Above Suspicion at-1 Read online

  When her decomposing corpse was found, it was lying in a public park, hidden under stinging nettles. Her body was tied in exactly the same way as the other victims’, but these pictures were particularly gruesome. The victim’s false teeth were protruding from her mouth, almost as if she was laughing: a hideous horror clown with red lipstick smudged over her face.

  It was a repellent, tragic pattern, thought Anna, and even though Kathleen had already been brutalized by life, her death was still a wretched and undeserved end.

  It was after twelve when the meeting broke up and Langton and his team returned. Anna noticed he was smiling. While everyone in the incident room grouped around him to hear what had happened, she remained at her desk.

  ‘Right. We have the case of Melissa Stephens. The commander will instigate bringing in fifteen detectives. We’re still short of legs, but we can’t argue with that. We will also get another office manager, two more admin staff and Holmes Two. The Home Office will back us up and place us now on a major-enquiry system. This will give us greater input to the enquiry.’

  Langton hushed the ensuing applause. ‘I want someone over to Clapham to get all the details they have on the Melissa case. While we wait for anything to come in from the lab, we start work.’

  He pinned up Melissa Stephens’s photograph. Then he picked up a black marker-pen and ringed the number ‘7’ twice.

  ‘We know she left her boyfriend at half past eleven and headed towards Oxford Circus tube station.’

  Langton instructed his team to cover every route from Covent Garden to Oxford Circus. They were to hound the strip-club joints; often they were kitted out with hidden cameras for their own security.

  ‘Check out any CCTV footage used in clubs, pubs, car parks, in all the various routes. Get what you can. After four weeks, I suspect most of it will have been destroyed. I want to know the exact route Melissa Stephens walked that night. A witness has come forward, a waiter. He was sure he saw Melissa talking to someone in a car, the make he can’t remember, or the colour — in fact he can’t even be sure it was her — but I want that tape of the reconstruction, I want that driver, I want that car. Because — ‘ Langton gestured to his wall of death — ‘we have a serial killer. I am hoping to Christ that Melissa’s death was his first and last big mistake. Let’s get moving.’

  While the officers grouped to divide up the orders, Anna remained sitting at her desk, feeling like a spare part. No one had acknowledged her, or spoken to her yet. As the room thinned out, she stood up and approached Langton.

  ‘Am I still attached to the case, sir?’

  For a moment Langton looked as if he couldn’t recall who she was, then he tapped his desk with his finger. ‘Go out with DS Lewis, he’s picking up the TV reconstruction.’

  ‘I think he’s already gone,’ she said, looking around nervously.

  ‘Then stay with me. I’ve asked for Melissa’s boyfriend to be brought in. You can come to the interview. You had lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go and get some in the canteen. Be back at quarter past one.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She headed back to her desk, then turned. ‘I didn’t think forensic had brought in a report yet. Did we get evidence in last night that tied Melissa to our case?’

  Langton gave her a strange, cold stare. ‘No.’

  Anna couldn’t hold his piercing gaze; she went to her desk, where she didn’t look up, afraid she might find he was still glaring. She walked over to the filing cabinets to replace the Kathleen Keegan file. She was certain he was watching her, which turned her cheeks vermilion red. It made her angry, to feel so inadequate. She couldn’t wait to get out of the incident room.

  The canteen on the top floor was small in comparison to the Met stations she’d worked in before. Almost every table in the room had been taken.

  Balancing a tray in one hand and her briefcase in the other, she headed towards the far side of the canteen, where some uniformed officers were leaving a table. She pushed the dirty plates aside and opened her yogurt, turning her back unintentionally on the next table where DCI Hedges and two of his team were sitting.

  ‘All I am saying is, who the fuck does he think he is?’ DCI Hedges continued loudly. ‘That was my case. You tell me how he gets away with saying his six victims, his six ancient hookers, have the same MO? It’s bullshit and he’s the biggest fucking bullshitter I’ve ever come across!’

  Anna half turned, in time to see DCI Hedges jabbing his fish and chips with his fork. ‘No fucking way. So her hands were tied? So fucking what? He didn’t have any forensic evidence, no postmortem report, and he gets the full fucking Monty and we are left out of it, like pricks. No way are his old tarts connected to the murder of that little girl. It’s bullshit. Unless he is getting it across with the commander. She was on his side before we even started!’

  There was the clatter of their cutlery during a pause while they ate their lunch, but soon Hedges was at it again. ‘He’s going to get all the press, all the media coverage. It’s fucking disgusting!’

  ‘What if it’s true?’ asked a sullen, pockmarked officer.

  ‘What’s true?’

  ‘That he has some serial killer.’

  ‘Bullshit. No way is that little girl part of his enquiry. Six months he’s been on it, collecting old slags from all over England. I’m telling you, DCI Fuckface Langton is desperate. He won out because he’s brown-nosed the commander, or fucked her, because there’s no other way he could have got this case, no fucking way.’

  While Anna finished her lunch, the three men continued to slag off Langton, paying her no attention. She was making her way back to the incident room just after one o’clock when it occurred to her to check whether her new Mini was still intact. It was. She was at the rear entrance of the station when she saw Langton with Commander Jane Leigh, one hand at her right elbow, as if steering her to her waiting car.

  Anna watched Langton laughing with the commander as they approached her car. He opened the rear door. There was an obvious familiarity between them. When she got in the back seat, he leaned in to finish the conversation.

  Anna got back to her desk just ahead of Langton, who banged into the incident room.

  ‘Have a good lunch?’

  ‘Erm, yes, thank you. And you?’

  ‘Not had time. I’ll get a sandwich.’ He nodded to Jean, who gave him a wry look.

  He checked his wristwatch and looked over at Anna. ‘Interview room two. I’m going for a slash.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, getting ready with her notebook and pencils as the doors swung closed after him.

  It was almost a quarter to two when Langton walked into the interview room where Anna was waiting. He held a beaker of coffee in his hand, wrapped with a paper napkin.

  ‘He’s just arrived,’ he said, sitting beside her. ‘His name is Mark Rawlins, student. London University. Business affairs.’

  He sipped from his takeaway coffee. ‘You were at Oxford, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jack must have loved that.’

  ‘Yes. My father was very proud, you know, that I made it to Oxford.’

  ‘What do you think he’d feel now?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, here you are in a rundown station with the Murder Squad, on a case full of tarts and—’

  Before she could think of an answer the door opened and Jean, holding a chicken sandwich, peeked in.

  ‘Your order, sir, minus tomatoes — and there is a Mark Rawlins in reception.’

  ‘Is he on his own, or with someone?’

  ‘He’s with his father.’

  ‘Well, tell his father that I just want to see Mark. No, forget it. Let him bring in who he wants.’

  Jean closed the door.

  ‘Is he a suspect?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Langton said, biting into his sandwich. He chewed rapidly; as if he had a train to catch, thought Anna. ‘You look at me as if you know something I don’t.
Or you disapprove of me. Which one is it?’

  She flushed. ‘Sorry. Just over-eager, I guess.’

  ‘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.’

  ‘Or carried.’

  Next, they scrutinized Melissa’s white sports bra, which the pathologist had cut and pinned to a sheet. Next to it were drawings of the fabric knot itself and then photographs of how the knotted bra had been found on the body.

  ‘We finished the tests you requested. Over at the far side, you’ll see other tests we’ve been working on.’

  Across the lab, on the table by the wall, the bras from the other victims had been laid out. There were more photographs, arrows or markers to show similarities. The dirty discoloured underwear was an unpleasant sight.

  Coral led them to a table where a life-size dummy was lying face down.

  ‘The way each of the victims’ bras were tied we think is virtually identical. Let me show you.’

  Coral expertly crossed the dummy’s wrists with a black bra, demonstrating how Melissa’s bra had been wrapped twice around and the section with the hooks and eyes used to secure the knot.

  ‘They were all drawn very tight, cutting the wrist and almost wrenching the arms out of their sockets. You can see the bonds are very secure. But the sports bra was more difficult; it’s not got as much give as the other ones; they were elastic and nylon. The silk bra was torn in the process of tying it.’

  Coral now moved on to the tights. It had been necessary to cut them away from the neck. In each case, she indicated that the tights had been wound three times around the victim’s throat and drawn in a knot. Anna found it hard to believe the smallness of the garrotte, no more than two inches in diameter.

  She made copious notes, following Langton from bench to bench. Sealed in plastic bags were some of the previous victims’ clothes that had been retained. Langton had declined to view them again. He kept looking at his watch impatiently. He asked the vital question when they returned to Melissa’s clothes.

  ‘So, is it good or bad news?’ he said quietly.

  ‘I wouldn’t say it was good, whatever way you look at it.’ Coral removed her rubber gloves. ‘But I know what you’re asking me and the answer is yes. We believe your little girl was killed by the same person: the knots, the method of tying them, are identical.’