Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims

by Lynda La Plante

  Otley pinched the hooked tip of his nose and descended into the gloom of the stairwell.

  “I thought it might be nice to eat in the room tonight,” Jake Hunter said. He was lounging in the passenger seat, one arm draped casually along the back of Tennison’s seat as she drove him to Duke’s Hotel just off St. James’s Street where his publisher had booked him a suite. A cheroot dangled from his lips. He had the expansive air of an actor winding down after a performance. But then he always felt easy in the company of Jane Tennison. She felt easy with him too, though sometimes she wondered why the hell she should.

  It had been ten years since his last trip over here. That was when they first met, and when they had their affair that became a long-term relationship. Long term in the sense of the seven months and fourteen days they had lived together in Jane’s Chiswick flat. As a Detective Sergeant with the Lambeth Met, she had attended a course at the Bramshill Officer Training College where Jake was visiting lecturer. She was unattached, and so was he. Drinks in the bar one evening plus an almost instantaneous mutual attraction had led, naturally and inevitably, to their becoming lovers. At thirty-four years of age she was no starry-eyed innocent virgin. Jake, two years older, had been married in his twenties; his wife had died in a car crash before they had celebrated their first anniversary. But when they embarked on their affair, neither of them had realized what they were getting into. And when they did, it was too late to do anything about it.

  Sooner or later, however, an awkward fact had to be faced. Jake was due to return to the States, to take up his consultative post with the New York Police Pathology and Forensic Research Unit. Jane was in line for promotion to Detective Inspector—something she had been fighting tooth and nail for—and had the chance of taking charge at the Reading Rape Centre. There was no middle way, for either of them. They were both committed to their careers, and both deeply in love. Impossible to reconcile the two. Jake had gone home, Jane had got her promotion and moved to Reading.

  Since then, nothing much. Postcards, a few telephone calls, one birthday card—from her, carefully worded, to his office. End of story, until three weeks ago, when the flame had been rekindled.

  Tennison was aware of his scrutiny, gentle, rather amused, and concentrated all the more on her driving.

  “I thought it went really well tonight,” Jake said. Not bragging, just a simple statement of fact. “Better than last Tuesday. It felt more relaxed, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, you always impress me,” Tennison said, with just a touch of mockery, though it was true, he always did. “How long will you be away?”

  “Two weeks.” His publisher had fixed up nine speaking engagements and double that number of signing sessions from Brighton to Edinburgh; a punishing schedule. “You are coming with me?”

  Tennison hesitated. Then she gave a firm shake of the head. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m starting this new job …”

  “Aahhh …” Jake blew smoke at the windshield, nodding sagely. He might have expected this. In fact he had. “Are we still going back to the hotel?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

  “Yes,” Tennison said evenly, without a pause. “Just for a drink.”

  Mike Chow, the senior pathologist, and his three assistants in their long green plastic aprons and white Wellington boots prepared the corpse for the autopsy. Lying on the stainless steel table, the body had been straightened to a more natural position. The blackened sticks of arms rested straight by its sides, the legs had been uncurled from their defensive fetal crouch.

  “Okay,” Mike Chow said, poking at the charred scraps of fabric with a steel spatula, “we’ll get the clothes cut off and see what’s left.”

  A police photographer moved around the table, taking flash shots from every angle. One of the assistants began to snip away, delicately stripping off the burnt clothing with his gloved fingers.

  The pathologist leaned over, taking a close look at the corpse’s head. A few singed strands of reddish-auburn hair could be seen still clinging to the gray knob of skull. Impossible to tell, though, whether it was male or female.

  Mike Chow picked up his clipboard, flicked over a page. He blinked through his glasses. “Could be a …” A frown clouded his face as he turned to stare at the body. “Vera stroke Vernon Reynolds. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  They’d eaten a late supper, suprisingly good by hotel standards, in Jake’s suite. A bottle of vintage Chateau-neuf-du-Pape to go with it, and two large brandies with their coffees. Jake was sprawled on the bed, vest undone, his tie pulled loose from his unbuttoned collar. He still wore his fancy cowhide boots, which far from detracting from it, added to his aura of total well-being.

  Tennison stood at the small table next to the window, leafing through one of the twenty copies of Jake’s book stacked on it. There was a bookstore display unit with a blowup of the dust jacket and several glossy photographs of Jake at his most seriously thoughtful. One of these took up the whole back cover of the book Tennison was holding.

  She read the blurb inside the jacket and glanced up, smiling.

  “You’ve taken four years off your age!”

  Jake lazily swung his legs down and got up, flexing his shoulders. He wasn’t abashed. “Serial killers are big business.” His voice was a little slurred at the edges as he made a flippant gesture toward the pile of books. “Help yourself. Well, they were big business—last year! I think I missed the gravy train.” He gave her a look from under his sun-bleached eyebrows. “Story of my life.”

  “Can I?” Tennison asked, holding up the book.

  “One? Just one?” Jake came across and picked up a pen. “Take one, you get eight complimentary copies,” he threatened, waggling the pen.

  Tennison rested her arm on his shoulder as he leaned over to write. She smiled as she read the dedication. Very personal, but not so intimate—or incriminating—that she couldn’t proudly show it off to a close friend or two. She gave him a hug.

  “Thank you.”

  Jake took her hand in both of his. “Why don’t you come with me?” The wine and brandy may have gone to his head, but she knew he was serious, not just fooling around.

  “I don’t want to get hurt again,” Tennison said quietly.

  “Again? That doesn’t make sense.”

  She swallowed. “Jake, there wasn’t anyone else before … you know.” Ten years on, the memory hadn’t faded, though she had exorcised the pain, or so she thought. “Just it was going too fast. It was such a big decision.”

  “Then why didn’t you talk it through with me?”

  “Because if I had, you would have made the decision for me.”

  He raised an eyebrow, watching her intently. “Would that have been so bad?”

  “There’s no point in discussing it now,” Tennison said, withdrawing her hand. She turned away.

  “There might not be for you, but there is for me. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to have kids with you, you know that.” His voice rock steady now, befuddlement swept away. “Don’t you think I deserved more than a kiss-off phone call … ‘I’m sorry, Jake, it’s not going to work.’ ” He gave a slow, sad shake of the head. “You never gave it a chance.”

  Tennison spun around. She said in a tone of sharp accusation, “I didn’t know you wouldn’t come back.”

  “What did you expect me to do? Come running after you?” He spread his hands helplessly. “You said it was over, then you hung up on me. Now you’re doing the same thing. What are you so afraid of?”

  “This is a bit ridiculous.” Tennison clenched her fists impotently. If only she’d acted sensibly, like the mature woman she was, and stayed well away. If only she didn’t still fancy him like crazy. “It was all a long time ago, and it isn’t the same now.” If only! “I shouldn’t have started seeing you again …”

  “So why did you come tonight?” Jake asked softly.

  “Maybe I just couldn’t stay away from you,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

&n
bsp; “Just stay tonight,” Jake said, softer still. “Then I’ll go on my tour, you go …” He gestured.

  “Vice. I’m heading a Vice Squad.” Tennison was looking anywhere but at Jake, yet she was keenly aware of his approach. Her stomach muscles were knotted with tension. His fingers gently touched her shoulder, turned her toward him. Slowly he put his arms around her and drew her close. His warmth, his nearness, the musky odor of his aftershave mingled with tobacco smoke, took her breath away. She made no attempt to resist.

  “I mustn’t,” she said, her gray-green eyes looking up directly into his. He touched her cheek. “I mustn’t.”

  2

  Already, before 9:30 A.M., Commander Chiswick had twice tried to get through to Superintendent Halliday, and no joy. This had better be third time lucky. Tall but rather stooped, with receding gray hair, Chiswick stood at the window of his ninth floor office at New Scotland Yard, phone in hand, gazing out across Victoria Embankment toward the Thames, barely a ripple on its sluggish, iron-gray surface. A mass of low dark cloud threatened the rain that the morning’s forecast had said was imminent.

  He straightened up and his eyes flicked into hard focus as Halliday, finally, came on the line.

  “It’s public.” Chiswick’s tone was clipped. “John Kennington’s formal resignation accepted due to ill health. That’s it. No option, so I’ve heard—case dismissed.” He listened, breathing heavily with irritation. “I’ve only just been told. I’ll see you there, why not? We’ll have to go, otherwise it’ll look suspicious …”

  He glanced sharply over his shoulder as his personal assistant tapped at the door and came in, a sheaf of opened mail in her hand.

  “Good,” Chiswick said impatiently into the phone. “I’d better be on my way over to you now. Your new DCI should be there any minute.”

  He banged the receiver down and headed for the door. His assistant held up the mail, but he walked on, ignoring her. His gruff voice floated back as he went out.

  “Call my wife. I have a dinner tonight. Ask her to send over my dinner suit.”

  His assistant opened her mouth to remind him of something, but too late, he was gone.

  When he’d worked with the Murder Squad at Southampton Row station, Bill Otley was known to everyone as “Skipper.” The name traveled with him when he transferred to Vice at the Soho Division on Broadwick Street. One of the longest-serving officers on the Metropolitan Force, yet still a lowly sergeant, his personal problems, his bolshie attitude, but even more his solitary drinking had held him back. His wife Ellen had died of cancer of the stomach eight years earlier. They’d always wanted children, never been able to have them. His marriage had been very happy, and since her death it seemed as though all warmth and light and joy had been wrung out of Skipper Bill Otley. He lived alone in a small terraced house in the East End, shunning emotional entanglements. The job, and nothing but the job, held him together, gave some meaning to what was otherwise a pointless existence. Without it he wouldn’t have thought twice about sticking his head in the gas oven.

  Now and then the notion still occasionally beckoned, like a smiling seductress, usually when the moon was full or Chelsea had lost at home.

  Leaning back in his swivel chair, a styrofoam cup of coffee with two sugars on the desk by his elbow, Otley jerked his leg, giving the metal wastebasket a kick that clanged like a gong. Everybody looked around. The full complement of Vice Squad officers was here, ten of them male, and five women. The WPCs acted as administrative support staff, as was usual in the chauvinist dinosaur of an institution that was the British police force.

  “We supposed to sit here all morning?” Otley demanded with a sneer. The team was gathered to be formally introduced to their new DCI, Jane Tennison. Five minutes to ten and no Tennison. Otley was pissed-off, so of course he had to let everyone know it.

  Inspector Larry Hall walked by, cuffed Otley on the back of the head. Hall had a round, smooth-skinned face and large soft brown eyes, and to offset this babyish appearance he went in for sharp suits and snazzy ties, a different tie every day it seemed. He was also prematurely balding, so what hair he had was cropped close to the scalp to minimize the contrast.

  He addressed the room. “Right, everybody, I suggest we give it another five”—ignoring Otley’s scowl—“and get on with the day’s schedule. We need an I.D. on the body found in the burned-out flat last night.”

  “Voluptuous Vera rents it.” Otley gave Hall a snide grin. “But it wasn’t her. It was a kid aged between seventeen and twenty.”

  “Working overtime, are we?” Hall ribbed him. But it wasn’t overtime to Otley, as everybody knew. He was on the case day and night; probably dreamt about the job too.

  “I wouldn’t say she’s overeager to get started,” Otley came back, always having the last word. Turning the knife in Tennison gave him special satisfaction. He’d never liked the ball-breaking bitch when they’d worked together on the Marlow murder case at Southampton Row, and nothing had changed, he was bloody certain of that.

  He finished his coffee at a gulp, and instead of hanging around waiting like the other prats, scooted off to the morgue, a couple of blocks and ten minutes’ brisk walk away, north of Oxford Street.

  Mike Chow was in the sluice room, removing his mask and gloves. He dropped the soot-blackened gloves in the incinerator and was filling the bowl with hot water when Otley put his head around the door.

  “What you got on the barbecued lad?”

  “I’ll have to do more tests, but he had a nasty crack over his skull.” The pathologist looked over the top of his rimless spectacles. “Legs and one arm third-degree burns, heat lacerations, rest of the body done to a crisp.”

  Otley tilted his head, indicating he’d like to take a gander. Nodding, Mike Chow wiped his hands on a towel and led him through into the lab. He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves.

  “We’ve got an elevated carboxyhemoglobin—blood pink owing to high level of same.”

  Otley peered at the remains of the skull on a metal tray on the lab bench. He then took a long look at the illuminated skull and dental X rays in the light box on the wall. Glancing over his shoulder, mouth pulled down at the corners, he gave Mike Chow his famous impression of a sardonic, world-weary hound dog. “Bloody hell … looks like someone took a hatchet to him!”

  Shit and corruption! First day in her new posting and she was over an hour late. After spending the night at the hotel she hadn’t arrived back at her flat till nearly ten. She’d freshened up, grabbed her briefcase, and battled with the traffic. Even the Commander had beaten her to it. He was waiting to show her around, make the introductions, though fortunately he seemed too preoccupied with something else to show any displeasure.

  Tennison tried to keep pace with Chiswick as he strode along the main corridor, shrugging out of her raincoat and trying not to get her feet caught up in her briefcase.

  “Bomb scare, so all the traffic was diverted, and then my battery ran low, so I …” It sounded pathetic and she knew it. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Chiswick didn’t appear to be even listening. He pointed to a pair of double doors with frosted panes, not breaking his stride. He seemed to be in one hell of a hurry. “That’s the Squad section office. You have a good hard-working team assigned to you.”

  Tennison nodded breathlessly.

  He turned a handle, pushed open a door to what Tennison first took to be the cleaners’ broom closet. Bare wooden desk, one metal-frame chair, dusty bookshelves, three filing cabinets, a small plastic vase with a wilting flower.

  “If you want to settle yourself in …” Chiswick was already moving back out, leaving her standing there on the carpetless floor. “I’ll see if Superintendent Halliday has made arrangements. He’s right next door.” The Commander pointed to the wall, painted a mixture of old mustard and nicotine.

  He went out and closed the door.

  Tennison dumped her briefcase on the desk, sending up a cloud of dust. There was an odor she couldn�
��t identify. Dead cat maybe. A rickety blind covered the window. She raised it, hoping for some light and space. It rattled up and she stared out at a blank brick wall.

  She turned and said, “Come in,” at a tap on the door. There was a scuffling sound. With a sigh, Tennison went to the door and opened it to find a red-faced uniformed policewoman weighed under a stack of files and ring binders. Tennison stood aside and watched as the pudgy, rather plain girl with short dark hair staggered in and deposited the files on the desk, sending up more dust.

  “You are?”

  “WPC Hastings. Norma. I was instructed to bring these to you.”

  No “ma’am.” Were things that casual around here, or just plain slack?

  Tennison folded her arms. Take it slow and easy, don’t jump the gun. “Do you have a listing of all the officers on the squad?”

  Sweating and flustered, WPC Hastings frowned. “Didn’t you get one this morning?” She had large, square teeth with a gap in the middle.

  “I’ve just got here,” Tennison said, breathing evenly, trying not to get irritated, though she already was. “If you could do that straightaway, and arrange for everyone to gather in the main office.”

  “Most of them are out.” Norma shrugged. “Would you like a coffee?”

  “No, just the list,” Tennison said patiently.

  The girl went off. Tennison gazed around at the four walls. This had to be a joke. This wasn’t April 1st, was it? She looked through the files, then tried the top drawer of the desk. It came out four inches and stuck. She tried the next one down and that stuck after only two. She kicked it shut, making her big toe sting, and the air blue. What kind of stinking shit-hole was this?

  Superintendent Halliday was a neat, fastidious-looking man with short fair hair and pale blue eyes fringed by blond lashes. Not puny, exactly—he was nearly six feet tall with bony shoulders that stretched the fabric of his dark gray suit—but not all that robust either, according to Tennison’s first impression. From the moment she entered his large, spacious, nicely decorated corner office (right next door to her rabbit hutch!) he kept glancing at the gold Rolex on his freckled wrist. She hadn’t expected the welcome mat, but at least he might have shown her the courtesy due a high-ranking officer who was about to take over the Vice Squad. Damn well would have too, Tennison reckoned, if only she’d been a man.