Silent Victims

5

Martin Fletcher’s bruised face had matured over the past twenty-four hours. The blow on his forehead had ripened into a huge purple swelling. His cut lip was an angry puffy red. The gash on his cheek had crusted over, weeping yellowish pus. A plug of bloodstained cotton was stuck up his left nostril.

Head sunk between his shoulders, he sat in the interview room, smoking, continually flicking at the filter tip with a gnawed-down thumbnail. The ashtray had overflowed onto the tabletop. Nearby, the unwinking red light of the tape recorder glowed like a tiny ruby.

A uniformed officer stood by the door. Next to Martin sat his probation officer, Margaret Speel. She was in her early thirties, neat and unfussy in a light gray suit, with an oval small-boned face and frizzy black hair cut in severe bangs just above her eyes. She leaned toward him, bowing her head to be on a level with his.

“You understand the question, Martin? Now, we’re all getting tired, we’ve all been here a long time…”

Tennison looked up from the report in front of her. It was after six in the evening, it had been a hectic yet frustrating day, and under the harsh strip lighting she knew that she must have looked like a worn-out old hag. She certainly felt like one. She tried again.

“Martin, last night you talked to Sergeant Otley and Inspector Hall, and you told them that the man who attacked you-”

“No! That was words put in me mouth.” Martin sniffed loudly. “I never told nobody nuffink-and that is the Gawd’s truth.”

Tennison plowed on. “You also said that the man’s name was Jackson and that he specifically asked you if you knew where Colin Jenkins was-”

Again Martin jumped in. “No-I never said that-never.” He took a swift drag, his fingers trembling, showering ash everywhere. “What happened was… you know that escalator top of King’s Cross station? I was comin’ down, me coat got caught like, and I fell forward.” He ducked down to demonstrate. “I hit me head on the stairs, and then, when I got up, I fell over again and hit me nose. Nobody hit me.” He stared at her, one eye swollen and bloodshot.

“So you lied to the police officers who questioned you?” Tennison said quietly.

“Yeah, I suppose so.” He grew bolder. “Yeah, I lied ’cos… ’cos I’m underage-I mean, they really scared me like, and…”

“Martin, did you know Colin?”

He glanced sideways at Margaret Speel and then took another deep swift drag, a single plume of smoke issuing through one nostril.

“Yeah, not like-well, red-haired bloke, wasn’t he? Quentin House, he was there wiv me, now he’s burnt like a crisp!” Due to his cut lip his grin was lopsided, showing the black gap of two missing front teeth. “That’s a joke goin’ round-Quentin Crisp, famous poofter…”

“Have you ever had sex with a man?”

“Me? Nah!”

“What about a blow job? Ever been paid for doing that?”

Martin shrugged. “Few times, when I’m broke like, but I’m not into that. I got other means of employment.” He was sounding cocky now, starting to brag.

“Such as?”

“Breakin’ and enterin’, nickin’ cars, radios. Beggin’-do a bit of that.” He smirked. “Sell my life story to the newspapers.”

Tennison looked at Margaret Speel, whose expression remained exactly the same: in fact hardly any expression at all, apart from a slight cynical twist of the mouth, that must be part of the job description, Tennison thought.

Martin was laughing. “I can nick a motor, go for a joyride, an’ you lot can’t do nuffink!”

Tennison snapped her notebook shut.

“You listen to me, Martin. You think you can play games with us, lie to us, and it’s all a joke. Well, it isn’t. Colin Jenkins has no one to claim his body, no one to bury him.” Tennison stood up. Martin wouldn’t look at her. “Nobody cares about Colin Jenkins but us.”

Absolutely seething, Tennison went up the stairs and strode along the corridor, muttering to herself, “I have just about had enough of this bloody place-kids can run riot over us without-”

Otley was leaning against the wall outside interview room D.03 having a smoke. He eased himself into his usual round-shouldered slouch as Tennison stormed up.

“-Is Jackson in here?” she snapped, jerking her thumb.

“He denies knowing Martin Fletcher,” Otley said.

“And Martin Fletcher denied his entire statement! Can we hold Jackson on attempting to pick up that boy at the station?” Otley shook his head. “So we’ve got nothing on him…! No prints from Vera’s flat?” Otley shook his head. “Nothing off the possible weapon?”

“Nope, nothin’,” Otley said, still shaking his head.

For just an instant Tennison seemed to deflate before his eyes. Then she rallied, straightened up, took a deep breath, brushed a hand through her hair, and jabbed her finger at the door. Otley pushed it open.

She had expected Jackson to be a nasty piece of work and she wasn’t disappointed. What she hadn’t expected was his overweening confidence bordering on insolence. He was sprawled back in the chair as if he owned the place, long legs splayed out, leather jacket undone, blowing smoke rings into the thick blue haze that filled the room. Cigarette stubs floated in the cups of cold coffee on the table. He couldn’t be bothered to look up as she entered, heavy-lidded eyes in the long, pockmarked face glazed with boredom, scruffy mop of hair sticking up in spikes. He leaned back, blowing another lazy smoke ring.

“Open the window,” Tennison rapped out to Hall. “Shut the door,” she told Otley. Jackson sniggered. Bossy bitch.

She whipped around on him. “And you, take that smile off your face! Because I am going to book you and send you away, Jackson, for a very long time.”

Jackson looked at Hall as if to say, Where the fuck did you dig this twat up from? He looked at Tennison and then dropped his eyes to the Marlboro packet he was turning slowly over and over. He said in a calm, controlled voice, “What am I supposed to have done?”

“One-you were caught approaching a juvenile. Two-attempted murder of another juvenile, Martin Fletcher, and three-that you did on the night of the seventeenth murder Colin Jenkins.”

Jackson stubbed out his cigarette and rose to his feet wearing a pained, crooked smile.

“SIT DOWN!!”

Sighing, he dropped into his seat. Still amused, he watched the manic Tennison dragging out the vacant chair with a clatter, picking up the laden ashtray and banging it into the wastebasket. She threw it down on the table, turning to Hall. “You’ve read him his rights?” Then to Otley, “Sergeant, has he given you his contact number for his brief yet?”

She sat down opposite him, scanning his statement sheet, cheeks slightly flushed. “What’s your address?”

“Flat four, Addison Lane Estate, my mother’s place…”

“And your full name is James Paul Jackson, yes?”

“Yes, that’s my name.” He turned the packet over slowly, as if it were a tricky, delicate operation.

Tennison went down the sheet. “Unemployed… arrested…” Hardly audible, she read on. “No charges, no charges, no charges… you are very well known to the Vice Squad, aren’t you?” She closed the report. “You’ve been very lucky until now,” she said, smiling, the boss congratulating a promising recruit before dumping on him from a great height. “Because obviously we couldn’t formally charge you until we had interviewed Martin Fletcher.”

The smile vanished. Hard-eyed now, she let the silence hang.

Jackson looked at Hall, then at Tennison. He opened the packet and eased out a cigarette. Slow and deliberate, with a steady hand, he picked up his lighter. The phone rang. Hall reached for it and had a whispered conversation.

“I never touched Colin Jenkins,” Jackson said, sucking the smoke deep. “I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t at Vernon Reynolds’s flat full stop.” He sighed, shaking his head, still very full of himself. “End of questions.”

“But you admit that you attacked Martin Fletcher on the night of the seventeenth-”

“I was at the advice centre,” Jackson stated calmly, flicking ash. “Ask Mr. Parker-Jones, he saw me there. There was also a kid called Alan Thorpe, and I got three or four more witnesses to prove I was there.” Again the heavy sigh, glancing around the room. “This is ridiculous, waste of time.”

“Why did you want to find Colin?”

“I never found him. I admit though, I was looking for him. Martin must have told you that. I was looking for Connie, but-I-never-found-him.”

“Advice centre,” Tennison said, making a note. “Why were you looking for Colin Jenkins?”

Jackson closed his eyes momentarily and opened them the barest slit, staring straight at her. “He owed me some money.”

“How much?”

“Couple of hundred.”

“Couple of hundred?” Tennison said, eyebrows raised. “But you are unemployed! That’s a lot of money.”

“Yes, that’s why I wanted it back.” Jackson rubbed his unshaven chin and leaned forward. “Look, I’ll be honest with you.” He cleared his throat, big confession coming up. “Sometimes I… do the odd trick, I mean work is really hard to come by, you know? And my mum, she gets behind with the rent… so, I blow a few blokes, an’ I don’t like it when some kid nicks my dough.”

Tennison laced her fingers together and stayed silent. She wasn’t going to waste an ounce of breath on this kind of bull. She heard another of Otley’s long-suffering sighs. Hall leaned over and murmured that the Super wanted to see her in his office.

“I’m not going to lie about Martin,” Jackson said, waving his cigarette about carelessly. “I guess I just lost my temper. You tellin’ me he’s gonna press charges? Martin? No way.” He was staring at her, tugging his earlobe, as if he was trying to figure something out. “Like you said, it was a lot of money…”

Tennison said nothing. He sounded brash and cocksure, right enough, but she sensed that underneath the swaggering bravado he was getting rattled. Good. Get him rattled some more.

“I’m not sayin’ anything until I got a brief. Because you…” Finger jabbing, fleshy lips twisting. “You’re not listening to what I’m sayin’.”

Very businesslike, Tennison collected her things together and stood up. She said to Inspector Hall, “I think Mr. Jackson should be taken to the cells until we have, as he has requested, contacted his brief, and we have verified his alibi for the night in question.”

“Right, let’s go through your witnesses,” Otley said. “Names, Jackson.”

Tennison went out. Hall looked to Otley, patting his tie. She was sailing bloody close to the wind. She’d nearly charged him with murder without a shred of real evidence.

Jackson was making a brutal job of stubbing his cigarette in the ashtray. He glared up at Otley. “What’s her name?”

“One dead rent boy, Chief Inspector, is not going to bring the entire department to a standstill, is that understood?”

Halliday stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking out onto a darkening Broadwick Street. It was the vacant hour, lost in no-man’s-land between the exodus of the office workers and the first stirrings of Soho nightlife.

Tennison was taken aback. “I wasn’t aware of any standstill-

“Just let me finish, please.” Halliday swung around, an abrupt movement that betrayed his edginess. Usually neat to the point of fastidiousness, his tie was slightly askew and his short fair hair was ruffled as though he’d been combing his fingers through it. He placed his pale, freckled hands on the back of his swivel chair. “As Colin Jenkins’s death is now a homicide, I suggest we hand it over-”

“But we have…”

“-to the correct department.”

“But we have a strong suspect in custody,” Tennison protested. “And far from any standstill, we are making progress. The reason I am interested in Jackson is because of the direct link to Operation Contract.”

The Superintendent released a small sigh. “Go on.”

“Jackson’s well known to Vice, and has in actual fact been questioned on numerous occasions. If he did murder Colin Jenkins, I think it will act as a strong lever for more information.” She hesitated, knuckles tapping her palm. “There’s also an advice centre that keeps cropping up, run by a man called Edward Parker-Jones.”

“Operation Contract at no time initiated an investigation into Edward Parker-Jones…”

“I wasn’t contemplating any investigation into Mr. Parker-Jones. But he is my suspect’s alibi, and the longer we have Jackson locked up, the easier it’ll be to question the kids.” Tennison was furious with herself that she sounded to be pleading, and didn’t know why the hell she should have to. “Look, you did say that my priority was Operation Contract…”

“All right,” Halliday conceded. He rubbed his forehead and swung the chair around to sit in it. “Just keep me informed if there are any new developments.”

Tennison nodded and left the office. Halliday sat down, drumming his fingers. He stared at the closed door for a moment, picked up the phone and started to dial.

As Tennison closed the door to Halliday’s office, Kathy came up.

“Guv, have you got a second? You asked me to check back if Colin Jenkins had been brought in. Well, he was-but he used the name Bruce Jenkins, charged with soliciting.”

“So who did the interview?”

“Sergeant Otley. But it was almost a year ago, and he was underage, so a probation officer took over from our department. I’ve traced her,” Kathy said, “but she’s not much help. She’s sending the report in.”

“You remember anything about him?” Tennison asked.

Kathy shook her head glumly. “No, sorry…”

She went off, leaving Tennison gazing dully at the dark green wall opposite. She felt totally drained. Her brain had seized up, and she felt unable to connect one coherent thought to another. She started to drag herself back to her office next door when she heard Halliday talking on the phone, his voice faint but distinct.

“… how can I tell her to back off something if it has a direct link to the bloody job she was brought in to do?”

Tennison looked up and down the corridor and leaned in.

“If she isn’t suspicious now, she would be if I pulled her off it,” Halliday said, sounding exasperated. After a pause he went on, “She knows nothing, because I’m sure of it. We’ll just make damned sure it stays that way.”

The receiver went down and rapid footsteps thudded on the carpet. Tennison made it to her door just as Halliday’s door opened. She nipped in and gently pushed the door to with her fingertips, seeing him pass by through the crack. She clicked the door shut.

Otley had been on the bevvy the night before. His gaunt face was grayer and even more deeply lined than usual, eyes like piss-holes in snow. Nonetheless he was enjoying himself. He kept sneaking wicked little grins at Hall, whose return smile was rather lukewarm.

It was the 9:30 A.M. briefing in the Squad Room, and the entire team-with the exception of DCI Tennison and WPC Kathy Trent-was assembled, paying close attention to Commander Chiswick. Halliday was there, the Colin Jenkins autopsy report and forensic lab reports on the desk in front of him. There was also a new face. Otley recognized him as Detective Inspector Brian Dalton-dark, tanned, with sleepy brown eyes that had the women turning somersaults, Otley reckoned. A real handsome bastard.

So Otley’s delight was twofold. Chiswick was holding court while Tennison was conspicuous by her absence (maybe she hadn’t even been told!) and new people were being drafted in, probably without her knowledge. At any rate, something was going down, Otley gloated, and the old cow would hit the freaking roof when she found out.

“The deceased, Colin Jenkins, was, according to the Path. reports, unconscious when the fire took hold.” Chiswick had a pedantic, monotone delivery, better suited to reading the weather forecast. “This is verified by the low amount of smoke inhalation, indicating very shallow breathing. But his death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning, therefore we are treating the case as murder…”

Otley folded his arms, hugging himself, as Tennison came in, followed by Kathy. Halliday nodded a greeting to Tennison, who went to stand beside him.

“… as it is clear from the fire reports that the fire was not accidental, but an act of arson. We all have a backlog of cases,” the Commander said, looking toward Tennison. He didn’t nod or smile, he just looked. He faced the front.

“… and my own feelings concerning the murder and its obvious complexities are that we keep it inhouse. So I’d like this case brought to a conclusion as fast as possible, and have requested backup to assist Detective Chief Inspector Tennison’s inquiry from C.I.D. AMIT area seven-stroke-eight.”

AMIT 7/8 was the Area Major Incident Team, based at New Scotland Yard, which covered the Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square beat.

“Thank you,” Chiswick said, and a buzz of chatter started up.

Otley nudged DI Hall. They both watched, Otley with undisguised glee, as Tennison stalked out, face like a storm cloud.

She was halfway along the corridor when Chiswick and Halliday appeared behind her, following on at an even pace. When she was a reasonable distance from the Squad Room, Tennison halted and turned, facing squarely up to Halliday.

“I do not, at this stage, need any assistance. I already have a strong suspect.”

“James Jackson,” Halliday muttered to Chiswick, “earmarked in Operation Contract.”

“I would also appreciate it,” Tennison said crisply, getting it off her chest, “if I were to be informed before the squad of any further decisions connected to the Colin Jenkins investigation.”

DI Dalton ambled up, tall, dark, and handsome, with an engaging grin. Otley’s head poked through the Squad Room doors, wearing a devilish smirk, relishing every moment.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Jane, I didn’t have time this morning to introduce you.” Halliday extended his hand. “This is one of your new team, DI Brian Dalton. Brian, this is Chief Inspector Jane Tennison.”

“Good morning,” Tennison said without so much as a glance at him, and went into her office.

She busied herself for an hour with a mound of paperwork. The mind-numbing chore brought her anger down from white heat to a dull smoldering red. Why in heaven’s name she hadn’t developed an ulcer was one of the unsolved mysteries of the age. Or had a nervous breakdown. But she was saving that for her three-week vacation.

Norma kept her supplied with coffee, and at eleven o’clock DI Hall came to her office with the tape sent over from the ambulance emergency service. All such calls were taped and kept for a period of months. They listened to it several times, straining to hear through the whining distortion and crackling electronics; also there was music and pinging noises in the background, which didn’t help.

“I want to report an accident. It’s flat five. I need an ambulance. I want to report an accident. It’s flat five. I need an ambulance . . .”

“Call logged at nine-fifteen P.M.,” Hall said.

Tennison rewound the tape. “Recognize the voice? It’s not Vernon, is it?”

Hall shrugged. It could have been King Kong.

As they were replaying it, Brian Dalton knocked and came in, and leaned against the wall, supported by an outstretched arm, one ankle crossed over the other, studying his fingernails.

“Didn’t leave his name?” he said, when it was finished.

“Of course!” Hall said, beaming brightly. “We’re just replaying this because we like the sound of his voice!”

Tennison started the tape again. She turned it off when Otley put his head around the door. “Jackson is now with his brief, Guv!” He pushed the door open, holding his wrist up, pointing at his watch.

Tennison went into the corridor, nodding at Otley to come with her. Dalton followed. Tennison gave a sweet smile. “Just stay put a minute,” she said, and firmly pulled the door shut on him.

She moved a small distance along the corridor, then leaned against the wall, head bowed, inspecting the worn carpet. Hated that color, even when it was new. Sort of snot-green.

“Bit overqualified, isn’t he?” Otley said, jerking his head.

Tennison’s head came up fast. “You interviewed Colin, alias Bruce, Jenkins. What happened, Bill? Did it slip your mind?” He blinked a couple of times, and Tennison really tore into him. “Here am I trying to get a handle on the boy, and you, you-interviewed him!”

Otley looked at the ceiling. A cord of muscle twitched in his hollow cheek. Here we go again. Ball-Breakers Inc.

He said, “I had a two-minute conversation with him, just after I first came here. I didn’t remember it until Kath told me…”

“And? Is that it? Was he intelligent? Was he dumb? Was he cheeky? Where was he picked up? Was he caught in the act? What was he doing? I presume you did question him. He was soliciting, wasn’t he?”

It was Otley’s turn to inspect the carpet. “He was just… very young, quiet.” Small shrug. “Very quiet.”

“Take Dalton with you. I want Martin Fletcher brought back in.” Tennison’s face was stony. “I presume you can remember who he is.”

She walked off and Otley trudged back to get Dalton and do the bitch’s bidding.

With his brief present-Mr. Arthur, a short squat little man with a sweaty bald head, wearing a threadbare suit and scuffed brown suede shoes-Jackson seemed more inclined to talk. The cockiness was still there, the indolent sprawling posture, the sneering fleshy lips, the chain-smoking. You can’t touch me, I’m fireproof: he might have carried it around with him as a neon advertising sign.

Tennison and Hall listened, not interrupting, getting as much down on tape as was possible in the time. Time was the problem.

“… and there was another kid, Kenny Lloyd, he was there. And-oh yeah, Driscoll. Dunno his first name. Disco Driscoll, and Alan Thorpe, Billy Matthews, they was with me, from…” He sucked on the Marlboro, held the smoke in, let it explode through his nostrils. “ ’Bout half eight onward, at the advice centre.” He wagged his head, lips pursed. “Played some pool, watched TV… I told you this, I told you about even Mr. Parker-Jones being there.”

“Well, we will check out these witnesses, but until then you will remain in custody,” Tennison said officiously. A fair and honest copper playing it by the book.

Mr. Arthur was agitated. His false teeth weren’t a perfect fit, and his speech was accompanied by constant clicking and a spray on the sibilant consonants. “But my client has clearly stated to you that on the evening in question he has not one, but five witnesses, and you were given their names last night!”

Tennison said primly, “Mr. Arthur, until we are satisfied that these witnesses can verify that Mr. Jackson was where he said he was…”

She looked up at Otley, who had just entered the room and was beckoning to her. She went over to him while Mr. Arthur’s querulous clicking voice kept on complaining.

“What about these other charges? I mean, you have held my client for nearly twenty-four hours. If there are other charges to be leveled at my client, then we have a right to know exactly what they are.”

Otley said quietly in Tennison’s ear, “Nobody can trace Martin Fletcher. He was in the Bullring last night, Waterloo underpass this morning.”

“The probation officer, Margaret Speel, doesn’t she know where he is?” Otley shook his head. Tennison ground her teeth. This bloody investigation was falling apart at the seams. She poked her finger into Otley’s chest. “Then you’d better get out and find him! Find every one of Jackson’s alibis and wheel them in. All of them!”

She turned back to Jackson, who was lighting a cigarette from the stub of the last one. Cocky little prick. “Take him back to the cells,” she said to Hall.

Jackson grinned at her. He said to his brief, “How long can they hold me here?”

“What time did you bring my client in?” Mr. Arthur asked Hall, almost bouncing up and down in the chair. “The exact time, Inspector…?”

Tennison glanced back from the door, then made a swift silent exit.

She went directly to the Squad Room. One of the team was writing up the names of Jackson’s alibi witnesses in black felt-tip on the board: ALAN THORPE. BILLY MATTHEWS.?? DRISCOLL. KENNY LLOYD.

Kathy was showing Norma some holiday snaps. “Not got any work on, girls?” Tennison asked.

Kathy hesitated, then passed one over for Tennison to see. “They’re my kids.” She exchanged a quick guarded glance with Norma; neither of them had worked under a female DCI before-hardly surprising when they were rarer than duck’s teeth-and they weren’t sure how to take Tennison.

“I was just saying that after each one I’ve got to start all over again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maternity leave,” Kathy said. “Back I come and everyone’s changed over. I’m shuttled here and there.”

“Your decision though, isn’t it?” Tennison said, flicking through the snaps. Two blond-haired toddlers paddling in the sea, the younger one only just past the baby stage.

Kathy bridled. “No way-I don’t know where I’m going to be sent.”

“No, I meant it’s your decision to have kids. Norma, do you have any?”

Norma shook her head. “No, but I’m not married either.”

Tennison handed back the photographs. “That probation officer for Colin Jenkins, she send over anything?”

Kathy went across to her desk. Norma pointed behind her to the board, a typed list of Colin Jenkins’s clothing and possessions.

“He had to have somebody shellin’ out. His gear, the Armani jacket, designer jeans. Then there’s the money-five hundred quid.”

“Traced to a children’s home,” Kathy said, coming back with a wallet-type cardboard folder. “They’ve sent a few photographs, just small black-and-white jobs.” She laid them out and glanced through the résumé she’d compiled. “No family. Taken into care aged three. His mother OD’d a year later, and he was moved from one-two-three homes, a foster home, and then back again.” She held up the sheet. “That’s about it.”

Tennison looked at the smudgy photographs, which showed Connie standing in various groups, children’s homes and schools, aged from six to roughly thirteen. A good-looking kid, but terribly solemn in all of them. Small wonder, Tennison thought. What a miserable existence…

She glanced around as the Squad Room doors swung open, and got a shock. She stared uncomprehendingly at Haskons and Lillie, standing there large as life: two detectives who’d served under her at Southampton Row.

Tennison stood up. “What are you doing here?”

Haskons tossed his raincoat down and gave an elaborate shrug. “You tell us. Thorndike said you needed some backup-so, well, he sent you the cream.”

DC Lillie, the taller, thinner of the two, more easy-going and laid-back than DS Haskons, merely shook his head.

Tennison came around the desk. She wasn’t annoyed, she was totally pissed off. This was getting beyond a fucking joke. She jerked her head for them to follow. “You’d better come into my office.”

They went out. As the doors swung shut, Kathy gave Norma a dig with her elbow. “Catch the little snide line about it being my decision? Who does she think she is!”

Tennison opened the door to her office and ushered the pair inside ahead of her. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She closed the door, not quite slamming it, though she felt like doing so, and stood glowering toward Halliday’s office.

“Inspector Tennison?”

She turned, feeling like the place was suddenly teeming with strange new faces. He trotted toward her, slightly out of breath, looking a bit flustered, holding a scrap of paper. “I’m from Rossington station. DI Ray Hebdon. I was told by Superintendent Halliday to”-he checked the paper-“report to you.”

Tennison made a sweeping gesture, indicating her office. “Please, be my guest.” Hebdon went in.

Tennison rapped on Halliday’s door. There was a brief pause before he answered, during which she ran both hands through her hair, her simmering temper coming nicely to the boil. She went in, marched up to his desk, and came straight out with it.

“First the male model Dalton. Now it’s DS Haskons, DC Lillie, and a pink-faced nervous type from Rossington station. Could I have an explanation?”

Halliday was partly bent over, peeling a hard-boiled egg and dropping the shell in the wastebasket. A plastic lunch box contained three more hard-boiled eggs. He leaned back in his chair, holding up the peeled egg. “They sit like lead in the gut.”

“Don’t I have a say in the matter? Any choice?”

“Chief Inspector, you have three extra men. Use them.”

“Correction, I have four! Dalton.”

“I know how many, Chief Inspector,” Halliday said testily. “You wanted to retain the murder inquiry, didn’t you?” He bit the top off the egg.

Tennison went to the door. She cast him a dark look under her brows. “Any more due? Or is this it? They have a few spare dog handlers at Hammersmith!”

Halliday laughed, mouth full of egg. He tapped another on the desk and peeled it, tossing the shell fragments into the wastebasket.

Tennison left the office, hoping he damn well choked on it.