The Red Dahlia
Page 2
The Evening Standard’s late issue carried the picture and a request for anyone with information to ring the incident room. The article did not give any mention of the body being dismembered, or any details of the way it had been discovered: just the location.
The phones soon started ringing nonstop, all the team busy fending off the crank calls and listening to the possibles. It was at seven minutes past eight in the evening that Anna received a call from a Sharon Bilkin. Hesitantly, she gave her name and address before saying she was sure that the photograph was of her flatmate, Louise Pennel. The last time Sharon had seen Louise was three days prior to the murder.
DAY FIVE
Sharon Bilkin came to the station at nine o’clock. She was twenty-six years old, a baby-faced blonde wearing too much makeup. She had brought numerous photographs of Louise with her. The team knew immediately Louise was their victim. Sharon was able to tell them that she had last seen Louise at Stringfellow’s nightclub; Louise had stayed on after Sharon left, which was just after midnight on January ninth. Louise had not returned home. When asked why she hadn’t reported this, Sharon said that Louise often stayed away for two or three nights at a time.
Sharon told them that Louise worked as a dental receptionist. When the surgery was contacted, they said that they also had not seen her since the ninth. They had not raised the alarm either: Louise’s frequent absences from work meant they were not surprised or suspicious when she didn’t turn up. Moreover, they had given her notice to quit the week before.
Louise, they also discovered from Sharon, was an orphan; her parents had died when she was a young teenager. There were no close relatives, so Sharon was asked if she would be prepared to formally identify Louise.
Sharon was shaking with nerves; when the green cover was drawn back, she let out a gasp. “What’s the matter with her face? Her mouth?”
“Is this Louise Pennel?” Anna asked.
“Yes, but what’s happened to her mouth?”
“It has been cut,” Anna said, giving the nod to the mortuary assistant to recover Louise’s face.
Sharon spent two hours with Anna and Morgan, answering their questions. She gave them a few names, but was sure Louise had no steady boyfriend. She also said that Louise wanted to get into modeling like her, which was why she had so many photographs. One in particular that Sharon showed them was heartbreaking. Louise was wearing a red, glitter-sequined minidress, a glass of champagne in one hand and a red rose caught in her hair. She had the sweetest of smiles, her lipstick a dark plum. Her large, dark brown eyes were heavily made up and she had a small uptilted nose. She had been a very pretty young woman.
The incident room was buzzing with the news that they had an identification, giving the whole team an adrenaline rush. They had been so frustrated, waiting for their first break. Now that she was identified, they could kick-start their hunt for her killer.
DAY SIX
Morgan was back at his desk the following morning at seven fifteen. A priority was to interview the dental surgeon Louise had worked for. Morgan was busy listing everyone he wanted to see that morning when Anna walked into his office with a copy of the Mirror.
“Excuse me, sir; have you seen this?”
“What?”
“Second page.”
Morgan reached across to take the paper. He sat down heavily. “Fuck. How did they get this?”
“Must have got it from Sharon; she had enough photographs. We put out so many requests for help in identifying Louise, no one would have thought to ask Sharon not to go to the press.”
Morgan sucked in his breath in a fury. The article said little: just that the victim the police were trying to name was Louise Pennel. There were a few sentences about how Sharon, her flatmate, had identified Louise. There was a picture of a scantily dressed Sharon, but the main photograph was of Louise with the red rose in her hair.
Roses are red, violets are blue, who killed Louise and slit her mouth in two?
Jack Douglas, the Mirror journalist who had printed Sharon’s story, looked at the single sheet of typed writing that had been sent anonymously to the crime desk.
“Sick fuckers,” he muttered. He screwed it up and tossed it into the waste bin.
DCI Morgan held up the newspaper to the team in the incident room. “We’re gonna get a lot of crap aimed at us over—” Before he could finish his sentence, he buckled over in agony, clutching his stomach. There was a flurry of activity around him. He was helped into his office in excruciating pain, unable to stand upright. An ambulance took him to Richmond Hospital at ten fifteen. The team hovered around, discussing what could be wrong with their gov. By midmorning they knew it was serious. DCI Morgan had bleeding ulcers and would be out of action for some considerable time. This meant that a new DCI would have to take over the case, and fast.
By early afternoon, they were informed that DCI James Langton was stepping in, and bringing two officers with him.
2
DAY SEVEN
Anna watched from the incident room window as Langton arrived. It was just after ten. He parked erratically and then slammed the car door shut. He was still driving his beat-up Rover, but was looking far smarter than poor old Gov Morgan had ever managed, in a navy blue striped suit, a pale blue shirt with a white collar, and a maroon tie.
Langton was joined in the car park by DS John Barolli and DI Mike Lewis, the other two officers Anna had worked alongside on the Daniels case. They carried a mound of files between them. They chatted together for a few moments before heading into the station.
Anna was sitting at her desk making herself look busy when Langton strode into the room, flanked by Lewis and Barolli. He went straight to the incident board and looked over it before facing the team. He introduced his sidekicks and, giving a curt nod to Anna, expressed his regret that their gov had been taken into hospital. Then he moved on to the case.
“I will need to assimilate all the data you have, but meanwhile, you can’t waste any time. It seems you have little or nothing to go on, bar the fact you have your victim identified. I want forensics over to the girls’ flat, as it has not yet been eliminated as the scene of the murder. I want you to start listing all Louise Pennel’s friends and associates and start taking statements fast. She was missing for three days; where was she? Who was the last person to see her alive? Give me until tomorrow morning for my briefing; until then, let’s get moving!”
A murmur erupted as he gathered up a row of files and looked around for Morgan’s office. A young female DC led him through the incident room past Anna’s desk. Langton paused for a second and looked at her.
“Hello, Anna. Nice to be working with you again.” Then he was gone.
Anna flushed, turning back to her computer screen. Barolli and Lewis came over to stand by her desk. Barolli made a joke about it becoming a habit. Anna looked confused.
“Well, you were brought onto Langton’s team for the Alan Daniels case when Detective Hudson got sick. Now we’re together again, but this time it was your guv’nor who got ill. Putting something into the coffee, are you?”
Anna smiled, but was not amused.
“I suppose that case must have helped to get you a promotion. Congratulations,” Lewis said.
She couldn’t help noticing an undercurrent of sarcasm in his tone; it had obviously not helped him. The duo then followed Langton into his office.
The young DC came out from Langton’s office, which faced the incident room and so had blinds for privacy. Anna watched as the DC filled three mugs with black coffee and a plate with doughnuts.
“Good-looking, isn’t he? Nice suit,” she said.
Anna smiled. “He hates his coffee cold. If that’s stewed, I’d get the canteen to make a fresh pot.”
“So you’ve worked with the DCI before?”
“Yes, a while back.”
“Is he married?”
Anna turned away. “Not as far as I know. That coffee will be cold if it wasn’t before.”
He didn’t even look up. “Bridget, like the diaries.”
Anna smiled. The young DC was slightly overweight but very pretty, with silky blonde hair, unlike Anna’s own spiky red. Anna had tried to grow hers longer but it didn’t look right, so she had gone back to her usual cropped cut, which held in check the curls that liked to spring up.
There was a strange atmosphere in the incident room. Langton’s remark about their lack of results had hit home and the team was feeling out of sorts. Nevertheless, Anna worked at gathering names and addresses of Louise’s known associates and, along with the rest of the team, began arranging interviews. Her first priority was to go to Louise’s flat to reinterview Sharon herself.
Louise had lived in the top-floor flat of a narrow four-story house off Balcombe Street, close to Baker Street tube station. Anna paused to catch her breath; the stairs were steep. The staircase narrowed as she approached flat nine. She knocked and waited.
“Come in,” Sharon called out. Anna pushed the unlocked door open. The small hallway was as narrow as the stairs and was crammed with photographs of Sharon, some of her modeling teenage clothes and others in which she was rather more scantily dressed. There were none of Louise.
“I’m in here,” Sharon called from the kitchen, interrupting Anna’s scrutiny. “I’ve put the kettle on; do you want tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, please. Black, no sugar,” Anna said as she entered.
“It’s only instant,” Sharon said, busily wiping down a sink that was stacked with dirty crockery.
“That’s fine.”
Anna sat at the small folding plastic table; the rest of the space in the tiny kitchen was taken up with cheap cabinets, a fridge, and a washing machine.
“I don’t think there is anything I can tell you that I haven’t said already,” Sharon said as she poured boiling water into two mugs.
“I just want to go over a few things to find out what type of person Louise was.” Anna took her notebook and a tape recorder from her briefcase. “Do you mind if I tape us? It’s in case I don’t write something down I’ll need to check out.”
Sharon hesitated and then nodded, drawing out the other chair.
Anna checked to make sure her tape was running. “You gave us a list of Louise’s friends and we’ll be talking to them, but can you think of anyone else?”
“I went through my address book again last night and there’s no one that I can think of.”
“Did Louise have a diary?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we could have a look around later? If you would like to see the Section Eight warrant?”
Sharon shrugged as she munched a chocolate chip biscuit, not even glancing at the document that Anna showed her.
“You mentioned to DCI Morgan that Louise was seeing someone.”
“I don’t know his name and I never met him. I only saw him the once, when he rang downstairs for her. He didn’t come in. I was just going out, so I saw him go to his car and wait for her; well, I presume that’s what he was doing.”
“What type of car?”
“I was asked that. I don’t know. It was black and shiny, but I don’t know what make.”
“Can you describe this man?”
“I already have.”
“Yes, I know, but just for me.”
Sharon finished her biscuit and wiped the corners of her mouth with one finger. “Tall, maybe six foot. He was wearing a long dark coat, very smart, and he had short dark hair. I only really saw the back of him. Oh yeah, slight hook nose, I remember that.”
“What age, do you think?”
“Hard to tell; thirty-five to forty-five? He wasn’t young and he wasn’t her usual type.”
“How long had Louise been seeing this man?”
Sharon shrugged. “I dunno; I think she knew him before she moved in here. She didn’t see him that regular, but she was very keen on him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, when she did have a date with him, she spent hours getting dressed, changing her clothes; she even borrowed some of mine. She said she wanted to look smart for him, sophisticated, and she bought some new shoes: very high, spike-heeled ones.”
“Are they missing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked.”
“We can do that later. I’ll also need you to look through her wardrobe and see if any of her clothes are missing.”
“I can do that, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell; you see, we shared the flat but, I mean, we weren’t close friends.”
“Really?”
“She answered an ad I put in Time Out when my last flatmate left. It’s rented and I couldn’t afford to live here by myself, so I needed someone fast.”
“When was this?”
“About seven months ago. I dunno where she lived before; she didn’t have that much luggage. She didn’t have a lot of money either; well, her job paid peanuts.”
“You said she worked for a dentist?”
“Yeah, but they paid her minimum wage, ’cos she was having some of her teeth fixed. She needed some caps and fillings done, so I guess when that had been finished she would leave. She didn’t talk about her work much, just that it was really boring and she had this thing about hearing the dentist’s drill.”
“And you work as a model?”
“Yes, mostly catalog work. I also do part-time at a café up the road.”
Anna plowed on, keeping the questions simple, not wanting to unnerve Sharon before trying to ease her onto more personal topics.
Langton, Barolli, and Lewis spent the entire morning sifting through the case history. By two o’clock, having worked through lunch, they closed the files.
“They’ve got nothing,” Langton said quietly.
“Yeah, well, at least they’ve identified her.”
“We’ll have a briefing at the end of the day; in the meantime, I’ll go over to interview this Sharon, her flatmate.”
“Travis is there,” Barolli said.
“I know.” Langton walked out.
Barolli looked at Lewis quizzically. “He said anything to you about her?”
“What? Travis?”
“Yeah, he did a double take when he saw her name listed on the team, but then pretended not to have noticed. They got on, didn’t they?”
“I was told a bit more than ‘got on’! In fact, you remember Jean—that stony-faced DC?—she said they were having a scene.”
“No way! She’s not the gov’s type for one, and for two, he wouldn’t be so crass as to screw someone on his team. He gets his leg over enough women without shitting on his own doorstep.”
“Well, it’s what I was told,” Lewis said, slightly embarrassed.
Barolli flicked open the postmortem file and stared at it. “You read through all this? What had been done to her?”
Lewis shook his head. They had been under pressure from Langton to get through the files as fast as possible, so had taken half each.
“Bottom of the page.” Barolli used a pen to indicate where Lewis should read. It took longer than just a glance. He turned over to the next page of the report and continued reading, then slowly closed the file.
“Jesus Christ. I thought the beatings she’d taken were bad enough, along with the slashes to her mouth, but this is sick, fucking sick.”
Barolli nodded; the report had turned his stomach. “Beggars belief, doesn’t it? And they haven’t finished the autopsy yet! What kind of animal would do that?”
Lewis took a deep breath. “One we’d better bloody catch.”
Anna was sitting in Louise’s cramped bedroom. The single bed, with its pink candlewick bedspread, had not been made up. She had asked if Louise ever brought any guests back to the flat. Sharon had shaken her head: that was one of the house rules and, to her knowledge, Louise had never b
roken it.
“The landlady lives on the ground floor and she’d have a fit.”
“But Louise often stayed away for nights?”
“Yes, so did I; neither of us had got a steady bloke, though, so it didn’t really matter not being able to bring anyone back.”
Anna had to move her knees aside so that Sharon could open the wardrobe doors.
“I don’t know what’s missing. Like I said, she hadn’t lived here too long. Oh, hang on!”
Sharon walked out of the room. Anna got up to look at the clothes herself. They were hung in two sections: what looked like work clothes—white shirts and straight dark skirts, a couple of jackets—and clothes for going out, some very expensive, others just main-street glitter.
Sharon appeared in the doorway. “Her coat: she had a nice maroon coat with a black velvet collar and matching buttons; that’s not in here, or in the cupboard in the hall.”
Anna nodded and looked to the bed. “Did she usually make her bed?”
“No. She was a bit untidy. I was told not to touch it in case they wanted to take away the sheets and things.”
Anna looked at a dress on a hanger: low-cut, tight-waisted, with a layered skirt.
“She wanted to be a model. She was always asking me about agents and what she should do to try and break into it. She had a very good figure, but sometimes she wore too much makeup, which made her look older than she was; then she started wearing the dark red lipstick.”
The doorbell made Sharon jump; for all her chattiness, she was actually quite strung out. She went to answer the door, leaving Anna to carry on looking over the clothes. She checked the labels of two cashmere sweaters in the chest of drawers. They were both very expensive and one had never even been worn: it was still folded in tissue paper.
Anna heard Sharon calling to someone to keep on coming up the stairs. She checked over an underwear drawer. Some of the knickers were expensive lace, others well-worn cotton. Anna flushed and shut the drawer when she heard Langton’s voice asking Sharon for directions to the bedroom.