Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims (9 page)

“Never mind your costumes, Vera, what about Connie?” Otley’s patience was running shorter than Tennison’s. “Who do you think set light to him?”

“I don’t know.” Staring at the desktop, fingers plucking at the baggy sleeve of her knitted top.

DI Hall tapped on the door and looked in. Otley went over, and Hall whispered to him, “I’ve got Jackson and the probation officer waiting to see . . .” He nodded at Tennison. “And Martin Fletcher’s being brought in.”

Tennison was making one last try. “Vera, if you are protecting someone, then you had better tell me. You have already lied to us, wasted our time . . .” She looked across at Hall. “Five minutes.” Then back to Vera. “Why did you lie about Connie?”

Norma looked at Hall, cross-eyed. She tapped her watch, blowing out her cheeks. He grinned and went out. Tennison leaned her elbows on the desk, waiting. Otley stood holding his cup and saucer, waiting. He glanced impatiently at his watch. Vera took a long time lighting a cigarette. She blew out a great gust of smoke, then, as an afterthought, hesitantly offered the packet.

“I’ve given up,” Tennison said.

“I’ve tried, I’ve had the patches.” Vera smiled weakly. “I’ve got patches for hormones, nicotine—my arse looks like an old pub table. I even tried the chewing gum. How did you give up?”

“With great difficulty.”

Norma’s mouth sagged open as she watched the pair of them. She looked at Otley, who gave her a snide wink.

Tennison pushed the loaded ashtray across. “You had better help me, Vera, I am losing my patience. Why did you lie?”

“I wasn’t lying—about knowing him. Nobody really knew him. He was very gentle, very beautiful. He wanted to be a model. A professional model,” Vera insisted, making sure Tennison understood the difference. “He used to answer the ads . . .”

Tennison glanced up sharply and glared at Otley as his sigh exploded in the quiet room. She rapped her knuckles on the desk. “What about James Jackson, Vera?”

Vera drew deeply on her cigarette. “He’s an animal, should be caged.”

“Did Connie have someone looking after him? Say Jackson?”

“You mean like a pimp? No, the older boys don’t have them, really. Not like the Toms.”

The
bing-bong
of the chimes came over the wall speaker. “Sergeant Otley to main reception please.”

He looked to Tennison, and at her nod left the room.

“I would help you, you know that,” Vera said slowly, as if, with tremendous effort, she was forcing the words out of herself. “I always have in the past. You’re . . . you’re not like the others, and I’ve always appreciated the way you speak to me—” She broke off to suck in a lungful of smoke. “But—I can’t help. Maybe . . .”

Tennison counted silently to five. “Maybe what?”

“He used the advice centre, for letters, I know that.” She stubbed out the cigarette. “Edward Parker-Jones runs it.”

Tennison’s hand reached toward Vera’s, but instead of touching it she picked up the ashtray and tipped it into the wastebasket. Abruptly, she stood up. “Norma, will you show Vera the way out.” She tore the sheet from her notepad. “And check out this. Give it to Kathy.”

Tennison went into the corridor, leaving the door open. She stood there, grinding her teeth. She was annoyed with Vera and bloody angry with herself. She found it difficult to concentrate, and her insides were jumpy. Was she coming down with flu or what? She wasn’t in top form, and knew it.

Otley strode up. She faced him wearily.

“Martin Fletcher’s now in reception, and the probation officer’s with him. I think you need to have words with Martin, and before Jackson.”

Tennison nodded abstractedly, trying to get her train of thought back on the tracks. Vera appeared, clicking her handbag shut, followed by Norma, who pointed along the corridor. “Down the staircase and right . . .”

Kathy hurried through the double doors from the opposite direction. “Guv, there’s a couple of messages—that reporter again, Jessica Smithy. I’ve told her to contact the press office but she’s really pushy, insists she wants to talk to you. So does Superintendent Halliday, and there’s . . .”

She was interrupted by the loitering Otley, who’d gone beyond fed up to plain pissed off. “Guv? How do you want to work it?”

Tennison waved Kathy away. “Leave them on my desk,” she said sharply, tiredness nagging at her. Kathy looked hurt, but Tennison couldn’t be bothered. “I’ll talk to Martin first,” she answered Otley.

Having set off for the stairs, Vera was back, clutching her bag, in a distressed state.

“You are going the wrong way, Vera,” Tennison said with the forebearance of a saint. “The main exit is back down the corridor.”

“I wanted to talk to you!” Vera burst out, on the edge of panic hysteria. “You see, if it gets out that it was me who told you . . .”

“You didn’t tell me anything, Vera,” Tennison said, tight-lipped.

Vera suddenly flinched. Her eyes grew large and round. Terrified, she stared past Tennison to where Jackson was being escorted toward them by Inspector Hall and a uniformed officer. Backing away, Vera whispered hoarsely, “Don’t you let this go, don’t stop. Please, don’t let this go, you dig deep, don’t let it go . . .”

Jackson had seen her, and Vera saw that he had. She kept on backing away, and then turned and scurried off. She looked back, once, at Tennison, naked fear in her eyes, and vanished down the staircase.

Otley stood aside as Jackson was taken into the interview room. He waited by the door, watching Tennison dithering in the corridor.

“Where’s Martin Fletcher?” she asked irritably.

“Room D oh six,” Otley said, and when she dithered some more, he said loudly, as if she were deaf or stupid, “It’s the one next to the coffee machine!”

Tennison took three paces and stopped.
“Where’s the bloody coffee machine?”
she said through gritted teeth, but the door had closed.

Halliday came through the double doors. He went past at a clip, not breaking his stride. “Colin Jenkins. Can you get me the full case records to date?”

“Yes, sir,” Tennison said. “Where’s the coffee machine?”

“Make sure you get everything to me ASAP. That’s firsthand, Chief Inspector,” Halliday said over his shoulder. “I don’t want anything sprung on me. That understood? I’ll be in my office . . .” He disappeared around a corner, his voice floating back, “Downstairs on your right.”

Stumping down the stairs, Tennison made a silent screaming face.

5

M
artin Fletcher’s bruised face had matured over the past twenty-four hours. The blow on his forehead had ripened into a huge purple swelling. His cut lip was an angry puffy red. The gash on his cheek had crusted over, weeping yellowish pus. A plug of bloodstained cotton was stuck up his left nostril.

Head sunk between his shoulders, he sat in the interview room, smoking, continually flicking at the filter tip with a gnawed-down thumbnail. The ashtray had overflowed onto the tabletop. Nearby, the unwinking red light of the tape recorder glowed like a tiny ruby.

A uniformed officer stood by the door. Next to Martin sat his probation officer, Margaret Speel. She was in her early thirties, neat and unfussy in a light gray suit, with an oval small-boned face and frizzy black hair cut in severe bangs just above her eyes. She leaned toward him, bowing her head to be on a level with his.

“You understand the question, Martin? Now, we’re all getting tired, we’ve all been here a long time . . .”

Tennison looked up from the report in front of her. It was after six in the evening, it had been a hectic yet frustrating day, and under the harsh strip lighting she knew that she must have looked like a worn-out old hag. She certainly felt like one. She tried again.

“Martin, last night you talked to Sergeant Otley and Inspector Hall, and you told them that the man who attacked you—”

“No! That was words put in me mouth.” Martin sniffed loudly. “I never told nobody nuffink—and that is the Gawd’s truth.”

Tennison plowed on. “You also said that the man’s name was Jackson and that he specifically asked you if you knew where Colin Jenkins was—”

Again Martin jumped in. “No—I never said that—never.” He took a swift drag, his fingers trembling, showering ash everywhere. “What happened was . . . you know that escalator top of King’s Cross station? I was comin’ down, me coat got caught like, and I fell forward.” He ducked down to demonstrate. “I hit me head on the stairs, and then, when I got up, I fell over again and hit me nose. Nobody hit me.” He stared at her, one eye swollen and bloodshot.

“So you lied to the police officers who questioned you?” Tennison said quietly.

“Yeah, I suppose so.” He grew bolder. “Yeah, I lied ’cos . . . ’cos I’m underage—I mean, they really scared me like, and . . .”

“Martin, did you know Colin?”

He glanced sideways at Margaret Speel and then took another deep swift drag, a single plume of smoke issuing through one nostril.

“Yeah, not like—well, red-haired bloke, wasn’t he? Quentin House, he was there wiv me, now he’s burnt like a crisp!” Due to his cut lip his grin was lopsided, showing the black gap of two missing front teeth. “That’s a joke goin’ round—Quentin Crisp, famous poofter . . .”

“Have you ever had sex with a man?”

“Me? Nah!”

“What about a blow job? Ever been paid for doing that?”

Martin shrugged. “Few times, when I’m broke like, but I’m not into that. I got other means of employment.” He was sounding cocky now, starting to brag.

“Such as?”

“Breakin’ and enterin’, nickin’ cars, radios. Beggin’—do a bit of that.” He smirked. “Sell my life story to the newspapers.”

Tennison looked at Margaret Speel, whose expression remained exactly the same: in fact hardly any expression at all, apart from a slight cynical twist of the mouth, that must be part of the job description, Tennison thought.

Martin was laughing. “I can nick a motor, go for a joyride, an’ you lot can’t do nuffink!”

Tennison snapped her notebook shut.

“You listen to me, Martin. You think you can play games with us, lie to us, and it’s all a joke. Well, it isn’t. Colin Jenkins has no one to claim his body, no one to bury him.” Tennison stood up. Martin wouldn’t look at her. “Nobody cares about Colin Jenkins but us.”

Absolutely seething, Tennison went up the stairs and strode along the corridor, muttering to herself, “I have just about had enough of this bloody place—kids can run riot over us without—”

Otley was leaning against the wall outside interview room D.03 having a smoke. He eased himself into his usual round-shouldered slouch as Tennison stormed up.

“—Is Jackson in here?” she snapped, jerking her thumb.

“He denies knowing Martin Fletcher,” Otley said.

“And Martin Fletcher denied his entire statement! Can we hold Jackson on attempting to pick up that boy at the station?” Otley shook his head. “So we’ve got nothing on him . . . ! No prints from Vera’s flat?” Otley shook his head. “Nothing off the possible weapon?”

“Nope, nothin’,” Otley said, still shaking his head.

For just an instant Tennison seemed to deflate before his eyes. Then she rallied, straightened up, took a deep breath, brushed a hand through her hair, and jabbed her finger at the door. Otley pushed it open.

She had expected Jackson to be a nasty piece of work and she wasn’t disappointed. What she hadn’t expected was his overweening confidence bordering on insolence. He was sprawled back in the chair as if he owned the place, long legs splayed out, leather jacket undone, blowing smoke rings into the thick blue haze that filled the room. Cigarette stubs floated in the cups of cold coffee on the table. He couldn’t be bothered to look up as she entered, heavy-lidded eyes in the long, pockmarked face glazed with boredom, scruffy mop of hair sticking up in spikes. He leaned back, blowing another lazy smoke ring.

“Open the window,” Tennison rapped out to Hall. “Shut the door,” she told Otley. Jackson sniggered. Bossy bitch.

She whipped around on him. “And you, take that smile off your face! Because I am going to book you and send you away, Jackson, for a very long time.”

Jackson looked at Hall as if to say,
Where the fuck did you dig this twat up from?
He looked at Tennison and then dropped his eyes to the Marlboro packet he was turning slowly over and over. He said in a calm, controlled voice, “What am I supposed to have done?”

“One—you were caught approaching a juvenile. Two—attempted murder of another juvenile, Martin Fletcher, and three—that you did on the night of the seventeenth murder Colin Jenkins.”

Jackson stubbed out his cigarette and rose to his feet wearing a pained, crooked smile.

“SIT DOWN!!”

Sighing, he dropped into his seat. Still amused, he watched the manic Tennison dragging out the vacant chair with a clatter, picking up the laden ashtray and banging it into the wastebasket. She threw it down on the table, turning to Hall. “You’ve read him his rights?” Then to Otley, “Sergeant, has he given you his contact number for his brief yet?”