Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

“And then you took her into Harvey’s house.”

“No.”

“Because you knew he was away for the weekend. Used your father’s keys and went next door with her.” More statements of fact, according to Oswalde. “What happened then, Tony?”

Tony Allen shook his head. He went on shaking it as he said, slowly and distinctly, “I-didn’t-kill-her.”

Oswalde knew in his bones that the boy was lying through his teeth, but Burkin wasn’t so sure.

“I tied her up. Hands behind her back.”

“What with?”

“I don’t remember. I gagged her. Had sex with her. Afterwards I left her lying there.”

“Where was this?”

Harvey frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Which room were you in?”

“The kitchen.” His eyelids flickered. “A belt. I tied her with my belt…”

Without moving her head, Tennison turned her eyes to meet Muddyman’s. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, a frown of concentration on his face. Behind him, in the darkened corner of the room, Jason was nothing more than a vague blur, his black T-shirt and dark Windbreaker merging into the background. Tennison turned her attention back to Harvey, to the drab, droning voice.

“… I left her lying there. Went and watched the TV. I don’t know why. It was like a dream. As if it hadn’t happened.”

Tennison pursed her lips, remained silent.

Tony twisted his lips in disgust. “What kind of a brother are you?” he demanded contemptuously. “To say things like that to me?”

“I’m not your brother, I’m a police officer,” Oswalde said stolidly. The guy was trying to play the black power card, and he wasn’t having any. Burkin would just love that, all dem black folks jess one big happy family crap. Well stuff that.

With utter loathing in his voice, Tony practically spat in his face, “Because you want to be white! You hate your black brothers and sisters. You’re black !”

Oswalde was getting more irritated by the second. But he wasn’t going to be drawn down that road. No chance. To show how calm he was, unaffected by Tony’s outburst, he studied his fingernails and asked casually, “Why did you give up playing the bass after that concert, Tony?”

“You’re a sellout, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Tony’s whole face seemed to be moving, as if he was trying to say something he didn’t know how to express. There was a strange light in his eyes. Then it burst out of him in a flood.

“Bass notes are the pulse, they come up at you through the soles of your feet… they sound inside you, here. They beat with your heart. From beneath. A heartbeat. From beneath the earth.” He was like a mechanical doll, the words jerking out of him. His eyes suddenly focused on Oswalde, his voice filled with scathing contempt. “You see, you don’t understand. I couldn’t play anymore… how could I play anymore?” Head straining forward, he yelled in Oswalde’s impassive face, “ Why ask questions when you don’t understand? ”

Burkin was staring at Tony, fascinated. Maybe Oswalde didn’t understand, but he sure did; the kid was a loony tune. End of story.

The feel of the clammy hand clutching hers made Tennison feel nauseous. She swallowed hard, telling herself it would soon be over. Harvey was tiring fast, his voice becoming weaker, the gasping pauses more prolonged; but she nearly had it all now, down on tape, in his own words. The repulsion she felt was a small price to pay.

“… she must have choked on the gag. There was vomit all around her mouth, her nose… I didn’t mean to kill her.”

The door opened and a nurse came in bearing a small tray. Standing at the foot of the bed, she said quietly. “I must give Mr. Harvey his medication.”

Tennison nodded. She indicated to Muddyman and Jason that they should leave, then turned back to Harvey.

“I’ll be back soon, David.” For the benefit of the tape, she said, “I am concluding this interview. The time is eight ten.”

Muddyman was standing with Jason in the corridor. The young man’s hands hung limply by his sides, and the ordeal he was going through showed plainly on his face.

Tennison squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, this must be awful for you.”

Jason was staring at the floor, ashen to the lips. “I’ve known him all my life,” he said in a stunned whisper. “And I don’t… I don’t know him at all.”

“Will you be all right to go back in?” Tennison asked gently, and received a brief nod.

Muddyman stirred himself. “I’ll get us a coffee,” he said, and went off to find a machine.

Tennison felt soiled and grubby. What she really wanted was a hot cleansing shower and a large brandy. Wash away the stink from her body and deaden the memory of that gaunt, wasted face gasping out its last confession.

“If I had buried her,” Tony Allen told Oswalde, his eyes dangerously bright, “I’d have buried her so deep you’d never have found her again. She’d never have come back…”

“Has she come back?” Oswalde asked, watching him closely.

Tony gave a pitying half-smile, the smile of someone trying to communicate an ultimate truth to an ignoramus. “She’s inside you,” he hissed. “I can see her looking at me. Looking at me through your eyes. Reaching out to me.” He tapped his chest. “I’m her friend. She wants to get away from you. You’re a coffin. You suffocate her. You’re her coffin. Your eyes are little windows. I can see inside you. Through your eyes. See Joanne. She hates you…”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When it came away he was grinning at Oswalde with a strange mixture of triumph and the deepest loathing.

Harvey seemed to have regained a little strength. The pill, or injection-whatever it was-had brought him back into the world, banished for a short while the shades closing in around him.

Tennison pressed on, anxious to get it over and done with. “What did you do with Joanne’s body?”

“I kept it in the cupboard under the stairs. Till the following night. I dug a hole. I put the earth in bags. I had a lot of plastic sheeting. I wrapped her in the sheeting.” His voice broke. He stared sightlessly upwards. “Buried her.”

Muddyman leaned forward into Tennison’s eye line, stroking his chin. She nodded slowly. Harvey was coming out with crucial details-the belt, the plastic sheeting-that hadn’t been released to the media. Harvey couldn’t possibly have known about them unless he was personally involved with the disposal of Joanne’s body. It was the kind of clinching evidence they required to make the case stand up in court.

She was about to ask a further question when Harvey suddenly, and with great effort, raised himself up. His eyes probed the darkness, his slack mouth working desperately.

“I’m sorry, Jason, I’m sorry you have to hear all this. I just needed you to be here…” Exhausted, he fell back, and Tennison waited for calm.

“Did you bury anything else with her, David?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“A plastic bag.”

That hadn’t been mentioned in the press either.

“What did it contain?”

Tennison had to crane forward to catch his mumbled. “I don’t know,” and it seemed to her that, having confessed to the murder, he was losing interest in the more mundane details of the crime.

Again she glanced towards Muddyman, who was looking like the cat that got the cream. Harvey was a goner, in more senses than one. He’d given them chapter and bloody verse on the whole sordid saga, committed it to tape, with three witnesses in attendance. Game, set, and match.

Harvey continued to mumble. Tennison strained to hear, hoping the tape was picking it up.