Lynda La Plante - Prime Suspect

“Deirdre, alias Della, Mornay’s Vice record, ma’am. The reason they gave for not sending it before was that King’s Cross Vice Squad’s computer records are not compatible with Scotland Yard’s, or some such excuse.”

Flicking through the file, Tennison took out a photograph of Della Mornay and laid it beside the photos of the corpse. She frowned.

“Maureen, get hold of Felix Norman for me and find out how long he’ll be there. Then order me a car and tell DC Jones he’s driving me. I want to see the body tonight, but I need to interview the landlady first. And ask for another set of dabs from the victim, get them compared with the ones on Della Mornay’s file.”

Leaving Havers scribbling furiously, she walked out.

All the items from Della Mornay’s room that Forensic had finished with had been piled onto a long trestle table. It was a jumble of bags of clothes, bedding and shoes. There was also a handbag, which Tennison examined carefully. She made a note of some ticket stubs, replaced them, then pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and turned to the clothing taken from the victim’s body. The bloodstains were caked hard and black. She checked sleeves, hems, seams and labels.

Engrossed in what she was doing, she hardly noticed WPC Havers enter.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, DC Jones is waiting in the car.”

Tennison turned her attention to the filthy bedclothes. The smell alone was distasteful, and she wrinkled her nose.

“Dirty little tart… Tell Jones I’ll be with him in a few minutes. And tell all of Shefford’s team that I want them in the Incident Room at nine sharp tomorrow morning-all of them, Maureen, understand?”

DC Jones sat in the driving seat of the plain police car. He had left the rear door open for DCI Tennison, but she climbed in beside him.

“Right, Milner Road first. What’s your first name?”

“David, ma’am.”

“OK, Dave, put your foot down. I’ve got a hell of a schedule.”

Della’s room was still roped off. Tennison looked around and noted the fine dusting left by the Scenes of Crime people, then used the end of her pencil to open the one wardrobe door that still clung to its hinges. She checked the few remaining items of clothing, then sat on the edge of the bed, opened her briefcase and thumbed through a file.

DC Jones watched as she closed the case and turned to him. “Will you bring me two pairs of shoes…”

She spent a considerable time looking over the dressing table, checking the make-up, opening the small drawers. By the time she seemed satisfied, Jones’ stomach was complaining loudly. He suggested it was time to eat. Tennison paused on her way downstairs and looked back at him.

“I’m OK, but if you can’t hold out, go and get yourself something while I interview the landlady.”

When Jones got back to the house he found Tennison sitting in the dirty, cluttered kitchen in the basement, listening to Mrs. Salbanna moaning.

“The rents are my living, how long will you need the room for? I could let it right now, you know!”

Tennison replied calmly, “Mrs. Salbanna, I am investigating a murder. As soon as I am satisfied that we no longer need the efficiency, I will let you know. If you wish you can put in a claim for loss of earnings, I’ll have the forms sent to you. Now, will you just repeat to me exactly what happened the night you found Della Mornay? You identified her, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve told you twice, yes.”

“How well did you know her?”

“How well? You’re jokin’,” I didn’t know her. I let a room to her, that’s all.”

“How often did you see her?”

“As often as I could, to get the rent off her. God forgive me for talking ill of the dead, but that little bitch owed me months in rent. She was always late, and it gets so if you throw her out on the street you’ll never get the money back, right? She kept on promising and promising…”

“So you saw her recently?”

“No, because she was in and out like a snake. I hadn’t seen her for… at least a month, maybe longer.”

“But you are absolutely sure that it was Della Mornay’s body?”

“Who else would it be? I told you all this, I told that big bloke too.”

“And that night you didn’t hear anything unusual, or see anyone that didn’t live here?”

“No, I didn’t come home till after eight myself. Then, because I’d had such a time with my daughter-she’s had a new baby, and she’s already got two, so I’ve been looking after them… Well, by the time I got home I was so exhausted, I went straight to bed. Then I was woken up by the front door banging. I put notices up, but no one pays attention. It started banging, so I got up…”

“You didn’t see anyone go out? Could someone have just left?”

“I don’t know… See, it’s got a bit of rubber tire tacked on it to try and stop the noise, so if they didn’t want to be heard… But it was just blowing around in the wind, it was a windy night… I told the other man all this.”

Tennison closed her notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Salbanna.”

Tennison stopped off at Forensic on her way to view the body, and sat in silence while Willy Chang explained the complex details of the DNA test that had resulted in George Marlow being picked up on suspicion of murder. She looked at the slides.

“There was a big rape and murder case up in Leicester. They did a mass screening, every man in the entire village, and they got him. The semen tests took weeks to match, but in the case of such a rare blood group it’s much easier to define. He’s an AB secreter and belongs to group two in the PGM tests, so it narrows the field dramatically. We’ve been doing test runs on a new computerized cross-matching system, just using the rarer blood groups, for experimental purposes. Your man was tested in 1988, and was actually on record.”

“So you got a match from the computer, out of the blue?”

“Yes. When we got the read-out it was mayhem in here, it was such a freak piece of luck.”

“So the computer is infallible, is it?”

“Not exactly, it’ll give you the closest match it can find. We have to confirm the results with our own visual tests on the light-box. Want to see it?”

Tennison was shown two sets of negatives that looked like supermarket bar codes, with certain lines darker than others. The black bands on each matched perfectly. She made some notes, then asked to use a telephone.

She placed a call to her old base at the rape center in Reading and requested the records of all suspected rapists charged as a result of DNA testing. She wanted to see how the judges had reacted, if they had allowed the DNA results to be the mainstay of the evidence.

Felix Norman slammed the phone down as a corpse, covered by a green sheet, was wheeled into the lab. Five students, all masked, gowned and shod in white wellington boots, trailed in after the trolley.

He gestured for them to gather round, then lifted the sheet. “Well, you’re in luck, this is a nice fresh ’un. I’m gonna have to leave you for a few minutes, but you can start opening it up without me.”

He picked up a clipboard and strode out to where Tennison and Jones were waiting. Greeting them with nothing approaching civility, he led them to the mortuary. At the far end of the rows of drawers he stopped and pulled on a lever, releasing the hinge, and slid out the tray with “D. Mornay” chalked on it.

Before removing the sheet from the body, Norman reeled off a list of injuries from the clipboard, including the number and depth of the stab wounds.

“I hear you had a lucky break with the forensic results. Your suspect has a very rare blood group?”

Tennison nodded, waiting for him to draw the sheet back. He did so slowly, looking at DC Jones’ pale face.