“I know you’ve been asking the neighbors. I park my car outside, I don’t have a garage.”
“But your car isn’t always parked outside, George. We know you’ve got a lock-up.”
“When it’s not parked here it’s because I’m away on business. I drive—correction, I drove—for a living. Instead of all this, why don’t you just try and find my car?”
There were thuds and hammering noises from the kitchen, and the sound of crockery being moved. Moyra’s screaming voice could be heard telling Muddyman and Jones that the bottom of the percolator didn’t come off. She started yelling for George.
Tennison turned to Amson. “Tell them to keep it down out there. George, you’ve got a lock-up, we know it.”
“A lock-up? How many more times do I have to tell you? I park my car at the back of the flats!”
“We have a witness …”
“Not that old bat from next door!”
“No, a friend of yours.”
“What friend? I don’t have one left because of your crowd. Mates I worked with for years turned their backs on me! You got a friend? Great, introduce me!”
“We have a witness who stated that you told him you had a …”
“Him? Was it someone I was inside with? Yes? Don’t tell me, let me guess. It was Reg McKinney, wasn’t it?” He shook his head, laughing. “You must be desperate. Reg McKinney? He’s no friend of mine. Stung me for fifty quid when we got out. He’s a known nutter. Look at his record, in and out of institutions since he was a kid. He’s no friend of mine, I told him to take a hike.”
There was a tap on the door and Amson opened up.
“Nothin’,” said Muddyman with a shrug, “but we need a plumber.”
In a low voice, Marlow told Tennison earnestly, “I don’t have a lock-up, I don’t have a garage. If I had, maybe my motor wouldn’t have been nicked. It’s the truth!”
Suddenly anxious to get home to Peter, Tennison decided not to go back to the station to pick up her car, so Terry Amson gave her a lift home. She was very aware of the difference having a genuinely friendly face on her team made to her job. She knew she could talk to Terry and it wouldn’t go any further.
Amson was saying, “If he’s got his car stashed somewhere between Camberwell and Kilburn, we’ll find it.”
“If!” She looked at him sideways. “Terry, now you’ve met him, what do you think?”
“For real? If he’s lying, he’s one of the best I’ve ever come across.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Tonight, for the first time, I had doubts.” She pointed ahead. “It’s the second house along.”
When he had stopped the car she turned to him. “What do you think about John Shefford?”
“As a suspect? He was a crack officer, you know.”
She said sadly, “He was also in the vicinity when Karen, Della and Jeannie Sharpe were killed. We’re going to have to check him out on the two that just came in.”
“You know I’m with you on this, Jane, but there’s only so far I’m prepared to go. I’ve got a wife and four kids to support, remember.”
“I don’t like it any more than you.” She put her hand out to open the door. “Just keep it under your hat, but we’ve got to check it out. So you pull Shefford’s record sheets, first thing in the morning, OK? You want to come in for a drink?”
Amson shook his head and Tennison climbed out. “G’night!” she said as he started the engine.
Jane felt for the hall light switch, pressed it down. The flat was quiet; she dumped her briefcase and took off her coat, shouting, “Pete! Pete?”
There was no answer. She opened the kitchen door to find it clean and tidy, nothing out of place. She tried the bedroom; it was just the same.
Sighing, she unbuttoned her shirt and opened the wardrobe. One half of it was empty. She checked the chest of drawers—all Peter’s were empty! Turning away, she unzipped her skirt and let it slide to the floor, stepped out of it and walked towards the bathroom.
As she opened the door the phone rang. She let it ring, looking around to see only one toothbrush, one set of towels. The answering machine clicked into action and she waited, listening.
“Jane, it’s your mother …” Jane saw the white envelope propped against the phone and reached for it. “Didn’t you get my message this morning about Pam? Well, in case you didn’t, she’s had a girl, eight pounds seven ounces, and she’s beautiful! She was rushed into St. Stephen’s Hospital last night, I’m calling from her room …”
Jane picked up the phone as she ripped the envelope open. “Hallo, Mum! I just got home.”
Jane drove to the hospital and parked, with the unopened letter from Peter on the seat beside her. She turned the lights off and reached for the white manila envelope with her name hastily scrawled on it.
It contained one sheet of her own notepaper. Sweetheart, she read, I took on board everything you said this morning. I can’t quite deal with you, or the pressures of your work, and at the same time get myself sorted out. I am sorry to do it this way, but I think in the long run it will be for the best, for both of us. I still care for you, but I can’t see any future in our relationship. Maybe when we’ve had a few weeks apart we can meet and have a talk. Until then, take care of yourself.
It was signed simply Peter. She laid it face down on the seat and sighed, then realized that there was a postscript on the back.
I’m staying with one of my builders. When I get an address I’ll let you know where I am, but if you need me you can reach me at the yard. Then he had put in brackets: (Not Scotland Yard!).
Jane opened the door slowly, but remained sitting. Was it always going to be like this? Peter wasn’t the first, she’d never been able to keep a relationship going for more than a few months. She flicked her compact open and delved into her bag for a comb, stared at her reflection in the oval mirror for a long time. She looked a wreck, her hair needed washing and the make-up she had dashed on in a hurry that morning had long since disappeared. She studied the lines around her eyes and from her nose to her lips, the deep frown lines between her brows. She fished in her bag and brought out her lipstick, closed the mirror and ran the lipstick around her mouth without looking at it. She was so used to freshening up in a hurry that she didn’t need a mirror.
Locking the car, she walked briskly towards the bright hospital entrance. An anxious-looking woman in a wheelchair was holding an unlit cigarette. Jane smiled at her and she gave a conspiratorial grin.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a match, have you?”
“Yes, love.” Jane took a half-used book of matches from her pocket. “You keep them, and mind you don’t get cold. It’s freezing out.”
As Jane headed for the night nurse at reception, she thought to herself, So what if you’re going home to an empty flat? You’ve done that most of your adult life. By the time she reached the desk she had persuaded herself that she preferred it that way.
She gave the nurse a cheerful smile. “I’ve come to see my sister. I know it’s late …”
After signing the visitors’ book she headed towards the lifts, as directed. The woman in the wheelchair called out, “Thanks for the matches!”
“That’s all right, love. Good night, now!”
The corridor was deserted. Jane checked each room, peering through the little windows, until she found the right one. She could see Pam through the glass, holding the new baby, Tony’s arm resting lightly around her shoulders. Although it was way past their bedtime her two little boys were there too, spick and span, swarming over the bed and admiring their new little sister.
Watching them, Jane’s hand tightened on the door handle, but she found she couldn’t turn it. They formed a picture of a family in which she had no place. She turned away and walked slowly back down the corridor.
She headed automatically towards the river, needing quiet, space to think. It was an ordeal to cross the King’s Road; she found herself shrinking from the traffic, from
the faces passing her in their shiny cars; happy faces, drunken faces, all going somewhere, all with a purpose, with someone …
She found herself in Cheyne Walk, beside the water. Tonight the Thames looked like a river of oil, sluggish and smooth, and she could not shake off the feeling that dead and rotting bodies floated just beneath the surface. She had come here to celebrate a new life, but all she could see was death, and pain.
By the time she returned to the hospital, visiting hours were officially over, but she slipped along to the private section without being stopped.
The room was decked with flowers and bowls of fruit, and the baby lay asleep in her cot, but Pam’s bed was empty. This time she didn’t hesitate, she walked into the room and gazed down at the baby girl, moved the blanket gently away from her face.
Soft footsteps behind her announced Pam’s return. Jane looked up, smiling, back in control.
“Hi! Just checking she has all her fingers and toes! She’s OK? Bit of a dent in her head, though …”
Pam climbed cautiously into bed. “Her skull is still soft, it’ll go. If you’d been here earlier you’d have seen Tony and the boys. Mum’s staying until I go home.”
“I feel a bit cheap—no flowers, no fruit. But I’d just got in from work.”
Pam was still in pain. She shifted uncomfortably in the bed.
“Could you just plump up my pillows?” She lowered her voice. “You know we got this on Tony’s firm? It’s a new scheme, a private patients plan. We can all get private medical attention now …”
Jane rearranged her sister’s pillows and straightened the sheets, then kissed her sister’s cheek. “Well, congratulations! What are you going to call her, Fergie? Eugenie? Beatrice? I mean, now it’s all private …”
Pam pulled a face. “Well, Mum’s actually hinted …”
“What? No, you can’t call her Edna!”
They were interrupted by a nurse, who gave Jane a pleasant smile that nonetheless indicated that she shouldn’t be there. “It’s time for her feed, I’m afraid. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
She disappeared with the baby, and Jane prepared herself to leave.
“You can tell this is private: no bells and everybody out!” She kissed Pam’s cheek and smiled. “I gotta go, anyway.”
“Thanks for coming. Give my love to Peter.”
“If I see him I will …” She hesitated at the door. “It’s all off.”
Pam was instantly concerned. “Oh, no! Why?”
Jane shrugged. “You know me.”
“Is there someone else? I mean, are you OK?”
“No, there’s no one else. I’m … It was a mutual decision.”
“Well, you know what you’re doing. Is the case we saw on television over?”
Jane paused before she answered. Her family’s total lack of understanding when it came to her work, to herself, on top of Peter leaving, swamped her, but she managed to keep her smile in place.
“No, I haven’t got him—yet!” She gave her sister a little wave. “G’night, God bless the baby.”
As she closed the door behind her, only the expression in her eyes betrayed Jane’s loneliness. She had made a tremendous effort, forcing herself to come here. Having done her duty, at last she could go home and cry.
10
“What in Christ’s name do you think you’re playing at?” Kernan demanded.
“We had good reason to search Marlow’s flat,” she protested. “Bloke he was in jail with said he had a lock-up …”
“I’m not talking about Marlow! You’ve had Sergeant Amson going over Shefford’s record sheets.”
How the hell had he found out so quickly? She opened her mouth to speak, but Kernan ploughed on, “If you want information regarding one of my ex-officers, then you know bloody well you should have come to me!”
“I think we’ve got our wires crossed here.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Jane! Are you so desperate? It’s pretty low, just because you can’t prove your case, to try shifting the blame to John Shefford!”
“I first mentioned my suspicions to Sergeant Amson last night, and until I have more evidence …”
“I’m telling you, back off! If there was one viable piece of evidence against DCI Shefford, you should have brought it to me. And don’t harp back to the diary, that’s sorted, and Otley’s paid for it. Don’t try to do my job, Inspector.”
She tried again. “We’ve got two unsolved cases, one in Warrington and one in Southport, both with similar bruising to their upper arms, hands tied with the same sort of knots. George Marlow was in the vicinity when both …”
“Are you telling me Shefford was also in the vicinity? Have you got the evidence to start an internal investigation?”
“I don’t know if Shefford was ever attached to …”
He wouldn’t let her finish. “I’m telling you he wasn’t, because I’ve checked!”
“I apologize, but under the circumstances …”
“Under the circumstances I am bringing in DCI Hicock! Don’t you know what you’ve done, Jane? You’ve been running around the country trying to rake up dirt on one of the best officers I ever had! It stinks, and I won’t take any more of it.”
“Shefford falsified evidence, and is known to have been on close terms with two murdered girls, both prostitutes—Della Mornay and Jeannie Sharpe. Of the two other cases we have uncovered, one was a prostitute …”
Kernan strode to the door. “The man is in the graveyard.”
“So are they, sir. Reopening cases as far back as nineteen eighty-four is a slow procedure.”
“I’ve nothing more to say, I’m bringing Hicock in as soon as he can get here. You concentrate on the investigation you were assigned to for as long as you remain on it, is that clear? And if you want some advice, put in for a transfer. I want you off the Marlow case, and I want your report on everything that went down yesterday on my desk by lunchtime, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir!” said Tennison.
Amson came racing up the corridor as she left Kernan’s office, waving a sheet of paper.
“We’ve got another one! Blackburn, ’eighty-seven!”
Tennison hurried to meet him and grabbed the paper, but Amson wouldn’t let it go until he’d finished. “It’s about one a year, apart from the time Marlow was in jail! Caplan and Haskons are still watching him, and everyone else is mustered in the Incident Room—apart from these three.”
Tennison looked puzzled, and he finally handed over the note. “Otley coughed up the names of the blokes who were fooling around with the toms! They’re waiting for the Super to call them in now.”
“What about Shefford?” she asked urgently.
“He’s in the clear, on all the new cases. He may have done a surface job on the Jeannie Sharpe murder, but then he wasn’t the DCI on the case, so you can’t put it all down to him. And he wasn’t around when the others were killed.”
“I’m glad,” Tennison said. He gave her a disbelieving look and she protested, “I am! Even if it dropped me right in the shit!”
Amson looked around and lowered his voice. “As a matter of interest, did you know that the Chief and Shefford were”—he crossed his fingers—“like that? They played golf every weekend—not at Sunningdale! Chief was Shefford’s guv’nor when he was on Vice.”
Tennison shook her head and raised her eyes to heaven. “I think I’ll leave that one well and truly alone!” she said.
At least thirty people were crammed into the Incident Room. The air was thick with smoke. Every chair was taken, and the latecomers were sitting on desks or propped against the walls. While they waited some drank coffee and ate sandwiches, but most of them just talked. The din was deafening.
Sergeant Terry Amson was setting up a projector in the center of the room. Tennison was thumbing through her notes while she waited.
She looked up when the door opened. It was DI Burkin and two others, returning from the Super’s office. They all looked rather sh
eepish.
“Sorry, guv, we’ve been upstairs.”
Tennison nodded, well aware that these were the men who had been a bit too familiar with the local prostitutes. She gave them a moment to disperse amongst the others.
Burkin had found a place next to Muddyman, who asked him what was going on.
“Got our knuckles rapped for off-duty leg-overs. She’s got eyes in the back of her head, that one! Just a warning this time, so maybe she’s not all bad, but rumor has it that Hicock’s definitely taking over, no kidding. He’s in, she’s out.”
Tennison stood up. “OK, can I have a bit of hush?”
She waited for the room to grow quiet. Slowly they sorted themselves out, and she was able to start the meeting. She played it to the gallery.
“Right. I’ve been told that unless we get results very quickly indeed, I’m on traffic … Joke! I don’t think it’s quite that bad, but there will be some changes around here if we don’t pull something out of the hat. In case I don’t get another opportunity, I’ll say now that I appreciate your back-up, and all the hard work …”
There were moans and unprintable comments as the word went round. Tennison yelled, “Come on, settle down! Maybe there’s something we’ve missed, something that, if we all think about it, will whack us right between the eyes. OK, Sergeant …”
The lights went off, the blinds went down, and Amson ran the mock-up of Karen Howard’s last night. They watched her standin talking to the builder who had tried to help her, then crossing the road and walking up Ladbroke Grove.
“Oh, boy, we gonna watch you again, guv?” Tennison recognized the voice from the darkness as Rosper’s.
Amson summarized all the evidence as they watched. “Karen Howard, our first victim. Her body discovered in Della Mornay’s efficiency and mistaken for her.”
The film ended, followed by close-up stills of Karen’s badly beaten body, then her various appalling injuries. The last frame was of the bruising on her arms.
“OK, take a good look at these marks. Now we have the other victim, Della Mornay, who was killed approximately six weeks before Karen …”
The shot of the decomposed body was sickening. The close-ups showed her upper arms and what appeared to be bite marks.
Prime Suspect (Prime Suspect (Harper)) Page 20
