“Well,” Tennison said, wishing to high heaven he wasn’t such a big, broad-shouldered, handsome bastard. “From now on you are.”
“Okay,” Oswalde said, back to his cheery self. He tipped the pasta into the boiling water and ladled the tuna into the sauce. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to drink?”
That she had, and she went off to open a bottle of Bulgarian red.
Tennison was confused, and annoyed with herself for letting him get the upper hand. Was Bob Oswalde taking liberties or just trying to be friendly? She knew she was paying the penalty for that one hour of passion in the hotel room. The demarcation lines had been blurred; no other officer under her command would have waltzed into her flat and made himself at home by cooking dinner, without so much as a by-your-leave. Damn Kernan for drafting him onto her team! It was all his bloody fault! But she was as angry with herself for getting herself into this pickle in the first place. Being ruled by her libido instead of her brain. Cunthead.
They ate off the coffee table in the living room. Tasting freshly prepared food and drinking three glasses of wine worked a minor miracle. It took the sting out of her anger and made her almost mellow. It even crossed her mind to wonder what might happen later, and instantly slammed the door shut on that speculation. Hadn’t she made enough of a fool of herself already, for Chrissakes?
They didn’t talk about work until the end of the meal, when Oswalde again brought up the subject of Tony Allen. He seemed to have almost a personal vendetta against the boy. Tennison was wary, not wanting to rush their fences. Oswalde couldn’t see why. The fact that he’d known Joanne Fagunwa was sufficient in itself to have him picked up.
Tennison drained her glass and set it down. “Not yet.”
“The boy was involved in that murder,” Oswalde insisted. “I’m sure of it…”
“We have no evidence of that.”
“You didn’t see his response to the clay head,” Oswalde told her bluntly.
“All we know is that he was on the same bandstand as Joanne-”
“So he’s been lying.”
“-and we’ll question him about that at the right time.”
“What does that mean?” asked Oswalde rudely, his face becoming stiff and surly. He detested all this fooling around. Get in there and get it done with.
“It means not yet.” Tennison’s voice was firm. Three glasses of wine didn’t make her a pushover. She held up a finger. “I can crack Harvey. He holds the key-except the bastard might croak on us any minute. I’ll talk to Tony when we’ve got more on him.”
“More?” Oswalde was both pained and puzzled. “I thought you’d really go for this.”
“Look, Bob, I don’t want to argue about it.” In other words, the Chief Inspector was saying, subject closed.
Oswalde got the message, or thought he did. He stared across at Jane Tennison, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “But the real point,” he said stonily, “is that I shouldn’t have come here, should I?”
“No, you shouldn’t have-we said that in the hotel room. But that’s not the point, actually. Look, all I’m trying to say is…”
“Don’t bother.”
Ten seconds later he was gone, raincoat over his shoulder, door slammed. Tennison piled the dirty dishes in the sink and went to bed.
The Incident Room was quiet when she arrived the next morning, shortly after eight twenty. She went to her office to catch up on some paperwork before the rush started.
WPC Havers eventually turned up, looking a bit worse for wear, and Tennison sent her off to the cafeteria to get a coffee and bring one back for her. She was sipping this and fighting the desperate urge for a cigarette when word came from the hospital. Tennison slurped the rest of her coffee, spilt some on her best chiffon blouse, and made the air blue and Maureen Havers’s ears turn red as she grabbed her coat from the coatrack and hurried out.
“Hello, Guv,” she greeted Kernan, who was about to enter his office, and kept on going.
“Yes, it went very well since you ask.”
Tennison halted. “Sorry?”
“My interview.”
“Oh good… right…”
“Any news on Harvey?”
“He’s regained consciousness. I’m going down there to see him right now.”
Kernan nodded, gave her a look. “Well, gently does it, Jane.”
“Yes, I…”
“Get him everything he wants-lawyers, nurses, doctors, geisha girls-anything. Just so long as his lawyer can’t say you got a statement from him unfairly.”
Tennison tightened her belt, knuckles showing white. “Of course.” What did he think her intention was-throttle the truth out of a dying man?
Lillie emerged from the Incident Room, looking for her. “Excuse me, Guv. Apparently Harvey’s wife died in October eighty-five. Not August.”
“So his sister’s been telling fibs.”
“So it would seem.”
“Well, let’s see what Harvey’s got to say about that.”
Lillie went off, and Tennison was about to leave, when Kernan said, apropos of nothing, “By-election today.”
Then she twigged it. Jonathan Phelps, Labour’s firebrand, was up for election. There was a chance, a slim chance, that he might get in, and if he did there could be one or two repercussions. Phelps was riding on the ticket of community policing in black areas, on newsworthy items such as the case of Derrick Cameron. And now Tennison was investigating a murder in the Honeyford Road area involving a girl of black-white parentage. A highly-sensitive, highly-potent mixture. Like most policemen, Kernan was a staunch Tory, and the last thing he desired was to give the opposition the ammunition to fire a broadside.
With a ghost of a smile, Tennison said, “Well, why aren’t you wearing your blue rosette?”
It wasn’t a joke to Kernan; it was deadly serious.
“Senior policemen are politicians first and foremost, Jane. Remember that if you’re up for Super.”
It was bad enough that he believed it, Tennison thought, even worse to realize that he was right.
The teenager in the black leather jacket, baseball cap worn back to front, stood at the counter of Esme’s cafe, dithering. He pointed to a large bowl of mashed yams with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with grated orange rind.
“How much is that?”
“One seventy-five,” Esme said.
“How much?” the boy said, goggling.
Esme switched her attention to the tall, good-looking man waiting patiently to be served. From her bright smile and cheerful, “Yes, dear?” Oswalde knew that she hadn’t recognized him.
“Let me have a medium fried chicken, rice, and peas.”
While she dished it up, the boy in the baseball cap continued moaning. He obviously had a sweet tooth, because he next pointed to a portion of plantain fritters, fried in butter and apple sauce. “How much is that?”
“Seventy-five pee.”
“You’re jokin’, man… yeah, all right, then.”
Esme served him and he slouched off, the flaps of his sneakers protruding like white tongues. She handed Oswalde his meal in a polystyrene tray and gave him change from a fiver. Oswalde ate it at the counter, watching Esme ice a large cake; Tony’s wedding cake, Oswalde thought, the wedding a week from Saturday.
“How is it?” Esme asked him.
“Very good. It’s been a long time.”
“Your mother doesn’t cook for you?”
“No.”
She flashed him her bright smile. “Then you come to Esme’s. I’ll cook for you.”
Oswalde moved along the counter, nearer to where she was working. “You don’t recognize me, Esme?” She straightened up, frowning, a slight shake of the head. “I’m a police officer. I’m investigating the murder of Joanne Fagunwa. That was her name, Esme. The girl who was buried in Harvey’s garden…”
Esme stared at him, surprise and shock mingled on her face. But she was in for an even bigger shock when Oswalde said softly, “Did you know that she was a member of Tony’s band? That she was with Tony on the day she died?”