Blood Line

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘Christ, that was some session,’ Paul said as they headed back to the station with Anna at the wheel.

  ‘She’s one of the best and it sort of makes you . . .’

  ‘Sick?’

  ‘No – more and more aware of what went on inside the flat. What I can’t get my head around is the motive. It can’t be money, it’s just not enough.’

  ‘I dunno – about a hundred grand would see me right.’

  ‘But would you kill for it?’

  Paul frowned, clearly finding it hard to come to terms with what they had just been told.

  ‘Why kill him? Why not just leave?’ he said. ‘They weren’t married – it doesn’t make sense to me.’

  ‘It’s got to be passion.’

  ‘Passion? Jesus Christ, that doesn’t work for me. Passionate enough to beat the guy over the head, maybe dismember him in the bath and then go out and dump whatever remains they have? That’s not passion: to me, that’s cold-blooded murder. And like we keep saying, the motive isn’t there.’

  ‘I think it’s passion,’ she insisted.

  ‘Well, all I can say is what kind of passion have you been involved with because I can’t see it.’

  ‘All right, think: they have DNA from the semen, plus hair from the bed which was not the victim’s. So whoever it belongs to has to have had sex after Alan was murdered. That’s passion, sick as it sounds.’

  They drove in silence for a while and then Paul sighed. ‘You know we still don’t have a positive that the blood was Alan Rawlins’s? Well, I’ve got another scenario. What if . . . no, no, it wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Go on,’ Anna prompted.

  ‘Okay. What if we discover that it wasn’t Alan Rawlins’s blood by the bed? What if he was involved in the murder instead, and he cleaned it all up and then went missing afterwards?’

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought, but Liz said the blood was not a match for the semen found on the bedsheet – so what if the hair and semen in the bed were Alan Rawlins’s, but the blood on the floor under the carpet was someone else’s.’

  Anna digested what he had said, mulling it over in her mind.

  ‘He was fair-haired, right? Liz said the hair found in the bed was reddish-dyed. It could be Tina’s, but either way we have to get him identified,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Well, if the genetic blood comparison doesn’t give it up we don’t have Alan Rawlins positively identified. There’re no hairbrushes, combs or razor to help us either. That in itself is odd, but not if he packed them up and took them away with him.’

  ‘Shit,’ Anna muttered under her breath.

  ‘Added to this,’ Paul went on, ‘it could mean that Tina genuinely wasn’t aware of what went on in the flat, that she didn’t know about the blood under the bed nor about the cutting up of the carpet.’

  ‘What about the bleach?’

  ‘She uses it at the salon, we know that.’

  Anna bit her lip. ‘So what you are saying is that Alan Rawlins committed the murder, cut up the body, moved

  it and then, knowing what he had done, went on the run?’

  ‘Yeah. Is it possible?’

  ‘You are the one suggesting it,’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I think,’ Anna hesitated, ‘that before we get into this mad conjecture we need verification that the blood was Alan Rawlins’s. If the further tests on Edward Rawlins’s blood reveal he is not the biological father, we revisit Mrs Rawlins. Maybe she can remember if she had an extramarital fling that resulted in the birth of Alan.’

  ‘We need to arrange for a police doctor to get another blood sample from her anyway,’ Paul said, yawning. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Well, as Liz said, there can sometimes be a blip in the blood testing, so again we have to wait for confirmation.’

  ‘This is a big step up from looking for a missing person, isn’t it, ma’am?’

  ‘You said it. We’ve got us a full-scale murder enquiry.’

  Chapter Six

  Faced with the evidence from the Forensic Department, Anna and Paul needed to work out their next moves. Now that the case had opened up, Anna felt it was time to put together a full murder team, so she spent the rest of the morning finding a couple more detectives, along with some clerical staff to begin coordinating all the interviews she wanted to take place.

  Liz Hawley had left a message that she would not be doing the Luminol test until the following morning, as the fingerprint team had not quite completed their examination. She also reminded them that she needed the further blood sample from Mrs Rawlins.

  After a quick lunch, Anna gave a briefing to the new detectives, DC Brian Stanley and DC Helen Bridges. They listened attentively as she explained the investigation to date. Finishing on Liz Hawley’s developments she opened the briefing for any questions. Brian Stanley, a thick-set dark-haired officer with unfortunate eyebrows that met together in the centre of his forehead, was an old-timer and had sat with his legs spread wide, resting his elbows on the front of the hard-backed chair he had turned around.

  ‘You get any feedback that the victim could be homosexual?’ he asked.

  Anna said that she had at one time contemplated the possibility, but had no evidence that he was.

  ‘If you take out money being the motive then it’s got to be some kind of passionate incentive to kill,’ Stanley persevered.

  Paul was bristling due to the man’s tone, but said nothing.

  ‘Yes, we have also discussed the motive situation. There’s not a lot of money, but murders have been committed for less,’ Anna pointed out.

  ‘But if we do get the information from Forensics that a body was severed in the flat, that doesn’t have the feel of a monetary gain. To dispose of a body it takes planning as well as cleaning up afterwards.’

  ‘Well, we do have to wait to get that verified from Liz Hawley as she will be testing tomorrow morning,’ Anna informed him.

  ‘If this murder was not one of passion but for money, then could it be premeditated? Guy gets off work early and makes sure his girlfriend leaves the flat. Have you come up with any kind of trouble in Alan Rawlins’s background?’ Brian asked.

  ‘No – to the contrary,’ Anna told him. ‘From the people we have interviewed he appears to have been a very decent, hardworking, studious man. He was kind and thoughtful, but shy – someone who kept himself to himself, who didn’t drink or use drugs.’

  ‘Sounds too good to be true,’ Brian smiled.

  ‘Yes. We have also been informed that he was a man who hated confrontations,’ Paul said, becoming more irritated with Brian Stanley who now hitched up his trousers.

  ‘That wouldn’t match with the Jewish couple. Didn’t the old boy say he saw him kicking the hell out of a wall?’

  ‘Correct. So maybe Alan Rawlins had more to him than we’ve been able to uncover,’ Anna replied to diffuse the tension between Paul and Brian.

  Brian Stanley had a habit of lifting his forefinger into the air to attract attention.

  ‘These body-builders at the gym he frequented . . . were they gay?’

  ‘Didn’t seem so to me, far from it,’ Anna replied, glancing at Paul.

  ‘What about this guy who lives in flat one – did he come over as a shirt-lifter?’

  Anna gave Brian a disapproving glare. Paul was tight-lipped with anger, but still he remained silent.

  ‘No, he did not. You can see from our investigation that he’s had quite a chequered career. Lost his life savings in that Icelandic bank crash and now works for the company listed. Apparently his sister is married to one of the chief executives so she might have had a hand in giving him work. He’s a very good-looking young man, by the way.’

  ‘At no time has anyone from the block of flats seen these two together – Tina Brooks and Mr Handsome?’ Stanley asked.

  ‘No, they have not.’

  ‘We get anything
from the phones? Have they been calling each other?’

  ‘No. We’ve checked out both landlines, although Phillips hardly uses his. Tina’s mobile has been checked but we are still waiting on Mr Phillips’s, so we don’t yet know if he contacted her – maybe at the salon’s a possibility, but it will take a long time to scroll through the hundreds of calls there.’

  ‘You got Alan Rawlins’s mobile from the glove compartment in his Merc at the garage, correct?’

  ‘Yes, it’s on the board,’ Paul said briskly.

  ‘Just wondering why it’s taken so long to check out his calls.’

  ‘I have checked them and there was nothing untoward.’ Paul looked over to Anna and again she interjected.

  ‘We have only just found out we have a possible murder case. Now unless there is anything else, Brian, we need to move on.’

  Brian took out a black-covered notebook and muttered that he would get onto the mobile companies ASAP. It was now the turn of DC Helen Bridges. In her mid-thirties, she was a quiet woman with a pleasant manner, wearing glasses.

  ‘Was Tina Brooks ever unhelpful?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘No, but she was always very edgy, especially when we went to the salon,’ Anna told her.

  Brian Stanley put up his index finger again.

  ‘Have we obtained any CCTV from Asda or verified that the bleach she bought was on special offer? And did she also buy the salon bleach from a different company?’

  ‘She admitted to buying it as she said they use it to wash the floors in the hair salon.’

  ‘But there was a semi-full one in the flat when you did the search?’ Helen said, reading up the case-file notes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That means if she bought four large containers, three and a half have been used up?’

  ‘Correct, Helen.’

  Brian now did his finger in the air again.

  ‘That has to mean she was involved in the cleaning up of the bloodstains. If she wasn’t, surely she would have noticed that there was a lot of the bleach missing, and said something about it?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct,’ Anna said, watching Brian make a laborious note in his book, again muttering that he would check that out and contact Asda. Helen half-rose from her chair then sat back down again.

  ‘Do we have any photographs of Tina Brooks?’ she asked, flicking through the file. Anna sighed.

  ‘No, we don’t, but we have that surfing picture of Alan Rawlins.’

  There was a guffaw from Brian Stanley and he suggested that they get a decent head shot of him ASAP.

  Anna brought the session to a close by outlining what the team would be working on the following morning. She suggested that the new detectives continue to familiarise themselves with the case-file to date before leaving for the night.

  She had just returned to her office when Paul knocked and walked in.

  ‘That bastard with the eyebrows gets on my nerves. At least he should have them plucked.’

  ‘Just let them settle in before you allow him to get under your skin.’

  ‘He’s already under it, the homophobic prick.’

  ‘Paul, that’s enough. It’s been a long day and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get home and recharge my batteries.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. What about the interview with Rawlins’s parents? You said you wanted to talk with the mother.’

  ‘We wait for the second blood-test results.’

  ‘Fine. See you tomorrow then.’

  ‘Goodnight, Paul.’

  Anna waited until he had gone before she sat back in her chair. From her desk she could look into the incident room via the semi-closed blinds on her window. Helen and Brian were standing by the incident-room board, conferring. Mr ‘Eyebrows’ might be a pain in the butt, but he was very experienced, and from the way the case was opening up she knew she would need all the help she could get.

  The next morning, Anna learned that there was a further delay in using the Luminol. The forensic team were waiting until the extensive search of the flat was finished, to avoid damaging anything the fingerprint team might still uncover. Liz Hawley had also contacted Anna to say that she was still doing more work on Mr Rawlins’s blood, and asked if a further sample had been taken from Mrs Rawlins. Anna rang the Rawlinses’ home, but the carer answered to say that Mr Rawlins was at work. Anna tried the courts where Edward Rawlins worked as an usher, but had to leave a message as his mobile was turned off.

  Impatient to get on with the day, she had another delay when Langton came into the station. She could see him conferring with Brian Stanley and waited for him to come into her office.

  When he eventually left Stanley and walked over to her office, he cocked his head to one side.

  ‘Well, well. This is getting more interesting, isn’t it?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘You know until you get that blood matched with Alan Rawlins’s, there’s not a lot you can do.’

  ‘I am aware of that, but do you know the problem?’

  ‘Yes,’ Langton said. ‘I’ve looked over the board.’

  Langton was wearing a very smart suit and his usual pristine shirt, but she noticed a stain on his blue tie. It amused her, because he was very obviously unaware of it. She knew how much he prided himself on always being well turned out. He sat down opposite her, popping some nicotine gum in his mouth.

  ‘If you prove it is Alan Rawlins and get further proof that his body could have been dismembered, it’s putting a heavy slant on the investigation. Alternatively, if it is not his then it’s a further complication – like who the hell is it?’

  ‘Going with the scenario that it’s not Alan’s blood, it would make sense why he did a disappearing act,’ Anna said.

  ‘Ditto if it was him cut up, but to date there has been no discovery of weapons. I think you should go ahead with the Luminol test as soon as possible, because if it is proven that there was a bloodbath in that bathroom, it really ups the ante on your enquiry.’

  ‘You are not telling me anything I don’t know.’

  ‘Suspects? You still have Tina Brooks in the frame?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes, but with reservations. It’s possible that after she left Alan at home and went to work, someone else came to their flat and either killed Alan or some other person, and had the evidence cleared up by the time she returned from work.’

  Langton chewed hard on his gum.

  ‘I don’t buy that,’ he said. ‘There’s no sign of forced entry. Then there’s the bleach, the new order of carpet and the squares cut out of the old. I think she is involved.’

  ‘We have no proof that she was,’ Anna said quietly.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I also think I jumped the gun by bringing her in for questioning, as we didn’t really gain anything from the interview bar the fact she denied any involvement.’

  ‘She also had Jonathan Hyde representing her – a good operator. Did she bring him on board herself?’ Langton asked.

  ‘No. She lucked in as he was the duty solicitor.’

  ‘Motive? What are your thoughts on that?’

  ‘Well, we have discussed the joint bank account and the life-insurance policy; added together it’s quite a substantial sum, around a hundred and twenty thousand, and although her business is doing well now, she’s admitted to being up to the limit on her overdraft. Somehow I don’t buy money as the motive.’

  ‘You checked it out? If she’s in debt, she might be getting in deeper.’

  ‘No, but I have been there and it looks like she’s got a good turnover and employs quite a lot of staff.’

  ‘Check it out.’

  ‘Will do. The other motive that I’ve been toying with is that perhaps Tina was having an affair with someone, and whoever that was could be implicated. But to date we’ve not found any evidence that she was seeing anyone else. We know she had quite a reputation at the local gym, but we’ve checked with all the instructors.’

 
‘There was a semen stain found in the master bed – right? Tina said, didn’t she, that Alan was possibly seeing someone else? So it could be his?’

  ‘Yes. But we also know it doesn’t match the DNA from the blood pooling. So the victim might not be Alan Rawlins. I am checking out if the semen could belong to the neighbour, Michael Phillips, who is single and very handsome.’

  She hesitated because the single hair also discovered in the bed was not the right colour match for the dark, glossy-haired Phillips. She scrawled a note to remind herself to get a hair sample for DNA from Tina, plus recent photographs.

  ‘Any witness that saw them together?’

  Anna looked up and Langton repeated the question.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘But there’s one odd thing that sort of takes away from Alan being the submissive non-confrontational type. A neighbour saw him kicking out at the wall close to their flat and punching it. This was a few days before he went missing.’

  ‘Or was cut up.’

  ‘Right.’

  Langton stood up, taking out the chewed gum and dropping it into her waste-basket.

  ‘You know, we have a result over in Highgate – brought charges last night. Bastard’s a real psychopath, but whether or not he’ll be fit to stand trial is another matter.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Thank you. I think what you need to do is obviously get the ID of the victim ASAP and dig around into any sexual deviancy. Old Brian reckons Mr Rawlins was homosexual. One of his close friends you interviewed was gay, right?’

  ‘Yes, but I disagree. I don’t think Alan was gay.’

  ‘Well, you never know, and if he was, he maybe didn’t want it known. Anything come from Forensics from Tina Brooks’s car?’

  ‘No. We’re waiting on Liz to get back to us.’