please. And if you want to retain the same team you’ve been working alongside, go ahead.’
‘Will do.’
Langton again mentioned that they should have dinner together one evening, but as before made no date. He had had a few words with her team and had received only positive feedback. It appeared, at least on the surface, that Anna was dealing with the crisis in her personal life, perhaps even better than he had done himself.
The following morning, Anna selected a clean white shirt and navy blue pin-stripe suit to wear. Looking in the mirror she noticed that the suit jacket had a stain on the lapel and the shirt could do with a quick onceover with an iron. She thought about how much she had neglected her appearance since Ken’s death and decided it was time to try and smarten herself up again, so she changed into a brown jacket and black trousers. Impatient to get to work, to give the team briefing on the disappearance of Alan Rawlins, she didn’t bother to iron her shirt and placed the navy suit in a plastic bag to drop off at the dry cleaner’s.
Anna briefed the team explaining that the Missing Persons report virtually said what Langton had told her: they had found nothing incriminating and had no evidence to indicate foul play. They suspected that Alan Rawlins had simply decided to take time out, and although they had interviewed his girlfriend and his workmates, no one could give any reason for his disappearance. His current passport was missing, but there had been no withdrawals from any of his accounts. Anna’s team was a trifle confused as to why they had been brought in to investigate the case, and Anna suggested that it was down to Langton’s intuition and friendship with the father of the missing young man.
‘If we uncover any possibility of foul play we’ll act on it,’ she told them at the briefing, ‘but I think uppermost is showing an interest and seeing if Mispers have missed any lines of enquiry. If not, we can then move on and out of this station as planned.’
Anna, accompanied by her DS, went to meet Tina Brooks that afternoon. Newton Court was only fifteen minutes’ drive from the Hounslow police station, a 1980s modern-build with six flats, a garage each, parking spaces and a well-kept horseshoe drive and forecourt with tubs of plants. The reception area was neat and clean, but with no resident doorman, just a plaque that listed the occupants of the six flats.
Tina Brooks opened the door to flat two with hardly a beat after Anna had rung the bell. She was an exceptionally attractive young woman, with thick, dark-reddish hair scraped back from her face and caught in a scrunchie. She had big dark eyes, wide cheeks and full lips, and a small sculptured nose. Barefooted, she wore a pale blue tracksuit and had a white towel around her neck.
‘I was out running, so please excuse me.’ She gestured for them to follow her into the lounge. The flat was very tidy, with white walls and pine furniture. Nondescript paintings and prints hung on the wall. The large coffee table had a bowl of fruit on it, with a couple of fitness magazines beside it.
‘Can I offer you tea or coffee?’ she asked them.
‘No, thank you. I am DCI Anna Travis and this is Detective Sergeant Paul Simms.’
They both sat on the sofa, while Tina chose a beige armchair opposite. Paul Simms was rather skinny, with curly blonde hair that gave him a baby-faced appearance, but he in fact was one of the best officers Anna had worked alongside. He took out his notebook as she kicked off the interview, asking Tina to give them details of when she had last seen Alan.
‘It’d be almost eight weeks ago, the fifteenth of March. He called from the garage where he works and said he had a migraine. He knew I wasn’t due at work until later that day.’
Tina explained that she ran a hair and beauty salon and on Mondays only ever did a half-day as she was open until late on Saturdays.
‘I drove to his garage and collected him. He often had these headaches and didn’t like to drive, so he left his car there and I brought him home. He said he just wanted to get into bed and draw the curtains, and I think he took some painkillers to help him sleep it off. When they came on, his headaches could last for hours, sometimes a couple of days. I wasn’t that bothered because he had had them before; I just made him a flask of tea so that if he felt like it, he could have a cup later. I put it on the bedside table; he had an ice-pack on his head and I said that I’d phone him in a while and see how he was. I got home just after six or maybe a bit later. I had tried his mobile a couple of times beforehand, but he didn’t answer. I just presumed he was sleeping it off.’
Paul wrote copious notes as Anna listened, not interrupting as Tina went on to describe how, when she got home, the bedroom door was closed so she made herself a salad, not wanting to disturb him, and didn’t check on Alan until around eight o’clock. She said he wasn’t in the bed and she presumed that he had felt better and gone to collect his car from the garage. At around ten or ten-thirty she called his mobile again, but got no answer and left a message. She eventually went to bed and waited.
‘I must have fallen asleep because it was about three o’clock when I realised he had still not come home. I came in here, thinking that maybe he had slept on the sofa so he wouldn’t disturb me. I waited until around seven- thirty in the morning to call his work, but he was not there and the other mechanic who worked with Alan told me he hadn’t returned there or collected his car.’
Paul lifted his pencil to indicate he had a couple of questions. He first asked if the bed had been remade when Tina had come home from work and she said that she thought the covers had just been put back, but it wasn’t exactly made up. He then asked for the name, contact address and phone numbers of the mechanic and the garage Alan worked for.
‘Stanley Fairfax owns the garage but he’s never there, and the sort of head mechanic’s name is Joe, although I’m not sure of his surname.’
Tina gave the phone numbers and Paul wrote them down as Anna looked around the rather bare room. Tina told them how she had contacted Alan’s father to ask if Alan had gone round to see him, but Edward said he hadn’t heard from him. She then explained to Anna and Paul that she had continued to phone around all his friends, the garage again, and that his father had rung her a few times.
‘Nobody had seen him or heard a word from him,’ she concluded.
Anna leaned forward. ‘Mr Rawlins said that you had found his passport, but according to Missing Persons you said that it was not here at the flat.’
‘Right. I looked in the drawers in our bedroom and I saw Alan’s passport and I told his father it was still in the flat. It wasn’t until I spoke with the Missing Persons officer that I looked closer and realised it was an out of date one and his current one was actually missing.’
‘Did Alan go abroad a lot?’
‘Maybe once a year. We went to Spain for a holiday and Turkey once, but he didn’t go frequently. He did spend a lot of his free time in Cornwall surfing. Most of the time we didn’t have the money because we were saving up to get married and buy a place. We only rent this flat.’
She wrinkled her pert little nose. ‘I suppose it’s obvious, but we didn’t want to waste money doing this place up.’
‘Has Alan ever left before without leaving you a contact address?’
‘No, never. I agreed with his father that this was totally out of character for Alan, since he was always very caring and thoughtful. But . . .’ She licked her lips.
Anna waited and eventually Tina gave a sigh.
‘I had been a bit worried about him. I mean, not too much, but he’d stayed late at work a lot recently and one time I phoned when he said he’d been at work, but the garage was closed so it wasn’t the truth.’
‘So what did you think?’
‘Well, I started to wonder if there was someone else, another woman, but he only did it once or twice, and when I asked him about it he said that he was working on his own car. It’s a 280SL Mercedes – an old one – and he was always doing this and that to it. He planned to do it up and then sell it to make a big profit as he’d got it cheap.’
‘This was the car he used to go to work in?’ Paul asked.
‘Yes, but the bodywork needed respraying and the engine was a bit dodgy – well, that’s what he told me. It’s a convertible and I know he was getting a new soft top as the old one was damaged.’
Tina went on to say how she had gone to Alan’s garage and was told that if he didn’t show up for work, Mr Fairfax would have to replace him. Alan’s car was still parked there and they had not heard from him. His mobile phone had been left inside the glove compartment.
‘Which is why he didn’t answer when I called,’ she said, and got up to open a drawer in a side table. She took out the mobile and handed it to Anna, adding, ‘It’ll need recharging.’
