“Well, was I OK? What do you think, did I look OK?”
She was asking generally, but her eye caught Peter’s and he gave her the thumbs-up. “Well, come on, put the video on, let me see meself!” She sat down with a glass of champagne.
Her father leaned against the back of the sofa. “What’s this Brian Hayes bloke like, then? I listened to him on the radio, you know.”
“Oh, he’s great! Did you think I was OK, Dad?”
“Course you were, love. Do you want a sandwich?”
“No, thanks, I just want to see what I looked like. The second part’ll be on soon.”
Peter started the video and ice skaters zapped across the screen in fast forward. Then came a snatch of Dallas, then back to the skating.
“Is this the video? Peter? Is it on?”
Peter straightened and flashed a look at Jane’s father. “Sorry, love, I think we recorded the wrong channel…”
“What! Oh, shit, no, you haven’t, have you?”
The ice spectacular continued. As Peter looked on, Jane threw a beaut of a tantrum, only interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.
The second part of the program reviewed the number of calls that had been received and mentioned further evidence in the Karen Howard case.
There had actually been ten calls connected with the murder, but only one was to prove worthwhile. Once the cranks and hoaxers had been weeded out, one caller remained. Helen Masters, a social worker, had seen Karen in Ladbroke Grove on the night of the murder; she had seen a man picking her up, a man who, she was sure, knew the victim.
It was almost midnight when two officers arrived at Miss Masters’ house in Clapham to take a statement. She had seen a man she was able to describe in detail, and was sure she would be able to recognize again. She described the man as five feet nine to ten, well dressed, rather handsome, with very dark hair; she described George Arthur Marlow.
Jane and Peter argued all the way home from her parents’ flat. They were still rowing when they reached their door. Peter was furious at her behavior; they had all been waiting for her to cut the birthday cake, but as soon as she had arrived she had caused a terrible argument over her father not recording the program. Her tantrum, which was how he described her tirade against her father, was disgusting, especially when she knew that they had recorded it at home anyway.
Jane refused to back down, it was important to her and her father had known it.
“Do you think he did it on purpose, for God’s sake?”
“That’s not the point! They all knew how important it was to me, but they didn’t give a fuck! The stupid old sod should have let someone else do it! He always gets it wrong!” She stormed into the bedroom.
“Of course they bloody cared!” Peter slammed the front door so hard that it sprang open again and hit him on the shoulder. “You arrive late, scream about the bloody telly, then get on the phone for the rest of the night!” He strode into the bedroom, still yelling, “I don’t know why you bothered turning up, you’re a selfish bloody cow! He’d been waiting to see you, he’s proud as punch about you!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve never heard him say it. If you must know, Mother has never even approved of me being in the Force, when I was in uniform she used to make me take my bloody hat off so the neighbors would know it was me! But Pam, oh, Pam could never do anything wrong, all she’s done is produce children at such a rate she looks ten years older than she should…”
Peter sighed and chucked his coat on the bed. Jane’s followed, so hard that it flew across the room. She kicked off her shoes and sat down grumpily on the bed.
“Actually,” said Peter, “it was quite funny, watching you and your dad, with Torville and whatsit whizzing round on the screen…”
Jane grinned like the sun coming out. “He’s never got the hang of that video recorder. He taped bits of a football match over Pam’s wedding film…” She giggled and hummed a snatch of Here Comes the Bride, then shrieked, “Goal!”
She threw herself back on the bed, laughing hysterically, while Peter stood shaking his head in wonder at her sudden change of mood.
“I’m going to have a drink,” he said.
“Great, me too, and make it a large one!”
When Peter brought their drinks to the bedroom he found Jane glued to the TV screen as the opening theme of Crime Night faded into Brian Hayes’s voice.
“I only want to see myself, I’m sure that make-up they put on me looked appalling.”
She wound the film forward and stopped it; Peter heard her recorded voice. At the same moment the phone rang in the hall. Jane jumped to her feet and hurried to answer it. Peter sat on the bed and sipped his Scotch, watching Jane on the program sitting a little stiffly, but looking very calm and together. The screech that emanated from the hall could hardly be anything to do with that cool woman on screen…
She banged open the door, fist in the air. ‘We’ve got a witness who called in after the program. She says she saw Karen Howard picked up by a man. She says the man kenw her, because she’s sure he called her name… And, Pete, the description, she described bloody George Marlow!”
Her fist shot into the air again. “We got him! We got him, Pete!”
Pete held up her drink. “You wanted to see your performance? Well, you’re missing it.”
“Sod that, I’m gonna pick him up tonight.”
Peter looked surprised and glanced at his watch. “Tonight? Are you going to the station?”
“You’re kidding, I’m on my way right now…”
It was a while before she did leave; there were hurried phone calls while she was changing her clothes. She wiped the make-up off and gave Peter a perfunctory kiss, then grabbed her bag and bleeper and was gone.
Peter continued to watch her on screen, until he grew bored and switched the video off. He lay back on the bed and sighed… Sometimes, more times than he cared to think about, she made him feel inadequate. But tonight he didn’t just feel that way, he was also irritated by her, annoyed by her attitude, her temper, her ambition. He started counting all the emotions she aroused in him, and it was like counting sheep. There were too many, too many to remember. He fell asleep.
7
“I was outside Ladbroke Grove underground station,” Helen Masters was telling DCI Tennison, “waiting to meet one of the girls from the Hammersmith halfway house, Susan Lyons. She’d absconded a few days earlier, then she called to ask me to meet her. But she was late.”
Tennison nodded. Helen Masters was a terrific witness, a social worker, calm and unruffled, with, most important of all, a retentive memory.
“Were you standing on the pavement, or in the entrance? Tennison asked.
“Mostly in the ticket area, it was a pretty cold night, but I kept checking outside in case I’d missed her. That was when I saw them.”
“And who did you see?”
“The man, at first. I just watched him for something to do. There’s a bank across the road, a few yards down, and he was standing near the cash dispenser. He had dark hair… Then I saw Karen, the girl who was murdered. I’d seen her photographs in the newspapers, but it didn’t register until I saw them in color, on the TV program. For a second I thought it was Susan, she’s blond too. I stepped forward…”
“How close were you?”
“Oh, about five yards…” She looked around and pointed to a WPC on the other side of the room. “She was about there.”
“And then what?”
“The man over the road walked to the edge of the pavement and called to Karen.”
Tennison leaned forward and watched Helen closely as she asked her next question. “You heard him clearly, calling her name?”
Helen nodded. “There was quite a lot of traffic noise, but he definitely called out her name.”