Silent Victims

15

“What did Connie owe you this money for?” DI Hall asked.

“He needed to get some photographs, he needed some new gear.” Jackson shrugged. “Well, that’s what he told me, so I lent him the dough.”

He looked up as Tennison came in. He nodded and smiled at her in a friendly fashion. For the record, Hall stated that DCI Tennison had entered the room, timed at 7:35 P.M. He went on to ask Jackson, “How much?”

“Two hundred quid. Then he disappears. So, I go out looking for him.” Perfectly natural, nothing untoward, his tone implied.

Jackson’s normally scruffy mop of spiky hair had been gelled and combed down. His face bore the signs of the previous night’s fracas, but otherwise he looked quite presentable in a clean T-shirt inscribed with “Happy Mondays” and a brown suede trucker jacket. His jeans even had creases in them.

His brief, Mr. Arthur, had made no such effort. If anything, he was even seedier than before. A small attaché case rested on the shiny knees of his trousers, its cheap leatherette scratched and torn, one of the clasps missing.

Otley said, “You go to Vernon’s flat looking for him?”

“Yeah, but in the afternoon. I spoke to Vera, she was there.”

“And she told you what?” Otley asked.

“That Connie wasn’t there!” Jackson exclaimed, the obvious answer to a dumb question. “I told you all this, I’ve said all this…”

Tennison had remained standing, next to the wall opposite Jackson, which meant he had to swivel his head as the interrogation switched direction. Her turn.

“Did Parker-Jones ask you to say you were at the advice centre?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? Tell me about the money. Did you often lend Connie money?”

“No. He usually had enough. He was always pretty flush.” Jackson gave his thick-lipped smile. “I mean, sometimes I borrowed from him.”

“When exactly did you give him the two hundred pounds?”

Jackson peered off into space, brow furrowed, in a credible performance of thinking hard. “Don’t remember-I’m sorry.”

“Did Connie live at the house in Camden Town?”

“Sometimes left his gear there, but he’d not actually lived-” He cleared his throat. “-lived there for months.”

“Do you know where he was living?” Tennison asked. “Say for the past few months?”

Jackson shook his head.

“Please answer the question.”

“No.” Jackson answered in a drab, long-suffering voice. “I dunno where he was living.”

“So where did you give him the money?”

“At the advice centre.”

“But according to Parker-Jones, Connie hadn’t been there for-quite a few months.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t remember where I give it him!” Jackson said testily. He glanced edgily at Mr. Arthur, and then his smile was turned on again, full beam. “I’m sorry, really I am. Just don’t remember…”

“How well do you know Edward Parker-Jones?”

“I work for him, pays me a few quid to look after his property.”

“Have you at any time attempted to extort money out of a man called John Kennington?” Jackson gave her a blank stare. Tennison moved nearer. “Blackmail, Mr. Jackson. Have you attempted to blackmail John Kennington?”

Jackson shook his head. “No, I dunno him.”

“On the night Colin Jenkins died,” Tennison said quietly, moving closer, “did you discuss anything with Parker-Jones?”

“Yes.” He paused, deadpan. “Price of toilet paper. I get it in bulk for him.”

“And after the death of Colin Jenkins, did you discuss anything with Mr. Parker-Jones? Not necessarily toilet paper.”

“Like what?”

“You have stated that Donald Driscoll, Billy Matthews, Alan Thorpe, and Kenny Lloyd all saw you at the advice centre the night Colin Jenkins was murdered, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You listed the exact same names as Mr. Edward Parker-Jones-so I am asking you.” Tennison gripped the edge of the table and leaned over. “Did you at any time discuss this with Mr. Edward Parker-Jones?”

“No. No reason to.” Jackson slanted his body away, trying to maintain the distance between them. His heavy-lidded eyes flicked sideways toward her. “They were there and so was he. So he’s bound to say the same lads as I say, because I was there…”

Tennison straightened her back. “You are going to be charged with the attempted murder of a police officer, Mr. Jackson. You also refused an officer entry to the house in Camden and physically attacked another police officer.” Jackson tried to interject, but she steam-rollered on. “You were holding a fourteen-year-old-girl against her will. You have been living off immoral earnings. You want more? Because we have more.”

“I didn’t know they was coppers!” Jackson held up his hands, palms pressed against an invisible wall. “On my life-I mean they just barged into the house and-that girl won’t bring charges-she begged me to give her a place to stay-I didn’t know she was fourteen!” He jerked his head, gulping. “And that other thing. I thought it was Red, that stupid old drag queen, didn’t know it was a copper… just mistaken identity.”

“Why did you want to kill her?”

“I didn’t want to kill her, no way. I just wanted to… frighten her a bit.”

“Why?”

Jackson was thinking hard now, and it was no pretence. He suddenly found himself in a hole, and instead of digging in deeper and deeper, he wanted to dig himself out. He licked his lips. “Well… Vera told me she’d been talking to the cops, and all I wanted to do was frighten her off.”

“Why?” Tennison said. “Why did you want to frighten Rodney Allarton?” Jackson looked confused. “Red?”

Jackson wanted the help of his brief. Mr. Arthur had his head down, scribbling away on a notepad, using his attaché case as a desk. No help there. Jackson looked around, a bit panicky, and then said lamely, “Because I did. Look, I’m sorry, really sorry about that, it was all a mistake…”

“You must have had a reason.”

“No, no, I didn’t have a reason. And that is the God’s truth!”

Tennison gave a little sigh, shaking her head sadly.

“Well, Jimmy, you are going away for a very long time-for no reason.”

Jackson made a wild gesture, at last attracting Mr. Arthur’s attention, who leaned over for Jackson to whisper in his ear. Mr. Arthur sat back. “My client is very tired, perhaps we can continue this interview in the morning?”

The punishingly long day had taken its toll on Tennison too. The lines around her eyes were etched in, the furrows in her forehead deeply ridged. She felt like saying, Enough’s enough, get this scumbag out of my sight, but instead she merely nodded to Hall, who spoke into the tape, concluding the interview.

However desperately she might have desired it, the day was far from over.

They had Jackson running scared-no doubt about it-but he hadn’t cracked, and until he did their case was long on suspicion, short on hard-clinching evidence. She was going to sweat that bastard and wring him out like an old dishrag.

Taking Otley along, she drove up to the house in Langley Road, Camden. From Otley’s description of the place she knew what to expect, but it turned out to be even worse. The squalor of the poky bedrooms at the top of the house disgusted and depressed her. The smell made her nauseous.

They checked out the wardrobes and drawers, sorted through the kids’ clothing and pitiful belongings. After ten minutes Tennison had had it. She slumped down on a narrow trestle bed, the one occupied by Billy Matthews, and picked up the physically challenged teddy bear and gazed at it with listless eyes. Some poor mite had clung onto this battered relic, seeking love and comfort. It felt damp, and she imagined they were a child’s tears.

Otley slammed a drawer shut and looked at her over his shoulder. In a parody of Mr. Arthur, he muttered in his sardonic drawl, “My Guv’nor’s very tired, perhaps we can continue this search in the morning!”

Scrawled into the plaster above the bed, in jagged capitals, she read: “MARTIN FLETCHER LIVES HERE.”

Tennison rubbed her eyes. “I met a friend of yours in Manchester, David Lyall.”

“Yes, I know, he called me,” Otley said, leaning on the dresser. “I wondered why you were hot to trot to Manchester.”

“Good that I did…” She gazed up at him, her hands limp on her knees. “It’s like a jigsaw. I’ve got all the pieces and they just won’t fit.”

“Best not to push them into place,” Otley advised, wise old sage. “Got to have patience.”

“I’ve got that,” Tennison snapped back, nettled, “just don’t have the time.” She added resentfully, “You jumped the gun with Parker-Jones-I wasn’t ready for him.”

Otley didn’t think that merited a response. Anyway, he didn’t give one, just wandered off into the next room. After a moment Tennison levered herself up and followed him.

There was a TV set, video recorder, porn videotapes and magazines, a crate of Newcastle Brown, half consumed, and a 200 carton of Benson & Hedges, the cellophane broken, just one packet gone. Jackson’s room, quite evidently. His long leather coat hung behind the door, and there was other masculine tackle scattered around.

Otley was rooting through the wardrobe, taking stuff off hangers, going through the pockets, feeling the seams and throwing it on the floor. “They all stink, these rooms, used clothes, mildew…” He sounded puzzled. “If Connie stayed here, where’s all the smart gear he was supposed to wear?”

Tennison rummaged through a chest of drawers, poking at Jackson’s belongings with distaste. Otley was on his knees, feeling under the wardrobe. All he found was dust, so he moved along the linoleum to the smaller of the two beds. He lifted the corner of the stained eiderdown to look underneath the bed, and almost sneezed as the dust got to him.

“He must have had letters or a diary or something,” Otley said, sniffing and pinching his nose. Crouching, he craned his head. “Hang on, what have we got here? If he was selling his story to that woman-what was her name?” Grunting as he reached under the bed.

“Jessica Smithy. That’s what he said…! And Martin Fletcher-‘I can sell my story for a lot of dough.’ ” Tennison straightened up. Something had just clicked. “What if Jessica Smithy met him first, and Connie came second? Rent boys, not just one rent boy. She was writing an article on rent boys-plural.”

Bent double, Otley dragged a small brown suitcase from underneath the bed. It was locked. He took out his penknife, and after a couple of seconds’ fiddling that got him nowhere, lost his patience and used brute force. The clasps sprang open. Tennison looked over his shoulder as he flung the lid back. The two of them stared down at the jumble of whips, knives, blackjacks, rubber masks, leather jockstraps, bondage gear, and sundry other exotic sadomasochistic gear.

“Nice little away-day assortment!” Otley commented.

He shoved the case aside and peered under the bed again. Frowning, he got to his feet and leaned over, looking closely at the wall against which the bed was pressed. Dark stains and splashes. He whipped the eiderdown off the bed. The sheets were spattered with dried blood, and there were other discolorations that might have been vomit and diarrhea, going by the smell.

Together, Otley and Tennison moved the bed away from the wall. A pair of soiled Y-front underpants came to light, an odd sock covered in fluff. More dark red splashes. And something else. Lower down near the skirting board, bolted into the wall, an iron ankle bracelet on a chain, its edges crusted with blood.

Tennison recoiled with disgust, wrinkling her face.

“We better get Forensic in here, check the entire house over! And I want it done tonight!” She went to the door, sniffing Givenchy Mirage from her scarf. She said with grim satisfaction, “I don’t think Jackson’s brief’s going to believe this-he’s already worn his nasty little felt-tip pen out tonight, writing down all the charges!”

Outside, Tennison breathed in deeply, taking a lungful of wonderful evening air. She climbed into her car. Otley leaned in the window.

“I think we should have another go at our Vera,” he suggested. “I mean, she’s been living here.” Tennison nodded agreement. “I’ll hang around for the Forensic blokes, they could be a while.” He snapped off a mock salute. “ ’Night. Mind how you go.”

As the car moved off, Tennison gave him a look. “This is my case. Bill. Don’t jump the gun again.”

Otley’s slitted eyes watched her drive off down the street. He wore his nasty little grin. “Your case? Yes, ma’am.”

Ray Hebdon sat in the darkened viewing room, remote control in one hand, pen in the other, making notes as the tapes unrolled on the screen. Some of the stuff was pretty anodyne, some pure filth, and Hebdon wasn’t watching by choice; he was forcing himself to sit here and endure it by an act of will, suppressing his repugnance.

He ejected the tape, stuck in another, and sat back in the chair, reaching for his lukewarm can of beer.

He’d seen this one before, but he watched it again. The classroom and the compliant pupils, the stern schoolteacher whacking his cane on the desk. From its innocent, even quaint, beginning, it degenerated very rapidly to the teacher meting out punishment and demanding penance in the form of spanking, masturbation, blow jobs, and buggery. Other “teachers” appeared on the scene, ready and willing to lend a hand, or some other part of their anatomy. Hebdon studied their faces and made notes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Hebdon turned. “I’m almost through,” he said to Dalton, who had come silently into the room.

“What? Jerking off?” Dalton’s expression was that of someone who’s just got a whiff of a stale fart in a lift. “Are you into this kind of thing?”

Hebdon started to flush from the neck up. “Yeah, I’m off duty,” he sneered, his eyes burning into Dalton’s. “So shut the door when you leave, will you?”

Dalton hesitated, as if something was on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t bring himself to utter it. He coughed and turned to leave.

“G’night then.”

As the door closed behind him Hebdon swung around and hurled his can of beer at it. Hot-eyed, he stared at the screen, his skin prickling with rage, and jabbed savagely at the remote control, freezing the frame on Kilmartin receiving the favors of Connie, Alan Thorpe, and Kenny Lloyd.

The hot water felt so good she could have stayed in another twenty minutues, but then she noticed her fingertips getting wrinkly. She dried herself, chucked sandalwood tale everywhere she could reach, wrapped herself in her Chinese silk robe, and stretched out on the sofa in the living room, glass of red wine within easy reach. She thought of putting on a CD she’d bought recently-Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor-and then decided not to. The silence was too beautiful, and the peace and quiet too precious. Tennison sighed and closed her eyes.

The doorbell rang.

On her way to answer it she looked at the clock and saw that it was a few minutes after eleven. She pushed her hair back, still damp at the roots, tightened her robe, and opened the door.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t wake you, did I?” Ray Hebdon said, genuinely apologetic.

“No, but I hope this is important.” Tennison’s look could have penetrated galvanized steel at twenty yards. He followed her in. She gestured for him to sit. Her half-full glass of wine was on the coffee table. “Do you want to join me?”

She went off to the kitchen and came back with a glass and a fresh bottle of wine. Hebdon had taken off his coat and was standing somewhat self-consciously rubbing his hands.

He cleared his throat. “I suppose you know I’m going back to my station?” She nodded. He smiled. “So I thought I’d do a bit of homework before I left.”

Tennison handed him the bottle and corkscrew. “I’ve been watching the videos,” he said, peeling off the foil. “You know Chiswick was after them? We’ve been shuffling them around until we’d had a good chance to check all the faces out. Maybe that’s why the top brass want them!” He nodded behind him. “Look in my coat pocket.”

Tennison picked up his coat from the back of the armchair. She found his notepad and flipped it open.

“Took me a long time, but I’ve listed all the faces I recognized. There’s a judge, two MPs, a lawyer-big criminal lawyer, a barrister…”

“Any police officers?”

“None that I recognized.” Hebdon uncorked the wine. He topped up Tennison’s glass and poured himself one. “But that’s quite a list!”

“Why?” Tennison was studying the names, frowning and shaking her head. “Why do they do it?”

“It’s what they’re into.”

That didn’t answer her question. “But to risk everything, their careers-for what? I don’t understand.”

“I think it gets to a point where they can’t help it.” Hebdon shrugged.

“Can’t help it?” Tennison said with a grimace. “My God…”

Hebdon sat down. He sipped his wine and stared at the carpet, and struggled to explain. “Because… there’s also the power, like they’re above the law, untouchable.” He looked at her. “Maybe because they are the law.”

Tennison sat down on the sofa and reached for her glass. She said quietly, “Ray, who do you think killed Connie? One of these men?”

“I don’t think it’s as big as them-I mean, they might have instigated it, but they wouldn’t dirty their hands.”

“What about Parker-Jones? He’s involved, that’s obvious. Just as it’s obvious he and Jackson cooked up their alibis together. But did he give Jackson the order to kill Connie?”

Hebdon drank, frowning into space. “That could be why he’s covering his tracks.”

“He’d also lose a lucrative business,” Tennison pointed out.

But it seemed she was off beam, because Hebdon was shaking his head. “No, no, that’s where you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not the money.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I think Otley and Co. have been off course-you know, looking for the money element. Those houses he owns-sure, they’re cash in some respects, but it’s not that. It’s the power of being the supplier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Call in the favors. It’s obvious he had to have connections to have got off not just one charge but two. Parker-Jones must have big contacts. It makes him…” Hebdon pinged the rim of the glass with his fingernail. “Untouchable. I doubt if he’d want to mess it up with murder-or blackmail.”

Tennison sloshed some wine into her glass and sat back on the sofa, grinding her teeth. “So we’re back to Jackson.” She took a swig and licked her upper lip. “If Parker-Jones sticks to his story, Jackson will get away with murder-unless we break it.”

“Going to be tough, because that means you got to break Parker-Jones. If he ordered Jackson to kill Connie, no way will he back down.”

The wine was getting to Tennison. But instead of making her more relaxed, she was feeling uptight and jittery. She said, “Do you have a cigarette?”

Hebdon shook his head and finished his wine.

“Time is running out on this one, isn’t it?” Tennison brooded. She saw his empty glass. “Have another one-you opened the bottle, for chrissakes…” Her tongue slurred over “chrissakes.”

Hebdon hesitated for a moment, and then refilled his glass. Tennison’s head was back on the sofa, her eyes closed. She said slowly, almost mechanically, “I want to tell you something.” Her lips felt numb. “I need to tell somebody.”

Hebdon waited uneasily. He didn’t know what to do, so he had another drink. He watched her, head back, eyes closed.

“I am pregnant.”

Hebdon blinked, and filled the silence with a muffled cough.

“Congratulations.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Tennison said, opening her eyes. She looked at him. “I am pregnant and I have absolutely no one I can talk to. I’ve tried, but… you tell me. Should I have it?”

“It depends, really.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, on whether you want it or not,” he added lamely.

“Would you, in my position?” The question wasn’t just hypothetical, it was stupid. Tennison stared into her glass. “Hell, I could be out of a job tomorrow!”

“What about the, er-the father?”

“There isn’t one-well, obviously there is, but not…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He doesn’t know.”

“Will you tell him?”

Tennison didn’t have to think. She shook her head at once.

“We lived together for a long time and almost got married. But then I got cold feet and he went away and found somebody else.” She threw the last of the wine back. “He is a very nice man, and I would like to be his wife… but it wouldn’t be right.” An expression of pain crossed her face. “No, it would be right, it was always right, just me that messed it up.” She bowed her head, tightly clutching the stem of the wineglass in both hands.

Hebdon said cautiously, “Well, I suppose it comes down to whether or not you want it. Do you?” She was hunched over, hiding her face from him. “Do you want to be a mother?” he asked quietly.

Tennison’s head came slowly around, her eyes bright and moist. A shy, radiant smile lit up her whole face. She said softly, “Yes. Oh yes, I do, very much.”