Lynda La Plante_Prime Suspect 02

by A Face in the Crowd

  “No one is on trial. We are not investigating a crime, but a death. It is our job—yours and mine—to decide how Anthony Allen came to die in police custody. One word of warning. You may be asked to study some distressing photographs taken both at the time of the young man’s death and at the autopsy. I consider the viewing of these pictures to be vital as an aid to reaching your decision. We will begin today by hearing from the pathologist, Professor Bream.”

  Bream was on the stand less than ten minutes. He stated the cause of death, from asphyxiation, and answered one or two questions from the coroner. Custody Sergeant Calder was then called to the stand. He swore the oath, and knew he was in for a tough time immediately when Mrs. Duhra started questioning him. She was a slim, elegant, dark-haired woman with high cheekbones and quick, intelligent eyes; a member of a prominent Anglo-Indian family, most of whom were in the legal profession.

  Calder wasn’t sure that she was deliberately playing to the largely black public gallery, but she didn’t seem to mind their occasional shouts and angry interruptions.

  “It must have taken a great deal of force, and determination, to strangle himself in such a manner.” Mrs. Duhra tilted her head a fraction, inviting his agreement. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  As procedure demanded, and as he had been taught, Calder directed his replies to the coroner.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Professor Bream thought so. He thought Tony Allen may have taken rather a long time to die.” She glanced down at some papers, and looked up again. “You did make your checks every fifteen minutes, didn’t you?”

  Calder gazed straight in front of him, the globed lights reflecting on his bald head. “Thirty minutes, sir.”

  “Oh yes …” Mrs. Duhra nodded. Her lips thinned. “Because it’s checks every fifteen minutes for prisoners at risk. And, of course, you’d decided that Tony Allen wasn’t at risk, hadn’t you?”

  “Mrs. Duhra,” the coroner mildly rebuked her. She was making assumptions about Calder’s judgment at the time without any supporting testimony to that effect.

  “Why was the flap left open?” Mrs. Duhra asked.

  “Because the prisoner requested it to be left open, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “To let in some fresh air.”

  “Because he couldn’t breathe … because he was claustrophobic?”

  “I don’t know about that, sir.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do,” Mrs. Duhra said, though her tone implied that any person with half a brain ought to have known. “If, as you say, he refused the offer of a lawyer—”

  “He did, sir.” Calder wanted that on the record.

  “—why did you not make sure that some responsible adult was with him? His father, for example, who was in reception almost the whole time?”

  “Because there was no need.”

  Mrs. Duhra frowned, giving him a quizzical look that was more for the benefit of the jury. “But his mental health was of concern to you, was it not?”

  “No, sir,” Calder said stolidly. “It was not.”

  This reply seemed to puzzle Mrs. Duhra even more. She consulted her papers. “But as we can see from the custody record, you called a doctor at nine fifteen p.m.” She glanced up, waiting.

  “Yes,” Calder admitted. He’d forgotten about procedure, addressing his reply directly to her.

  “So you must have been concerned,” Mrs. Duhra went on, logically proving her point. “But he didn’t arrive, did he? Until after one a.m. Didn’t you think to call another doctor?”

  Calder’s mind went blank. He said in a rush, “I was busy.”

  Mrs. Duhra let the silence work for her. She said, all the more effective for her quiet tone, “A boy loses his life because you were busy?”

  The coroner leaned forward. “Please, Mrs. Duhra …”

  “Doctor or no doctor, you had it in your power to send Tony Allen to the hospital. With hindsight would you not agree that you made a series of ill-judged—not to say fatal—decisions?”

  The court waited. Calder finally nodded. “Yes. I made mistakes, I admit it …”

  In the hubbub that followed, while the court official called for silence, Kernan muttered to himself, “For God’s sake, don’t cry about it, man!”

  The call came a few minutes after eight p.m. Tennison was in the kitchen, preparing her evening meal. This entailed removing the dinner-for-one (complete meal with two vegetables) from the freezer and nuking it in the microwave. She unhooked the wall phone. “Tennison.”

  “It’s Muddyman. I’m at the hospital. David Harvey died at seven thirty this evening.

  “God …” She sagged against the door frame. “This investigation is turning into a graveyard.”

  “How did it go today?”

  “Dreadful.”

  “Oh, well, tomorrow’s another day.”

  She said good-bye and hung up. The microwave pinged. She took out the shallow tray, peeled back the cover, and contemplated the dinner-for-one. There were a couple of muddy shapes swimming in a sea of streaky orange-brown sauce. A dog couldn’t live off this, she thought, reaching down a plate and rooting in the drawer for a knife and fork.

  12

  “Would you say that the interview was carried out in accordance with PACE regulations?” Mrs. Duhra asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You made no attempt to bully or pressurize Tony Allen?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Sergeant Oswalde, do you hold a Higher National Diploma in Psychology?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Passed with Distinction?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door at the rear of the court opened and a uniformed figure slipped in. Kernan hadn’t noticed, but Tennison had. She nudged him, and they both stared in dismay as Commander Trayner slid into a seat. What the hell was the top brass doing here? Come to decide which heads were to roll?

  Oswalde was standing up well to the questioning. He was keeping his answers short and to the point, not laying himself open to misinterpretation. He was an imposing figure on the witness stand, very tall and very handsome, with a natural quiet dignity. He was immaculately turned out, in a well-cut dark suit, his shirt a crisp dazzling white against his dark skin.

  “It is my intention to call an expert witness in a moment,” Mrs. Duhra continued. “A professor of forensic psychology. But before I do so, I’d like to read you some of Tony Allen’s last recorded words—before you had him returned to his cell—and ask for your assessment.”

  Oswalde’s face was a closed book. This was the part he’d been dreading, and he had to keep telling himself to stay cool, don’t give her an opening, keep it short and sweet.

  Mrs. Duhra began reading from the transcript, holding it up in her left hand so that her face was visible to the jury and her voice carried across the crowded courtroom.

  “Tony: ‘I’m choking.’

  You: ‘No you’re not.’

  Tony: ‘I’m choking. I can’t breathe.’

  You: ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’

  Tony: ‘I’m dirt. I’m dirt in everyone’s mouth. Choking them. My life is dirt.’

  You: ‘This is pointless. I’m putting you back in the cells.’

  Tony: ‘My life’s a cell. I’m trapped. So much earth, and mud. Earth to earth. Dust to dust.’ ”

  Mrs. Duhra put the transcript down. She folded her arms and looked at Oswalde, tilting her head in that characteristic, faintly mocking way of hers. “In the cold light of day, Sergeant, how would you assess Tony’s mental state?”

  “From that I’d say he was hysterical.”

  “Obsessed with death?”

  “Yes.”

  “In despair?”

  Oswalde hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Suffering from claustrophobia?” Mrs. Duhra said, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinized his impassive face, searching for a chink of weakness, of doubt, she could exploit.

&
nbsp; “Possibly,” Oswalde said, realizing that she was trying to drive him into a corner, and refusing to be driven.

  He could feel the eyes of the entire court upon him. The coroner on his high bench was leaning on one elbow, his chin cupped in his hand. In the well of the court, the Allen family, seated in a row, were as if carved from stone. Vernon Allen’s large hands were clasped tightly to his chest, in an attitude of prayer. Beside him, Esme gazed dully into space. Sarah’s eyes were filled with a cold, implacable hatred.

  Mrs. Duhra’s voice went on, quietly, lethally, “Yet you had him returned to his cell. His ten-foot-by-six-foot cell. You had an exemplary record, Sergeant. Could it be, that in some subtle way, you were being tougher … harder … on this black suspect because you too are black?”

  There were murmurs and a few muffled shouts from the public gallery. Somebody yelled angrily, “Coconut!”

  “I’m afraid your question is too subtle for me,” Oswalde said evenly.

  Mrs. Duhra permitted herself a tiny smile. His reply, however cleverly evasive, hardly mattered. She had made her point. She said, “Turning then to the attack that Tony is alleged to have made on your person …”

  “Do you intend to question Sergeant Oswalde for much longer, Mrs. Duhra?” the coroner asked.

  “Well, that rather depends on his replies, sir,” Mrs. Duhra said.

  “Then I should like to adjourn for the day. The court will resume at ten tomorrow morning.” He gathered his papers together. The court official’s voice rang out, “All rise!”

  There was a small but vociferous group of antiracist demonstrators on the steps outside, waving placards and chanting slogans. As she came out with Kernan, and they crossed the road together, Tennison heard shouts of “Bounty bar” and “coconut,” being directed at Oswalde, who pushed his way through, grim-faced.

  Kernan unlocked the door of his car. He looked to be in a foul temper. “What the bloody hell was the commander doing there?” he asked angrily.

  Tennison, walking on to her own car, turned around. “Mike—the verdict has to be suicide,” she reassured him. “Any other is unthinkable.”

  Kernan scowled. “Meanwhile my station is portrayed by Duhra as a hotbed of racism and brutality. Well, I can kiss my promotion good-bye. Thanks to two black bastards …”

  Tennison stared at him, genuinely shocked. “I beg your pardon!”

  “Well … you know what I mean,” Kernan muttered, giving her a shifty look.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake …” he said wearily, and with a heavy sigh he got in the car and slammed the door.

  For once, Tennison was having a relaxing evening at home. There was paperwork in her briefcase, waiting to be looked at, but she thought, to hell with it. She wasn’t in the mood to settle down to anything. The inquest was preoccupying her mind. Until it was over and done with, the verdict in, she couldn’t fully focus her concentration.

  After a long soothing shower she put on pajamas and her luxurious Chinese silk dressing gown, a special present to herself. She wasn’t the kind of woman to pamper herself, but just occasionally she felt the need to splurge on something extravagant, and damn the expense.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone, least of all Bob Oswalde. She let him in, wondering if this was a wise thing to do, but the instant she saw the despondent look on his face, her heart went out to him. He was wearing a long overcoat, and underneath it the dark, conservative suit he had worn in court. He was polite and apologetic, but tightly bottled up, she could tell from the way he stood in the center of the room, glancing around with jerky, distracted movements, kneading his palms together.

  “I’m sorry just to show up like this. I had to talk to someone.”

  She gave him a searching, quizzical look. “Someone?”

  He looked at her, biting his lip. “You.”

  She indicated the armchair, and he sat down, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet. “I just don’t know what happened to me that night. When she read that stuff back to me today, it was”—he swallowed, his brows knitting together—“so obvious that Tony Allen was at risk, and that I’d been bullying him. Why … ?”

  His face was stricken. He looked to be in pain. She went to the bar tray on the small ornate table and poured two good measures of Glenlivet, carried them back and gave him his.

  Oswalde held the glass, not drinking. “Perhaps they’re right,” he said after an age. “Perhaps I am a coconut.”

  Tennison sat down on the sofa, smoothing her dressing gown over her knee. “Yes, I heard them shouting that. What does that mean?”

  “Coconut. A Bounty bar. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.” His voice was bitter.

  “I should have thought it was a bit more complex than that, Bob.”

  He raised his head. “Do you think I was responsible for his death?”

  He looked so forlorn that she had to resist the urge to go to him and put her arms around him and comfort him. Instead, she said firmly, and truthfully, “No, I don’t. But it’s what you think that matters.”

  The pain in his eyes was mingled with fear. He said huskily, “I think I as good as killed him.” Abruptly, he put the glass down on the carpet and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  Tennison stood up. “You can stay if you want.”

  “No. I’d better go.”

  She saw him out, and walked with him along the hall to the street door. On the step, hugging herself against the chill, Tennison said, “Call me if you need to talk.”

  “Thanks.”

  Feeling somehow that she had let him down, not helped him at all, she reached up and, pulling his head forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. “Take care.”

  She watched him walk off down the dark street, shoulders hunched, his overcoat flapping around his long legs. In the shadow of a tree, directly opposite, Jason kept his finger on the button, thinking he might as well use up all thirty-six frames because he was going to get the film processed first thing in the morning anyway.

  “And at eleven twenty p.m. you interrupted Sergeant Oswalde and asked to have a word with him.” Mrs. Duhra looked up from the notes she was consulting to DI Frank Burkin in the witness box. “Because you were concerned about the way Sergeant Oswalde was conducting the interview?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You weren’t concerned for Tony Allen’s safety or well-being?” Mrs. Duhra asked, a suggestion of surprise, incredulity even, creeping into her voice.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then why the need for ‘a word’?”

  “I thought a particular line of questioning was proving fruitless,” Burkin said in a steady monotone, as if he’d rehearsed his reply, which of course he had. “I wanted to suggest another approach to Sergeant Oswalde.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Duhra glanced towards the jury, making clear her total skepticism of that, and turned once more to Burkin. “So nothing in Tony Allen’s behavior gave you cause for concern?”

  Burkin’s face was immobile, his eyes opaque. “No. Nothing at all, ma’am. What happened was a complete surprise to me. And a shock.”

  The transformation, Tennison thought, was truly incredible. Not a trace of the tattoos, the earrings, the matted hair, and the five-day growth of beard. In their place, standing there in the witness box, a presentable young man with a short haircut, wearing a neat dark suit, pale green shirt, and navy-blue tie. The former drunk had been smartened up so that he wouldn’t have known who it was if he passed himself in the street.

  Mrs. Duhra had a friendly witness, and she treated him accordingly.

  “Mr. Peters, you were in the cell next door to Tony Allen on the night he died …”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Polite too, Tennison thought. Such a well-mannered boy wouldn’t dream of screaming Fucking Fascist Bastard Pigs.

  “Did you see or hear anything that is relevant to this inquest?”

  The reformed crusty wormed his finger inside his
collar, tugging his top button open. “I saw the body. They didn’t want me to. They were trying to move me but I saw it lying on the cell floor.”

  “I see. Anything else?”

  “Yes, miss. I heard the prisoner sobbing. Trying to tell the police he couldn’t breathe. I heard some policemen kicking at his cell door, shouting at him, telling him to shut up. Then I heard him threaten them.”

  He paused there, as if, a cynic might have supposed, he had been told to, and Mrs. Duhra picked it up.

  “Threaten them? What exactly did he threaten them with?”

  “Killing himself. If they didn’t let him out of the cell he …”

  His words were drowned in the commotion from the public gallery. The court official was on his feet, calling for quiet, and the noise subsided.

  “He threatened to kill himself,” Mrs. Duhra said. “Go on.”

  “I heard a police officer—I’m not sure which one—shouting at him.”

  “What did the police officer shout?”

  Probably enjoying this part, the crusty said in a loud voice, “ ‘Go on, then, nigger, hang yourself.’ ” The public gallery burst into an uproar. People were standing and waving their fists. Through it all, the crusty went on, “They were all shouting, ‘Do it. Do it. Do it.’ ”

  “Quiet!” The court official was back on his feet. “Quiet!”

  It subsided again, but this time an angry rumbling murmur continued, like distant yet ominous thunder. Sarah Allen had half-risen to her feet, her father pulling at her arm. Her head on one side, Esme was weeping silently, huge tears trickling down her face.

  The coroner became impatient, having to wait several moments until he could be heard.

  “Sydney Peters, can you tell the members of the jury how you came to be occupying the cell next to Anthony Allen on the night he died?”

  “I had been arrested, sir,” said the crusty meekly. “For being drunk, sir.”

  “Mr. Peters, is it true that you are a member of Narcotics Anonymous?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Perhaps you could tell the members of the jury why that is.”

  The crusty blinked, and gave the jury an ingratiating smile. “Because, ladies and gentlemen, I used to be addicted to various narcotic substances.”