Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

“I’m sorry just to show up like this. I had to talk to someone.”

She gave him a searching, quizzical look. “Someone?”

He looked at her, biting his lip. “You.”

She indicated the armchair, and he sat down, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet. “I just don’t know what happened to me that night. When she read that stuff back to me today, it was”-he swallowed, his brows knitting together-“so obvious that Tony Allen was at risk, and that I’d been bullying him. Why…?”

His face was stricken. He looked to be in pain. She went to the bar tray on the small ornate table and poured two good measures of Glenlivet, carried them back and gave him his.

Oswalde held the glass, not drinking. “Perhaps they’re right,” he said after an age. “Perhaps I am a coconut.”

Tennison sat down on the sofa, smoothing her dressing gown over her knee. “Yes, I heard them shouting that. What does that mean?”

“Coconut. A Bounty bar. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.” His voice was bitter.

“I should have thought it was a bit more complex than that, Bob.”

He raised his head. “Do you think I was responsible for his death?”

He looked so forlorn that she had to resist the urge to go to him and put her arms around him and comfort him. Instead, she said firmly, and truthfully, “No, I don’t. But it’s what you think that matters.”

The pain in his eyes was mingled with fear. He said huskily, “I think I as good as killed him.” Abruptly, he put the glass down on the carpet and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

Tennison stood up. “You can stay if you want.”

“No. I’d better go.”

She saw him out, and walked with him along the hall to the street door. On the step, hugging herself against the chill, Tennison said, “Call me if you need to talk.”

“Thanks.”

Feeling somehow that she had let him down, not helped him at all, she reached up and, pulling his head forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. “Take care.”

She watched him walk off down the dark street, shoulders hunched, his overcoat flapping around his long legs. In the shadow of a tree, directly opposite, Jason kept his finger on the button, thinking he might as well use up all thirty-six frames because he was going to get the film processed first thing in the morning anyway.

“And at eleven twenty p.m. you interrupted Sergeant Oswalde and asked to have a word with him.” Mrs. Duhra looked up from the notes she was consulting to DI Frank Burkin in the witness box. “Because you were concerned about the way Sergeant Oswalde was conducting the interview?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You weren’t concerned for Tony Allen’s safety or well-being?” Mrs. Duhra asked, a suggestion of surprise, incredulity even, creeping into her voice.

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why the need for ‘a word’?”

“I thought a particular line of questioning was proving fruitless,” Burkin said in a steady monotone, as if he’d rehearsed his reply, which of course he had. “I wanted to suggest another approach to Sergeant Oswalde.”

“I see.” Mrs. Duhra glanced towards the jury, making clear her total skepticism of that, and turned once more to Burkin. “So nothing in Tony Allen’s behavior gave you cause for concern?”

Burkin’s face was immobile, his eyes opaque. “No. Nothing at all, ma’am. What happened was a complete surprise to me. And a shock.”

The transformation, Tennison thought, was truly incredible. Not a trace of the tattoos, the earrings, the matted hair, and the five-day growth of beard. In their place, standing there in the witness box, a presentable young man with a short haircut, wearing a neat dark suit, pale green shirt, and navy-blue tie. The former drunk had been smartened up so that he wouldn’t have known who it was if he passed himself in the street.

Mrs. Duhra had a friendly witness, and she treated him accordingly.

“Mr. Peters, you were in the cell next door to Tony Allen on the night he died…”

“Yes, miss.”

Polite too, Tennison thought. Such a well-mannered boy wouldn’t dream of screaming Fucking Fascist Bastard Pigs.

“Did you see or hear anything that is relevant to this inquest?”

The reformed crusty wormed his finger inside his collar, tugging his top button open. “I saw the body. They didn’t want me to. They were trying to move me but I saw it lying on the cell floor.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Yes, miss. I heard the prisoner sobbing. Trying to tell the police he couldn’t breathe. I heard some policemen kicking at his cell door, shouting at him, telling him to shut up. Then I heard him threaten them.”

He paused there, as if, a cynic might have supposed, he had been told to, and Mrs. Duhra picked it up.

“Threaten them? What exactly did he threaten them with?”

“Killing himself. If they didn’t let him out of the cell he…”

His words were drowned in the commotion from the public gallery. The court official was on his feet, calling for quiet, and the noise subsided.

“He threatened to kill himself,” Mrs. Duhra said. “Go on.”

“I heard a police officer-I’m not sure which one-shouting at him.”

“What did the police officer shout?”

Probably enjoying this part, the crusty said in a loud voice, “ ‘Go on, then, nigger, hang yourself.’ ” The public gallery burst into an uproar. People were standing and waving their fists. Through it all, the crusty went on, “They were all shouting, ‘Do it. Do it. Do it.’ ”

“Quiet!” The court official was back on his feet. “ Quiet! ”

It subsided again, but this time an angry rumbling murmur continued, like distant yet ominous thunder. Sarah Allen had half-risen to her feet, her father pulling at her arm. Her head on one side, Esme was weeping silently, huge tears trickling down her face.

The coroner became impatient, having to wait several moments until he could be heard.

“Sydney Peters, can you tell the members of the jury how you came to be occupying the cell next to Anthony Allen on the night he died?”

“I had been arrested, sir,” said the crusty meekly. “For being drunk, sir.”

“Mr. Peters, is it true that you are a member of Narcotics Anonymous?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Perhaps you could tell the members of the jury why that is.”

The crusty blinked, and gave the jury an ingratiating smile. “Because, ladies and gentlemen, I used to be addicted to various narcotic substances.”

“Thank you, Mr. Peters,” the coroner said icily.

The coroner’s heavy-handed attempt to discredit her witness brought a fleeting sardonic smile to Mrs. Duhra’s face. His testimony had been heard, that’s what mattered, and what had been said couldn’t be unsaid.

Tennison, in her bra and slip, was rooting in the closet for a clean blouse when the phone rang at twenty past eight the following morning. She flopped down on the bed and reached out to answer it. She listened and then said sharply, “Who is this? And why should I want to read that rag?”

Jason was in a phone booth on the shore. It was a gorgeous day down here, a clear blue sky above, the sun sparkling on the waves and making dazzling white triangles of the sails of the yachts setting out for a morning sail around the bay.

He said silkily, “I think you’ll find something in it to amuse you. Now promise me you’ll buy it.”

“Who is this?”

Jason hung up. He didn’t really want to, because he liked the sound of her voice, but it could have been dangerous, staying on the line. She had a sexy voice. She was sexy-looking too. Nice figure, big tits. As a rule he liked them young, the younger the better, because they were innocent and impressionable. But he would have made an exception in her case. Give her a few drinks, get her down to bra and panties, load up the Pentax and shoot off a roll. And after that, well, who knows? Could be her lucky day, a bit of throbbing young meat. They said the older ones really appreciated a good, strong hammering.