“I had my first heart attack. When I got out of hospital, I came here to be closer to Eileen—my sister. I didna’ want to live there anyway, not after the wife died. I only stayed on because that big darkie wanted me out so badly …” He narrowed his bleary eyes and looked around with an expression of loathing, the first real emotion he’d shown. “I should never have moved to this dump though. I’m a bloody prisoner. Elevator’s always on the blink, the place full of junkies and pimps …”
He broke off to have another puff and a cough. Tennison waited for him to wipe his mouth with a bunched-up tissue. She was about to continue her questioning when Harvey pointed a quivering finger at one of the photographs on the sideboard.
“That’s her. The wife. She was the gardener. Lovely garden when she was alive.”
Muddyman picked it up in its gilt frame to show Tennison a rather muddy black-and-white image of a plump, pleasant-looking woman in a floral print dress, sitting in a deck chair and smiling at the camera.
Harvey gave a wheezing sigh. “I tried to keep it going after, but … d’ye know? In the end I paved it over. I can tell you exactly when as well.”
He dragged himself out of the chair and shuffled over to the sideboard and rummaged in the left-hand drawer, pushing aside bundles of old bills, leaflets, and junk mail. Muddyman caught Tennison’s eye, and she could tell by his slight frown that he was struggling to get a handle on David Harvey, but thus far the jury was out. She felt the same, bemused and disconcerted by the man.
“I hired some stone-cutting equipment … Ah!” Harvey found what he was searching for. “There ye go. The last week of August,” he said, peering closely at a faded, creased invoice. On his slow, stooping creep back to the armchair he handed it to Tennison. “I did all the digging during that week. Took up the grass, leveled it all off. I suppose I’d laid about half the slabs by the Saturday. I went down to Eileen’s first thing Sunday morning. Stayed till Monday.”
“And Eileen lives locally?” Tennison asked.
“She does now, but in those days she lived in Margate,” Harvey replied, puffing a new cigarette into life. “Anyway, when I got back Monday I finished laying the rest. Cemented them in.”
Tennison slowly nodded. “So the only time the house was left unattended was … that must have been Sunday the thirty-first of August?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you notice anything unusual when you got back?”
Harvey scratched his chin with long, dirt-rimmed nails, his fingers brown with nicotine. “Unusual … ?”
“No signs that anyone had been digging in the garden? No extra earth anywhere?”
“No.”
Tennison allowed a small silence to gather. Hands clasped on her knees, she tilted her head a fraction, raising one eyebrow. “I must say, Mr. Harvey, if someone asked me what I was doing the last weekend in August in 1986 I don’t think I’d be able to remember. How is it that you can recollect so clearly?”
Without hesitation, Harvey said drably, “Because my wife died on that day the year before.”
“Oh, I see …”
“Eileen asked me down to stay with her—you know, so I’d not be on my own.” The front door opened and they heard someone enter. Harvey jerked his head. “That’ll be my lunch.” He took a drag and went on, “I spend that weekend with her every year. Don’t know how I’d manage without her. She always sends my food over.”
Tennison looked towards the door. “Perhaps I can ask her a few questions while she’s here … ?”
“Oh, no, that’s not her,” Harvey said, and with an effort craned around in his chair as a young man carrying a tray covered with a clean white tea towel came in. “This is my nephew Jason.”
Jason paused in the doorway, pale blue eyes under fair lashes flicking from one to the other. “What’s going on?” he asked sharply.
“We’re police officers,” Muddyman said. He picked up the typewritten sheet from the coffee table and dangled it in Harvey’s face. “You’re sure you don’t recognize the girl from this description?”
Jason flushed, getting angry. “What do you want with my uncle?” he demanded, hands gripping the tray tightly. He wore faded jeans and sneakers, a dark Windbreaker over a white T-shirt, which he filled quite impressively. His blond hair was cut short and neatly brushed, though he favored long sideburns.
In reply to Muddyman’s question, Harvey said in a tired, undisturbed tone, “Quite sure.” To his nephew he murmured, “I’ll tell you in a minute.”
Jason was glaring at Muddyman with ill-concealed distaste. “You know he’s very ill?”
“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Harvey said, waving a trembling hand placatingly. “I’m fine …”
“No, you’re not! What’s this about?”
“Your uncle will tell you later, Jason,” Tennison said, fastening her briefcase and getting up. “Thank you very much, Mr. Harvey. We’ll see ourselves out.”
“Have a good meal,” Muddyman said, and followed Tennison, Jason’s stare burning holes in his back.
On the landing below, lighting up, Muddyman said, “Lying bastard. Trotting out his alibi like a speech he’d learned by heart.” He flung the match into the piss-stained corner.
“Yeah, right …”
“And he wasn’t shuffling about like that six years ago! If he could lay those slabs he could smash a young girl’s skull.”
“Well, we’d better get a move on,” Tennison said, giving him a hard, sidelong look. “Before David Aloysius Harvey dies on us.”
Superintendent Kernan pushed the swing door of the Incident Room and held it open for the tall, handsome, broad-shouldered figure who came after him. He looked around the busy room and approached Haskons at the duty desk. “Where’s DCI Tennison?”
“Following up a lead, Guv.”
The bustle ceased as Kernan called out, “Can I have your attention please.” Heads turned. Kernan held out his hand. “This is DS Bob Oswalde. Bob’s joining us from West Lane to assist on Operation Nadine.”
There were one or two puzzled, uncertain looks exchanged; this was the first they’d heard about drafting in new manpower. Never one to waste time on formalities, Kernan waved to them to get on with it, then beckoned Oswalde over. “DS Haskons here is the office manager. He’ll fill you in.”
“Hello Bob.”
Oswalde returned the nod. “Richard.”
“You two know each other?” Kernan said.
“I used to be at West End Lane,” Haskons said.
“Of course you were. Good.” Job done, Kernan departed.
Haskons was as puzzled as some of the others. He said, “Tennison didn’t mention that you were joining us.”
Oswalde turned from sizing up the situation, seeing if there was anyone else he recognized. He looked down on Haskons’s mere six feet from his six-feet-four. “She doesn’t know,” he said.
5
A hospital porter pointed the way to the medical artist’s studio. Tennison walked along the echoing, white-tiled corridor and found the door with a piece of white card taped to it, “STUDIO” scrawled on the card in green felt-tip. It looked to her like a shoestring operation; this guy had better be good for the money they were shelling out.
Upon entering, Tennison saw that it wasn’t a studio at all, but more a medical science laboratory. There were human organs immersed in fluid in giant test tubes, which she didn’t examine too closely in case they turned out to be real. A tall young man in a black polo-necked sweater and a gray apron was working on the far side of the room, next to a wide-slanting window to gain the maximum natural daylight. Tennison threaded through the exhibits, keeping her eyes to the front. She’d seen real human beings in gruesome conditions, and the sight of blood didn’t bother her, but these mummified floating bits of internal plumbing gave her the creeps.
“I’m DCI Tennison. I think you’re making a clay head for us?”
It was the clay head he was actually working on. He stood b
ack, wiping brown clay onto his apron, allowing her to get a good look.
“It may not look like much at the moment, but I have high hopes.” He had a drawling, dreamlike voice, as if he spent much of his time on another plane of existence. Probably did, Tennison thought.
She moved closer. A plaster cast had been taken of Nadine’s skull into which he had hammered dozens of steel pins. These formed the scaffolding for the features he was building up in clay. At the moment the underlying structure could be seen, exposed muscles and ligatures, and the effect was macabre, a face stripped down to its component parts.
“She had the most beautiful skull I’ve ever seen,” the young man said.
“Really?”
“Yes. See this …” He used a stainless steel scalpel as a pointer. “The orbicularis oris. The muscle originates on the maxilla and mandible, near the midline, on the eminences due to the incisor and canine teeth. Its fibers surround the oral aperture. Function—closing of the mouth and pursing of lips. You see, I’m a scientist,” he added, giving her his shy, dreamy smile. “Otherwise I’d have said it’s the muscle that allows you to kiss someone.”
“When will she be ready?”
“By the end of the week.”
As office manager, Haskons was doing a bit of reorganizing—much to Ken Lillie’s displeasure, because he was the one being reorganized.
“But why?” Lillie asked, his arms piled up with document files.
“I’m moving you.”
“Why me?”
“Bob needs a desk.”
“No, no, that’s not an answer … why me?”
Haskons plunked a cardboard box of miscellaneous stuff on top of the pile, so that Lillie had to raise his head to peer over it.
“Because you’re only ever at your desk to drink coffee.”
“Yeah,” Lillie agreed vehemently. “Normally I’m out there making sure the streets are safe to walk.”
Hoots of derision from all corners of the room. Catcalls and shouts of “SuperLillie Strikes Again,” and “Batman and Lillie.”
Oswalde was studying the photographs of Nadine on the big bulletin board, keeping well out of it. He was edgy enough as it was, nervously watching the door for Tennison’s arrival. Kernan had arranged his transfer without consulting her, which put Oswalde in a spot he knew he shouldn’t be in. Especially after what had occurred at the conference. Had he been paranoid, Oswalde reflected, he might have suspected that Kernan had deliberately thrown the two of them together, part of a gleeful, devious plot so he could sit back and watch the pair of them squirm.
No, Kernan would never stoop to that. Would he?
Oswalde had other eyes on him. Burkin was slumped in his chair, long legs splayed out, chewing a matchstick. He muttered to Rosper at the next desk, “It’s bad enough having to police the buggers, let alone work with them.”
“You’re only saying that ’cos he’s taller than you,” Rosper quipped, always the easygoing one.
Burkin was stung. “No he ain’t.”
The door swung open and Tennison breezed in, raincoat flapping around her. Halfway to her desk she caught sight of Oswalde and stopped dead in her tracks. Oswalde was attempting the impossible, hoping not to draw attention to them both by not looking at her, at the same time trying to convey to her by some mysterious telepathic process that he was as blameless as she was, just another innocent pawn in the game.
“Tony. Can I have a word, please?”
Tennison turned about-face and went out.
Muddyman left his desk and went into the corridor, where he found her pacing up and down, hands deep in her raincoat pockets.
“Guv?”
“What’s Bob Oswalde doing here?”
“You know him?”
“Answer the question, Tony.”
“He’s part of the team. Kernan brought him in.”
“Thank you.”
With that she marched off to Kernan’s office, leaving Muddyman standing there, wondering what the fuck this was all about.
Kernan was dictating letters to a clerk when Tennison walked in. He seemed very pleased with himself about something, leaning back with a smug grin on his pouchy, pockmarked face. Tennison’s mind was racing ten to the dozen. It was all a jumble; she wasn’t sure which emotion came first, nor which one to trust. She knew she had to be careful how she handled this.
“Jane?” Kernan said, which showed he was in a good mood, because normally he would have said with a sigh, Well, what is it?
“I want a word with you, Guv. Now.”
“Thank you, Sharon.”
Immediately after the WPC had gone and the door had closed, Tennison said, “Why did you co-opt someone onto my team without telling me?” She was holding herself in check, her voice reasonably calm, her temper under control—for the moment.
Kernan lit a cigarette. “It seemed to me that a black officer would be a—how can I put it?—a useful addition.”
“Why didn’t you consult with me?”
“Actually, I consulted the Community Liaison Officer, who thought it was an excellent idea.” Kernan gestured with the cigarette. “A black face prominent in this inquiry. An antidote to the Burkins of this world. You’re saying you can’t use an extra man?”
“No.”
“Well, what are you saying?”
“You’ve called in this officer as backup,” Tennison said questioningly, making sure she understood, “because he’s black?”
Now Kernan did sigh, and rolled his eyes a little. “Jane, I’m not looking for a political argument …”
“It would have been different if he’d been part of the team from the beginning, but now every time I ask him to do something, it’s open to misinterpretation.”
Kernan gazed blankly up at her. “I don’t understand.”
Tennison came nearer the desk, her hands clutching the air. “It smacks of tokenism. It’s political maneuvering.”
Kernan didn’t want to listen to this claptrap, and didn’t see why he should. But Tennison had pumped herself up and wasn’t about to stop. She said heatedly, “You should have asked me first. Pulling rank just undermines me.”
It was Kernan’s turn to get annoyed. “I wasn’t pulling rank. I was trying to help you out …”
“Oh, bollocks,” Tennison said. Then added, “Sir.”
What could he do with the bloody woman? Against all the odds she’d made it to Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Force, in charge of a murder squad—which was what she’d always wanted—and still she wasn’t happy. He never had this problem with his male colleagues. If only she wasn’t so good at her job, he’d have dumped her double-quick. On yer bike, sunshine.
Kernan rubbed his eyelids with his fingertips, feeling the ulcer start to nag. “You can’t work with the man?” he asked finally, doing his level best to get to the root of her objection.
“Yes, I can work with him.”
“Because all my sources reckon he’s a good officer.”
“I’m sure he is.”
Kernan spread his hands, appealing to her. “Then what have you got against him?”
“Nothing,” Tennison said, tight-lipped. “Well …” She gave a halfshrug. “We didn’t hit it off particularly well on the course, but …”
“I don’t want you to marry the man, for Chrissake!” Kernan practically shouted, squashing his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.
Tennison’s tangle of emotions nearly got the better of her. She almost blurted out the real reason why she objected to Bob Oswalde joining the squad—how could she possibly work with a man she was strongly attracted to, who had been her lover? It would set up all kinds of impossible conflicts, make normal, everyday working relations a knife-edge balancing act. And what if it came out? She’d become a laughingstock. Her credibility would pop like a toy balloon, her reputation plummet to zilch, lower than a snake’s belly.
But in the end, sanity prevailed. She didn’t make a fool of herself, and she didn’t
blurt anything out. She simply stated, as forcefully as she could, that she didn’t want him on the team.
Kernan’s patience had been worn to a fine point, and finally it snapped. “He’s on the team already. I’ve made my decision and I’m not going back on it. Get the man briefed and put him to work. We’ll review the situation at the end of the week. I’ll be watching the progress of this case very carefully from now on.”
Tennison left the office.
Ten minutes later, on the pretext of officially welcoming DS Oswalde to Southampton Row, Tennison summoned him to her office. She was still pent up and dying for a smoke. She stood in front of her desk, arms folded, looking up at him, accusation in her eyes.
“Are you expecting me to believe this is a complete coincidence?”
Oswalde regarded her placidly. “I don’t know about coincidence—how many black detectives did he have to choose from? What I’m saying is that it had nothing to do with me. You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t ask to be the token black on your team.”
He seemed quite sanguine about it.
Tennison said sharply, “Just don’t think that what happened on the course gives you any special privileges.”
“I don’t.”
“And don’t you dare tell anyone.”
“Jane, please … what do you take me for?”
“And don’t call me Jane.”
Oswalde wore a pained expression. “Look, give me some credit. What happened, happened. It’s gone, long since forgotten about. Let’s not give it another thought …”
“Yes. Right.” Tennison waved her hand, dismissing him. “Go back to the Incident Room. I’ll be along in a minute.”
When he’d gone she stared at the door for a long moment, then stuck a Nicorette in her mouth and chewed the hell out of it.
All the team was there, assembled for the four o’clock briefing. There was an odd, strained atmosphere, Tennison snapping out instructions, and the men uneasy. They guessed it had something to do with Kernan and Oswalde, but beyond that they were completely in the dark.
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