Blood Line

by Lynda La Plante

  Paul and Brian escorted her into the station and after she was booked in, a uniformed officer led her to a cell to await the arrival of her brief. In the incident room Helen asked if Tina had created a fuss when they arrested her and Brian shook his head.

  ‘She’s hardly said a word. Got all dressed up, stinks of some awful perfume that turned my stomach. She just sort of accepted it all, calm as a cucumber. Am I right, Paul?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve never arrested anyone who appeared to be getting ready for a cocktail party. She’s freaky. The only time she got a bit rattled was when she wasn’t allowed her handbag in the cell with her and we also took off her high heels. I reckon Travis was a bit side-tracked by her attitude. It took us all by surprise.’

  ‘You think she knows it’s curtains?’ Helen asked.

  Paul glanced at Brian and shrugged. ‘You know the saying it’s not over until—’

  Brian was interrupted as Anna walked in to say that Jonathan Hyde was in reception and could one of them please bring him to her office.

  Helen noticed that Anna was very tense.

  ‘The guys say that Tina is very calm and didn’t create when you arrested her,’ Helen remarked.

  ‘That’s right. It wasn’t as if she was expecting us – at least I don’t think so – but she’s certainly got her feelings under control.’

  ‘Did she look scared?’

  ‘No, Helen, she didn’t.’

  ‘She will be when she knows what we’ve got against her,’ Paul predicted as he saw Brian bringing in Jonathan Hyde.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Hyde – would you come into my office?’ Anna said pleasantly and gestured for him to go ahead of her.

  They all watched as Anna’s office door closed behind them.

  It was three-quarters of an hour later when Anna called through to Brian to bring Tina Brooks up from the cells and to put her into interview room one.

  ‘With or without her shoes?’

  ‘With, Brian, and she can have her handbag. It was checked, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It contained a compact, lipstick, credit cards and purse. That’s it.’

  ‘In five then.’

  Paul straightened his tie. He was very nervous, knowing this was make or break, but at the same time couldn’t think how Tina Brooks was going to be able to walk free again as she had done on two previous occasions.

  Jonathan Hyde requested time to talk to his client and Anna agreed that he could be taken down to the interview room. Brian led him out and Anna emerged from her office. She looked at Paul.

  ‘You ready for this?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  They spent some time arranging the files and photographs, and checking that there was a television set in the interview room so they could show the CCTV footage from the store. Another monitor screen would be up and rolling in the adjoining room to allow members of the team to watch the interview, which would also be audio-and video-recorded. It was later than Anna had calculated – now coming up to one o’clock – but she didn’t feel like eating any lunch, nor did Paul. They sat ready and waiting for Hyde to finish conversing with his client.

  At 1.45 p.m. a uniformed PC came into the incident room to say that Mr Hyde and his client were ready. Anna collected a heap of files, Paul carried the rest, and together they walked down the stone steps to the floor below and along to the interview rooms.

  ‘Good luck.’

  Anna turned to see Langton entering the corridor. She didn’t need this and she stopped in her tracks.

  ‘I’ll be in the monitor room,’ he said, almost cheerfully. She gave a brief nod and continued to the door of interview room one. She could see through the small window that Tina was sitting beside Hyde.

  ‘Here we go,’ she whispered to Paul.

  They walked in and the door closed behind them. In the monitor room Langton sat on a chair and eased another closer to prop up his leg, before picking up the remote to turn on the monitor screen. Part of him would have liked to be in on the action, but instead he would watch it – watch it very closely as he was concerned that Anna had lost her ambition, lost what he had believed her capable of. He hoped she would prove him wrong. Her promotion had been very much down to him, but he was not a man to ever allow any personal feelings or previous relationships to interfere in his professional assessment. He could very easily make sure the next step of her career was to a desk job rather than heading up a murder enquiry.

  Chapter Twenty

  Anna cautioned Tina and informed her that they would be videoing and audio-taping the interview. Tina had remained impassive, staring at her folded hands resting on the table.

  ‘We have acquired some new evidence that concerns you, but I would like to give you the opportunity of repeating exactly what occurred on the day of March the fifteenth. This would be when, as you have stated, you were phoned by Alan Rawlins, as he was suffering from a migraine and you drove him from his workplace to your flat.’

  Tina sighed.

  Anna had the statement from Tina in front of her. She continued.

  ‘You have stated that you subsequently returned home at around six-thirty in the evening and discovered that Mr Rawlins was not, as you had expected, at home. Do you have anything you would like to add to this statement?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You yourself did not report Alan missing, but stated that you felt he might have left you for another woman. We were subsequently approached by a Mr Edward Rawlins who was greatly concerned for his son’s safety. This was two weeks after the day Alan Rawlins had left work suffering from a migraine.’

  Tina continued to look down, scraping at the cuticle of one of her manicured nails.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed without looking up.

  ‘Due to the fact there had been no movement from your joint bank account with Mr Rawlins, no credit-card transactions, and that by now it was almost eight weeks since he had last been seen, it was thought that something untoward might have happened to him. You allowed myself and Officer Paul Simms to search your premises and during this search we discovered that a section of carpet had been cut from under your living-room sofa. You stated that Alan had cut that section of the carpet as some wine had been spilled and he was concerned that the landlord would ask for damages to be paid.’

  Paul passed over the photograph of the lounge showing the cut-out area. Tina glanced at it and then Paul took out the next photograph.

  ‘During the search of your premises we subsequently discovered that a second area of carpet had been cut out. This was to the left side of the double bed in the main bedroom. That section would appear to have been replaced with the piece of carpet from under your sofa. Please look at the photograph, Tina.’

  Tina stared at the photograph and pushed it back across the table.

  ‘Forensics found no wine stain on the carpet removed from beneath the sofa or the underlay. However, when the inserted piece of carpet was lifted from beside the bed they discovered a bleach-washed bloodstain. The blood had in fact seeped through the underlay into and under the floorboards. Due to the extent of the blood pooling it was doubtful that whoever had sustained an injury resulting in this amount of bloodloss would still be alive.’

  Paul passed Tina the scene of crime photographs showing the bloodstained floorboards and the congealed blood underneath them. Again she stared at the photographs, but gave no reaction or reply.

  Anna continued, her voice quiet and steady.

  ‘Subsequently, to determine if there were other bloodstained areas that had been cleaned, the forensic team used a solution of Luminol which reacts to cleaned, or non-visible blood, by glowing in the dark.’

  Paul showed one photograph after another of the Luminol reaction glowing in the hallway and on the bathroom tiles and floor. Tina didn’t seem interested, but her brief scrutinised each photograph and then made notes.

  ‘We now know through DNA testing that all the blood pooling, spattering and blood swipes recovered or revealed wit
h the aid of Luminol belonged to Alan Rawlins.’

  This was the first time Tina looked towards Anna. It was hard to detect what she was thinking or feeling as she quickly lowered her eyes.

  ‘Do you have anything you want to say about this, Tina?’

  ‘No.’

  Anna nodded to Paul and he produced the receipt for four large containers of bleach purchased by Tina the day after Alan Rawlins had returned home with a migraine.

  ‘It was determined that an extensive clean-up had been done in your flat. Bleach had been used to wipe around the walls and the bathroom. You have admitted purchasing containers of bleach and we have the receipt and CCTV footage dated the sixteenth of March confirming this. You have maintained that you bought it for use in your beauty salon, however we were unable to find three of the containers.’

  Tina sighed, but still remained with her head down. ‘I used them in the salon.’

  ‘Did you also use this?’

  Paul passed over a still from the CCTV. Tina frowned and picked up the photograph of her at the checkout till.

  ‘You can obviously see what it is, Tina; it’s you buying an axe.’

  Paul passed across the second series of photographs – this time Tina at the returns desk with the axe.

  ‘March the nineteenth, two days after purchasing the axe you are on camera returning it to the store to claim a refund.’

  There was a pause. Tina crossed her legs and glanced at her brief, but remained silent.

  ‘Would you please explain what this item was purchased for?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Anna leaned back in her chair.

  ‘No comment? Then let me tell you what I think you used this axe for, Tina. To hack up Alan Rawlins. Having dragged his body into the bathroom you used this axe to slash him and dismember him to enable you to remove his body with ease.’

  Hyde tapped the table with his pen.

  ‘My client does not wish to answer this allegation, and without proof that indeed this axe was used in the manner you have suggested, she wishes to remain silent in the event she might implicate herself.’

  ‘As your client has admitted that no one else was living at her flat on these dates, the implication is not just obvious, but shows she must have murdered Alan Rawlins,’ Anna insisted.

  ‘Then we reach an impasse because my client does not wish, as is her right, to answer questions relating to the purchase or return of the axe.’

  ‘If there is an innocent reason then I’d like to hear it.’

  ‘I have advised my client not to answer.’

  ‘Why don’t you advise your client to start telling me the truth? She has lied from day one. Alan Rawlins was murdered in the flat she shared with him.’

  ‘If you have evidence to show that this axe was used to kill or dismember Alan Rawlins, then kindly present it, but it seems clear to me it was returned unused to the store and my client was given a refund. Is that correct?’

  Anna leaned close to Paul and whispered. He opened another file and passed her the photographs and reports.

  ‘I must inform you that we have identified and recovered the axe and it is presently with the Forensic Department who have discovered some blood on it. We are awaiting verification that it’s Alan Rawlins’s.’

  Hyde reacted and gave a covert glance to Tina. She leaned close to him whispering, but he clearly didn’t like it.

  ‘The mattress removed from your bedroom, Tina, was bloodstained, and bleach had been used in an attempt to clean it off. Also discovered on the sheet on the bed when examined by Forensics was a semen stain and male head hair that does not match Alan Rawlins’s DNA profile.’

  The photographs of the bedsheet before removal were shown and Hyde replaced them in front of Paul.

  ‘After you’d murdered him, Tina, who did you sleep with? Who was in the bed with you – lying on the mattress still stained with your boyfriend’s blood? Did it make you feel sexy, knowing what you’d done? No one even knew he was missing, did they? Did you enjoy it? What kind of sick perverted woman are you?’

  ‘My client has denied . . .’ began Hyde.

  ‘Your client is lying; you have the evidence in front of you. How can you explain this, Tina? What made you do it? Anger? Hatred? Did you find out that the man you intended to marry was a homosexual and was planning to leave you, not for another woman, but for a twenty-one-year-old guy? Was that what drove you to do this?’

  There was a flicker of a reaction. Tina pursed her lips tightly and Anna stepped up the pressure. Paul passed her the photograph of the house in Cornwall.

  ‘Look at the property he’d bought for his lover. He was intending to walk out on you and live with this boy. He was working on that snazzy little Mercedes as his birthday gift for that young guy’s twenty-first. It must have made you feel old and worn and betrayed, considering all the money you’d managed to save was a paltry seventy thousand when Alan had thousands being hoarded in a bank in the Cayman Islands and had paid almost half a million for the lovely beachside house.’

  At last Anna was getting through to Tina. She was wriggling in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

  Anna kept up the pressure.

  ‘Find it all out, did you? Find his mobile phone and start to put two and two together? It must have made the bile rise up, made you bitter and angry enough to want to kill him. You trusted him, you loved him and you’d driven him home because the poor lamb had a migraine.’

  ‘I didn’t know any of this until you fucking told me,’ Tina snapped.

  ‘You didn’t know? You didn’t have any idea that when he went to Cornwall for his supposed surfing holidays, he was screwing young pretty boys? He made sure you didn’t know, didn’t he? Used his former schoolfriends’ names just in case the old bitch at home tried to catch him out.’

  ‘I trusted him.’ She was wringing her hands.

  ‘You told me he never liked confrontation, never argued with you – but you found out about his other life, didn’t you? You confronted him, you wanted to get to the truth and you wanted to know if he was about to leave you.’

  ‘You couldn’t have an argument with him – you don’t understand. He would just walk away. He would not argue with me and you don’t know what you are talking about.’

  Langton leaned towards the monitor screen, muttering to himself.

  ‘Do it, girl, push her – she’s cracking.’

  Anna did not feel as confident as Langton that Tina was opening up. She continued to goad the woman in an attempt to get her angry enough to either admit what she’d done or make a slip-up that showed her guilt; at the same time she was trying to fathom out what was constantly niggling at her. What was the missing jigsaw piece? She intuitively knew there was something else, but just couldn’t place it. So she pressed on in the same manner, never taking her eyes from Tina’s face.

  ‘I know enough about Alan, Tina. He was never going to marry you, and when you found out just how much he had betrayed you, you were not going to let anyone else have him. He was weak, he was ill in bed, it was the ideal moment to kill him.’

  Tina shook her head and laughed.

  ‘You think you knew him? Well, let me tell you he was never what you are trying to make out. Yes, he hated confrontations, yes, he didn’t like to argue – but you also never wanted to goad him into a face-off because . . . because . . .’

  ‘Because what, Tina?’

  She clicked her fingers.

  ‘He could snap just like that. You never knew which way he would go, if he didn’t like something. Everything had to be just perfect – and if it wasn’t, he could get very nasty. And let me tell you, once was enough for me – just once – and I never ever got into an argument with him over anything again.’

  ‘Was that when you killed him?’

  ‘NO! You are not listening. I just said I did not argue with him. We did not argue because I knew it would be a waste of time.’

  ‘Because he would leave you?�
�

  ‘No, because he would win.’

  ‘What about his friends? Did they also never argue with him?’

  ‘What friends? I never met any of them bar a couple and they weren’t my type. I was working hard to get my salon on its feet and by the time I got home I wasn’t in the mood for entertaining anyone, never mind his friends.’

  Langton swore. Anna was losing her pressure and Tina was now sitting up straight as if she was in control.

  ‘Did you meet Sammy Marsh?’ Anna asked, more than aware that she had let the interview go off-kilter, and she more or less threw the name in to give herself some time to try and get back on track. It was apparent she had taken Tina off-guard. Her reaction was interesting. She shook slightly and pressed back in her chair. Paul scrabbled through the file and passed over a mugshot taken of Sammy.

  ‘Sammy Marsh, Tina – this man. Please look at the photograph.’

  Tina swallowed, shaking her head.

  ‘You have never met this man?’

  ‘No. I don’t know him.’

  ‘You sure?’

  Tina turned to Hyde and said she needed to use the toilet. Unable to prevent this, Paul informed the uniformed WPC waiting outside that she had to escort their suspect to the ladies.

  Anna got up and followed. ‘I want a female officer inside the ladies with her.’

  Tina turned on her. ‘For fuck sake, I need to have a wee! I’ve been here since early morning, all right?’

  Anna ignored her as she hurried along the corridor.

  ‘You need one as well, do you?’ Tina shouted after her.

  Langton walked out from the monitor room, catching Anna as she passed.

  ‘You let her off the hook, Anna.’ He was about to continue, but she ignored him, heading for the stairs to the incident room. A female officer passed her to do as requested and stay with Tina whilst she relieved herself. Anna told her over her shoulder to keep her eye on Tina Brooks. If necessary, ask for the lavatory door to be kept open.