A Face in the Crowd Read Online Free PDF Page B

cope.”
    Tennison pursed her mouth, giving a little rueful half-smile. The antiwomen bias in the Force extended all the way from the ranks right to the upper echelons. Having a female DCI heading a murder inquiry still went against the grain, even though the official line was that there was no sexual discrimination; every one rose by merit, experience, hard work. Which was a load of crap.
    “I will do. ’Bye, sir.” Thoughtfully, Kernan hung up. He took a long drag, letting the smoke plume from his nostrils, and stared across the desk with cloudy eyes. “Now how in hell does the commander know what happened on your course already?”
    Tennison went very still. “What do you mean?”
    “That I brought you back to lead this inquiry?”
    She breathed out. For a nasty moment there she had had a dreadful, sinking sensation that her dalliance in the hotel room had spread like wildfire, sniggers and dirty jokes in the locker rooms . . . Hey, heard the latest—that bitch Tennison likes her men big, rough, and black!
    “I’ll give you one guess,” she told Kernan. “And it involves some funny handshakes.”
    “Thorndike? The same lodge?”
    “I’d put money on it,” Tennison said, getting up, smoothing her skirt.
    “Then you’d better make sure you vindicate my decision,” Kernan said, and he wasn’t joking.
    “I’ll do my best, sir,” she said crisply, and went out.
    The cold water felt good. Leaning over the washbasin in the locker room, Tennison splashed a couple more palmfuls into her face, then dried herself and made a critical inspection in the mirror. Oh God. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It seemed a world away now, though it was less than twelve hours since she’d been lying in Bob Oswalde’s arms in the hotel room, drinking Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
    Two clerks came in, chattering away, though Tennison seemed oblivious, intent on repairing the ravages of a night without sleep, giving her hair a vigorous brushing and applying fresh makeup. Usually sparing with perfume when on duty, this morning she put an extra dab on her wrists and behind her ears to perk herself up. Then, shrugging into her tailored jacket and straightening her shoulders, she was ready for the fray.
    There was a fog of smoke in the Incident Room, the members of the team lounging around drinking coffee, laying bets on the identity of the collection of bones discovered in the back garden of Honeyford Road.
    “Fiver says it’s Simone . . .”
    “You’re on!”
    “What odds you offering?”
    “I’m starting a book.”
    “Huh!” said DC Lillie with a scowl. “Last time I ended up seventy-five quid out of pocket . . .”
    Tennison came in, calling out to Muddyman as she strode briskly to the desk in front of the long white bulletin board that took up one full wall. “Tony, we need a name. Where we up to in the A to Z?”
    “I think it’s N, Guv.”
    “Look up the first N for us then, Tony.” She stood at the desk, waiting a moment or two for the chatter to die down. When there was complete silence, Tennison began.
    “As some of you will be aware, workmen digging in the back garden of Number fifteen, Honeyford Road, have uncovered skeletonized human remains. The arms had been tied behind the back and the body wrapped in polyethylene, so it’s a suspicious death.”
    Tennison pointed to the photographs of the corpse, which had been processed overnight and pinned up on the board by DC Jones.
    “Those of you who’ve been down there will know that there’s a lot of speculation that it could be the body of a local girl who was reported missing two years ago—Simone Cameron. Her mother, Nola, who still lives a few doors away from Number fifteen, is completely convinced it’s Simone. We’ll get the forensic boys and the pathologist boys to give us an answer to that as soon as possible.”
    Tennison paused, her eyes raking over the assembled officers, who were all, to a man, paying rapt attention.
    “In the meantime,