She put out her hand. ‘Thank you.’
He hovered and then asked if everything was all right. She glanced up as she began to read the report.
‘Everything is fine, Paul. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, I’ve heard that Langton’s coming in. Brian Stanley seems to think something is up.’
‘It is. We are going over budget. Have we had any feedback from checking out the hotels and estate agents in Cornwall?’
‘Not as yet. We’re onto that this morning.’
‘Good. That’s it – you can go.’
Paul closed the door and returned to the incident room. Something was up and the entire team could feel it. Anna’s manner that morning had been brittle and they had all noticed how much of an effort she had made with her appearance. Not that she ever looked scruffy or even untidy, but of late she had worn her hair snatched back in a band and no make-up. Now she looked ‘glossy’ as Helen had described her – as if she was getting ready to do battle.
Brian did his irritating hand up in the air gesture, with his index finger pointing to the ceiling.
‘We got a hit. There’s a property owned by a Daniel Matthews in Newquay. He’s the woofter friend of Alan Rawlins – right?’
Paul and Helen went to his desk.
‘I was onto the estate agents. This property was on the books of Kimberley’s, May Whetter and Grose, and also with a company called Lillicrap Chilcott. They’re independent estate agents and they specialise in the sale of houses with a sea view. They’ve got agents in St Austell and Fowey, and it was a subsidiary agent who arranged the sale eight months ago – cash deal. It sold for four hundred and fifty grand. Place was unbelievably cheap for the location as it was a bit run down and needed a lot of work done on it. The buyer forked out an extra fifty-thousand cash for the agent to get the work done ASAP. With the renovation now complete it’s worth nearly seven hundred thousand.
Paul looked at Anna’s closed office blinds as he returned to his desk to place a call to Daniel Matthews, the graphic artist they had interviewed very early in the enquiry.
‘He must have bloody known about the place and been lying through his teeth,’ Paul muttered.
But Daniel Matthews denied any knowledge of a property in Cornwall and said that there had to be some mistake. He also denied ever being there or ever having any discussion with Alan Rawlins regarding ownership. Paul looked over to Brian.
‘You got a phone number for this place?’
‘Yep. You want me to ring? The agents said someone was living there.’
‘Maybe talk it over with the Gov – see what she thinks. Don’t want to tip him off.’
Anna was concentrating on the Tech Support report on the hard drive from Alan Rawlins’s computer. Paul tapped, but didn’t wait for her to answer. He barged in, saying, ‘We’ve traced a property sold for cash to someone calling himself Daniel Matthews – the friend of Alan Rawlins whom we interviewed.’
‘“Calling himself” – what do you mean?’
‘I’ve just talked to him and he denies any knowledge of owning it or ever even going to Cornwall. Brian’s checked and there is someone living there. Do we contact them or not?’
‘No. Make no contact. Not until I give the word. And Paul, could you not just barge into my office.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just good news and I wanted to tell you.’
‘Enthusiasm is terrific, Paul, but in future wait. All right, how much was the property sold for?’
‘Four hundred and fifty grand cash, plus an extra fifty K for renovation work.’
‘Lot of money. Will you now concentrate on the Tech Support information? I want everyone up to speed on it for a briefing later this morning. Also, wait a minute.’
Anna reached for a file and thumbed through it.
‘It’s a report made by Helen. This was to do with me wanting to get the dates when Tina Brooks went on the hairdressing competition forays.’ Anna skimmed down the page and looked up. ‘Okay, this is it. She spoke to Donna because she said Tina had gone out to make a call. Did she mean out of the salon? We’ve so far not been able to make any connection between Tina and anyone else she could be involved with, which for me would be the neighbour Michael Phillips. Can you ask her to re-check with Donna exactly what she meant?’
‘Yep. Anything else?’
‘No, thank you.’
Paul immediately went to talk to Helen. She had not given it much thought and shrugged, saying that Donna probably meant that Tina had simply gone out of the salon, but she would double-check.
Helen then nodded over to Anna’s office. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Bloody hell!’ Brian Stanley blurted out. ‘Any of you up to speed on what the Tech Support got off Alan Rawlins’s hard drive? Fifty-eight homosexual contact websites, and I’m only on page three . . . The guy was into some sex toys, I can tell you. Have you read it yet, Paul?’
Paul glanced in Brian’s direction and returned to his desk.
‘Not as yet,’ he replied coolly, ‘and the Gov says no contact is to be made with the property in Cornwall. She wants to keep the element of surprise, so maybe you should get back onto the estate agents to ask them not to make any approach to whoever is living there.’
‘Does she think it could be Alan Rawlins?’
‘I dunno. But I think we are up for a trip to Cornwall.’
Unseen by any one of them, Langton was standing in the entrance to the incident room listening to their conversation. As he approached the team, Helen quickly put in a call to Anna and then asked if Langton wanted a coffee as DCI Travis was expecting him.
‘Yes, and a bacon toasted sandwich, no tomatoes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Helen hurried out as Langton made his way to Anna’s office. She was ready and waiting standing beside her desk. He didn’t knock, but walked straight in.
‘Good morning,’ she said brightly.
‘Morning. Your team reckon it’s seaside-time. I overheard that you still want to go to Cornwall.’
‘I think it might be necessary.’ Anna went and sat behind her desk.
‘So you’ve not discussed with them what we talked about last night?’
‘Not yet, no. I wanted to talk to you first.’
He sat down in front of her desk and gave an open-handed gesture. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
‘Let’s just wait for coffee to be brought in so we won’t get disturbed. It’s been quite a busy morning already as we received the tech report from the hard drive off Alan Rawlins’s computer. Makes very interesting reading.’
‘Don’t tell me it throws up yet more suspects to be interviewed?’
‘I think his father attempted to delete a lot of the files, but they were able to retrieve them.’
Helen tapped and carried in a tray of coffee and the toasted sandwich, which she placed on the table between Langton and Anna.
‘Did you call the hair salon?’ Anna asked.
‘I did, but Donna isn’t in until eleven.’
Helen left as Anna passed over his toasted sandwich.
‘Not had breakfast?’ she asked.
‘Nope. What about you?’ He took a bite and cocked his head to one side. ‘You look very pretty. You’ve done something to your hair.’
‘Washed it.’ She picked up her coffee and sipped.
Langton said nothing as he finished his sandwich, eating at his usual rate of knots.
‘About last night,’ Anna said tentatively.
‘Yes?’
‘I do not agree with you regarding the way I have been handling this investigation. For one, you brought up the case my father advised you on because you had tunnel vision and followed the wrong line of enquiry. He told you to focus the investigation and interview all known previous contacts of your victim; the culprit, in his estimation, was close to home and probably her ex-boyfriend. Which proved to be correct.’
Langton nodded, wondering where she was going with her careful
ly chosen words. She was very tense – he could feel it.
‘I think you brought up this old case you worked on because you believe that I am going in the wrong direction by widening the trace and interview of Rawlins’s contacts to such a degree that it is removing suspicion from Tina Brooks, who you believe should be the prime suspect.’
‘Correct.’
‘In your case, James, you had a body. I don’t. I have blood pooling and we have been unable to get a positive DNA result so my victim remains unidentified. As far as I can ascertain, the only similarities with your case were that your victim went from being a nice young woman with a small child to you uncovering that she did have quite a voracious sexual appetite. So she led a somewhat double life, changing sexual partners frequently.’
She sipped her coffee. He stared at her, refusing to interrupt, but becoming irritated by her appraisal of his old case.
‘My investigation is only similar in that one aspect. To all intent and purpose, when we first looked at Alan Rawlins as a missing person, no one had a bad word to say against him. He was a handsome, dedicated, hardworking and caring man. He was consistently described as shy, introverted and a man who loathed confrontation of any kind. It appeared that this gentle, decent and respected man had no enemies and it was possible that his girlfriend, Tina Brooks, had killed him in some kind of rage. The blood distribution was so extensive that even without a body, it was deemed by forensic experts unlikely that anyone could have survived the attack. It is also suspected by Forensics that the victim was dismembered, and again this is supported by the blood spattering and various blood samples taken from the victim’s bathroom.’
Langton sighed and crossed his legs.
‘I’m sorry to take so much time, but I think this all needs to be said because you implied that I was not managing the investigation, but allowing it to spiral out of control.’
‘Correct,’ he said. To make even more of a point he glanced at his watch.
‘I have subsequently discovered that my possible victim, Alan Rawlins, led a double life. He was a liar, he was also homosexual and favoured what can only be described as sado-masochistic one-night stands from men he contacted through the internet or erotic male magazines. He was able to continue this double life by leaving London whenever the opportunity arose to spend time in Cornwall. He was very athletic and an experienced surfer. We now have information that he also accumulated a considerable amount of money, cash payments for vintage cars he customised and sold. We believe he has purchased, for cash and using the name of his old schoolfriend, a sea view property in Cornwall worth over half a million. He also used schoolfriends’ names when he paid for sex. He was able to hide this double life from his girlfriend also. She believed they were to be married, they had a joint bank account for seventy thousand pounds and he had only a small life-insurance policy for fifty thousand. Alan Rawlins lied to Tina Brooks, who had no knowledge of his homosexuality nor that he had substantial cash savings.’
Langton looked on with surprise as Anna opened her desk drawer and took out a packet of cigarettes; she opened it, but then before taking one out she tossed the pack down. He had never seen her smoke. In fact, he didn’t even know that she did.
‘From the files on his computer we have learned that Alan Rawlins was also making more money, again in cash, and he was also paying out large chunks of money whilst living in Cornwall. These are in payments of five to ten thousand pounds and on a regular basis. I think that he was possibly involved in dealing in drugs and the purchase of the house and other cash transactions are a means of laundering the money.’
Langton closed his eyes and shook his head.
‘Also missing is a known drug dealer called Sammy Marsh. He’s got a police record so it’s hoped we may get a DNA match from his profile to ascertain if he is actually the victim we first believed to be Alan Rawlins. We have semen and a single strand of reddish-coloured hair recovered from the bedlinen at Tina Brooks’s flat. As yet we have not had confirmation that the hair belonged to Tina, but I’m waiting for the forensic team to get back to me as I personally took a buccal swab test from her. We have been unable to find a razor, hairbrush or toothbrush that belonged to Alan Rawlins to test for his DNA. It would appear that he was more than aware of forensic testing, as his computer files show extensive research into forensic science. Also, the internet search history, believe it or not, shows he has been looking at numerous cases of people changing their identity. These cases range from the UK to the USA. Alan Rawlins, I now believe, planned his disappearance.’
Langton took a deep breath.
‘James, he planned it and perhaps whoever died in that flat is either this Sammy Marsh or the person he has changed identities with. What Alan Rawlins didn’t believe was that his hidden life would be uncovered. He must have been planning this for some considerable time and I think we might be able to prove it by checking out the person living in his property in Cornwall.’
Langton rested his elbows on his knees, looking at the floor. Anna waited for him to speak, but he kept his head down.
‘I need to go to Cornwall,’ she insisted. ‘I totally refute your insinuations that I have allowed this case to run out of control. I am in control and I have not got tunnel vision. I think the detective work done by myself and my team cannot be faulted. It may appear extensive, but we are still on budget and—’
‘Shush, shush,’ he said softly, still looking down. Eventually he sat upright and stretched his legs out in front of him, then began to speak.
‘Tina Brooks lived in that flat and she agreed to her boyfriend or fiancé being reported missing after two weeks, after he was last seen leaving work early because he had a migraine. She says she left him in bed and when she returned from her work he was not there. He hasn’t reappeared since. You have had almost two weeks whilst you handle the investigation into whether or not he is murdered. You come to the conclusion that he has met with foul play because carpet has been cut from beneath the sitting-room sofa and then used as an insert to replace a damaged area beside the bed. This, you believe, was obviously done to conceal heavy bloodstaining.’
‘Yes, I know that, but—’
‘Don’t interrupt me,’ he snapped. ‘You also discover as yet unidentified semen and head hair from a sheet that may have replaced the original one, which would have undoubtedly had bloodstains on it. You subsequently discover further blood pooling and blood-spattering in the bathroom that was cleaned with bleach you know was bought by Tina Brooks. You also know she ordered a roll of new carpet, her excuse being that the landlord would keep the initial deposit if he discovered any damage to the old one.’
Anna sat listening tight-lipped.
‘You have a young man living right next door – a suspect, who has refused to give you a DNA sample – correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have so far been unable to make a connection between these two – Tina and what’s his name?’
‘Michael Phillips.’
‘You have her landline records and her mobile ones and there has been no contact between the two of them – correct?’
‘Yes.’
He stood up and rubbed at his old injured knee.
‘You believe that Tina Brooks was unaware of her boyfriend’s predilection for homosexual one-night stands. She never went to Cornwall, she claims she has no knowledge of Alan Rawlins’s other life. They planned to marry and she did wonder if there was perhaps another woman as . . .’
Langton paced the office. No matter how irritated Anna was by him, she still had to be impressed by his retentive memory.
‘I think she said he had become distant and tetchy with her, and she wondered if she had been pressing too hard for wedding dates and so on. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
He sat down again. ‘I don’t believe it. I think she’s a liar. You want a motive? What if she discovered what her boyfriend was up to? Found out he was leading this double life and added to that was awash w
ith money?’
‘Money she couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to get her hands on,’ Anna said, getting very edgy.
‘Believe me, people have killed for a lot less than what she’s got in their joint bank account, but your motive is there: betrayal and rage. She is also, according to one of your reports, very strong. She works out in the local gym and she flew at you – right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Think about it, Anna. She was the last person to see him alive, and unless you have proof that she did not return to that flat, and did not, as she claimed, come back the same night he left work with a migraine, but stayed away for a week or two weeks even, someone picked up that blood-drenched bedding, someone replaced the bloodsoaked carpet, someone used bleach to clean that flat or attempt to clean it up. Someone had to carve up the body and remove it, and you believe that she is Miss Innocent? Clean linen was put on the bed, Anna; someone had sex in that freshly made bed. Who else is living there?’
Anna swallowed and looked down at the mass of files and statements on her desk.
‘Now you are bringing up Christ knows how much evidence that opens up this double life Alan Rawlins lived. How many drug dealers are you going to question? How many surfers, estate agents and ex-boyfriends, when what you have is your prime suspect throwing a punch at you. You have to crack her open, Anna, you have to find the key that’ll make her tell you the truth because in my estimation she has been lying and leading you by the fucking nose.’
Anna said nothing. Langton glanced at his watch again.
‘I have to go. Break her, Anna, break that flash neighbour of hers too and find out if he’s involved or not. In the meantime, just drop this Cornwall escapade. It’s proof of only one thing: that Alan Rawlins was a man scared to get out of the closet and who hid his homosexuality.’
‘It’s more than that,’ she said churlishly.
‘No, it isn’t. Better still, Anna, try and find the fucking body. It has to be somewhere, it has to have been dumped somewhere.’
‘I don’t agree with you.’
‘What?’
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