Blood Line

by Lynda La Plante

  Paul returned to the station to report that the forensic team were still at the flat, and that SOC officers were now doing an inch-by-inch search. This would include the garage and Tina’s car, which they impounded. If Alan Rawlins had been murdered in her flat, then his body would have to have been removed. As Anna banked up the incriminating evidence, her adrenalin kept her going without having lunch or even a cup of coffee. She had not pressed charges against Tina, as at present there was no direct evidence that she had murdered Alan Rawlins.

  Anna and Paul went into an interview room first to talk to Jonathan Hyde. They explained that his client was not under arrest as they were awaiting verification that the blood was that of Alan Rawlins and she would, at the present time, be simply assisting their enquiry. They gave details of the length of time Alan had been missing and the discovery of the blood staining. They also provided him with the information of his client’s purchase of bleach, carpet cleaner and the ordering of new carpet.

  Hyde then sat privately with Tina, explaining everything to her.

  It was not until six-thirty the same evening that Anna got to conduct the first interview.

  Paul sat beside Anna as she informed Hyde that she had not as yet received verification that the blood from Tina’s flat was Alan’s, and it would take more time to compare the blood with his parents’ for a positive result. Anna was calm and relaxed, but Tina sat like a coiled spring ready to unwind. Although she was there to assist their enquiries, Tina was cautioned to ensure that anything she did say could be used as evidence at a later date.

  ‘We really want you to explain the discovery of the blood on the carpet underlay in your bedroom. Do you have anything to tell us?’ Anna asked.

  Tina shook her head.

  ‘But you must have known it was there. The bed had been moved, a section of carpet had been cut out from under it and then replaced by a piece cut from beneath your living-room sofa.’

  ‘I told you – Alan spilled a bottle of wine so he must have cut out the section of the carpet. He was always concerned what money the landlord would try and get out of us if we damaged anything. We were saving to buy a place of our own.’

  ‘So did Alan subsequently insert the section cut from the lounge under your bed to cover the bloodstain?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.’

  ‘How do you explain it then?’

  ‘He must have done it when I was at work.’

  ‘Miss Brooks, if we discover that the stain is in actual fact Alan’s blood, how do you explain that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he had a nose bleed, something like that.’

  ‘But surely the section of the carpet being cut out from beneath the sofa would have occurred sometime before you say he might have had a nose bleed. You claim that he spilled a bottle of wine – when did that occur?’ Anna asked.

  ‘A while ago, maybe a few months.’

  ‘So when did he cut out the section of the carpet?’

  ‘I don’t know. As I just said, it could have happened after he had a nose bleed.’

  ‘Did you cut the section of carpet beneath the sofa?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you notice it had been done?’

  ‘More or less when you showed it to me.’

  ‘Why did you order new carpet?’

  ‘Because I want to move and the landlord would make us pay for any damage. I tried a bottle of carpet cleaner but it wasn’t much good.’

  ‘When did you order the new carpet?’

  ‘A week ago. It was on special offer.’

  At this point Jonathan Hyde intervened. ‘We appear to be going around in circles, Detective Travis. Surely until this stain discovered beneath the bed is actually verified as being Mr Rawlins’s blood, I can see no reason to continue this line of questioning. My client has told you she was unaware of its existence and she did not cut any of the carpet herself.’

  ‘Could you explain why you purchased a considerable amount of bleach shortly after Mr Rawlins went missing?’

  Tina sighed. ‘I told you why. I use a lot of bleach in the salon because it cleans up the spilled hair-dye and we’ve got black and white lino tiles.’

  ‘The bleach container in your salon is a different make to the ones you purchased from Asda.’

  ‘They were on special offer so as I was there I took the opportunity and bought them. I kept one at the flat – the rest I used cleaning up the salon.’

  Hyde shook his head, saying to Anna, ‘This is really all conjecture. Miss Brooks has explained why she purchased the bleach, for her salon, and some to use at her flat.’

  ‘Was it not an attempt to clear away the bloodstain?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, because I didn’t even know it was there!’

  ‘But you must have been aware that the bed had been moved – moved to cover the offending bloodstain.’

  ‘I never noticed. Sometimes when I hoover I move it or Alan does. We try and keep the place immaculate because it’s rented.’

  ‘So you admit that you move the bed to hoover?’

  ‘Yes, I just said so.’

  ‘It’s exceptionally heavy, with two drawers beneath the frame for storage. Did you get any help when you say you moved the bed?’

  ‘Well, if I did, Alan would help me.’

  ‘So you have not moved the bed for some time?’

  ‘No, not that I can remember.’

  Paul knew they were getting nowhere. He had remained silent watching Anna work over Tina, but it wasn’t bringing a result. Mr Hyde obviously felt the same way as he tapped the table with his pen.

  ‘I feel that my client has answered your questions and to be honest, unless you have proof that Mr Rawlins is deceased and not as Miss Brooks claims missing, I think she has assisted your enquiries to the best of her ability. If you have nothing further to add, I suggest that we terminate this interview.’

  Anna really had no alternative. She closed her file and thanked Tina for her cooperation, but warned her that she might well want to interview her again when she got the blood results from the lab. She also made it clear that her flat was now a possible murder scene and she should make arrangements to stay elsewhere until the tests had been completed. Paul took Tina and Jonathan Hyde to the reception while Anna remained in the interview room, irritated because she knew she had perhaps jumped the gun. However, she hoped that putting Tina under pressure might produce a result as by now the woman must be aware of the seriousness of the findings in her flat.

  Anna found Paul sitting on a chair facing the incident board.

  ‘That was a bit of a waste of time,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe, but it might put the skids beneath her. Tomorrow we’ll go over to the lab and see what they have for us.’

  ‘I tell you what we need – a body.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’ she snapped.

  ‘Question is, where the hell is it?’ Paul went on. ‘If he was killed in the bed she couldn’t have carried him by herself. He was a big guy, muscular, and must have weighed at least seventeen stone.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Which means she would have had to have help. The other scenario is, whilst she was at work someone else entered the flat, killed him and moved the body before she got home.’

  ‘I don’t buy that. Are you saying that this other person cut out the carpet, laid it under the bed, moved the body and she didn’t know about it?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I dunno, but if the blood is Alan Rawlins’s . . .?’

  ‘Not if. I am damned sure it is, and we’ll be able to prove it when they get the results from the comparison with his parents’ blood.’

  ‘Well, until we are positive there’s not a lot we can move on with.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the lab first thing in the morning.’

  With that, Anna went into her office. She wrote up the report of the interview, but felt disinclined to contact Langton. Tina was obviously her prime suspect.
Although she had thought about Michael Phillips being a part of it, they had not a shred of proof that he was involved.

  Anna used the wine and sleeping tablets combination to get another good night’s sleep. She did make herself an omelette the next morning, but hardly touched it. By nine she was waiting at the forensic lab in Lambeth for Paul to arrive. Meanwhile work was still continuing at Tina’s flat as the team searched every inch for further bloodstains and any evidence that Alan Rawlins was murdered inside the bedroom. Tina had given the address of Donna Hastings, the girl she was staying with until she could move back into the flat.

  Whilst waiting, Anna went over and over in her head the possible scenario. There was no sign of forced entry, so did Alan know his killer? Whatever had occurred in the flat must have been very traumatic. It was possible that Alan had been bludgeoned whilst leaning over the bed. Had it been an argument that got out of control? Or was it a planned murder?

  To dispose of a body was no easy feat. She surmised that Tina would have had to have help, but if it had been some argument that resulted in murder, why not call the police and explain that it was an accident? The financial gain for Tina was the seventy-odd thousand in the joint savings account, plus Alan’s life-insurance policy. Surely that was not enough to commit murder? Tina’s salon was on the surface successful, but Anna knew it was also in debt; nevertheless she had to be making a good living.

  Anna rubbed her head and tried to think of the alternative scenario. Tina, with an accomplice, planned to kill Alan. The motive could be that she wanted out of the relationship and wanted the joint bank account for herself. That would mean it could possibly be a passionate relationship, but with whom? So far they had found no evidence to prove she was having any kind of affair. Okay, there had been some flirty behaviour at the gym, but nothing had surfaced from their interviews, to the contrary. Tina had claimed she was suspicious that Alan was leaving her for another woman, but so far there was no evidence of any other woman in Alan’s life.

  She was going around in circles again and she physically jumped when Paul tapped her shoulder.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. The bloody tubes were up the spout.’

  They headed into the forensic lab, where Liz Hawley was just arriving, also complaining of a tube strike. She was a middle-aged, rather rotund woman with straggly grey hair caught in a knot on the top of her head. She was also a very experienced scientist. As she put on her white coat she led them to her section of the lab.

  ‘Right. First I’ll deal with the cut-out area beneath the sofa in the lounge. We’ve examined the underlay that was left in place there, and there does not appear to be any wine staining. The section of carpet inserted by the bedside is not wine-stained and most probably came from beneath the living-room sofa. It looks like both areas were originally cut out with a Stanley knife, but the uneven ragged edges on the bedroom insert suggests scissors were used to re-shape it so it would fit.

  ‘Now, onto the blood distribution under the inserted piece of carpet by the bed. I would propose that the victim may have suffered a severe head injury or possibly stab wounds causing heavy blood loss, as some areas of staining were so dense. Although attempts had been made to clean it up, the blood had soaked through the underlay onto and between the floorboards where it pooled and congealed underneath. The victim could have been on the left side of the bed when initially attacked, as ultra-violet light testing revealed some minute traces of blood spatter on the bedside wall. It would appear that a bleaching agent was used to wipe the wall and we also found some minute bloodstaining on the edge of the mattress. The sheet we removed from the bed has no blood on it so it’s likely the original bloodstained one was destroyed or laundered. The pillows also have minute traces, but not the pillowcases.’

  ‘What kind of weapon do you think would have caused the injury?’ Anna asked her.

  ‘Well, my dear, that is really for you to find out. It could have been a blunt instrument, knife or even a gun, but without a body for a pathologist to examine it’s impossible to tell you. We have removed a few items from the flat for testing – a golf club, a baseball bat and hammer, but we haven’t recovered any trace evidence from them.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t say all that blood could have come from a severe nose bleed?’

  ‘No, definitely not with the heavily stained and pooled areas, but the staining on the pillows and mattress could have done. It would appear that whoever sustained the injuries lost a large volume of blood, which without immediate medical attention would probably result in death. Also, for this amount of blood to be found in one area, your victim must have been in a dormant position for quite some time, possibly lying over the edge of the bed or on the floor beside it.’

  Liz moved along the workbench. ‘We have recovered two hairs from one pillowcase and a semen stain on the bedsheet.’

  This pleased Anna. ‘That’s good. We’ll need to test if the hairs are Tina’s.’

  Liz picked up her notebook. ‘We have received the blood samples from the parents, Mr and Mrs Edward Rawlins, for genetic DNA comparison to the scene stains.’

  Anna waited, eager to know if their suspicions were correct and that Alan Rawlins was probably dead.

  ‘There are a couple of problems though. Firstly, the doctor who took Mrs Rawlins’s blood failed to secure the container properly, causing it to leak – which raises not only health and safety issues for my staff but also possible contamination. I will need another sample from her. In respect of Edward Rawlins’s profile, I’m not entirely happy with the result. Sometimes things can go wrong and the results can be misleading, but I can’t say at this stage that the blood from the flat did belong to their son.’

  ‘What do you mean by misleading?’

  ‘Well, in the past this type of DNA testing has sometimes revealed that the offspring is not the biological child . . .’

  ‘What, you mean like adoption?’

  ‘Possibly, but in this case the result of the genetic profile from the scene stains, when compared to Mr Rawlins’s DNA, is questionable. He may not be the father.’

  ‘I don’t believe it! It’s going to be difficult to find out.’

  ‘Why is that? I have enough of Mr Rawlins’s blood to run further tests, and once you get another sample from Mrs Rawlins . . .’

  ‘I meant find out who is the biological father. The mother has Alzheimer’s and didn’t recognise her son most of the time, or her husband.’

  ‘Well, to be certain either way, I will need to run some further tests for genetic markers on Mr Rawlins’s blood sample. As I said, sometimes mistakes can be made and you need to be one hundred per cent sure on victim identification for your investigation.’

  Anna was about to leave, disappointed, when Liz tapped her arm. ‘I’m not finished yet. There’s something else.’

  She led them to another section. Laid out were Alan Rawlins’s clothes from the black bin liners.

  ‘We didn’t find any blood on any of the clothes, but we have retrieved a single head hair and the colour does not match the two hairs recovered from the bedlinen.’

  Anna knew this was a very positive step.

  ‘Can you get DNA from these hairs?’

  ‘None of the hairs recovered have a root attached, but our best bet is to attempt to raise a mitochondrial profile for comparison. You inherit this type of DNA from your mother. However, the process is very time-consuming and can take a few weeks. Basically we have a very small cut strand of blonde hair from Mr Rawlins’s clothes, but the two hairs from the bedlinen are reddish and possibly dyed.’

  Liz checked her clipboard. ‘We have also compared the DNA from the semen stain against the blood pooling and they do not match.’ She gave a bark of a laugh. ‘Looks like somebody else has been sleeping in his bed.’

  Anna patted Liz’s arm. ‘This is fantastic, Liz. Thank you.’

  ‘Sadly, there’s no trace on the national DNA database for the blood or semen stains. There’s some further scene examina
tion I’d like to do and I don’t want to proceed without your permission as there’s a risk of losing evidence by this chemical testing.’

  Liz produced photographs of Tina’s bathroom: white bath, white tiles on the wall, white washbasin, and the floor covered in more white tiles.

  ‘It was just a tiny speck in the grouting between the tiles on the far side of the bath – and when I say tiny, I mean less than the size of a pinhead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blood. Although the use of bleaching agents is common in a bathroom and the speck of blood could have got there for a number of reasons, the smell of the bleach was very strong, considering Alan Rawlins has been missing for two months now.’ Liz showed them the photograph of the pristine bathroom, indicating with a pen where she had found the minuscule bloodstain.

  ‘There is the possibility that bleach has been used to clean up blood in the bathroom, and I want to use Luminol to detect any remaining specks that are not visible to the human eye. It’s a chemical spray that has to be used in darkness and which reacts with the haemoglobin in diluted bloodstains, causing them to glow a bright blue. It’s more commonly used in the US. However, the problem is it can damage genetic markers and also give false reactions to a number of things, but further tests to determine blood on anything recovered can be done in the lab. I personally only like to use it as a last resort, but have had positive results in the past – and as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

  ‘Do it,’ Anna said confidently.

  ‘Jolly good, I will get onto that.’ Liz closed her notebook. ‘Now then, last but not least. This is just my intuition from experience on a previous case. I think the victim was killed in the bedroom, possibly subsequently wrapped in the sheet and carried into the bathroom, then placed in the bath to be dismembered, as it’s easier to dispose of body parts rather than the whole corpse. We found no saws or knives that may have been used for this, but it is a possibility. Using Luminol might help us to determine if this scenario is correct, but for now it’s over to you to see if you can find anything that might have been used to kill or dismember the victim.’