Prime Suspect 3: Silent Victims (22 page)

Vera came in. She looked dowdy and defeated. There was a deadness in her eyes, as if nothing mattered anymore and never would again.

“I’m doing the club tonight, can I go? Doin’ the cabaret.”

She looked at Billy, hanging onto Otley like grim death, and slowly shook her head. “You won’t get any sense out of him, he’d tell you anything just to stay here.” In a flat, weary voice she started to sing, “ ‘Life is a cabaret, my friend . . . come to the cabaret.’ ”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Billy said, staring at nothing. “Everythin’ okay.”

Vera sighed drably. “No, you’re not, Billy, love. You’re not okay at all. Can I go?” she asked Otley, who nodded.

Vera went along the passage and down the stairs, high heels clacking. Otley put his arm around the shaking mound of gray blanket, hugging it. He turned his head to Hall. “Where’s the bloody ambulance?”

“They said there was about a fifteen minute delay.”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Billy insisted in a voice so thin it was barely a mouse’s squeak. “I’m okay.”

It took twenty-five, not fifteen, minutes for the ambulance to arrive. They put Billy Matthews inside and off it went, lights flashing. Otley walked over to Hall, who was leaning against the hood of their car. It was growing dark, and there were spits of rain in the air.

“I’m just going for a walk,” Otley said. He patted Hall on the shoulder and carried on walking.

“Jackson’s car’s gone.”

“He won’t get far.” Otley turned on the pavement. “Vera’s at the Bowery Club, isn’t she?” His eyes were narrowed slits in his craggy, gaunt face. “Get somebody watching the place.”

Hall watched him amble off in his unmistakable round-shouldered slouch, hands stuffed in his raincoat pockets. Was he going to get pissed out of his skull? He’d shown no emotion over Billy Matthews, but Hall wouldn’t have been surprised if the Skipper got ratarsed.

“It hurt, and I screamed, but he put his hand over my mouth. I bit him once, really bit his hand, but it didn’t make any difference. I was very small for my age, and he had a special name for me. He said that when he used that special name it was a code, that was when he wanted me to go to his room.”

Sitting very straight in the armchair, feet together, knees pressed tight, Anthony Field recounted his experience at the children’s home. His tone never varied, never betrayed any feeling; it was a nightmare, permanently fixed in his head, endlessly repeating itself, that had numbed him into this mechanical retelling. He was pale, however, and his long thin fingers were never still.

Tennison prompted him after a moment’s painful silence.

“How long did this abuse go on for? Before you told anyone?”

“Three years. There was no one to tell.” Anthony’s dark-lashed eyes were downcast. He had shapely dark eyebrows, his brown hair brushed and neatly parted in the approved bank employee manner.

“He always said that if I told anyone, I would have to eat my own feces. I got a letter from my mother, she said she was much better, so I ran away.” He blinked once or twice at the carpet. “I went to the police station, they called in a probation officer. A woman. I had to tell her . . . it was very embarrassing.”

Tennison again waited. “How old were you then?”

“Eight, nearly nine. They took my statements, and then a plainclothes police officer came in to question me.”

His hands clasped, released, clasped, released. He was leaning forward slightly, his body hunching tighter and tighter.

Tennison waited. Smoothing her knees, she said quietly, “I really appreciate you telling me this, Anthony.” And quieter still, “Can you go on?” When he nodded, she said, “Thank you very much.”

Anthony breathed in a long quivery breath.

“This police officer. I never even knew his name. He asked me if I knew what happened to boys that—that—” His hands were jerking, writhing in his lap. “That tell lies. I said I was not telling lies.” His voice went abruptly harsh. “
Well-he-said-We-will-soon-know.
And he undid my pants. And he did it to me. He said that if I told anyone I would go to prison.” Anthony stared at the carpet, his face drained of all color. “Hard to tell what would be worse, eating your own shit or going to prison.”

“This police officer penetrated you?” Tennison said. He nodded, head bowed. “At the station?” He nodded. “Was anyone present?”

Anthony shook his head. He shuddered. He was close to breaking. Tennison was calculating how much more he could take, and praying to God she hadn’t underestimated.

“So I said I was—that I had been telling lies. Case dismissed. And they sent me back to the home. I was there for another two years. Then mother collected me.”

“After you left, you didn’t tell anyone?”

Anthony straightened up and looked at her. He shook his head.

“Can I ask you why not?”

“My aunt told me that mother was still in a very nervous state, so how could I tell her? I love my mother very much. I always felt that if I upset her in any way, I ran the risk of being sent back. So I never told anyone, and . . .” He gave a listless shrug. “I just got on with my life.”

“I am sorry to make you remember, Anthony,” Tennison said, feeling the pain with him. But he looked at her as if she’d said something incredibly stupid. He stood up, and almost imperceptibly he thrust out his hip in a tiny flick of campness.
I know what I am, and I don’t care that you know it too.

“Oh, I never did forget, Inspector,” he said softly.

Tennison took in Dalton’s expression, which was looking distinctly uncomfortable. She said in a quiet yet urgent tone, “Anthony, I sincerely believe the man responsible for the assaults against you is also—”

“I am not interested in what you believe, I am only concerned with my life and career.” Fists clenched by his sides, the controlled icy anger came spitting out of him. “Whatever happens to him is no longer my concern. I refuse to let him destroy my life.”

“But you’ll let him destroy others?”

“No—
you
let him.” The room was suddenly filled with his awful glacial rage, for years bottled up inside, festering.

“. . . I don’t care about anyone else. If there was a court case,
if
—then I would be forced to relive what that bastard did to me! I would be on trial. My private life now would be made public—I don’t want that—I only agreed to see you on the condition you didn’t want me to go to court. I won’t testify, you can’t make me, I’m all right now, I’m all right now . . .” His face crumpled and a strangulated sob came from his chest. “Or I was, I was, before you came, so go away, just go away.”

He closed his eyes, his dark brows very vivid against his white face, fists clenched with the knuckles showing through. “Leave me alone . . . please.”

Red delved into the rack of evening gowns in the bedroom closet. He lifted one off on its hanger, and lips pursed, head tilted, gave it a critical, searching scrutiny. With a tiny vexed shake of the head he put it back, and chose another. This was fractionally more demure, in midnight blue lace, its upper half studded with diamantes, split up one side as far as the knee. With an approving smile he laid it out on the bed.

He opened a drawer and took out a corset.

Dressed in a silk kimono, Detective Constable Lillie sat before the dressing-table mirror, gazing with interest at the beautiful and expert job Red had done on him. Powdered and rouged, with lipstick, blue eye shadow and false eyelashes, his cheeks seductively shadowed, he was mesmerized by his own gorgeous appearance. He wore a short silvery blond wig, a few artful strands teased over his forehead. He couldn’t get over the transformation. It was bloody amazing.

Detective Sergeant Haskons, also made up, was struggling into the corset Red had found for him. His wig, a rich glowing auburn swept up to masses of curls, was on a stand on the dressing table. Red had chosen the midnight blue lacy job for him, while Lillie’s was a full-length shimmering lamé dress in puce, set off by a huge flouncy ostrich feather boa in blush pink.

Ray Hebdon stood at the door, observing all this, trying mightily and just failing to hide the glimmer of a smile.

Corset on, Haskons was perspiring as he bent down to try on different pairs of shoes. His square, chunky jaw still showed a trace of blue shaving line even after Red had plastered on dark base and powdered it over four or five times. He was complaining bitterly, already regretting the whole daft episode.

“I still haven’t found a pair to fit—or ones that I can even walk in!”

“Cuban will be the easiest. These”—Red pointed down at his own blue satin stilettos, rolling his eyes—“Killers. It’s not just the high heels, but the pointed toes.” Flawlessly made up, he was done up to the nines in a tight, flesh-colored, sequined evening dress, two long ropes of purple beads hanging down, and matching purple globes dangling from his ears.

“You know it’s way after ten,” Hebdon said.

“Oh, don’t fuss.” Red fluttered his hands in a shooing gesture. “Nothing starts until midnight anyway.”

Haskons squeezed his toes into a pair of spangled turquoise slippers with square heels and stamped his feet into them.

“My wife’s never going to believe this. I told her I was off duty, then I had to tell her I was on; now, after midnight?” He blew out his glossy red lips in annoyance. “It’s Friday night!”

Lillie draped the feather boa over his shoulders and preened at himself in the mirror. “You remember that film,
Some Like it Hot
? Jack Lemmon and—”

“Tony Curtis,” Red snapped. “It was dreadful! Silly walks—they’d never have got away with it. Anyone could see they weren’t female.”

Lillie thought this was being pedantic. “That wasn’t the point though, was it? It was a comedy.”

“Well, for some, dear, being in drag is the only time they feel right,” Red told him tartly, smoothing his hands over his hips. He cast a sidelong look at himself in the mirror. “And they very rarely fancy anyone but themselves—it’s not funny at all.” He arched an eyebrow at Hebdon. “Is it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Hebdon said stiffly, and jerked away into the sitting room.

Haskons, feeling as though he had a couple of hairy spiders glued to his eyelids, caught Lillie’s warning expression in the dressing-table mirror. Like treading on thin ice, they silently agreed. You had to be careful what you said to people of this persuasion. Touchy, touchy.

The patrol car drove up the corkscrew ramp to the main entrance of the Piccadilly Hotel in the center of Manchester. The plateglass doors whispered open and Tennison and Dalton trudged wearily into the lobby. It was gone 10:30 and they were both thoroughly knackered.

“Do you want to have some dinner?” Dalton asked.

“Thanks, but no, I’ll order room service.” Tennison summoned up a fleeting smile. “Sorry I’ve been a bit snappy . . . better when I’ve had a large whisky and soda.”

Dalton looked at his watch. “I’ll go and find an all-night chemist. Do you need anything?”

“Oh—toothbrush, toothpaste. Thanks.”

She watched him walk back across the lobby and through the doors, and then she asked for her key. She was dead on her feet, yet there remained things to be done. A policewoman’s lot is not a happy one, Tennison thought sourly.

Otley sat alone in the viewing room. He had the remote control in one hand, a can of Red Stripe in the other, watching the videotapes of Connie that had been seized from Mark Lewis’s studio. A half-eaten ham and pickle sandwich was on the arm of the chair. At this late hour the station was quiet. A vacuum cleaner could be heard from the Squad Room down the corridor, whining in the lower register as it practiced its scales. From somewhere in the vicinity of Regent Street, a police siren wailed off into the distance.

Otley had a house, but not a home, to go back to. If he was there now he’d have been sitting in an armchair, can of beer in hand, watching some old crackly movie on TV, the remains of an Indian take-away in a polystyrene tray at his feet. Same difference. Except here he had a reason and a purpose, or anyway the illusion of having them.

The video was very amateurish. Wobbly camera work, hollow soundtrack, pathetic acting. It was set in a school classroom, half a dozen boys in ties and blazers at old wooden desks, a schoolmaster in mortarboard and gown, wielding a cane. He didn’t look like a schoolmaster, more like a barrister, Otley reckoned, or maybe a senior politician. He had snow-white hair and bulging watery eyes with heavy bags, a slightly misshapen nose that looked as if it had been broken when he was a young man, its bulbous end reddened by threadlike blood vessels.

The “schoolmaster” whacked the desk with the cane. “Any boy who disobeys me will be severely punished!” Booming fruity voice, the vowels of the privileged public school class.

Otley zapped back and reran the sequence. Connie was in the front row, looking very innocent in his school blazer and striped tie, his mop of red curls cascading over his forehead. Behind him, and partly hidden, was Billy Matthews. Alan Thorpe, with the ragged blond bangs, was sitting farther back.

“Any boy who disobeys me will be severely punished!”

Otley pressed a button, holding the picture in freeze-frame. He rolled it on, held it on Connie’s face. Rolled it on and held it. Billy Matthews. Rolled it on and held it as each of the boys’ faces came in view.