Silent Victims

2

Already, before 9:30 A.M., Commander Chiswick had twice tried to get through to Superintendent Halliday, and no joy. This had better be third time lucky. Tall but rather stooped, with receding gray hair, Chiswick stood at the window of his ninth floor office at New Scotland Yard, phone in hand, gazing out across Victoria Embankment toward the Thames, barely a ripple on its sluggish, iron-gray surface. A mass of low dark cloud threatened the rain that the morning’s forecast had said was imminent.

He straightened up and his eyes flicked into hard focus as Halliday, finally, came on the line.

“It’s public.” Chiswick’s tone was clipped. “John Kennington’s formal resignation accepted due to ill health. That’s it. No option, so I’ve heard-case dismissed.” He listened, breathing heavily with irritation. “I’ve only just been told. I’ll see you there, why not? We’ll have to go, otherwise it’ll look suspicious…”

He glanced sharply over his shoulder as his personal assistant tapped at the door and came in, a sheaf of opened mail in her hand.

“Good,” Chiswick said impatiently into the phone. “I’d better be on my way over to you now. Your new DCI should be there any minute.”

He banged the receiver down and headed for the door. His assistant held up the mail, but he walked on, ignoring her. His gruff voice floated back as he went out.

“Call my wife. I have a dinner tonight. Ask her to send over my dinner suit.”

His assistant opened her mouth to remind him of something, but too late, he was gone.

When he’d worked with the Murder Squad at Southampton Row station, Bill Otley was known to everyone as “Skipper.” The name traveled with him when he transferred to Vice at the Soho Division on Broadwick Street. One of the longest-serving officers on the Metropolitan Force, yet still a lowly sergeant, his personal problems, his bolshie attitude, but even more his solitary drinking had held him back. His wife Ellen had died of cancer of the stomach eight years earlier. They’d always wanted children, never been able to have them. His marriage had been very happy, and since her death it seemed as though all warmth and light and joy had been wrung out of Skipper Bill Otley. He lived alone in a small terraced house in the East End, shunning emotional entanglements. The job, and nothing but the job, held him together, gave some meaning to what was otherwise a pointless existence. Without it he wouldn’t have thought twice about sticking his head in the gas oven.

Now and then the notion still occasionally beckoned, like a smiling seductress, usually when the moon was full or Chelsea had lost at home.

Leaning back in his swivel chair, a styrofoam cup of coffee with two sugars on the desk by his elbow, Otley jerked his leg, giving the metal wastebasket a kick that clanged like a gong. Everybody looked around. The full complement of Vice Squad officers was here, ten of them male, and five women. The WPCs acted as administrative support staff, as was usual in the chauvinist dinosaur of an institution that was the British police force.

“We supposed to sit here all morning?” Otley demanded with a sneer. The team was gathered to be formally introduced to their new DCI, Jane Tennison. Five minutes to ten and no Tennison. Otley was pissed-off, so of course he had to let everyone know it.

Inspector Larry Hall walked by, cuffed Otley on the back of the head. Hall had a round, smooth-skinned face and large soft brown eyes, and to offset this babyish appearance he went in for sharp suits and snazzy ties, a different tie every day it seemed. He was also prematurely balding, so what hair he had was cropped close to the scalp to minimize the contrast.

He addressed the room. “Right, everybody, I suggest we give it another five”-ignoring Otley’s scowl-“and get on with the day’s schedule. We need an I.D. on the body found in the burned-out flat last night.”

“Voluptuous Vera rents it.” Otley gave Hall a snide grin. “But it wasn’t her. It was a kid aged between seventeen and twenty.”

“Working overtime, are we?” Hall ribbed him. But it wasn’t overtime to Otley, as everybody knew. He was on the case day and night; probably dreamt about the job too.

“I wouldn’t say she’s overeager to get started,” Otley came back, always having the last word. Turning the knife in Tennison gave him special satisfaction. He’d never liked the ball-breaking bitch when they’d worked together on the Marlow murder case at Southampton Row, and nothing had changed, he was bloody certain of that.

He finished his coffee at a gulp, and instead of hanging around waiting like the other prats, scooted off to the morgue, a couple of blocks and ten minutes’ brisk walk away, north of Oxford Street.

Mike Chow was in the sluice room, removing his mask and gloves. He dropped the soot-blackened gloves in the incinerator and was filling the bowl with hot water when Otley put his head around the door.

“What you got on the barbecued lad?”

“I’ll have to do more tests, but he had a nasty crack over his skull.” The pathologist looked over the top of his rimless spectacles. “Legs and one arm third-degree burns, heat lacerations, rest of the body done to a crisp.”

Otley tilted his head, indicating he’d like to take a gander. Nodding, Mike Chow wiped his hands on a towel and led him through into the lab. He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves.

“We’ve got an elevated carboxyhemoglobin-blood pink owing to high level of same.”

Otley peered at the remains of the skull on a metal tray on the lab bench. He then took a long look at the illuminated skull and dental X rays in the light box on the wall. Glancing over his shoulder, mouth pulled down at the corners, he gave Mike Chow his famous impression of a sardonic, world-weary hound dog. “Bloody hell… looks like someone took a hatchet to him!”

Shit and corruption! First day in her new posting and she was over an hour late. After spending the night at the hotel she hadn’t arrived back at her flat till nearly ten. She’d freshened up, grabbed her briefcase, and battled with the traffic. Even the Commander had beaten her to it. He was waiting to show her around, make the introductions, though fortunately he seemed too preoccupied with something else to show any displeasure.

Tennison tried to keep pace with Chiswick as he strode along the main corridor, shrugging out of her raincoat and trying not to get her feet caught up in her briefcase.

“Bomb scare, so all the traffic was diverted, and then my battery ran low, so I…” It sounded pathetic and she knew it. “Sorry I’m late.”

Chiswick didn’t appear to be even listening. He pointed to a pair of double doors with frosted panes, not breaking his stride. He seemed to be in one hell of a hurry. “That’s the Squad section office. You have a good hard-working team assigned to you.”

Tennison nodded breathlessly.

He turned a handle, pushed open a door to what Tennison first took to be the cleaners’ broom closet. Bare wooden desk, one metal-frame chair, dusty bookshelves, three filing cabinets, a small plastic vase with a wilting flower.

“If you want to settle yourself in…” Chiswick was already moving back out, leaving her standing there on the carpetless floor. “I’ll see if Superintendent Halliday has made arrangements. He’s right next door.” The Commander pointed to the wall, painted a mixture of old mustard and nicotine.

He went out and closed the door.

Tennison dumped her briefcase on the desk, sending up a cloud of dust. There was an odor she couldn’t identify. Dead cat maybe. A rickety blind covered the window. She raised it, hoping for some light and space. It rattled up and she stared out at a blank brick wall.

She turned and said, “Come in,” at a tap on the door. There was a scuffling sound. With a sigh, Tennison went to the door and opened it to find a red-faced uniformed policewoman weighed under a stack of files and ring binders. Tennison stood aside and watched as the pudgy, rather plain girl with short dark hair staggered in and deposited the files on the desk, sending up more dust.

“You are?”

“WPC Hastings. Norma. I was instructed to bring these to you.”

No “ma’am.” Were things that casual around here, or just plain slack?

Tennison folded her arms. Take it slow and easy, don’t jump the gun. “Do you have a listing of all the officers on the squad?”

Sweating and flustered, WPC Hastings frowned. “Didn’t you get one this morning?” She had large, square teeth with a gap in the middle.

“I’ve just got here,” Tennison said, breathing evenly, trying not to get irritated, though she already was. “If you could do that straightaway, and arrange for everyone to gather in the main office.”

“Most of them are out.” Norma shrugged. “Would you like a coffee?”

“No, just the list,” Tennison said patiently.

The girl went off. Tennison gazed around at the four walls. This had to be a joke. This wasn’t April 1st, was it? She looked through the files, then tried the top drawer of the desk. It came out four inches and stuck. She tried the next one down and that stuck after only two. She kicked it shut, making her big toe sting, and the air blue. What kind of stinking shit-hole was this?

Superintendent Halliday was a neat, fastidious-looking man with short fair hair and pale blue eyes fringed by blond lashes. Not puny, exactly-he was nearly six feet tall with bony shoulders that stretched the fabric of his dark gray suit-but not all that robust either, according to Tennison’s first impression. From the moment she entered his large, spacious, nicely decorated corner office (right next door to her rabbit hutch!) he kept glancing at the gold Rolex on his freckled wrist. She hadn’t expected the welcome mat, but at least he might have shown her the courtesy due a high-ranking officer who was about to take over the Vice Squad. Damn well would have too, Tennison reckoned, if only she’d been a man.

“I want you to give Operation Contract your fullest and immediate attention. I know it’ll be a new area for you, but I am confident your past experience will be an added bonus.”

All the feeling of a talking clock, Tennison thought. As if he’d rehearsed it in his sleep. She had no idea what Operation Contract was. She thought about asking, and then decided not to give him a stick to beat her with by displaying her ignorance. She nodded to seem willing.

Halliday tapped the desk with manicured fingers. “It is imperative we get results-and fast. There’s been enough time wasted.” He shot his cuff and glanced at his watch yet again.

“As yet I have not had time to familiarize myself with any of the cases…” Tennison was distracted as WPC Hastings entered without knocking. Halliday showed no signs of noticing her presence. Norma draped a black evening suit in a cleaner’s bag over the back of a chair and went out.

“… the cases I will be taking over. But, er-Operation Contract I will make my priority.”

Halliday stood up. “Good.” He stuck his hand out. Tennison shook it. “The team will fill you in on our progress to date.” Another swift glance at the Rolex. “I was expecting you earlier.”

Small wonder he could remember who she was, Tennison thought, leaving his office.

Sergeant Otley flicked the sugar cube into the saucer. He did it twice more, leaning his head on his hand, elbow on the table. Observing him with heavy-lidded, soulful eyes, hands twisting nervously in her lap, Vera arched her neck, her Adam’s apple rippling like a trapped creature. Inspector Hall stood with casually folded arms near the door of the interview room. He was interested, and secretly amused, to see how the Skipper would handle Vernon stroke Vera Reynolds. There was the vexed question of gender, for a start.

“I told you… I did the show and then went out for a bite to eat with some friends.” The reply was half-whispered, yet it wasn’t a lisping, camp voice.

Offstage, Vera wasn’t dragged up like some transvestite queen. There was no secret about who and what she was, but she chose to dress plainly and conservatively, favoring a simple blouse in dusky pink, a straight dark skirt, and leather sling-back shoes with low square heels. A few rings and a string of purple beads were the only bits and pieces of jewelry. Under her wig and makeup, in fact, Vera had rather a strong face, Hall reckoned, with good bones; though the mouth, shapely and sensitive, was a dead giveaway.

Otley flicked the sugar cube. “And you don’t know who was in your flat?” he inquired in his usual drab tone.

Vera gave a little shake of the head.

Hall put his hands on the back of Otley’s chair and leaned over. “Vernon,” he said, not unkindly, “if I go out and leave somebody kippin’ in my place, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to say I don’t know them. I mean, that is stupid, isn’t it?”

Vera threw up her hands, the knuckles red where she’d been kneading them. She swallowed hard, the Adam’s apple doing a double gyration. “It could have been any number of people-you see, it was well known I leave a key on top of the front door…”

Otley made a sound, a kind of muffled snort. He sighed and shook his head, crumbling the sugar cube between his long hard nails.

“About seventeen years old?” Hall said. “Reddish blond hair… ring any bells?”

Vera bit her lip, staring down at the table. Then a tight, rapid shake of the head. She was steeling herself for the next question when she was saved by Norma’s face at the small glass panel in the door. She tapped and stuck her head in.

“Fire team would like Mr. Reynolds as soon as possible. There’s sandwiches and coffee served in the Squad Room. Can you get everybody mustered, same as this morning, for twelve-thirty sharp.” Norma waggled her dark unplucked eyebrows at them. “She’s here.”

While Inspector Hall escorted Vera Reynolds out and put her in the charge of two uniformed men, Otley followed Norma along the corridor to Tennison’s office, which at the moment was minus Tennison. The Skipper peered in, an evil grin on his face, watching Norma in the dim, dusty cubbyhole trying valiantly to wrench open one of the desk drawers. Norma looked up, perspiring.

“She won’t like this,” Otley gloated, rubbing his hands.

“She’s not here, Sarge. Nor should you be,” Norma said pointedly.

Otley cackled.

Tennison capped her fountain pen with a decisive click and stood up. She tugged her suit jacket straight at the front and came around the desk to face them. The Squad Room stilled. Not very tall, under five feet five, her honey-blond hair cut in a swath across her forehead, she seemed rather out of place in a room of hulking men; all but one of the women police officers were taller, even if they didn’t have her rounded, sensual figure.

The tension in the hot, crowded room was almost palpable. Tennison certainly wasn’t relaxed, and neither were they. A new Detective Chief Inspector heading Vice might spell all kinds of trouble, and already she had two strikes against her. Her reputation as a tenacious round-the-clock obsessive who worked her team to the bone, and the fact that she was female. Even the WPCs were wary of that.

Fingers laced together at her waist, feet braced apart, Tennison let the silence gather for a moment. She wanted control from the start, and was determined to have it.

“So… please accept my apologies. Not got off on a very good footing on my first day.” Small smile. Let them know you can afford it. “I will obviously need everybody’s cooperation, and I would also appreciate it if…”

She caught a movement as Hall slithered in. He gave her a weak, apologetic smile and she returned a curt nod. He grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria tray and it was halfway to his mouth when Tennison said:

“It’s Inspector Lawrence Hall, yes?” He nodded, mouth open, sandwich unbitten. “Well, let’s you and me start off on the right footing, shall we? If I ask everyone to be at a place at a certain time, and only unless you have a good excuse…”

“I’m sorry,” Hall interrupted, “but I had to arrange for Reynolds to be taken over to the Fire unit. I was waiting-”

“Is Sergeant Otley with Reynolds?” Tennison asked sharply.

Hall hesitated. “Yes,” he lied. “You know about the fire, do you?”

Tennison nodded, slowly folding her arms. “Why is this fire and the boy of such interest to you, or this department? I know Vernon Reynolds. I know what he is, but that isn’t against the law.”

“Well-one-it was on our patch. And in the area we have been targeting, Euston and St. Pancras, on Operation Contract. The dead boy was possibly a rent boy.” Hall glanced toward the door, wishing Otley would show up. “Vernon was probably taking a few quid for letting them use his place.”

“Has he admitted that?”

Hall shifted uneasily under her gaze. Where the fuck was Otley? “No, ma’am… well, he’s not likely to, is he? He’s saying he doesn’t even know who was in there.”

Tennison scented that matters were spinning beyond her control. Nip it in the bud. No mavericks on her team. She said briskly, “I’d like a full report on this fire business and then I will tell you whether or not this department wishes to continue with the investigation. Our priority is Operation Contract.”

Hall stared at his feet. The other officers, munching sandwiches and slurping coffee, exchanged looks. First morning in and she was throwing her weight around. This was going to be a load of fun, they didn’t think.

With a curt nod of her head, Tennison indicated that work should continue. The officers turned back to their desks, to their mounds of paperwork, reaching for phones. They were all aware of her scrutiny: new regime, new boss, and they were being required to pass muster.

Tennison beckoned to one of the WPCs standing in a small group next to the wall-length filing section. She came over, a tall, striking girl with frank, open features and friendly blue eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Kathy.”

“Can you give me a brief rundown on the operation?”

WPC Kathy Trent led her over to the large board. “I’ve been trying to question as many of the kids as possible.” She smiled diffidently, eager to help.

Tennison watched closely as Kathy took her through it. She still hadn’t got a handle on this Operation Contract thing. The board was crammed with information. Under “TOMS”-police slang for female and male prostitutes-a long list of names and locations: Waterloo Street, Golden Fleece, Earls Court, Euston Station, Stars & Stripes. Farther along, headed “OPERATION CONTRACT,” photographs of young boys, some of them no older than eleven or twelve, with video stills of supermarket checkouts, tube station platforms, mainline station concourses. More typed lists of targeted locations-cafes, coffee shops, street markets, soup kitchens, cardboard cities-spotted in different colors. Tapes led from these to a huge map of central London with corresponding colored pins. A duty rota of officers on surveillance was marked up in black felt-tip, with dates, times, and frequency, all cross-referenced to file number such-and-such. At first sight it seemed to be an efficient and comprehensive operation, well planned, rigorously executed.

“Most of the older rent boys are carrying pagers, portable phones, so our team-four of us, ma’am-concentrate on the younger ones skiving around Soho.” Kathy pointed to a sheet marked up in colored felt-tip, a blizzard of asterisks, arrows, code numbers. “We staked out the Golden Fleece, Euston Station, Earls Court…”

Tennison nodded, content for now to listen and learn, get some kind of grip on it.

“Our problem is that when the kids are actually out on the street, they’ve already accepted the lifestyle.” Kathy didn’t sound sad, simply resigned to reality.

Over by the door, behind Tennison’s back, Sergeant Otley sneaked in, made a rapid gesture to Hall. The Inspector scuttled over.

“You’ve been with Reynolds and the Fire team,” Hall said under his breath, tapping his nose.

“I haven’t.” Otley grinned. “I’ve been up at Records and we got…”

He pulled Hall behind the half-open door as Tennison glanced their way.

“… boy is Colin Jenkins, known as Connie.”

Otley punched Hall’s arm. He then made a show of arriving for the first time, all innocent, to be met face-to-face by Tennison, who’d marched smartly over.

“Sorry I’m late, ma’am,” said Otley with a straight face. “But I’ve been seein’ if I can get your drawers loosened.”

Everybody heard but nobody laughed.

Tennison stood with her back to the window. On the other side of the desk piled high with three-inch thick files, Otley waited, sardonic grin absent for the moment. He’d had to deal with this slit-arsed bitch before, and knew what to expect.

The room was still in an almighty mess, though WPC Hastings had managed to find her a desk lamp that worked and two more straight-backed chairs with the varnish worn through to bare wood. For the moment, Tennison had more important preoccupations.

“Right, Sergeant, I am not prepared to take any crap from you, or stand by and let you stir it up. So let’s clear the air.” Tennison jerked her head, eyes hard as flint. “Sit down.”

“Judging by the state of the rest of your office I don’t think I should risk it!” Otley pulled a chair forward and sat down, an uncertain half smile hovering on his face. “Joke!”

“If you don’t want to work with me, I can get you transferred.”

Otley studied his thumbnail. “I was out of line at Southampton Row, but, that said”-he shrugged-“I know you did a good job.”

“Thank you,” Tennison said, her sarcasm like a saw’s edge.

Her last case with the Murder Squad had been a racial and political minefield. Teenage half-caste girl dug up in the back garden of a West Indian area seething with antagonism against the police. Despite this, Tennison had stuck to the job like a terrier with a bone. Tracked down and collared a young white bloke with a sickening, sadistic streak who liked taking photographs while buggering his schoolgirl victims.

Otley was looking anywhere but at Tennison as she moved a stack of files from her chair and sat down. She stared at him a long moment, letting him sweat a little, and then flipped open the green cover of a file. She tapped the report.

“I have a lot of catching up to do, so, come on… are you going to help me or not?”

“I got an I.D. on the boy in the fire at Reynolds’s place,” Otley volunteered. He took a folded sheet from the pocket of his crumpled suit. “He was a runaway, fifteen years old. Colin, known as Connie, Jenkins. All the state-run homes have their kids’ teeth checked on a regular basis and filed on record-”

“What’s this boy got to do with Operation Contract?” Tennison asked bluntly.

There were connections here she couldn’t make. Otley and Hall seemed to be running some cowboy operation of their own. Plus there was an undercurrent in the department; she’d sensed it right away. Not unease exactly, more a kind of apathy. Lack of motivation. She had to get to the bottom line of all this before the whole bloody mess swamped her.

She strode along with Otley to the Squad Room and up to the board.

“It was supposed to be a slow start to a massive big cleanup.” He swept out his hand. “All the areas targeted were those specifically used by rent boys.” A glance at her under his brows. “It’s Halliday’s obsession.”

“Yes… And?”

“That’s what it is-cleanup operation.”

“So what’s the big deal? Why has it been taking so long?”

“Because it’s a bloody cock-up-if you’ll excuse the pun!” Otley said with some heat. “The Guv’nor before you got dumped. Somebody had to take the blame.”

Tennison saw a chink of light. The entire room, while ostensibly working, was taking in every word. Kathy and Norma were sitting at their VDUs, staring at the green screens. Otley was about to go on, checked himself, and looked toward Inspector Hall. Hall came up and the two men swapped some kind of coded message.

Hall turned to Tennison, keeping his voice low.

“Ma’am, a few of us think the same way. There was a leak, word got out. No gamblers, no boys on the streets.” His tone turned bitter. “We spent weeks getting ready for a big swoop, all hush-hush… came out empty-handed. Surveillance trucks, uniformed and plainclothes officers-it was a fiasco. It had to be a leak but Chiswick and Halliday keep on pushing it.”

Tennison looked at Otley standing a few feet away, head sunk on his shoulders, flipping through the pages of a report that just happened to be on the desk.

Under the force of her gaze he raised his eyes. “I’d say, now, the buck stops with you.”

She knew that. It was the sly curl of his lip she didn’t like.