The Red Dahlia

Chapter Nine

Langton was already at the mortuary the next morning when Anna and Lewis arrived. He looked dreadful. Everything about him was crumpled; he was unshaven, his tie was loose and his coat was even covered in dog hairs.

All three went into the lab. Lewis gave a sidelong glance at his Gov.

'Not got home last night, then?'

Langton ignored him, banging through the double doors and heading directly towards the body, draped in its green cover. Bill Smart was waiting, clipboard in his hand. He bellowed for them all to put on masks and paper suits before he would begin.

'We're not likely to contaminate anything at this stage,' Langton mumbled, irritated. 'It's not as if we haven't been here before!'

'Maybe so, but it's house rules.'

Langton, in his paper overshoes, shuffled closer to the body. Bill Smart, satisfied they were all now appropriately dressed, drew back the green cover to reveal Louise Pennel's face and torso.

'Since my last report we've done a lot of tests, so today I can give you the full monty, so to speak. It's not very pleasant.'

Anna was still taken aback by the gaping slash to Louise's mouth. Even though she had seen the photographs many times, to see the reality of the appalling injury the killer had inflicted was shocking.

'Right. We have multiple lacerations to the forehead and the top of the head. There are also multiple tiny abrasions on the right side of her face and forehead. There are further lacerations, a quarter-inch deep, at the side of her nose. There is another laceration, a deep one, from the right corner of her mouth and the same on the left: these cuts opened the cheeks. There are numerous new caps to the front teeth, but at the back there is quite an advanced state of decay. Multiple fractures of the skull are visible. There is a depressed ridge on both sides and on the anterior portion of the neck. There is no evidence of trauma to the hyoid bone, thyroid or carotid cartilage, or tracheal rings. There is no obstruction in the laryngotracheal passage.'

Smart peered at Langton. 'You asked if she had been suffocated or strangled, so the answer is no. Her upper chest shows an irregular laceration with superficial loss of skin to her right breast. The tissue loss is more or less square and measures three and a half inches transversely. There are further superficial lacerations to the chest and an elliptical opening in the skin near to the left nipple.'

Anna stared at the body as the pathologist's voice droned on. Louise Pennel had been slashed and stabbed; part of her breast had been sliced off. But all Anna could see was that terrible gaping smile.

Next, the pathologist focused on the severing of the body. The trunk had been completely severed by an incision straight through the soft tissues of the abdomen, severing the intestine and the duodenum, passing through the intervertebral disc between the second and third lumbar vertebrae.

'There are multiple lacerations on both sides of the torso and, as you can see, multiple criss-cross lacerations in the suprapubic area which extend through the skin and soft tissue.'

'Jesus Christ, it looks like he was carving out a game of noughts and crosses,' Langton said darkly.

Smart covered up Louise's head and torso before drawing the green cloth back to reveal the lower half of her body.

'The labia maiora are intact; within the vagina, we found a large piece of skin, which was from the upper torso. The anal opening is dilated and with multiple abrasions. Her missing nipple had been forced into her anal passage.'

Langton shook his head in disgust. Anna kept ramrod straight; she noticed that Lewis had quietly moved away.

Langton looked at Anna. 'This must never be released.'

Smart continued. 'There was nothing to suggest what she might have ingested as a meal or when she last ate something, so I have run further tests. Not only did we discover faecal matter in her stomach, but it had been introduced into her mouth. She had ingested it before death.'

Langton drew down the corners of his mouth in distaste. 'Is it her own?' he asked.

'I couldn't tell you: your killer removed a number of organs, including the small intestine.'

'Was she alive when these wounds were inflicted?'

'I'm afraid so. This poor little creature must have gone through untold agony; the causes of death were haemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain from massive blows to the head.'

'These small abrasions?' Langton said, nodding towards the lower part of the corpse.

'Could be a penknife, a scalpel: something sharp.'

'But there are so many.'

'This criss-cross cutting around her vagina must have been excruciating: the cuts are deep.'

'Okay, thank you.' Langton shuffled out of the lab in his paper overshoes.

Anna watched the two lab assistants prepare to wheel Louise Pennel's body back to the cold room.

'Have you ever seen anything like this before?' she asked Smart.

'No, thankfully I haven't. I think this is one of the worst cases I have ever had to deal with.'

'And you can't tell if she was raped?'

'The body was scrubbed clean and the internal organs were bleached, but I would say her killer subjected her to a vicious sexual attack: both her rectum and vagina have cuts and abrasions. Whether these were caused by a penis, I couldn't tell you. The parts of her breast were stuffed very high up inside her vagina, so it's likely that he would have used some kind of blunt instrument to force them there.'

'Thank you.'

Anna left the lab, discarding her paper suit in the bin provided. She reached the car park to find an irate Langton arguing with Lewis, whose face was red with anger as Langton jabbed him in the chest with his index finger.

'This is not to be released. We keep the lid on all this, including the fact that human shit had been forced into her mouth before she was killed.'

'All I am saying is, it's so disgusting that if someone was shielding the killer, this might just make them—'

'It will be between us and him: when we get him, and we will get him—'

Now it was Langton's turn to be interrupted.

'You so sure? Right now we have fucking bugger all and we need something to help us. Someone has to know this bastard!'

Anna stepped between them. 'Come on guys, this isn't the place!'

Langton turned angrily to Anna. 'I do not want this released to the press! Full stop!' He turned and walked off towards their waiting patrol car.

Lewis shrugged and sighed. 'All I said was—'

She touched his arm. 'I can guess, but if he doesn't want it to be released then he's the Gov, and we go along with what he says.'

They rode back to the station in silence.

Fifteen minutes after they had returned to the Incident Room, there was a call from the Commander. The naked body of a white female had been discovered dumped in a field off the A3, her beaten and brutalised body covered with a maroon wool coat.

Anna was in the same speeding patrol car as Langton and she noticed he used his hip flask during the drive. Lewis and Barolli were in the car behind. By the time they reached the murder site, it was well after midday. All four grouped together in a lay-by and then walked towards a group of uniformed officers, who as they approached parted to reveal the body. Langton nodded for them to remove the coat.

Anna drew in her breath sharply. Sharon Bilkin's naked body was covered in abrasions, and scrawled in large letters across her belly in red lipstick was 'FUCK YOU'.

'It's Sharon Bilkin,' she said quietly.

'Yeah, I know.' Langton took a deep breath. Sharon's mouth too had been slashed. The wound was not as deep or as violent as Louise Pennel's, but nevertheless it mirrored her hideous clown smile.

The uniformed officers told them that a farmer had discovered the body. They waited for the forensic team and the ambulance before they made their way back to their cars. It was a silent foursome that returned to the Incident Room. It was almost certain the killer was the same man they hunted, but until they had the postmortem and forensic experts in, they could not be one hundred per cent sure. They had no weapon and no witnesses; the body had to have been dumped near the busy road under cover of night.

They would have to wait for the postmortem to be completed to obtain a time of death. Anna returned to her desk and began making copious notes. She detailed Louise's autopsy report and the discovery of Sharon's body, then sat with her notebook open, tapping her pen. She had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Sharon for the past twenty-four hours; was she already dead, or did she die during that time? The team were frustrated that they were still no closer to identifying their one and only suspect. All Anna could think of was whether she could have prevented Sharon's death.

It was just after seven when Anna let herself into her flat. Ten minutes later, she received a call from Dick Reynolds, wondering if they could have dinner.

'I'm not that hungry.'

'What if I brought over some Cantonese duck and pancakes, with plum sauce?'

She laughed, and said maybe it would be a good idea.

Reynolds insisted he get everything ready. He had brought two bottles of very good merlot and she sat curled up on the sofa with a glass, watching TV, as he busied himself in the kitchen. They ate sitting side by side at her small breakfast bar. As they pasted on the plum sauce and rolled the shredded meat and crisp green spring onions inside the pancakes, Anna realised that she hadn't eaten all day. It was just a takeaway, but was nevertheless delicious. The food and wine, and Reynolds's easy conversation, made Anna relax, taking her mind off the Red Dahlia case for a while.

They were halfway down the second bottle when he asked her how the case was going. It was like a floodgate had opened: Anna couldn't stop talking, first about the discovery of Sharon's body and then the awful autopsy report. It might have been down to the wine, but in any event, Anna became very upset when she described what had been forced on Louise. She repeated a couple of times that Louise had been alive when it happened and then she knew she had said too much.

'Listen, none of this is going to be released, Dick; I shouldn't have told you any of it, so promise me this is all off the record.'

'You don't have to make me promise,' he said, drawing her close. His arm around her felt comforting.

He asked about their suspects; Anna told him they had questioned several men who had insisted they had killed Louise Pennel and currently had one young soldier in custody, but it was believed that he was yet another time-waster.

'Why are you holding him then?' Reynolds asked.

'Well he was a medical student, then joined the army and was chucked out a few months ago; he has mental problems. We have to go down every avenue to make sure he isn't our killer before he's released.'

'But you don't think it's him?'

'No, none of us do, but we have to check him out.'

'How do you think the real killer would feel if he read about you having a suspect in custody?'

'He'd hate it; anything that takes the spotlight off him.'

'There doesn't seem to be much of that; there was hardly any press last week.'

'Because we can't trace this monster! We have no weapons, no DNA, nothing. He sends in these notes and we still have nothing; even with all the scientific skills we have these days, we can't get a result. He's ahead of us, playing with us: no saliva on the envelopes, postmarks from all over England, and if anyone saw him posting the letters to my Gov, no one has come forward.'

'How can you make them?'

'I don't know. I've said too much. I'm drunk.'

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. 'Okay if I stay tonight?'

'I'd like that.'

Anna had had too much to drink. If Reynolds had, it didn't show; far from it. He was gentle and caring and very affectionate. Afterwards, she slept in the crook of his arm: a deep, dreamless sleep. He, however, was wide awake. What he had learned had appalled and disgusted him, and made him angry. Anna didn't stir when he gently eased her out of his arms and went into the bathroom. He washed his face and was fully intending to go back to bed, until he saw her notebook in her open briefcase on the lounge table.

Showered and wrapped in a robe, Anna had made some breakfast while Reynolds took a shower. His hair still wet, he nuzzled her neck as she ate her toast. She offered him more coffee but he needed to get going, as he wanted to go home to get a clean shirt.

'Nope, I'm on my way.' He put his cup and plate neatly into the sink, kissed her, and was heading into the hall as the intercom went.

'It might be the postman!' she called out as he lifted the intercom handset. It was seven-thirty.

Reynolds stood at the front door as Langton headed up the stairs. 'Morning.'

Langton stared at him, then nodded his head. 'Morning. Is she up?'

'Yes, she's in the kitchen.'

'Thanks.'

Langton watched Reynolds head down the stairs before shutting the door behind him.

'Boyfriend's gone,' he said, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, looking smart and clean-shaven in a pinstriped suit.

Anna blushed. 'Is something up?' she asked.

'I put pressure on the lab; they said they would talk to me first thing, so here I am. You can drive us in.'

'Do you want a coffee?'

'You go get dressed. I know where everything is.'

'Give me a few minutes,' she said, as she squeezed past him.

By the time Anna came back, he had made himself some toast and was sitting on a high stool at her small breakfast bar, mug in hand, reading his newspaper: very much at home.

'Ready when you are,' she said, trying to sound light. She ran a glass of water and took two aspirin; she had drunk far too much last night.

'Headache?' Langton asked, folding his paper.

'Yes, bit of one.' Actually, her head felt terrible.

'Reynolds a regular visitor, is he?'

'Yes, you could say that.'

'Pumping you for information, I'll bet.'

'We do have other things on our minds,' she said tetchily. He grinned, slapped his thigh with his rolled-up newspaper, and then they were on their way, their dirty crockery abandoned on the breakfast bar.

They drove over to the mortuary. Langton fiddled with the radio then leaned back against the headrest. Anna's headache had got worse; she drove carefully. He had put the news channel on, but there was nothing about Sharon's murder.

'No press release on Sharon yet?'

'Nope. You still feel guilty about not going round there sooner?'

'Yes, but then I don't know if it would have done any good: we have no time of death as yet.'

She swerved to avoid a cyclist.

'I hate those bastards; that dewdrop hat makes him look like sort of some demented insect!' He turned to see the cyclist giving them a V-sign and laughed.

'You seem to be in a good mood this morning.'

'Yeah, well, I crashed out last night early and had a good eight hours' sleep. You look as if you could do with a bit more.'

'Thank you,' she said, flatly.

'So, this thing with the journalist is serious, is it?'

She hesitated, not wanting to discuss her private life with him.

'Sorry, don't mean to pry,' he said, smiling.

She could feel him watching her and it made her nervous: she shot a set of traffic lights, but he said nothing. In fact, they did not speak until they arrived at the mortuary.

They were gowned up and ready to view the corpse. Anna's head was throbbing; the small vein at the side of her temple felt ready to explode. Seeing Sharon with the hideous slashes to her lips, the bruises to her torso, and the red lipstick scrawled across her belly didn't help. The pair stood in silence as Smart told them that he had not had time to perform a full autopsy, but could confirm that Sharon had been dead for approximately forty-eight hours before she was discovered. Anna's guilt was somewhat eased; it meant that when she was trying to contact Sharon, she was already dead.

Two hours later, they were in the Incident Room. Langton told the team that it was almost a hundred per cent certain that Sharon Bilkin had been killed by the same man as Louise Pennel. Even the lipstick lettering matched the handwriting on the numerous cards and notes sent to Langton. The mutilations were not as horrific, but nevertheless Sharon had been subjected to torture and pain before she died.

The fact that she had been dead for forty-eight hours meant that, like Louise, Sharon had to have been killed somewhere else before being dumped in the field where she was found. The team were waiting for an update from forensics on whether they had managed to get anything from the maroon coat or the crime scene. Langton gave orders that, in the meantime, Sharon's flat should be re-examined and her phone calls double-checked: it was imperative to find out where Sharon had been before she was abducted. She might have accompanied her killer of her own free will, so they also needed to trace anyone who had seen her before she disappeared.

Langton broke up the briefing, as he had a meeting with the Commander. He was hoping to retain control of both murder enquiries. So that's what the suit was all about, Anna thought.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and neither Anna nor Barolli wanted to be at Sharon Bilkin's flat; nor did the forensic team that arrived to dust for prints: they had already done a sweep of the flat for the Louise Pennel case and now they had to do everything again. Barolli was in a particularly bad mood as his local football team were playing. He and Anna were forced out of one small room and into the next to make way for the paper-suited scientists. In the kitchen, Anna found Sharon's diary, her childish writing giving details of her auditions and, far more frequently, her appointments for hair extensions, manicures and massages. She had had an appointment at a hair salon earlier that week to check over her hair extensions and replace those that had fallen out. The salon's receptionist told Anna that Sharon had not turned up. Next, Anna called an advertising company that Sharon was meant to be auditioning for; she had not turned up there either, so they had given the commercial to someone else.

Barolli was looking through Sharon's chequebooks and paying-in slips, which he'd found in the cutlery drawer.

'This is interesting: a week ago, she paid two thousand pounds in cash into her account.'

Anna looked up, frowning. The headache that had persisted throughout the day was still lurking.

'Is it rent?'

'I dunno; she has regular payments of two hundred going in that looks like rent.'

'Her tenants paid her, then she paid the landlady. What's the outgoing?'

'Shit!' He crossed to Anna. 'She's got twelve grand in her bank account!'

Anna flicked through the statements. As she had thought, at the end of each month, there was a regular payment out to the landlady. Two five-thousand-pound lump sums had also been paid in.

'We need to talk to her bank manager, and the landlady.'

Barolli nodded, slipping the chequebook and bank statements into plastic containers. He went back to searching through the kitchen drawer. As he pulled it further out, cutlery clattered out all over the floor. He swore and bent down to pick up the knives and forks, tossing them back into the drawer.

'I really need this on a Saturday afternoon,' he muttered.

Anna closed her eyes: forced to sit it out in the small kitchen, she felt as if the walls were closing in on her. She rubbed her temples to try to ease the pain, but nothing helped.

'I don't feel so good,' she said quietly.

'What?'

'I said I don't feel good. I think I've got a migraine.'

'You want to go home?' he said, banging the drawer shut. It stuck firmly, so he shook it out again. The clattering noise felt like needles going through her brain. Barolli was on his hands and knees, feeling around inside the unit.

'I'm going to be sick,' she said, and walked unsteadily to the kitchen sink.

'Christ, go into the bathroom; don't chuck up in here!' Barolli squinted into the drawer cavity. 'Something's caught between the drawers.' He reached further inside and then pulled out a brown manila envelope containing a bundle of fifty-pound notes.

'Don't handle the envelope too much,' Anna said and then hurried into the bathroom.

Anna filled a tumbler of water from the kitchen tap and sipped. She had not brought anything up, but her head was throbbing and she felt dizzy. Barolli had counted two and a half thousand pounds in cash into a plastic bag and he was keen to get back to the station to see if they could put a trace on the bank notes. When he suggested Anna go home, she didn't argue; she hadn't had such a bad migraine since she was a teenager.

Back in her bedroom, Anna drew the curtains and went straight to bed, an ice pack on her forehead. She lay with her eyes closed, wondering where Sharon had got all that money, but just thinking about it made her feel worse. She started taking slow deep breaths, trying to empty her mind, but she couldn't ignore the fact that they might have got something that would help their enquiry, perhaps even trace the killer. Eventually she got up and took a shower. She still felt very dizzy, so went to He down again. This time she slept, a deep dreamless sleep, until early morning.

Anna made some mint tea and had a dry piece of toast. She was feeling a lot better, but the shrill ring of her phone at seven-thirty made her wince.

'Travis,' he snapped.

'Yes?'

'You feeling better?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Well, soon you won't be.'

'I'm sorry?' She tensed: Langton sounded furious. 'I'm sorry about yesterday; it was a migraine. If you need me to come in today, I can make it.'

'I'm coming to see you.'

'What?'

'Now!' And he slammed the receiver down.

She was left holding the phone in confusion, and feeling almost as angry as he had sounded. She wasn't expecting sympathy, but he could have been a bit more understanding: she hadn't had a day off sick since she had got her promotion.

Fifteen minutes later, Anna buzzed the intercom and opened her front door, waiting for Langton to appear on the stairs. If he had sounded angry on the phone, it was nothing compared to the obvious fury with which he approached her, carrying an armful of newspapers.

'You are in deep shit,' he said coldly.

'For Chrissakes, I had a fucking migraine,' she said angrily, slamming the front door shut after him.

'You'll probably have another. Have you read it?'

'Read what?'

Langton slapped down a rolled-up edition of the Sun onto her kitchen counter.

'Your boyfriend's article, yesterday's late edition.' He pointed to the paper. 'And if that isn't bad enough, everyone else has run with it!' He threw down the other papers he was holding. 'Look at the bloody News of the World, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Times, Observer, Express … Exactly what I didn't want, Travis: a media frenzy.'

Anna could feel her body shaking as she picked up the Sun. Opening it, she read the headline on page seven — RED DAHLIA KILLER SUSPECT HELD.

Richard Reynolds's exclusive detailed virtually their entire conversation. The article stated that the suspect was a soldier with medical training and that he had admitted to the murder of Louise Pennel. It also gave details of the mutilations she had suffered and the autopsy results.

'He hasn't missed out a fucking thing, even down to the fact she was forced to eat her own shit!' Langton was like a caged animal; fists clenched, he paced up and down the small kitchen. 'What in Christ's name were you thinking?'

Anna wanted to burst into tears.

'I warned you! Talk about sleeping with the bloody enemy! Have you any idea what repercussions this is going to create for me — for the entire team?'

Anna sat on one of her kitchen stools. She was shaking.

'It's beyond belief that you could be so unprofessional, even after I warned you. Jesus Christ, Anna, how could you have been so stupid? Why did you do it?'

She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut tight.

'Well? What have you got to say for yourself?'

She took a deep breath. 'I told him that whatever we discussed was…'

'Was what?' he snapped. 'Headline news?'

'I asked him — no, I told him — that whatever was said between us was private.'

Langton shook his head in despair. 'Private. Private? You are investigating a brutal murder; what do you mean, whatever you said to him had to be private? You are a detective, you know the law — you've broken the law, for Chrissakes, don't you understand? You have given highly confidential information to a journalist. What happened? You have a few too many drinks and couldn't hold your tongue? Is that why you had to leave the enquiry yesterday? Because you were so hung over?'

'That's ripe, corning from you.'

She regretted saying it instantly, but it was too late. His eyes bore into her with such hostility that she had to look away.

'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.'

He rolled up the newspaper and tapped it on the edge of the counter. 'I don't know what I am going to do about this, Anna.'

She licked her lips; her mouth was bone dry. 'Do you want me off the team?'

'That's a possibility. I think, under the circumstances, at the very least you'll have to come off the case. I need a few days to think about it. This could have severe repercussions for me. As it is, I am hanging onto this investigation by my fingernails. This load of shit that's gone down today won't stop with just the one article: every paper has picked up on it and I am going to have to deal with it.'

'I'm so sorry.'

He nodded, then said very quietly. 'You should be.'

Anna heard the front door close behind him. She sat staring at the kitchen wall and began to sob. Every time she dried her eyes and told herself to get it together, she broke down again. She sat on the toilet and cried. She lay on her bed and wept. It was almost an hour later when she managed to close the floodgates, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed. Now she really thought about the consequences, and she knew her error could end her career. As always, the photograph of Jack Travis, her beloved father, was on her bedside table. She stared at his strong face and his deep-set eyes. She hugged the frame.

'Well Pop, I screwed up and I got screwed. This is what it comes down to: the bastard used me.'

She sat up and put the photo back in its usual place. All the years of training, all her ambitions could be swiped aside if Langton so chose. She made her bed for something to do and then wandered into the kitchen. She brewed some coffee and sat feeling wretched, though at least the tears had dried up. She wondered what her father would have advised her to do. She was certain he would never have found himself in the same boat. Langton was right: she had been stupid.

As if on automatic pilot, she finished her coffee, washed up, cleaned the kitchen then tidied the lounge, until everything in the flat was in order; she even vacuumed the hall. She emptied the kitchen bin, the clank of empty bottles a reminder her of her night with Reynolds. They had drunk two bottles of red wine between them; usually, Anna's quota was no more than a couple of glasses, so it was no wonder she'd felt unwell the next morning. She flung the bag into the bin outside the flats. By the time she returned to slam her front door closed, she was angry. Hands on her hips, she stood in the hall and muttered to herself.

'The bastard, he must have done it on purpose!' She reread Reynolds's article and pursed her lips. She had been drinking, but she knew there was stuff in there that she had not discussed with Reynolds. She felt physically sick when she remembered opening her briefcase, but not getting round to looking through her notebook, the night that Reynolds had stayed. Now every crime desk was buzzing with its contents.

Anna went into her bathroom and washed her face with cold water. Her eyes were still red-rimmed; she patted her face dry and put on some make-up. She donned her best coat and shoes and headed for the front door. She drove to the newspaper's main gates. When she was asked if she had a security pass, she showed her ID and said that Mr Reynolds was expecting her. She was waved through and told to park in the visitor bay by the side of the building. She was surprised by how calm she felt as she headed towards the reception area. As it was Sunday, there was only one receptionist on duty; fortunately it was the one she had met previously.

'DI Anna Travis.' She showed her ID. 'Dick Reynolds is expecting me: can I go straight through?'

She watched as the girl wrote down her name, time of arrival and who she was visiting on an identification label which Anna then pinned to her lapel. The receptionist was just about to pick up the phone and call through to the crime desk when two more visitors appeared, requiring her attention.

'It's okay, I know where I'm going,' Anna said. As she pressed for the lift, she was pleased to hear the receptionist attending to the visitors rather than speaking to Reynolds.

The lift stopped at the newsroom floor and Anna made her way along the corridor, pausing a moment to make sure she was going in the right direction, then turning into another corridor that led into the main newsroom. No one paid her any attention as she walked briskly between the rows of desks.

Wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt, Reynolds was sitting with his back to her. He was perched on the edge of his desk with a coffee, regaling his colleagues with some joke. He threw back his head, chortling with laughter. 'I couldn't bloody believe it! He had his trousers round his ankles—' Reynolds broke off as the others clocked Anna walking purposefully towards them. He did a half-turn and almost slid off the desk. 'Anna!' he said smiling, his arms wide.

She walked right up to him, so that their bodies were almost touching, and he blushed.

'This is a surprise,' he said. He edged away from her a fraction.

She took the newspaper from under her arm and slapped it against his chest. 'Not as much as I had when I read this.'

He gave a shrug. 'Look, I'm a journalist.'

'Don't give me your bullshit; this was highly confidential!'

'Now, wait a minute; a lot of it's public domain.'

'Some of this isn't and you know it. How could you do this to me?'

'Anna, like I said, I'm a journalist. This is a big story.'

'You knew what I told you was confidential! And what I didn't tell you, you got out of my notebook. What did you do? Wait until you'd got me drunk? Until I had fallen asleep, so you could creep out of my bed to filch it?'

'Anna.' He took hold of her arm; their confrontation was exciting a lot of interest among the other journalists at their desks.

She swiped his hand away. 'I have been kicked off the case. I probably have no career left, but that wouldn't interest you, would it? You got your story and to hell with any consequences or trouble you might have got me into — and I am in big trouble. I think you are despicable!'

Reynolds pursed his lips, then reached over his desk and picked up the Black Dahlia book. 'There was an LA journalist who broke the news about the Black Dahlia suspect. All I was doing was following what happened in the original murder enquiry.'

'None of what I told you was ever connected to that.'

'Yes it was. What you had not told me was what your victim had been subjected to, and it is the same as the Black Dahlia, so even though you are trying to disconnect the two…'

'I'd like you to eat shit!' she snapped. Reynolds knew she was referring to what Louise Pennel had been forced into doing and it angered him.

'Don't be so crass. What you might not realise is that I work for the Sun, and although we are part of the same group that publish the News of the World, it's a different bloody newspaper.'

'So what did you do? Sell the information? It had to come from you, so don't try and say you had nothing to do with it!'

'Don't you understand? The News of the World filched their article from mine!'

Anna continued, her voice rising. 'We had not allowed that information to be leaked, because if we did bring in a suspect—'

'You have one. You told me.'

'I also told you that it was highly unlikely he was the killer. Now you've blasted it out.'

Reynolds looked around at the people listening and again tried to draw her away, but she wouldn't budge.

'Let's go and have a coffee, talk in private about it,' he said.

'I don't want to be in your company longer than it takes to say what I have come to tell you. I want nothing more to do with you. If this has hampered the enquiry, then you will have DCI Langton to deal with. This is just for my personal satisfaction. You are a creep and a two-faced bastard.' She picked up the coffee he had left on his desk and threw it in his face. It was a good hit: his hair was soaked and his face dripping.

'That's very childish.'

'Maybe, but it's made me feel better.' She turned and walked away as he tried to mop up the coffee from his face and his sopping shirt.

By the time she got back to her car, she was shaking with nerves. She drove home, hardly able to think straight, and her anger was unabated as she parked and let herself into the flat. She almost broke down in tears again, but refused to allow herself to. She tipped out her briefcase and searched through The Black Dahlia for the section that Reynolds had mentioned. She carried it into the kitchen and sat reading it over and over.

The original article had been written by a screenwriter and sent to the LA Herald Express. As Reynolds had said, it covered much the same ground as his article, describing the gruesome injuries of the victim and revealing that a suspect was being held in custody. Its publication had prompted the real killer to admit the murder, wanting recognition for his hideous crime and to claim the publicity he had earned.

Anna's mouth was dry as she drove to the station. She walked slowly up the stone steps and approached the Incident Room. She stood for a few moments outside the double doors, listening to jangling phones and muted voices, before mustering the guts to push them open.

The room fell silent as everyone turned to stare at her. She walked to her desk and took off her coat, folding it over the back of her chair. She could see the glances passing back and forth, and knew her cheeks would be pink with embarrassment, but she kept going. Taking from her briefcase her notebook and pencil, she proceeded to the front of the room to stand by the white crime board. There were a lot of copies of the newspaper article lying around. It was Lewis who spoke to her first.

'You've got a lot of bottle, Travis.'

'Not really, but I need to say something to everyone.'

'Floor's yours.' He gestured to the room; everyone was listening.

Anna coughed and then lifted her head to stare at a small spot on the wall directly in front and across from where she was standing.

'I really fouled up, and I am here to apologise to everyone. I had too much to drink and I foolishly trusted Richard Reynolds, the journalist. When I told him that what I was saying was highly confidential and not for publication, he promised me that it would go no further. I have no excuse, bar the fact I had that afternoon been through the hideous autopsy report on Louise Pennel and then seeing Sharon Bilkin's body. I can only apologise and, if what has happened as a result of my stupidity creates problems for this enquiry, I am ashamed and deeply sorry. That's all; again, please accept my apologies for my unprofessional and very naive conduct.'

Anna returned to her desk, leaving everyone unsure how to deal with what she had said. It was almost as if they wanted to give her a round of applause for standing up to them. Anna had been so nervous that she had not seen Langton appear, listen and walk back into his office. She packed up her desk, and was reaching for her raincoat when Barolli came over and handed her a coffee.

'I'd just let him brood a few more hours, I'm sure this won't—'

'Travis!' came the bellow before he could finish.

Anna turned to see Langton holding the blinds of his office window open; he gestured for her to join him and then let them flip closed again. She tapped on his door and waited a beat before she went in.

'You've got a lot of nerve,' he said, standing in front of his desk with his thumbs caught in his braces.

'I meant everything I said.'

'I bloody hope you did, but it doesn't alter the facts.'

There was a pause as he glared at her. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl standing in front of her teacher; she had to bite the inside of her mouth hard to stop the tears welling up.

'What do you think your father would have to say?'

'He would be ashamed.'

He nodded, and then checked his watch. 'Go home.'

'I was intending to do that.'

As she walked to the door, she paused a moment. 'Did we get anything from the cash found at Sharon's flat?'

'Not yet; it's Sunday, remember?'

'Oh, I know what day it is, and one I won't forget.'

She walked out and closed the door quietly behind her. Passing through the Incident Room, she got a few glances and smiles, but they didn't make her feel any better. She went up to Lewis, who was printing serial numbers on the board.

'We might get some luck with these. There's over a thousand pounds in new notes; the rest are all odd numbers.'

Anna hovered and then asked if she could speak to him in private. He looked nonplussed and then gestured to the corridor.

Anna gathered her things and went to wait for Lewis. It was a few minutes before he joined her.

'I spoke to Reynolds this morning; his excuse for what he had done was that in the Black Dahlia case, a screenwriter wrote a similar article—'

'Yeah, yeah, I have read the book.'

'Then you know what happened after the article was written: the killer was so angry about this suspect that was held claiming all the credit—'

Lewis interrupted her, impatient. 'We released our suspect this morning; we sent him back to where he walked out from, an institution over in Tooting: it was another time waster.'

'Yes I know that, we suspected it from the moment he walked in. What I am saying is, the article on the old Black Dahlia case was in actual fact a ruse, made up by the journalist to try and flush out the real killer.'

Lewis sighed, even more impatient. 'Anna, I know: we've all read the book; the time waster we just released had also read the book! You're not telling me anything we haven't discussed this morning. Unless I am hearing you wrong and you are trying to tell me that you gave all the information to this prick at the Sun because you were trying to flush out the real killer?'

'No, I am not saying that.'

'Then what exactly are you trying to tell me?'

She hesitated. It was obvious she never intended for it all to happen, but what if it did do some good? 'Listen: what if such a big article, and in all the Sundays, might be enough to dent the real killer's ego? He'll want to make sure we know we are holding the wrong man.'

'The Gov's already reasoned that might happen, so he's been in touch with your boyfriend, seeing if he can repair some of the damage.'

Anna was taken aback. Langton never ceased to surprise her.

'You should thank him, because if he does go down that route, it'll get you off the hook. He'll be saying that the whole nasty episode was a ruse to flush the bastard out. It depends on whether or not we get a result.'

'If you do, does that mean I'm still on the case?'

'Don't ask me, I didn't know you were off it. I suspected you'd be in deep trouble, but you know the Gov — he always protects his team.'

Lewis went back into the Incident Room leaving Anna in the corridor, a lump in her throat.