Hidden Killers

by Lynda La Plante

  “I was pretty shaken up at the time, but I’m fine now.”

  “Listen, you did a good job. I’d have been shitting myself if I were in your shoes . . . even more so if he’d pulled the knife to my throat.”

  Jane joked, “He technically had two offensive weapons . . .”

  Edwards looked puzzled.

  “The knife . . . and his erect penis!”

  Edwards laughed.

  “You’d make a good detective, Jane . . . Go on, bugger off and get some kip. Don’t walk back or you might get arrested as a Tom! Get the night shift to drop you off at the section house.”

  Jane suddenly realized that she’d forgotten to tell Harris that DI Moran had said she could start her CID attachment as from now. She wished Moran was still there to tell Harris himself. She considered just not telling him, but knew that would probably annoy him even more. She headed back to the desk to find Harris.

  Harris frowned at her. “When I said get cleaned up, I meant the clothes as well . . . your attire is totally inappropriate in the station and far too revealing.”

  Jane turned to leave. She was feeling really tired and certainly not in the mood for any of his caustic remarks.

  “Hang on, hang on, Tennison . . . what did you want?”

  “It was about my CID attachment, but it doesn’t matter now.”

  “DI Moran spoke with me while I released his other prisoner. I agreed with him about your extended attachment, even though it will leave me one short on late shift for the rest of the week. That was a good arrest and you’ll learn a lot assisting Moran with the interview. I don’t always see eye to eye with him, but he’s a good and respected detective by all accounts. But for Chrissakes don’t come in wearing all that ridiculous gear . . . and pull that glittering boob tube thingy up over your tits.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.” Jane smiled, deliberately over-accentuating the action of adjusting her boob tube.

  As Edwards had advised, Jane got a ride back to the section house. Once in her bedroom she removed her wig, revealing her own hair plastered to her head. Her eyes stung as she pulled off the false eyelashes. Her split lip was now very swollen on one side, and a vivid dark bruise had spread onto her cheek. She took a long shower, relishing the hot water as there was nobody else using the communal bathroom. She washed her hair and, returning to her room, gently applied some antiseptic cream to the cut on her lip. She was totally exhausted. Looking at her shocking reflection she said to herself, “My God, I look as though I’ve just done two rounds in a boxing ring.”

  She hesitated as she recalled Moran’s rough treatment of the prisoner, and the way he had controlled the whole situation, including her. He was so different from Bradfield, the only other DCI she’d worked with, who had been a gentle giant. Moran behaved like a street fighter and Jane was unsure if she was impressed by that or not.

  It was 2 a.m. by the time she actually got into bed, and she’d have to get up in four hours. Lying curled on her side she found it hard to stop her brain churning over the events of the night.

  She went over and over in her mind the sort of questions they might ask the suspect. She realized he would probably deny everything, but knew he would go down for a few years for the attack on her. Despite her bruised face and swollen lip, she had to admit that she had enjoyed the evening’s events. The rush of adrenalin made up for the fear of being attacked and she’d liked being part of the team. Now, more than ever, Jane was determined to join the CID.

  Chapter Three

  Feeling nauseous from lack of sleep Jane went to the canteen and got a strong black coffee and a bacon sandwich, which she carried to the CID office. The office was empty, so she sat at DC Edwards’s desk and ate her breakfast.

  “That looks good.” Glancing up, she saw a dapper-looking DI Moran coming out of his office.

  “Oh sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be late on parade.”

  “You’re not . . . I’m early. And we don’t have parades in the CID, just nine to five and two to ten shifts, and a rotation of one DS and a DC on a week’s night shift. We’ve had some good news . . . Fingerprint Bureau got a match for the prisoner . . . he’s not John Allard, he’s Peter Allard, with one previous conviction for ABH in his late teens, in a pub fight. The address on his arrest sheet from back then is just up the road, in Stoke Newington. But his name isn’t shown on the current Voters’ Register.”

  “That’s good that you got him identified, sir. Maybe he’ll tell us where he lives now?”

  “I doubt it, there might be evidence at his address that he doesn’t want us to find. So that’s why I want you to visit the last known address for Peter Allard to see if the current owners knew anything about him, or where he moved to.” Moran handed her a bit of paper with Allard’s details and his last known address.

  “Will that be before or after the interview, sir?”

  “Before. If we get something positive then we can use it to put him under pressure. In the meantime, I’ve got a meeting with DCS Metcalf about Allard’s arrest.”

  Jane didn’t want to ask Moran if he was going to tell Metcalf that she had been the arresting officer. She hoped he would as it would help when it came to asking him about joining the CID.

  Moran handed Jane the log book and keys for one of the CID cars. “I haven’t been given the five-week basic driving course yet, so I’m not authorized to drive police vehicles,” she said.

  “OK, well, go and see if you can get a lift in a panda car, or go by bus.”

  Jane hurriedly finished her coffee and went to the comms room to book out a radio and ask about getting a lift to Stoke Newington. There were only two panda cars on patrol, and they were both dealing with incidents, so she caught the bus to Stoke Newington High Street and walked the rest of the way to Kynaston Road, a quiet street lined with terraced houses built after the war. After repeatedly knocking on the door of number 23 and getting no answer, Jane felt it had been a wasted journey. She posted a note through the letterbox for the occupier, giving a phone number, and asking them to contact her at Hackney CID regarding a previous occupant of the premises. Before leaving she decided to see if any of the neighbors were in. An elderly lady answered the door of one of the small terraced houses and, after she had seen her warrant card, invited Jane in.

  The narrow hall was lined with cat litter trays. The carpet looked as if it hadn’t been vacuumed for years, and was thick with balls of cat fur. Mrs. Walker introduced herself and asked Jane if she liked cats. There was little Jane could say. The pungent smell of cats was overpowering in the hall, but in the living room it was almost suffocating. There were felines perched on every possible surface, even the piano keys.

  Jane took out her notebook and perched perilously on the arm of a cat-clawed sofa. Mrs. Walker was standing next to a small, tiled fireplace. On the mantelpiece was an array of cheaply framed photographs of cats.

  “Thank you for letting me in, Mrs. Walker. I just have a few questions—nothing serious.”

  “That’s OK, dear, you ask away, and call me Eadie.”

  “Did you know the Allard family, Mrs. Walker?”

  “Eadie . . . Yes, I knew them very well. There was John and Hilda and their children Peter and Cherrie. The daughter had something wrong with her. I used to babysit when they were nippers.”

  “Do the family still live there?”

  “No, they moved out at least twelve, or more, years ago. The parents divorced and sold up . . . I don’t know where they went, or where the children moved to.”

  “Mrs. Wal . . . I mean Eadie, do you know what job Peter did?”

  “Oh, he was about eighteen when they left. He was very nice and bought me some flowers when he came to say goodbye. He was such a lovely handsome boy. I was so surprised when he got in a bit of bother for punching a lad in a pub, but his mum and dad said it was in self-defense. He used to do all kinds of different jobs, anything so he could pay his way really. I remember laughing when he was a nipper as I’d ask what he wante
d to be when he grew up and he said that he wanted to be a cabbie, like his dad. He loved going out with his dad in the taxi. I think the divorce upset him . . . but that’s life for ya, innit?”

  “Thank you . . . you’ve been very helpful.”

  “That’s all right, love. You get to my age an’ yer glad of a bit of company. Is Peter in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, we just need to trace him about something. Thank you for your time.”

  Jane left the house and, turning left at the end of the street, called into Stoke Newington Police Station, which was a ten-minute walk away, unaware that the back of her jacket and skirt were covered in cat hairs. She showed her warrant card to a PC at the front counter and asked if she could use a phone to make an urgent call regarding an investigation she was carrying out for DI Moran of Hackney CID. The officer showed her the way to the PCs’ writing room and said she could use the phone in there. Jane called the Public Carriage Office at Penton Street, Islington and asked if they had a licensed cab driver under the name of Peter Allard. The lady at the cab office replied that she was very busy, but would do her best to look in their card index within the next hour. Jane gave her the phone number of the comms room at Hackney and asked her to leave the details with them.

  Jane then spoke to Hackney and explained that she was expecting an important call from the Public Carriage Office and asked if they could radio the result straight through to her when it came. Satisfied that she’d covered all bases, she thanked the PC at the front counter and caught the bus back to Hackney, but rather than going straight to the station she decided to return to the scene where she had been attacked, as she wanted to have a proper look at it in daylight.

  It was hard to get a clear view from the spot where Allard pounced on her, because of the trees. But from what she could see there were no black cabs parked up in London Fields’ east or west side. Jane decided to walk down Martello Street, following the path of the main railway line above it, as it had quiet side roads that ran underneath the arches.

  As she turned left into Lamb Lane Jane noticed a black cab parked up by the junction with Mentmore Terrace. She stopped to take a closer look and jotted down the license number on the rear of the cab. As she was doing so a man dressed in greasy overalls, carrying a wrench, approached her.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No, I’m just checking something . . . is this your cab?”

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked, with an inquisitive stare.

  Jane had totally forgotten she was in plain clothes and quickly took her warrant card out to show the man.

  “I’m a mechanic at the garage. This cab is one we’re repairing,” he explained politely, pointing to the large dent and scratches above the rear offside wheel arch.

  It transpired that around the corner in Mentmore Terrace, out of Jane’s view, there was a cab repair garage with a number of taxis parked up that were booked in for mechanical or bodywork repairs. Wondering if any of the parked up cabs weren’t there to be repaired Jane asked if the mechanic had a record of which cabs he was working on. The mechanic led her into the office and handed her a list attached to a clipboard. The list had the black cab license numbers of all the vehicles that were being booked in at the garage. Jane began checking the cabs in the road until she discovered one that was not on the list.

  With a mounting sense of excitement, Jane radioed through to the station. The information she was waiting for had been received but the comms operator had been busy and had forgotten to contact her. According to records at the PCO a Peter Allard was a registered cab driver and his license number was 7614, with an address in Walthamstow. Jane told the comms officer that the license number matched a cab she was looking at and that the owner, Peter Allard, was currently in custody at Hackney.

  “Allard had a car key on him which was put in the prisoner’s property locker in the charge room. Can you get the key booked out and brought down to me so I can see if it fits the cab, and inform DI Moran? Over.”

  “I’ll get DI Moran’s approval first. He may want to send a driver down with the key to bring the suspect vehicle to the station yard.”

  Jane waited anxiously, pacing the pavement next to the parked cab, but it wasn’t long before the reply came that DI Moran wanted the vehicle brought to the station for examination by a SOCO. The comms officer told her that as soon as the area car driver had finished the call he was on he’d collect Allard’s car key and be with her as quickly as he could.

  Jane kept checking her watch every five minutes. Nearly half an hour had passed and she was anxious to get back to the station, fearing that DI Moran may start interviewing Peter Allard with another detective. Eventually an officer arrived. The key fitted and he towed the cab to Hackney while Jane was driven back to the station in a patrol car. She hurried to the CID office and brought Moran up to speed with the latest developments.

  “Bloody good work, Tennison. Job well done . . . but I should have been informed about the developments as soon as you spoke with the Allards’ old neighbor.” He paused. “I’m not sure if you realize, but you’ve got cat hairs all over the back of your suit . . .”

  “Sorry, sir.” Jane brushed self-consciously at the fluff covering her skirt.

  Having just returned from the lab DC Edwards joined them and reported that Paul Lawrence, the lab liaison sergeant, would let Moran know as soon as they got any positive results.

  “He’s the best lab sergeant in the force. Brilliant eye for detail, so we’re lucky to have him working on this for us,” Moran said as he walked out.

  Jane nodded in agreement. “DCI Bradfield said the same thing about him.” The recollection of Bradfield filled her with momentary pain.

  Edwards sensed her reaction and patted Jane’s shoulder gently, which she acknowledged with a small smile.

  “It’s been hard to adjust to working alongside someone like Moran . . . he’s very different. He doesn’t play rugby . . . we all used to be in the police rugby team and have a few jars afterward, and a laugh. Have you seen Spencer Gibbs at all?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “For the first few months after it happened the station was so quiet . . . Nobody wanted to talk about it. Gibbs used to be singing in the showers all the time, and playing with his rock band . . . I’ve phoned him a few times, and written to him, but I’ve had nothing back.”

  “I remember you emulating him, the way you used to slap the suspects around.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . . Gibbs was a bit of a naughty boy, but he was a good cop. It’s not the done thing now. I leave that to the boss.”

  Moran walked back in.

  “Leave what to the boss, Edwards?”

  “Er, to get the forensic results from DS Lawrence, sir.”

  “Bollocks to that. You two, get SOCO and go over that cab with a fine tooth comb. While you’re doing that I’m going to type up a search warrant for the suspect’s address, and I want you, Edwards, to take it to the magistrate for approval and signature.”

  “Sorry, guv . . . Do you want me to do the cab over, or go to the magistrate?”

  “For Chrissakes, Brian, get on and do both of them!”

  The cab at the station yard was as clean as a whistle inside, but they found a fresh shirt and jeans in a plastic bag on the back seat. Underneath the driver’s seat was a cabbie’s cash bag with money in it, and in the glove compartment was a wallet containing money and a photograph of two young children with a pretty, dark-haired oriental woman. There was also a set of house keys and a cab driver’s green badge, with a license number on it that matched the one they had been given by the PCO for Peter Allard. Jane and Edwards left the SOCO to take fiber tapings from the driver’s seat, although he said that he didn’t hold out much hope as the vehicle had obviously been carefully cleaned.

  On their return to the station they updated Moran and showed him what they had recovered from the cab. Moran suspected that Allard ha
d probably been using the cab as a cover to travel to and from the scenes of his attacks, on the basis that police officers rarely stop black cabs. He decided that he wanted to interview Allard before they visited his home address, which they now knew was 45 Grove Road, Walthamstow. Jane asked Moran if he thought the suspect would keep silent as he knew none of the victims could identify him because he wore a stocking mask.

  “Admittedly with the others there is only circumstantial evidence due to the similarity in the attacks . . . but now I’ve got some leverage on him.”

  “What leverage, sir?” Jane asked.

  “You’ll find out during the interview, darlin’ . . . so let’s get cracking.”

  Jane and DC Edwards went down the stone-flagged corridor to the basement level where the cells were situated. The duty officer unlocked Allard’s cell. Allard seemed very depressed and was unable to make eye contact, especially with Jane. As he held his wrists out to the duty officer to be handcuffed he turned and, for the first time, looked directly at Jane. He spoke softly.

  “I am so sorry for what I did . . . I feel very ashamed . . .”

  Surprised, Jane nodded. Edwards led Allard out of his cell, along the corridor and up the narrow concrete steps to DI Moran’s office on the first floor.

  Moran got straight to the point and asked Allard if he was responsible for the recent spate of indecent assaults in London Fields and Victoria Park. Allard remained head bowed and flatly denied involvement in any assaults of any kind, even the one on “her,” he stated, pointing to Jane. He claimed that he heard the detectives saying at the time that they didn’t see what had happened between him and the woman because their view was blocked by the trees.

  Jane couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Allard had just apologized to her, and now here he was shamefacedly denying it to Moran. She watched, incredulous, as he insisted that Jane was lying.

  Allard stated that the male detectives believed her lie, and that they had planted a knife on him. Moran sat back and stared into Allard’s dark, angry eyes.