Lynda La Plante: The Red Dahlia

There was a strange atmosphere in the Incident Room. Langton's remark about their lack of results had hit home and the team were feeling out of sorts. Nevertheless, Anna worked at gathering names and addresses of Louise's known associates and, along with the rest of the team, began arranging interviews. Her first priority was to go to Louise's flat to reinterview Sharon herself.

Louise had lived in the top-floor flat of a narrow four-storey house off Balcombe Street, close to Baker Street tube station. Anna paused to catch her breath; the stairs were steep. The staircase narrowed as she approached flat nine. She knocked and waited.

'Come in,' Sharon called out. Anna pushed the unlocked door open. The small hallway was as narrow as the stairs and was crammed with photographs of Sharon, some of her modelling teenage clothes and others in which she was rather more scantily dressed. There were none of Louise.

'I'm in here,' Sharon called from the kitchen, interrupting Anna's scrutiny. 'I've put the kettle on; do you want tea or coffee?'

'Coffee, please. Black, no sugar,' Anna said as she entered.

'It's only instant,' Sharon said, busily wiping down a sink that was stacked with dirty crockery.

'That's fine.'

Anna sat at the small folding plastic table; the rest of the space in the tiny kitchen was taken up with cheap cabinets, a fridge and a washing machine.

'I don't think there is anything I can tell you that I haven't said already,' Sharon said as she poured boiling water into two mugs.

'I just want to go over a few things to find out what type of person Louise was.' Anna took her notebook and a tape recorder from her briefcase. 'Do you mind if I tape us? It's in case I don't write something down I'll need to check out.'

Sharon hesitated and then nodded, drawing out the other chair.

Anna checked her tape was running. 'You gave us a list of Louise's friends and we'll be talking to them, but can you think of anyone else?'

'I went through my address book again last night and there's no one that I can think of.'

'Did Louise have a diary?'

'I don't know.'

'Maybe we could have a look around later? If you would like to see the Section Eight warrant?'

Sharon shrugged as she munched a chocolate chip biscuit, not even glancing at the document that Anna showed her.

'You mentioned to DCI Morgan that Louise was seeing someone.'

'I don't know his name and I never met him. I only saw him the once, when he rang downstairs for her. He didn't come in. I was just going out, so I saw him go to his car and wait for her; well, I presume that's what he was doing.'

'What type of car?'

'I was asked that. I don't know. It was black and shiny, but I don't know what make.'

'Can you describe this man?'

'I already have.'

'Yes I know, but just for me.'

Sharon finished her biscuit and wiped the corners of her mouth with one finger. 'Tall, maybe six foot. He was wearing a long dark coat, very smart, and he had short dark hair. I only really saw the back of him. Oh yeah, slight hooknose, I remember that.'

'What age, do you think?'

'Hard to tell; thirty-five to forty-five? He wasn't young and he wasn't her usual type.'

'How long had Louise been seeing this man?'

Sharon shrugged. 'I dunno; I think she knew him before she moved in here. She didn't see him that regular, but she was very keen on him.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Well, when she did have a date with him, she spent hours getting dressed, changing her clothes; she even borrowed some of mine. She said she wanted to look smart for him, sophisticated, and she bought some new shoes: very high, spike-heeled ones.'

'Are they missing?'

'I don't know. I haven't looked.'

'We can do that later. I'll also need you to look through her wardrobe and see if any of her clothes are missing.'

'I can do, but I don't know if I'll be able to tell; you see, we shared the flat but, I mean, we weren't close friends.'

'Really?'

'She answered an ad I put in Time Out when my last flatmate left. It's rented and I couldn't afford to live here by myself, so I needed someone fast.'

'When was this?'

'About seven months ago. I dunno where she lived before; she didn't have that much luggage. She didn't have a lot of money either; well, her job paid peanuts.'

'You said she worked for a dentist?'

'Yeah, but they paid her a minimum wage, 'cos she was having some of her teeth fixed. She needed some caps and fillings done, so I guess when that had been finished she would leave. She didn't talk about her work much; just that it was really boring and she had this thing about hearing the dentist's drill.'

'And you work as a model?'

'Yes, mostly catalogue work. I also do part time at a cafe up the road.'

Anna ploughed on, keeping the questions simple, not wanting to unnerve Sharon before trying to ease her onto more personal topics.

Langton, Barolli and Lewis spent the entire morning sifting through the case history. By two o'clock, having worked through lunch, they closed the files.

'They've got nothing,' Langton said, quietly.

'Yeah, well at least they've identified her.'

'We'll have a briefing at the end of the day; in the meantime, I'll go over to interview this Sharon, her flatmate.'

'Travis is there,' Barolli said.

'I know.' Langton walked out.

Barolli looked at Lewis quizzically. 'He said anything to you about her?'

'What? Travis?'

'Yeah, he did a double-take when he saw her name listed on the team, but then pretended not to have noticed. They got on, didn't they?'

'I was told a bit more than got on! In fact, you remember Jean — that stony-faced DC? — she said they were having a scene.'

'No way! She's not the Gov's type for one, and for two, he wouldn't be so crass as to screw someone on his team. He gets his leg over enough women without shitting on his own doorstep.'

'Well, it's what I was told,' Lewis said, slightly embarrassed.

Barolli flicked open the postmortem file and stared at it. 'You read through all this? What had been done to her?'

Lewis shook his head. They had been under pressure from Langton to get through the files as fast as possible, so had taken half each.

'Bottom of the page.' Barolli used a pen to indicate where Lewis should read. It took longer than just a glance. He turned over to the next page of the report and continued reading, then slowly closed the file.

'Jesus Christ. I thought the beatings she'd taken were bad enough, along with the slashes to her mouth, but this is sick, fucking sick.'

Barolli nodded; the report had turned his stomach. 'Beggars belief, doesn't it? And they haven't finished the autopsy yet! What kind of animal would do that?'

Lewis took a deep breath. 'One we'd better bloody catch.'

Anna was sitting in Louise's cramped bedroom. The single bed, with its pink candlewick bedspread, had not been made up. She had asked if Louise ever brought any guests back to the flat. Sharon had shaken her head: that was one of the house rules and, to her knowledge, Louise had never broken it.

'The landlady lives on the ground floor and she'd have a fit.'

'But Louise often stayed away for nights?'

'Yes, so did I; neither of us had got a steady bloke though, so it didn't really matter not being able to bring anyone back.'

Anna had to move her knees aside so that Sharon could open the wardrobe doors.

'I don't know what's missing. Like I said, she hadn't lived here too long. Oh, hang on!'

Sharon walked out of the room. Anna got up to look at the clothes herself. They were hung in two sections: what looked like work clothes — white shirts and straight dark skirts, a couple of jackets — and clothes for going out, some very expensive, others just high-street glitter.