Tennison

by Lynda La Plante

  Collins replied that the keys were in the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. He also expressed great concern about any of the carpet being cut as it was in perfect condition and he would like to be present to witness any damage, should it occur.

  Bradfield looked at DS Lawrence who was experienced enough to realize he wanted to be on his own with Mr Collins.

  Lawrence produced a roll of clear Sellotape from his bag and said that he would take tape liftings of the car’s carpet fibres, and that way there would be no need for a cutting. Lawrence turned to Jane and told her she could assist him to see how it was done. She would like to have stayed and listened to Bradfield question Mr Collins: since the post-mortem and Harker lecture forensics had fascinated her and she was loath to miss the opportunity to learn something new.

  ‘Can you let the dog back in, please, and shut the kitchen door so he can’t get out?’ Mr Collins requested as Jane left the room.

  Bradfield opened his notebook and began flicking back through the pages.

  ‘Had you in fact seen your daughter Julie Ann more recently?’

  ‘No,’ Collins replied unconvincingly and his Adam’s apple moved up and down his neck.

  ‘That’s a lie, isn’t it?’

  Collins twisted his head, but did not respond.

  ‘Don’t make this difficult for me – for your own good it’s time you started telling the truth, so no more lies.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth.’

  ‘Did you pick her up outside Homerton Hospital about two weeks ago?’

  ‘I swear to you I didn’t! I don’t even know where Homerton Hospital is.’

  ‘Well, how do you explain the same colour fibres from your car getting onto her clothes?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she got into another car with the same type of carpet.’

  Jane walked back into the room as Bradfield was about to challenge Mr Collins on his remark.

  ‘Excuse me, sir . . . ’

  ‘I’m busy talking to Mr Collins, Tennison,’ Bradfield said sharply without even turning to look at her.

  ‘I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘Wait outside,’ he said, raising his voice as he glared at her.

  His abruptness made Jane nervous, even though she was only doing as asked. ‘DS Lawrence wants to speak with you.’

  Bradfield was irritated, but he knew if Paul Lawrence wanted him he must have discovered something important.

  ‘Stay with Mr Collins,’ he said as he stomped out of the room.

  DS Lawrence was standing by the car in the garage. He had a magnifying glass in one hand and was examining a single strip of taped fibres he had lifted from the boot carpet.

  Bradfield spoke as he approached. ‘I know the bastard’s lying – he started bricking it when I asked him about the last time he saw his daughter. They’re a match, are they?’

  DS Lawrence looked up slowly; he didn’t need to say anything. Bradfield could see from the look on his face that the fibres didn’t match.

  ‘Don’t you need to look at them under a proper microscope to be sure?’ he asked with concern.

  ‘Yes, but I’m ninety-nine per cent certain the fibres from the Bristol are not the same as the ones we found on Julie Ann – the type of weave looks different. It’s a lovely car, 1962 Bristol 407 with beige hide seats in immaculate condition.’

  ‘Shit, this can’t be right. I know he’s hiding something from me. Could she have got in this car without picking up fibres from it?’

  ‘Yes, like I just said the seats are leather and if he brought her back here and killed her he may have borrowed, or had access to, another car to dump the body.’

  ‘Good point. But only he can answer that so I’m going to ratchet it up a notch with him.’

  ‘If you want to make him sweat then call his bluff, tell him you got a phone number off the doctor’s notepad at the clinic.’

  ‘But we drew a blank on that.’

  ‘He’s not to know – just see what he has to say. In the meantime, I want to have a look in her bedroom and the box room as well.’

  ‘OK, there’s two officers already up there now.’

  ‘Remember the red fibres were mostly on her socks and in her boots. Well, if she was walking around on a carpet up there then—’

  ‘I hear you, and I’ll spin the phone number, see what reaction I get.’

  They went back into the house and DS Lawrence went up the stairs as Bradfield checked the phone on the hall table, jotting down the number in his notebook.

  He was about to return to the living room when DS Lawrence peered over the banisters.

  ‘I think we may have got lucky up here – the carpet in the box room has red fibres that are much more similar in weave and colour to those on Julie Ann.’

  Bradfield hurried up the stairs to join him. DS Lawrence pointed to the screw marks on the box-room door and said they were not very old, and in his opinion a clasp for a padlock had been screwed to the hallway-side door and frame.

  ‘The tiny splinters in the screw holes are still fresh and the straight-line indents were probably caused by the clasp being forced against the door when it was being kicked from the inside. Have a look at this.’ He stepped into the room followed by Bradfield and pointed to the lower half of the door.

  ‘A shoe print from the sole of a boot, and scuff marks.’

  Bradfield knelt down beside Lawrence to take a closer look. ‘I can see scuff marks, Paul, but not any from boots.’

  The room’s thick curtains were already closed, so DS Lawrence flicked off the light, crouched down and shone a torch at an oblique angle onto the door, lighting up the outline of a boot print. He then got out a jar of black powder and a fingerprint brush which he dipped in the powder and began to lightly apply to an area of the door.

  ‘Add a bit of magic powder and hey presto,’ Lawrence said.

  Bradfield was transfixed as the outline of a boot mark and the sole treads slowly and clearly appeared.

  ‘I thought that only worked on fingerprints.’

  ‘A little something I discovered recently after a nothing ventured, nothing gained situation. There’s more there, but from memory they look the same size and sole pattern as Julie Ann’s boots, although I can’t confirm that until I do a one-to-one comparison back at the lab. Someone definitely wanted to kick their way out of this room.’

  ‘There are times when I could kiss you, Paul.’

  ‘A mere thank-you and a few pints will suffice,’ Lawrence replied.

  A smiling Bradfield calmly went back to the living room to confront Mr Collins with the new evidence.

  ‘Well, it looks like the fibres from your car are not a match to those we found on Julie Ann.’

  George Collins said nothing, but the look on his face was a mixture of relief and surprise. Jane was also surprised and felt bad that they had both jumped to conclusions and got it all so terribly wrong.

  ‘The box room upstairs clearly had a padlock and clasp on it recently – why was that?’

  ‘I put it on to keep the dog in there when we entertained in order to stop him begging for food at the table. It didn’t work as he just howled for attention, so I took it off and threw it away.’

  Bradfield shook his head. ‘That’s another lie, isn’t it, George? A lie to cover up what really happened.’

  Mr Collins said nothing but Bradfield was determined to break him.

  ‘It gets better; for me, that is, not you. You see, the carpet fibres in your box room are the same as the fibres on your daughter’s socks. They probably got there because you made her take her boots off after she kept kicking the door you’d put a padlock on to keep her in.’

  Jane felt a surge of elation and paid close attention to Mr Collins. His hands clenched and unclenched, a muscle at the side of his jaw was twitching in agitation.

  ‘You see, George, we now know that Julie Ann, contrary to what you have stated, did call you. She left an imprint of a phone number she rang from the c
linic on a doctor’s notepad. I’ve just checked it against your phone in the hallway and they match.’

  Jane knew they had no result from the notepad, and leaned forwards frowning as she watched Mr Collins become even more agitated. Bradfield tapped his notebook and repeated the phone number. He then spoke very quietly.

  ‘Come on, this is your opportunity to tell me the truth, George. If you and your wife were keeping Julie Ann here to get her off the drugs and you lost your temper with her and lashed out then get it off your chest and tell me.’

  ‘Oh God, but please, my wife has no knowledge of any of this.’

  ‘I understand that you don’t want to implicate her, but she didn’t just turn a blind eye, did she? I’m starting to lose my patience. Do you want me to go and wake her up and bring her down here?’

  ‘No, please no. She was with her sister in Weybridge for the week, she wasn’t at the house – I swear to you she was not here.’

  ‘Tell me everything, George. It’ll be better for you in the long run.’

  Collins took a deep sigh, his hands knotted together and his head bent down as he stared at the carpet.

  ‘I’m sorry, Julie called my office and they contacted me to say she’d rung. I’d normally have been at work, but I’d taken most of the day off to play in a golf competition. I’d just returned home when they called but I had no contact number for her so I couldn’t call her back.’

  ‘We have a witness who heard her making a call to you.’

  Jane glanced at Bradfield. He appeared totally relaxed leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Yes, I did speak with her. I’d only been here about half an hour when she rang. She was hysterical and crying, and said she wanted to come home. You have to understand how difficult it was for me.’

  ‘So what did she say to you?’

  ‘Well, as usual she was belligerent and asking for money so I put the phone down on her. I was upset – she always made me feel wretched. Then she rang back again a while later reversing the charges from a payphone. She was calmer this time and begged me to help her, repeating over and over that she needed me, and wanted to come home. The truth is I didn’t want to talk to her, but I still loved her and so I relented. I told her she could come home, but she had no money for a bus so I went straight out and picked her up near a hospital in Hackney. She looked terrible, and was shaking and crying.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Erm, she called just after I got home from a game of golf. I’d not played a good round so I didn’t stay on and it would have been perhaps five or five thirty in the afternoon I picked her up.’

  He paused and took a deep breath, clearly distraught at recounting what happened, and he continued to look down at the floor.

  ‘I heated up some soup for her. Her nose was running and she was shaking, her face was gaunt and her body so thin she was hardly recognizable as my daughter. And the clothes she was wearing were awful. I was glad her mother wasn’t here to see her.’

  Bradfield was taking notes, but thought Mr Collins was being evasive and considered putting pressure on him to reveal exactly what he did do to his daughter. Realizing it could make him clam up Bradfield thought better of it and flicked through his notes before tapping a page with his pen.

  ‘So this was roughly about two weeks or so before her body was found?’

  Mr Collins nodded and replied that it was a Thursday.

  ‘When she first called you, what exactly did she say?’

  ‘I just told you, she wanted money and—’

  ‘Sorry, yes, you said that, but did she call you “Father” or use any familiar term?’

  Mr Collins looked perplexed and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘She shouted and was very abusive and I believe she said, “Daddy, you have to help me.”’

  Bradfield flicked a page of his notebook and Jane saw him underline something.

  ‘So what happened when you both got back here?’

  Collins straightened up and leaned forwards in the wing chair. ‘On previous occasions when she had turned up unannounced she would make promises, but then steal from her mother’s purse, or take the housekeeping money, not to mention anything else of value that she could sell for drugs, then she’d disappear again. This time I was not going to be hoodwinked by her, so I said she could sleep in the box room. I wanted to make sure she couldn’t leave so I took my screwdriver and put a clasp and padlock on the door. All the while she was making promises: if I helped her she would straighten out and get her life back together. She promised to go back to school and sit her A levels – something I had heard many times before. She agreed to be locked in the box room for her own good, but only if I helped her.’

  Bradfield doubted Julie Ann would have agreed to be locked up.

  ‘Why the box room, and what did she want from you?’

  ‘There was less in there for her to smash up as she came off the heroin and mostly she wanted money. She told me she had been raped, was now pregnant and had been to see someone in Brixton who would give her an abortion for a hundred pounds. It was hard to believe she was telling me the truth because she looked so wasted and undernourished. However, she said I could go with her so I would know she wasn’t lying.’

  He paused and took a deep breath, still leaning forwards staring at the carpet with his hands held in front of him.

  ‘Go on, Mr Collins,’ Bradfield said, encouraging him to continue.

  ‘Well, I was shocked, but still wondered if she was telling the truth or after money. I told her that an abortion was wrong and if she had the baby then her mother and I would stand by her and help raise the child.’

  His voice cracked as he continued and slowly explained how Julie held his hand, kissing it and promising to be everything he had ever wanted. Tears trickled down the side of his nose. He described how he had sat with her in the box room until she had fallen asleep exhausted. He had then padlocked her in the room before going downstairs.

  ‘About an hour later I went to see how she was and ask her if she wanted something to eat. I removed the padlock, went in and realized what a fool I’d been.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I should have checked the rucksack she had with her, but with all the stress I didn’t think to. She was lying on the bed and I saw the syringe on the floor. She must have heard me coming, but it was as if she didn’t care she was so high. I couldn’t believe it. I felt sick and angry with myself for trusting her again.’

  He became agitated, wringing his hands as he described how he got a glass of water and threw it in her face before shaking her shoulders to rouse her.

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I told her how disgusted I was and said that if she really was pregnant what she was doing was appalling and that her baby would be born a heroin addict just like her. She spat at me, screaming that she didn’t care as she didn’t want the baby. Then she said that it was a black bastard who had raped her.’

  Jane could see that Mr Collins was becoming highly emotional, but there was also anger in his eyes as he recounted what happened. He said that he had been afraid that he would lose control, so he had grabbed her rucksack and the syringe and then locked the door.

  ‘She started kicking and screaming to be let out, but I had to keep her in there. I waited for what seemed like ages until she stopped and then I unlocked the door. She came at me in a fury, lashing out and hitting me. In a panic I ran down the stairs to call the police and picked up the phone, but she ripped the line from the socket and went for me again. It was hard for me to believe that she could be so violent, so terribly angry.’ He searched in his trouser pocket, brought out a handkerchief, blew his nose and started crying.

  ‘Why didn’t you run outside and call for help?’

  ‘I don’t know. On impulse I followed her into the kitchen where she started pulling all the drawers out looking for the housekeeping money. I was worried she’d find it so I tried to drag her away, but she pushed me bac
kwards kicking out at me with such terrible anger and hatred it really frightened me. I stumbled backwards and she pulled open another drawer, found an envelope, took it out and opened it. I shouted at her to put it back and leave the house but—’

  Bradfield put up his hand to stop him. ‘It can’t have been that much if it was just housekeeping, so why didn’t you let her take it and leave? Then you could have called the police without being scared.’

  ‘No, no, you don’t understand. It was my staff’s weekly wages. I couldn’t just let her take it.’ He began to cry even more.

  ‘Why on earth do you keep such a large sum of money in the house?’ Bradfield asked in surprise. Mr Collins told him that he always got the cash from the bank on a Thursday and made up the pay packets on the Friday morning at work, but he usually took the money back to the office and locked it in the safe.

  Bradfield asked why he hadn’t done so this particular Thursday and Collins seemed exasperated, explaining that he’d been to the bank before he went to the golf club and had come from the bank to change into his golf clothes and collect his clubs.

  ‘I tucked it away in the kitchen drawer and hadn’t thought any more about it because after her call I had been in a hurry to collect her.’

  ‘Did Julie Ann know you always went to the bank on a Thursday? I mean could she have called you at your office that day because she knew you’d have money?’

  Collins’ body sagged as he lifted his hands and shrugged.

  ‘Yes, she could very well have remembered, but she had not been to the office more than a couple of times and a good few years ago.’

  ‘So you say she attacked you and then you ran down the stairs?’

  ‘Yes, then she was in the kitchen pulling out the drawers, and I honestly had not thought about it until I saw her find the envelope. She tried to leave with the money, but I couldn’t let her take it as my staff would have nothing to live on for the week. I tried to stop her leaving but she pushed past me into the hallway.’ He started to sob and looked up at Bradfield. ‘I didn’t mean to do it, I swear I didn’t, they were just there.’

  ‘What was there?’ Bradfield asked.