Lynda Plante - Tennison

‘Lucky you didn’t. From his record he’d have likely walloped you one.’

The CID office door flew open as DC Edwards came out. ‘Come on, Kath, get a move on. We need to get the obo van parked up before the suspect gets there,’ he said as he rushed past her.

‘I’m friggin’ ready so keep your hair on,’ Kath shouted and turned back to Jane. ‘I know why he wants to make a quick arrest... there’s a game of shoot pontoon followed by three-card brag in the CID office tonight and his fingers are twitching to lose his weekly expenses.’

Kath started to follow the disgruntled detective down the stairs, but stopped.

‘Listen, there’s a place coming up soon at the section house in Mare Street. It’s just down the road and would save you loads of time travelling, but you got to make it snappy or the room will go. It’s only a fiver a month as well.’

‘Thanks, Kath, I appreciate it.’

‘And have a word with the collator about the Bentleys — he’ll probably know a lot more — always good to get to know who the villains on the patch are.’

Jane went to the collator’s office on the ground floor. The post was held by PC Donaldson. Rather overweight and with thinning grey hair, he had worked at Hackney Police Station for over twenty-five years. There wasn’t much Donaldson didn’t know about who was who in Hackney’s criminal underworld. He received and collated information about criminals on the division and dispersed intelligence to the beat officers about crime trends and people wanted or suspected of a crime. His knowledge was invaluable, and he was highly respected by everyone in the station as a genuinely nice man who had time for everyone, male or female.

Donaldson flicked through the index-card drawer marked ‘B’. ‘Here it is, full name John Henry Bentley, aged thirty-seven.’ He withdrew the three cards from a plastic sleeve and handed them to Jane who looked at the black-and-white mug-shot picture on the front.

‘That’s him,’ she said.

PC Donaldson drew out two further cards from the ‘B’ drawer.

‘They’re a well-known family who’ve lived in Hackney all their lives. All of them villains and all hard as nails, apart from the mum Renee, bless her. John’s got a council house on Middleton Road and his younger brother David, who’s thirty, lives with his mother on the Pembridge.’

Jane noticed that amongst John Bentley’s convictions there was grievous bodily harm, burglary and theft. ‘Middleton Road is by London Fields, isn’t it?’

PC Donaldson nodded.

‘WPC Morgan’s doing an observation on the Holly Street Estate for a burglar nicking pension books. Do you think it might be...?’

‘No way. Nicking pension books or snatching old ladies’ handbags isn’t their style, plus John Bentley’s been clean for quite a few years. They have their own code of honour, his kind, the number one rule being you don’t grass to the police and two you don’t turn over old people. If they caught someone doing that they’d beat the crap out of them and break their fingers for good measure. That’s how John got his conviction for GBH.’

‘The victim grassed on him?’

‘No, CID heard him screaming — they caught John breaking the poor bloke’s fingers with a hammer.’

Jane winced. ‘I got the impression his mother was frightened of him.’

PC Donaldson handed Jane another index card for a Clifford Bentley, aged seventy-two. He explained her fear probably stemmed from her old man, ‘Cliffy’ as he was known, knocking her about before he got a ten-stretch in Wormwood Scrubs.

‘He’s real handy with his fists, but more as a renowned bare-knuckle fighter. At one time he associated with the Kray twins as a bag man collecting protection money.’

‘What did he go to prison for last time?’

‘The Sweeney got a tip-off from a snout and nicked him on the pavement,’ he said.

Seeing the look of puzzlement on Jane’s face Donaldson explained that ‘snout’ meant informant and ‘the Sweeney’ was the Met’s flying squad nickname from the Cockney rhyming slang ‘Sweeney Todd’. The unit had no boundaries and operated all across London investigating commercial armed robberies. Clifford Bentley was arrested whilst trying to rob a security van during a bank-cash collection and he’d have got a much longer prison sentence if the gun had been real and loaded. Donaldson remarked that it wasn’t Clifford’s usual style, but rumour had it he urgently needed cash to pay the Krays off on a gambling debt.

‘What happened to the informant?’

‘Don’t know, but word has it he’s part of a concrete pillar somewhere.’

‘Is John Bentley a builder?’ Jane asked, recalling seeing the power tools brochures in Renee’s kitchen.

‘Could be, but like I said he’s been clean for a while and can turn his hand to anything.’

‘What does the brother David do?’

Donaldson handed Jane his index card. ‘Not a lot after he smashed his legs up. Good few years back he was out with his dad and brother nicking lead off a church roof when night-duty CID caught them red-handed. David tried to do a runner: silly bugger jumped off the roof and broke his legs badly. Big sob story at the trial as he was in a wheelchair. His barrister played the sympathy card, the soft judge fell for it and David got a light sentence.’

Jane looked at David Bentley’s card and saw that the arresting officer was the then Detective Sergeant Bradfield. ‘Can I take these cards with me to have a look-over?’ PC Donaldson explained that no one was allowed to remove the cards from his office, but she could make notes if she wanted. The other alternative was to order copies of their criminal records on microfiche from Scotland Yard. Jane said not to bother and that she had just been curious after meeting the over-aggressive John Bentley the day before.

‘Well, good on you. Always good to do research for yer knowledge, and any time you want to know who’s who, you come to me.’

Jane got the Vicks VapoRub from Kath’s tray. She was making her way to the mortuary when DCI Bradfield sped into the station yard in his light blue Ford Zephyr, causing her to jump out of the way as he pulled up abruptly into a parking bay. He got out of the car, said nothing to her, but simply nodded. She could see from the look on his face that he was not in the best of moods. He strode ahead of Jane forcing her to hurry in his wake, and she was almost clipped in the chest as he pushed open the door to the mortuary and went towards the coroner’s assistant’s office. He held up his hand in a gesture for her to wait behind him, then opened the door and peered in.

‘DCI Bradfield. Are they ready to go with the PM on my murder victim?’ he asked.

Jane heard a murmured reply, and then Bradfield closed the door.

‘Follow me,’ he said abruptly, walking down the corridor and banging open the swing doors to the examination room as if he was on some sort of mission. He patted his pocket for his cigarette pack and stuck one into his mouth then paused to light it, leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

The awful putrid smell in the room hit Jane instantly and made her gag. The head mortician was finishing stitching up the decomposing body of an elderly man on a white porcelain examination table. She had been warned about the smell by Kath, but hadn’t expected it to be so bad. Opening Kath’s jar of Vicks she put some on her finger and rubbed it below her nostrils.

‘That’s not a very bright idea, luv,’ the mortician said with a touch of sarcasm.

Jane noticed Bradfield raising his eyebrows and shaking his head as if she was dim.

‘Sorry, what’s not a bright idea?’ she asked, wondering what was so amusing.

‘The menthol in the Vicks clears your nasal passages so you’ll be able to smell even better now.’