Lynda La Plante: Blood Line

‘Did you ever hear him say he had argued with anyone?’

‘No. I’ve never known him to get on the wrong side of anyone, not that he can’t take care of himself.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, that was where he met Tina – at the local gym. He works out a lot, he’s very fit, and he goes for a run every morning. He is a fine strapping lad, but even though I would say he could take care of himself, if he needed to, I have never known him get into any fisticuffs.’

Mr Rawlins topped up his sherry, offering to pour Anna another, but she put her hand over her half-filled glass.

‘When you first came to see me, you said that you felt your son had been murdered,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘But from what we have just discussed, there doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate to me that that could have happened.’

He took a deep breath. ‘All I know is this. I had a good caring son, a boy who never missed seeing his mother or phoning me to check how I was dealing with it all. Alan had arranged for us to go and see a film, which meant he would have fixed up a sitter for Kathleen. We’d done it a couple of times and it was the only chance I had to get out – not that I am complaining, please don’t think that. He said he would call me back when he’d checked what was on, and that was the last time I spoke to him. That was almost eight weeks ago.’

‘Yes, I am aware of that.’

‘Eight weeks, when there was never a week that passed when he didn’t contact us. All the way through when he was at college, even when he was a teenager, Alan was caring and thoughtful. I love my son, Detective Travis – he is my best friend and he is also someone I admire, and this silence, if you can call it that, is totally out of character.’

He stood up and he had two pink spots on his cheeks.

‘I will sell this house; I will do anything I have to, even if it means hiring private investigators, to find out what has happened. I know he has taken no money and no clothes, not even his mobile phone, but when I first spoke to her, she said his passport was still in the flat. Now she has changed her story again and said to the Missing Persons investigators that it’s not there.’

‘It would appear, Mr Rawlins, that your son may have left of his own choice as his toiletries, some clothing and passport are no longer at his flat. Miss Brooks phoned you when Alan first went missing and it could be that you have misunderstood some of what she was saying at the time.’

‘I haven’t always been a court usher, DCI Travis. I was a qualified engineer and section manager for a very reputable company. I am not a silly old man who misunderstands what he is told, I have a strong bond with my son and I know when something is wrong.’

Anna got up. It was time to leave. She didn’t want to become embroiled in his suppositions since, unless they found any incriminating evidence, she would have nothing else to do with the case. She was really embarrassed when Mr Rawlins moved close to her, too close, and she had to step back.

‘Please help me find out the truth. If he is dead, I will have to cope with it; if he has been murdered I want to know why, and more than that, I want to know who killed him – because, so help me God, that is what I believe has happened. Alan has been murdered.’

Anna could feel the room closing in on her and she was desperate to get out.

‘Will you help me?’

‘Mr Rawlins, I am helping you and I will continue to investigate your son’s disappearance, but without any evidence to support your belief that he has been murdered—’

Edward Rawlins interrupted her, shouting, ‘Are you telling me that without a body you can’t treat this as a murder enquiry?’

‘I am, Mr Rawlins, asking you to be patient. I will do everything in my power to hopefully reach a conclusion.’

Mr Rawlins was at the door and she was unable to walk out of the room.

‘A conclusion? What do you mean by that?’

‘Exactly what I said. So far we haven’t found any evidence that suggests your son was murdered.’

‘He has been missing for almost two months, isn’t that conclusive proof that he is dead?’

‘No, it is not. Now please move away from the door, Mr Rawlins. I do understand why you are distressed, but it can’t help the situation. Please let me leave.’

He crumpled and covered his face with his hands.

‘I am so sorry, so very sorry. Please forgive me, I apologise. I’ll show you out.’

Anna hurried down the dank hallway as Kathleen called out from upstairs, not her husband’s name, but Alan’s.

Anna sat in her car, shaking. Her head was throbbing and she couldn’t wait to get home, away from the smells, the obsessive, dapper, desperate father, the vacant blue-eyed mother. She began to think that if she had been in their son’s shoes, she might have upped and gone. Their desperation clung to her and she even contemplated the idea that perhaps Alan had discovered Tina was not the woman he wanted to marry, his parents suffocated him with their neediness and he had just, as in numerous other cases, decided to disappear.

On returning home Anna ran a bath and contemplated washing her hair with a colour enhancing shampoo that she had bought months ago but never used. She read the details on the bottle about how it would boost her natural hue but decided not to bother. Lying soaking in the hot water she wondered if her lack of interest in her appearance was down to her own apathy or the fact that she felt she no longer had anyone to glam herself up for.

In her own fresh bed with a scented candle burning, Anna lay wide awake. Had Alan Rawlins planned his disappearance? If so, they would need to unearth some clue. He appeared to be above reproach – honest, hardworking and caring – but had this shy, yet fit young man had a hidden agenda? Would he, being such a good person, be prepared to walk away from his hard-earned savings?

Again Anna put herself in his place, in that dark house with two needy parents who seemed to have no one else in their lives but their beloved son. She then thought about the featureless rented flat he shared with Tina Brooks, a dominant woman. He’d paid for her salon and yet knew his parents didn’t like her – only two visits in all the time they had lived together.

Anna recalled the many photographs in Kathleen Rawlins’s overheated bedroom of their perfect son, and she had to agree he was handsome, with his mother’s blue eyes and thick wondrous hair. One photograph stuck in her mind, of Alan carrying a surfboard, looking tanned and muscular, smiling. Anna blew out the perfumed candle, certain that she was correct: Alan Rawlins had arranged his own disappearance, in order to be free of them all.

‘You must have been working late or came in very early,’ Anna said as Paul handed her a list before she could even take her coat off.

‘Early, but I couldn’t sleep. There’s something about this Alan Rawlins that doesn’t sit right. Maybe it’s his girlfriend Tina – she doesn’t ring true. Look, these are all the people I’ve arranged to interview. We now know that his mobile was pay-as-you-go, but the calls and texts don’t show anything suspicious and pretty much fit with what Tina told us.’

Anna looked down the list, adding up how long it would take to interview everyone.

‘Listen, Paul, I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is all a waste of time.’

‘But didn’t you think that something didn’t add up?’

‘If I queried everything that “didn’t add up”, we’d never get anything done, and quite honestly, I don’t think I’m prepared to spend much more time on this. We’ve not actually been allocated Rawlins’s disappearance as a murder investigation; Mispers are still handling it.’