“She’s no need to be in on this.”
“Not unless you want her to be,” Tennison agreed.
Jason jerked his head. “Go on.”
The girl went out with the baby. Jason heeled the door shut.
“I’m Jane Tennison, and this is Brian Dalton. Can we sit down?”
“Sure. Sorry about the mess.” He pushed both hands up into his hair and flung his head back.
Tennison sat down in the lumpy armchair, shifting to avoid the spring. Dalton chose a hard-backed chair, well away from the fire. Jason semireclined on the arm of the settee, one knee pulled up to his chin. “You want tea or…?”
“No, thanks,” Tennison said politely. That was the second surprise. He had a lazy, low-pitched voice, easy to listen to. What had she been expecting? she asked herself. Grunts and slobbering growls? She glanced at Dalton, making sure he was taking notes, and smiled at Jason. “So, where do you want to begin?” He was studying his thumbnail. “You’re from Liverpool originally, aren’t you? How old were you when you went into the home?”
“Which one?”
“The home run by Mr. Edward Parker.”
“Ten.” Jason flicked away something he’d found under his thumbnail. “I was sent there from a foster home. I got into a bit of thieving, so they got shot of me.”
“Would you be prepared to act as a witness for the prosecution?”
“Sure.” Jason twitched his thin shoulders in a listless shrug.
“Would you tell me when the sexual abuse started?”
His eyes flicked toward her, and quickly away. He had thick, dark lashes any woman would have been proud of. And any woman would have fallen for the full-lipped mouth with a slightly sullen droop to it.
“Second or third day I was there, Parker just called me into his office and that was it… started then. And you couldn’t say anything, or do anything about it-like he was a law unto himself. And it wasn’t just me, he was having us all. He’d give you a certain amount of fags, like five say, for a blow job. Always knew when one of the kids had gone the whole way with him, they were flush with fags. Have you got one, by the way?”
Tennison reached into her briefcase. “I have, as a matter of fact. Here, keep the packet, I’ve given up.”
Jason uncoiled from the arm of the settee and knelt down to get a light from the gas fire. Tennison rummaged for matches, but he was already lit up. He stayed where he was, long legs stretched out on the tatty hearth rug. The pose was overtly sexual, the pajama top falling open, the tight jeans displaying the bulge at his crotch. It made Tennison unsure whether he was behaving naturally, unself-consciously, or trying it on, deriving some secret amusement from the situation. He was a very disconcerting young man.
“I’m grateful that you’re being so frank with us,” Tennison said. The heat of the closed room was making her perspire, and she was sorry she hadn’t taken off her raincoat when she came in. Now didn’t seem the right time.
“No other way to be, really, is there?” he said, dribbling tiny puffs of smoke from his mouth.
“What made you report him?”
“He shortchanged me on some fags, so I thought-screw him. So I went to the probation officer. Stupid bitch, I think she fancied him-he used to get it off with women, too. Anyway,” Jason said in a long sigh, “she went on and on at me, did I know what I was saying, what it meant? I said, ‘Oh yeah, you know what it fuckin’ means to me?’ I said, ‘If you don’t do something, I’ll go to the cops.’ ”
“And how old were you?”
“Twelve or thirteen.”
“And did you go to the cops?”
“Yeah…” Jason rolled onto his stomach, flicking ash onto the carpet. “Well, he wouldn’t leave me alone, and she wasn’t doing anything about it. So I went to the police station, made a statement, and then-sort of everybody run around, like, asking me all these questions. Then a doctor examined me, and…” He dragged deeply, letting the smoke trickle out. “Oh, yeah. This copper. He gets me into his office.”
“And?” Tennison leaned forward. “What happened then, Jason?”
“He said that if I said I was lying, that he would make sure I had it cushy-you know, money, cigarettes. Things like that. And that they’d move me-somewhere nice.”
He shook his hair back and looked up at her. He had beautiful eyes, but their expression was opaque, a deadness deep down.
“Do you remember this police officer’s name?” Tennison asked quietly. “Was he wearing a uniform?”
“Nah! He was a friend of Parker’s. They worked it between them.” His tone was dismissive. That’s how the world operated. Those with power and influence dumped on the great unwashed below. Fact of life. “So they sent me back,” he went on, and laughed without humor. “They never got around to moving me, and I became a very heavy smoker.”
Jason took a last drag and stubbed out the cigarette on the tiled hearth. He sat up and favored Tennison with a sunny, beaming smile.
“That’s it.”
Tennison nodded. “Do you remember the name of the doctor? The one that examined you?”
“Be no help if I did. He died of cancer, nice guy. Think his name was something Ellis.”
Dalton made a note.
Tennison said, “Was it all the boys, Jason? Or specifically the very young ones?”
“The little ’uns, he liked the little ones.”
“Do you have a job?”
“Nope. No qualifications. A five-year-old kid reads better than me. I do odd jobs around the place, fix up cars.” He smiled in a simple, childlike way. “I get drunk, and sometimes I get angry.”
“And then you get into trouble?” Tennison hesitated. “Have you ever told somebody about your past, Jason?”
“There’s no point.” Again the offhand dismissal. “I just have to live with it.”
Tennison fastened her briefcase and sat with it across her knees, her hands gripping the sides. She said softly, “I will do everything possible to put this man away. I promise you.”
Jason stared at her, as if she might possibly mean it, and then he laughed harshly. “You haven’t even got him, have you?”
She couldn’t find it in her heart to lie to him. She shook her head, and Jason laughed again, harsh and angry.
He led them out, past the pram in the hallway, and stood on the concrete balcony in his bare feet. A short flight of steps led down to the walkway, littered with broken bottles and crushed beer cans. The breeze ruffled Jason’s pajama top. A change had come over him. He followed after them, speaking in a mechanical monotone, telling them a tale, his breathing rapid.
“One night at the home we was watching a documentary, Nazi thing. This guy ran a concentration camp, you know what they are?”
Tennison and Dalton had paused to listen. They both nodded.
Jason leaned back, his shoulder blades pressed against the concrete wall. “Yeah, well, this guy was called the ‘Angel of Death,’ right? And after the war, he escaped, right? He was never hanged, nobody arrested him, nobody brought him to trial…” He gave a peculiar croaking giggle. “Just like Parker. He did me for eight years, he did every boy in his care. You know what we used to call him? We called him ‘The Keeper of Souls.’ ” He grinned down at them.
Tennison put her hand out. “Go back up the stairs, Jason. There’s glass on the stairs, you’ll hurt yourself…”
Jason’s fingers tore at the pajama top. He ripped it off and flung it down the stairs. “You want to see what the ‘Keeper’ did to me?”
He staggered down the steps toward Tennison. Dalton tensed, about to dive up, thinking he was about to attack her. But Jason turned around, showing the pale scars on his skinny back. Tennison touched his shoulder, and moved her hand gently down the hard ridges of puckered flesh. “I will make him pay, Jason, I promise you…”
Jason slowly turned, and Tennison could barely tolerate the terrible desolate anguish in his eyes. The buried pain, the torment of those years, was even worse than the horrible scars. His lips trembled, but he couldn’t speak. He bowed his head and nodded mutely, his hair hanging down over his bare white shoulders.