Prime Suspect (Prime Suspect (Harper))

by Lynda La Plante

  “Right, you can see the similarities of these marks. We got a DNA match on George Marlow’s sperm with the blood samples from when he went down for rape, but that’s no help with Della. It also doesn’t help that he admitted having sex with Karen, and gave a very plausible reason, which seems to check out, for the spot of Karen’s blood on his sleeve. We’re sure his car’s the key; find that and I reckon we’ve got ’im. So keep at it.”

  He moved on to the photos of the bodies. “The clearest evidence linking the girls, apart from the marks on the arms, is the way their ’ands were tied. Not the rope itself, but the knots.”

  “Ah, knot the rope, eh, Sarge?” Burkin put in, still lisping.

  Otley gave him the finger and replied, “Yeah, very funny … The knots are the same, but any boy scout could tie ’em. Now it’s your turn, Inspector …”

  Tennison entered the room, munching a packet of crisps. Burkin waited while she sat down, then picked up from Otley.

  “The sack that covered Della Mornay’s body was the usual type of hessian, no markings, but there were traces of sump oil on it. There was also sump oil found on Karen’s skirt. It doesn’t mean a lot, Karen could have got it off her own car.” He nodded to Tennison. “All yours,” and sat down.

  She crunched the last few crisps and screwed the bag up, tossing it at the wastepaper basket and missing. As she bent to retrieve it they all saw the edge of pink lace. Otley, who never missed a trick, pursed his lips and crossed his legs like an old queen.

  “Karen didn’t put up much of a struggle,” Tennison began, spitting a piece of crisp onto her jacket and brushing it off. “Her nails were short, clean, no skin or blood beneath them, but her hands had been scrubbed with something similar to the kind of brush used on suede shoes. Gimme Della’s …”

  Otley passed her a blow-up of Della’s hands and she put it up beside the others. “I asked for this because you can see scratch marks on the backs of the hands and fingers. Now, Della did fight, and her nails, unlike Karen’s, were long and false. She lost them from the thumb, index and little fingers of her right hand.”

  Burkin asked, “Did Marlow have any scratches on him when he was stripped?”

  “No, he didn’t. George Marlow is still the prime suspect, but we have no evidence to put him in that efficiency, no eye witness to link him with either Karen or Della, no mention of him in Della’s diary. The list of what we don’t have is endless. But if Marlow killed Della before he killed Karen, then he knew her room was empty. He might even have known that the landlady was away, probably hoped that Karen’s body wouldn’t be found for weeks. His mistake there was in leaving the light on. Mornay’s handbag was in her room, but there were no keys.”

  Always ready to needle her, Otley piped up, “That reminds me, ma’am—handbags. We got a good selection an’ they’re still comin’ in; blue ones, green ones, big ’uns an’ little ’uns. What d’you want me to do with ’em?”

  Tennison responded quite calmly, considering. “Get one of her flatmates in, let her go over them to save time. Right, the good news is, I’m going home. Sergeant Otley will now tell you the bad news.”

  As she left the room, she could hear the moan that went up in response to the bad news; all weekend leave was cancelled.

  “All leave, that is, apart from ’er own. We got to check through all that gear from the bleedin’ paint factory, an’ there’s a lot. It’s a wonder they ’aven’t computerized their salesmen’s bowel movements … Get to it!”

  When he went to Superintendent Kernan’s office later that evening, Otley found him sitting at his desk, writing memos. Kernan pushed his work aside and poured Otley a large Scotch.

  Otley sat down, took a swig and sighed. “We’re gettin’ nowhere, guv, we’ve ’ad nothing for days now,” he said bitterly. “It’s demoralizing, an’ it’s takin’ good men off the streets.”

  “Most of them have been on the streets, and we’ve still got nowhere,” Kernan replied. “But now she’s digging up unsolved murder cases on Marlow’s sales routes. He covered the Manchester area, Rochdale, Burnley, Oldham.”

  Otley shook his head in disgust and opened his mouth to speak, but Kernan wouldn’t let him.

  “And I’ve OKed it, so cool off, Bill. I know what you’re after, but unless there’s good reason for kicking her off the case, she stays put.”

  “It’s because she’s a woman, isn’t it? If it’d been any of my lads that done that cock-up on telly, given out Marlow’s registration number … You know he never reported it stolen! There’s no report in the log, and I heard his brief was in here creating about it …”

  Pissed off with Otley’s attitude, Kernan cut him short. “Records had the report all the time, Bill. It was misfiled. She’s off the hook, and so am I.” He paused to let it sink in and wagged a warning finger. “Bill, a word of advice. Make it your business to get on with her.”

  Otley downed his whisky and stood up. “That an order?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  Kernan didn’t reply and he walked to the door, stopped with his back to the Super. “John Shefford was the best friend I ever ’ad. When my wife died, he pulled me through. I miss him.”

  Kernan said gently, “We all do, Bill.”

  Otley’s back was rigid as he replied, “Good night, sir, an’ thanks for the drink.”

  Outside the office, Otley stopped and shook out his old mackintosh, folded it neatly over his arm. Jesus Christ, Otley, where the fuck did you get that raincoat, when you were demobbed? I’ll start a whip-round, get you a decent one, fancy one of those Aussie draped jobs? He could hear Shefford’s voice as if it were yesterday and he ached with grief. He missed his friend more than he could ever put into words, especially to men like Kernan.

  Maureen Havers tumbled through the double doors, carrying a vast stack of files, and gave him a glum smile.

  “You seen what’s coming in? We need a new trestle table for this lot … I thought you were on nine to three, Skipper? Haven’t you got a home to go to?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he offered to give her a hand, and as they walked along the corridor he said casually, “Do me a favor, would you, Maureen? If anything comes in from Oldham, let me have a shufti first, OK?”

  “Sure! You got relatives up there? You know, I was almost transferred to Manchester, but I failed my driving test …”

  They passed through the second set of swing doors and suddenly Otley felt better, because he had something to do. He was off-duty, but had nowhere to go, not now John Shefford was gone.

  It was a struggle for Jane Tennison to open the front door. The files she carried were slipping out of her arms, and she dropped her briefcase to save them. When she finally made it into the hall she shut the door behind her and leaned against it, exhausted but glad to be home.

  Joey’s voice wailed from the spare bedroom, “Nooo-o-o-o! Daddy, don’t go!”

  “OK, Joe, just one more story,” Peter replied patiently.

  Grateful that the door was closed, Jane tiptoed past it and into her own bedroom. She was in bed before Peter had finished the last story.

  “And then, what do you suppose he did then?”

  Silence. Peter peered at his son in the dim light of the Anglepoise lamp; he was asleep at last. He tucked the duvet around Joey’s shoulders and sat for a moment, staring at the gleam of his ash blond hair and the long blond lashes lying on his pale cheeks. He loved the boy so much, if only Marianne … But he mustn’t think like that, the past was done, buried.

  Sitting in the semi-darkness, he was unable to stop himself going over and over it in his mind; the anger and hatred, the terrible things that were said, the dragging sense of loss … and the last time he had seen Marianne alone. She was so flippant, sometimes he could strangle her … He knew he could never let it rest until she told him the truth. She was pregnant again and, from Peter’s calculations, he knew that he could be the baby’s father.

  Jane was asleep as soon as her head touched th
e pillow. When Peter came to bed, needing her, needing someone, he found her flat out, snoring lightly. Suddenly angry, he threw his dressing-gown off, climbed in beside her and thumped his pillow.

  She shot up, blinking in panic, then collapsed with a moan. With her eyes still closed, she mumbled, “Whassa-matter with you?”

  “Every night’s the same. You’re exhausted, asleep before I’ve even cleaned my teeth …”

  She rolled towards him and opened her eyes. “I’m sorry, Pete.”

  “You make me feel guilty if I so much as touch you. We haven’t made love for … I dunno how long, I hardly see you. And when I do see you, you’re always knackered. Our relationship stinks!”

  Tentatively, Jane put out a hand and stroked his chest. “I love you.”

  “You do? But if this—” he lifted her pillow and brought out her beeper—“If this goes off, I don’t exist! You’re always either giving someone a bollocking on the phone or buried in files.”

  He switched off his bedside light, plunging them into darkness, and lay down, not touching her. Jane giggled, “You’re right! I’m sorry, I will make more time for us… .”

  He felt her moving beside him. A moment later, her nightdress flew across the room.

  “There! Just to prove I’m not a frigid old bag …”

  Peter smiled and propped himself on one elbow, reached for her.

  “Daddy?” said a little voice. Framed in the light from the hall, Joey peered into the room. “Daddy … ?”

  Pulling the duvet over her head, Jane cracked up, with laughter. “Ignore him, he’ll go away … Go back to bed, Joey!”

  Thinking it was a game, Joey snorted with laughter and jumped on the bed, trying to pull the quilt away from her.

  “Don’t, Joey! Go back to bed! Joey!”

  He tried to climb into the bed, but Jane hung on. “Joey, will you pass me my nightdress?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have any clothes on, that’s why.”

  Peter lifted the duvet on his side. “Come on, get in …”

  As he snuggled down, Joey demanded in his piped voice, “Tell me a story, about bums and titties!”

  “Where did you learn those words?” Peter tried to sound angry, but Jane’s sniggers didn’t help.

  “At school. My mummy goes to bed without any clothes on, sometimes, but sometimes she …”

  He fell asleep mid-sentence. Peter lifted him into his arms. “I’ll just carry him back to his own bed. Jane? Jane … ?”

  All he could see was the top of her head, but he knew she was asleep. He sighed; the pair of them were out cold, but he was wide awake … Wide awake and thinking about Marianne, naked, in bed with his ex-best friend.

  8

  Maureen Havers was complaining bitterly to Sergeant Otley. It was the third Sunday she had worked in a row, and she didn’t like it. She dumped a pile of boxes on the desk.

  “These are unsolved murders from the entire Manchester area, every location visited by George Marlow since nineteen eighty-bloody-four!”

  Otley was unraveling a huge computer print-out from the paint factory. Its end trailed in a heap on the floor.

  “Ma’am needs her rest, Maureen! You got anythin’ from Oldham?”

  She pointed across the room. “It’s on your desk, Skipper. Want some coffee?”

  Otley grinned. “Do I! And keep it comin’, it looks like we got a real workload.”

  The rest of the team began to appear in dribs and drabs, looking pretty unenthusiastic about being there. Then Burkin came racing in, the only one who seemed to have any life in him. Grinning, he waved a copy of the News of the World under Otley’s nose.

  “Wait till you see this! All is avenged!”

  The two sisters didn’t resemble each other in any way. Jane, older by three years, was a nightmare in the kitchen. She had chosen woodwork at school instead of domestic science, and actually preferred M&S ready-to-serve dinners to anything she attempted herself.

  Pam, on the other hand, loved cooking. She had done a brief stint behind the counter at Boots the Chemist, then married and produced two children. Her third baby was due within the month. She was easygoing, sweet-natured and boringly happy squashed into Jane’s tiny kitchen. Sunday mornings in her household were reserved for preparing the big lunch, but she had managed to send Tony and the kids off to Hampstead Heath so she could come round and help. Yet it was Jane who was brewing the coffee, Jane who set out the cups and saucers, who had brought out the well-thumbed cookery books and was frantically searching for a suitable dish for Peter’s big dinner party. Everything Pam had so far suggested had been greeted by groans from Jane; she couldn’t attempt a roast, she’d never get the joint ready at the same time as all the vegetables, and she’d never made proper gravy in her life.

  “For Chrissakes, Pam, just something simple that looks like it’s not, easy to cook but doesn’t look like it, know what I mean? I’ve got the starters organized, just avocados with some prawns bunged in, but it’s the main course I’m worried about.”

  “How many is it for?”

  “There’ll be six of us. It’s got to be something simple, I haven’t cooked for so long I don’t think I could cope.”

  “Tell you an easy one—fresh pasta, a little cream and seasoning, then strips of smoked salmon. Plenty of good crusty bread, and fruit and cheese to follow. Are any of them vegetarians?”

  The front door banged open and Peter appeared, with the News of the World open at the center pages.

  “Are any of your friends vegetarian, Pete?”

  Ignoring her, Peter read aloud from the paper: “ ‘George Marlow opened his heart to our reporter. He wept, saying he was an innocent man, but the police are making his life a misery … ’ ”

  Jane tossed her head, thinking he was joking. “Very funny!”

  He laughed. “I’m serious! They’ve got a terrible picture of you, like something out of a horror movie. Dragon Woman!” He dodged her as she grabbed for the paper, and continued reading in a Monty Python voice. “This is the woman detective in charge of the murder investigation. To date, her only words have been ‘No comment.’ Should be at home with me, mate!”

  Jane’s next attempt to get the paper from him succeeded, but she tore it in half in the process. “Now look what you’ve done!” he teased.

  But she wasn’t listening. Her mouth hung open as she scanned the article. She screamed, “My God, they’ve got pictures of my surveillance lads!”

  Still laughing, Peter was reading over her shoulder. “ ‘Marlow states that he is being hounded by a woman with an obsession—to lock him up … ’ ”

  “It’s not bloody funny! It’s buggered everything! We can’t have any more line-ups, with his face plastered all over the papers. Not to mention the boys; I’m going to have to pull them off him now their cover’s blown!”

  She stormed out to the telephone, leaving Pam and Peter staring at each other. Pam whispered, “I think I’d better go.”

  George Marlow walked quickly up the steps of a large, detached house in Brighton and through the open front doors. A pair of glass swing doors admitted him to the hallway.

  Following the directions of the receptionist, Marlow entered a high-ceilinged, airy room with windows overlooking the sea. Several elderly people were quietly playing draughts or chess, while one or two just sat silently in armchairs, their eyes focused on a future that no one else could see.

  He knew where he would find her; alone in her wheelchair by the window, gazing out towards France. He walked silently towards her, stopped two or three feet away.

  In a low voice that could not be heard by the other residents, he began to sing, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high …”

  His mother turned in her chair, her face lit with joy. As her son kissed her gently on both cheeks, she picked up the refrain.

  “ … And don’t be afraid of the dark; at the end of the storm there’s a golden sky, and the sweet, s
ilver song of a lark …”

  Mrs. Marlow, or Doris Kelly as she used to be known, had spent the entire morning getting ready for his visit. Her make-up was perfect, her lipstick and eye shadow perhaps a trifle overdone, but she was still a beauty, retaining a youthfulness in her face that was, sadly, not mirrored in her once-perfect body. She had grown heavy, and the scarves and beads, chosen carefully to disguise the fact, didn’t help. Her tiny hands, perfectly manicured with shell-pink varnish, glittered with fake diamonds.

  “Hallo, my darling!”

  When he kissed the powdery cheek, he could feel the spikes of her mascaraed eyelashes. She smelt of sweet flowers. The big china-blue eyes roamed the room as if acknowledging the other residents’ prying eyes.

  “Take me somewhere special for lunch, George, I’m ravenous, simply ravenous. How about the Grand Hotel? Or we can have morning coffee, I’d like that. They’re so kind at the Grand.”

  He gathered her things into a carrier bag and hung it on the back of her chair, then wheeled his mother out, pausing beside gray-haired docile old women for Doris to smile and wave gaily, and elderly gentlemen who begged her to sing their favorite songs that evening.

  “Oh, we’ll have to see, Mr. Donald … Goodbye, William, see you later, Frank …”

  She loved the fact that even here she was a star. On Sunday evenings they hired a pianist, and she would sing. “The old fools love to be entertained, George, but the pianist has two left hands. Do you remember dear Mr. McReady? What an ear he had, pick up any tune … But now, without sheet music, this young man can’t play a note.”

  She sang snatches of songs as George tucked her blanket around her swollen legs, and called and waved until they reached the end of the driveway. Then she fell silent.

  “Shall we have our usual stroll along the front, work up an appetite, Ma?”

  Doris nodded, drawing her blanket closer with delicate pink-nailed fingers. George started singing again, “When you walk through a storm …” but Doris didn’t join in.

  “Come on, Ma, let’s hear you!”