Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

The more professional the photograph, it seemed, the more extreme the poses and situations became, as if Jason was trying to keep pace with his growing technical expertise by dredging up ever more outlandish fantasies from the depths of his sordid imagination.

Lillie held up a magazine cover of an over-blessed blonde and the original, matching color print from Jason’s private hoard. “Quite the little photographer,” he muttered sourly.

Tennison pushed the pile away with disgust, having seen more than plenty. “Get on to Vice. See if you can find out who publishes this muck.” She called out to Oswalde, “Bob, get someone down to Harvey’s bedside. Make sure I’m informed as soon as he can utter a sound.”

She stood up, feeling soiled and grubby and faintly nauseated. Turning away from the piles of magazines and heaps of photographs, she said between gritted teeth, “We’ve got to find this little shit.”

She thought, with a flutter of panic: Before he does to some poor innocent girl what he did to Joanne Fagunwa.

Haskons had used his discretion. He’d weeded out the more explicit material and pinned up on the bulletin board only those shots that might have been deemed fit for mixed company. Even so, some of the sequences, while starting innocently enough, ended up as blatantly pornographic.

“Seems as though Jason prefers amateur models,” Tennison said, moving along them with Muddyman, who himself dabbled in amateur photography, on a more modest scale.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t have to pay them, does he?” Muddyman pointed them out. “The Polaroids are early photographs. The later ones are much better quality, thirty-five mil. Quite professional.”

“Would he develop them himself?”

Muddyman smoothed back the hair over his bald spot. “I think black and white’s pretty easy. You need more sophisticated equipment for color.”

Tennison pinched her nose, thinking. “I suppose he could have a studio or something… it’s worth checking with any of those places that specialize in developing shady photos. They might have an address, a contact number even.”

Muddyman nodded and went off, back into the fray. The Incident Room was buzzing. Rosper, aided by WPC Havers, was working the computer terminal. Burkin and Oswalde had document files a foot deep on their desks, heads down, plowing through. The other members of the team were on the phones, chasing down even the most tenuous lead. DC Jones came through the desks, looking faintly flushed, eyes blinking behind his spectacles. He held an open folder.

“You were right, ma’am-Jason Reynolds attended the same school as Tony Allen. They were in the same year. When Eileen moved to Margate, to be near one of her boyfriends, Jason stayed on in London, living mainly at Number Fifteen…”

“Oh, right!” Tennison breathed.

“Their class president reckons they weren’t friends though. He says Jason was a troublemaker-bit of a jack-the-lad.” Jones added doubtfully, “I suppose if they were neighbors they might have hung out together, but they sound very different.”

“Which brings us back to Sarah.” Tennison smacked her knuckles into her palm, fretting, frustrated. “Who Kernan has ruled out-of-bounds.”

“Boss…?” Haskons beckoned, and went back to frowning at two photographs on the board. They were earlier shots of an attractive blond teenager, in bra and black fishnets, gazing over her shoulder with an invitation in her dark eyes.

“This is a bit out of left field, but I think I recognize her.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know.” Haskons was distinctly uneasy. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been looking at them for ages.”

“Richard…” Tennison said warningly, her eyes like gimlets.

“No, I mean, Camilla’s really happy there,” Haskons said feebly.

Tennison was stumped. Camilla was his eldest girl, six years old. “What’s Camilla got to do with it?”

Haskons stared at the photos, worrying his thumbnail. “I think it’s her teacher,” he said.

Miriam Todd, in charge of the third grade at St. John’s Primary, was attractive enough, and dark eyed, but she wasn’t blond. She had shoulder-length black hair and was about twenty-two, Tennison guessed. Supposing the pinups of the girl in bra and fishnets to have been taken five, six years ago, Miriam would then have been in her mid-teens. Near enough the right age.

Perched on tiny chairs, they sat in the sunny classroom during the lunchtime break, the cheerful clamor of kids in the playground an odd and unsettling backdrop to the purpose of Tennison’s visit.

She took the two photographs of the blond girl Haskons thought he recognized from her bag and showed them to Miriam.

“Tell me if you recognize this person.”

“No, I’ve never seen them before, Inspector.”

But her nostrils betrayed her. They had flared, just a fraction, enough for Tennison to notice the sharp intake of breath Miriam was trying to disguise. She tried a different tack.

“What about this girl?”

Miriam looked at the full color studio portrait of Joanne that her mother had supplied, happy and smiling, sparking with life.

Miriam shook her head slowly. “No. She’s beautiful…”

“No, Miriam,” Tennison said bluntly. “She was beautiful. Her remains were found buried in the garden of Number Fifteen, Honeyford Road. Her hands had been tied behind her back with a belt. The belt belonged to Jason Reynolds. Do you recognize this man?” She held up the picture of Harvey and Jason together, and Miriam blanched. “Do you want to look at these photographs again?”

“No need.” Miriam’s voice was barely audible. She avoided Tennison’s direct gaze.

“Tell me what you know about the photographer.”

“Jason Reynolds.” Miriam sat up straighter and moistened her lips. “I met him in the summer of… eighty-six. At that time I was still at school, still living with my parents in Margate. He was taking photographs on the beach. You know, a seaside photographer. He was charming, funny…” She took a breath and plunged on, “As you know, I let him take photographs of me. For a while he made me feel attractive, the center of attention. I stripped and posed, I dressed up and posed. Whatever he asked for, really. I wanted to get away from home. My mother was ill.”

She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. Tennison waited.

“He said… he said his uncle had a flat I could rent, that he’d look after me. I came with him to London. To Honeyford Road…”

There was a noise in the corridor as the children trooped in from the playground. They bunched in the doorway, one or two spilling into the classroom. Tennison put the photographs away in her bag.

“Can you wait outside, please,” Miriam called to them. “Just line up quietly.” They went out. She turned back, brushing a few strands of hair from her pale forehead. “I lived in the basement flat there for two months.”

“June and July?”

“Yes.”

“Did you work as a prostitute, Miriam?”

She colored a little. “No, not really. Jason tried to get me to go with various friends he brought around, but…” She shrugged. “Well, none of us really knew what we were doing.”

Tennison looked into the dark eyes with their fringe of black lashes. Sick shit that he was, Tennison thought, Jason Reynolds must have something going for him, some form of mesmerizing power, to have snared, among many others, such an attractive teenager as Miriam Todd must have been six years ago. She said, “Did you have sex with his uncle? David Harvey?”

“Sometimes,” Miriam admitted. “When I couldn’t pay the rent.”

“Do you recognize either of these men?” Tennison showed her pictures of Vernon and Tony Allen. “Did you have sex with either of them?”