulse to burst out and tell him what an officious prick she thought him.

  “Southampton Row’s reputation precedes it, Jane,” he said, sighing and shaking his head. He gave her a frank, accusing look. “If you come in the front, you’re likely to go out the back with blood on your face.”

  “Is this on the record, David?” Tennison asked politely.

  “Of course not,” Thorndike said, smiling his tepid smile. “We’re just talking …”

  “Good,” Tennison said. “Because that’s bullshit.” With satisfaction she saw his smile drain away. “If it was ever true, it’s not anymore. I’ve never seen excessive force used in this station. Oswalde’s certainly not like that.”

  “What with the Cameron case …”

  She could see his game. He was trying to dredge up the past, the Derrick Cameron saga recently revived by Phelps, and use it as smear tactics. But she wasn’t about to let it happen.

  “Look,” she told him, “you’re here to investigate a death in custody.”

  “I know why I’m here, Jane.”

  “Well then, let’s concentrate on the case in hand.”

  “I intend to, don’t worry.” He was flustered, and started fussing through the documents spread out in front of him. He had thin, bony hands that gave her the creeps. “I think it’s important for you to know I take this job seriously,” he said, putting on the stern voice of authority. “I’m not prepared to do a whitewash.”

  “No one’s asking you to.”

  “It’s my belief that when one of the foot soldiers messes up it comes down to the officer in charge.”

  “I accept that.”

  “I
don’t know …” Thorndike gave her his fishy-eyed stare. “Perhaps you let your personal feelings cloud your judgment.”

  Tennison went cold. The same words, or very close, to the ones Mike Kernan had used. Suddenly she understood. What an idiot that it had taken her till now to realize that it was Thorndike who had done the blabbing. This was the slimy toad who had spread the rumors about her and Oswalde.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said frostily.

  “It’ll keep.” His eyes slid down to his papers. “Can you ask the Custody Sergeant …” He pretended to search for the name.

  “Mike Calder.”

  “… yes, to step into my office, please?”

  “One more thing, David.” Tennison was simmering. With a great effort she kept her voice level and cool. “If I’m to be interviewed I’d like to speak to an officer senior in rank to me.”

  Thorndike looked up. He said blandly, “Well, that may not be possible.”

  Well, Tennison thought, it had better not be you, or you can go screw yourself.

  There was a chill drizzle just starting to fall as Tennison drove into the hospital parking lot. It was a few minutes after midday, and she had arranged to be there when Vernon Allen came to make the formal identification of his son. Although not strictly necessary, she felt an obligation, as a gesture of regret and condolence, to put in an appearance on behalf of the police authority. She was deeply sorry for what had happened, and felt it was the least she could do.

  She locked the Sierra, and was about to start for the main entrance when Sarah Allen came through the rows of parked cars. She must have driven her father to the hospital, and was waiting for him in her car when she spotted Tennison. She made a beeline across the lot, her attractive face twisted in a terrible grimace, her large brown eyes wild with hate and loathing.

  “How could you have him arrested for murder? If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have happened!”

  Tennison stepped back a pace, afraid for a moment that the distraught girl was going to attack her. She tried to console her, but Sarah went on in a hoarse, broken voice. “Tony wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone tie them up, rape them …”