Lynda La Plante - Prime Suspect

“What I wouldn’t give to have mine just for weekends! Au pairs have been the bane of my life…”

“Oh, I’ve never had any troub-”

Lisa steamed on regardless. “I’ve had German, Spanish, French and a Swedish girl. I was going out one day, got as far as the end of the drive and realized I’d forgotten something, so I went back. She was in the Jacuzzi, stark naked! If Frank had walked in…”

“Probably would have jumped on her!” At last Tennison had got a word in edgeways, She grinned.

Sue nearly laughed, but remembered in time that she wanted to stay in Lisa’s good books. She changed the subject.

“You’re with the Metropolitan Police, Jane? Peter was telling…”

Lisa broke in: “Well, I’d better tell Frank to ease up on the brandy, can’t have you arresting him…”

“That’s traffic, not my department,” Jane replied, knocking back her brandy.

“Oh, so what do you do? Secretary? I was Frank’s before we got married.”

“No, I’m not a secretary.” The day was beginning to catch up on Jane, or rather the tragic little Jeannie. There was no one to bury her, so we had a whip-round…

If Lisa had heard Jane’s reply she paid no attention. Her peanut-sized brain was now fixed on wallpaper, and she was holding forth about which was best, flock or fabric. In her opinion, fabric held its color better…

The three men were still sitting around the table, hogging the brandy bottle. As Jane helped herself to another large one, Frank pushed his glass forward without pausing for breath.

“I put my men on the main house, Pete’s men on the second, and the two of them go up neck and neck. I’m looking for a quick turnover, so we do a big color brochure with artist’s impressions and start selling them while we dig the foundations. Tom does the interiors, and we split the profits…”

Jane was unused to being ignored. She downed the brandy and poured another to carry back to her perch on the arm of the only really comfortable chair which, oddly enough, no one had sat in. She knocked over the bowl of peanuts into the chair and spent a few minutes eating the spilt ones from the seat, then slowly slid into it herself.

Lisa had not drawn breath, but Jane’s accident with the peanuts finally brought her verbal assault course on wallpaper to a grinding halt. There was one of those classic silences among the women, during which Frank’s voice could still be heard.

Lisa turned her full attention on Jane. “I hear you were on the Crime Night program?”

“That’s right, I was answering the telephones, I was the one passing the blank sheet of paper backwards and forwards.”

Missing the sarcasm in Jane’s voice, Lisa ploughed on, “I am impressed! I never watch it, it scares me, but I’m paranoid about locking the house. And if a man comes near me when I’m walking Rambo…” She laughed. “That’s our red setter, I’m not talking about Frank!”

Jane switched off for a moment, gazing into the bottom of her empty glass. When she snapped to again she realized that Lisa hadn’t paused once.

“But don’t you think, honestly, that a lot of them ask for it?”

“What, ask to be raped?” Jane shook her head and her voice grew loud, “How can anyone ask to be raped?”

She jumped to her feet, swaying slightly and glaring as if interrogating Lisa, who shrank back in her seat. “Where do you walk your dog?”

“Well, on Barnes Common…”

“Barnes Common is notorious, women have been attacked on Barnes Common!”

Lisa rallied a little. “Yes, I know, but I wouldn’t go there late at night!”

“There are gushes, gullies, hidden areas. You could have a knife at your throat, your knickers torn off you, and bang! You’re dead. But you weren’t asking for it!”

“I-I was really talking about prostitutes…”

“What about them? Do you know any? Does Sue know any?” She turned to the men, she had their attention now. “How about you? Can you three tell me, hands on hearts, that you’ve never been with a tom?”

Lisa whispered to Sue, “What’s a tom?”

Tennison snapped, “A tart!”

In the ensuing silence, the telephone rang. Peter said, “It’ll be for you, Jane.”

She weaved her way to the door, but turned back, blazing, when she heard Peter say, “I’m sorry about that!”

“Don’t you ever make apologies for me! We were just having a consev… a conservation! She slammed the door.

“Keep her off the building site, Pete,” Frank said in a low voice.

“Actually, I’d like an answer to her question,” said Lisa.

“I think that went off all right, didn’t it?” Jane, creaming her face, was talking to Peter.

“You asking me?”

“No, I was talking to the pot of cold cream! You’re going to do the deal, aren’t you?”

“Yeah… Did you have to bring up all that about tarts?”

“Put a bit of spark into the evening.”

“It wasn’t your bloody evening!”

“Oh, thanks! I broke my bloody neck to get that dinner on the table!”

“It’s always you, Jane! You, you, you! You don’t give a sod about anyone else!”

“That’s not true!”

“You care about the blokes on your team, your victims, your rapists, your “toms,” as you call them, you give all your time to them.”

“That’s my job!”

“Tonight was for my job, Jane. But no, you’ve got to put your ten cents’ worth in!”

“Ok, I’m sorry… sorry if I spoilt the evening!”

The tiredness swept over her like a tidal wave. She had no energy to argue, and went for the easy way out, giving him a smile. “OK? I apologize, but I think I had too much to drink, and they were so boring…”

He stared at her, infuriated. Her comment really got to him. “This is business, Jane, do you ever think how boring all your fucking talk is? Ever think about that, ever think how many conversations we’ve had about this guy George Marlow? You ever consider how fucking boring you get? Do you? I don’t know him, I don’t want to know about him, but Christ Almighty I hear his name…”

“Pete, I’ve said I’m sorry, OK? Just let it drop.”

He was unwilling to let it go, but he shrugged. Jane put her head in her hands and sighed. “Pete, I’m tired out. I’m sorry tonight didn’t go as well as you’d planned, but you’ve got the contract, so why don’t we just go to bed?”

The memories of the day swamped her: the smell of the factory, the smell of the two tarts’ flat, her feelings, the smells, all muddled and out of control… She couldn’t stop the tears, she just sat hunched in front of the mirror, crying, crying for the waste, the little tart who had been raped by her stepfather when she was seven, little Jeannie with no one to bury her, who Jane didn’t even know, yet she was crying for her and all the other Jeannies who lived and died like that and nobody gave a shit for…

Peter squatted down and brushed her hair from her face. “It’s all right, love. Like you said, I got the contract. Maybe I had a few too many… Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Jane went to bed, but she didn’t sleep for a long time. When she woke she found the kitchen full of the debris of dinner; not a single dish had been washed. She put her coat on, ready to leave for work, and took two aspirin with her coffee.

Peter, his hair standing on end, joined her.

“Pete, I’ve been thinking over everything. Last night…”

With a grin he reached for her, tried to kiss her. She stepped back. “I love you, Pete, I really do, but you’re right. It doesn’t work, does it? I do put my work first. I don’t think I can change, because I’m doing what I always wanted, and to succeed I have to put everything into it. I have to prove myself every day, to every man on that force-and to myself…”