Tennison, walking on to her own car, turned around. “Mike-the verdict has to be suicide,” she reassured him. “Any other is unthinkable.”
Kernan scowled. “Meanwhile my station is portrayed by Duhra as a hotbed of racism and brutality. Well, I can kiss my promotion good-bye. Thanks to two black bastards…”
Tennison stared at him, genuinely shocked. “I beg your pardon!”
“Well… you know what I mean,” Kernan muttered, giving her a shifty look.
“No. I don’t.”
“Oh, for God’s sake…” he said wearily, and with a heavy sigh he got in the car and slammed the door.
For once, Tennison was having a relaxing evening at home. There was paperwork in her briefcase, waiting to be looked at, but she thought, to hell with it. She wasn’t in the mood to settle down to anything. The inquest was preoccupying her mind. Until it was over and done with, the verdict in, she couldn’t fully focus her concentration.
After a long soothing shower she put on pajamas and her luxurious Chinese silk dressing gown, a special present to herself. She wasn’t the kind of woman to pamper herself, but just occasionally she felt the need to splurge on something extravagant, and damn the expense.
She wasn’t expecting anyone, least of all Bob Oswalde. She let him in, wondering if this was a wise thing to do, but the instant she saw the despondent look on his face, her heart went out to him. He was wearing a long overcoat, and underneath it the dark, conservative suit he had worn in court. He was polite and apologetic, but tightly bottled up, she could tell from the way he stood in the center of the room, glancing around with jerky, distracted movements, kneading his palms together.
“I’m sorry just to show up like this. I had to talk to someone.”
She gave him a searching, quizzical look. “Someone?”
He looked at her, biting his lip. “You.”
She indicated the armchair, and he sat down, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet. “I just don’t know what happened to me that night. When she read that stuff back to me today, it was”-he swallowed, his brows knitting together-“so obvious that Tony Allen was at risk, and that I’d been bullying him. Why…?”
His face was stricken. He looked to be in pain. She went to the bar tray on the small ornate table and poured two good measures of Glenlivet, carried them back and gave him his.
Oswalde held the glass, not drinking. “Perhaps they’re right,” he said after an age. “Perhaps I am a coconut.”
Tennison sat down on the sofa, smoothing her dressing gown over her knee. “Yes, I heard them shouting that. What does that mean?”
“Coconut. A Bounty bar. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.” His voice was bitter.
“I should have thought it was a bit more complex than that, Bob.”
He raised his head. “Do you think I was responsible for his death?”
He looked so forlorn that she had to resist the urge to go to him and put her arms around him and comfort him. Instead, she said firmly, and truthfully, “No, I don’t. But it’s what you think that matters.”
The pain in his eyes was mingled with fear. He said huskily, “I think I as good as killed him.” Abruptly, he put the glass down on the carpet and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”
Tennison stood up. “You can stay if you want.”
“No. I’d better go.”
She saw him out, and walked with him along the hall to the street door. On the step, hugging herself against the chill, Tennison said, “Call me if you need to talk.”
“Thanks.”
Feeling somehow that she had let him down, not helped him at all, she reached up and, pulling his head forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. “Take care.”
She watched him walk off down the dark street, shoulders hunched, his overcoat flapping around his long legs. In the shadow of a tree, directly opposite, Jason kept his finger on the button, thinking he might as well use up all thirty-six frames because he was going to get the film processed first thing in the morning anyway.
“And at eleven twenty p.m. you interrupted Sergeant Oswalde and asked to have a word with him.” Mrs. Duhra looked up from the notes she was consulting to DI Frank Burkin in the witness box. “Because you were concerned about the way Sergeant Oswalde was conducting the interview?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You weren’t concerned for Tony Allen’s safety or well-being?” Mrs. Duhra asked, a suggestion of surprise, incredulity even, creeping into her voice.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why the need for ‘a word’?”
“I thought a particular line of questioning was proving fruitless,” Burkin said in a steady monotone, as if he’d rehearsed his reply, which of course he had. “I wanted to suggest another approach to Sergeant Oswalde.”
“I see.” Mrs. Duhra glanced towards the jury, making clear her total skepticism of that, and turned once more to Burkin. “So nothing in Tony Allen’s behavior gave you cause for concern?”
Burkin’s face was immobile, his eyes opaque. “No. Nothing at all, ma’am. What happened was a complete surprise to me. And a shock.”
The transformation, Tennison thought, was truly incredible. Not a trace of the tattoos, the earrings, the matted hair, and the five-day growth of beard. In their place, standing there in the witness box, a presentable young man with a short haircut, wearing a neat dark suit, pale green shirt, and navy-blue tie. The former drunk had been smartened up so that he wouldn’t have known who it was if he passed himself in the street.
Mrs. Duhra had a friendly witness, and she treated him accordingly.
“Mr. Peters, you were in the cell next door to Tony Allen on the night he died…”
“Yes, miss.”
Polite too, Tennison thought. Such a well-mannered boy wouldn’t dream of screaming Fucking Fascist Bastard Pigs.
“Did you see or hear anything that is relevant to this inquest?”
The reformed crusty wormed his finger inside his collar, tugging his top button open. “I saw the body. They didn’t want me to. They were trying to move me but I saw it lying on the cell floor.”
“I see. Anything else?”
“Yes, miss. I heard the prisoner sobbing. Trying to tell the police he couldn’t breathe. I heard some policemen kicking at his cell door, shouting at him, telling him to shut up. Then I heard him threaten them.”
He paused there, as if, a cynic might have supposed, he had been told to, and Mrs. Duhra picked it up.
“Threaten them? What exactly did he threaten them with?”
“Killing himself. If they didn’t let him out of the cell he…”
His words were drowned in the commotion from the public gallery. The court official was on his feet, calling for quiet, and the noise subsided.
“He threatened to kill himself,” Mrs. Duhra said. “Go on.”
“I heard a police officer-I’m not sure which one-shouting at him.”
“What did the police officer shout?”
Probably enjoying this part, the crusty said in a loud voice, “ ‘Go on, then, nigger, hang yourself.’ ” The public gallery burst into an uproar. People were standing and waving their fists. Through it all, the crusty went on, “They were all shouting, ‘Do it. Do it. Do it.’ ”
“Quiet!” The court official was back on his feet. “Quiet!”
It subsided again, but this time an angry rumbling murmur continued, like distant yet ominous thunder. Sarah Allen had half-risen to her feet, her father pulling at her arm. Her head on one side, Esme was weeping silently, huge tears trickling down her face.
The coroner became impatient, having to wait several moments until he could be heard.
“Sydney Peters, can you tell the members of the jury how you came to be occupying the cell next to Anthony Allen on the night he died?”
“I had been arrested, sir,” said the crusty meekly. “For being drunk, sir.”