“Well, we will check out these witnesses, but until then you will remain in custody,” Tennison said officiously. A fair and honest copper playing it by the book.
Mr. Arthur was agitated. His false teeth weren’t a perfect fit, and his speech was accompanied by constant clicking and a spray on the sibilant consonants. “But my client has clearly stated to you that on the evening in question he has not one, but five witnesses, and you were given their names last night!”
Tennison said primly, “Mr. Arthur, until we are satisfied that these witnesses can verify that Mr. Jackson was where he said he was…”
She looked up at Otley, who had just entered the room and was beckoning to her. She went over to him while Mr. Arthur’s querulous clicking voice kept on complaining.
“What about these other charges? I mean, you have held my client for nearly twenty-four hours. If there are other charges to be leveled at my client, then we have a right to know exactly what they are.”
Otley said quietly in Tennison’s ear, “Nobody can trace Martin Fletcher. He was in the Bullring last night, Waterloo underpass this morning.”
“The probation officer, Margaret Speel, doesn’t she know where he is?” Otley shook his head. Tennison ground her teeth. This bloody investigation was falling apart at the seams. She poked her finger into Otley’s chest. “Then you’d better get out and find him! Find every one of Jackson’s alibis and wheel them in. All of them!”
She turned back to Jackson, who was lighting a cigarette from the stub of the last one. Cocky little prick. “Take him back to the cells,” she said to Hall.
Jackson grinned at her. He said to his brief, “How long can they hold me here?”
“What time did you bring my client in?” Mr. Arthur asked Hall, almost bouncing up and down in the chair. “The exact time, Inspector…?”
Tennison glanced back from the door, then made a swift silent exit.
She went directly to the Squad Room. One of the team was writing up the names of Jackson’s alibi witnesses in black felt-tip on the board: ALAN THORPE. BILLY MATTHEWS.?? DRISCOLL. KENNY LLOYD.
Kathy was showing Norma some holiday snaps. “Not got any work on, girls?” Tennison asked.
Kathy hesitated, then passed one over for Tennison to see. “They’re my kids.” She exchanged a quick guarded glance with Norma; neither of them had worked under a female DCI before-hardly surprising when they were rarer than duck’s teeth-and they weren’t sure how to take Tennison.
“I was just saying that after each one I’ve got to start all over again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maternity leave,” Kathy said. “Back I come and everyone’s changed over. I’m shuttled here and there.”
“Your decision though, isn’t it?” Tennison said, flicking through the snaps. Two blond-haired toddlers paddling in the sea, the younger one only just past the baby stage.
Kathy bridled. “No way-I don’t know where I’m going to be sent.”
“No, I meant it’s your decision to have kids. Norma, do you have any?”
Norma shook her head. “No, but I’m not married either.”
Tennison handed back the photographs. “That probation officer for Colin Jenkins, she send over anything?”
Kathy went across to her desk. Norma pointed behind her to the board, a typed list of Colin Jenkins’s clothing and possessions.
“He had to have somebody shellin’ out. His gear, the Armani jacket, designer jeans. Then there’s the money-five hundred quid.”
“Traced to a children’s home,” Kathy said, coming back with a wallet-type cardboard folder. “They’ve sent a few photographs, just small black-and-white jobs.” She laid them out and glanced through the résumé she’d compiled. “No family. Taken into care aged three. His mother OD’d a year later, and he was moved from one-two-three homes, a foster home, and then back again.” She held up the sheet. “That’s about it.”
Tennison looked at the smudgy photographs, which showed Connie standing in various groups, children’s homes and schools, aged from six to roughly thirteen. A good-looking kid, but terribly solemn in all of them. Small wonder, Tennison thought. What a miserable existence…
She glanced around as the Squad Room doors swung open, and got a shock. She stared uncomprehendingly at Haskons and Lillie, standing there large as life: two detectives who’d served under her at Southampton Row.
Tennison stood up. “What are you doing here?”
Haskons tossed his raincoat down and gave an elaborate shrug. “You tell us. Thorndike said you needed some backup-so, well, he sent you the cream.”
DC Lillie, the taller, thinner of the two, more easy-going and laid-back than DS Haskons, merely shook his head.
Tennison came around the desk. She wasn’t annoyed, she was totally pissed off. This was getting beyond a fucking joke. She jerked her head for them to follow. “You’d better come into my office.”
They went out. As the doors swung shut, Kathy gave Norma a dig with her elbow. “Catch the little snide line about it being my decision? Who does she think she is!”
Tennison opened the door to her office and ushered the pair inside ahead of her. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
She closed the door, not quite slamming it, though she felt like doing so, and stood glowering toward Halliday’s office.
“Inspector Tennison?”
She turned, feeling like the place was suddenly teeming with strange new faces. He trotted toward her, slightly out of breath, looking a bit flustered, holding a scrap of paper. “I’m from Rossington station. DI Ray Hebdon. I was told by Superintendent Halliday to”-he checked the paper-“report to you.”
Tennison made a sweeping gesture, indicating her office. “Please, be my guest.” Hebdon went in.
Tennison rapped on Halliday’s door. There was a brief pause before he answered, during which she ran both hands through her hair, her simmering temper coming nicely to the boil. She went in, marched up to his desk, and came straight out with it.
“First the male model Dalton. Now it’s DS Haskons, DC Lillie, and a pink-faced nervous type from Rossington station. Could I have an explanation?”
Halliday was partly bent over, peeling a hard-boiled egg and dropping the shell in the wastebasket. A plastic lunch box contained three more hard-boiled eggs. He leaned back in his chair, holding up the peeled egg. “They sit like lead in the gut.”
“Don’t I have a say in the matter? Any choice?”
“Chief Inspector, you have three extra men. Use them.”
“Correction, I have four! Dalton.”
“I know how many, Chief Inspector,” Halliday said testily. “You wanted to retain the murder inquiry, didn’t you?” He bit the top off the egg.
Tennison went to the door. She cast him a dark look under her brows. “Any more due? Or is this it? They have a few spare dog handlers at Hammersmith!”
Halliday laughed, mouth full of egg. He tapped another on the desk and peeled it, tossing the shell fragments into the wastebasket.
Tennison left the office, hoping he damn well choked on it.
6
Otley had nothing personal against Dalton-he hardly knew the bloke-but there was something about the young detective inspector (not a day over thirty-five, Otley judged) that irritated him. Not his good looks: Otley had no personal vanity whatsoever. It was more Dalton’s impulsiveness. He did everything at the gallop, instead of taking his time and sizing up a situation. And he had no streetwise sense, not a scrap. That’s what got to Otley, the fact that the bloke was deskbound for most of his working life, far removed from the seedy pubs and afternoon drinking clubs that were part of Otley’s daily round.
That was it. Otley had placed him. An eager-beaver Boy Scout dressed up as a police inspector.