“I’m telling you, no,” said Mr. Viswandha through tight lips, his patience wearing thin.
Superintendent Kernan took Muddyman by the arm, leading him to the back door, which overlooked the garden. “Are the forensic boys here?” he asked, satisfied that inquiries with the family were proceeding smoothly.
“Waiting for you, Guv.” Tony Muddyman opened the door. Kernan went first down the steps. With the entire garden area as brightly lit as a film set, the steady downpour was like a boiling mist under the arc lamps.
The back garden had been completely paved over when the Viswandhas moved in. But then there was trouble with the drains. A local building firm had been brought in to lay new pipes to connect with the main sewage system which ran along the rear alleyway. Paving slabs had been lifted and digging begun to remove the old pipework. About two feet down, the workmen had uncovered something far more grisly than broken pipes. Their spades had slashed through some polyethylene sheeting, exposing the pale gleam of human bones.
Kernan, raincoat collar turned up, stood at the edge of the makeshift structure of plastic sheeting the forensic people had erected to keep the rain out. There were three or four people down in the shallow trench, so it was difficult to make anything out. Water had seeped down, and the bottom and sides had congealed into sticky, clinging mud. Peter Gold, Forensic’s bright new boy, was there, Kernan saw, clad in white overalls and green Wellington boots, down on his knees in the mire. Above him, crouched down on the paving slabs, Richards, the police photographer, was trying for the best position to get a clear shot.
Farther along the trench, buttoned up to the neck in his rain gear, the portly, balding figure of Oscar Bream, Chief Pathologist, was leaning forward, gloved hands gripping his knees. Bream’s heavily lidded eyes, as ever, revealed nothing. He had only one expression-inscrutable. Perhaps he really felt nothing, felt no real emotion, just another job of work; or perhaps the years of looking into the pit of horrors of what human beings were capable of doing to their fellow creatures had forced him to adopt this dead-eyed mask as a form of protective camouflage.
Gold was using a small trowel and paintbrush to clear away the mud. “Over here, sir… see?”
“Right,” Bream grunted, bending lower. “Let’s take a look.”
Protruding from the wall of the trench, about eighteen inches from the surface, part of a rib cage and pelvis gleamed under the arc lamps. Bream stepped back and gestured to Richards. The camera flashed three times. Bream bent forward, brushing away a smear of mud with his gloved hand. The remains of a human skull stared up, black sockets for eyes, with an expression almost as inscrutable as Oscar Bream’s.
“So tell me what happened,” Tennison said, “when you sodomized her.”
Oswalde was out of his chair. She had him on the run now; she knew it, and he was catching on fast.
“I know what’s gwan on…” He looked down on Tennison, and then his eyes flicked across to Thorndike, who was trying not to meet his gaze. Oswalde was nodding, dredging up a faint smile. “… with little pinktoes here.” His accent thickened. “Look ’pon her nuh,” he sneered derisively, inviting the other male in the room to join forces against this sly, female conspiracy.
“Sit down please, Robert,” Tennison said calmly.
“She love it.” Oswalde snapped his fingers. “Cockteaser, ennit? What she say I did to that bitch is just turnin’ her on-”
“Sit down please, Robert,” Tennison repeated, and under the force of her level stare he slowly sank back into the chair. “The thought of a woman being humiliated doesn’t turn me on, Robert. Someone being frightened half to death. But that turns you on, doesn’t it?”
Oswalde twitched his broad shoulders in a shrug.
“It must. Why else would you need to force yourself on someone? You’re a very attractive man. How tall are you?”
“Six foot four.”
Tennison raised one eyebrow. “Really? I’m sure a lot of women do fall for you. But not this one.”
“Some women say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes.’ ”
Tennison’s head snapped up, eyes narrowed. “So she said ‘no’ to you?”
“I said ‘some’ women.”
“But she said ‘no’ to you?”
“I got nothin’ to say…”
“She said ‘no’ and that’s not begging for it. That’s not consent.”
“Bullshit.” Oswalde licked his lips. Getting rattled, he turned again to Thorndike, complaining, “She puttin’ words into my mouth.”
“She said no-that’s rape.” Tennison pointed a finger. “Okay, let me ask you this-”
“Good,” Thorndike interrupted, standing up. He cleared his throat, running his finger nervously inside his short collar. “Yes, well, that seems a convenient place to stop.”
“Oh no-Mr. Thorndike,” Tennison protested, “I haven’t finished yet.”
DCI Thorndike slid back his cuff to reveal his thin freckled wrist and tapped his watch. “Unfortunately we’re going to have to since it’s well past six.” And with that he opened the door and went out.
Tennison brushed a hand through her hair and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “Unbelievable,” she said through gritted teeth.
Oswalde stared at her, laughter bubbling in his chest. He smothered it with a cough. Tennison just shook her head.
As DCI Thorndike emerged through the door of the prefabricated “interview room,” built into one corner of the conference hall, he wondered what the grins and smirks were all about. Over ninety grins and smirks, lurking on the faces of the police officers seated at rows of tables who had been watching the interrogation on the banks of screens. They’d caught Jane Tennison’s final words and seen her expression, but he hadn’t, so he was never to know.
With his jerky, stiff-legged walk, Thorndike strode to the front of the hall and faced the assembly. This was the second session of a three-day seminar on interviewing techniques: lectures and study groups interspersed with simulated interview situations conducted by senior officers. The hall quieted as Thorndike raised his hand.
“Excellent… though I would just sound one word of warning. Some of DCI Tennison’s more unconventional questions might get a less-experienced officer into difficulties. Remember,” he went on pedantically, “under PACE no attempt may be made to bully or threaten a suspect.” This was a reference to the rules and regulations for dealing with detainees as laid down by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. “Finally, well-done to Detective Sergeant Oswalde for playing his part so convincingly.”
There were a few more snide grins at that. Convincing all right, because it seemed like he was damn well enjoying it, a lowly DS coming on strong to a female DCI-one of only four such female senior officers in the country. And although Tennison had a reputation as a ballbreaker, there was hardly a man in the room who didn’t fancy her.
She joined Thorndike at the front, shrugging into her tailored, dark jacket. “And finally, finally, tomorrow’s first session will be on interviewing the victims of rape. I’ll see you all at ten o’clock.”
As the meeting broke up to the shuffling of papers and the scraping of chairs, Thorndike gave her a patronizing pat on the shoulder, and she returned a brief, tight smile. God, she thought, he’s like some prissy, old maiden aunt. It was all theory with him, book learning. If he encountered a real-life villain he’d have been totally clueless; probably have to skim through the PACE manual to find the right questions and in which order to ask them. He wasn’t attached to the regular force, but a member of MS15, the Metropolitan body which investigated complaints by the public on matters of police procedure and suspected rule bending-in other words, digging the dirt on his fellow officers.
Going up to her room in the crowded elevator, Tennison glanced behind her to DS Oswalde. “You’re too good at that, Detective Sergeant.”