Lynda La Plante: The Red Dahlia

Before Anna could reply, they pulled into the station car park. Langton was out and heading directly into the station ahead of her as if she didn't exist. She hurried after him and almost caught a clip from the door as he banged through. It was a repeat performance of the last time they had worked together.

'I'm right behind you,' she said curtly, but he just ran up the stairs two at a time before slamming into the Incident Room.

Langton stood in front of the team looking at his watch, impatiently waiting for silence. It was just after six-thirty. He held up the two photo albums brought from Sharon's flat.

'I want these gone over with a fine-tooth comb: the boyfriends, the friends, anyone that can give us more clues to our victim's lifestyle. Also, importantly, hit the clubs she used. Talk to anyone that knew her or might have seen her on the last night her flatmate saw her alive. We know she was missing for three days before her body was found. Where did she go? Who with? What we do know is that she was sexually permissive and took cocaine and ecstasy; that we found no trace of drugs is down to the fact her body had been drained of blood. Big clue, because any young lad screwing her isn't likely to be able to not only drain her blood, but also chop her in two. The toxicology results might give us more details, but they're going to need at least three to four weeks. The initial autopsy report gave us a lot of unpleasant details and I suspect there are more to come. Whoever carved this young girl up has to have a house or apartment that could facilitate such carnage. The suspect also has to have a car, as he transported the body to the murder site.'

Lewis interjected. 'Maybe the killer could have borrowed a vehicle, even hired one.'

Langton suggested that he immediately check out hire cars for the relevant time and location.

Lewis grimaced; it would be a very long and boring job, and he muttered to Barolli that he should have kept his mouth shut.

'We have found no clothes or other personal items belonging to the victim, so I am sorry if I am going over old ground, but we need to check out skips, bins, the local tip, household waste collections, and someone will have to ascertain when the bins in that area were emptied.'

He turned to the board and pointed. 'Take a look: the saw used to dissect her body did a very professional job, so it was more than likely used by someone who has medical or surgical experience. This narrows the suspects down, so eliminate eliminate until we get some perspective on the killer. We need to track down a tall dark-haired man, driving a…' He gestured in exasperation. 'Black car, expensive looking. This man was known to be dating our victim. This man was very secretive; this man used drugs, this man also encouraged Louise into perverted sexual games. Our suspect is possibly married. To start with, concentrate in this area. Any doctor or surgeon struck off for medical malpractice, any doctor or surgeon with a police record. When we have exhausted that area, we widen the net, but I want this man traced!'

Langton dug his hands into his pockets. 'I want a very closed shop on this one: keep your mouths shut about what was done to her. The press get hold of this horror and we'll have a Fred West scenario which we do not want. As it is, I will have the big boys breathing down my neck for a result, never mind some of the heavy-duty females skiing up the ranks.'

Anna felt this jibe was directed at her own promotion, but if it was, Langton never even glanced in her direction.

'I have asked for more officers to be drafted in to help us out.'

Langton continued his briefing for over an hour. Hardly anyone interrupted, even when he said some very derogatory things about the way they had been handling the case to date. He was determined that no more time would be wasted; they had to get results, and fast. When he finished, Lewis and Barolli handed the lists of duties that Langton had ordered to the Operations Manager. There would be no overtime; if needs be, they would have to work around the clock. Langton returned to his office. It was like a whirlwind had passed through.

Anna went over to find out what Lewis had discovered at Louise's place of work: not much. She was always late, bit of a shoddy worker; a very likeable girl, just lazy. The dentist confirmed that he had given her notice to quit. He also confirmed that she was paid a low wage, as he had been doing a lot of free dental work on her. The other girls working at the clinic got on quite well with her but she kept very much to herself and rarely, if ever, mixed with any of them socially. The dentist was married with four children, and on the night Louise was at Stringfellow's, he was at a family dinner. He did not socialise with Louise and knew little or nothing about her private life; however, one of the dental nurses recalled that Louise had wanted to leave early one day, about a month before she disappeared. She had said she had an important date. The nurse had seen a black car, possibly a Rover, parked opposite the surgery, but she could not describe the man sitting inside. She said that the following day, Louise was very late for work and had showed them a bottle of perfume and a cashmere sweater she had been given by her 'friend'.

It had stuck in the nurse's mind because, mid-afternoon, Louise became very sick and had to leave the surgery, so she had to cover for her. She said that Louise often came to work very hung over. A couple of times, she had also looked as if she had been in some kind of fight: her face was bruised, and once she had deep scratches on her arms. Louise had claimed she had been tipsy and fallen down the stairs of her flat.

Langton rocked back in his chair, flipping a pen up and down as he listened to Barolli going over the wording of the press statements. Langton was being cagey about what they should release: too much information would result in a slew of sickos calling in. The most important thing to get across was that the police wished to contact the tall dark middle-aged man in order to eliminate him from their enquiries. They also needed to know if anyone had seen Louise during those three days she was missing. Langton okayed the use of that same photograph with the red rose in her hair. He then called it quits for himself and went home.

Anna did not get home until late either. She felt too tired to cook, so had bought a pizza on her way home. She had a bottle of wine already open and poured herself a glass. The pizza was cold now, but she ate it anyway as she opened the copy of tomorrow's Sun she'd picked up from the tube station. She knew the press release would be coming out the following morning, so it was a surprise when the now-familiar photograph of Louise stared back at her from page two.

The accompanying headline read POLICE HUNT KILLER OF RED DAHLIA. Anna frowned; it was not a dahlia, but a rose in Louise's hair. The article likened the case to a very brutal murder that had made history in Los Angeles in the mid-forties, that of Elizabeth Short: a beautiful girl who was nicknamed the Black Dahlia because of the flower she wore in her raven hair.

The journalist on the Sun crime desk had cobbled the story together, but his editor liked it; the catchphrase of the Black and Red Dahlias looked good in print, as did the two colour photographs of the dead girls. Though they lacked any real detail about the Louise Pennel case, they could hang the article on the fact that the killer of the Black Dahlia was never traced, just as the killer of Louise Pennel, the Red Dahlia, remained at large after ten days.

The journalist kept quiet about the fact that he had received an anonymous letter pointing this out. The second contact from the killer lay crumpled in a ball in his office bin.