Blood Line

Chapter Fifteen

Helen looked over as Brian returned to the incident room, holding up her hand and tapping her watch.

‘Don’t have a go at me,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve been with bloody Langton all afternoon. Any developments?’

‘No, but I don’t think the Gov liked you and Langton treading on her heels. She wants you to call her and tell her what went down.’

‘Bugger all, that’s what. Have they arrived in Cornwall yet?’

‘Any time now. It’s a long schlepp by train and . . .’ Helen checked her watch again. ‘Too late now, but the manager of the Asda store called re the CCTV.’

‘Shit – I forgot all about that.’

Helen said that Anna had again asked if there was any CCTV footage from the time that Tina bought the containers of bleach. Brian slumped at his desk.

‘What’s so important?’ he said wearily. ‘We have the bloody receipt, so we know the date and time the bleach was bought.’

‘Well, the manager said the interior CCTV was working but he’d only be there until six, so you’ve missed him. He said he will give us the hard drive for the CCTV footage we are interested in, but he wants a replacement.’

‘You telling me they have cameras on every checkout till?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll find out when you see the manager.’

Brian yawned and said he would go over there and collect it in the morning.

‘You can get your groceries in at the same time,’ Helen joked. ‘There’ll be a lot to go through so I don’t mind helping you view it.’

‘Okay, whatever. My stomach is playing me up. The ruddy hair salon had this stink of glue for false nails, got right on my chest.’

‘You’d better call the Gov,’ Helen insisted.

‘Although I wasn’t in there that long. Langton was – I didn’t think he was ever coming out and I waited for him outside.’

‘Just call her, will you?’

The train was pulling into their station as Anna received Brian’s call. She listened as she climbed down from the compartment, leaving Paul to carry her overnight bag. By the time she caught up with him he was passing over their tickets to the ticket collector.

‘What did he have to say?’ Paul wanted to know.

‘Not a lot. It seems Langton spent a long time in the hair salon chatting to the girls and eventually Tina.’

As they headed for the station’s exit they could see a plain-clothes officer standing by a patrol car. He was short, overweight and yawning as they approached.

‘This doesn’t bode well for slick detective work,’ Paul muttered.

They introduced themselves and DC Harry Took opened the rear passenger door, but Anna got into the front to sit beside him.

‘I suppose the best way to start is to get you settled in to Mrs Morgan’s,’ the DC began. ‘It’s a nice clean place and she cooks up a good breakfast.’

‘Is it far from the station?’ Anna asked.

‘The train station?’

‘No, the police station.’

‘Oh sorry. No, it’s not far, but it’s after six so I doubt anyone’ll be there. Well, there will obviously be officers working late, but the ones allocated to assist your enquiry expect to get an early start. We reckoned you’d want to have something to eat, and my boss DCI Ed Williams has booked a table for seven-thirty at the Bear. Nice pub and a good menu, all home cooking on the premises.’

Anna thought he would never stop talking as he listed other restaurants that they should try. Eventually he turned into a residential area of three-storey townhouses with small front gardens and stopped outside one which had a Vacancies sign in the front window.

‘This is it, ma’am. I’ll be getting off now.’

Paul carried their bags out of the car as Anna tetchily asked how they were to get to the pub to meet DCI Williams. Harry swivelled his bulk round in his seat to point down the road.

‘Right on the corner, fifty yards down.’

The bed and breakfast was spotlessly clean and Paul and Anna had rooms next to each other on the first floor. They didn’t have en-suite bathrooms, but there was a washbasin in both rooms and a shared bathroom and lavatory on the same floor. Anna quickly unpacked the few things she had brought, hanging them up in the small single wardrobe that had a strong smell of mothballs. She put her underwear into a chest of drawers and laid out the contents of her vanity bag by the sink. She washed her face in cold water, cleaned her teeth, reapplied some make-up and ran a comb through her hair. It was by now almost eight as she tapped on Paul’s door. He opened it up with a bath-towel strung around his waist.

‘Sorry, I had a quick shower. You all ready to leave?’

‘Yes. Knock on my door as soon as you are.’

‘Right. You’re not changing then?’

‘No, Paul, I want to get on with this as soon as possible. We’re not here on a ruddy vacation.’

It took Paul ten minutes before he was dressed, shaved and wearing a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt and a denim jacket. The landlady was a pleasant woman, handing them a key each and asking that if they were to come in late to be as quiet as possible.

‘My husband and I have a room on the ground floor, but you are the only guests. Do you know what time you want breakfast?’

‘Seven-thirty please, Mrs Morgan,’ Anna said, pocketing the key.

‘Will that be a full cooked breakfast or a continental?’

‘Cooked for me,’ Paul said immediately.

Anna asked for just coffee and toast.

‘Have a nice evening.’ Mrs Morgan smiled and then asked if they would like a newspaper.

‘Thank you, but we’ll leave straight after breakfast.’

‘I’ve got you both down for two nights,’ the woman said, her smile fading.

‘Could we discuss this at breakfast?’ Anna was eager to leave.

Mrs Morgan didn’t seem that pleased, watching as they left, closing the door after them. It always annoyed her when guests changed their bookings, but luckily it was early in the season. If it hadn’t been she would have told them straight away that they would have to pay for the two nights booked.

The pub was, as Harry Took had said, just a short walk, but it was colder than either of them had expected and the wind was really sharp.

‘Christ, it’s bloody cold, isn’t it?’ Paul complained, hunching up inside his denim jacket. Anna didn’t reply, but she wished she’d brought a heavier coat. She was wearing her usual white shirt and black suit, and having had only a sandwich on the train, she felt really hungry.

The Bear pub was large with a big car park to the rear and a number of chairs and tables on a deck. The umbrellas were closed as the wind was really whipping up.

Inside, the place was spacious with a main bar, lines of stools and a snooker table to one side. A notice directed them towards a dining room with a big painted neon arrow. There appeared to be only a few local customers drinking, and a large plasma television screen was showing a football match, while two barmen were cleaning glasses and serving up sandwiches and hot dogs to a group of teenagers.

As Anna and Paul made their way to the dining room, all eyes were on them, not antagonistically, more simply out of interest.

The dining room was lined with booths, and four tables with bright red tablecloths were arranged down the centre of the room. Two waitresses were serving a few customers, but apart from them it was empty. Anna and Paul stood in the doorway, waiting to be seated.

‘You see him?’ Paul asked, looking around.

‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t know what he looks like.’

Nobody came to direct them to a table to be seated, although again they were of obvious interest to the diners, who avidly scrutinised them. Then a tall sandy-haired man stood up at the far end of the room and signalled for them to join him before disappearing back into the booth.

As they approached, Ed Williams eased himself out. He was at least six foot four, broad-shouldered, handsome in a rough way, and his thick sandy hair looked as if it was a crew cut growing out. He was wearing a brown tweed suit with a checked shirt and thick tie.

‘DCI Travis?’

‘Yes.’ Anna shook his hand and introduced Paul. They all then slid into the booth. The table was low, making it difficult for someone of Williams’s size to move in and out with ease. He sat opposite them, with his legs taking up so much of the space that he was almost sideways on.

He had a briefcase open on the table and an uncorked bottle of red wine. He had also moved the cutlery aside to be able to take out files and notebooks, but now he quickly replaced everything and snapped the case closed.

A waitress appeared with menus, passing them to Anna and Paul, but not to Williams. He said that he knew the menu backwards and asked if they would like wine. Without really waiting for either to say yes or no he poured for each of them.

‘Cheers.’

The same waitress returned and asked if they would like to know the specials for the evening, and reeled off some Italian pasta, a risotto and sea-food platter, announcing the price of each dish before walking off again. Anna kept herself hidden by the menu, trying to assess Ed Williams as Paul said he was going for the sea-food platter with a chicken and sweetcorn soup to start. Williams nodded for the waitress to take their order, looking to Anna first.

‘The risotto please, no starter.’

Paul gave his order and then Williams asked for his usual: a steak with salad and French fries.

‘Am I the only one having a starter?’ Paul said, embarrassed.

Back came the waitress with a red plastic basket of hot bread covered with a napkin, and a small dish of butter.

Williams offered the bread to Anna, but she shook her head. Paul took a big crispy hot chunk and slathered it with butter. Anna watched as Williams followed suit.

‘You should try this,’ he told her. ‘They bake it on the premises and the butter is garlic and herb.’

‘No, thank you.’

Anna wondered if it was par for the course that officers in Cornwall all had food on their minds.

‘This is really gorgeous and the butter is mindblowing,’ Paul said, slathering on even more.

‘Go on, try some.’ Williams offered Anna the plastic basket again.

‘No, thank you.’

He dropped the basket back onto the red paper tablecloth.

‘I’ve got a car arranged for you,’ he told them. ‘If you want a driver at all times it’s up to you, but I thought maybe you’d like to take off and see—’

‘We’re not here to see the sights,’ she said briskly, not meaning to sound like a school marm.

‘I didn’t think that you were, but sometimes it’s good to get the feel of the place, and you’ve got a lot of areas to cover.’

He had very pale blue eyes and she picked up immediately that he hadn’t liked her interruption.

‘I’ve run off some maps for you. Focus on the main surfing beaches, hang-outs of the surfers, plus their rentals, hotels, hostels and B and Bs. The property you have enquired about is quite a drive from here.’

‘We’ve been told that it is occupied.’

Williams nodded. He drank some wine.

‘I had a covert look over it. There’s a young guy living there who’s about twenty-five and who drives an MG. We ran the licence plates and it’s owned by a local garage so it’s rented to the people at the house – a Mrs Chapman. There have been a couple of women seen going in: one young woman with grocery shopping and the other one a lot older. They are not locals, but we do have a local woman doing cleaning there twice a week.’

‘You’ve spoken to her?’

‘No. My instructions were to not give any indication that we were interested. She also works for another tenant in a property close by, so it is very easy to question her.’

‘Could the guy be Alan Rawlins?’ Paul asked.

‘Well, I’ve seen the email pictures you’ve sent, so decide for yourself.’

He opened his briefcase and took out an envelope, removing some surveillance photographs which he passed to Anna. She looked through them and then shook her head, handing them to Paul for confirmation.

‘Not him.’

‘No.’

‘Because it’s early in the season, a lot of the hang-outs for regular surfers are closed,’ Williams informed them. ‘The all-year-rounders are still present and we’ve had some high waves this year that attracts them. We’ve also had storm warnings, a backlash of the hurricane, which also attracts the real hard professional surfers. They’re all wetsuited up, obviously, but compared to the high season it’s pretty quiet.’

The waitress served Paul his soup in a brown pottery pot with a lid with baked croutons on a separate plate. Williams asked for another bottle of the Beaujolais while he finished the first one, topping up their glasses.

‘I have also arranged for a helicopter to give you an overview of the beaches and areas where your guy would hang out. It’ll be at the airport at nine tomorrow morning.’

‘Helicopter?’ Anna repeated, unable to cover her concern.

‘It’s not going to dent anyone’s budget. It’s a training scheme we have organised with the Drug Squad officers, using dogs, which lets them get used to being up in the air for when there’s a raid. Also, some of the canine team have been training their dogs to get used to the sounds and . . .’ Williams came to a halt and lowered his voice. ‘The reason I’m interested in giving you as much help as possible is because of Sammy Marsh.’

‘Have you had any information about or sighting of him?’

‘Nope, not so much as a whisper. He’s a real piece of scum. He’s been dealing for years. If we catch him and lock him up, he comes out with more contacts than before he went in. He was always a smalltime operator dealing mostly in weed and ecstasy tablets. He’d move from beach to beach selling to the young kids. I think – in fact, I know – he had access to a farm where they were growing the weed. The plants were inside an old barn with very sophisticated heating, hydroponic lighting and a drainage system, producing top-grade weed. It was busted four or five years ago.’

Again he withdrew photographs and passed them to Anna.

‘The skunk as they call it was moving out on a bloody conveyor belt, being sent all over England. I know he was part of it, but he slipped out of the net and surfaced again a year later. This is Sammy.’ He got out a mugshot for them to look at. Then another. ‘This is also Sammy.’

Paul leaned closer to Anna to see the photographs. ‘Looks like Johnny Depp.’

‘Take a look at this one.’

Sammy Marsh was adept at changing his appearance. Williams kept on passing over one print after another, surveillance shots and mugshots. The man’s hair went from shoulder-length to braids, to cut short, to a pigtail with thin moustache and a small goatee beard. Some pictures even showed his hair dyed blonde.

‘Right little chameleon, isn’t he? He’s only about five foot eight, always very slender, and in the summer he gets tanned. He wears top designer gear and drives flashy cars.’

More photographs showed how many cars Sammy had owned and driven: a Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, beach buggy and various motor bikes. In most of them he was smiling, posing with two or more gorgeous bikini-clad girls. In one of the prints, Sammy could be seen with a group of equally tanned and handsome men, their surfboards stuck into the back seat of a Land Rover.

‘Is one of these men Alan? Paul, what do you think?’

Paul shook his head and passed the photo back to Williams.

‘Sammy’s flat is still owned by him, isn’t it?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes. Well, he rented a number of places, but he actually only owns one. Looks like he left in one hell of a hurry because there was food in the fridge, wet clothes in the washing machine and no sight of him for six months.’

‘Any movement in his bank accounts?’

Williams laughed. ‘Sammy will no doubt have accounts in God knows how many banks or countries, but he primarily dealt in cash. If he was to bank his earnings from drugs he’d have to prove how he was making enough to buy all those flash motors, never mind his flat. He also had heavies watching out for him, but even they have disappeared.’

Williams gathered up the photographs, put them in his briefcase and then took out a single sheet of paper.

‘Here’s a list of the names he used. He’d often keep his Christian name, but it’s sometimes Sammy Miles, Sammy Myers, Sammy Lines . . . we found four passpor ts in his flat all with different names – brilliant forgeries and they must have cost a packet.’

Anna sat back, watching Williams getting more tense and angry.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

‘That’s what I am here for, Detective Travis.’

‘Sammy, you have said, was smalltime, had numerous arrests for drug-dealing; he serves short sentences, then gets released and goes straight back to doing exactly what he had been doing before his imprisonment, right?’

‘Correct. But he was mostly charged with possession. He was never caught with either money from drugs or actually dealing.’

‘What about the photographs, the surveillance? If you knew he was up to his old tricks and from the photographs out in the open . . .’

‘First off he moved from selling the skunk himself to using his heavies for dealing, collecting payment for him, breaking a few arms and issuing threats if the punters didn’t pay up for their bag of shit. To be honest, with the government changing its mind two years ago and upping cannabis from Class C to B it looks like he decided to switch.’

‘Switch?’

‘Prison sentences for Class B are longer. Maybe he decided he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb so he started dealing Cat A drugs – heroin, cocaine and crack. He was under covert surveillance because the Drug Squad wanted to discover who the supplier was, and who was backing him financially because he didn’t just focus on this area, he was moving from coast to coast. He also bought this.’

Out came a photograph of a high-powered speedboat. And again it was passed to Anna and then Paul.

‘Paid for in cash from a local boat-builder, but the little bastard disappeared. That’s still moored and no one has been near it.’

The waitress cleared Paul’s soup bowl and returned with their main order. They remained silent until she left them to eat, saying in an expressionless voice, ‘Enjoy your dinner.’

Anna was really hungry and tucked in straight away. Williams topped up their wine again and carved up his steak.

‘This is delicious.’ Anna grinned.

‘Good food – that’s why we use this place. Come high season though, it’s packed with families and a load of screaming kids.’

For a while they were silent as they concentrated on eating before Anna said to Williams that she was a little bit confused. It appeared that the Drug Squad still did not have the names of the contacts that Sammy was now using to score the Category A drugs, but had decided to arrest him regardless.

Williams nodded and suggested they finish their meals before he showed them the reason.

‘I don’t think either Paul or I are squeamish enough to be put off our food, especially not after having only a sandwich on the train,’ Anna offered.

Williams forked a large mouthful of steak into his mouth before yet again delving into his briefcase. He took out a brown manila envelope and opened it.

‘Reported missing by her mother late last summer. She was washed up on the rocks aged sixteen – heroin overdose.’

Anna looked at the mortuary shot of the dead girl. Her wet hair plastered to her bloated face, her body covered in wounds from the jagged rocks. She passed it to Paul. However, Williams hadn’t finished. He followed it with a second photograph of an equally young girl, her body found in a rented caravan. It was a heroin overdose and the needle still protruded from her arm.

‘She doesn’t look as if she was a regular user. She’s not underweight and I don’t see many track marks. She was fifteen years old.’

Williams produced yet another mortuary photograph of a young boy. His naked body showed the white skin on his buttocks and genitals, but the rest of his skin was a deep brown.

‘Seventeen year old. All of them were here in Cornwall for the holidays. The boy worked the deckchairs on the beach. None of them were residents, but had been introduced to heroin whilst they were here. Nor did any of them have any previous drug-related arrests. They were simply kids from good families who became embroiled in the beach traffic scoring drugs.’

‘Did you get direct evidence linking any of these victims to Sammy Marsh?’

‘Just the first girl. She was in the photograph I showed you with the two other bikini-clad girls hanging around Sammy’s jeep. Drug Squad joined forces with me and we did a lot of the legwork identifying them all. It was decided to pick up Sammy before he could sell any more of the gear, and he must have got wind of it because he disappeared.’

‘But what evidence did the Drug Squad have that these kids scored from him?’

‘We made an arrest of a young guy working at a bar. He’d ended up in hospital suffering from an overdose, but he survived, and we were able to get the remainder of the wrap he had bought. It was heroin, but it had been mixed with Christ only knows what. There were traces of ketamine and morphine, and it was very high quality and lethal, especially to someone who had never used before, so the first fix could kill.’

‘So he gave up Sammy’s name?’ Paul asked. Unlike Anna he had found that the photographs of the victims had turned his stomach. He had hardly touched his food.

‘Eventually he did, after a lot of persuasion as he was scared rigid that he would get beaten up by the heavies. Especially one bastard, Errol Dante, who acted like an enforcer.’

‘We interviewed him,’ Anna said sharply.

‘Well, he did a runner before we could nab him, but apparently he’d stolen drugs from Sammy and . . .’

‘Moved in with his girlfriend. He was dealing on the estate in Brixton where he lived and got busted for that. He and his girlfriend think that someone tipped off the London Drug Squad.’

‘That would be Sammy, yet Errol is still refusing to give us any assistance,’ Williams said grimly.

‘Nor to help us,’ Anna added.

‘I’d say he was scared Sammy would cut off his legs.’ Williams replaced the photographs and ate some more of his steak before he continued.

‘We have a statement from a woman who lived in a caravan next to where Errol stayed with his girlfriend. She called the local police because of the row that was going on inside the caravan, saying she was certain she’d heard a gunshot. By the time they arrived, the place had been totally trashed, windows broken and every stick of furniture smashed. She was able to identify Errol Dante as the one living in the caravan and she described Sammy. She said he was first outside the trailer, banging on the door and screaming, then he eventually kicked the door open and went inside. She said he was hysterical and his face was twisted as if he was having some kind of fit, eyes bulging and so agitated that it looked as if he was frothing at the mouth.’

‘How long after that did Sammy disappear?’

‘Few days. He was sighted a couple of times, but then nothing. We know Errol went back to London, but all we had on him was that he’d trashed a caravan owned by Sammy. Previously he had been sleeping on Sammy’s floor in his flat – at least, that’s what we were told.’

He replaced the statement into the envelope and once again closed his briefcase. He finished his steak and glanced at Paul’s half-eaten sea-food platter.

‘Something wrong with that?’

‘No, but the soup was very filling.’

Williams laughed and could see that Anna had now taken some bread and was cleaning around her plate with it.

‘You want a dessert?’ Williams asked, but they both declined.

Williams insisted he drive them back to their B&B in his unmarked patrol car when they left the pub. He had also insisted he pay for dinner. It was ten o’clock and Anna felt that although they had by now learned a lot of details about Sammy Marsh, they had no leads to Alan Rawlins. In fact, she felt that they had hardly touched on the reason why she and Paul were in Cornwall.

‘I know it’s late,’ she said to Williams, ‘but would you mind talking to me a bit more, maybe have coffee somewhere? It’s just that we’ve been allocated so little time here and I don’t want to waste it.’

Williams agreed to take them to the station, where he claimed the coffee was acceptable as the team had all clubbed together to get an espresso machine. As he drove he went into great lengths about the coffee machine, which could also make cappuccinos. Paul was in the back of the car with Williams’s seat pressed so far back there was no leg room on one side, leaving him hunched against the passenger side. Unlike Anna, he felt exhausted. Thankfully it was not too long a drive.

The station was situated in a residential area, close to the railway station. As they pulled up, the car park was empty and it seemed to be very quiet. Even though it was dark, Anna could see that the building looked rather modern, but quite small in comparison to the station she had come from back in London.

Once inside, the station was as Harry Took had described, very empty apart from a couple of officers. The local uniformed police were located on the first floor, the Drug Squad were in a different building, and although the place on first view seemed modern, it was actually an awful sixties-built block.

Williams towering above Anna was very much the gentleman, gently steering her by the elbow through a warren of corridors until they approached double doors leading into the incident room. Williams had to press in a code to gain entry. The lights were off and he switched them on from a panel by the side of the door, and holding it open, he gestured for Anna and Paul to walk in ahead of him. Even at his size Williams was very coordinated, moving quickly to light up the incident board before heading into a small kitchen annex to brew up some coffee.

Anna and Paul looked over the astonishing array of information in front of them. Many of the photographs they had seen in the pub were also pinned up here, along with witness statements and reports which cluttered almost every inch of the board. Then they noticed that a separate board had been brought in and placed beside the Cornwall investigation. There were the email contacts sent by Anna’s team with photographs of Alan Rawlins, plus the photograph of the property they believed he owned. Missing, Presumed Murdered was written in large capital letters.

‘Is Williams Drug Squad?’

Anna shook her head. He was obviously leading the enquiries into the dead teenagers.

‘I like him,’ she decided.

Paul agreed, liking Williams even more when he carried in a tray of mugs with steaming coffee, milk and sugar, indicating that they should help themselves to whatever they wanted.

‘I see you’ve started to compile a board for my enquiry,’ Anna remarked.

‘Yep. Reason being, I am interested in the possibility that your man might have been caught up in the drug situation. We’ve sort of collaborated with the Drug Squad and we’re working together. You’ll meet everyone tomorrow.’

‘I appreciate it,’ Anna said, sipping the strong coffee.

Williams perched himself on a desk facing the boards.

‘What’s your gut feeling on this bloke Alan Rawlins?’ he said.

It was strange to hear Williams ask the same question that Langton always asked, and Anna didn’t say anything at first, continuing to sip her coffee. Then she sat beside him and gave a brief rundown of her enquiry to date, while Paul eased himself into another chair. She detailed the amount of money they’d established Alan Rawlins had accumulated and added that they’d found that he did know Sammy Marsh, so there was a possibility they were connected through the drug trade.

‘He’s also gay, right?’ Williams asked.

‘Apparently so, or bisexual. He was living with a woman called Tina Brooks and they were engaged to be married.’

Williams took a gulp of his coffee, staring towards what little information they had acquired from Anna’s investigation on their board.

‘Is she involved?’

‘To be honest, I keep on looking at her as a prime suspect and then I back off.’

‘The evidence found in the flat she shared with Rawlins puts her, in my mind, dead centre of the frame,’ Williams said. ‘She had to have known about the blood pooling, how could she not? Unless she has lied about going back to see the boyfriend. She said he had a migraine – right?’

‘Yes. She’s also been interviewed twice and we always get the same response. She denies knowing anything about it, denies knowing Rawlins was homosexual, denies being aware of the amount of money we know he was hoarding and denies playing any part in his disappearance. Without a DNA sample for comparison we have been unable to confirm that the blood in her flat was in fact Rawlins’s.’

‘She ever come to Cornwall with him?’

‘No. She says she couldn’t swim so he always came alone.’

Williams drained his coffee and replaced the mug onto the tray.

‘Well, we’ve got our work cut out for tomorrow, so let’s call it quits for tonight and start afresh in the morning.’

Anna agreed, and Williams drove them back to the B&B. She liked the way he got out and walked with her and Paul to the front door.

He waited whilst Paul used his key to let them in before leaning closer to Anna and quietly asking her if she believed Alan Rawlins was still alive.

She hesitated and then nodded. But Williams didn’t wait to discuss it further and returned to the car. He drove off as Anna waved goodbye and closed the front door.

‘What did he say?’ Paul asked as they moved quietly up the stairs.

‘Nothing. Goodnight and see you at breakfast.’

Anna waited until she heard Paul finish in the communal bathroom before she went and ran a bath for herself. Lying in the deep hot water she closed her eyes, thinking about the evening and about Williams. She felt confident that they would uncover something that moved her case forward. She also began to think again about Tina Brooks. Could she have lied about returning to the flat the same night? The entire timeframe of the murder was based on her statements, as they could not determine when the blood pooling had been deposited. It meant they had no real time of death. The same applied to the reports of Alan becoming a missing person. This was not until two weeks after Rawlins had left work early with the migraine.

Anna sighed, trying to assimilate all the facts. If they didn’t get a result from this trip to Cornwall, she knew Langton might well replace her or call off the investigation.