Lynda La Plante - Silent Victims

Halliday saw him being brought in. Standing outside his office he had an uninterrupted view the full length of the corridor to the double doors at the top of the main staircase. Two uniformed officers led the handcuffed Parker-Jones through. Even from this distance Halliday could see the dark glittering eyes, the suppressed manic fury in his stiff-legged stride.

The officers guided him toward one of the interview rooms in the adjoining corridor and he passed from view.

Halliday headed for the Squad Room. His shoulder blades felt clammy. He ran his finger inside his collar, clearing his throat as he pushed through the doors. Almost everyone was there, yet the room was eerily quiet. A telephone drilled through the silence and someone quickly answered it. Tennison was standing at her desk, calmly sorting through her interview papers. Damn woman was made of titanium. Halliday went over.

“Parker-Jones’s brief is in reception.” His voice became low and terse, a bit ragged. “You all set?”

“Yes, sir,” Tennison’s hand was nerveless as she slipped the sheets inside the document file. “Some developments this afternoon warranted my bringing in Parker-Jones.”

“I know,” Halliday said. He touched her arm, causing her to look up. “But you’d better nail him.”

“I intend to.” Tennison pushed her hair back over her ears, smoothed the front of her jacket, picked up the document file and snapped it smartly under her arm. She was ready.

Flanked by Halliday and Otley, she marched through the hushed room to the door. It was as if everyone was holding one huge collective breath. Eyes swiveled, watching the neat compact figure, seeing in the set of her shoulders and her raised head a ruthless compulsion, a chilling determination.

Nail him , Halliday had said. And by Christ she would.

Haskons stood near the door. He moved aside. “Good luck, Guv!”

Tennison gave a tight curt nod and went through.

The handcuffs had been removed. Edward Parker-Jones sat straight-backed in the chair, his manicured hands resting some distance apart on the table. If not relaxed, he seemed rather more at ease, the angry glitter in his eyes replaced by an opaque self-concealment, his face an expressionless closed book.

Perhaps the presence of Joseph Spelling, his lawyer, had worked the trick. Spelling exuded probity and restraint, from his starched collar and tightly knotted dark green silk tie to his pinstripe trousers and highly polished black shoes. His pearl-gray homburg hat rested on his briefcase on the table, the initials J.D.S. stamped in gold in the burnished leather.

He regarded Tennison with a faintly quizzical air, prepared to tolerate her even though she was a mere woman doing a man’s job. Seated next to his client, he leaned forward attentively, his bony beak of a nose in the deeply lined face thrust in her direction as she spread the papers out and unscrewed the cap of her fountain pen.

Tennison slowly lifted her head and gazed directly at Parker-Jones.

“On the evening of the seventeenth of this month you have stated that you were at the advice centre, Soho. Is that correct?”

Parker-Jones’s face stayed impassive. “Yes.”

“Could you please give details of who else was there on that night?”

Parker-Jones closed his eyes. How many more times? “Billy Matthews,” he began wearily, preparing to repeat them all again, yet again , but got no farther.

“Statement withdrawn.” Tennison’s voice was quiet, devoid of emphasis or emotion. “Matthews denies being at the advice centre.”

“Donald Driscoll…”

“Driscoll has withdrawn his statement and denied being at the advice centre.”

“Alan Thorpe, James Jackson…”

“Alan Thorpe has stated that he was, on the night of the seventeenth, at the centre.” She paused, seeing in the depths of Parker-Jones’s eyes a mocking triumph. She went on, “He was not only intoxicated from alcoholic beverages, but was also suffering from other substance abuse, and was, in his own words, unable to remember if he was actually there himself.”

“James Jackson,” Parker-Jones repeated steadily, his heavy dark brows knitting together as his eyes bored into her.

Tennison glanced down at the sheet in front of her. “Mr. Jackson made a statement this afternoon contradicting an earlier statement. He now states, under caution, that he was at the advice centre but for no more than two or three minutes.” She raised her eyebrows. “Do you, Mr. Parker-Jones, have any other alibi witnesses that you wish at this stage to be noted?”

Erect in the chair, hands spread on the table, Parker-Jones was an edifice of cold contemptuous arrogance. He tilted his head as Spelling whispered in his ear. They conferred. Tennison tapped the table with her pen. Halliday and Otley, standing side by side against the wall, waited and watched.

“My client will answer,” Spelling said finally, leaning back.

“I realize I have been very foolish,” said Parker-Jones smoothly, and Tennison marveled at how his change in personality could be switched on and switched off at will, in a trice. Now he was conciliatory.

“I can only apologize… but I was trying in some ways to protect Vernon Reynolds. Vernon was at the centre on the seventeenth.”

“Did you speak with Vernon Reynolds at all?” Tennison asked.

“No comment.”

“But you do admit that Vernon Reynolds was at the advice centre on the seventeenth?”

A tiny hesitation. “I have just said so.”

“Did Vernon Reynolds ask you to call an ambulance?”

“No comment.”

Tennison looked thoughtful for a moment. She allowed her eyes to slide up from the desk to his face. “Mr. Parker-Jones, we are in possession of a tape recording made on the evening of the seventeenth, and it will be very simple for us to match the voice on the tape with yours. Did you or did you not call an ambulance?”

Tennison was lying through her teeth, and both Halliday and Otley knew it. They had such a tape, yes, but despite the best efforts of the technical people it hadn’t been possible to identify the voice. Too much static and distortion. She was way out on a limb.

Parker-Jones was half turned away, whispering in Spelling’s ear. Spelling replied, Parker-Jones nodding, and then he turned back.

“Yes, I did. Vernon’s phone was disconnected and he was in a dreadful state. Said that Colin Jenkins and he had argued, and that Colin, Connie, needed a doctor. So, I did place a call to the emergency services…”

Halliday and Otley exchanged relieved looks. She’d gambled and it had paid off. Yet her face betrayed not a flicker, not the slightest sign, and she carried on imperturbably, “What did the emergency services tell you, Mr. Parker-Jones?”

“That an ambulance was on its way.”

“Anything else?”

He shook his head carefully. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why didn’t you leave your name?”

He smiled, somewhat ruefully. “To be perfectly honest with you, the advice centre has had to-on a number of occasions-place emergency calls. Some of the boys, well, they get deeply disturbed when they are diagnosed HIV positive. It’s fear, you see, and then they refuse to go to hospital.” He turned his hands, palms uppermost on the table, a gesture appealing for her understanding. “So I was afraid they might not be willing to respond-”

Tennison cut in, impervious to his smarm.

“Were you informed that there would be a fifteen-minute delay?”

He switched again, face stiffening when he realized she wasn’t buying his bill of goods. “I can’t recall.”

Tennison was all patience and reason as she spelt it out. “But if you were informed that there would be a fifteen-minute delay, it would make sense, as the advice centre is only a few minutes’ distance from Vernon Reynolds’s flat, to…”