Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

Tennison said, “So why did you say it was the anniversary of his wife’s death?”

“Makes no difference.” Eileen folded her arms and gave a contemptuous shrug. “I’ve spoken to a lawyer and he tells me that confession is not worth the paper it’s written on. It was ‘obtained under duress,’ ” she enunciated, her Scottish accent coming to the fore. “And if my brother did it, why has that blackie killed himself?”

“Did you know Tony Allen?” Tennison asked, quietly curious.

“No, I seen it on the TV.” Eileen leaned forward, thrusting her face, eyes screwed tight, at Tennison. “Because he did it-that’s why!”

“Then why did your brother confess?”

She had a sharp-tongued Glaswegian answer to everything. “To get you lot off his back.”

“Eileen, you’re not helping your brother by lying…”

“I’m not lying !”

Tennison leaned against the sink, watching as Eileen heaved a basket of clean washing onto the kitchen table. She was a small, almost scrawny woman, yet tough as old boots, and Tennison wouldn’t have fancied her own chances in a scrap, even with the tricks she’d learned from the Met’s karate instructors.

She said, “You don’t have to stop loving him, you don’t have to stop supporting him. But you do have to stop lying for him.”

“You know something?” Eileen swung around, blazing. “You’re a pious cow! I’ve done everything for that bloody man since he’s been ill. I work my fingers to the bone to support him…”

“I know.” Tennison nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. I know you support him. I know that must be a struggle. Like taking on that loan-”

“You all think you know everything!”

“-for him. Five grand’s a lot of money.” She paused. “How could you afford to do that, Eileen?”

“My son helps out.” She glared across the kitchen. “All right?”

Tennison reflected. “What does Jason do for a living?”

“You leave that boy out of this!”

“It’s a simple question,” Tennison said placidly.

Eileen sniffed. “He has a sort of… photography business.”

“What does that mean?”

“In the summer he works on the beach. I don’t really know. I don’t pry like you do,” she said with something like a sneer.

“You mean he’s a beach photographer?” Tennison said, and a tiny surge of excitement, like electricity, ran through her. She didn’t quite know why, but then something clicked in her brain.

Eileen was busy sorting out the stuff that needed ironing. “Yeah-he used to keep a bloody monkey here at one time, okay?”

Tennison left her car parked at the end of the street and walked along the flagged pathway that led to the flats. She entered Dwyfor House and began to climb the smelly staircase. She wanted to have another look around Harvey’s flat, and in particular at the photographs on the glass-fronted bureau. The ones taken by Jason Reynolds, professional photographer.

On the thirteenth floor, in flat Number 136, Jason Reynolds was on his knees, searching in the cupboard under the sink. He found what he was after, a black plastic bag, and padded through into the living room. The place was in a bit of a shambles, coffee table on its side, ashtray and loose cigarettes spilled over the floor, nothing tidied up since they’d carted his uncle off to the hospital.

He shook the bag open and went around the sofa to the bureau. He reached for the nearest framed photograph and suddenly went still. He tilted his head, listening. There was someone outside the front door. Silently he skirted the sofa and crept into the hallway, his sneakers making no sound. Somebody was fumbling with the mailbox flap. Fingers poked through and fished for the string, and started to pull it up, the key attached to the end. Jason watched as the key was drawn through the mailbox.

He looked around, instantly in a sweat. As the key went into the lock he dashed sideways into the kitchen and closed the door a bare crack, putting his eye to it. He held his breath, white-faced and tense, and through the crack saw Tennison pass along the hallway to the living room. He felt sure she must hear his heart.

Tennison moved slowly around the sofa to the bureau. Along with Muddyman she’d merely glanced at the photographs in their cheap Woolworth’s frames. Now she examined each in turn closely. The one she had looked at before, of Harvey and his wife. The sunset over the sea. Harvey and Eileen together. A smaller print of Eileen on her own. And one of Harvey and Jason, in a back garden, smiling, Harvey’s arm around his nephew’s shoulder. Tennison touched the glass. Her finger traced Jason’s check shirt down to the Indian Chief’s head on the belt looped through his jeans.

The surge of electricity was now a jolt, stiffening her spine.

She turned her head, feeling a cool waft of air on her cheek. Putting the photograph back, she went through into the hallway. The front door was open. Had she closed it? She was positive she had. She looked out onto the landing. She listened for a moment, heard nothing, and went back inside, making sure the door was locked.

In the living room she took the photograph down, turned it over, and flicked up the plastic tabs, intending to take just the print itself. As the cardboard backing came away, Tennison froze. Concealed there, behind the print, were half a dozen polaroids. She spread them out on the back of the frame, her mouth dry, struggling a little to catch her breath. They were of Joanne Fagunwa and Sarah Allen, fully clothed yet posing rather suggestively, their hands squeezing their breasts. They looked to be in a kitchen. And there was a close-up of Joanne and Sarah, giggling into the camera, with Tony Allen between them, pulling a funny face.

Tennison shut her eyes. This was it. What they’d been seeking all along. The link-Joanne-Sarah-Tony-and whoever had taken the polaroids. All together. And whoever had taken the polaroids was the wearer of the Indian Chief’s head belt.

She went to the phone and dialed Southampton Row, and asked for DS Oswalde. When he came on the line she said, “Bob, it’s Jane. I’m at Harvey’s. I’ve found something interesting.”

Oswalde was sitting on the sofa, hands laced together, the Polaroids spread out on the coffee table in front of him. He nodded slowly. “So Tony was involved…”

“Yes.”

As if a string had snapped, Oswalde’s head dropped forward. “Thank Christ for that.” He sucked in a huge, relieved breath, then sat forward, staring hard. “Isn’t that Sarah?”

“Yes,” Tennison said. She leaned over, pointing. “And even better… recognize that?”

Oswalde studied the photograph of Harvey and Jason in the garden. He looked up at her, his expression clearing. “It’s the belt…”

Tennison’s eyes gleamed. “We’ve got him, Bob-I want him picked up and I want this place turned over,” she said, gesturing around the flat, fingers snapping.

“Have you got a search warrant?”

“I’ll worry about that.”

Forty-five minutes and two phone calls later the flat was in the throes of a minor invasion. A systematic search brought up piles of soft porn magazines and two shoe boxes filled with original prints and Polaroids: Jason’s private collection, that no doubt he’d stored here to keep from his mother’s prying eyes, Tennison thought. She sorted through it with Lillie.

Some of the early, amateurish stuff was fairly innocuous-pouting adolescent girls pretending to be page three models, quite a few in school uniforms. But there were other, later shots that Tennison found sickening and repugnant. Naked girls bound and gagged, fear in their eyes; real or faked, Tennison couldn’t tell. Some showing groups of two or three, using various implements on themselves. And a number of them featured the kid himself. Jason the porno star, taking the leading role in his own production. These had been taken with remote-control shutter release. The wire could be seen, trailing from his hand to the camera, as he pumped away, face contorted, veins standing out. The girls didn’t look to be enjoying it.