The Red Dahlia

by Lynda La Plante

  Anna leaned further over. “It’s Justine Wickenham.”

  Langton picked up another photo and shook his head. “Christ Almighty, they’re all screwing her.”

  “His daughter?”

  “No, Dominique Wickenham. When do you think this was taken?”

  He turned over the photographs but nothing was written on the back of any of them.

  “Well, the envelope has 2002 on it, but these could have been taken years ago, so it’s not much use to us. If it is her, what does that give us?”

  Langton looked up; they were almost touching. “Well, she’s bonking her stepson as well as everyone else, so it’s not that old, is it? How old would you say he looks?”

  “Hard to tell from what I can see of him. But Justine looks about thirteen or fourteen to me.”

  Langton sifted through the photographs and then frowned. “This looks like some kind of cellar. There’s two girls tied up. Look at all the equipment: the sicko’s got a private dungeon! There’s chains and some weird machines.”

  “Looks like old farm equipment to me,” Anna said, sitting back down.

  “No way; this is state-of-the-art masochistic gear.” Langton got up and started to pace to and fro, then took another beer from the minibar.

  Anna carried on looking at the photographs. “Why did she bring these to us? There’s got to be something we’re not seeing. I mean, we have a pretty good idea of what Wickenham gets up to, but in the privacy of his home, there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

  “Well, there’s the one photo of his daughter.”

  “I know, but it still doesn’t give us any connection to Louise Pennel or Sharon Bilkin. So Wickenham has sex parties: it’s not against the law.”

  “What if the girls are all underage?”

  “Well, one, we have to trace them; two, we could find that they’re not unwilling participants. We also have no dates, so we don’t know when these were taken, and they’re not all from the same time.” Anna pointed out that in one photo, Wickenham had a mustache, in another longish hair, and in another short hair: there could be years between when they were taken.

  “Well, there is one person that can give us a clue, and that’s Dominique.”

  “You suggesting we go back?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  “You’ll get the maid into big trouble.”

  Langton nodded as he opened a packet of peanuts. “How about talking to just the maid?”

  Anna shrugged. “We could do that, but we are scheduled to fly back this afternoon. It’s up to you.”

  Langton tossed a peanut up into the air and caught it in his mouth. “I think we should return as scheduled. We need to talk to Justine and the son.”

  14

  DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

  Anna slept through her alarm and was annoyed at herself for being late for work. She grabbed yesterday’s suit but put on a clean shirt. She arrived at the incident room to be told that Langton was in the boardroom, being given a briefing by the key team. Lewis, Barolli, Bridget, and two other officers were sitting around the huge table, listening to the taped calls from the phone taps. Langton was looking very smart in a pale blue shirt and dark navy tie, his suit immaculate. He glanced up with irritation as Anna entered.

  “Sorry, my alarm didn’t go off,” she said rather lamely as she took the nearest chair. She put down her briefcase, taking out her notebook and pencils. No one spoke; they all seemed to be waiting for her to settle. “Sorry,” she repeated, embarrassed, and busied herself turning over the pages of her notebook until she found a blank one.

  “We’ve been discussing the phone taps on the Wickenham family. Lewis thinks that Charles knows we’re monitoring his calls: he’s very cagey and abrupt, unless it’s something innocuous.”

  He turned to Lewis and gestured to the tape recorder. Each call had been numbered. Langton asked him to play a specific one for Anna’s benefit: it was a recording of Edward and Charles Wickenham talking. Wickenham Sr.’s voice was harsh and angry.

  “I fucking said there was something wrong with him when I last had him out. Why you can’t do a simple thing like get the fucking vet to see to him? He’s lame now, a lot worse than he was, and that’s down to your stupidity; why can’t you just do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it?”

  “I’m sorry. I had to go and collect Gail.”

  “Why couldn’t she get a car and get herself home? She’s a bloody liability. What she needs is therapy, not a few weeks in a health spa.”

  “She’s fine now.”

  “I hope to Christ she is. You keep her in line: you give her too much rope—mind you, if you gave her more, she’d probably hang herself, the stupid bitch.”

  “It’s her nerves.”

  “Well, that doesn’t interest me; what does is that the horse won’t be able to hunt for at least a month, so get him sorted out, never mind your bloody girlfriend.”

  “She wants to get married.”

  “What?”

  “I said, she wants me to marry her.”

  “I would say after your last disastrous marriage, it’s the last thing you want to do.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  “Maybe you should? Why, exactly? She lives with you; she gets whatever she wants.”

  “She’s very nervous.”

  “Well, for Chrissakes, shut the stupid bitch up.”

  “That’s why I should marry her.”

  There was a long pause; then Wickenham sighed.

  “You do whatever you need to do, Edward. She has to be controlled, and if the way to do it is by marrying her, then go ahead.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Pa.”

  “Have you ever? Let me think about it.”

  Charles slammed the phone down, leaving Edward still on the line; he sighed before hanging up too.

  Langton twisted his pen round and round. “We need to talk to Edward’s proposed bride. Pop sounds like a real tetchy son of a bitch, doesn’t he, Travis?”

  Anna looked up from her note taking. “Yes; maybe the horse he was referring to was the one we saw him on the day we were at the Hall?”

  Langton glared at her.

  “If it is, we have a time frame,” she continued.

  Langton ignored her, resting his elbows on the table. “Reading between the lines about the proposed daughter-in-law’s problems, keeping her under control, et cetera, I wonder if she is the anonymous caller that tipped us off.” He nodded to Lewis, asking for call sixteen to be played.

  This was the most recent call they had on tape: it was from Dominique. It was very brief and she sounded tense and angry, especially when Wickenham said he couldn’t talk to her.

  “Well, I need to talk to you, Charles, so don’t ring off, because if you do I will simply keep calling you back until you do talk to me. The police were at my apartment today and they were asking me a lot of questions about—”

  “Shut up!”

  “What?”

  “I said shut up! If you wait a few minutes, I’ll be able to call you back, not on your land phone.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll call you on your mobile, your cell phone, Dominique; I can’t talk to you at the house.”

  “They were asking me all these questions, first about Emily…”

  “Not now: later.”

  The phone went dead.

  Langton spread out his fingers flat on the tabletop. “It’s obvious he knows we’re taping him.” He looked at Anna. “This was as far as we’d got before your late arrival, so now we can concentrate on the other calls: one in particular.”

  He nodded to Lewis again. It was Edward Wickenham talking to his girlfriend Gail.

  “I’ll be there to collect you. You might have to wait, as father wants me to do some errands, but it shouldn’t be too long.”

  “Like how long? You knew I was leaving here today.”

  Bridget put up her hand. Lewis stopped the tape.

  “
That’s her: that’s the woman that called the station. I’m sure of it.”

  Langton looked at Anna, who shook her head. “Could I hear a bit more? It does sound like her.”

  The tape continued.

  “Can’t you ask your father to do whatever needs doing later? He just makes you run around after him all the time.”

  “He pays the bills, Gail.”

  “I know; I know that.”

  “So just wait: I’ll be there!”

  The call ended and Anna nodded. “Yes, I’d say it’s her. Have we done a voice match on the calls that came in to be one hundred percent sure?”

  Barolli looked at his watch. “We only got this in last night, so they might not have got it together yet. Want me to check?”

  Langton wafted his hand. “Later. Let’s hear the rest and then get up to speed all round on what we came up with in Milan.”

  They all listened to calls between Emily and Justine Wickenham. There was nothing suspicious and nothing that linked to their inquiry; they just talked about a party for some friend and the dinner menu, with Justine giving Emily a cooking class over the telephone. The sisters were quite at ease with each other; Emily appeared to be very much calmer than when they had interviewed her.

  The team listened to call after call for over fifty minutes, then Lewis stopped the tape. “This one is interesting, though a bit indistinct, so we are having it cleaned up. It’s a call from Emily’s mobile to Justine’s land line.”

  “Do you know what time it is?” Justine was asking.

  “Yes.” This was very blurred and slurred.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a party.” Again, this was hardly audible.

  “Are you drunk? Ems, are you drunk or something? Hello, are you there? Emily, where are you?”

  “I want to kill him!” came the high-pitched scream.

  “For Chrissakes, Emily, where are you? I can come and get you.”

  “No! I don’t want you to see me, I just need some…” It was then a totally incoherent ramble of slurred words with long pauses in between.

  “Em, are you with someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they a nice person? Are they looking after you?”

  Emily laughed, a strange and hollow sound, devoid of any humor. “Are they nice?”

  “You know what I mean, Em. You’re not being taken advantage of, are you?”

  “Would it matter? I’ve been taken advantage of since I was fucking ten years old, so what the fuck does it matter where I am? I am going to pay him back, Justine: one day, I’ll pay him back.”

  “By getting drunk and acting dumb?”

  “Shut up!”

  “You bloody called me, Em, so don’t tell me to shut up. I am trying to help you. If you tell me where you are, I’ll come and get you.”

  “You’ll see. I’ll get him. I’ll make him pay. Danielle will help me.”

  Anna looked across at Langton on hearing this.

  Justine’s voice became lower, almost threatening. “You be very careful what you tell her. I mean it, Em: you have no idea what Daddy can do.”

  “Yes, I have. I bloody know!”

  “Then listen to me: keep your mouth shut. I’ve already had Mother on the phone: the police were asking questions about you. That woman detective was in Milan. I warned you about saying anything to the police.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything!” Emily was crying.

  “Then from now on, refuse to speak to them unless I am with you. Just do what you are told to do, otherwise terrible things will happen!”

  Emily was sobbing, her voice hardly audible. “They already have happened. There’s nothing anyone could do to me that would be worse.”

  And then she hung up. The team sat in silence.

  “Bit like father like daughter,” said Langton. “She’s a piece of work, Justine Wickenham; from what we were able to discover in Milan, she is not an innocent: far from it.” He showed the team the photographs.

  Although it was Anna who had talked to Danielle, Langton talked them through the details of their conversation. “We are certain that Danielle has no idea about the murder inquiry. She thought we were there regarding Wickenham’s sexual antics with Emily. Though we’ve got photographs of him and Justine rather than Emily, the maid was very concerned about her and with good bloody reason. She wants him punished! I think that goes for all of us; the question is how we go about drawing the net over his sickening head. We have it raised, but we still need more concrete evidence: a lot of what we have is hearsay and won’t hold up in court. We need confirmation that Louise Pennel was at that house and that he has lied about not knowing her; someone there must have seen her and I think that someone could be the son’s girlfriend. We now need to question Edward Wickenham and Gail Harrington, but we have to be very careful, as the son could also be implicated; he may be a partner in his father’s perversions.”

  Lewis tapped the photograph of Edward and Dominique Wickenham. “I’d say he’s very much a part of it: he’s screwing his stepmother!”

  Langton nodded and tapped the other photographs. “Let’s see if we can identify these other guys.”

  They went on to discuss getting a search warrant for the Hall; Langton said they could get one anytime, but he wanted to hold off until he had some firm evidence. The meeting broke up and the team regrouped in the incident room. Langton asked Anna to join him in his office; she asked if she could first finish typing up her report. He shrugged and walked off with Lewis. When she headed over a short while later, the door was ajar: she could hear their conversation clearly.

  “She was at the airport! Ruddy woman gets everywhere; anyway, it proved to be worthwhile, as she filled in some details about Mrs. Wickenham the exotic dancer. I have to hand it to her, she’s a really devious woman. She could get blood out of a stone; well, I know she can—she got me to take her to dinner. She wanted to go to this place called Bebel’s on the Via San Marco. It cost a fortune. Good thing it was worthwhile: my expenses went through the roof.”

  So Anna had been wrong about Langton and Professor Marshe after all: it had been a coincidence. She tapped on the open door and Lewis turned.

  “See you later, then.” He passed Anna.

  “Shut the door, Travis,” Langton said, loosening his tie.

  Anna hovered by his desk.

  “I want you to have another go at Emily Wickenham. It’s pretty obvious she’s flying close to the edge, but she might just know something that will help us. I’m getting copies of the photographs done, so she might help us identify the men in the hot tub.”

  “Okay.” She nodded.

  “Are you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Are you okay?”

  She frowned, confused. “Yes, why? Don’t I look it?”

  He shrugged. “You’re wearing the same clothes as you traveled in last night, your hair needs something done to it, and you’ve got a ladder in your tights.”

  She flushed.

  “So, is there anything you feel you want to tell me?”

  “I overslept.”

  “That was pretty obvious, you were late. It’s just unusual—well, I think it is—when a woman wears the same clothes two days in a row.”

  “I just didn’t have time to find another suit.”

  “Don’t get stroppy! It’s just not like you, that’s all: you always look fresh as a daisy. This morning, you look beat.”

  “Thank you. I’ll have an early night.”

  He nodded and loosened his tie even lower down his shirt front. “This journalist still seeing you?”

  “No.”

  There was a pause as he checked his watch. He looked up at her and smiled. “See you later.”

  She walked back to her desk, feeling like she’d been hit over the head with a mallet. She was riffling around in her briefcase for a spare pair of tights when Barolli breezed over, grinning.

  “We got a hit: the anonymous calle
r has been identified.”

  Anna looked up. “Is it Edward Wickenham’s girlfriend?”

  “Got it in one! Well, let’s say we’re pretty sure it’s her.”

  “You going to interview her?” she asked.

  “Dunno; be down to the gov. But good news, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay?”

  She sighed. “I am fine!”

  “Just you look a bit under the weather. Mind you, this case is getting to all of us. Poor old Lewis is knackered: his son is teething, keeping him up all night.”

  Langton appeared. “Can you cut the bloody chitchat? Did we get a result?”

  Barolli grinned. “We certainly did: voice match!”

  Anna watched as they went into Langton’s office together. She picked up her tights and hurried off to the ladies’.

  Straightening her skirt, Anna noticed a stain down one side and scratched at it with her finger. She dampened some toilet tissue and tried unsuccessfully to clean it off. She took a good, hard look at herself in the mirror and was taken aback. Her hair needed washing, she had no makeup on, and the white shirt that she’d seized was looking very drab.

  “Christ, I do look a mess,” she muttered, embarrassed: she was even wearing awful old sports knickers. “What are you doing to yourself?” She glanced down at her shoes: they were comfortable, but old and scuffed; unsurprising, as she’d had them since college.

  Letting yourself go, that’s what, she thought. She returned to her desk with grim determination: at lunchtime, she’d book an appointment for a cut and blow-dry, then when she got home, she was going to weed out all her old clothes and send them off to the Red Cross.

  “You going with the gov?” Barolli asked as he shrugged into his raincoat.

  “What?”

  “Interview Wickenham’s girlfriend?”

  “No, I’m on the daughter.”

  “Oh; well, he was bellowing for you a few minutes ago.” Barolli headed out.

  Lewis hurried past. “Gov is looking for you.”

  “Christ! I just went to the toilet,” she snapped, and was about to head toward Langton’s office when he appeared.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  Anna gestured, exasperated. “The ladies’!”