A Face in the Crowd Read Online Free PDF Page A

could look at the decaying remains of a corpse and give them its name, address, and national insurance number.
    Tennison was a terrier, not so easily put off. “Come on, Oscar. Minimum time?”
    “Two years? Don’t quote me on that.”
    “So it could be Simone . . .”
    “You see, you’re doing it already!”
    Tennison eased herself up, stamping her feet to get the circulation going. She could have cheerfully murdered for a cigarette, but this was the real testing time, and she was determined to kick the habit. It had scared her badly when her consumption climbed to sixty a day, the dread specter of the big C giving her the cold sweats. Now or never, shit or bust. Quelling the desire, she glanced around to her officers, Muddyman, Lillie, and Jones, their tall figures silhouetted in the glare of the arc lamps.
    “When were these garden slabs laid?”
    “Before the Viswandhas came here,” Jones told her.
    “Which was?”
    “About eighteen months ago.”
    “Do we know who they bought the house from?”
    “All Mr. Viswandha could tell me was the name of a property developer,” Jones said.
    “So have these slabs been disturbed since then?”
    DC Lillie shook his head. “Not according to the workmen.”
    Tennison gazed down into the shallow trench, trying to get the chronology straight in her own mind. “So she must have been put there before the slabs were laid, which means our prime suspect has to be whoever was living here when she was buried. We need a definite date of death, Oscar.”
    Bream gave her his fishy-eyed stare and called out to Lillie, “Is there any of that soup left?”
    “Oh—if there is,” Tennison said, “can you get some to Nola Cameron, if she’s still out there?” She looked at her watch. “The rest of you might as well go home and get some sleep. I’ll aim to brief the team at ten in the morning.”
    “Right, Guv,” said Muddyman, not bothering to hide his heartfelt relief. Knowing Tennison, her obsessive tenacity with any case she took on, he’d been afraid she’d keep them there till the wee small hours, standing around watching Bream & Co. digging up the rest of Simone Cameron—if that’s who it was. The woman didn’t seem to have a home to go to; any private life at all, as far as that went.
    The officers dispersed, leaving through the back garden gate. Tennison stayed. She was glad she did, because a few moments later Gold made an important discovery. He beckoned the photographer over to take several close-up shots of the corpse’s wrists, behind its back, beneath the pelvis.
    Bream craned forward, speaking softly into a small pocket recorder. “Hands tied together at the back with . . .”
    Gingerly, Gold pulled something out and held it up.
    “. . . a leather belt,” Bream intoned.
    A movement caught Tennison’s eye and she turned to see the little Viswandha boy standing on the top step, all agog.
    “For God’s sake . . . didn’t anyone think to get the family moved?” She went up the steps, ushering him ahead of her. “It’ll be gone soon,” she said reassuringly.
    He wasn’t a bit frightened, just filled with curiosity. “Is it a real person?”
    “Let’s get you inside, you’ll catch cold. You should be in bed.”
    “It should have been buried deeper, shouldn’t it?” he said with a child’s irrefutable logic. “Then it wouldn’t have come back.”
    Mrs. Viswandha was on her way downstairs, clearly distraught after trying to comfort her daughter. She clutched the boy to her, scolding and hugging him at the same time.
    “Don’t you have family or friends you could go to stay with?” Tennison asked sympathetically.
    “My husband won’t leave here . . .” She was almost in tears.
    “Do you want me to talk to him?”
    The woman found a wan smile, nodding gratefully. “Thank you.”
    Tennison had hoped that the forensic boys might have finished before daybreak, folded their tents and stolen silently away under cover of