Lynda La Plante: Blood Line

‘Yeah, along with how many hundreds of other missing persons? He’s just going to be a number, Anna. That washed-out beige on beige in that flat gave me the creeps.’

‘Look, I’ll tell you what. We’ll sift through these people on the list, but as far as I am concerned, that is going to be that.’

‘I think you’ve changed your feelings since yesterday.’

Anna sighed and gave him a brief rundown of her meeting with Alan’s parents. Paul wagged his finger, smiling.

‘So last night you did have the same feelings as I have?’

‘No, last night I was hesitant, but after talking to Mr Rawlins I came to the conclusion that, given the circumstances, Alan Rawlins has simply taken the easiest route out of all the pressures.’

‘What pressures?’

‘That he had maybe made the wrong choice of girlfriend and that his parents were too needy and he’d just had enough.’

‘You think.’

‘Yes, that is exactly what I think, and to be honest, if I’d been in his situation I might have been tempted to do the same thing.’

‘But you don’t know for sure if that is what he would have done. You are just surmising or putting yourself in his situation.’

‘Don’t make me repeat myself, Paul, but yes, that is exactly what I’d have done. There is not a scrap of evidence that gives us probable cause for a murder, and I don’t know if you checked about any life-insurance policies . . .’

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘Alan Rawlins had a life-insurance policy for fifty thousand pounds,’ Paul stated.

‘Well, you know it takes years before someone can be declared dead after disappearing, and I can’t see Tina as the type to hang around waiting.’

‘Why should she when she’s got their joint bank account?’

Anna headed towards her office. Over her shoulder she told Paul to book out a CID car so they could get started.

‘Already done – your carriage awaits you downstairs, ma’am.’

Irritated, she turned back to him. ‘Just give me a minute, all right?’

The first place they went to was Metcalf Auto in Staines Road. It was a small business, but it looked as if they were busy. There were four cars for sale on their forecourt, two workshops with cars waiting for repairs, and inside the main garage, a Volvo was up on a ramp being checked out by two mechanics. Inside the small office cubicle, which contained just a desk and swivel chair, was the head mechanic, Joe Smedley. He was well-built and dark-haired with a thick beard that made him look like a gerbil. He had an equally thick growth of chest hair that spouted from the open neck of his overalls.

Anna introduced herself and Paul, and having nowhere to sit they both stood in the doorway. Joe got up to shake their hands and showed himself to be surprisingly short.

‘Is this about Alan?’

‘Yes. We’d like to ask you a few questions; hopefully we won’t take up too much of your time.’

‘You take as long as you need to. We’ve all been worried sick about him; he was one of my best mechanics. I’ve already had to replace him – couldn’t keep his job open any longer as we’re so busy. Since the recession began we’ve had a lot of work, as customers who used to change their cars regularly now just keep the old ones and get them repaired. It’s been good for us.’

‘Tell me about the last time you saw Alan, Mr Smedley,’ Anna said as she glanced around the rows of documents pinned up on a cork board.

‘It’d be the Monday, a good few weeks ago now. I’ll have it in my diary, the exact date. He came to work as usual – always on time he was, sometimes he’d be here a lot earlier to work on his own car – but if I remember correctly, he was over at the fridge in the garage taking out a bottle of water. He looked a bit wan. I asked him if he was feeling okay and he just said he had a bad headache.’

Smedley scratched his thick beard and opened a drawer in his desk, taking out a diary.

‘About a couple of hours later he came in here and said he was feeling really bad and could he use my phone. He said he felt he should go home, but didn’t want to drive himself. He called Tina, asking her to pick him up. Then he went out and sat on the forecourt with the bottle of water.’

Joe passed over his work diary to show Anna the exact date, and where he had written that Alan had left work.

‘Tina arrived, he went over to her car and got in, and that was the last time I saw him. When he didn’t turn up for work the next day I just thought he was still feeling bad so I didn’t call Tina until the day after. No, wait a minute . . .’

He scratched at his beard again.

‘She called here first, asking if Alan had come in to work. I said he hadn’t and that I wondered if he was still sick, but she hung up. I rang a couple more times because as I said before, we’re busy and we needed him here, but he never rang back and she said she hadn’t seen him.’

‘On that Monday, was he acting strangely?’

‘What do you mean? All he said to me was he had a headache and he looked a bit off-colour.’

‘How about other times previous to that Monday?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, had he acted out of character?’

‘No. He was a quiet one, though. He wasn’t a drinker and he never socialised with either me or the other mechanics, but he was a hard worker and a nice bloke.’

‘Did you meet Tina on any other occasions?’

‘Not really. I’d seen her, obviously; she’d collected Alan a couple of times when his car wasn’t roadworthy. She’d just pull up, toot her horn and he’d drive off with her.’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I think she thought of herself as being above the rest of us. They never even came to the bit of a do we had over last Christmas, but that wasn’t my business.’

‘Did he have a locker?’

‘Yeah, it’s at the back of the garage. Used to keep some of his clothes here and change when he turned up for work.’

‘Can we see it?’

‘Course. I’ve not emptied it, just in case.’

‘Just in case of what?’

They followed Joe out from his office across the garage.

‘Him coming back to work. I miss him and I tell you something – he’s been working on that Merc of his for months. He is planning to sell it and should get a good price, maybe not a lot right now, but if he holds onto it it’ll get a nice wedge as it’s in great nick and he was just waiting for a soft top to be delivered.’

Joe took out a large ring of keys as they approached a row of thin lockers. The two mechanics working on the Volvo looked over then returned to work. Inside the locker was a pair of greasy stained overalls, a pair of oil-streaked trainers and a couple of jumpers. On the top shelf were manuals and auto-repair magazines. Paul checked the pockets of the overalls and flicked through the magazines. They found nothing personal; in one pocket was a packet of aspirin and a folded handkerchief.

‘Do you know if everything was all right between Alan and Tina?’

Joe hunched his shoulders and gave a wide gesture.

‘I wouldn’t know. He was a very private guy. Like I said, I only met her a couple of times. I think they were going to get married, but he never really even discussed that with me.’

Joe led them out of the garage and towards the workshop storing the cars waiting for repair. Covered in a green tarpaulin was Alan Rawlins’s Mercedes and it was, as he had said, in very good condition. Joe went into a long explanation of what Alan had done, from respraying to fitting new engine parts. Even the leather seats had been re-upholstered.

‘It’s odd that he wouldn’t want to take this, wherever he is. He must have spent weeks on it – in his own time, mind – but I know he was waiting for that soft top to be delivered. Maybe . . .’