Silent Victims

9

That bloody woman again! Did she never give up?

Tennison had unlocked the door of her car, tossed her briefcase inside, mentally preparing herself to do battle with the early morning gridlock, and there she was-climbing out of a black BMW across the street next to the park railings. The bearded guy with the camera was with her.

“Chief Inspector Tennison!”

Did the damn woman never sleep? Even before Tennison could get in and zoom off, she was hurrying across, the heels of her high brown leather boots clicking, coat flapping around her.

The photographer nipped in and a flashlight went off.

“Hey-what is this?” Tennison demanded angrily. “What’s he taking pictures of me for?”

Jessica Smithy wafted her hand. “Go back in the car, Carl.” She gave Tennison a warm friendly smile, all sweetness and light. “I’m sorry, but I just need to talk to you.” She held up a press card, a passport-size photograph sealed in plastic. Tennison’s eyes took this in, and also the pocket recorder partly concealed in Jessica Smithy’s other hand.

“Is that on?”

“You’re not interested, are you?” Jessica Smithy’s face hardened, the smile evaporating like morning mist. “Why? Because he was homeless? A rent boy? Doesn’t he warrant a full investigation?” She was holding up the recorder, quite blatantly. “You are the officer who brought George Marlow to trial-”

“Is that on?” Tennison repeated, getting riled.

“I’m writing an article on the boy that died in the fire, Colin Jenkins. You see, I met him a couple of times, and my editors really want pictures… he promised me an exclusive.”

“I’m sorry, we have no pictures of him,” Tennison said, clipped and precise. She was looking at Jessica Smithy with renewed interest.

“They must have taken some when they found him, surely?”

“How often did you meet him?”

“Just a couple of times. I have been very willing to come in to discuss my entire interaction-”

“An exclusive?” Tennison interrupted. Jessica Smithy frowned; the interrogator had suddenly become the interrogated. “You mean Colin Jenkins was selling his story, yes?” She pointed. “Is that tape on?”

“He was prepared to name his clients, including a high-ranking police officer,” Jessica Smithy admitted.

Tennison jerked back, bumping into the side of the car. A spasm tautened her stomach muscles. “Did you record your interview with Colin Jenkins?” she asked, pointing at the recorder.

“Yes, and I’m willing to let you hear the tapes, but I want an exclusive interview with you.”

Tennison had a nasty streak. Jessica Smithy got the brunt of it.

“I want to interview you, Miss Smithy.” She thrust her wrist out, glared at her watch. “You be at my office-with the tapes-at nine o’clock. That’s official.”

Jessica Smithy smiled, holding up her hands. “Hey, I’ll be there! I’ve been trying hard enough to get to you…”

Tennison slid behind the wheel.

“Thank you very much, Chief Inspector!”

Tennison said frostily, “It’s Detective Chief Inspector, Miss Smithy,” and slammed the door on her.

DI Ray Hebdon pushed through the black curtain, blinking in the light. “Nothing in the darkroom.” His expression sagged dejectedly at the sight of the thick albums, several piles of them, on the coffee table. “We got to go through every one of them?” he asked Brian Dalton.

“ ’Fraid so.” Dalton’s mouth twisted in his tanned face. “Sickens me. I don’t understand it-I mean, there’s thousands of them…”

“Of what?” Hebdon hoisted one, riffled through the pages.

“Poofters,” said Dalton, with repugnance.

Hebdon kept turning the pages, saying nothing.

The caretaker shuffled in from the passage leading to the studio. Tufts of white hair sprouted from under a greasy flat cap and his baggy cardigan almost reached his knees. The unlit stub of a cigarette was welded permanently into the corner of his mouth.

“You goin’ to be much longer? Only I wanna go out. I do the place next door. You want the keys?”

“Need you to stay, sorry,” Dalton said, though he didn’t sound it.

“Only the uvver blokes ’ad ’em.” The caretaker sniffed. “Larst night.”

Hebdon frowned at him. “Somebody was here last night?”

“Yers…” The caretaker nodded, waving his hands around in circles. “Took a whole load of stuff out. Police.”

Hebdon pushed past him to the phone.

Vera’s friend with the tight firm buttocks, Red, stood in the sitting room of Mark Lewis’s flat, smoking a cigarette in an ebony holder. He wore a silk kimono with purple dragons and fluffy high-heeled silver slippers. His eyebrows had been shaved off and redrawn with an artist’s flourish, and his lips were glossed a pale pink.

Head back, he blew a graceful plume of smoke into the perfumed air, watching Haskons rooting through the drawers of the gilt escritoire. From the bedroom came the sound of closet doors being opened and banged shut as Lillie conducted a thorough search.

“If I’d known I was having so many visitors I’d have waxed my legs,” Red mused, addressing no one in particular.

He swanned across to the long low Habitat sofa and dinked the cigarette in the frosted lead crystal ashtray. He sat down, crossed his smooth bare legs, and with a little sigh began filing his nails.

“You could help us,” Haskons said accusingly. Not yet eight-fifteen in the morning, and already he was frazzled, frustrated, and thoroughly pissed off. “Where’s his diary? His address book?” Red shrugged, shaping his thumbnail to a point. “What about his tax forms? VAT forms?”

“I don’t know, unless they took it all,” Red said placidly.

Haskons straightened up, flushed. “Who?”

“They said they were police, and that Mark was being held in custody. I mean”-his painted eyebrows rose in two perfect arcs-“there’s not a lot you can say to that. Nobody even asked me about him, you know.” He gave a little plaintive sigh. “… Connie, he was a sweet kid. Not all the time-he was quite an operator-but then, he had the equipment.”

Haskons raised his hand to Lillie, who had appeared from the bedroom, telling him to keep quiet.

“Connie…” Red said pensively, propping his chin on two fingers. “He wanted to be a film star. There’s a lot of famous stars that pay out to keep their past secret. That’s life. Whatever you do catches up on you.” He gazed down sadly at his feet. “Tasteless slippers, aren’t they?”

The day hadn’t started well, and by nine o’clock Tennison was in Halliday’s office, spitting mad. Commander Chiswick was there, his portly bulk framed in the window, neat as a bank manager in his blue and white striped shirt and pinstripe suit. Halliday, across the desk from Tennison, was in one of his twitchy moods. But he was determined not to be bulldozed by this harridan.

“Both Mark Lewis’s flat and studio cleaned out!” Tennison stormed. “And supposedly by police officers.”

“I’ll look into it,” Halliday said.

“I hope you will, because it stinks.”

“I said I will look into it. But we have to abide by the rules,” Halliday insisted, “we have to get the warrants issued.”

Tennison rapped her knuckles on his desk. “There isn’t a single piece of paper with his name left on it, let alone any of his clients’ names. What’s going on?”

Beneath the level of the desk, Halliday’s fingers dug deep into the leather armrests. His pale blue eyes bored into hers. “Chief Inspector, check your transcripts of Mark Lewis’s interview. He was allowed to make a phone call. Maybe he arranged for someone to clear his place out, and it had nothing to do with delays in issuing bloody search warrants!”

“Don’t go casting aspersions around-or they’ll come down on your head,” Chiswick boomed, his fleshy jowls quivering with indignation. “We are just as keen to get a result as you are!”

Tennison half-raised her hand in a gesture of apology. She was so fired up, she’d overstepped the mark. What with missing tapes, not-so-subtle warnings, and officers she didn’t altogether trust, it was easy to get paranoid around here. Or was she simply paranoid about being paranoid?

Chiswick loomed over her. “May I remind you that you inferred that an arrest would be imminent!” He had her on the defensive and was taking full advantage of it. “How much longer do you require four extra officers to assist your inquiries?”

That was rich, Tennison fumed inwardly, when she’d made no such request for extra manpower in the first place. It had been foisted upon her. However, she let it ride.

“I can’t put a time on it. You’ve seen those videos, there’re kids in them…” Tennison looked from one to the other. “I got a breakthrough today, from a journalist. I’ve not interviewed her yet, but she met the victim, taped Colin Jenkins for an exclusive. He was selling his story, and prepared to name his clients.” She checked the time. “In fact she should be here now.”

Silence. Both men seemed taken slightly off guard by this. Chiswick cleared his throat loudly.

“What’s the journalist’s name?”

“Jessica Smithy.”

He rubbed the side of his face, then gave a curt nod, indicating that she was free to go. Tennison went.

Halliday waited. He jumped up. “Don’t cast aspersions! Coming down on whose head?”

Chiswick rounded on him. “Who’s idea was it to bring her here! We’ve got a bloody loose cannon now, and we’re both going to be in a compromising position if it gets out.”

“I warned her off, all right?” Halliday said, low and angry. He pushed his chair aside and stalked over to the window, massaging the back of his neck. “But now there’s this journalist… we can’t tell her to back off.”

“I know what she said,” Chiswick snapped. He took a breath, trying to calm down and think straight. “So give her twenty-four hours. If she’s not charged Jackson, she’s off the case. Get Dalton on this journalist woman.”

Halliday stared at him for a moment. He returned to his desk, twitching, and picked up the phone and asked for the Squad Room.

There were three butts in the ashtray, ringed with lipstick. Jessica Smithy added a fourth, grinding it down with a vengeance. She looked at her watch, yet again, and let her arms flop down on the table.

“Am I going to be kept waiting much longer? She asked me to be here by nine o’clock. It’s already-”

“Chief Inspector Tennison is caught up right now,” DI Hall said, “but as soon as she’s free…”

He went back to gazing out of the window, at the tiny patch of blue sky he could just see between the buildings opposite, daydreaming about Lanzarote. Three weeks to go. Roll on.

Tennison switched on the tape recorder and sat down. She gestured to a chair, but instead Otley perched himself on the corner of her desk. She noticed he hadn’t shaved this morning, and it crossed her mind that he might be drinking again.

Clicks, mike noises, rustlings, and then Jessica Smithy’s voice came out of the twin speakers.

“I’m going to put this on-is that okay? Only I don’t have shorthand. This always makes my life easier.”

Cups and saucers rattling, Muzak playing, background noise of traffic. Cafe? Restaurant? Wine bar?

“Is there any other place I can contact you? I called the advice centre…”

“I told you not to do that! I said I would contact you!”

Tennison looked at Otley, who nodded. Connie.

“We got to first agree on what you will pay me.”

“I can’t say we will pay you this or that amount of thousands, without first having at least a bit of information.”

“I’ll take it elsewhere…”

Tennison tightened her lips in annoyance as Dalton and Haskons came in. She jabbed the STOP button and glared at Dalton. “You’re late. We’ve got tapes of Colin Jenkins.” On her feet now, she jerked her thumb to Halliday’s wall, and lowered her voice. “This is to stay with us until I say otherwise. This woman said that Connie was selling his story-that he was going to name a high-ranking police officer.”

Deliberately not looking at Dalton when she said this, nevertheless she saw his reaction to it in the droop of his eyelids, the slight stiffening of his jaw.

Tennison went on, “And two, a Member of Parliament.” She gave each of them a searching look. “If a name comes up it stays with us, understood? Because we could be opening up a big can of worms, and we will need hard evidence to back it up.”

The three officers pulled their chairs forward as Tennison restarted the tape.

Dalton was leaning forward, wearing a frown of concentration. “Sorry I’m late, but when did this come up? Who brought this in?”

Tennison shushed him. Dalton dropped his head, staring down at his injured hand, now heavily bandaged and secured with tape.

The Muzak and traffic noises seemed worse than before. They had to strain to distinguish the voices from the irritating background clutter.

“Just telling me that you have important names isn’t good enough. I mean, what if this is all a lie? Just to get money out of my paper?”

“I told you I had names-very important people, high up people. An MP, a police officer, a…”

The three men flicked glances at one another.

“I have to go to my editor, Connie. I have to sell him the story too, you know.”

“I want big money.” Tennison recalled the sweet, shy smile in the video. But this was the hard-faced Connie, the calculating hustler out for everything he could get. “… Because if they found out I was doing this, then they’d kill me. There’s a guy called Jimmy Jackson, he’s real crazy.”

Tennison clenched her fist, looking around triumphantly. Bingo-first name! She craned forward with the others.

“I want at least twenty thousand quid…”

The rest was drowned out in scuffling footsteps, a door opening, the sound of traffic suddenly swelling.

Impatiently, Tennison looked at her watch. From her desk drawer she took out a small Panasonic tape recorder, slipped it into the pocket of her dark-blue jacket, and stood up.

“Get the dialogue transcribed and see if the tech boys can clear off the background noise,” she instructed Haskons. “We want names, and as fast as possible.”

She gave Otley the nod to follow her outside. In the corridor she paced, turned, paced again, on a real high. At last they were getting somewhere. It was the best buzz she ever got, when the pieces started coming together. Beat an orgasm hollow.

She stabbed her finger in Otley’s chest. “Get someone to keep tabs on Jackson. If he knew about those tapes, he wasn’t looking for Connie because of any money.”

Otley went off at the double. Dalton came out. “I had to go back in for the blood tests,” he said with an apologetic shrug, and tapped his bandaged hand.

Tennison faced him. “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound off at you in there.” She turned to go.

“I’ll get the results this week. In the meantime I just have to wait,” Dalton continued as she walked off. “… Can I sit in on the Jessica Smithy interview?”

Tennison paused and looked back at him. Her name hadn’t been mentioned in there, and yet Dalton knew. He’d asked who brought the tape in, and all the time he knew that too.

What she knew was that somebody was playing silly buggers, for sure. She nodded. Dalton trailed after her.

“I had two meetings with him. We met once on the tenth in Mr. Dickies at Covent Garden, and on the fourteenth in the Karaoke K bar.”

“How did he first contact you?”

“He called the office.”

“But how did he know to get to you, specifically?”

“Maybe he reads my column.”

“So-if I called your office at the paper and said I had a hot story, you would drop everything and meet me in the middle of Covent Garden?”

“You get to have a feel for a story, intuition.”

“And you had a feel for this one?”

“I just don’t understand your attitude.” Jessica Smithy puffed on her cigarette, eyes rolling at the ceiling. She said tartly, “Unless you don’t want an investigation into Colin Jenkins’s death.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Tennison said, though she had a pretty good idea.

“But then-if what Connie told me is true, it would make sense.”

“What exactly did he tell you?”

“That one of his clients is a high-ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Force.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes. That is why I wanted to talk to you. Being a woman… if there was a cover-up.” Jessica Smithy stared hard at Dalton, his crime being that he was the only male present, and possibly a pederast into the bargain.

“You had two sessions only with Connie, correct? Just two, and both of them taped?”

Jessica Smithy blew a gust of smoke out in a long sigh. “Yes!”

“Did you make any further tapes?”

“No, I did not,” she stated, enunciating each word separately.

Haskons came in and leaned over to whisper in Tennison’s ear. She listened, nodding, and scribbled on a notepad, tore it off and passed it to him. He went out. Watching every detail of this interaction with her restless, darting eyes, Jessica Smithy smoked furiously. Her long pale cheeks were hollowed as she sucked in, held it, suddenly let go.

Tennison wafted the air. “Have you tried the patches?”

“What?”

“To give up smoking.” Jessica Smithy flicked ash, ignoring her. “You had only two meetings with Colin Jenkins…” She carried on ignoring her. “And on both these occasions you recorded the entire conversation between you and Colin Jenkins?”

“Yes.” Token answer, bored to tears.

Tennison plowed steadily, resolutely on. “You said that Colin Jenkins first contacted you directly at your office. How did you get in touch with him the second time?”

“I left a message for him at an advice centre. In fact I even went there, it’s the one in Soho, and I knew it was a big hangout-”

“What date?” Tennison cut in.

“-for rent boys. It would have been the twelfth of this month at three-fifteen P.M., not A.M.”

“When you went to the advice centre did you interview any other boy?”

“This is bloody umbelievable,” Jessica Smithy snorted, stubbing out her cigarette in a cloud of ash. “No, I did not. I didn’t interview anybody.”

“Did you speak to anybody?”

“Edward Parker-Jones. He runs the centre.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him anything.” She dusted her fingertips. “I just asked if he knew where I could contact Colin Jenkins.”

“Did he know who you were?”

“Look, I’m a journalist, okay, and I have to sometimes…” She spread her hands.

“Lie?”

Jessica Smithy’s lips came together primly. “No. He presumed I was a social worker and he was very helpful. But somebody must have told him who I was, and he asked me to leave, in fact he got quite abusive. If I’d wanted to interview any of the kids there he wouldn’t have let me.”

“So Mr. Parker-Jones knew you, a journalist, were looking for Colin Jenkins?”

“YES!” Jessica Smithy might have been trying to get through to an imbecile. “So now what?” She leaned forward eagerly, eyes alight. “Is he a suspect?”

Tennison was distracted by movement in the small square window of the door. Haskons was talking to someone, and a moment later she saw Halliday’s baby blues peering inquisitively in. Hell and damnation. She might have known he’d be lurking about, nose twitching, quick as a shithouse rat.

“Why aren’t you trying to find out which MP or which police officer used him?” Jessica Smithy said angrily. “Maybe even killed him! He was murdered, wasn’t he?”

Tennison regarded her calmly. “Who else did you speak to at the centre? Another boy maybe?”

“I’ve told you,” Jessica Smithy said wearily. “I didn’t speak to anyone, because Parker-Jones wouldn’t allow me to. He asked me to leave…”

Haskons was beckoning. He pushed open the door as Tennison went across. They stood together in the doorway, having a murmured conversation. Glaring at them, Jessica Smithy rose, snatching at her shoulder bag, slinging it on. Tennison leaned in.

“Please remain seated, Miss Smithy.”

Jessica Smithy sat down again, drumming her fingers on the table. She opened the cigarette packet, found it empty, and crushed it and tossed it away. Tennison came in and collected her things. Haskons sat down in Tennison’s vacated chair.

Thinking she was free to leave, Jessica Smithy got up again, and to her intense annoyance was waved down again. She sat there fuming, fists clenched on the table.

“One more thing,” Tennison said. “How much did you pay Colin Jenkins for the tapes?”

“I didn’t,” Jessica Smithy replied, a shade too quickly. “That’s why I was looking for him. I’d been given some money by my editor.”

“How much?”

She hesitated. “Few hundred. But I don’t see that is of any concern of yours.”

“Few hundred?” Jessica Smithy nodded, and then nearly jumped out of her skin when Tennison thrust her head forward and barked, “Exactly how much, Miss Smithy? How much were you going to give Colin Jenkins, Miss Smithy? I can call your editor.”

“Five hundred…”

Tennison leaned nearer, intimidatingly close. Her voice sank to a lethal whisper. “Did you meet Colin Jenkins and give him the five hundred pounds?”

“I-” She nearly blurted something, and checked herself. “No, I did not.”

Tennison looked her straight in the eye. Jessica Smithy turned away. First time she’d been caught out. Tennison knew it, and so did Jessica Smithy.

Haskons said formally, “We will, Miss Smithy, be retaining the tapes you made of your two meetings with Colin Jenkins, as evidence. You will be asked to sign a legal document which bars you, and your paper, from using any information-”

Jessica Smithy tried to interrupt.

“-appertaining to the said tapes.”

Jessica Smithy was wild eyed and furious. “What? This is crazy! You can’t stop me from printing.”

Tennison opened the door. “We just did,” she said, going out.

“You tell her-” Jessica Smithy pointed a trembling finger after Tennison, turning her furious face to Haskons and Dalton. “When my story gets out, she won’t want it in any scrapbook!”

Otley was outside, propped up in his usual indolent slouch, hands stuffed in his pockets. He nodded toward the interview room.

“Anything?”

“Yes.” Tennison indicated they should move on, and they walked along together. “Parker-Jones knew Jessica Smithy was a journalist, knew she was looking for Connie.” Tennison threw a backward glance. “She’s also lying. I think she met Connie. She had five hundred quid, same amount found on his body. I think she paid Connie.”

“Maybe I should run a check on Parker-Jones’s credentials,” Otley suggested.

“I already have. Mallory, Chicago University don’t exist, and the rest are a load of cobblers.” She gave Otley a big smile. “I’m getting closer, we’ve got a motive!”

“For Jackson?” Dalton said, right behind her.

Tennison looked around quickly, not realizing he had been following. She nodded. “Until I get back, keep the pressure on breaking those kids’ alibis,” she told the two of them.

“You want me to come with you?” Dalton asked.

“What, to my doctor’s?” Tennison grinned and set off. She halted. “Oh, one more thing. Halliday wants the transcripts of the Smithy tapes.” She narrowed her eyes at Otley. “But nobody gets them before me, understood?”

And then she was striding off, a jaunty spring in her step.

Dr. Gordon said, “I’ll make an appointment for you to have a laboratory sensitive test, and then we’ll get the beta sub-unit hormone measured.” He completed the note in her medical records and looked up and smiled. “All very advanced technology now!”

“But are you positive?” Tennison said, fastening the top button of her blouse.

“I think so,” Dr. Gordon said, smiling. “You’re pregnant-just!”

Tennison needed the edge of the desk to support herself. She gulped hard. She couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t happening. Things like this never happened to her. Then she realized they did, and had, and she started to smile.