Lynda La Plante - Above Suspicion

With that, the team broke up; they would simply have to wait until the following morning.

After the team had left the briefing room, Langton sat moodily in a hard-backed chair. He looked up when he heard Anna crossing the floor towards him. He held in his hand the photos of the dead women.

‘They were all alive, once. Albeit in one wretched condition or another, but nevertheless they were alive, with families, husbands, sometimes kids. Now they’re dead and whether or not they were junkies, whores, drunks, or just fucked-up human beings, they have a right to have us hunt down who killed them with as much press as Melissa Stephens.’

He sighed, pinching his nose. “Course, on the other hand, I could be wrong. We won’t know one hundred per cent until we get the forensic evidence back.’

‘But you really do think it’s the same man.’ Anna felt more at ease with him now.

‘Thinking isn’t good enough, Travis. It’s evidence that counts. If they tell me that Melissa’s bra or the tights that throttled the life out of her weren’t tied in the same way as these poor bitches then no, it’s not the same killer.’

‘Was there any DNA?’

Now he turned that laser stare on her. ‘Read the case files; don’t waste my time.’

‘Would it be possible to take a couple home to read? Or I can stay late and do it here, so I’m up to speed with everyone else?’

‘Sign for anything you take out.’ Langton banged through the doors.

Anna shook her head; these guys certainly liked to make an exit. She collected her notebook and pencils. As she walked towards the open door she gave a backward glance to the still-smoky room. The chairs were now even more jumbled, the cups and saucers used as ashtrays overflowed and screwed-up paper and old newspapers littered the floor.

She closed the door behind her quietly. She felt a strange sense of elation to be part of her father’s world.

It was past midnight when Anna finished compiling her shorthand notes on the Teresa Booth case, and by the time she had finished the file on the next victim, it was after two o’clock in the morning.

Sandra Donaldson, aged forty-one, had a similar background to the first victim: a life of abuse, drugs, alcohol, four children all fostered out and a junkie boyfriend. She was first arrested for prostitution when she was twenty and then numerous times after that for theft and handling stolen property as well as further arrests for prostitution.

According to postmortem reports, she had been more severely beaten than the first victim. Her bruises looked horrific: some old and yellowing, some fresh. Her black bra had been used to tie her hands behind her back and she had been strangled with her tights. When Anna matched the two large blown-up photographs depicting the way the items had been knotted, she was hardly surprised to find they were identical.

Sandra had been raped brutally, with damage to her vagina and anus. Like Teresa’s, her body was dumped and left rotting like rubbish. Anna reflected on this sad end to a sad life. It had taken weeks before anyone claimed her body for burial. The only reason she had been identified in the first place was because her fingerprints had been on file. Anna wrote a memo, reminding herself to check if all the other victims had police records too. It was the last thing she did before she collapsed exhausted into bed.

However, none of this weariness was evident in her face or demeanour the next morning when, just before nine o’clock, she arrived at work in her brand new Mini Cooper. A uniformed officer directed her to a car park round the back of the station, which was completely full with patrol cars. Obviously there had been no space allocated for her, so it took a few tours around the car park before she wedged her car in beside a battered old Volvo. As she locked her car, she prayed that whoever drove the Volvo wouldn’t scratch her baby on their way out.

The incident room was quiet that morning and, with some relief, she noted that the used food cartons had been removed from the desks.

‘Good morning, Jean,’ she said, brightly. ‘Nobody here yet?’

Jean, the only other occupant, returned her greeting with a lukewarm smile.

‘You must be joking. They’ve been in the briefing room for an hour. There’s a big strategy meeting.’

‘Nobody mentioned it last night,’ Anna protested, taking off her coat. She quickly returned the files to the filing cabinet before heading to the door.

‘Did you get permission to take those away? They are supposed to stay here, you know.’

‘I am aware of that, Jean,’ Anna replied, trying to curb her irritation, ‘but I asked DCI Langton if I could take them, to catch up. I signed them out in the logbook and desk diary. Who’s down there at the meeting?’

‘The commander. If DCI Langton can prove our murders are linked to the Melissa Stephens case and we have in-depth knowledge of all the linked offences, we’ll have all the help we need.’

Anna waited for her to explain.

Jean did so carefully, as if dealing with a half-wit: ‘The Department of Public Affairs will liaise with the D-SIO and the SIO and will provide press statements and organize briefings. It’s all political now. Drives me nuts. There’s more and more paperwork required on every investigation.’

‘Has any conclusive evidence come up since last night that links Melissa Stephens to this enquiry?’

‘I don’t know, but the gov was in before the cleaners this morning, so I’d say he’s found something.’

Jean looked smug as she resumed typing on her computer. Anna walked out of the room.

There wasn’t a soul in the corridor or on the stairs; in fact, it seemed almost ominously quiet as Anna made her way to the briefing room on the lower floor. Since this was the headquarters of the day-to-day operations of the station, on a typical morning phones could be expected to be ringing constantly, with the sound of voices wafting up the stone steps to the next level.

Not today, however. The double doors to the briefing room were closed and, unlike the interview rooms, there were no glass panels in them. Anna leaned against the doors, hoping she could hear something, anything. Apart from a low murmur of voices, she heard nothing. She couldn’t bear to barge into the room, so she turned round, planning to head back to the incident room, and almost collided with DC Barolli as he came out of the gents, wiping his hands on a paper towel.

‘How’s it going?’ she said, in a low voice.

‘I couldn’t tell you. The commander’s not one to give anything away.’ He lobbed the paper at a bin, missing it.

‘Did we get anything from forensic?’

‘You must be joking. They take their time.’

‘So, no other details came in?’

‘Not that I know. Those pricks over at Clapham wouldn’t give you a pot to piss in.’

He continued down the corridor, so Anna returned to the incident room, where she read the third case history. This victim’s name was Kathleen Keegan. She was aged fifty, of below average intelligence and illiterate. She had been beaten down by depression and ill health. There had been numerous arrests for drunk and disorderly conduct and, as with the others, arrests for prostitution and street-walking. She had once been a redhead, but the hair in the photographs was badly dyed blonde and in texture resembled frizzy door-matting. The mortuary pictures of her sagging, overweight body and her flattened breasts were depressing. Six babies had gone to care homes, or been fostered, due to her inability to care for them.

When her decomposing corpse was found, it was lying in a public park, hidden under stinging nettles. Her body was tied in exactly the same way as the other victims’, but these pictures were particularly gruesome. The victim’s false teeth were protruding from her mouth, almost as if she was laughing: a hideous horror clown with red lipstick smudged over her face.