Snapshot

28

‘I didn’t expect the big guns,’ Tessa Kane said, puzzled to see Ellen Destry ushered into her office, late that Wednesday afternoon.

‘Meaning what?’ said Ellen curtly.

Hello, thought Tessa, the claws are out. She’d often wondered if the other woman had been jealous of her relationship with Hal Challis or troubled for professional reasons. Plenty of cops disliked and distrusted the media. It would be fun to let Destry stew a little, she thought, and said, ‘Say hello to Hal for me, won’t you.’

‘It’s possible we’ve got our wires crossed, Ms Kane,’ Destry said coldly.

Keeping her manner blithe, Tessa gestured for the other woman to sit, then returned to her swivel chair and swivelled in it, smiling across her overcrowded desk. ‘I assume you’re here about my tyres?’

‘Your tyres.’

‘Someone slashed them this afternoon.’

Destry cocked her head alertly. Tessa, irritated to be on the receiving end of a CIU interrogation, with its evasions and games, snarled, ‘Cut the crap, sergeant. What’s this about?’

Ellen Destry leaned forward, looking pleased with herself. ‘It could very well be about your slashed tyres.’

Tessa said nothing.

‘Been up to something, have we?’ the Destry woman continued. ‘Stepping on toes?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I understand you’ve had hate mail, anonymous phone calls, a rock through your window, and now this. Maybe you offended one of your swingers.’

Tessa went very still, her mind racing, her skin tingling. Her article on the sex-party scene had been heavy on atmosphere, mood and human interest, without in any way describing people or place. No one reading it could possibly have identified himself-or herself. She waited. Destry would show her hand soon.

And she did, fanning half a dozen grainy photo enlargements across her desk. ‘Do you recognise anything?’

Tessa looked. The quality was poor: dim lighting, amorphous shapes, no faces. ‘No.’

‘Look at the background,’ Destry snapped. ‘Furniture, light fittings, curtains, bedspreads, paintings on the walls.’ She paused. ‘Or maybe you recognise the odd hairy backside or sagging tit.’

Tessa knew where this was going. The photographs had been taken at a sex party. She’d recently written an article about a sex party. Ergo, there was a connection between the two.

‘I have no idea where these were taken-certainly not at the party I attended. Are you saying I, or one of my photographers, took these photographs for the Progress?’

‘We’re not saying that at all.’

‘Then what have they got to do with me?’

‘How many parties did you attend?’

‘One.’

‘Where?’

‘Rye. Miles from here.’

‘Did you recognise anyone?’

‘Like who?’

‘Just answer the question, please, Tess.’

She hated being called Tess right then. ‘I didn’t recognise anyone. Are you saying someone recognised me, and that’s why I’m being targeted? But what’s this got to do with these photos?’

‘We don’t know that your tyres being slashed has anything to do with these photographs,’ Ellen Destry said. ‘But someone found a photo of himself on the net, part of a series of photos including these, and we’re looking at a blackmail angle. You’re our first obvious point of contact. We need names of those you talked to at the party, and the names of the people who organised it.’

‘Sorry, no can do. Confidentiality issues,’ said Tessa automatically, with a sweet, empty smile.

‘We can get a warrant.’

‘Good, you do that, sergeant.’

It was good to see Destry’s frustration. Even so, she smelt a story. ‘Maybe we can help each other.’

‘How?’

‘Tell me more, and I’ll make contact with my sex-party people and see if they’ll talk to you.’

‘If you didn’t attend this party,’ said Destry, collecting the photographs and slipping them into her briefcase, ‘then there’s no reason to talk to them. As I understand it, there are many such parties in operation.’

Tessa waited until the other woman was going out the door. ‘Tell me, sergeant, was Janine McQuarrie involved in the sex party scene?’

Destry said nothing, didn’t even look back, but the set of her shoulders and spine said plenty.

Tessa Kane’s investigative instincts began to kick in.