“Oh, I never did forget, Inspector,” he said softly.
Tennison took in Dalton’s expression, which was looking distinctly uncomfortable. She said in a quiet yet urgent tone, “Anthony, I sincerely believe the man responsible for the assaults against you is also-”
“I am not interested in what you believe, I am only concerned with my life and career.” Fists clenched by his sides, the controlled icy anger came spitting out of him. “Whatever happens to him is no longer my concern. I refuse to let him destroy my life.”
“But you’ll let him destroy others?”
“No-you let him.” The room was suddenly filled with his awful glacial rage, for years bottled up inside, festering.
“… I don’t care about anyone else. If there was a court case, if-then I would be forced to relive what that bastard did to me! I would be on trial. My private life now would be made public-I don’t want that-I only agreed to see you on the condition you didn’t want me to go to court. I won’t testify, you can’t make me, I’m all right now, I’m all right now…” His face crumpled and a strangulated sob came from his chest. “Or I was, I was, before you came, so go away, just go away.”
He closed his eyes, his dark brows very vivid against his white face, fists clenched with the knuckles showing through. “Leave me alone… please.”
Red delved into the rack of evening gowns in the bedroom closet. He lifted one off on its hanger, and lips pursed, head tilted, gave it a critical, searching scrutiny. With a tiny vexed shake of the head he put it back, and chose another. This was fractionally more demure, in midnight blue lace, its upper half studded with diamantes, split up one side as far as the knee. With an approving smile he laid it out on the bed.
He opened a drawer and took out a corset.
Dressed in a silk kimono, Detective Constable Lillie sat before the dressing-table mirror, gazing with interest at the beautiful and expert job Red had done on him. Powdered and rouged, with lipstick, blue eye shadow and false eyelashes, his cheeks seductively shadowed, he was mesmerized by his own gorgeous appearance. He wore a short silvery blond wig, a few artful strands teased over his forehead. He couldn’t get over the transformation. It was bloody amazing.
Detective Sergeant Haskons, also made up, was struggling into the corset Red had found for him. His wig, a rich glowing auburn swept up to masses of curls, was on a stand on the dressing table. Red had chosen the midnight blue lacy job for him, while Lillie’s was a full-length shimmering lamé dress in puce, set off by a huge flouncy ostrich feather boa in blush pink.
Ray Hebdon stood at the door, observing all this, trying mightily and just failing to hide the glimmer of a smile.
Corset on, Haskons was perspiring as he bent down to try on different pairs of shoes. His square, chunky jaw still showed a trace of blue shaving line even after Red had plastered on dark base and powdered it over four or five times. He was complaining bitterly, already regretting the whole daft episode.
“I still haven’t found a pair to fit-or ones that I can even walk in!”
“Cuban will be the easiest. These”-Red pointed down at his own blue satin stilettos, rolling his eyes-“Killers. It’s not just the high heels, but the pointed toes.” Flawlessly made up, he was done up to the nines in a tight, flesh-colored, sequined evening dress, two long ropes of purple beads hanging down, and matching purple globes dangling from his ears.
“You know it’s way after ten,” Hebdon said.
“Oh, don’t fuss.” Red fluttered his hands in a shooing gesture. “Nothing starts until midnight anyway.”
Haskons squeezed his toes into a pair of spangled turquoise slippers with square heels and stamped his feet into them.
“My wife’s never going to believe this. I told her I was off duty, then I had to tell her I was on; now, after midnight?” He blew out his glossy red lips in annoyance. “It’s Friday night!”
Lillie draped the feather boa over his shoulders and preened at himself in the mirror. “You remember that film, Some Like it Hot? Jack Lemmon and-”
“Tony Curtis,” Red snapped. “It was dreadful! Silly walks-they’d never have got away with it. Anyone could see they weren’t female.”
Lillie thought this was being pedantic. “That wasn’t the point though, was it? It was a comedy.”
“Well, for some, dear, being in drag is the only time they feel right,” Red told him tartly, smoothing his hands over his hips. He cast a sidelong look at himself in the mirror. “And they very rarely fancy anyone but themselves-it’s not funny at all.” He arched an eyebrow at Hebdon. “Is it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Hebdon said stiffly, and jerked away into the sitting room.
Haskons, feeling as though he had a couple of hairy spiders glued to his eyelids, caught Lillie’s warning expression in the dressing-table mirror. Like treading on thin ice, they silently agreed. You had to be careful what you said to people of this persuasion. Touchy, touchy.
The patrol car drove up the corkscrew ramp to the main entrance of the Piccadilly Hotel in the center of Manchester. The plateglass doors whispered open and Tennison and Dalton trudged wearily into the lobby. It was gone 10:30 and they were both thoroughly knackered.
“Do you want to have some dinner?” Dalton asked.
“Thanks, but no, I’ll order room service.” Tennison summoned up a fleeting smile. “Sorry I’ve been a bit snappy… better when I’ve had a large whisky and soda.”
Dalton looked at his watch. “I’ll go and find an all-night chemist. Do you need anything?”
“Oh-toothbrush, toothpaste. Thanks.”
She watched him walk back across the lobby and through the doors, and then she asked for her key. She was dead on her feet, yet there remained things to be done. A policewoman’s lot is not a happy one, Tennison thought sourly.
Otley sat alone in the viewing room. He had the remote control in one hand, a can of Red Stripe in the other, watching the videotapes of Connie that had been seized from Mark Lewis’s studio. A half-eaten ham and pickle sandwich was on the arm of the chair. At this late hour the station was quiet. A vacuum cleaner could be heard from the Squad Room down the corridor, whining in the lower register as it practiced its scales. From somewhere in the vicinity of Regent Street, a police siren wailed off into the distance.
Otley had a house, but not a home, to go back to. If he was there now he’d have been sitting in an armchair, can of beer in hand, watching some old crackly movie on TV, the remains of an Indian take-away in a polystyrene tray at his feet. Same difference. Except here he had a reason and a purpose, or anyway the illusion of having them.
The video was very amateurish. Wobbly camera work, hollow soundtrack, pathetic acting. It was set in a school classroom, half a dozen boys in ties and blazers at old wooden desks, a schoolmaster in mortarboard and gown, wielding a cane. He didn’t look like a schoolmaster, more like a barrister, Otley reckoned, or maybe a senior politician. He had snow-white hair and bulging watery eyes with heavy bags, a slightly misshapen nose that looked as if it had been broken when he was a young man, its bulbous end reddened by threadlike blood vessels.
The “schoolmaster” whacked the desk with the cane. “Any boy who disobeys me will be severely punished!” Booming fruity voice, the vowels of the privileged public school class.
Otley zapped back and reran the sequence. Connie was in the front row, looking very innocent in his school blazer and striped tie, his mop of red curls cascading over his forehead. Behind him, and partly hidden, was Billy Matthews. Alan Thorpe, with the ragged blond bangs, was sitting farther back.