Prime Suspect

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, silver 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!”

“No, darling, my voice isn’t what it was.” She put a hand to her head. “Did you bring me a scarf?”

It was high tide, and the spray was blowing onto the promenade. He parked the chair beside a bench and brought out a silk square. Folding it carefully, he handed it to her.

“Thank you, darling. I was asking Matron if we could get a better hairdresser, only I need a trim, but I don’t like the young girl that comes in. Oh, she’s very sweet, but she’s an amateur…”

George watched her tie the square over her head, carefully tucking in the hair. “You have to watch these girls, they cut off far too much…”

George could see the reflections of her past beauty as she tilted her head coquettishly. “All ship-shape, am I, darling?”

He nodded, and gently pressed a stray curl into place. “All ship-shape. Now, how about singing me ‘Once I had a secret love, that dwelt within the heart of me’…?”

Sitting in her wheelchair, wrapped in her rug, she swayed to the rhythm, her hands in the air like an old trouper. Being together like this brought the memories flooding back to both of them, and they were laughing too much to finish the song.

“You always like the old ones best. Remember that Elvis medley I used to do?” She sat up straight and played an imaginary piano as she sang, “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfil; for, my darling, I love you, and I always will… That was your Dad’s favorite. I don’t know what he would think about this… What does that Moyra think of it all?”

George’s face fell. “Now, Mum, don’t start. Moyra’s a good woman, and she’s stood by me.”

He took a newspaper from the carrier bag. It was folded so that the article about him was on the outside. Managing to grin at her, he asked, “What did you give them this photo for? I hated that school.”

Mrs. Marlow pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Your dad would turn in his grave…”

“Don’t cry, Mum, don’t… I’m innocent, Mum, I had to do something to prove it. They’ll lay off me now, and I got paid a fair bit. I’ll get a new job-they gave me good references. Things’ll turn out, don’t you worry.”

He walked to the railings at the edge of the promenade and threw the paper into the sea. When he turned a moment later to face her, his hands were in his pockets.

“Which one’s got a present in?” he demanded. “I want a song, though, you must promise me a song.”

She made a great performance out of it, finally fooling him into giving her a clue to which pocket his gift was in. He presented the perfume with a flourish and she made him bend down for a kiss. Her warmth and her love for him shone out, despite her fears.

On the way back to the home they sang, “Why am I always the bridesmaid, never the blushing bride?” vying with each other to sing the silly bits and breaking into giggles.

Moyra was doing the ironing. While George put the kettle on he was singing “Why Am I Always the Bridesmaid?”

“Every time you go to see her you come back singing those stupid songs,” Moyra complained.

“That was by way of a proposal,” he said as he put coffee in their mugs and poured the boiling water. “I reckon it’s time I made an honest woman of you.”

“Not if your mother has any say in the matter; I was never good enough for you in her eyes!” Moyra retorted. “And I notice she gave the papers that photo of you in your posh school uniform…”

He handed her a mug of coffee. “Did I ever tell you about-”

She interrupted him. “How beautiful she looked at the school prize-giving? How all the lads said she looked like a movie star? Yes, you did!”

“But I’ve never told you about afterwards, after the prize-giving.”

“I dunno why you go on about it, you were only at the school two minutes.”

“I walked Mum and Dad to the gates. They were all hanging out of the dormitory windows, giving her wolf-whistles. Mum was being all coy, you know, waving to the boys. She didn’t want them to know we didn’t have a car, that they were going to catch the bus. And then, just as we got to the gates, the wind blew her wig off. They all saw it…”

Moyra spluttered through her mouthful of coffee. “You’re kidding me! Blew her wig off!” She laughed aloud.

Offended, he blinked. “It wasn’t funny, Moyra. My dad ran down the road to get it back, and she just stood there, rooted to the spot…” He raised his hands to his own hair. “I didn’t know her hair had fallen out. Dad helped her put the wig back on, but the parting was all crooked. Underneath all the glamour she was ugly; an ugly stranger.”

“And everybody saw it? Did she ever talk about it?”

“She never even mentioned it.”

“I always thought it was just old age, you know. I’ve never said anything to her, but it’s so obvious. How long has she been bald, then?”

“I don’t know. She still pretends it’s her own hair, even to me, says it needs trimming and so on.”

“Well what do you know! Underneath it all the Rita Hayworth of Warrington is really Yul Brynner in disguise!”

He looked at her for a moment, then laughed his lovely, warm, infectious laugh. He slipped his arms around her and kissed her on the neck.

“Did you mean it, George? About getting married?”

He lifted her in his arms and swung her around. “I love you, Moyra-what do you say, will you marry me?”

“Will I? I’ve had the license for two years, George, and you won’t get out of it.”

He smiled at her. Sometimes his resemblance to his mother took her breath away. He was so good-looking, every feature neat and clean-cut. Doris had been a real looker, and George was the most handsome man Moyra had ever known. Held tight in the circle of his arms she looked up into his dark eyes, eyes a woman would pray for, with thick dark lashes. Innocent eyes…

“I love you, George, I love you.”

His kiss was gentle and loving. He drew her towards the bedroom.

“George! It’s nearly dinnertime!”

“It can wait…”

DCI Tennison stared at the headline, furious. Then she ripped it down from the Incident Room door. She took a deep breath, crumpled the paper into a ball and entered the room.

The men fell silent, watching her. She held the ball of paper up so they could all see, then tossed it accurately into a waste-paper basket.

“OK, we’ve all read it, so the least said about it the better. But it’s not just me with egg on my face.”

She crossed to her desk and dumped her briefcase. “It makes our surveillance operation look like a circus.”

“Any word on what their readers’ survey came up with, ma’am?” asked Otley with a snide smile. “For or against female officers on murder cases?”

She gave him an old-fashioned look. “Oh, you’re a biased load of chauvinists, and there’s thousands more like you!”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” chipped in Dave Jones, “you could always get a job in panto!”

He was holding up the photograph of her from the paper, but it had been added to in felt-tip. She started laughing and clipped him one.

Maureen Havers walked in as he raised his hands to defend himself. She tapped Tennison on the back.

“Why me? I didn’t draw all over it. It was him!” Jones pointed to Burkin, who hung his head, although he couldn’t really give a fuck. When she’d gone, Jones would get a right clip round the earhole.

Tennison turned to Havers, who told her she was wanted on the top floor.

“Oh well, here it comes. See you all later.”

Otley claimed everybody’s attention as soon as she had gone. “Right, we’ve all had a jolly good laugh, now get yer pin-brains on this lot. We want all these unsolved murders on the computer, so we can cross-check them for any that occurred when Marlow was in the vicinity.”

As they went reluctantly to work, Maureen Havers had a word with Otley.

“You finished with the Oldham files? Only they haven’t been put on the computer…”

“I’ll sort ’em, love. Haven’t had a chance to look through them yet.”

Havers began to distribute more files around the Incident Room, which was greeted with moans and groans. Otley rapped his desk.

“Come on, you lot, settle down. Sooner you get this lot sorted, sooner we’re in the pub. As an incentive, first round’s on me!”

But a pint wouldn’t compensate for the tedious slog of sifting through hundreds of unsolved murders. Otley opened the Oldham file he had already checked over; he knew there was a problem, and now he had to work out the best way to deal with it.

The bar was full of familiar faces. At one of the marble-topped tables several of the lads were discussing the unsolved murders.

“I’ve looked at twenty-three cases,” Muddyman said, “all around Rochdale, Burnley, Southport; and I’ve got one possible but unlikely…”

Rosper cut in, “There was a woman found in a chicken run in Sheffield. Reckon she’d been there for months. The chickens were knocking out record numbers of eggs!”

“You know they’ve been feeding the dead ones to the live ones, that’s why we’ve had all this salmonella scare. Got into the eggs,” Lillie contributed.

“This woman was seventy-two, an old boiler!” Rosper chuckled.

They were suddenly all aware that Tennison had walked in. She looked around, located Jones and went to lean on the back of his chair.

“Next round’s on me, give us your orders,” she told them. “The bad news is: I’m asking for volunteers. They’ve withdrawn the official surveillance from Marlow, so I want four men to cover it.”

Lillie stood up. “Excuse me…”

“Great, that leaves three…”

“I was just going for a slash…”

Rosper laughed and she nailed him. “Two! Come on, undercover’s a piece of cake. Two more…”

She handed Rosper a twenty and sent him to the bar. “Let’s get those drinks in. I’ll have a large G and T.”

Lillie pulled out a chair for her. “How did it go, boss?”

The others pretended not to listen. Tennison said quietly, “If I don’t pull something out of the bag very soon, I’m off the case.”

Her gin and tonic arrived. She thanked Rosper and he handed her back her money.

“What’s this?”

Rosper shrugged. “It’s OK, Skipper coughed up.”

“Is this a truce? Ah well, cheers!” She raised her glass to them, but Muddyman and Rosper were looking towards Otley, who was sitting at the bar.

“Cheers, Skipper!” Muddyman called.

Otley turned and grinned, as if he had got one over on Tennison, even in the pub.

With a few drinks inside them they returned to the Incident Room to work. The stacks of paperwork did not seem to have diminished much, despite the busy atmosphere. The room was thick with tobacco smoke and littered with used plastic cups. Tennison, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, was double-checking and collating results.

At nine o’clock, Muddyman stood up and announced that he was going home. Many of the others started to make a move and Otley approached Tennison.

“We’ve got several cases that need looking into: one at Oldham, another at Southport, an’ we’re checking one in Warrington. Ma’am…?”

Tennison looked up. “Sorry.”

“Who do you want checking these unsolved cases?”

“Oh, anyone who’s been cooped up here all day, give them a break.”

“OK,” Otley muttered. He made a few notes on a pad. “I’ll do the Oldham… Muddyman, Rosper and Lillie are on Marlow, so that leaves… Can you take the Southport case?”

“OK, just pin it up for me.”

Otley put the list up on the notice-board and picked up his coat. As he left he passed WPC Havers.

“You’ll be able to retire on your overtime, gel!”

“Night, Sarge!” she replied as she passed some telephone messages to Tennison. “Why don’t you take a break, boss?”

“Because I’ve got more to lose, Maureen.” She rose and stretched, yawning, then went to examine the list on the notice-board. “I’ve lost track,” she sighed.

Only three of the men were left working. “Go on home, you lot,” she told them. “Recharge your batteries.”

DC Caplan put his coat on and asked, “Anyone for a drink?”

I’ve had enough liquid for one day, mate,” replied Jones. I’ll be bumping into the mother-in-law in the night, she spends more time in the lavvy than a plumber…”

There was a metamorphosis taking place right in front of them, not that anyone noticed. DC Jones, of the polished shoes and old school tie, had taken to wearing striped shirts with white collars and rather flashy ties, similar to those favored by DI Burkin. He was also knocking back the pints, was even the first in the bar at opening time. It was taking time, but he was at last becoming one of the lads.

As they left, still joking, Havers asked Tennison casually, “What’s with Oldham, then? He got relatives there or something?”

“What?”

“Skipper asked for anything from Oldham. I wondered what the attraction was… Mind if I push off?

It slowly dawned on Tennison what she was talking about. “He’s doing it to me again!” She shook her head in disbelief and muttered a vague goodnight to Maureen, intent on getting to the bottom of it. Maureen saw her uncover one of the computers and start tapping the keyboard as she closed the door.

Tennison muttered to herself, “Right, Otley, let’s find out just what your game is! Jeannie Sharpe… March nineteen eighty-four…” She moved the cursor down the screen, read some more, then picked up the phone to make an internal call. There was no reply; she put the receiver down and went across to the large table in the center of the room where all the files were stacked in alphabetical order. Whistling softly, she selected the Oldham file and flipped through it, then carried it back to the computer.

“Ah… Jeanie Sharpe, aged twenty-one, prostitute…” She compared the entry on the computer with the notes in the file. “Head of investigation, DCI F. G. Neal… Detective Inspector Morrell and… DI John Shefford!”

She pushed her chair back, staring at the computer screen. Why was Otley so intent on taking the Oldham case? It had to be something to do with Shefford; it was too much of a coincidence. He had put her down for Southport with DC Jones; she snatched the list down from the notice-board. By the time she had retyped it she was seeing spots before her eyes. It was time to call it quits; but she, not Otley, was now down for Oldham.

“My car’ll be here any minute! I was too tired to drive last night.” Dressed and ready for work, Jane was rushing around the kitchen. Peter, still half-asleep, stumbled in.

“ ’Morning!”

“I got in a bit late, so I slept in the spare room. Feel this-d’you think it’ll soften up by tonight?” She handed him an avocado.

“It’s fine.” He stood in the middle of the kitchen and stretched. The avocado slipped from his grasp and Jane caught it deftly.

“I’ll be back early to get everything ready for tonight. I’m doing what Pam suggested: pasta and smoked salmon. Prawns and mayonnaise in the avocados… Ah!” She whipped round and jotted “Mayonnaise” on her notepad. The doorbell rang. “And cream. Give us a kiss. I’ll see you about seven. If anyone calls for me, I’ll be in Oldham.”

She left Peter standing in the kitchen. “Oldham, right…” He woke up suddenly. “Oldham?” But he was talking to himself.

Tennison and Jones followed the uniformed Sergeant Tomlins through a makeshift door in a corrugated iron fence. Tomlins was still trying to make up for his error at Manchester Piccadilly station, where he had assumed Jones to be the Chief Inspector.

“In nineteen eighty-four all this part was still running,” he said as he led them into the cavernous, empty warehouse. “It was shut down soon afterwards, and hasn’t been occupied since. The only people that came here were the tarts with their customers, and I think some still do.”

“We got the call at four in the morning, from a dosser who’d come in for the night.” He pointed to an old cupboard against a wall, minus its doors. “He found her in there.”

Tennison inspected the cupboard. “Actually inside?”

“Yes. The doors were still on then, but not quite closed. She was lying face down, her head that way… This shed was used for dipping parts; the vats used to fill the place.” He spread his arms to indicate the whole area. “They all went for scrap, I suppose. They lowered the stuff on pulleys-you can still see the hooks-then raised them again to dry.”

Dozens of rusty hooks still hung from the ceiling. Tennison looked around and asked, “Hands tied behind her back, right?”

“Yes. Savage beating, left half-naked. Her face was a mess. Her shift was found outside, and her coat over there.”

They started to leave but Tennison turned back to stare at the spot where Jeannie Sharpe was found.

“Nasty place to end up, huh?”

“Well, these tarts bloody ask for it.”

She snapped at him, “She was twenty-one years old, Sergeant!” but he was moving ahead, heaving the rubbish aside. He waited for them at the door.

“You wanted to have a word with her friends? Slags isn’t the word for it…” He pushed the corrugated iron aside for Tennison to pass. “We clean up the streets and back they come, like rodents.”

She let the door slam back in his face. “Sorry!” she said.

The flat was damp, with peeling wallpaper, but an attempt had been made to render it habitable. The furniture was cheap: a single bed, a cot, a painted wardrobe and a few armchairs, and it was fairly tidy, apart from the children’s toys scattered everywhere.

Tennison was sitting in an old wing-chair beside a low table on which were two overflowing ashtrays, a teapot and a lot of biscuit crumbs. She was totally at ease, smoking and sipping a mug of tea.

Carol, a drably dressed but attractive blond woman in her early thirties, was telling her about the last time she had seen her friend Jeannie alive.

“We were all together, just coming out of the pub, our local, y’know. We’d had a few…”

Linda, plump and cheerful with dark hair, interrupted her. “I hadn’t! I was on antibiotics, can’t drink with them.”

“His car was parked, er… You know where the pub is?” Tennison shook her head. “Well, it’s right on a corner, y’know, so there’s a side street…”

Finishing her tea, Tennison suggested they go and look.

The three women stood on the corner outside the pub. It wasn’t easy to tell by looking at them which were the prostitutes and which the senior policewoman.

“See, there’s the side street. He was parked just there. You could only see a bit of the car,” Carol was saying.

Tennison offered her cigarettes round. “You couldn’t tell me the make of it? The color?”

“It was dark, I reckon the car was dark, but it had a lot of shiny chrome at the front, y’know, an’ like a bar stuck all over with badges an’ stuff. He called out to Jeannie…”

Tennison grabbed the remark. “He called out? You mean he knew her name?”

“I don’t think it was her name. It was, y’know, “How much, slag?” I said to her, hadn’t she had enough for one night…”

Carol put in: “Ah, but she was savin’ up, wanted to emigrate to Australia if she could get enough.”

“So Jeannie crossed the road? Did you see her get into the car?”

Linda replied, “She went round to the passenger side.”

“I looked over, y’know, to see, but he was turning like this…” Carol demonstrated. “I only saw the back of his head.”

Tennison stepped to the kerb and peered around the corner as Linda said, “We never saw her again. She had no one to even bury ’er, but we had a whip-round.”

“Fancy a drink?” asked Tennison.

They piled into the pub and found an empty booth. Carol went to the bar while the locals sized up Tennison. They were mostly laborers in overalls.

Linda had produced a photograph of herself and Jeannie. “Lovely lookin’, she was. That’s me-I was thinner then, and blond. Cost a fortune to keep it lookin’ good, so I’ve gone back to the natural color. Set me back twenty-five quid for streaks! We used to get cut-price, mind, at the local salon, but they’ve gone all unisex, y’know. I hate having me ’air done with a man sitting next to me, don’t you?”

Tennison opened her briefcase to take out her copy of the News of the World, but was interrupted by a man in dirty, paint-splashed overalls who strolled across from the juke box. He put a hand on Tennison’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper, “I’ve got fifteen minutes, the van’s outside…”

Turning slowly, she removed his hand from her shoulder. “I’m busy right now.” He made no move to go, so she looked him in the eye. “Sod off!”

He looked in surprise at Linda, who mouthed “Cop!” and shot out before anyone could draw breath. Tennison carried on as though nothing had happened.

Carol returned with the drinks as Tennison placed the newspaper on the table.

“The barman says you just missed the London Express, but there’s a train at four minutes past five.”

“I’ll be cutting it fine…” Tennison checked her watch and smiled. “Dinner party! Is this like him?” She pointed to the newspaper photo of Marlow and took a sip of her drink.

“He’s a bit tasty, isn’t he?” Carol commented, and glanced at Linda. “He was dark-haired…”

“You thought he had a beard, didn’t you?” Linda said.

“Beard? You never mentioned that in your statement.”

“She couldn’t get out of the nick fast enough, they’re bastards,” Carol informed her. “An’ I’ll tell you something for nothing-they never gave a shit about Jeannie. We’re rubbish, until they want a jerk-off! Four kids we got between us, and no one’s interested in them. An’ that inspector geezer, y’know, him…” She nudged Linda. “I’m not sayin’ any names, but…”

“I will,” said Linda. “It was that big bloke, John Shefford. They got rid of him faster than a fart.”

Tennison asked, deadpan, “What do you mean?”

“I reckon they found out about him an’ Jeannie,” Carol told her confidentially. “Next thing we knew, he was on his bike, gone to London. He was as big a bastard as any of ’em-bigger. Jeannie never had a chance: her stepdad was screwin’ her from the time she was seven. She was on the streets at fourteen, an’ that Shefford used to tell her he’d take care of her. Well, he never found out who killed her; they never even tried.”

“Poor kid, strung up like that, like a bit of meat on a hook!” Linda said. “You have to be really sick…”

Tennison jumped on her. “What? What did you say?”

“The dosser who found her, he told me.”

“You know this man? He got a name?”

“Oh, he’s dead, years back, but he told me all about it. Hanging by her arms from a hook in the ceiling.”

It was getting late. Peter checked his watch anxiously and started to lay the dining table. Where the hell was she?

The front door crashed open and Jane rushed in, yelling, “Don’t say a word, I’ve got it timed to the second. Don’t panic!”

True to her word, everything was just about ready by eight o’clock, and she had put on a nice dress, though her hair was still damp. She ran quickly around the table, distributing place mats.

“Water’s on, what else can I do?” Peter asked.

She stood back to look at the table. “Right, glasses for red, glasses for white, starter plates, teaspoons… Napkins! Shit, hang on…”

She shot out to the kitchen, returning to fling a packet of paper napkins at him, then disappeared again, shouting, “Bread, bread!”

The doorbell rang as she came back with the basket of rolls. She gave Peter the thumbs-up.

“All set! Let them in!”

Peter grabbed her and kissed her cheek, then they both headed for the hall.

When they had finished eating, Jane cleared the table and went to make the coffee, taking her glass of wine with her. The kitchen was a disaster area with hardly a square foot of clear work surface. She tidied up a little while she waited for the percolator.

Peter rushed in, obviously panicking. “You’re taking your time! Where are the liqueur glasses?”

“We haven’t got any! You’ll have to use those little colored ones Mum gave me.’ She drained her glass of wine. “How’s it going?”

He relaxed a little. “Just getting down to business. Can you keep the women occupied? I’ll take the tray.”

As he hurried back to his guests, Jane yawned and pressed the plunger on the percolator. The hot coffee shot from the spout, all over her dress. “Shit!” Then she shrugged, wiped herself down as best she could, fixed a smile on her face and marched out with the coffeepot.

Frank King was obviously the dominant male, the one with the money and the big ideas. He had spread some plans on the table and was explaining them to Peter and Tom.

Frank’s wife, Lisa, and Tom’s wife, Sue, were sitting in the armchairs at the other end of the room, drinking apricot brandy from tacky little blue and green glasses. They were both dressed to the nines, perfectly coiffed and lip-glossed, but Lisa was the one with the really good jewelery. Jane poured them coffee.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? I like sweet liqueurs,” Lisa was saying to Sue. “We spent three months in Spain last year; the drinks are so cheap, wine’s a quarter of the price you pay here. Oh, thanks, Jane. Mind you, the price of clothes-all the decent ones are imported, that’s what makes them so expensive.”

Jane moved on to the men. Neither Tom nor Frank thanked her for the coffee and Peter, intent on what Frank was saying, refused it.

“Like I said, no problem. Get the bulldozers in and they’re gone before anyone’s woken up. Don’t know why they make such a fuss about a few trees anyway. So, we clear this area completely, but leave the pool, which goes with this house here. The other we build at an angle, the two of them have to go up in less than three-quarters of an acre…”

“What sort of price are we looking at?” Tom wanted to know.

“The one with the pool, four ninety-five. The one without we ask three fifty. That’s low for an exclusive close…”

Leaving them to it, Jane found a small glass that Peter had poured for her on the dresser. She carried it over to the women and sat down.

She took a sip from the glass. “Christ, it’s that terrible sweet muck!” Up again, Jane fetched a wine glass and went looking for the brandy. It was on the table beside Frank’s elbow, and she helped herself to a generous measure. She had been drinking since lunchtime: gins in the pub, on the train, wine throughout dinner. She was tying one on, but it didn’t show, yet. She captured a bowl of peanuts and sat down again. It seemed as though Lisa hadn’t stopped talking.

“She goes on and on, she wants a pony. I said to Frank, there’s no point getting her one if she’s going to be the same as she was over the hamster. The poor thing’s still somewhere under the floorboards…”

Sue took advantage of the pause to speak to Jane. “Tom was telling me you have Joey at weekends.”

Jane was searching for her cigarettes. She nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Lisa got in first.

“What I wouldn’t give to have mine just for weekends! Au pairs have been the bane of my life…”

“Oh, I’ve never had any troub-”

Lisa steamed on regardless. “I’ve had German, Spanish, French and a Swedish girl. I was going out one day, got as far as the end of the drive and realized I’d forgotten something, so I went back. She was in the Jacuzzi, stark naked! If Frank had walked in…”

“Probably would have jumped on her!” At last Tennison had got a word in edgeways, She grinned.

Sue nearly laughed, but remembered in time that she wanted to stay in Lisa’s good books. She changed the subject.

“You’re with the Metropolitan Police, Jane? Peter was telling…”

Lisa broke in: “Well, I’d better tell Frank to ease up on the brandy, can’t have you arresting him…”

“That’s traffic, not my department,” Jane replied, knocking back her brandy.

“Oh, so what do you do? Secretary? I was Frank’s before we got married.”

“No, I’m not a secretary.” The day was beginning to catch up on Jane, or rather the tragic little Jeannie. There was no one to bury her, so we had a whip-round…

If Lisa had heard Jane’s reply she paid no attention. Her peanut-sized brain was now fixed on wallpaper, and she was holding forth about which was best, flock or fabric. In her opinion, fabric held its color better…

The three men were still sitting around the table, hogging the brandy bottle. As Jane helped herself to another large one, Frank pushed his glass forward without pausing for breath.

“I put my men on the main house, Pete’s men on the second, and the two of them go up neck and neck. I’m looking for a quick turnover, so we do a big color brochure with artist’s impressions and start selling them while we dig the foundations. Tom does the interiors, and we split the profits…”

Jane was unused to being ignored. She downed the brandy and poured another to carry back to her perch on the arm of the only really comfortable chair which, oddly enough, no one had sat in. She knocked over the bowl of peanuts into the chair and spent a few minutes eating the spilt ones from the seat, then slowly slid into it herself.

Lisa had not drawn breath, but Jane’s accident with the peanuts finally brought her verbal assault course on wallpaper to a grinding halt. There was one of those classic silences among the women, during which Frank’s voice could still be heard.

Lisa turned her full attention on Jane. “I hear you were on the Crime Night program?”

“That’s right, I was answering the telephones, I was the one passing the blank sheet of paper backwards and forwards.”

Missing the sarcasm in Jane’s voice, Lisa ploughed on, “I am impressed! I never watch it, it scares me, but I’m paranoid about locking the house. And if a man comes near me when I’m walking Rambo…” She laughed. “That’s our red setter, I’m not talking about Frank!”

Jane switched off for a moment, gazing into the bottom of her empty glass. When she snapped to again she realized that Lisa hadn’t paused once.

“But don’t you think, honestly, that a lot of them ask for it?”

“What, ask to be raped?” Jane shook her head and her voice grew loud, “How can anyone ask to be raped?”

She jumped to her feet, swaying slightly and glaring as if interrogating Lisa, who shrank back in her seat. “Where do you walk your dog?”

“Well, on Barnes Common…”

“Barnes Common is notorious, women have been attacked on Barnes Common!”

Lisa rallied a little. “Yes, I know, but I wouldn’t go there late at night!”

“There are gushes, gullies, hidden areas. You could have a knife at your throat, your knickers torn off you, and bang! You’re dead. But you weren’t asking for it!”

“I-I was really talking about prostitutes…”

“What about them? Do you know any? Does Sue know any?” She turned to the men, she had their attention now. “How about you? Can you three tell me, hands on hearts, that you’ve never been with a tom?”

Lisa whispered to Sue, “What’s a tom?”

Tennison snapped, “A tart!”

In the ensuing silence, the telephone rang. Peter said, “It’ll be for you, Jane.”

She weaved her way to the door, but turned back, blazing, when she heard Peter say, “I’m sorry about that!”

“Don’t you ever make apologies for me! We were just having a consev… a conservation! She slammed the door.

“Keep her off the building site, Pete,” Frank said in a low voice.

“Actually, I’d like an answer to her question,” said Lisa.

“I think that went off all right, didn’t it?” Jane, creaming her face, was talking to Peter.

“You asking me?”

“No, I was talking to the pot of cold cream! You’re going to do the deal, aren’t you?”

“Yeah… Did you have to bring up all that about tarts?”

“Put a bit of spark into the evening.”

“It wasn’t your bloody evening!”

“Oh, thanks! I broke my bloody neck to get that dinner on the table!”

“It’s always you, Jane! You, you, you! You don’t give a sod about anyone else!”

“That’s not true!”

“You care about the blokes on your team, your victims, your rapists, your “toms,” as you call them, you give all your time to them.”

“That’s my job!”

“Tonight was for my job, Jane. But no, you’ve got to put your ten cents’ worth in!”

“Ok, I’m sorry… sorry if I spoilt the evening!”

The tiredness swept over her like a tidal wave. She had no energy to argue, and went for the easy way out, giving him a smile. “OK? I apologize, but I think I had too much to drink, and they were so boring…”

He stared at her, infuriated. Her comment really got to him. “This is business, Jane, do you ever think how boring all your fucking talk is? Ever think about that, ever think how many conversations we’ve had about this guy George Marlow? You ever consider how fucking boring you get? Do you? I don’t know him, I don’t want to know about him, but Christ Almighty I hear his name…”

“Pete, I’ve said I’m sorry, OK? Just let it drop.”

He was unwilling to let it go, but he shrugged. Jane put her head in her hands and sighed. “Pete, I’m tired out. I’m sorry tonight didn’t go as well as you’d planned, but you’ve got the contract, so why don’t we just go to bed?”

The memories of the day swamped her: the smell of the factory, the smell of the two tarts’ flat, her feelings, the smells, all muddled and out of control… She couldn’t stop the tears, she just sat hunched in front of the mirror, crying, crying for the waste, the little tart who had been raped by her stepfather when she was seven, little Jeannie with no one to bury her, who Jane didn’t even know, yet she was crying for her and all the other Jeannies who lived and died like that and nobody gave a shit for…

Peter squatted down and brushed her hair from her face. “It’s all right, love. Like you said, I got the contract. Maybe I had a few too many… Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Jane went to bed, but she didn’t sleep for a long time. When she woke she found the kitchen full of the debris of dinner; not a single dish had been washed. She put her coat on, ready to leave for work, and took two aspirin with her coffee.

Peter, his hair standing on end, joined her.

“Pete, I’ve been thinking over everything. Last night…”

With a grin he reached for her, tried to kiss her. She stepped back. “I love you, Pete, I really do, but you’re right. It doesn’t work, does it? I do put my work first. I don’t think I can change, because I’m doing what I always wanted, and to succeed I have to put everything into it. I have to prove myself every day, to every man on that force-and to myself…”

She was telling him that they could never lead the sort of life he wanted. It hurt a lot, and he wanted to gather her in his arms, make it all right. But the doorbell rang. They just looked at each other, with so much more to say and no time to say it in.

Peter said quickly, “Don’t say anything more now, let’s talk it over tonight. Maybe I haven’t been easy to live with, maybe if I was more secure…”

The doorbell rang again. “You’d better go, Jane.”

“I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”

Peter stood for a moment after she’d left, surveying the kitchen, then he lashed out at the stack of dishes on the draining board, sending them crashing into the sink.

Tennison sat silently beside Jones as he drove. It unnerved him. Eventually he said, just to break the silence, “Still no trace of Marlow’s car.” She didn’t react. “Are you OK?” he asked.

“I want that bloody car found!” she snapped.

“Trouble at home? I got all your shopping OK, didn’t I?”

“Yeah!”

“I got an earful when I got home. My dinner had set like cement.”

“The difference is that you get your dinner cooked for you. At my place, I’m the one who’s supposed to cook it.” She thought a moment. “Shit’s gonna hit the fan this morning, though. You got an aspirin?”

Chief Superintendent Kernan had come in early to review the Marlow case, and for once Tennison had got her oar in first. Now he listened in growing anger as Tennison and Otley raged at each other, but he let them get on with it.

“George Marlow was questioned in nineteen eighty-four about the murder of a prostitute, Jeannie Sharpe. John Shefford, then a DI, was on the investigating team. He was transferred to London because it was discovered that he’d been having a relationshp with the murdered girl!” Tennison stormed. “None of this is in the records. We now know that he was having a sexual relationship with Della Mornay; he must have known he’d identified the wrong girl, but he was prepared to cover that up as well!”

Otley was seething. “Everything you’re saying is a pack of lies, and if John Shefford was alive…”

“But he’s not, he’s dead, and you’re still covering up for him. You requested the Oldham case, you wanted to go up there because you knew Shefford was involved…”

“That’s not true! Della Mornay was a police informer…”

“She was also a prostitute, picked up and charged by John Shefford when he was attached to Vice-and what a perfect job for him!”

Tennison’s last remark brought Kernan to his feet. “That’s enough! Just calm down!”

“Sir, I have been working against time ever since I took over this investigation, at first because of Marlow’s release, now because I’m going to be pulled off it. George Marlow is my only suspect, still my suspect for both murders, and now very possibly a third: Jeannie Sharpe.”

“I don’t know anything about any previous case up north,” Otley insisted. “I know some of the men fraternize with the girls on our patch…”

“Fraternize! Christ!”

Kernan thumped his desk, really pissed off. He pointed to Otley.

“Come on now, did Shefford think there was a connection between the first murder and the one in, er… Oldham?”

“I dunno, but I wanted to check it out. There was no ulterior motive.”

“So you know John Shefford had worked in Oldham? Knew he’d been on this-” Kernan thumbed through the file “-this Jeannie Sharpe case?”

Otley was falling apart. He shook his head. “No! I didn’t know anything, but when I read the report and saw John’s name down… Look, I know you knew, we all knew, he was a bit of a lad, so I just reckoned maybe I should check it out. That’s all there was to it, nothin’ more. If, as ma’am says, he was having a relationship with this tart, I knew nothin’ about it.”

Tennison couldn’t keep quiet. “Just as you knew nothing about his relationship with Della Mornay? Bullshit! You knew, and you’ve been covering up for him…”

Kernan gave her the eye to shut up and keep it shut. “Did you get anything from your trip to Southport, Bill?”

Otley shook his head. “We’re still checking, but no.”

Kernan nodded, then gave him a hard look. “Well, keep at it. You can go.”

Otley hesitated. It was obvious that Kernan wanted him out of the office and wanted Tennison to stay. With an embarrassed cough, he turned to her.

“Maybe we got off to a bad start,” he said quietly. “Should have taken a few weeks off after John…”

She gave him a rueful nod. “I’ll be in the Incident Room,” he said, and opened the door.

They waited until he had gone, then Kernan turned to Tennison and asked, “What do you want to do?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “I worked with a good bloke, in Hornchurch. Detective Sergeant Amson.”

Finally Kernan nodded. “That’s the deal, is it?”

“He’s available, could be here in an hour or so. I’m going to drive up to Rochdale to see the woman Marlow attacked there. It would be a good opportunity to fill him in on the investigation.”

Kernan nodded again. Knowing she had won, Tennison went on, “Marlow served eighteen months. All the cases were either before or after he was in jail. I want the surveillance put back on him.”

“OK. I’ll do my best to hold Hicock off.”

“Thank you, sir. Detective Sergeant Amson.”

“I got it the first time.”

At ten Tennison was in the car park, getting some things from her boot, when Otley came up beside her.

“I reckon we got off on the wrong foot. I was just going back to the pub, wondered if you wanted a drink?”

“Has the Super not spoken to you?”

“No, I went out and put a couple under my belt. I didn’t know about John’s spot of trouble in Oldham…”

Tennison said quietly, “Yes, you did. You’re off the case, Bill. I’m sorry, you’ve already been replaced.”

Otley seemed to shrink before her eyes. He turned to go and she said to his back, “I want the names of every officer on my team who’s taking sexual favors from prostitutes.”

He faced her again, but he had no anger left in him. She gave him a small nod and walked towards a car that had just drawn in to the car park. It was driven by the burly new sergeant, Terry Amson. He got out and opened the passenger door for her.

“I owe you a big one. My arse was dropping off in Hornchurch, I was sitting on it so much. How are you dong?

She beamed and punched his arm as she climbed in. “I think I’m doing OK.”

As he returned to the driving seat he gave Otley a small wave of acknowledgment. It wasn’t returned. Otley’s dejected figure was still standing there when they drove away.