“You must have had a reason.”
“No, no, I didn’t have a reason. And that is the God’s truth!”
Tennison gave a little sigh, shaking her head sadly.
“Well, Jimmy, you are going away for a very long time-for no reason.”
Jackson made a wild gesture, at last attracting Mr. Arthur’s attention, who leaned over for Jackson to whisper in his ear. Mr. Arthur sat back. “My client is very tired, perhaps we can continue this interview in the morning?”
The punishingly long day had taken its toll on Tennison too. The lines around her eyes were etched in, the furrows in her forehead deeply ridged. She felt like saying, Enough’s enough, get this scumbag out of my sight, but instead she merely nodded to Hall, who spoke into the tape, concluding the interview.
However desperately she might have desired it, the day was far from over.
They had Jackson running scared-no doubt about it-but he hadn’t cracked, and until he did their case was long on suspicion, short on hard-clinching evidence. She was going to sweat that bastard and wring him out like an old dishrag.
Taking Otley along, she drove up to the house in Langley Road, Camden. From Otley’s description of the place she knew what to expect, but it turned out to be even worse. The squalor of the poky bedrooms at the top of the house disgusted and depressed her. The smell made her nauseous.
They checked out the wardrobes and drawers, sorted through the kids’ clothing and pitiful belongings. After ten minutes Tennison had had it. She slumped down on a narrow trestle bed, the one occupied by Billy Matthews, and picked up the physically challenged teddy bear and gazed at it with listless eyes. Some poor mite had clung onto this battered relic, seeking love and comfort. It felt damp, and she imagined they were a child’s tears.
Otley slammed a drawer shut and looked at her over his shoulder. In a parody of Mr. Arthur, he muttered in his sardonic drawl, “My Guv’nor’s very tired, perhaps we can continue this search in the morning!”
Scrawled into the plaster above the bed, in jagged capitals, she read: “MARTIN FLETCHER LIVES HERE.”
Tennison rubbed her eyes. “I met a friend of yours in Manchester, David Lyall.”
“Yes, I know, he called me,” Otley said, leaning on the dresser. “I wondered why you were hot to trot to Manchester.”
“Good that I did…” She gazed up at him, her hands limp on her knees. “It’s like a jigsaw. I’ve got all the pieces and they just won’t fit.”
“Best not to push them into place,” Otley advised, wise old sage. “Got to have patience.”
“I’ve got that,” Tennison snapped back, nettled, “just don’t have the time.” She added resentfully, “You jumped the gun with Parker-Jones-I wasn’t ready for him.”
Otley didn’t think that merited a response. Anyway, he didn’t give one, just wandered off into the next room. After a moment Tennison levered herself up and followed him.
There was a TV set, video recorder, porn videotapes and magazines, a crate of Newcastle Brown, half consumed, and a 200 carton of Benson & Hedges, the cellophane broken, just one packet gone. Jackson’s room, quite evidently. His long leather coat hung behind the door, and there was other masculine tackle scattered around.
Otley was rooting through the wardrobe, taking stuff off hangers, going through the pockets, feeling the seams and throwing it on the floor. “They all stink, these rooms, used clothes, mildew…” He sounded puzzled. “If Connie stayed here, where’s all the smart gear he was supposed to wear?”
Tennison rummaged through a chest of drawers, poking at Jackson’s belongings with distaste. Otley was on his knees, feeling under the wardrobe. All he found was dust, so he moved along the linoleum to the smaller of the two beds. He lifted the corner of the stained eiderdown to look underneath the bed, and almost sneezed as the dust got to him.
“He must have had letters or a diary or something,” Otley said, sniffing and pinching his nose. Crouching, he craned his head. “Hang on, what have we got here? If he was selling his story to that woman-what was her name?” Grunting as he reached under the bed.
“Jessica Smithy. That’s what he said…! And Martin Fletcher-‘I can sell my story for a lot of dough.’ ” Tennison straightened up. Something had just clicked. “What if Jessica Smithy met him first, and Connie came second? Rent boys, not just one rent boy. She was writing an article on rent boys-plural.”
Bent double, Otley dragged a small brown suitcase from underneath the bed. It was locked. He took out his penknife, and after a couple of seconds’ fiddling that got him nowhere, lost his patience and used brute force. The clasps sprang open. Tennison looked over his shoulder as he flung the lid back. The two of them stared down at the jumble of whips, knives, blackjacks, rubber masks, leather jockstraps, bondage gear, and sundry other exotic sadomasochistic gear.
“Nice little away-day assortment!” Otley commented.
He shoved the case aside and peered under the bed again. Frowning, he got to his feet and leaned over, looking closely at the wall against which the bed was pressed. Dark stains and splashes. He whipped the eiderdown off the bed. The sheets were spattered with dried blood, and there were other discolorations that might have been vomit and diarrhea, going by the smell.
Together, Otley and Tennison moved the bed away from the wall. A pair of soiled Y-front underpants came to light, an odd sock covered in fluff. More dark red splashes. And something else. Lower down near the skirting board, bolted into the wall, an iron ankle bracelet on a chain, its edges crusted with blood.
Tennison recoiled with disgust, wrinkling her face.
“We better get Forensic in here, check the entire house over! And I want it done tonight!” She went to the door, sniffing Givenchy Mirage from her scarf. She said with grim satisfaction, “I don’t think Jackson’s brief’s going to believe this-he’s already worn his nasty little felt-tip pen out tonight, writing down all the charges!”
Outside, Tennison breathed in deeply, taking a lungful of wonderful evening air. She climbed into her car. Otley leaned in the window.
“I think we should have another go at our Vera,” he suggested. “I mean, she’s been living here.” Tennison nodded agreement. “I’ll hang around for the Forensic blokes, they could be a while.” He snapped off a mock salute. “ ’Night. Mind how you go.”
As the car moved off, Tennison gave him a look. “This is my case. Bill. Don’t jump the gun again.”
Otley’s slitted eyes watched her drive off down the street. He wore his nasty little grin. “Your case? Yes, ma’am.”
Ray Hebdon sat in the darkened viewing room, remote control in one hand, pen in the other, making notes as the tapes unrolled on the screen. Some of the stuff was pretty anodyne, some pure filth, and Hebdon wasn’t watching by choice; he was forcing himself to sit here and endure it by an act of will, suppressing his repugnance.
He ejected the tape, stuck in another, and sat back in the chair, reaching for his lukewarm can of beer.
He’d seen this one before, but he watched it again. The classroom and the compliant pupils, the stern schoolteacher whacking his cane on the desk. From its innocent, even quaint, beginning, it degenerated very rapidly to the teacher meting out punishment and demanding penance in the form of spanking, masturbation, blow jobs, and buggery. Other “teachers” appeared on the scene, ready and willing to lend a hand, or some other part of their anatomy. Hebdon studied their faces and made notes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Hebdon turned. “I’m almost through,” he said to Dalton, who had come silently into the room.
“What? Jerking off?” Dalton’s expression was that of someone who’s just got a whiff of a stale fart in a lift. “Are you into this kind of thing?”