“Yeah, sure. You don’t have to ask me, and I promise I’ll try and get back by, say, eight? Is that OK?”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Tell you what, call me when you’re awake, then if you know for sure you’ll be free I’ll book a table at Bianco’s, OK?”
“Sounds good to me…”
Tennison was showered and dressed, her hair washed but not dried, and on her way to the station by seven-thirty. She thought her raincoat smelt a bit off, but hadn’t noticed the dark stain on the back…
For once the Incident Room was empty, so Tennison spent some time in her own office, checking the work rota for the day. Then she skimmed through the surveillance report on Marlow. Each shift consisted of four men; two occupied an empty flat opposite Marlow’s and the other two a plain car.
The team reported little movement; after work Marlow had visited a video club and then gone straight home, remaining there with Moyra for the rest of the evening. There were one or two photographs of him leaving the flat; Tennison stared at his handsome face and noted again how well dressed he was. There was still no trace of his car, the brown Rover.
It was eight-thirty; the men would start to arrive soon. She fetched herself another mug of coffee and lit her fifth cigarette of the day. At eight forty-five she gave up waiting and set off for the mortuary.
She was just getting into her car when she saw Jones arrive on his moped. She yelled across the car park, “About time, too, Jones! Come on, we’re going to the mortuary!”
Mumbling about having had no breakfast, Jones climbed into her car, still wearing his crash helmet.
Felix Norman turned the sheet back carefully. “She took one hell of a beating, poor little soul. Died about six weeks ago, so we won’t get any results on vaginal swabs. Lots of blood, I’ve sent samples over to the forensic girls. She’s got similar wounds to your first victim, made by a long, thin, rounded instrument with a razor-sharp point. All the wounds are clean, and hellish deep. Could be a screwdriver, but it’s longer than the weapon used on the other victim.”
Tennison was wearing a mask, but the stench of the body combined with the disinfectant fumes made her sick to her stomach. “Any hope of getting anything from beneath her nails? You said she put up a struggle?”
“Well, she did that all right, but she had false nails. A couple have snapped clean off, and three are missing altogether. She had deep scratches on her hands, similar to the other one-her hands were scrubbed.”
Tennison nodded. “And what about the marks on her upper arms, are they the same?”
Norman nodded but, as always until he had made out his report, he would not commit himself. “They’re similar. I’ve not compared them as yet, so don’t quote me. Maybe he strung her up to clean her, I won’t know until I’ve made more tests. He seems to have gone to great lengths to remove any traces of himself.”
He drew the sheet back from the corpse’s face, revealing the side Tennison had not seen before. She had to turn away.
“Cheek smashed, jaw dislocated…”
“Can you give me any indication of his size? I mean, is he a big man, or…”
“I’d say he was medium height, five ten, maybe a little more, but he’s very strong. These lower wounds were inflicted with one direct lunge, those to the breasts and shoulders are on an upward slant, which again indicate that she was strung up…”
Tennison swallowed, trying to remove the taste of bile from her mouth. “Off the record, then, and I won’t quote you, you think we’re looking for the same man?”
Norman chortled. “Off the record, and I mean that because I’ve worked my butt off to give you this much, until bloody two o’clock this morning… Yeah, I think it might be the same man. But until I’ve had more time, you mustn’t jump the gun. It was a different weapon, longer, but the same shape.”
Tennison patted his arm, then turned to the row of seats by the doors. DC Jones was sitting there, looking very pale. As she watched, he put his head between his knees. Norman suddenly snapped his fingers and dug a hand into his back pocket.
He brought out a screwed-up bundle of notes. “Eh, Daffy, I’ve got to give you some money, boyo!”
Jones looked up. “Don’t mind if you do,” he managed to reply.
“For the benefit night, man. What was it, a pony?”
Jones looked completely blank.
“Sorry, forgot you’re an ignorant Welsh git! Twenty-five quid, was it?”
Jones nodded, still confused and sick. Norman handed him the cash with a flourish.
Tennison said cheerfully, “OK, if you’re feeling better, DC Jones, you can drive me back to the station!”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry about this, but I was up half the night. The wife cooked a curry, must have turned my stomach. Sorry!”
She smiled and winked at Norman as she removed her mask. “You’ll call me with anything I can quote? And… thanks for coming out to Sunningdale. Bye!”
Jones followed Tennison through the main doors into the station, on his way to Forensic, and noticed the stain on her raincoat. It was in a most unfortunate position, as if she’d sat in something nasty. Embarrassed, he would have let it go, but WPC Havers, coming out of the ladies’, spotted it.
“Oh, boss, just a minute…”
“Whatever you’ve got, it’ll have to wait.”
Havers blushed. “It’s your coat, you’ve got a terrible stain on the back!”
Tennison pulled her coat round to look. “Oh, bugger, it singed! I got soaked last night and left it on the radiator. Can you take it and sponge it down, see if you can do anything with it? It’s a Jaeger, really expensive…”
While Havers inspected the coat, Tennison looked at Jones. “It’s in a pretty unfortunate position, wouldn’t you say, Jonesey? What did you think it was, menstrual cycle? Or curry tummy?”
He flushed and replied, “I didn’t notice it, ma’am.”
Tennison snorted. “Oh, yeah, pull the other one! Thanks, Maureen.”
At nine o’clock George Marlow, looking extremely smart, left his flat and made his way to the paint factory he worked for. His shadows kept watch on both entrances to the building.
The main part of the factory with the massive vats for mixing the colors was as big as an aircraft hangar. The narrow lanes between the vats stretched from one end of the building to the other. The offices were ranged along the far side and all the windows looked out over the factory floor.
There were some outrageous stories spread among the workers about some director or other who had been caught giving his secretary a seeing-to on the desk. The embarrassed man discovered, too late, that he had neglected to draw the blinds. The entire factory had viewed the deflowering of the poor woman, Norma Millbank, who was so mortified that everyone had seen her thrashing on the desk-top that she quit her job on the spot. Since then the workers had lived in hope, but the blinds were usually kept lowered. But the offices were known from then on as the “Fish Tank.”
The office George Marlow used when he was in London was at the far end. He shared it with three other salesmen, one of them a fresh-faced boy called Nicky, who had only been with the firm for sixteen months. A huge chart nearly covered one wall, and the men vied with each other to plot their progress in brilliant colors, like bolts of lightning. The bulletins were a great encouragement and stirred up the competition, not just among the four men in Marlow’s office but all the salesmen. Every month there was a bonus for the highest sales, and George Marlow won it as often as not. He was known as the champion.
Marlow prided himself on being number one, and yet he was a very generous man with his contacts. He had trained and helped young Nicky Lennon, giving him introductions and special hints. Nicky was working on his accounts when the word went round that George Marlow had been picked up and charged with murder, and that he was on the factory floor right now!