“The difference is that you get your dinner cooked for you. At my place, I’m the one who’s supposed to cook it.” She thought a moment. “Shit’s gonna hit the fan this morning, though. You got an aspirin?”

Chief Superintendent Kernan had come in early to review the Marlow case, and for once Tennison had got her oar in first. Now he listened in growing anger as Tennison and Otley raged at each other, but he let them get on with it.

“George Marlow was questioned in nineteen eighty-four about the murder of a prostitute, Jeannie Sharpe. John Shefford, then a DI, was on the investigating team. He was transferred to London because it was discovered that he’d been having a relationshp with the murdered girl!” Tennison stormed. “None of this is in the records. We now know that he was having a sexual relationship with Della Mornay; he must have known he’d identified the wrong girl, but he was prepared to cover that up as well!”

Otley was seething. “Everything you’re saying is a pack of lies, and if John Shefford was alive . . .”

“But he’s not, he’s dead, and you’re still covering up for him. You requested the Oldham case, you wanted to go up there because you knew Shefford was involved . . .”

“That’s not true! Della Mornay was a police informer . . .”

“She was also a prostitute, picked up and charged by John Shefford when he was attached to Vice—and what a perfect job for him!”

Tennison’s last remark brought Kernan to his feet. “That’s enough! Just calm down!”

“Sir, I have been working against time ever since I took over this investigation, at first because of Marlow’s release, now because I’m going to be pulled off it. George Marlow is my only suspect, still my suspect for both murders, and now very possibly a third: Jeannie Sharpe.”

“I don’t know anything about any previous case up north,” Otley insisted. “I know some of the men fraternize with the girls on our patch . . .”

“Fraternize! Christ!”

Kernan thumped his desk, really pissed off. He pointed to Otley.

“Come on now, did Shefford think there was a connection between the first murder and the one in, er . . . Oldham?”

“I dunno, but I wanted to check it out. There was no ulterior motive.”

“So you know John Shefford had worked in Oldham? Knew he’d been on this—” Kernan thumbed through the file “—this Jeannie Sharpe case?”

Otley was falling apart. He shook his head. “No! I didn’t know anything, but when I read the report and saw John’s name down . . . Look, I know you knew, we all knew, he was a bit of a lad, so I just reckoned maybe I should check it out. That’s all there was to it, nothin’ more. If, as ma’am says, he was having a relationship with this tart, I knew nothin’ about it.”