Prime Suspect

9

Terry Amson drove fast and well up the motorway while Tennison put him in the picture on the murders.

“So we have three girls, Della Mornay, Karen Howard and Jeannie Sharpe, who were all strung up, with these clamp marks on their arms. The first two are different, but it’s quite a coincidence.”

“Maybe he just perfected his technique! Have you tried talking to any of the guys he was banged up with? He’s talkative, isn’t he?”

“You could dig around while I’m with Miss Gilling, see if you can set something up for when we get back. And have a look at Marlow’s statements, you never know what a fresh eye will come up with.”

The little terraced cottage that Pauline Gilling shared with her father had a neat, well-cared-for garden. The inside was daintily decorated with Laura Ashley paper and a large collection of little glass animals, giving it a fragile feel which was echoed in Miss Gilling herself.

In her late thirties, she appeared older, with a pleasant but worried face. It took a while for her to unlock the front door, which was festooned with chains and bolts.

She sat on the edge of her chair and recounted the events of that day in a soft voice. It was as though she had learned it by heart; her eyes glazed slightly and she focused somewhere beyond the wall.

“It was the seventh of November, nineteen eighty-eight. At four thirty in the afternoon…”

Tennison prepared herself to work this lady over. Without taking her eyes from Gilling, she settled herself on the sofa and took out a cigarette, nodding encouragingly.

“I was working in a florist’s, and it was half-day closing. I don’t work there anymore.” She was wringing her hands unconsciously. “The shop is called Delphinia’s, and the owner’s name is Florence Herriot. November the seventh is her birthday. She asked if I would go to the pub with her at lunchtime, for a sherry. I had an appointment at the hairdresser’s, so I did not arrive until…” She gave a strangled little cough, as if her throat was too tight, and continued, “I arrived at two thirty-five. I had a glass of sherry and stayed for approximately half an hour. I always come home to get father’s lunch, but on early closing day I have my hair set, so I leave a tray for him.”

There was that strange little cough again. She was really tense now; her hands continually smoothed her skirt over her knees, which were pressed tightly together. Tennison said nothing, just waited for her to go on.

Her body went totally rigid and she had to force herself to speak. “I-I went up the path, I had my key out. I’d opened the door a few inches when… he called my name. ‘Pauline! Hallo, Pauline!’ I turned round, but I didn’t recognize him. He was smiling, and… he walked up the path towards me, and he said, ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in for a cup of tea, Pauline?’ ” She froze, like a rabbit caught in car headlights.

Her mouth was open, but she made no sound. Deliberately, Tennison coughed, and she shook her head as if awakening, then started gabbling. “I said I was sorry, I thought there was some mistake, I didn’t know him. He came very close, pushed me into the hallway, got me by the throat, kept pushing me backwards… I was so terrified I couldn’t scream, I was afraid for my father. I tried to defend myself with my handbag, but he grabbed it and hit me with it. The clasp cut my cheek open and broke my front teeth…”

After a decent interval, Tennison prompted gently, “And then your father came in?”

“Yes. He was upstairs, I was lying on the floor, and he kept kicking me, then Daddy called out and he ran away. My father is blind, he couldn’t see him, couldn’t be called to identify him…” She was going to cry.

“But you were able to pick George Marlow out of the line-up?”

Gilling swallowed, held back her tears. “Oh, yes. He was clever, though; he had a beard when he attacked me, but he shaved it off before the identity parade. I still recognized him. It was his eyes, I will never forget his eyes… I know, if it hadn’t been for my father, George Marlow would have killed me.”

Tennison crossed the room and squatted beside Gilling’s chair. “Thank you, you did very well, and I’m sorry to have made you go through it all again.”

Gilling shrank from her, fearing to be touched, and stood up. Her nervousness was beginning to grate on Tennison.

“I go through it all the time, every time the doorbell rings, every strange sound at night… I see his face, keep expecting him to come back, to finish… I had to leave my job, I can’t sleep. He should have been put away for years, but they let him go after eighteen months. I live in terror of him coming back, because he said he would, he said he’d come back!”

Tennison climbed into the patrol car and breathed a sigh of relief. Beside her, Amson was immersed in a file.

“Marlow had a beard at the time of the rape, shaved it off for the line-up! That matches with what the toms said in Oldham, they thought the guy had a beard.”

He looked up. “D’you think there’s any truth in the story that she gave Marlow the come-on? She’s, what, thirty-eight now, and a spinster…”

Tennison bridled. “So am I, it doesn’t mean I want myself raped, and my front teeth kicked in!”

“Take it easy, it’s just that from the description she’s a bit of a dog. Marlow, on the other hand, is a goodlooking bloke, like myself.”

She replied with a laugh. “Be very careful, Sergeant, or you’ll be back rotting in Hornchurch!”

Two men were painting the row of garages on Marlow’s council estate. They were making quite a good job of it, considering neither of them had done much in that line before. A few yards away George Marlow was standing, hands in pockets, watching them.

One of the men went to his nearby van for a new tin of paint. He opened it and stirred it with a screwdriver, then wiped the blade on his already paint-covered overalls.

“Excuse me, are you going to be painting the whole block, or just the garages?” Marlow asked.

“Just this lot, far as we know, mate,” DC Lillie replied.

“They aren’t for residents, you know. Council rents them out to anyone who can afford them. The tenants have to park in the bay over there, known as Radio One…” He flashed a grin at Lillie. “Means you had one when you parked it!”

He waited for a response, which didn’t come, so he went on, “I had one, but it was nicked.”

“What, a radio?”

“My car. Rover Mark III, three-liter automatic. More’n twenty years old, collector’s item, you know.” He stared down into the tin of paint, then up at the garages.

Rosper joined in. “You leave it out? Bodywork must ’ave rusted up?”

Marlow touched the paint on the nearest garage door, then peered closer. “Had a bit of filler here and there. Suppose some kids nicked it for a joyride, be stripped down by now. Had all my emblems and badges on the front, RAC and AA, owner’s club… all on a chrome bar at the front.” He examined the paint again. “I’m in the paint business, typical of the council…” He put a hand out towards Rosper. “Can I just borrow your brush? Like to see how this goes on…”

He dipped the brush in the paint and applied a stroke as Rosper and Lillie exchanged glances behind his back. Totally unaware, he said, “You work out, do you?” He glanced round at Rosper. “You look as if you do. What gym do you use?”

He chatted on, painting the door, while they stood and watched.

Late in the afternoon, Tennison and Amson arrived at Brixton Prison to interview convict 56774, Reginald McKinney. While they waited for him to be brought to them, Amson explained that McKinney had shared a cell with Marlow in Durham and had been picked up again a few weeks ago for breaking and entering.

The warder who brought McKinney told them there was a call from the station for them. Tennison asked Amson to take it, then offered the tall, skeletal prisoner a seat.

He was suffering from a migraine, and had come from the hospital ward. One of his eyes watered and his face was twisted in pain. “We’ll try and keep this short, Reg. Now, you shared a cell with George Marlow in Durham, that right?”

“That is correct.”

His eyes were crossing, it was like putting questions to a demented squirrel. “You told your probation officer that you had met Marlow after your release.”

“That is correct.”

“And you were living in a halfway hostel in Camberwell then, yes? So where did you meet?”

McKinney looked up as Amson returned. He kept his back to McKinney and leaned over to whisper to Tennison.

“There’s a buzz on, looks like another one in Warrington. They’ll get back to me when they’ve finished checking.”

Feeling a bit perkier, Tennison turned back to Reg. He said, “I’ve forgotten what you asked me… I’ve got a migraine.”

“Where did you and Marlow meet?”

“Oh, yeah… Kilburn. We went for a curry, then he drove me back to my place. Bit of a schlepp, an’ I offered to get the tube, but he said it was OK. He wanted to do some work on his motor, in his lock-up.”

Tennison was careful not to show the excitement she was feeling. “Lock-up-you mean a garage?”

“I dunno…” He stopped a moment and rubbed his head, in obvious agony. “The car was, like, an obsession with ’im.”

“He never mentioned where this lock-up was?”

“No… I got a terrible headache.”

A prison warder put his head round the door. “Urgent call for DCI Tennison.”

Tennison took the call. The team were doing a good job; the Warrington murder had checked out, plus another one, in Southport. Both victims had identical marks on their arms.

George Marlow hung around the garages chatting and joking with Rosper and Lillie until dark. They got on well together, and had done a fair bit of painting, but the two DCs were beginning to wonder when he was going to go home-they couldn’t paint all night. The floodlights had come on around the estate and were just enough to work by, but it wasn’t easy.

“Bit late to be painting, isn’t it?” Marlow enquired.

“We’re on bonus, mate,” Rosper told him. “Never know what’s gonna happen with all this council privatization, so we gotta make the cash while we can.”

Marlow sympathized with them, then launched into a story about a bet he’d had with someone at the gym where he worked out when they heard sirens coming close.

All three turned to watch the cars drive onto the estate. In the first one were DI Muddyman with DC Jones, behind them Tennison and Amson. They had barely come to a halt when Tennison leaped out and ran to catch up with Muddyman.

As they hurried towards Marlow’s flat she gasped, “He’s got a lock-up, some kind of garage where he stashes his car. Look for a set of keys, anything that might fit that kind of place. Get the bloody floorboards up if necessary.”

“I don’t believe this,” Marlow was saying with exasperation to Lillie and Rosper as he wiped his hands on a rag. He stood and watched Tennison, Amson and Jones legging it up towards his flat.

“What are they after?” Lillie asked, watching him carefully.

“Me! I’d better get up there, the old lady next door’ll have heart failure…” He laughed. “Not because of them, but because she’s out playing bingo. Means she’ll miss all the drama. Ta-ra!”

Moyra was at the door, looking at the search warrant. From the bottom of the steps Marlow called, “Hi, you want me?”

Moyra was very near to tears as she stood in the hall and surveyed the wreckage of her home. The carpets had been rolled back, all loose floorboards had been prised up, the hardboarding around the bath had been removed, the toilet had been taken apart, even the U-bends of the handbasin and the kitchen sink had been disconnected. Every video had been taken out of its jacket, every book taken down from the shelves and shaken, every crevice in every piece of furniture delved into. Tennison and Amson had every key in the place laid out in the lounge and were examining them minutely.

Moyra’s self-pity turned to rage, and she screamed, “I don’t believe this! I want everything put back as it was, and what you’ve done to the plumbing I want repaired professionally! You’ve had all our bloody keys down the nick before, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

Tennison gestured to Amson to close the door on Moyra, then turned to Marlow, who was standing in front of the fireplace, hands on his hips. “Why don’t you tell us, George? You know what we’re looking for.”

“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.