A Face in the Crowd

4

Many of the houses on the quiet, tree-lined road were detached, others substantial semi-detached properties of the thirties period. It was clear that the Allens had gone up in the world. Esme’s cafe must be a little gold mine, Tennison thought, parking the Orion alongside a low stone wall bordered by neatly-trimmed shrubbery. She made a mental note, and walked up the driveway, briefcase in hand.

Lights glowed behind a vestibule door of stained glass. She rang the bell, and in a few moments a boy of about nine appeared, very smart in a white shirt and school tie, shorts with knife-edge creases in them, polished black shoes.

Tennison smiled. “Can I see your mummy, please?”

“Yes. Please wait here,” said the boy politely, and turned back indoors. She heard him call, “Mum, someone to see you,” and then Esme Allen came through, smiling, holding the door wider.

“Hello, it’s Jane Tennison.”

“Yes, come in.”

The living room was warm and cosy, with a beige carpet and furniture upholstered in burgundy with embroidered backs. Wall lights with red tasseled shades and thick velvet curtains made for a restful atmosphere. Tennison had interrupted a dressmaking session. On the coffee table stood a pretty child of three, with pigtails, being fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress. The hem of the pale yellow satin dress had been partly pinned. The little girl’s chubby black fists dreamily smoothed the material as she waited patiently for it to be finished.

A young man in a gray sweater and jeans, early twenties, Tennison guessed, and rather good-looking, was sitting on the edge of the sofa, hands between his knees, rubbing his palms together. He gave her a brief sidelong glance as she came in, then looked away shyly. Still smiling, the elegant, graceful Esme introduced them.

“This is my son Tony. And this is his daughter, Cleo. Say hello, Cleo.”

“Hello,” Cleo said, dimples in her cheeks.

“Tony and his girlfriend are doing the decent thing-at long last,” Esme confided, casting a look at Tennison under her eyelashes. She spoke educated, standard English; no trace of the heavy West Indian patois she’d used in the shop that morning. “Their daughter is to be a bridesmaid. Lord, how times have changed! You wanted to see my husband?”

“Yes, please.”

Esme sat the little girl on the edge of the coffee table and went out. Tennison took the armchair opposite the sofa and placed her briefcase flat on her knees. There was a momentary, awkward silence, filled with the ticking of a gilt carriage clock on the mantelpiece.

Tennison said, “So when’s the happy day, Tony?”

Nervously, Tony cleared his throat. “Ummm…” He gazed off at something in the corner of the room.

“Do you like my dress?” Cleo asked, plucking at it, her legs in white ankle socks swinging under the table.

“Yes, I do. I think it’s lovely-oh, Tony, just a minute.”

Tennison put her hand up as he half-rose, about to leave. He sank back again.

Tennison opened her briefcase and handed him a typewritten sheet. “Could you have a look at this, please? That’s a description of the dead girl. Do you remember seeing anyone like her in the Honeyford Road area in the mid-eighties? She may have been at school with you.”

“I’m a Bride’s Maid,” Cleo said importantly, pronouncing it very clearly as two distinct words.

“You are, aren’t you?” Tennison agreed, touching the satiny material and smiling.

“Have you ever been a Bride’s Maid?”

“Do you know, I have. But never the bride.”

Tony held out the sheet of paper. “No,” he said shortly, and got up again to leave as Esme came in. She swung the child up. “Come along, baby. Say bye-bye.”

Cleo waved her fingers at Tennison, mouthing, “Bye-bye.”

“Bye.”

In the doorway, Vernon Allen stood aside to let Tony pass. “Wedding boy,” he said jovially, adding a chuckle, his voice a deep rumbling bass. He turned then, a big bear of a man casually dressed in a check shirt and loose-buttoned cardigan, and looked keenly at Tennison through horn-rimmed glasses. “Chief Inspector… what can I do for you?”

In the tiny storage room upstairs that Vernon Allen used as an office, Tennison sat at the desk, flicking through the pile of old rent books dating back ten years. Everything was neatly filled in: tenants, dates, amounts. It all seemed kosher.

She screwed the cap back on her pen. “But you have no idea where David Aloysius Harvey lives now?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Tennison sat back in the swivel chair, tilting her head to look at him. In the light of the desk lamp her blond hair shimmered like a fuzzy golden halo. Her first instinct, which she put great faith in, was that Vernon Allen was a decent, trustworthy man. He’d answered her questions simply and directly, speaking slowly in his deep, rumbling voice. At all times his eyes met hers, slightly magnified through the lenses of his spectacles. She’d have laid bets he was as kosher as the rent books, but she had to probe deeper.

“So you bought the property in 1981, right?”

“Yes.”

“And Harvey moved in shortly after?”

Vernon Allen nodded. “With his wife. After she died he let things go.”

“And you sold the property in…” Tennison checked her notes “… ’89, with Mr. Harvey as a resident tenant?” Vernon Allen’s nod confirmed this. “Did that lead to much bad feeling between you and Mr. Harvey?”

“Some. Not much.” He wagged his head from side to side, the light catching the flecks of gray in his thick hair. “The problem we had was that he was very erratic in paying the rent. Sometimes he seemed to have money; sometimes not.”

“Mmm,” Tennison said, as if mulling this over, and then she said quickly, “I presume you have a set of keys to the property?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Allen, did you do anything to the garden while you were the owner of the property?”

“No. Harvey laid the slabs. I didn’t want him to, but he did very much as he pleased really.”

“When were those slabs laid?”

“I’d say 1986. 1987…?”

The door was ajar a couple of inches. There was a movement outside on the landing, the creaking of a floorboard.

“Because, you know,” Tennison went on, “it’s almost certain that the body was buried before the slabs went down.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Vernon Allen said.

“Mr. Allen, how is it you could afford two properties on your pay?”

He didn’t seem surprised at this change of tack, or even mildly annoyed by the question.

“Esme’s cafe has always done well.” He shrugged his broad shoulders in the rumpled cardigan. “To tell you the truth, it was her money that paid for the second mortgage.”

“And your son’s at private school?” Tennison said, having jotted down in her mental file the blue-and-green striped tie the polite schoolboy had been wearing.

At that moment the door was pushed roughly open and a tall, willowy girl barged in, an exact younger version of Esme Allen, hair cropped very short with tiny-plaited dreadlocks trailing over her ears. Attractive and vivacious, with large flashing eyes, the effect was spoiled somewhat by the way she was twisting her mouth.

“When will you ever learn, Pop? Black people aren’t supposed to own businesses, houses, get an education…”

She regarded Tennison with open hostility.

“This is my daughter, Sarah,” Vernon Allen said, standing up. “There’s no need to be rude,” he gently rebuked her.

“I agree,” Sarah snapped.

Tennison rose, glancing down at the notebook in her hand. “Sarah… you’re the law student. And you’re twenty. So in the summer of, say, 1986, you would have been… let me see…”

There was a slight pause.

“Fourteen. Mathematics not your strong point?” the girl said sarcastically.

Tennison was unabashed. “Not particularly, no.” She smiled. Sarah’s rudeness didn’t upset her one bit, but it embarrassed Vernon Allen.

“It’s my son David who’s the wizard at math,” he said, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.

Tennison took the description of Nadine from her briefcase and handed it to the girl. “Do you recall seeing anyone like that in the vicinity of Honeyford Road?”

Sarah hardly glanced at it. “Yes, of course, Simone Cameron,” she said curtly.

“It’s not Simone. We’re quite sure about that,” Tennison stated evenly. “Would you look at the description, please.”

Sarah blinked rapidly, obviously taken aback. Then the icy, scathing tone returned, this time with a touch of venom.

“Well, then, if it’s not Simone, you’ll need to be a bit more specific, won’t you? That’s if you can be bothered!”

“And would that mean…”

Sarah interrupted, “The police aren’t exactly noted for their enthusiasm in solving cases when the victim is black, are they?” Again the sneering twist to her mouth, her contemptuous summing up of all police officers, be they male or female.

Tennison raised her eyebrows. “Was she black? It doesn’t say so here.” Taking back the description, she gave Sarah a cool, level stare. “Maybe it’s you who’s jumping to conclusions.”

Tony was in the hallway with Cleo in his arms when Vernon Allen showed Tennison to the front door. Tennison smiled at the little girl and asked, “When’s the happy day, Tony?”

He looked down at the carpet, throat working, too shy or too tongue-tied to give a coherent reply. Sarah had followed them downstairs. She came into the hallway, transformed into a beautiful young woman by a beaming smile as she looked fondly at her brother and his daughter, and Tennison noticed that she gripped Tony’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Two weeks away now,” Sarah said, and even her voice was different, warm and affectionate, when speaking of Tony.

“Well, I’ll see you again before that,” Tennison said, nodding to Vernon Allen as he held the door open for her. “Thanks for your help. Good-bye.”

It was late when she returned to Southampton Row. The cleaners didn’t start their assault on the disaster area of the Incident Room till the early hours. Everyone had gone, except for DS Haskons, who was tidying up his desk, getting ready for home. He looked frazzled after the long day, shirt collar wrinkled, tie undone, wavy, brown hair tousled from continually brushing his fingers through it.

“Got anything on David Harvey?” Tennison asked, dumping her briefcase on the desk.

“Not yet, Guv,” Haskons said wearily. He wondered what Tennison did in her spare time. Traffic duty at Hyde Park Corner? “We’ve tried the electoral rolls, NHS, DHSS, taxes.” He gestured at the piles of directories. “I’ve just finished working my way through the phone book…”

“You know,” Tennison said, her brain still ticking over after twelve straight hours on the job, “Vernon Allen said Harvey was erratic in paying his rent. Have we checked out the credit reference agencies?”

Haskons mumbled that they hadn’t. Tossing her raincoat aside and pushing up her sleeves, Tennison got down to it. She pulled a chair up to the computer terminal, and slipped a Nicorette lozenge into her mouth while she studied the code manual. Haskons leaned over, watching as Tennison keyed in the letters “SVR.” The computer clicked and whirred, and in a second or two the “CREDIT REFERENCE AGENCIES” program flashed up to the VDU screen.

Tennison carefully typed, “DAVID ALOYSIUS HARVEY, 15 HONEYFORD ROAD, LONDON N1.” A few more clicks followed while the computer carried out its search. Then up came:

“CREDIT REF: DAH/18329

DATE: 12 2 86

SUM: £5000 × 60 FIN.”

Tennison leaned forward, rubbing her hands. “Yes…”

The next line appeared.

“FORWARD 3 10 90-136 DWYFOR HOUSE, LLOYD GEORGE ESTATE, LONDON SW8.”

Tennison snapped her fingers for a pen. Haskons handed her his ballpoint. She noted down the details, then keyed in a new code, and the computer responded.

“LOAN REPAYMENTS TAKEN OVER BY MRS. EILEEN REYNOLDS, 6 6 90.”

“Well done, boss,” Haskons murmured admiringly. You had to hand it to the woman. Like a bloody terrier with a bone.

Tennison was scribbling on the pad. “Do you fancy a drink?” she asked, the Nicorette bulging in her cheek.

Haskons hesitated. “I should get home really…”

Tennison glanced around. “Yes, right-the twins.” She gave him a grin and a quick nod. “Off you go.”

“ ’Night,” Haskons said, on his way out.

“ ’Night, Richard.”

The door swung shut, rocking to and fro on its hinges. The room was silent, except for the low hum of the computer. Alone, crouched over the keyboard, in a world of her own, Tennison clenched both fists and stared at the screen in triumph.

“Got you… got you!”

Muddyman drove along Wandsworth Road, heading for Clapham. Beside him, Tennison was doing her best to control her impatience. They were twenty minutes behind schedule, caused mainly by a traffic tie-up on Waterloo Bridge. The day couldn’t be far off, Tennison fantasized, when they’d switch from cars to helicopters; given the paralysis of central London, it would soon be the only way of getting around.

The Lloyd George Estate was situated to the northeast of Clapham Common. It was easy to find, four twenty-story concrete towers sticking up into the overcast sky, some of the balconies festooned with washing. Muddyman drove into the parking lot of Dwyfor House and found a space. As he switched off the engine, Tennison hung up the handset in its cradle, having received a message from Lillie back at base.

She said, “They’ve done the tests on Nadine’s skull. Seems she was of mixed race, West Indian and English.”

“That would explain the Nigerian bracelets,” Muddyman said.

Tennison climbed out and stared up at the tower block. “Right.” she muttered, a gleam in her eye. “Let’s see what David Harvey can tell us.”

The elevator was out of order. Harvey lived in Flat 136, on the thirteenth floor. They began to climb the concrete stairs, trying to ignore the unidentifiable odor that permeated the place; the nearest Tennison could come to it was a mixture of greasy cooking, stale underwear, and dead cat. She inhaled Givenchy Mirage from her silk scarf, and plowed steadily onward and upward. Muddyman lit up, pausing on the half-landings for a swift drag.

Tennison said, “You know, you ought to give up cigarettes. Make you feel a whole lot better.”

Leaning against a wall, taking a breather, Muddyman gave her a fishy-eyed stare. “There’s nothing worse than a born-again nonsmoker,” he growled.

Tennison hadn’t formed any preconceived idea of what David Harvey would be like, but even so she was taken aback by the appearance of the man when he opened the door of 136. It was a small miracle that he’d made it to the door at all. A slight, stooped figure in a grimy striped shirt and threadbare cardigan, he had a pale, rinsed-out face and bleary blue eyes, a ragged gray mustache adding to his mournful, hang-dog look. Just standing there, he seemed to be fighting for every breath, and Tennison could hear his chest whistling and wheezing. The hand holding the edge of the door was thin and veined, visibly trembling.

“Mr. David Harvey?”

“Yes.”

“We’re police officers. We’d like to have a few words with you.”

Harvey didn’t seem surprised; but then he didn’t seem anything. It was as though he’d lost interest in the business of living, or it had given up on him.

As he led them inside, Tennison glanced at Muddyman. He met her look, registering the same faint sense of shock she felt. They hadn’t expected to be interviewing a semi-invalid.

Harvey shuffled across to an armchair, trousers hanging baggily at the seat, and using both arms, lowered himself into it. There was a lit cigarette in the ashtray, and Harvey picked it up and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, the smoke trailing past his eyes.

The flat was neat if spartan. There was the bare minimum of furniture: armchair, sofa, a couple of straight-backed chairs against the wall, a coffee table with circular heat rings and cigarette burns. Next to the window, the best piece of furniture in the room-a glass-fronted bureau-had arranged along the top a collection of framed photographs. A gas fire with an imitation coal-effect hissed in the grate. Above it, in the center of the mantel, a luridly-colored picture of the Virgin Mary gazed into eternity.

Tennison explained the purpose of their visit, sitting opposite Harvey on the sofa, while Muddyman stood near the window, open notebook in hand. She showed him the description of Nadine, which he read without expression or comment, squinting his eyes through the smoke. Now and then he had to remove the cigarette in order to cough. Something else Tennison hadn’t expected was his pronounced Glaswegian accent. With his wheezing breath it made some of his answers hard to catch, and it took her a while to get accustomed to it. She was taking it very gently. Harvey was a seriously sick man, no question of that. And the way he was lighting one cigarette from the stub of the last one, it would be unwise of him to take out a subscription to a book club.

Having established that he had lived at Number 15, Honeyford Road, Tennison was anxious to broach the main subject. But she was still soft-pedaling, keeping her tone casual and low-key as she asked him, “So why did you move away, Mr. Harvey?”

“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.