“It’s perfume, Chanel, and it’s very expensive. Cost over thirty quid, and I only use it sparingly-I mean, too much and you overdo it. So if you don’t mind giving it back? What’d you think I was gonna do, spray it in the driver’s eyes and make my escape? Screw you, screw the lot of you, you’re all wankers!”
She spent the rest of the journey to the station checking her wallet, counting her money and repacking everything in orderly fashion. But she didn’t say anything else; she felt there wasn’t any point.
The lock-up was cavernous. Water dripped constantly, forming pools on the floor, and the shape of it amplified the eerie sounds of the trains overhead. The place stank of damp, ancient oil and many other things.
The far end was pitch dark. Near the center of the empty space Tennison could just make out a large, shrouded shape in the gloom. She chose to ignore the little scuttling, splashing noises of the rats.
“Everybody watch where you stand,” Tennison ordered, her voice echoing. “Lights, are there any lights?”
Fluorescent lights blinked on slowly, casting a cold blueish light which reflected in the puddles. Tennison advanced, picking her way slowly and carefully until she reached the middle. She lifted the old tarpaulin by one corner, exposing gleaming chrome and gold-brown paintwork.
“Well, we’ve got the car!” she called briskly, peering inside it. There was no radio between the seats. “I want the Forensic crowd down here ASAP. The less we move or touch, the better.”
DS Amson was tiptoeing through the pools of water towards her. She stepped back, knocking into him, and turned to give him an earful when she saw his smile freeze. He was looking past her to the far end of the lock-up. Tennison followed his eyes.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, and pointed. “This is where he did it.”
Arrayed on the wall like an exhibit in a black museum were chains, shackles and a hideous collection of sharpened tools.
“How are you going to play it?” Kernan asked Tennison.
She was tense, champing anxiously at the bit. “Henson first, break the alibi. Marlow’s brief’s on his way in.”
“Right, Jane, and… well done!”
“Not done yet,” she replied, flexing her fingers. “Not yet.”
Flanked by Amson and Muddyman, with Havers in her wake, Tennison swept along the corridor to the interview room. Muddyman and Amson entered first, going to opposite sides of the room. Tennison walked straight to the table where Moyra Henson sat smoking, her solicitor beside her. Tennison could feel the change in her; she was afraid.
She addressed the solicitor. “Mr. Shrapnel? This is Detective Inspector Muddyman, Sergeant Amson and WPC Havers.” With a nod to Havers to close the door, she sat down and placed some files on the table. “You have been made aware that your client has not been arrested at this stage, but is here of her own free will to answer questions and assist in the investigation into the murders of Karen Howard and Della Mornay.”
“Yes, I am aware of the situation, and my client is prepared to assist in any way that will not incriminate her or instigate criminal proceedings against her,” the small gray-suited man replied.
For the first time since entering the room, Tennison looked directly at Moyra.
“At twelve forty-five today we gained access to George Arthur Marlow’s rented lock-up garage in King’s Cross. A brown Rover car, registration number SLB 23L, was discovered on the premises, together with certain incriminating evidence. In your recent statement you claimed that you had no knowledge of the whereabouts of this car, is that true?”
There was no bravado left in her. “I didn’t know anything about it, I thought it had been stolen.”
“In the same statement you gave George Arthur Marlow an alibi, stating that he returned to the flat you share on the night of the thirteenth of January, nineteen-ninety, at ten thirty. Is that correct?”
Moyra glanced at her solicitor, then back to Tennison and gave a nod.
“When I interviewed you on that occasion, you were shown pictures of murder victims, do you remember? You stated that you had never met any of the women in the photographs.”
Again Moyra nodded and looked to Mr. Shrapnel. Tennison opened one of her files and brought out two photographs.
“On the sixteenth of May, nineteen seventy-one, you and Deirdre Mornay were on trial at Manchester Juvenile court.” She laid the photograph of Della on the table. Moyra did not react. “In early January of this year, Karen Howard was a customer at the booth in Covent Garden that you took over from Annette Frisby.” Karen’s photo was put in front of Moyra. Again she did not react.
Two more photographs; this time of the bodies of the murdered girls.
“Moyra, you are not looking at the photographs. If you don’t want to look at Della, then look at Karen. George called out to her, offered her a lift, then took her to King’s Cross and tortured her, mutilated her. But first, he hung her on the wall in chains and raped her. Look at it, Moyra, see her hands tied behind her back, the marks on her body… Look at her, Moyra!”
Shrapnel raised his hands as if to say, “That’s enough!”
“Your client, Mr. Shrapnel, stands to be accused as an accessory to murder. Don’t you think she should know what that crime involved?”
“My client has co-operated fully-”
Slowly, Moyra put out a hand and picked up the photos.
“Your client, Mr. Shrapnel, has systematically lied to us. Now she has a chance to-” Tennison stopped and watched Moyra’s reaction to the photographs; she stared at each one, then covered the one of Karen’s body with her hands and closed her eyes.
Shrapnel was saying, “Moyra is George Marlow’s common-law wife…”
Tennison raised a hand to quieten him as Moyra started to speak to her.
“Would you get the men to leave, just the women stay… I won’t talk in front of them.”
Amson gripped Shrapnel by the elbow and hurried out, followed by Muddyman. In the silence, Moyra sat with her hands over the picture of Karen, looking at Tennison with dead, unemotional eyes.
“I didn’t know Della, I didn’t even remember her. She was just a kid. But I did her nails, she used to bite them and… I didn’t know her, it was just that she used to come and have the odd nail replaced, you know, if she’d broken one.”
Tennison nodded without speaking. Moyra didn’t really want to talk about Della, this was not why she had wanted the men out of the room, there was something else. Moyra tugged at her skirt, darting glances at Tennison, her whole body twisting and turning, her hands picking at her own false nails. She looked at Havers, chewing at her lip, then back to Tennison. Then she leaned forward, her chin in her hand, as if she didn’t want anyone else to hear.
“He… he did it to me once,” she whispered. Tennison leaned closer, but Moyra immediately sat back, coughed and stared at Havers. Tennison waited patiently while Moyra straightened her skirt yet again, twisted her hair. Then she released a deep sigh.
This time she didn’t whisper. She faced the wall. “He made this thing, with straps, for here.” She touched her arm. “He said it made… it made the vagina tight, you know, stretched out, but it hurt me. I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it.”
She hung her head, as if the horror was slowly seeping into her brain. She still couldn’t face Tennison; her head sank lower and lower until it was nearly resting on her knees.
“I didn’t know, I didn’t know… Oh, God forgive me, I didn’t know…”
Moyra buried her face in her arms and began to sob.