Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

“Not enough,” Trayner muttered tersely, shaking his head.

“Jonathan Phelps, Labour… sixteen thousand, four hundred…”

The rest was drowned in a storm of cheering from the Labour supporters in the hall. Phelps, smiling broadly, had both fists raised in the air. Trayner turned his back on it.

“Did you hear that?” he said into the phone. “It’s in David’s best interests to stop Southampton Row being dragged through the mire. Keep me informed.”

He hung up. Thorndike came through, buttoning his jacket. “Well, we’d better be going.” The two men looked at one another. Things might work out after all. The MS15 investigation, with Thorndike in charge, couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment, everything considered. If nothing else, it would cast a cloud over Tennison’s promotion prospects. And if Thorndike could perform a damage limitation exercise on the Met’s reputation, impressing the powers-that-be, he’d come out of it smelling of roses.

Trayner patted him on the shoulder, and Thorndike responded with his thin-lipped watery smile. “Looks like I’ve got an early start in the morning,” he said.

“I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get, I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get…”

“Stop that!”

Tennison sat at her desk, her elbow on the blotter, her head propped in one hand. She tapped the ash off her cigarette and put it to her lips. She inhaled deeply and breathed out, the smoke pluming from her nostrils. The tape reel slowly turned, semaphoring plastic gleams under the lamplight with each revolution.

“I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get, I’m a black bastard, I deserve all I get…”

“Tony, just stop it, man!”

Tennison closed her eyes and took another long drag.

This was worse than she had feared. Much worse. What in heaven’s name had possessed Oswalde? Why had he allowed it to go on? Pushing and pressuring the boy when it was obvious that he was stricken with hysterical panic, teetering on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown? What the hell was he trying to prove? That black coppers were superior to white ones? Or that he had nothing to learn from the Gestapo?

The procedures laid down under PACE were quite explicit, and this interview was a case-book study on how to disregard every one of them. Whoever was appointed from MS15 was going to have a field day.

“That’s enough. Can I have a word with you, Sergeant Oswalde.” Burkin’s voice.

“In a minute.”

“Now, Sergeant Oswalde!”

Tennison mashed her cigarette next to the five stubs and switched off the tape.

Tennison had the nine a.m. briefing put back to nine fifteen. First she wanted Burkin in, and she told DS Haskons to send him along as soon as he arrived. He came in, pale and hollow-eyed, a shaving nick on his chin, and stayed standing and silent while she tore into him. The second time in under two weeks; it was getting to be a bad habit.

“I’m not talking about Oswalde’s part in this,” Tennison stormed at him. She stayed on her feet, pacing, because if she sat down she’d have had the cigarette packet out. “You and Mike Calder had the authority to stop those interviews. Instead, you let them continue-no, better still, you let Oswalde interview the boy on his own while you sat by the telephone waiting for me to do your job for you-”

She broke away to answer the door. It was Haskons.

“Ready when you are, Guv.”

“Right.” She closed the door and walked around Burkin to the desk. He was looking carefully at nothing in particular, as long as it wasn’t her. She didn’t care what he was feeling, or what he thought of her; this was a professional matter; she was expected to do her job, and she expected him to do his.

“The rank of inspector is supposed to mean something, Frank. It carries responsibility. It’s supposed to denote a certain authority.” She stared up at him, hands clasped at her waist. “You won’t make excuses. You’ll face the music like a man. That’ll be all.”

Burkin turned and left the office.

He went directly to the Incident Room, where Muddyman was perched on the corner of a desk, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup. The other members of the team were lounging about, and Muddyman was saying, “I don’t understand it-we’re at Harvey’s bedside getting a confession and meanwhile Oswalde’s off chasing Tony. It doesn’t make sense.”

“His ass is grass,” said Rosper, the jive slang specialist, with a shrug.

Haskons was more sympathetic. “It’s a dreadful thing to have happened. You carry that around with you for the rest of your life,” he said.

Still smarting from his encounter with Tennison, Burkin didn’t see why anyone else should be let off the hook. “The spade should be suspended. I mean, why was he brought here in the first place?”

“You know why,” Muddyman said.

“To talk to his people,” Jones said.

“Yeah… and now one of them’s dead and it’s down to him,” Burkin growled. He looked around the circle of faces, aware that not all of them were convinced. “Look, I’m not exaggerating or nothing,” he told them stridently. “That boy was really weird, I mean climbing the walls, screaming and shouting, like mental or something. And believe me, I tried to tell him…”

“Yeah, course you did, Frank,” Haskons said, nodding, as if Burkin was insisting that Santa Claus really did exist.

The discussion dried up as Oswalde entered the room. No one greeted or looked at him, and he didn’t seem to care either way, going straight to his desk and sitting down. He was a stranger in a strange land, no use seeking sympathy or comradeship around here.

A moment later Tennison arrived. The men gathered around. The mood wasn’t one of sweetness and light.

“Morning everyone.” Her gaze swept over them-Burkin, Muddyman, Lillie, Rosper, Haskons, Jones-and last of all Oswalde, who was standing on the edge of the circle.

“I expect you’ve all heard about the events of last night. Just to clarify. Tony Allen hanged himself in cell Number seven-using strips of his own clothes. I informed his parents shortly afterwards. Now, obviously we can expect some adverse publicity. I’m told we can also expect an internal inquiry led by DCI Thorndike to begin almost immediately.”

There were dark looks and a few suppressed groans. Those who knew Thorndike didn’t like him. Those that didn’t know him were well aware of his reputation as a cold-blooded bastard, a career policeman who’d never collared so much as a shoplifter.

“Needless to say, I regret what has happened, but Operation Nadine continues…”

Lillie raised a hand. “But surely, ma’am, if Harvey’s confessed-I mean, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Quite frankly, I’m not convinced by David Harvey’s version of events.”

This was news to Muddyman. He said, “Admittedly, there are some inconsistencies, Guv…”

“Inconsistencies?” Tennison raised an eyebrow. “He said she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was. He said he put a gag on her-there was no trace of a gag.”

“He could have removed it,” Muddyman pointed out. “It could have rotted away.”

“Yes, it could have,” Tennison conceded. With the possible exception of Oswalde, she was aware that she was in a minority of one. The rest of the team agreed with Muddyman: the case was signed, sealed, and as good as delivered. She went on, “Harvey said he killed her in the kitchen, but the fragment of tooth was found in the front room.”

Muddyman had an answer for that too. “Perhaps there was violence in the front room-he said he hit her-before the murder took place. Perhaps he moved the body after…” He spread his hands. “I mean, he did say he hit her.”