Lynda La Plante: Tennison

The first book in the Tennison series, 2015

I am very fortunate to have Suzanne Baboneau and Ian Chapman of Simon & Schuster, who are always encouraging and a delight to work with, as my publishers. I am very grateful for the tremendous support from all the team there. They have so much talent and enthusiasm, and in particular I’d like to thank Matthew Johnson, who designed the jacket and endpapers. He is very creative and I was thrilled when I received the first copy as the jacket was exactly as I saw it in my mind. Working hard behind the scenes are Emma Capron and Jane Pizzey and I give huge thanks to them both. Also to Louise Davies for her editorial advice and guidance, and Toby Slade-Baker at Studio 32 for his help with the music.

Music has played a big part in the writing of Tennison , not only transporting me back to the 1970s, but being able to include one of my favourite songs, ‘Nights in White Satin’, written by Justin Hayward. Thank you, Justin, for your generosity in allowing me to use the lyrics.

I have also been fortunate to have a great team around me at my new production company, La Plante Global. Running the company is Nigel Stoneman, and I have found working alongside him a joyful and productive experience. My Personal Assistant, Tory Macdonald, has taken so much stress out of my life; her organisational skills are quite extraordinary.

Two other people have been a constant support in writing Tennison . I have been fortunate to work alongside Callum Sutherland (Cass) for many years on numerous television series and novels. His wife Anne also helped greatly with the research of this book. Both were stationed in the East End during the ’70s, Callum at Hackney itself, so their input has been invaluable. My thanks, too, go to the Metropolitan Women Police Association and I am grateful for the assistance of Beverley Edwards, Eileen Turnbull, Siobhan Elam, Gina Negus, Janice Gammon, Wendy Rowe, Monica Tett, Valerie Lowe and Kathi Broad. Also, my thanks go to Dr Ann Priston and Brian Rankin of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences for their advice.

I’d like to thank Stephen Ross and Dan Ross at Ross Bennett Smith for their continuing support. Robin Hilton and James Sully at Sheridans for their outstanding legal and professional advice. Camilla Campbell and Robert Wulff-Cochrane who have proved to be an exciting and enjoyable partnership for La Plante Global. Kevin Lygo for his enthusiasm and belief in Tennison . Thanks also to Peter Fincham, Steve November and Victoria Fea at ITV for all their encouragement and support.

It was Monday afternoon and Jane was sitting in her usual seat at the rear of the top deck of the 253 bus, as it travelled up Mare Street in Hackney. Popping the single plastic earphone into her ear, she turned on her prized Zephyr pocket radio, which she had treated herself to after her first month’s wages in the training college. She tuned into Radio Caroline on Medium Wave, and although she knew it was a pirate radio station, it didn’t bother her as she was a huge fan of the rock music they played. The DJ, Spangles Muldoon, announced that the next song was the Janis Joplin hit ‘Piece Of My Heart’. Jane was a big Joplin fan, and often reminisced about how lucky she had been to see her in concert at the Royal Albert Hall for her eighteenth birthday. Although she had been sitting in the gods it had been an electrifying and unforgettable experience, watching Joplin strutting and dancing, all the time holding the audience spellbound through the power and emotion of her amazingly soulful voice. As the song began Jane turned up the volume.

And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,

But I’m gonna, gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,

Take it!

Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!

Oh, oh, break it!

Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Oh, oh, have a

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby…

You know you got it, if it makes you feel good…

Jane was singing along to herself when the bus suddenly jerked to a halt, causing her to lurch forward and nearly drop her radio. She peered from the window and sighed – it was still raining. The light drizzle when she got on the bus had now turned to a dark-skied downpour. She wished she’d worn her uniform cape, but she always kept it at the station in her locker. When Jane had first arrived at Hackney Police Station as a probationer her reporting sergeant had advised her not to stand out on public transport wearing ‘half-blues’. You didn’t want to be recognized as a copper, he’d said, and have an egg chucked at you, or be forced by a bus conductor to step into a trivial situation that might escalate because you were ‘Old Bill’. Instead she wore a buttoned-up black trench coat to hide her police uniform, and was carrying her police hat in a plastic carrier bag. Jane looked at her watch and saw that it was twenty to two. She was due on parade at two o’clock for a late shift until 10 p.m. She glanced at the mirror by the stairs and saw an elderly man being helped on board by the conductor. She had three more stops before she had to get off at the station in Lower Clapton Road.

It often amused her to think of the time years ago when she had been driven to Hackney by her father, who had some business to attend to. He had gestured to the rundown housing estates and shaken his head in disgust, saying it was a part of London he detested. Jane, aged fourteen, couldn’t help but agree with him. Compared to Maida Vale, where they lived, it looked like a dump and seemed a very grey and unfriendly part of London. She recalled being horrified reading newspaper articles about the trial of the notorious East End brothers, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, and how they had lured Jack ‘the Hat’ McVitie to a party in Hackney where Reggie stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and body with a carving knife.

Jane smiled to herself at the irony. Little could she have imagined back then that her first posting as a probationary WPC, aged twenty-two, after sixteen weeks at the Metropolitan Police Force’s training college in Hendon, would be in the very area she considered a dump!

She suddenly sprang up, realizing that in her daydreaming she had missed her stop. Clattering down the stairs, she shouted to the conductor.

‘I’ve gone too far – I need to get off.’

‘Not a lot I can do about it, love – you should pay more attention. I’m not allowed to ring the bell in between stops, so you’ll have to-’

Jane couldn’t wait and as soon as the bus slowed down at the traffic lights she swung her job-issue black-leather handbag over her shoulder and jumped off. The grinning conductor wagged his finger disapprovingly. Jane had no option but to run the quarter of a mile back down the road to the station; she knew she would be drenched by the time she got there. Pulling up the collar of her trench coat she put her head down and set off. Seconds later, she bumped straight into a woman, which sent her reeling backwards and knocking the woman’s umbrella into the road. Her brown paper carrier bag of groceries split open, spilling tins of soup, apples, bananas, potatoes and a loaf of bread onto the wet pavement.