Otley nodded, pinching his nostrils. “Could be Parker-Jones. I’ve got the addresses of both kids. I can be up in Manchester and back by tonight.”
“Manchester?”
“Cross over to Cardiff-be nice to have something on Parker-Jones, and if I can get some dirt on him…!” His eyes gleamed.
“I’ll do it,” Tennison said. “I’ll go.”
“What? You go?” Otley was choked. “I’d have thought you’d want to be here.”
“No, it’ll give me a chance to talk to Dalton.” Tennison was already moving off, oblivious to Otley’s glare. She called the room to attention. “Can I have a word!”
She waited at the board for the team to gather around.
“I don’t bloody believe it,” Otley said bitterly, as Hebdon and Lillie joined him. “I do all the leg work and she gets the day away.”
“Okay, quiet down. I didn’t have time this morning to have a briefing, so let’s do it now, and crack on. I want us to keep on those kids. Jackson only needed ten minutes from that centre to Vernon Reynolds’s flat.” She looked to Kathy. “Have we got a tail on him?”
“No, we haven’t found him yet.”
“Brilliant.” Tennison smacked her fist into her palm. “Go back to his hunting ground, the stations, that’s where you picked him up the last time.” Somebody was mumbling, but she carried on. “We want to break down these alibis. We now have a strong motive for Connie’s murder…” Her eyes raked over them. “And we all know it isn’t robbery.”
Slouched against his desk, head bowed, Otley was muttering to DI Hall, “I checked out his credentials. Now I got not one but two possible child abuse cases against him.”
Hall frowned, not a clue what the Skipper was nattering on about. But Tennison, senses like needles, had caught some of it.
“What was that, Bill?”
Otley scratched his armpit, eyes shifting away. He shrugged. “I was just saying, pity we got nothin’ off the Smithy tapes.”
“They’re useless,” Haskons broke in. “Connie never named anyone! Apart from Jackson, just some clubs where he met his clients.”
“No addresses yet,” Lillie said, reading from a sheet of paper, “but clubs are: Bowery Roof, Lola’s, Judy’s, and somethin’ that sounded like ‘Puddles.’ ”
“ ‘Poodles,’ ” Ray Hebdon said. “It’s called Poodles. The last two are gay bars, but the Bowery Roof Top is pretty exclusive. Lots of drag acts, transexuals, transvestites, but most members are homosexuals-city types, professionals, not the usual low-life punters.”
Grinning broadly, Lillie gave him a dig. “You’re pretty well informed, aren’t you? I’ve only just got ’em.”
“I’m a member,” Hebdon said quietly.
Lillie’s loud laugh faltered and dwindled into the general dead silence of the room.
Tennison said, “Ray, are you joking? Because it isn’t funny.”
Hebdon didn’t seem to think so either. “I know it isn’t,” he said, his face quite serious, composed. “That’s why I thought it was about time I came clean.” He spread his arms, eyes wide and frank, and looked around. “I’m gay!”
Tennison sipped her coffee. She put the cup down, shaking her head, more in sorrow than in anger. “You took your time in telling us! It’s your private business, Ray, but considering the-”
“I’ll leave,” Hebdon said.
“Let me finish, will you?” Tennison leaned her elbows on the desk. She was trying to assimilate this revelation. She also had a vague, as yet unformed notion that something positive might come of it. “What I was going to say was that it was a pity you didn’t have the confidence to tell us sooner.”
“Chief Inspector, I have never hidden what I am. Most of us don’t go with underage kids.”
“I know.”
“I feel as repulsed as anyone on the team,” Hebdon said with feeling, “but I do know the gay scene. I only proferred the information because it might be of some use.”
Tennison nodded. It had never crossed her mind that he might be gay, but now that she knew he was, she thought she could detect certain telltale signs. He grew his dark, rather unkempt hair long, over his collar. He seemed edgy at times, and was prone to blinking nervously. He didn’t mince, yet he was light on his feet, his movements quick and alert…
All this was bullshit of course, and well she knew it. These weren’t telltale signs at all, merely her fanciful imagination. Label anyone gay, and you’d soon invent the evidence to support it. Ray Hebdon’s characteristics were those of a human being, nothing more, nothing less.
Put that aside and forget it. Down to business.
“So, which one of these clubs would be likely to be used by, say-”
“Judges, MPs, barristers, solicitors, lawyers… top brass?”
“Police officers!”
“The Bowery,” Hebdon said at once.
“You well known at the Bowery?”
“No. It’s very expensive. I’ve only been twice.” He pointed his finger at her. “But I do know one thing… asking questions with that lot in tow!” He jerked his head to indicate the rest of the team. “One, they’d never get past the door. Two, word would leak, you’d never get to the top bracket, let alone get them to talk to you.”
“What about access to their membership lists?”
“No way. Most of them use false names, or coded names, even though what they’re doing is perfectly legal. But if they are going with underage kids, it ups the ante even further on cloaking their identity. I mean, they’ll really have to protect themselves. So who they are would be very hush-hush. One hint of a leak and they’d close ranks.” Hebdon’s sober expression suddenly cracked in a smile. “Unless we get the lads dragged up-get in that way-nobody pays any attention to them.”
Tennison smiled with him. “I’d pay money to see that!”
Superintendent Halliday came in, wanting a private word. He had the Jessica Smithy transcripts in his hand. Hebdon got up to leave.
“Go and get some lunch,” Tennison said, and glanced at her watch. “If you see Inspector Dalton, tell him to get his skates on, we’ve got a train to catch.”
He went out and Halliday closed the door. He waved the transcripts, looking like the cat that ate the cream. “Only one name off the Smithy tapes, but it’s your man. It’s Jackson.”
“Yes, I know. Lets you off the hook then, doesn’t it?” Tennison said glibly. She saw Halliday flush, and got in quick. “Just a joke…”
Halliday sat down, adjusting the knife-edge crease in his trousers, trying to appear mollified when actually he wasn’t. Damn woman was too clever for her own good. A loose cannon, Chiswick had called her. More like a loose bloody tank battalion.
Tennison was anxious to have her say before he did.
“This might not be the right time, Jack, but it has to be obvious to you that this case is opening up and treading right on Operation Contract’s heels. It is my honest opinion that we should cut our losses… Concentrate solely on the murder investigation.” She met his stare with a laser beam of her own. “Because the information I am getting goes much deeper than a cleanup of the street kids.” She spelt it out. “I think Connie was murdered to silence him, because he was about to name the men involved in a pedophile circle.”
“And you think Parker-Jones is involved?” Halliday said after a moment, probing.
Tennison tried to shrug this off. “He is being very cooperative and very helpful,” she said carefully. It sounded weak to her, but she hoped it convinced him. “I don’t have a shred of evidence to link him to any pedophile circle, but the advice centre, along with a number of other venues-”
“What about Jackson?” Halliday insisted. He had the feeling he was being bamboozled, and he wanted to keep it neat and simple.
“I still think he killed Colin Jenkins, but…”
“But?” Halliday said sharply.
Tennison dropped her eyes. “Nothing.”