“And you were living in a halfway hostel in Camberwell then, yes? So where did you meet?”
McKinney looked up as Amson returned. He kept his back to McKinney and leaned over to whisper to Tennison.
“There’s a buzz on, looks like another one in Warrington. They’ll get back to me when they’ve finished checking.”
Feeling a bit perkier, Tennison turned back to Reg. He said, “I’ve forgotten what you asked me… I’ve got a migraine.”
“Where did you and Marlow meet?”
“Oh, yeah… Kilburn. We went for a curry, then he drove me back to my place. Bit of a schlepp, an’ I offered to get the tube, but he said it was OK. He wanted to do some work on his motor, in his lock-up.”
Tennison was careful not to show the excitement she was feeling. “Lock-up-you mean a garage?”
“I dunno…” He stopped a moment and rubbed his head, in obvious agony. “The car was, like, an obsession with ’im.”
“He never mentioned where this lock-up was?”
“No… I got a terrible headache.”
A prison warder put his head round the door. “Urgent call for DCI Tennison.”
Tennison took the call. The team were doing a good job; the Warrington murder had checked out, plus another one, in Southport. Both victims had identical marks on their arms.
George Marlow hung around the garages chatting and joking with Rosper and Lillie until dark. They got on well together, and had done a fair bit of painting, but the two DCs were beginning to wonder when he was going to go home-they couldn’t paint all night. The floodlights had come on around the estate and were just enough to work by, but it wasn’t easy.
“Bit late to be painting, isn’t it?” Marlow enquired.
“We’re on bonus, mate,” Rosper told him. “Never know what’s gonna happen with all this council privatization, so we gotta make the cash while we can.”
Marlow sympathized with them, then launched into a story about a bet he’d had with someone at the gym where he worked out when they heard sirens coming close.
All three turned to watch the cars drive onto the estate. In the first one were DI Muddyman with DC Jones, behind them Tennison and Amson. They had barely come to a halt when Tennison leaped out and ran to catch up with Muddyman.
As they hurried towards Marlow’s flat she gasped, “He’s got a lock-up, some kind of garage where he stashes his car. Look for a set of keys, anything that might fit that kind of place. Get the bloody floorboards up if necessary.”
“I don’t believe this,” Marlow was saying with exasperation to Lillie and Rosper as he wiped his hands on a rag. He stood and watched Tennison, Amson and Jones legging it up towards his flat.
“What are they after?” Lillie asked, watching him carefully.
“Me! I’d better get up there, the old lady next door’ll have heart failure…” He laughed. “Not because of them, but because she’s out playing bingo. Means she’ll miss all the drama. Ta-ra!”
Moyra was at the door, looking at the search warrant. From the bottom of the steps Marlow called, “Hi, you want me?”
Moyra was very near to tears as she stood in the hall and surveyed the wreckage of her home. The carpets had been rolled back, all loose floorboards had been prised up, the hardboarding around the bath had been removed, the toilet had been taken apart, even the U-bends of the handbasin and the kitchen sink had been disconnected. Every video had been taken out of its jacket, every book taken down from the shelves and shaken, every crevice in every piece of furniture delved into. Tennison and Amson had every key in the place laid out in the lounge and were examining them minutely.
Moyra’s self-pity turned to rage, and she screamed, “I don’t believe this! I want everything put back as it was, and what you’ve done to the plumbing I want repaired professionally! You’ve had all our bloody keys down the nick before, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”
Tennison gestured to Amson to close the door on Moyra, then turned to Marlow, who was standing in front of the fireplace, hands on his hips. “Why don’t you tell us, George? You know what we’re looking for.”
“I know you’ve been asking the neighbors. I park my car outside, I don’t have a garage.”
“But your car isn’t always parked outside, George. We know you’ve got a lock-up.”
“When it’s not parked here it’s because I’m away on business. I drive-correction, I drove-for a living. Instead of all this, why don’t you just try and find my car?”
There were thuds and hammering noises from the kitchen, and the sound of crockery being moved. Moyra’s screaming voice could be heard telling Muddyman and Jones that the bottom of the percolator didn’t come off. She started yelling for George.
Tennison turned to Amson. “Tell them to keep it down out there. George, you’ve got a lock-up, we know it.”
“A lock-up? How many more times do I have to tell you? I park my car at the back of the flats!”
“We have a witness…”
“Not that old bat from next door!”
“No, a friend of yours.”
“What friend? I don’t have one left because of your crowd. Mates I worked with for years turned their backs on me! You got a friend? Great, introduce me!”
“We have a witness who stated that you told him you had a…”
“Him? Was it someone I was inside with? Yes? Don’t tell me, let me guess. It was Reg McKinney, wasn’t it?” He shook his head, laughing. “You must be desperate. Reg McKinney? He’s no friend of mine. Stung me for fifty quid when we got out. He’s a known nutter. Look at his record, in and out of institutions since he was a kid. He’s no friend of mine, I told him to take a hike.”
There was a tap on the door and Amson opened up.
“Nothin’,” said Muddyman with a shrug, “but we need a plumber.”
In a low voice, Marlow told Tennison earnestly, “I don’t have a lock-up, I don’t have a garage. If I had, maybe my motor wouldn’t have been nicked. It’s the truth!”
Suddenly anxious to get home to Peter, Tennison decided not to go back to the station to pick up her car, so Terry Amson gave her a lift home. She was very aware of the difference having a genuinely friendly face on her team made to her job. She knew she could talk to Terry and it wouldn’t go any further.
Amson was saying, “If he’s got his car stashed somewhere between Camberwell and Kilburn, we’ll find it.”
“If!” She looked at him sideways. “Terry, now you’ve met him, what do you think?”
“For real? If he’s lying, he’s one of the best I’ve ever come across.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Tonight, for the first time, I had doubts.” She pointed ahead. “It’s the second house along.”
When he had stopped the car she turned to him. “What do you think about John Shefford?”
“As a suspect? He was a crack officer, you know.”
She said sadly, “He was also in the vicinity when Karen, Della and Jeannie Sharpe were killed. We’re going to have to check him out on the two that just came in.”
“You know I’m with you on this, Jane, but there’s only so far I’m prepared to go. I’ve got a wife and four kids to support, remember.”
“I don’t like it any more than you.” She put her hand out to open the door. “Just keep it under your hat, but we’ve got to check it out. So you pull Shefford’s record sheets, first thing in the morning, OK? You want to come in for a drink?”
Amson shook his head and Tennison climbed out. “G’night!” she said as he started the engine.
Jane felt for the hall light switch, pressed it down. The flat was quiet; she dumped her briefcase and took off her coat, shouting, “Pete! Pete?”
There was no answer. She opened the kitchen door to find it clean and tidy, nothing out of place. She tried the bedroom; it was just the same.
Sighing, she unbuttoned her shirt and opened the wardrobe. One half of it was empty. She checked the chest of drawers-all Peter’s were empty! Turning away, she unzipped her skirt and let it slide to the floor, stepped out of it and walked towards the bathroom.