Hebdon started to flush from the neck up. “Yeah, I’m off duty,” he sneered, his eyes burning into Dalton’s. “So shut the door when you leave, will you?”
Dalton hesitated, as if something was on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t bring himself to utter it. He coughed and turned to leave.
“G’night then.”
As the door closed behind him Hebdon swung around and hurled his can of beer at it. Hot-eyed, he stared at the screen, his skin prickling with rage, and jabbed savagely at the remote control, freezing the frame on Kilmartin receiving the favors of Connie, Alan Thorpe, and Kenny Lloyd.
The hot water felt so good she could have stayed in another twenty minutues, but then she noticed her fingertips getting wrinkly. She dried herself, chucked sandalwood tale everywhere she could reach, wrapped herself in her Chinese silk robe, and stretched out on the sofa in the living room, glass of red wine within easy reach. She thought of putting on a CD she’d bought recently-Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor-and then decided not to. The silence was too beautiful, and the peace and quiet too precious. Tennison sighed and closed her eyes.
The doorbell rang.
On her way to answer it she looked at the clock and saw that it was a few minutes after eleven. She pushed her hair back, still damp at the roots, tightened her robe, and opened the door.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t wake you, did I?” Ray Hebdon said, genuinely apologetic.
“No, but I hope this is important.” Tennison’s look could have penetrated galvanized steel at twenty yards. He followed her in. She gestured for him to sit. Her half-full glass of wine was on the coffee table. “Do you want to join me?”
She went off to the kitchen and came back with a glass and a fresh bottle of wine. Hebdon had taken off his coat and was standing somewhat self-consciously rubbing his hands.
He cleared his throat. “I suppose you know I’m going back to my station?” She nodded. He smiled. “So I thought I’d do a bit of homework before I left.”
Tennison handed him the bottle and corkscrew. “I’ve been watching the videos,” he said, peeling off the foil. “You know Chiswick was after them? We’ve been shuffling them around until we’d had a good chance to check all the faces out. Maybe that’s why the top brass want them!” He nodded behind him. “Look in my coat pocket.”
Tennison picked up his coat from the back of the armchair. She found his notepad and flipped it open.
“Took me a long time, but I’ve listed all the faces I recognized. There’s a judge, two MPs, a lawyer-big criminal lawyer, a barrister…”
“Any police officers?”
“None that I recognized.” Hebdon uncorked the wine. He topped up Tennison’s glass and poured himself one. “But that’s quite a list!”
“Why?” Tennison was studying the names, frowning and shaking her head. “Why do they do it?”
“It’s what they’re into.”
That didn’t answer her question. “But to risk everything, their careers-for what? I don’t understand.”
“I think it gets to a point where they can’t help it.” Hebdon shrugged.
“Can’t help it?” Tennison said with a grimace. “My God…”
Hebdon sat down. He sipped his wine and stared at the carpet, and struggled to explain. “Because… there’s also the power, like they’re above the law, untouchable.” He looked at her. “Maybe because they are the law.”
Tennison sat down on the sofa and reached for her glass. She said quietly, “Ray, who do you think killed Connie? One of these men?”
“I don’t think it’s as big as them-I mean, they might have instigated it, but they wouldn’t dirty their hands.”
“What about Parker-Jones? He’s involved, that’s obvious. Just as it’s obvious he and Jackson cooked up their alibis together. But did he give Jackson the order to kill Connie?”
Hebdon drank, frowning into space. “That could be why he’s covering his tracks.”
“He’d also lose a lucrative business,” Tennison pointed out.
But it seemed she was off beam, because Hebdon was shaking his head. “No, no, that’s where you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not the money.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I think Otley and Co. have been off course-you know, looking for the money element. Those houses he owns-sure, they’re cash in some respects, but it’s not that. It’s the power of being the supplier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Call in the favors. It’s obvious he had to have connections to have got off not just one charge but two. Parker-Jones must have big contacts. It makes him…” Hebdon pinged the rim of the glass with his fingernail. “Untouchable. I doubt if he’d want to mess it up with murder-or blackmail.”
Tennison sloshed some wine into her glass and sat back on the sofa, grinding her teeth. “So we’re back to Jackson.” She took a swig and licked her upper lip. “If Parker-Jones sticks to his story, Jackson will get away with murder-unless we break it.”
“Going to be tough, because that means you got to break Parker-Jones. If he ordered Jackson to kill Connie, no way will he back down.”
The wine was getting to Tennison. But instead of making her more relaxed, she was feeling uptight and jittery. She said, “Do you have a cigarette?”
Hebdon shook his head and finished his wine.
“Time is running out on this one, isn’t it?” Tennison brooded. She saw his empty glass. “Have another one-you opened the bottle, for chrissakes…” Her tongue slurred over “chrissakes.”
Hebdon hesitated for a moment, and then refilled his glass. Tennison’s head was back on the sofa, her eyes closed. She said slowly, almost mechanically, “I want to tell you something.” Her lips felt numb. “I need to tell somebody.”
Hebdon waited uneasily. He didn’t know what to do, so he had another drink. He watched her, head back, eyes closed.
“I am pregnant.”
Hebdon blinked, and filled the silence with a muffled cough.
“Congratulations.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Tennison said, opening her eyes. She looked at him. “I am pregnant and I have absolutely no one I can talk to. I’ve tried, but… you tell me. Should I have it?”
“It depends, really.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, on whether you want it or not,” he added lamely.
“Would you, in my position?” The question wasn’t just hypothetical, it was stupid. Tennison stared into her glass. “Hell, I could be out of a job tomorrow!”
“What about the, er-the father?”
“There isn’t one-well, obviously there is, but not…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He doesn’t know.”
“Will you tell him?”
Tennison didn’t have to think. She shook her head at once.
“We lived together for a long time and almost got married. But then I got cold feet and he went away and found somebody else.” She threw the last of the wine back. “He is a very nice man, and I would like to be his wife… but it wouldn’t be right.” An expression of pain crossed her face. “No, it would be right, it was always right, just me that messed it up.” She bowed her head, tightly clutching the stem of the wineglass in both hands.
Hebdon said cautiously, “Well, I suppose it comes down to whether or not you want it. Do you?” She was hunched over, hiding her face from him. “Do you want to be a mother?” he asked quietly.
Tennison’s head came slowly around, her eyes bright and moist. A shy, radiant smile lit up her whole face. She said softly, “Yes. Oh yes, I do, very much.”
16
Tennison was twenty minutes late arriving in the Squad Room. She had no excuses, except that she had a foul head and a thick taste on her tongue, and she wasn’t going to offer those up in mitigation. When she finally made it, DI Hall had the 9 A.M. briefing under way. He had on a superb suit in dark olive green and a tie with so many swirling colors it made Tennison ill just to look at it.