‘Bradfield’s lot had a big booze-up in the CID office last night. The cleaner was refusing to deal with the mess until I offered to help, so I’ve had to schlep out these ruddy beer cans and bottles. Christ only knows how much they all put away, but I heard someone had to carry WPC Morgan to a taxi.’
‘Can I help?’
‘No, it’s done. You can go out on foot patrol today, seven beat covering Shoreditch on the far end of the ground.’
‘Can I get a panda car to drop me off?’ Jane was surprised, yet pleased that Harris was letting her out on patrol for once.
‘No, bloody well walk or get a bus. There’s an outstanding call from last night on that beat so get the details from the control room.’
Jane spoke with the PC who was manning the phones and radios. It transpired the call had come in at midnight, but as it was very busy no one was available to attend and the disgruntled caller was told someone would visit him in the morning. The PC handed Jane a copy of the message and said the night-shift operator had told him the caller had some information about a possible robbery. Jane asked why the CID weren’t dealing with it and the PC said the caller had a squeaky voice and sounded ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’. Jane guessed it was the same person Harris had put the phone down on the day before. She looked at the caller’s details. His name was Ashley Brennan and he lived in Hoxton Street. Gathering up her things, she booked out a Storno radio and put it in her handbag before heading off to catch the bus.
There was a faint drizzle and Jane was wearing her police-issue cape to keep herself dry. She laughed as she recalled the night shift on patrol when she and Kath had eaten fish and chips under their capes so no one could see.
She reached the terraced row of new, expensive-looking flats, and checked she had the correct address before pressing the buzzer for the Brennan flat. She waited a while and, when there was no answer, pressed again. A distorted female voice asked if she was delivering groceries. Jane gave her name and rank, then there was a crackle and whistling sound. Unsure if she had been heard she was about to repeat herself when the door clicked open.
Jane walked up the four flights of carpeted stairs and took a few moments to get her breath back before knocking on the door. She noticed there was a mezuzah screwed to the doorframe. The front door was opened by a small, overweight woman in her mid-forties wearing a floral blouse and grey pleated skirt with pink slippers.
‘Mrs Brennan?’ Jane asked, guessing she was Ashley’s mother.
The woman gave her a quizzical, confused look. ‘Thought you were our grocery boy. I was expecting an early delivery.’
‘Mrs Brennan?’ Jane asked again.
The woman pressed her finger to her right ear and Jane heard a high-pitched whistling sound.
‘I’m very deaf, what do you want?’
Realizing that she was wearing a hearing aid, Jane spoke loudly and slowly.
‘I am WPC Jane Tennison from Hackney Police Station and I’d like to speak to Ashley Brennan.’
Mrs Brennan called out Ashley’s name and said that a policewoman was here to see him, but there was no reply. She let Jane into the comfortable-looking flat. She knocked on a closed door.
‘Ashley, come out of your room – there’s a policewoman here who wants to talk to you.’
‘ABOUT TIME, LET HER IN.’
‘She is in, dear.’
‘I MEAN IN MY ROOM.’
Jane recognized the squeaky voice coming from the room as the one from the previous morning’s phone call. Mrs Brennan opened the door and gestured for Jane to go in.
‘Do you want me to come in with her?’
‘No,’ Ashley said.
Jane eased past Mrs Brennan, who was pressing her hearing aid and causing it to whistle again.
‘I’m expecting some groceries.’
‘Go away, Mother.’
‘He doesn’t have many visitors. Is it about my disabled parking?’
‘GO AWAY, MOTHER.’
Ashley Brennan was sitting at a large wooden desk on a specially adapted swivel chair, which had a head rest, thick padded arms and an extra wide-cushioned seat. He was obese – at least twenty stone – and had a huge protruding stomach and thick fat arms, but tiny feminine hands. His size made him look much older than Jane suspected he actually was. He wore a cotton T-shirt and baggy tracksuit trousers, and as he swivelled round to face Jane she noticed he had small feet encased in embroidered slippers.
On the desk there was a telephone, filing tray, jeweller’s-type magnifying glass, tweezers, soldering iron and bits and pieces of wire lying around next to an electrical circuit board of some sort. Behind him, on top of a long wooden cabinet, there were two reel-to-reel tape-recording machines and two large pieces of electrical equipment with numerous dials and yellow-coloured arrow meters. Jane suspected they were radios of some sort, but only because they were attached to a large aerial hanging out of the window.
‘She’s as deaf as a post,’ he said.
