Lynda La Plante - Prime Suspect

“Yeah. Mum was taken bad.” Marlow held his hand out for the keys. “What’s the damage?”

From across the street it wasn’t possible to see the object that had been passed to George Marlow, but when he opened his wallet Muddyman could see him counting out ten-pound notes.

Moyra Henson had changed tubes twice, doubling back on herself, then she hurried onto a Central line train. Oakhill was certain that she had no idea he was tailing her.

He was four or five bodies behind her as she went up the escalator and emerged at Oxford Circus. Keeping well back, he radioed in for back-up, fast; Oxford Street was packed with shoppers and Moyra was moving like the clappers. He stayed on her tail in and out of Richard Shops, then across the road to Saxone, back again to another shoe shop, then on up the street to Next.

His back-up arrived; a plain-clothes WPC to take over the close tail, plus a patrol car. The WPC followed Moyra in and out of shops as far as Wardour Street, where she entered a shopping mall. The driver of the patrol car and the uniformed officer took up their positions near the exits. Oakhill kept about fifty yards back from Henson, while the WPC peered into windows and watched Moyra try on shoes from a few feet away.

The patrol car was parked a good distance from the café and Muddyman, directly across the road, kept the radio contact going, informing Tennison that it looked as though the suspect was on the move again.

“Yeah, he’s buttoning up his raincoat. Shit! He’s sat down again. He’s having another bloody coffee!”

Tennison’s foot was still tapping and she was chain-smoking, building up a real fug in the car.

A message started coming through from Jones. “Would you believe Moyra Henson sometimes works from this booth in Covent Garden, and she was working here in January. An assistant at the Floral Street Health Club told me she directed Karen here. The woman who runs it can’t say if Karen had had her nails done here or not, but she says that when Henson was working here Marlow used to pick her up! Moyra could have done Karen’s nails, and if he saw her, knew her name…”

DC Jones was standing in the middle of a breakdancing troupe, battling to make himself heard. The steel girders above the stalls distorted the radio waves.

“How long does this Noo-Nail treatment take?” Tennison’s voice asked.

“The woman said she can do eight a day, so it must take a while.”

“You hear all that?” Tennison asked Amson. He nodded. “That’s how he could have known their names! If the treatment takes a while and he was hanging around…

Tennison stubbed out her cigarette. They were both beginning to sweat; it was coming down, they could feel it.

“It’s the two of them, then!”

“Looks like it,” Tennison replied. “Let’s pick Moyra up now, and see if the lads back at base have come up with anything from the cross-check. Della and Moyra both came from Manchester originally, it’s just their ages, Della was a lot younger. Car five-four-seven to base…”

“Looks like she’s been lying from day one!”

While Tennison gave the go-ahead for Moyra Henson to be picked up, Muddyman radioed in that Marlow was on the move. Then there was silence, but the crackle of the open channel added to the tension. Everyone was waiting…

“He’s moving fast now, turning left out of the café, crossing the road. He’s stopped, he’s on to me, looking over…”

Another voice cut in. “I’ve got him! He’s just passed me, walking briskly, crossing the road again. He’s heading for the lock-ups, he’s walking right along Battle Bridge Road to the lock-ups…”

The radio controllers nearly deafened Tennison with their cheering, as if Arsenal had scored a winning goal in the Cup Final. Like the men in the street, they were feeding Marlow’s every move to the cars and to the rapidly closing ring of officers in the area. Now they passed on the instructions for the lads to take up their positions…

“Yes!” Tennison yelled, and punched Amson’s arm. “He’s going for the goddamned lock-ups, I knew it, I knew it!”

Amson tapped the driver on the shoulder to warn him to be ready. He started the engine.

Tennison was gabbling. “Everyone keep back, just hold your positions, don’t frighten him off… Stay put until we get the go… Over…”

They could only listen, they couldn’t move out, couldn’t see, in case they tipped Marlow off, as the team moved in. Some were dressed as mechanics, bending over broken-down cars, another pedaled past with a ladder, someone else drove a grocery van, but they were moving in, surrounding Marlow. The tension was explosive…

George Marlow strolled casually along the street. He passed two open lock-ups where mechanics were at work. Cars in various stages of repair littered the street.

He reached the corner where a road ran at right angles under the railway lines. He paused, looked around, checking carefully to see if he was being followed.

“Hold your positions, no one move,” Tennison instructed. “Let him open up and get inside before you grab him.”

Apparently satisfied that he was in the clear, Marlow walked unhurriedly, swinging the keys around his finger as he went. He approached a lock-up that looked as though it hadn’t been occupied in years. A small access door was set into one of the huge main doors.

Tennison’s tense voice broadcast softly, “I want him to use the keys, everybody wait… wait…”

After another long look around, Marlow stepped up to the small door and selected a key from the ring.

Muddyman’s voice was low, breathy. “Shit, I think this is it, he’s going for it. Stand by, suspect has his key in the lock. He’s opening up! He’s opening up!”

The small door swung open and Marlow raised one leg to step over the high sill as Tennison shrieked, “Go! Go! Go!”

The cars converged into the street, sirens wailing, but before they could get to Marlow the lads emerged from their positions like greyhounds after a hare: Rosper, Caplan, Lillie and Muddyman. They charged across the street and before Marlow could step right inside they had him. Rosper, the first there, grabbed Marlow by the scruff of his neck, almost tearing the raincoat off him as he dragged him from the doorway. Marlow stumbled as his foot caught on the sill, and the next moment his head was cracked back on the edge of the door. They all wanted a go at him-it was part tension, part adrenaline-and they handled him roughly, pinching the skin on his wrists as they handcuffed him.

Muddyman was shouting the caution as Tennison’s car screamed up. She was about to get out when she hesitated, to give the boys a chance to spot her and ease up on Marlow. It was in that moment, no more than a few seconds, that she saw another side to her suspect.

He seemed completely unconcerned at being knocked around, arrested. In fact he was unnaturally calm. He looked up with a puzzled frown, first at Rosper, then Lillie. Tennison did not hear what he said, but she could see the expression on his face as if he was angry with himself.

But the lads heard him: “Ahhh… the painters.” He seemed satisfied that he had recognized them, but there was still a look of irritation on his face. He hadn’t suspected them, in fact he had trusted them. He had been foolish, made a mistake. They were not painters.

Moyra Henson emerged from a boutique with a large carrier bag and strolled along the mall, stopping beside the plain-clothes WPC, who was loaded with bags, to look in the next window. Their elbows nearly touched.

She was so intent on the goods in the shop that for a moment she didn’t clock the reflection of the uniformed officer speaking into his radio a few feet away. Oakhill moved in and the WPC right next to Moyra dropped her bags and held out her ID.