Lynda La Plante - Above Suspicion

‘Really? Is that what it is?’

There was a pause: he took another bite of his sandwich.

‘I overheard DCI Hedges talking in the canteen.’

‘Yeah, and …?’ he said, with his mouth bulging.

‘He doesn’t like you.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘He said he didn’t know how you’d got this case, unless you were having a scene with the commander. He said there was no connection between the murders,’ Anna continued. ‘That what you said about there being a connection was all bullshit.’

Langton finished his sandwich and wiped the table in front of him with his hands, picking up a few crumbs.

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, hesitating. ‘Melissa was young and beautiful. From what I have read so far, your killer goes after a specific type: bruised, old, beaten — so unloved they wouldn’t even make it on to the missing persons list because nobody cared enough about them to report them missing.’

‘I agree, but the way her tights were wrapped round her neck three times was what swung it for me.’

‘But at the postmortem … I can’t recall Henson saying that—’

‘You were throwing up in the toilets,’ snapped Langton.

‘No, I was there when he cut the tights away from her throat.’

Langton rubbed his eyes. ‘Last night I went to the forensic lab, checked the fucking tights: three times, three times wrapped around her little white throat. It’s the same killer.’

‘And the bra? Was that tied in the same way?’ Anna felt that Langton had just lied to her, but before he had a chance to answer, there was a tap on the door and Jean ushered in Mark Rawlins and his father. Langton transformed himself before Anna’s eyes. Genial and relaxed, he stood to shake the visitors’ hands, then gestured for them to sit.

‘Thank you for agreeing to come in. I hope we can get through this as fast as possible and with as little pain.’ He gave an avuncular glance at Mark, a fresh-faced youth who looked closer to sixteen than nineteen. ‘This must be torment for you; it’s a terrible thing.’

Mark’s father, white-haired, well-dressed, was far more nervous.

‘Is my son a suspect?’ He addressed Langton brusquely.

‘Not at all. But he was the last person we know who saw Melissa alive. Anything he might recall could be vital.’

The interview was an eye-opener for Anna. Langton spent time putting the emotional boy at his ease, before he scrutinized his original statement, section by section. When Langton pressed him as to what the young couple had been fighting about, the boy became nervous. The room was tense as Langton started to put the pressure on.

‘You were Melissa’s boyfriend for eighteen months,’ he said impatiently, ‘and you have said over and over again how much you loved her, so you might understand why I am confused as to how you could just let her walk away. It was half past eleven at night, Mark.’

Mark had been constantly glancing at the upright figure of his father, but Mr Rawlins had said hardly a word throughout the interview.

‘I was only going to wait a few minutes, then go after her and that’s what I did. I paid the bill and walked off in the same direction.’

‘Which was?’ Langton waited.

‘She went across Covent Garden, I presumed she was heading for the tube station, but when I got there it was closed. I wasn’t sure if she would go towards Leicester Square or Oxford Circus, so I then walked back to the Square down Floral Street.’

Langton passed across a street map for Mark to highlight the route he had taken. His hand was shaking and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

‘Did you and Melissa have a sexual relationship?’

When Langton repeated the question, Mark started to cry.

‘Is this really necessary?’ said his father quietly.

‘I need to know, Mark, if you and Melissa had a full sexual relationship.’

Mark shook his head.

‘There is a possible witness who said he might have seen Melissa talking to someone in a car.’

Mark raised his head.

‘Was Melissa the type of girl who would ask for a lift?’

‘No. She wouldn’t do that.’

‘Was she promiscuous?’

The boy’s eyes widened in shock.

‘No, no. No!’

‘What did you argue about, the night she walked away from you?’

Mark’s fingers gripped the pen so tightly it looked as if he was going to snap it.

‘I’m trying to ascertain the mood she was in; that’s all I’m trying to do, Mark.’

‘I told you. She was angry.’ Mark threw the pen across the table, then he started to sob, his whole body shaking. After a few moments, his father moved over to comfort him, gripping his arm tightly.

‘She wouldn’t let me do it.’ Mark muttered something else, his face red with torment.

‘What?’

‘I said, she wouldn’t let me have SEX WITH HER,’ he shouted. ‘That’s why she walked away: because I wanted her to come home with me. I wanted to have sex with her but she wouldn’t, she refused …’ He broke down.

‘Are you telling me that Melissa was a virgin?’

Mark struggled for self-control. ‘Yes, and she would not have got into a stranger’s car; she wouldn’t have done that. What you’re trying to make her out to be is disgusting! You are disgusting!’

It was a while longer before Langton released father and son. As they left the interview room, Mr Rawlins glanced at him over his shoulder with disdain.

‘My son is bereft. To imply that Melissa was anything but an innocent in all this is most cruel. I hope to God you treat her parents with more respect.’

The door closed quietly behind him. Anna shut her notebook. She was of the same opinion, not that she could say anything. She was, therefore, surprised by the quiet fury in Langton’s voice.

‘A virgin and she gets sodomized, raped and murdered! Life stinks.’

‘Yes.’ She suddenly had an almost overpowering impulse to reach out and comfort him.

He sighed, rubbing his head. ‘Right, let’s get over to forensics. See if they’ve come up with anything.’

He strode out of the room. She just made it to the door before it closed in her face.

In the forensic department, Melissa’s clothes had been laid out on the bench tables. Langton and Anna stood before a black T-shirt with a pink sequinned logo that spelled out the word ‘strip’. To one side there was a small square of pink velvet and on that, a single diamante stud.

Langton shook his head. ‘Strip?’

‘It’s actually a very expensive T-shirt,’ Anna hastened to explain. ‘See the way the “t” is picked out? That’s the logo for Theo Fennel.’

‘Who?’ he snapped.

‘Theo Fennel. He’s a high-society jeweller, has a shop on the Fulham Road.’

Langton turned to the forensic assistant. ‘Did you get any fibres from it? The sequins have sharp edges.’

Coral James, the forensic scientist, took off her glasses.

‘No; we had hopes, but the T-shirt was drawn up, covering the sequins. As you can see, one is missing.’

Langton and Anna looked closer. On the V, picked out in sequins, one stone had gone, leaving the four small claws empty.

They turned their attention to a pink cotton mini skirt with an elasticated belt. The fabric was expensive and shiny and offered little hope of anything clinging to it. Melissa’s shoes, low-heeled and expensive, were scuffed, but with little trace of mud. Langton turned to Coral James.

‘No mud? It was like a mud bath when we were there. We are hoping for confirmation soon that she was killed at the site.’

‘Well, it was cold. Then we had that odd snowstorm. It’s hard to tell; the ground might not have been muddy when she was taken there.’