Lynda La Plante: Blood Line

‘Well, if he did,’ Anna said, ‘he wasn’t taking out extra money to pay for her, and the fact that there’s been no money withdrawn from any of the accounts is worrying. I don’t think we can walk away just yet. We’ll do a few discreet interviews at his place of work and . . .’

‘Maybe the hair salon. If he was helping Tina do it up he’d have come into contact with the other females working there, so you never know – he might have run off with one of them.’

Anna nodded, but she doubted it.

‘Okay, we’ll start with his place of work,’ she said. ‘Check out a few of the friends too and see if they can come up with anything.’

‘What about talking to his parents?’

‘Doubt if they can shed any more light on his disappearance. In fact, his father asked me to look into it weeks ago.’ She sighed.

‘So we have no motive . . .’

‘Unless there is something we overlooked. Let’s get a list of the calls and texts on his mobile.’

Paul left Anna to finish her coffee. She hadn’t mentioned her gut feeling to him – that she didn’t like Tina. Even though the girl had been helpful, she showed no emotion. Tina and Alan were arranging to buy a place and get married in a few months’ time, and yet she hadn’t shed a single tear or even appeared anxious. It was almost as if she just accepted that she’d never see her fiancé again.

Helping their enquiry was one thing, and it would mean a couple more days of legwork checking out Alan’s friends and so on, but with no hint of anything untoward having happened, Alan Rawlins could remain on the Missing Persons files along with the thousands of other people.

Anna put in a call to Langton and gave him the details of their meeting with Tina. He listened without interruption until she said they would give it a couple more days before moving on.

‘Okay, give me your gut feeling,’ he said.

She hesitated. The fact that she had not liked Tina was not enough for them to instigate a murder enquiry. She repeated that they did not have anything incriminating or anything that hinted at foul play. It was a possibility Alan Rawlins had just taken off; it had been done before.

‘Yeah, many times, but carry on. As you said, give it another couple of days.’

Langton was about to end the call when Anna asked him, ‘What’s your gut feeling?’

‘You need a body,’ he said and laughed. As always he hedged the issue. ‘We should have that dinner soon.’ Then he hung up.

Anna replaced the phone and sat back in her chair.

‘It’s all too neat,’ she mumbled to herself. She closed her eyes, picturing the flat. It was as if there was deliberately nothing out of place. If there had been some kind of altercation or an argument, something that had forced Alan Rawlins to take off, maybe all evidence of it had been tidied away. According to Tina though, nothing unusual had happened, apart from Alan returning home from work that Monday morning with a migraine. If he had, as Tina suspected, simply walked out on her, there had to be a reason.

Anna left the station. Even though she had suggested to Paul that they leave Alan Rawlins’s parents out of their round of interviews, instinctively she knew they needed to talk again to Edward Rawlins.

Edward Rawlins was not at home when Anna called, but his wife’s carer answered the door. She was a heavily built Jamaican woman wearing a blue overall, and when Anna asked if it was possible to speak with Mrs Rawlins, she gave a shrug of her big shoulders.

‘She’s just got her tray, but you can come in and see her. Mr Rawlins is usually home around this time. I’m Rose.’

The house was dark and with a lot of reproduction antique furniture. It was like a 1970s time-capsule. The walls were a yellowish-brown, with faded flowery wallpaper and sagging chipboard shelves. The avocado shagpile carpet looked equally worn and faded. Anna followed Rose up the narrow stairs to the landing. Rose opened the door of a front bedroom, which was oppressively hot; the heat seemed to waft from the room as the door opened.

‘Kathleen, you’ve got a visitor, dear.’

Anna entered the large room, which contained a lot of dark pine furniture, along with a big television set and stacks of magazines and books. The double bed had a cosy chenille bedspread and frilled pillows, with matching curtains at the windows. Kathleen Rawlins was sitting in a wing-back chair with a tray on a small table in front of her. It held a bowl of soup with a bread roll, sausages with mashed potatoes and gravy, plus a childish jelly with Smarties on top.

Kathleen was surprisingly young-looking; her face was unlined and her natural wavy brown hair was pinned back with two coloured slides. She had large washed-out blue eyes that made her vacant expression childlike.

‘I don’t think I can manage all this, Rose dear. Can you take the sausages away. I’ll just have the jelly.’

Rose removed the plate and bent over the frail woman.

‘You didn’t eat your lunch either, Kathleen. Just manage some soup, will you?’

Kathleen glanced coyly at Anna and gave a sweet smile.

‘She’s so bossy, but I’m not that hungry.’

Rose thudded out and Anna drew up a chair. She wasn’t sure how she should start, watching Kathleen’s small thin hands try to wield the heavy soup spoon.

‘Here, let me help you.’ Anna took the spoon and gently held it to Kathleen’s lips. The older woman sipped and then gave that glorious childlike smile.

‘She should have taken the soup away; it’s pea and I hate pea soup.’

Anna moved it aside and placed the bowl of jelly closer. Kathleen picked up a small plastic spoon and managed a mouthful.

‘I don’t know you, do I?’

‘No. My name is Anna, I’m a policewoman.’

‘Oh, you don’t look like one – no uniform.’

‘I’m a detective.’

‘Oooh, that’s nice. I’ve never met a detective before.’

Anna smiled, watching as the plastic spoon scooped up the jelly with some Smarties. Kathleen crunched them and went back for another mouthful.

‘You like jelly?’ Anna asked.

‘Not really. I like the sweeties on top.’

‘I’m here to ask about your son.’

The wide blue eyes stared at Anna and then the woman’s face crumpled.

‘I have a son, but . . .’

‘You haven’t seen him for a while, have you?’

‘What is his name?’

‘Alan.’

‘Yes, Alan – my son is called Alan.’

Kathleen turned to a dressing-table and pointed with the spoon to where there were many silver-framed photographs. Anna got up to look at them. They were family pictures, the young Kathleen smiling to camera and very obviously heavily pregnant, another with her husband and holding a small toddler. They went from a schoolboy smiling with a bicycle to a young handsome teenager, with the same blue eyes as his mother, but even from the photographs there was a shyness about him.

Anna picked up one and returned to sit beside Kathleen. It was, she surmised, probably quite a recent one. Alan was carrying a surfboard, so perhaps it had been taken abroad or in Cornwall, as Tina had mentioned he went there. He was tanned and smiling and looking more confident than in any of the other photographs.

‘He used to phone you, didn’t he?’

Kathleen nodded, scraping the bowl for the remainder of her jelly.

‘He is a very good boy. I never had any trouble with him and he comes to see me, but not for a while I don’t think. Do you know where he is?’

‘I am trying to find him.’

Rose barged in with milky tea in a plastic cup with two handles.

‘Do you want one?’ she asked Anna.

‘No, thank you.’