As she turned left into Lamb Lane Jane noticed a black cab parked up by the junction with Mentmore Terrace. She stopped to take a closer look and jotted down the licence number on the rear of the cab. As she was doing so a man dressed in greasy overalls, carrying a ratchet spanner, approached her.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘No, I’m just checking something… is this your cab?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked, with an inquisitive stare.
Jane had totally forgotten she was in plain clothes and quickly took her warrant card out to show the man.
‘I’m a mechanic at the garage. This cab is one we’re repairing,’ he explained politely, pointing to the large dent and scratches above the rear offside wheel arch.
It transpired that around the corner in Mentmore Terrace, out of Jane’s view, there was a cab repair garage with a number of taxis parked up that were booked in for mechanical or bodywork repairs. Wondering if any of the parked up cabs weren’t there to be repaired Jane asked if the mechanic had a record of which cabs he was working on. The mechanic led her into the office and handed her a list attached to a clipboard. The list had the black cab licence numbers of all the vehicles that were being booked in at the garage. He explained that the licence plate was on the rear boot, below the index plate. Jane didn’t want to tell him that she already knew this, and began checking the cabs in the road until she discovered one that was not on the list.
With a mounting sense of excitement, Jane radioed through to the station. The information she was waiting for had been received but the comms operator had been busy and had forgotten to contact her. According to records at the PCO a Peter Allard was a registered cab driver and his licence number was 7614, with an address in Walthamstow. Jane told the comms officer that the licence number matched a cab she was looking at and that the owner, Peter Allard, was currently in custody at Hackney.
‘Allard had a car key on him which was put in the prisoner’s property locker in the charge room. Can you get the key booked out and brought down to me so I can see if it fits the cab, and inform DI Moran? Over.’
‘I’ll get DI Moran’s approval first. He may want to send a class one driver down with the key to bring the suspect vehicle to the station yard.’
Jane waited anxiously, pacing the pavement next to the parked cab, but it wasn’t long before the reply came that DI Moran wanted the vehicle brought to the station for examination by a SOCO. The comms officer told her that as soon as the area car driver had finished the call he was on he’d collect Allard’s car key and be with her as quickly as he could.
Jane kept checking her watch every five minutes. Nearly half an hour had passed and she was anxious to get back to the station, fearing that DI Moran may start interviewing Peter Allard with another detective. Eventually an officer arrived. The key fitted and he drove the cab to Hackney while Jane was driven back to the station in a patrol car. She hurried to the CID office and brought Moran up to speed with the latest developments.
‘Bloody good work, Tennison. Job well done… but I should have been informed about the developments as soon as you spoke with the Allards’ old neighbour.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure if you realize, but you’ve got cat hairs all over the back of your suit…’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Jane brushed self-consciously at the fluff covering her skirt.
Having just returned from the lab DC Edwards joined them and reported that Paul Lawrence, the lab liaison sergeant, would let Moran know as soon as they got any positive results.
‘He’s the best lab sergeant in the force. Brilliant eye for detail, so we’re lucky to have him working on this for us,’ Moran said as he walked out.
Jane nodded in agreement. ‘DCI Bradfield said the same thing about him.’ The recollection of Bradfield filled her with momentary pain.
Edwards sensed her reaction and patted Jane’s shoulder gently, which she acknowledged with a small smile.
‘It’s been hard to adjust to working alongside someone like Moran… he’s very different. He doesn’t play rugby… we all used to be in the police rugby team and have a few jars afterwards, and a laugh. Have you seen Spencer Gibbs at all?’
Jane shook her head.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘For the first few months after it happened the station was so quiet… Nobody wanted to talk about it. Gibbs used to be singing in the showers all the time, and playing with his rock band… I’ve phoned him a few times, and written to him, but I’ve had nothing back.’
‘I remember you emulating him, the way you used to slap the suspects around.’
‘Yeah… yeah… Gibbs was a bit of a naughty boy, but he was a good cop. It’s not the done thing now. I leave that to the boss.’
Moran walked back in.
‘Leave what to the boss, Edwards?’
‘Er, to get the forensic results from DS Lawrence, sir.’
‘Bollocks to that. You two, get SOCO and go over that cab with a fine tooth comb. While you’re doing that I’m going to type up a search warrant for the suspect’s address, and I want you, Edwards, to take it to the magistrate for approval and signature.’
‘Sorry, guv… Do you want me to do the cab over, or go to the magistrate?’
‘For Chrissakes, Brian, get on and do both of them!’
The cab at the station yard was as clean as a whistle inside, but they found a fresh shirt and jeans in a plastic bag on the back seat. Underneath the driver’s seat was a cabbie’s cash bag with money in it, and in the glove compartment was a wallet containing money and a photograph of two young children with a pretty, dark-haired oriental woman. There was also a set of house keys and a cab driver’s green neck tag, with a licence number on it that matched the one they had been given by the PCO for Peter Allard. Jane and Edwards left the SOCO to take fibre tapings from the driver’s seat, although he said that he didn’t hold out much hope as the vehicle had obviously been carefully cleaned.
On their return to the station they updated Moran and showed him what they had recovered from the cab. Moran suspected that Allard had probably been using the cab as a cover to travel to and from the scenes of his attacks, on the basis that police officers rarely, if ever, stop black cabs. He decided that he wanted to interview Allard before they visited his home address, which they now knew was 45 Grove Road, Walthamstow. Jane asked Moran if he thought the suspect would keep silent as he knew none of the victims could identify him because he wore a stocking mask.
‘Admittedly with the others there is only circumstantial evidence due to the similarity in the attacks… but now I’ve got some leverage on him.’
‘What leverage, sir?’ Jane asked.
‘You’ll find out during the interview, darlin’… so let’s get cracking.’
Jane and DC Edwards went down the stone-flagged corridor to the basement level where the cells were situated. The duty officer unlocked Allard’s cell. Allard seemed very depressed and was unable to make eye contact, especially with Jane. As he held his wrists out to the duty officer to be handcuffed he turned and, for the first time, looked directly at Jane. He spoke softly.
‘I am so sorry for what I did… I feel very ashamed…’
Surprised, Jane nodded. Edwards led Allard out of his cell, along the corridor and up the narrow concrete steps to DI Moran’s office on the first floor.
Moran got straight to the point and asked Allard if he was responsible for the recent spate of indecent assaults in London Fields and Victoria Park. Allard remained head bowed and flatly denied involvement in any assaults of any kind, even the one on ‘her’, he stated, pointing to Jane. He claimed that he heard the detectives saying at the time that they didn’t see what had happened between him and the woman because their view was blocked by the trees.