Lynda La Plante: Silent Victims

Tennison sighed tiredly, rubbing her eyes. “I had to try, Jack.”

Halliday nodded. She was drained, both physically and emotionally, he could see that. He said, not unkindly, “Supposition, intuition, really are worthless. Without hard evidence you didn’t stand a chance in hell. Without a witness who actually saw person or persons unknown set fire to that flat, you will never have a case-especially not against someone like him.”

She looked up at him with a strained mocking smile. “Does this blow my chances? Superintendent?”

“No. You’ll get it. No strings.”

“Guv!” Otley came up. “Jessica Smithy’s back.” He jerked his thumb toward Tennison’s office.

Tennison touched Halliday’s arm. He’d told her what she wanted to know. “Thank you,” she said. She smiled at him, and kept smiling all the way back to her office.

Jessica Smithy handed over a buff-colored envelope. Tennison delved inside and looked at the snapshots of Vernon Reynolds and his family: little Vernon in short pants with his mum and dad, standing on a sunny promenade, the holiday crowd surging around them. Vernon as a lanky teenager in the back garden, one arm clasped around his mother’s shoulder, both of them smiling. Other family snaps-school speech day, weddings, day trips, picnics-and three or four of Vernon, now Vera, as a very young man in a primitive drag outfit he must have compiled from jumble sales. Tennison slipped them back in.

“Is Parker-Jones going to be charged?” Jessica Smithy was anxious to know. She examined Tennison closely, keyed up, smoking rapidly with short little puffs.

In contrast, Tennison felt calm, wearily peaceful. “Still after the scoop, Miss Smithy?” she asked nonchalantly.

“I’m paid to expose the truth. It’s my job, a bit like yours.”

“No, Miss Smithy,” Tennison corrected her, “your job is not like mine.” And as if to demonstrate the truth of this, she opened a file crammed with statements, photostats, photographs, lists of names and addresses, phone memos and faxes, nearly three inches thick.

“But it is criminal that a man like Parker-Jones is able to gain access to young innocent boys,” Tennison mused sadly. With her thumb she riffled through the contents. “All with the blessing of the social services.”

Jessica Smithy turned her head to exhale smoke, but her eyes never left the file that Tennison was idly leafing through. Tennison detached a black-and-white photograph of Jason Baldwyn, holding it up.

“ ‘Keeper of Souls.’ This young boy said that was his nickname-good headline! Nice turn of phrase for a sick pervert…”

Tennison let the photograph slide from her fingers and drop onto the open file. She looked at her watch, and then reached behind for her shoulder bag. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” She came around the desk and went out, picking up the buff envelope on the way.

Her footsteps receded down the corridor.

In the silence Jessica Smithy slowly edged around the desk, craning her head. She nudged the corner of the file with her thumb, aligning it more directly into her field of vision. With a swift glance to the door and back, she took hold of the photograph and stared at it.

Several minutes later the door opened a crack. Tennison peered through. Her back to the door, Jessica Smithy was bent over the file in a cloud of smoke, microcassette recorder close to her mouth, sifting through the thick bundle of papers.

Tennison eased the door shut and released the handle from her clammy palm.

She was heading for the staircase when Otley emerged from the Squad Room, his wrinkled raincoat draped over his shoulder. He cocked his head. “You off then?”

Tennison nodded. “Miss Smithy’s in my office. Give her another fifteen minutes, then get rid of her.” She held out the buff envelope. “Oh, and would you make sure these photographs get delivered to Vernon Reynolds.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Otley tucked them under his arm. His head went back, watching her through slitted eyes. “Superintendent next, is it?”

“I think so,” Tennison conceded, cool and poised.

“I guess my mate didn’t have the right strings,” Otley said. He made it sound casual and indifferent, but she could feel the bottled-up force of his resentment, the boiling anger.

“No, he just didn’t know whose to pull,” she told him.

“You live and learn.”

“Not always the best man wins,” Tennison responded glibly, matching his cliché with one of her own.

She walked on, feeling his stare burning holes in her back.

“Good night,” she called out, not turning.

Otley’s lips moved, spitting out volumes of silent abuse, calling her every stinking name under the sun, and he knew plenty-

Tennison whipped around, catching him in the act, a huge exuberant grin spread across her face. She crouched, aiming her finger at him, cocked her thumb and shot him dead. She blew smoke off the barrel and bounced down the stairs.

I would like to acknowledge the talent of the writer Trevor Hoyle, without whom this book could not have been published.

Lynda La Plante’s fourteen novels, including the Prime Suspect series, have all been international bestsellers. She is an Honorary Fellow of the British Film Institute and a member of the UK Crime Writers Awards Hall of Fame. She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2008. She runs her own television production company and lives in London and Easthampton, New York. A new American television series based on Prime Suspect premieres this fall on NBC.