Blood Line

Chapter Twenty-One

Jonas Jones was cleaning the glass panels in the reception doors of Tina’s apartment block when Anna arrived, and she asked him to show her the fire exit and corridor to the rear of the building.

‘Is it ever left open or used as a shortcut to the rear?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am, it’s a fire exit, but I’ve never seen anyone use it. It’s near the basement entrance where all the central-heating and air-conditioning vents are. They were checked out by officers ’cos I had to unlock that door.’

Anna followed him, passing flats one and two as they went into a narrow corridor that ran the length of the building. At the end of the corridor was, as he had described, a small fire-exit door with a single bar across it. He pressed it open for her to pass through and step outside. Although the SOCO team had obviously checked out the area, this was the first time Anna had seen the rear of the building. The area was fenced in and covered in tarmac with an old rusted table and two chairs by the only tree.

‘Do residents park back here?’

‘Sometimes. They’ve got their own garages, but they’re only for a single vehicle, so if they got people visiting they park here out of the way of the main exit.’

‘You ever seen cars or vans out here?’

‘Only when you people were around. They used this to park up and they sat at the table. It’s for the tenants, but nobody uses it.’

‘So you have never seen a motor bike parked here maybe?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about a Ford Transit van?’

He shook his head and repeated that he only ever came in for a few hours a week. Judging by the piles of dead leaves pushed up against the walls and around the fence, it didn’t look as if he had swept up for some considerable time. Anna returned back through the small corridor, aware of how easy it would have been for a van to be parked up and a body carried out without anyone seeing it. Disappointed, she went back to her car not bothering to look over Tina’s flat again.

By the time Anna arrived at the station, both Brian and Paul had been working on trying to get a trace on the three numbers. The Antigua and the Los Angeles ones they knew were to mobiles, but the Florida number was a landline.

‘You got an address?’

‘Yeah, it’s a condo in Tampa and we’re onto Interpol in the US to check out who owns or rents the place. We’re waiting for them to get back to us.’

‘Good. How about Cornwall? They had any result in tracking down Silas Douglas?’

‘Nope. He’s not been seen for weeks, but they got his Transit van hauled into Forensics; no motor bike though.’

‘What about the Passport Office and Border Control?’

‘They’re checking, but as we don’t have a date, he might have skipped the country.’

‘Has to be after he came here, obviously. Keep up the pressure.’

Anna had only just sat down at her desk when DCI Williams called. So far, the Transit van owned by Douglas was as clean as a whistle, with no blood traces or fingerprints. ‘The only thing we did pick up,’ he said, ‘was a few bits of chipped paint, plus some kind of mud grains which were caught in the rubber mats.’

‘You found nothing at his place either?’

‘Nope. He did a clean-out. Papers were burned and too charred to get anything from them, but Ballistics said that Sammy Marsh was probably shot with a 9mm Luger. The markings on the bullets and cartridge cases didn’t match any previous shootings.’

‘The time of death for Sammy was around four weeks ago, you believe?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Williams. ‘Decomposition was pretty extensive so we’d thought longer, maybe due to the body being hemmed into the small space of the lavatory.’

‘So if Silas Douglas killed him, he would have had to be in the country then, which will narrow dates down for us to try and get something out of an all-ports enquiry.’

‘We’re working on that, but my gut feeling is, because we’ve got no motor bike, he could have taken off and be hiding out in England, Ireland or even Europe by now.’

‘Well, we’ll both keep looking,’ Anna said, with one eye on the clock. She could only hold Tina for thirty-six hours until formally charging her or getting a further extension at the magistrate’s court. But she still wasn’t ready to begin the exhausting process of going through the gruesome details of the murder or Tina’s insistence that she had nothing to do with it.

Instead, she went into the incident room and told Brian that since Silas Douglas could have gone to Ireland or Europe with his motor bike by ferry, she wanted him to focus on the all-ports enquiry, circulate Silas’s details and the number-plate of his motor bike. She turned as Langton made yet another unscheduled visit and once more she was forced to give him the latest details, which delayed her from beginning the interview.

From his attitude she felt as if he in some way disapproved of her continued search for Silas Douglas. She knew him of old; on such occasions he had a bad-tempered look and grunted, constantly gesturing for her to get to the point if indeed she had one.

‘Of course I have one. We only have Tina’s word for what happened in her flat: the rape, the body being removed and that everything she did was due to the fact she was terrified. She’s still hiding something and I can’t think what’s niggling me.’

He nodded, rubbing his head, making his hair stand up on end. Then he clicked his fingers.

‘I know! I know what it is!’

‘Know what? What is it?’

He clicked his fingers again, grinning – and then pointed.

‘You said they’d found some kind of mud particles in the footwell of Douglas’s Transit, right? Yes – and when you did a search of her flat you listed thick bandages, tins of a substance she used for treatments at her salon for a seaweed wrap?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘The caretaker also told me that he saw the thick bandages tossed into the wheelie bin for her flat.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a treatment she uses at her salon, Anna. It’s a mud wrap. She plasters the mud over the body then wraps it with the bandages. Mud dries on the skin and the body loses water retention or something like that. You with me?’

Anna nodded, but she wasn’t quite following.

‘Now, you’ve got a bloody corpse leaking in a bathtub, but no blood apart from the bedside pooling, smears in the small hallway and some blood spray in the bathroom, correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘You could wrap a body in bloody sheets, but carrying that out has got to leave some clues. However, if she covered it in this mud stuff, then wrapped the body in bandages, it could have been inside the flat for days whilst they cleaned up. You said over and over that the cleaning of the flat had to have taken longer than just her going to work and returning.’

‘But we are still going on her word that Alan Rawlins died on the day he left work, that both Sammy and Silas were there when she got home and that they had already killed him,’ Anna said thoughtfully.

‘You’ve seen how good a liar she is. At best, all you have her for is attempting to pervert the course of justice. I’m warning you though, she could get away with being seen as the innocent, terrified victim here. We know she’s a bloody good actress. If defence put her in front of a jury, she turns on the tears, out will come the rape allegation – followed by a not-guilty verdict – and she calmly walks away from it all, passing Go and collecting two hundred thousand pounds. If you want her to go down for accessory to murder, you need to show she assisted or encouraged Sammy and Silas.’

Anna tried to take on board all Langton had said but knew that by now Tina’s brief was waiting impatiently in the interview room.

‘I’ll do my best, but with only her word to go on it’s not easy.’

Paul looked over to see if he was needed. They still had no result on the Tampa number and Brian was checking the possibility that Silas Douglas was in Ireland or Europe. Now Douglas was wanted for questioning about two murders, the hunt was hotting up.

‘Okay, Paul, let’s go for round two,’ Anna said, heading for the stairs to the interview rooms. Langton watched her leave before he did another slow meander over to the incident board.

‘Brian, what do we know about this guy Silas Douglas?’

‘Not a lot, Gov. He’s got family connections, well educated, trained as a carpenter and has a reputation for customising surfboards. He charges a few thousand as well, and he’s been bringing them in from the USA for about three or four years. He runs this car-wash dump close to where he lives, full of Polish immigrants . . .’

‘Any previous on him?’

‘Nope. Travels from London to Cornwall for the summers and—’

‘How did you get his name?’

‘It was in Alan Rawlins’s address book. Douglas gave up Sammy’s name and showed us a photograph of Rawlins with pals. He admitted he knew Sammy Marsh again when we brought him in for questioning, and said Alan Rawlins had been in his surfing class.’

Langton sat down in a chair facing the accumulated evidence plastered across the incident board.

‘Is he married?’

Brian dug around in his notebook, thumbing over pages.

‘Yeah, divorced nine years ago, has one daughter.’

‘Where do they live?’

Brian shrugged. ‘I dunno but I can check.’

‘Is he gay or straight?’

‘Straight, but I dunno. He’s got a ponytail like an old hippy with biker’s leathers – huge guy.’

Langton ruffled at his hair again and then instructed Brian to dig up everything on Silas Douglas’s background. He would be in the monitor room watching the interrogation.

Brian waited until Langton had left and then asked Helen to do it for him as he was still trying to work on what Anna had wanted.

‘He’s taking a big interest in this, isn’t he?’ Helen observed.

‘He and Travis were an item a few years ago. To be honest, rumours were flying around that he’d pushed her promotion through. I think he’s looking over her shoulder. This is the first Category A murder enquiry she’s handled solo.’

‘Well, the body count is mounting. It’s gone from a missing person to a murder and then the guy in Cornwall, and . . .’

Brian was reading an email when he suddenly turned to Helen.

‘Fuck, the condo in Tampa, Florida, is occupied by a Mrs Wanda Douglas. It’s the suspect’s wife, isn’t it? Can you check with the General Registrar’s Office for births and marriages?’

‘I’m doing it, I’m doing it.’

Anna once again cautioned Tina and informed her that the interview would be recorded. Tina looked dishevelled and wore the same clothes as the previous day. Her eyes were red-rimmed as if she had been crying, her face devoid of make-up. Even her hair looked as if she hadn’t bothered to comb it.

‘You feeling all right, Tina?’

‘Not really. I couldn’t sleep. The place stinks and they gave me food that was disgusting.’ She jerked her thumb towards Jonathan Hyde, saying, ‘He got out of here so fast, he didn’t make any arrangements for me to get a change of clothes. I’ve not got my make-up and . . . so how do you think I feel?’

‘Let’s see then if we can get through this as quickly as possible. It will be entirely up to you, Tina.’

She shrugged and sat back in her chair. Paul, seated beside Anna, had all the files beside him in order and ready to take out for Anna when required. He was looking very smart and, unusual for him, was wearing a dark-grey suit with a white shirt and navy tie.

‘Now this may sound repetitive, Tina, but I need for clarity’s sake to know exactly the timeframe, going from the moment you received a call from Alan at his place of work which would have been the fifteenth of March of this year.’

‘I was getting ready for work when he rang and said I had to collect him. He sounded in a right state. I asked if he was feeling okay and he said – well, he snapped at me – to get over to Metcalf Auto and pick him up, so I did.’

Anna nodded and Tina looked at her.

‘You want me to go on? He was very anxious all the way home, said he would have to get out as some people were threatening him. He told me to take a suitcase and put it in a locker at the salon, that he couldn’t stay at the flat and that he might go to his parents’ and make arrangements from there.’

She rubbed her face tiredly.

‘He was scared stiff, and I was worried about him, but he insisted I go to work. Anyway, I didn’t get back home until, as I’ve told you before, around six-thirty or a bit later. I knew something bad had happened as soon as I walked in. The sofa was overturned, I remember that, and then this guy came at me from out of the bathroom. He grabbed me and pushed me back into the lounge. Next this other man, huge bloke with a ponytail, came out and he said the name Sammy and told him to leave me alone. He said that Alan had taken something that belonged to him and I thought he was talking about the money I’d put in the locker. I heard Sammy call the other man Silas and I realised from what Alan had told me who they both were. I got frightened and said I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Sammy was screeching and swearing, and the big guy Silas had to hold him back. He kept asking me about a surfboard, where was Alan’s surfboard. It was all so crazy and I said it was in the garage. Then Sammy left and Silas told me that if I wasn’t telling the truth I’d get what Alan . . .’

She swallowed and down came the tears as she described being pushed towards the bathroom, how she had seen Alan in the bath with his head caved in and blood everywhere.

‘I started screaming and he hit me across the face hard which knocked me over and he said to shut up so I went back into the lounge and just sat there.’

Tina continued to describe Sammy returning to say he wasn’t going to carry the board in as he was worried about someone seeing him, so they said they’d wait until it was dark. They had asked her about money and she had pretended that she didn’t know anything about it, and she’d remained sitting in the lounge. She saw them taking bloodsoaked sheets out of the bedroom, rolling them up, and then they told her she had to help them.

‘All the time I knew he was dead in the bathroom and I was terrified. They started cleaning the carpets, then they cut some out and they were in and out of the bedroom.’

‘What time did they leave?’

‘They didn’t. They sat around until it was dark and then Sammy went and got the surfboard from the garage and brought it in. He started using a hammer, but it was just making dents and then they sent me out in the morning to get carpet cleaner and bleach for washing down the walls and the bathroom.’

‘That was on March the sixteenth and you say you were kept in the flat that night as well?’

‘Yes, they made themselves something to eat.’

‘The body was still in the bathroom?’

‘Yes, and then early next morning they wanted me to go and buy an axe. So they could cut open the surfboard. This time Sammy drove me to get it ’cos I was so scared they didn’t think I’d come back. We went back into the flat but by this time Silas had used a hammer and screwdriver and he was in a terrible rage ’cos he said it was not the right board and again they came at me, but I swore I’d told them the truth and that I didn’t understand what they were talking about.’

Tina sniffed and was passed a tissue. She blew her nose.

‘They said I had to go to work and that if I told anyone about what had happened, I would be killed like Alan.’

‘So it was now two days since you brought Alan back from his garage?’

‘Yes. They made me help clean up with the carpet cleaner and bleach, scrub and turn the mattress, and change the bed and put a fresh set of bedlinen on it. They cut out the bloodstained bedroom carpet and put the other piece from the lounge over it. They moved the bed and I just had to do whatever they told me.’

Again the tears came down.

‘I thought it was all over. I was just hoping and praying they would leave, and I was gonna go to the police, I was. Sammy went out and left me with Silas. He came onto me all nice and quiet and said I’d done very well, and then he dragged me into the bedroom and he raped me.’

Anna tapped her notebook. ‘This was now the seventeenth, two days after you had returned with Alan?’

‘Yes, but they had moved his body. It wasn’t in the bathroom ’cos we’d been cleaning it with the bleach. I think they did it whilst I was at work.’

‘Why didn’t you call the police when you were at work?’

‘I was too scared. They knew where I was and they said that if I didn’t do what they told me to do they’d make sure I’d be implicated in the murder and that I’d be sorry.’

‘What about the surfboard?’

Tina looked confused and then shrugged.

‘I don’t know. It wasn’t left in the flat. When they took the body out they must have taken that as well. They did come in and out at night, but as I was at work in the day I didn’t know what they got up to.’

Anna paid close attention to her notes. She turned one page forward and backward and then tapped the book with her pencil, repeating from her notes what Tina had said to her.

‘“I couldn’t have done anything about it. I was that scared. It was Alan’s father who reported him missing and so I had to go along with it.” You seem to have gone along with an awful lot of things, Tina.’

‘I was raped. I saw the state of Alan, the blood in the bathroom. I knew what these two maniacs could do. I was terrified.’

‘But you also had every opportunity to go to the police. You knew Alan had been murdered, you knew that drugs were involved.’

Tina made a gesture with her hands, touching her breasts as her voice quavered.

‘I am just a woman and was so frightened. I honestly don’t remember what I was even thinking.’

‘But you hadn’t been raped – that came later, on the seventeenth, didn’t it? I just find it hard to believe that you could remain in that flat over two nights and then go to work as if nothing was happening when the man you have said you cared for and intended marrying was lying beaten to death in your bathtub. As I recall there’s only one lavatory, so what did you do when you needed to use it?’

‘I pissed when I got to work, Miss Clever Fucker. I never looked into the bathroom, bar that one time I told you about.’

Jonathan Hyde tapped her arm, saying quietly that she should watch her language. It looked as if she wanted to spit in his face, but then she gave a coy, whimpering smile.

‘Sorry. I am so sorry. Please forgive me for swearing.’

‘If you were so distraught, why take the axe back to the store?’

‘I told you why – because it might have implicated me. I didn’t want to be asked about it, it was never used.’

‘So did Sammy or Silas accompany you that time?’

‘No, they’d both gone by then.’

Anna looked up as there was a knock on the interview-room door. Brian Stanley was outside, indicating that he wished to speak to Anna. She got up, and for the recording announced that she was leaving the interview room and that it was five-fifteen in the afternoon.

Paul asked Tina if she would like more water, but she refused.

Jonathan Hyde sighed irritably, looking towards the door. Tina had been held in custody since the previous day. He knew they would soon have to either press charges or go before a magistrate to extend the custody time. He leaned closer to Tina, asking if she was in need of anything and she looked at him stonily.

‘I need a bath and a massage – are you gonna give me one?’ Hyde moved away from her fast.

Anna came back in, sat down and the interview continued, with Paul stating for the tape the time that DCI Travis had returned.

‘Tina, you have said that you had never met Sammy Marsh before, is that correct?’ asked Anna.

‘Yes,’ she hissed.

‘The other man was Silas Douglas – is that correct?’

‘I didn’t know his full name.’

‘Really? Did he use another name when you knew him previously?’

Tina blinked rapidly and then swallowed.

‘You did know him, didn’t you?’

‘No, I did not. I’d never met him before.’

‘Do you know a Wanda Douglas, his wife?’

‘No.’

‘We have been able to talk to Mrs Douglas who is at present living in Florida, and she says that you did know her husband. In fact, you had a lengthy affair with him over nine years ago.’

Tina shrugged.

‘So you see, I am doubtful about everything you have admitted as being the truth. You did know Mr Douglas . . .’

‘He walked out on me. I never knew he was married. He lied to me.’

‘Tina, you have also lied and I am now giving you one last opportunity to tell the truth,’ Anna said.

‘All right, I knew him from a long time ago, but I hadn’t seen him for years, and when he turned up in my flat with that Sammy, I was shocked.’

Anna sighed and then it looked as if havoc was about to break out again. Tina began to push at the table, but this time Anna was faster. She stood up and warned the woman that she would be cuffed if she continued.

‘I don’t care what you do to me. I DON’T CARE.’

Thankfully she sat back in the chair and started to cry. ‘Oh Christ, it’s all such a mess. Everything is a mess.’

‘Tina, if you start to tell the truth we can help you, but if we uncover lie after lie it only makes us even more suspicious. Continually lying makes it harder for us to believe that you were held against your will and that you never intended things to have happened in the way that they did. Unless we know the truth about what did happen, it’s hard for us to understand your part in it all.’

Tina hung her head and then after a beat, continued, ‘It was like it was happening to me all over again. It got that bad I didn’t believe how I could be such a dumb bitch. One man after the other had taken money off me, made me promises, screwed me and dumped me, and with Alan I really believed it was different. It was different all right – he would go from me to his fucking little toy boys and pretend that it was my paranoia. If you knew how many times I tried to confront him, wanting to know why he wouldn’t let me go with him to Cornwall, he’d just give me all this bullshit about needing space and needing time on his own, but he wasn’t, he was screwing around and I was so determined to find out. I was living with him, for God’s sake! He told me to go and get a wedding dress. He said to start arranging for a fucking wedding – and all the time he was planning on ditching me like all the rest of them.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘I knew that Sal was living down there or working the beaches with his boards so I called him up and asked him to check Alan out. I told him not to phone the flat but that I’d wait in a pub close to the salon for when he would call me, and I’d phone him from there. Those little cows at the salon are always poking their nose into my business. Anyway . . .’

She swallowed and then gave an open-handed gesture.

‘He rang me back, said he had found out and that I’d probably not want to know, but I insisted. He told me that Alan wasn’t even using his own name for one, but was a regular at all the gay clubs and was friendly with a real piece of work called Sammy who was running the drugs scene there. What I didn’t know was that Sal too was in it up to his armpits with Sammy. He supplied the drugs, but I didn’t know – I swear before God I didn’t know.’

Tina paused for breath. ‘At first I didn’t tell Alan what I’d found out, but I had to get my own back.’

She pursed her lips, chewing the lower one until she calmed herself down.

‘I wanted to put a knife through his heart. He lied. I could have got AIDS after he came back to me from fucking those waiters. He made me out to be a total idiot and then one night I couldn’t stand it any longer and I confronted him. I told him what I knew about him and he wouldn’t talk about it, he just ignored me until I started screaming at him, about how he’d wasted years of my life with his promises. I did fight with him, but he just gripped my wrists and told me to calm down and then afterwards he said he’d be moving out anyway. It was then he actually told me how long he’d been preparing to walk out on me, about the house he’d bought, the bank accounts – he told me all of it.’

‘So did he also tell you that he was now involved with drug-dealing?’

‘Yes. He said that was how he had made all this money, and then he said to me that he was doing some big deal and that he would give me a share of it. This time it was heroin: Sal was apparently bringing in a big shipment that would make everyone rich.’

The tears were gone. She sat almost composed as she said that she had found the suitcase with the money.

‘I knew he was going to dump me and so I said I had to go and do something at the salon and I took the suitcase. I stored it in the locker in my treatment area upstairs. I knew it’d be safe as none of the girls are allowed up there. I felt really good – you know, that I was getting my own back on him – because no way was I going to let him just walk out on me. And then I phoned Sal and told him that Alan was planning on leaving, and that he’d even rented his house out in Cornwall. Sal was really uptight because he said Alan wasn’t only walking out on me, but that Alan had got his hands on his last shipment so he was doing the dirty on him as well.’

Tina’s part in the whole hideous scenario began to take shape as she continued to talk. It sickened Anna. Alan had rung her to collect him from work because he’d had a threatening call from Sammy and he was scared. What he didn’t know was that Tina, through Silas, had been the one stirring it up. She knew they would both be there at the flat because she’d left the fire exit open and the front door on the latch for them to gain entry easily and unseen. Silas and Sammy wanted their drugs and the money; they didn’t believe Alan when he said it had gone. Whilst Tina went to work at her salon, as she had admitted, and returned from there at the time she had always maintained, Alan was still alive, but he had been tied across the width of the bed, gagged and beaten. His head was over the edge of the bed and Sammy had put a pillow case over it to stop the blood splashing about when he hit him with the club hammer. Silas would then remove it to un-gag him and ask again and again where the drugs and money were and the blood from his head injuries flowed onto the carpet. Alan kept saying that he didn’t know where the money was and he hadn’t taken the drugs, so Sal would replace the gag and pillow case and Sammy then beat him again. Eventually Alan passed out and they left him there while they discussed what to do next. The pool of blood on the carpet got bigger and bigger.

‘That crazy guy Sammy was using crack – he was totally out of it, irrational and gibbering – and Silas tried to calm him down. They had drunk the place dry – vodka, gin, anything they could find – then they’d taken it in turns to beat up Alan.’

She bent her head, and sniffed loudly. Anna passed her a tissue and she blew her nose.

‘I didn’t lie about the carpet, they did cut the piece out ’cos the carpet in the bedroom was so heavily bloodstained.’

‘And you did absolutely nothing to help him?’

‘How could I? Sammy forced me to watch Alan being beaten and said I would be next if I grassed on him or didn’t do exactly what I was told.’

Tina continued, saying that she was genuinely scared. When she went to work the following day Alan was unconscious, and had still not told them where he had stashed the drugs. It was during the first night that Sammy went crazy and used the club hammer to beat Alan around the head.

‘Sal knew that Sammy was too drugged-up to know what he was doing and he insisted he leave, saying he would do the clearing-up. That’s when I went out to get the bleach because there was so much blood that needed to be cleaned up.’

Tina described how between them she and Sal had carried Alan’s body into the bathroom using the duvet cover, and hoisted him into the bath whilst they cleaned up the bedroom. Tina had taken off the bloodstained sheet and winter fleece undercover which, she said, had prevented most of the blood soaking through to the mattress and in her haste had not seen the specs left on the edge. The duvet had been on the floor at the end of the bed and was not bloodstained so she removed the cover to use it to drag Alan to the bathroom. Tina had then placed all the bedlinen into a black plastic bag, which Sal later disposed of, and she then remade the bed with a fresh sheet and duvet cover. Sal had turned the taps on to wash away some of the blood from Alan’s head. Sal had been driving his pickup truck, but had left it parked a few streets away. The main problem was how to get Alan’s body out to his truck without being seen . . .

And then the most shocking part of her statement came when Tina realised that for all the punishment he’d taken, even with his immense loss of blood, Alan was still alive.

‘He was lying in the bath and suddenly came round and started thrashing about like mad. The water must have revived him because Sal thought he was dead. The blood was going everywhere, up the walls and on the floor. Sal put his hands round Alan’s neck and started to strangle him but he didn’t have it in him to finish him off. He was unconscious again but there was a faint rasping of air from his mouth so Sal suggested using the axe to finish him off and then chop him up, but when I said go on then he bottled it again.’

It was so incongruous; Tina gave a strange laugh, which made her telling of the murder even more repellent.

‘I gave him a mud wrap – well, it’s called seaweed wrap but it’s a mix I prepare. He was always so prissy about his legs and his bit of extra weight and I kept jars of it as he would do it on his own thighs.’

It was hard not to show disgust as Tina giggled when she described how she and Sal had covered the dying man with the thick solution and then wrapped the big wide bandages all over him. Even his head and face were tightly wrapped.

‘He was finally dead so it meant Sal could carry him out into the truck and leave no tracks, ’cos Alan wasn’t bleeding like a stuck pig any more! Bandaged up there was nothing. Then when it was done we had another clean-up. When the mixture had dried out, Sal carried the body out. He’s as strong as an ox – carried Alan all by himself, ’cos I was still cleaning.’

She had a strange almost euphoric look on her face as she went on.

‘I didn’t lie about the rape. After all we’d just done together, he suddenly turned on me and threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. He said he would take care of Sammy, but he would also take care of me if I double-crossed him. He then dragged me into the bedroom and he raped me. I swear to God that I am telling you the truth. I was raped.’

No one spoke. There had been far too many hideous details to take on board. But the silence was broken when Tina suddenly gave a soft laugh.

‘You want to know how dumb I am? For a while I sort of wondered if me and Sal could get back together. I asked him about his wife and he said he never saw her – that he was divorced from Wanda. He even lied to me again about that. I am such a fucking idiot.’

Anna felt that she was anything but, and her cold-hearted revenge on Alan Rawlins beggared belief. However, Anna was now convinced that Tina had told them the truth at last.

Returning to her office, Anna slumped into her desk chair. Tina Brooks was to be held in the station cells and taken before the magistrates the following morning, when she would be charged with the murder of Alan Rawlins.

Silas Douglas was arrested at Dublin airport about to board a plane to Florida. DCI Williams said he would come to London and interview Silas after Anna had finished interviewing him about Alan Rawlins’s murder.

Silas was represented by a very high-profile solicitor, and refused to answer any questions, responding to everything with ‘No Comment.’ But thanks to Tina’s statement and the forensic evidence, Silas Douglas was charged with the murder of Alan Rawlins. When DCI Williams, who’d come up to London as soon as Anna had finished her interrogation, interviewed him, he again refused to answer anything, and with no substantive evidence against him, he was not charged with the murder of Sammy Marsh.

As with most cases, the winding-down always felt tiresome, a form of drudgery that had to be got through. The adrenalin of the hunt and enquiry were gone and the team were left with the wretched conclusion of a sickening murder. The two surfboards in Alan’s room at Edward Rawlins’s house had been removed and sent to the forensic lab for examination. As expected a large quantity of raw heroin was found concealed within the boards and its street value, when mixed with cutting agents, was estimated at nearly two million pounds. Tina was not granted bail by the court and was sent to Holloway Women’s Prison to await trial. Silas was also denied bail and sent to Wandsworth Prison. Although Tina had never admitted to any part in the murder of Alan Rawlins, she was without doubt accessory to it. The CPS had decided to accept her plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter and then they could use her statement as evidence against Silas at his trial for Alan’s murder. She would get a more lenient sentence for turning Queen’s evidence, but her appearance in the witness box would help prevent Silas putting all the blame on the late, unlamented Sammy.

Alan Rawlins’s body was never recovered, and the sad task of giving his father the details of his demise was left to Anna. Mrs Rawlins was by now installed in a home and Alan’s father was preparing to sell the family house. He listened as Anna told him without going into too much explanation about the death of his son.

‘It’s odd, isn’t it? You know, if I hadn’t loved him enough to worry and want to find him, but had just accepted that he had gone off somewhere, none of this would have had to be uncovered.’

His small chiselled face looked worn and tired as he gave her a sad, watery smile.

‘To be honest, I think it would have been better. I am sorry that I ever contacted you, but I did, and I found out layers of lies. I found out that the son I thought I was blessed with was perverted and not even my own blood – bad blood – but at least it’s over.’

Anna received no thanks for the hours of diligent police work. Instead, as she drove home she kept on thinking about what Mr Rawlins had said. It was perhaps over for him, but not for her. In a few months she would have the lengthy trial and be on trial herself as she would be questioned by the defence team about her actions and decisions throughout the investigation. It was depressing, and she had never felt this way about any other case she had worked on.

When she let herself into her flat, the depression persisted. She threw her briefcase and car keys down onto the sofa as she picked up a half-filled bottle of wine, poured herself a glass and sipped it as she walked into her untidy bedroom where she kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed.

The telephone rang and made her physically jump. She leaned over to the bedside table and answered.

‘It’s me,’ Langton said.

‘Hi. I’ve just got home.’

‘You sound depressed.’

‘Funnily enough, you just hit the nail on the head.’

‘I know how it is. It often happens, even more so on a seedy case like this one, but you never gave up, Anna.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You want a bite to eat?’

‘No, to be honest I don’t.’

‘Okay. I’ll be there in half an hour. Get your glad rags on and we’ll go somewhere special.’

She laughed.

‘That’s better. You’ll get your second wind, Anna, believe me, and you impressed me. My little protégée is proving to be everything I thought she would be.’

‘So I’m your protégée, am I?’

‘Just joking. Get in the shower, get dressed and be ready in half an hour.’

She let the phone drop back into place, already feeling better.

She had just managed to shower and put on one of her best and most flattering dresses before the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll be right down,’ she said into the intercom.

She didn’t use the lift, but ran down the stairs, and there he was, waiting for her. He gave her a good look up and down, smiling his approval, and then hooked one arm around her shoulders.

‘You hungry now?’

She nodded.

‘Then let’s go eat, DCI Travis.