Lynda La Plante: Blood Line

She nodded, placing the pages into an envelope.

Left alone, she picked up her briefcase, but in reality she didn’t feel like going home. The conversation in the car with Paul had niggled at her, but the reason wouldn’t rise to the surface. Maybe it was just frustration, but the fact remained that they still had no clues as to Alan Rawlins’s whereabouts. Nor had they discovered any evidence to suggest that a crime had been committed.

Part of her felt that they had reached a dead end and she wanted to get onto another case, but there was that niggle. Perhaps it was her intuition, or as Langton would always ask, ‘What’s the gut feeling?’ Truthfully, bar her dislike of Tina Brooks, she didn’t have anything else that she felt would justify the continuation of her enquiries.

Anna left the station and drove to Highgate, where Langton was heading up a murder team. It was almost seven when she reached the local police station and parked in the private section reserved for patrol cars and police vehicles. She saw that Langton’s rusted old brown Rover was as usual erratically parked, taking up two spaces. It looked as if it had even more dents than usual, and passing it she saw, left in the back, a child’s booster seat. As always, whenever she caught a tiny piece of his private life it surprised her. She never found it easy to connect Langton with a whole world that didn’t include her or their past relationship, and yet it was years now since they had been lovers.

The Duty Sergeant suggested she go straight up to the incident room. It was one of the new stations with all mod cons, unlike the one she was attached to. It was very different also in that even at this time of the day it looked busy; a couple of female DCs passed her in the well-lit corridor as she made her way along to double doors, following signs to the incident room. She listened outside at first, then, as she could hear Langton’s voice, she inched the door open and looked in.

Langton was giving a big team of officers a briefing. All had their back to the door as she slipped in to stand at the rear of the large, very well-equipped room. There were rows of desks and monitors, a long incident board with photographs and details, and numerous clerical staff working on the periphery. Anna held onto her briefcase and looked around. She saw DCI Mike Lewis, DS Paul Barolli and, sitting side by side, Joan Falkland and DC Barbara Maddox. They had all worked with her on four previous cases. She felt a pang of envy that they were together and she was an outsider. Langton was pacing up and down, pulling at his tie.

‘I think our victims have been chosen through a systematic and lengthy period of stalking and surveillance. I am certain he has been watching this family for some time. He had to know the husband’s habits, that every other night he played snooker at his local club. He would have noted how long the husband spent there in order to have enough time to complete what he wanted to do. The crime was carefully staged to impact in the most traumatic way on the husband when he returned from the pub. I think the staging and placing of the bodies indicated that our killer is methodical and he wanted to shock. He could know this family – more importantly, know the husband – and although it’s just speculation at this stage, we concentrate on anyone who held a grievance against him.’

Anna had inched her way over to sit unobtrusively on a hard-backed chair left against the wall by the double doors. She listened intently, watching Langton pace the floor back and forth in front of the incident board, tapping the photographs of the victims and turning on his heels to face his team.

‘This is a murder of sexual sadism. Our killer was organised. He planned these murders. He targeted his victims, he brought restraints and knives, and we have no weapons found at the victim’s home. By the use of these restraints the element of control was uppermost in his mind, but something didn’t go according to plan; that something was the husband returning home earlier than usual from his snooker game, which had been cancelled due to his friends having to work a late shift. So although victim one, the wife, is deliberately displayed and ready for viewing, his second victim, the twelve-year-old boy, is not. From the blood distribution along the walls in the kitchen and hallway, we can ascertain that the child tried to make a run for it.’

Langton stood in front of a large sketch of the outlay of the victims’ kitchen, breakfast room and hall. He jabbed it with his finger.

‘The boy was caught and dragged to the kitchen dining area – we have blood smearing and spattering against the walls. Forensics has given us a scenario that the killer rammed the boy’s head against the side of a cabinet before tying him to the chair beside his mother. Pathology report indicates the poor kid thankfully would have been unconscious by this time.’

Langton loosened his tie. He was sweating and Anna could see that his old injury to his knee was paining him as he paused to rub it.

‘With three possible suspects the search warrants will be executed first thing tomorrow morning. Look for any items relating to sexual or violent behaviour – pornographic magazines, videos, books relating to true-life crimes, vibrators, clamps, women’s clothing, underwear and so on. Look out for diaries, anything connected to this sort of violence. They could have police equipment, handcuffs, ropes, knives, so search their vehicles . . .’

He took a deep breath and glanced at his watch.

‘Right, that’s it for tonight. Weekend leave is cancelled. We work round the clock on this one.’

His team began to disperse, taking chairs back to their desks and talking quietly to each other. No one as yet had seen Anna, and she now stood up, waiting for the moment to speak to Langton. However, he was in a huddle with Mike Lewis and Paul Barolli. She decided that rather than wait in the incident room, she’d leave her notes with the Duty Sergeant downstairs. She also didn’t feel like talking to anyone from the old team.

‘DCI Travis!’ It was Barbara. ‘How are you?’ Barbara was carrying her coat, eager to leave. She was always the first out if it was possible.

‘I’m fine, thanks. This sounds like a nasty case.’

‘Christ, it’s awful. The victim’s husband was an ex-detective working for a private investigation company.’

‘Anna.’ Joan now joined them and she had that sorrowful look in her eyes. ‘How’s things?’

‘Good, thank you. I just wanted to pass this over to Langton.’

Joan turned and pulled a face. ‘He’s been sleeping nights here, as usual keeping us all on our toes, but I hear you got a good result – guilty verdict. Consensus was it was pretty well on the cards though, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Anna felt hemmed in by the two women. If she left with them they’d want to continue the conversation so she stepped aside.

‘Just want to give this to him.’ She held up the file of her notes on the Alan Rawlins enquiry.

The two women left and Anna still hovered. She found it annoying that they seemed to think her last case was an easy ride – although it had been. Had Langton chosen her to head it up for that reason? She now suspected that was exactly what he had done. Her anger made her confident enough to walk towards him.

‘Excuse me, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to run these reports by you.’

Langton turned, surprised. ‘Travis.’

Mike Lewis and Barolli both smiled, but Anna cut through any start of a conversation by handing Langton the file.

‘Maybe talk about it tomorrow?’ she said briskly.

‘Hell, no. Come into the office. As I’m here we might as well deal with it all now.’

Mike and Barolli moved away, giving her those sad smiles that she loathed, and she forced herself to look back at them with a grin.