“What’s going on here?”
There was an ambulance outside the gates, its rear doors standing open. Two attendants were wheeling a trolley from the driveway. There was a humped shape under the red blanket.
Tennison stopped the car and hurried forward. Otley took a peek through the gates, seeing the Panda car outside the front door.
“What’s happened?” Tennison asked, showing her I.D.
The attendants were about to lift the trolley into the ambulance. She turned back the blanket. It couldn’t be, she told herself, it couldn’t be, but she was wrong. She clenched her jaw.
“It’s John Kennington. Shit.”
Otley glanced toward the house. “We’d better leave it,” he advised, “must have just happened.”
He looked around for her, but she wasn’t there.
“Guv!”
Tennison was walking through the gates, heading up the gravel drive.
“Guv!”
17
Tennison stepped through the open front door into the parquet-floored hallway. To her left she could see a cluster of uniformed police in the study. There was a plainclothes officer kneeling on the carpet. Somebody else was taking flash photographs. She moved across the hallway toward them, and then stopped. The door to the drawing room was open. Mrs. Kennington was sitting on the sofa, her head downcast, a cigarette in one hand, a crumpled lace handkerchief in the other. A crystal tumbler, filled nearly halfway with Scotch, was on the coffee table in front of her. An open bottle of Macallan’s Malt stood next to it.
Tennison put her hand on the doorjamb. “Mrs. Kennington? Could I speak to you a moment?”
The woman didn’t move or look up as Tennison came in and eased the door shut behind her. The room contained an unnatural quietness, the stately ticking of the grandfather clock portioning out the silence.
“Are you all right?”
Mrs. Kennington stirred. “He shot himself, not me,” she said, vacant and subdued. She turned her head. “You were here the other night, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” Tennison moved up to a winged armchair, set at an angle to the sofa. “I can leave if you want…”
“But then you’ll want to come back, so ask whatever you want. Get it over with.”
She happened to notice she was smoking. The cigarette was nearly done, and she took another from the box and lit it from the stub, very ladylike, little finger stuck out. She then noticed the Scotch, and drank a mouthful, little finger out. Tennison sat down. She put her briefcase by the side of the chair and folded her hands.
“I was in the front bedroom,” Mrs. Kennington said. “We sleep in separate rooms. There was a phone call, I put it through to John’s study. About half an hour later I heard the-well, I didn’t know what it was, to be honest. I thought it was the plumbing. It’s been making extraordinary noises. Obviously it wasn’t. John had shot himself.”
She blinked at Tennison, as if making an apology for some unfortunate social gaffe. She had bright, intelligent eyes, a striking light blue. Even under stress she maintained her poise, and Tennison was able to understand what an asset she must have been to her husband in furthering his career.
“Do you know who the call was from?” Tennison inquired after a decent interval.
“Oh yes, I know who it was from. His name is Edward Parker-Jones.”
She didn’t notice, or paid no attention, as Otley slid into the room. He moved behind Tennison’s chair.
“At least this saves me getting a divorce.” Mrs. Kennington smiled faintly, gazing at nothing. She delicately wiped the corners of her mouth with the wisp of handkerchief. “There have been obstacles in the way for almost a year…”
“I know about the investigations,” Tennison said.
“Oh, do you?” Mrs. Kennington remarked, cool to the point of half frozen to death.
“You were a doctor, weren’t you? Do you still practice?”
“No. My first husband died. We worked together, or in the same practice.”
“In Cardiff?”
“Yes, in Cardiff. Why do you want to know about my husband’s practice?” She peered closely at Tennison, frowning. “Why are you here?”
“When you were in Cardiff, Mr. Parker-Jones was running…”
“The Calloway Centre.” Mrs. Kennington was now paying full, complete attention. She looked at Otley and then at Tennison, quite perplexed. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Did you examine a young boy called Jason Baldwyn? It was a sexual assault charge.”
“Which was subsequently dropped. No, my husband examined the boy-” Her mouth fell open. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “You think I had something to do with that? My husband was critically ill, he was very sick, I had two small children, and…” She faltered, rubbing her forehead distractedly with the wadded handkerchief. “He had cancer, I only remember it because, because he died. Then there was this investigation about…” She stared, trying to recall the name, and failed. “… This boy. But there was so much confusion about whether his reports were stolen, or just mislaid, I really don’t know.”
The facade had cracked a little, and to repair it she took a drink, finger out, and was careful to put the glass down without making a sound. She dabbed her lips. “My first husband was a very decent human being. I can’t say that about my second, I wish to God I had never married him. But I did,” she added under her breath.
Tennison said, “Do you know if young boys were ever brought here?”
Mrs. Kennington rose and went to the white mantel. With her back to Tennison, she murmured, barely audibly, “Do I know if young boys were ever brought here?”
“Perhaps when you were away,” Tennison said. She opened her briefcase and took out a photograph. “There is one boy I am particularly interested in.” She got up and crossed over. “His name was Connie, Colin Jenkins.”
Mrs. Kennington slowly turned. Her eyes were fixed on Tennison. They drifted down to the photograph. They flicked back, icy blue, sharp as needles.
“Get out of my house,” she said, low in her throat, under iron control.
“Please look at the photograph,” Tennison said quietly, equally controlled.
A shudder passed through Mrs. Kennington’s whole body. She averted her face and stared at the row of silver-framed photographs on the mantel with a force that was almost manic in its intensity. Two fair-haired handsome youths progressed from grinning schoolboys to young adults with darker hair and engaging smiles.
“There were many young boys brought to this house, whether I was here or not.” Her chin trembled. “I was at least able to protect my own sons.”
Tennison slipped the photograph into her briefcase and snapped it shut. She nodded to Otley, and followed him to the door.
“I hope for their sake that you did,” she said.
Tennison pushed through the double doors into the corridor, unwinding her scarf, and headed toward her office. As she reached the door, Halliday came out of his office and beckoned to her urgently.
“Have you got a moment?” He glanced up and down. “I want this kept very quiet, it’s not official yet, but-” His voice dropped to a murmur. “John Kennington committed suicide this morning.”
Tennison took a full pace back. “Good God!”
Halliday nodded darkly. He squinted at her: “That vacancy by the way, for Superintendent. It’s Hammersmith, Commander Chiswick knows the Chief there; in fact they’re playing golf.”
Tennison widened her eyes, blinking owlishly. “I’d better charge Jackson then, hadn’t I?” she said.
Halliday strode off and she entered her office. She tossed her briefcase down and hung up her coat. There was a mound of paperwork on the desk, and she contemplated it, spirits sinking.
First, though, she had a call to make. The call. But no joy. The receptionist promised to pass the message on immediately after Tennison had emphatically insisted.