through all the usual channels. What’s more, you’ll have to set up a new team as I’ve put the rest onto other cases.’
‘I am aware of that, obviously. But as you oversee all the murder enquiries, do I get the go-ahead?’
He frowned and then stood up, stretching his legs and rubbing his bad knee.
‘You able to cope with this?’ he grunted.
‘What?’
‘You want me to repeat it?’
‘No, I don’t, but what makes you ask if I can cope?’
‘Because as DCI you’ll head the team. I can look over your shoulder, obviously.’
‘When have you not? But I have handled my last case and—’
He turned on her angrily, leaning against the edge of her desk.
‘Don’t you get flippant with me! Just remember, whatever personal relationship we might have had, I am your—’
Equally angry, she stood up to face him, interrupting him.
‘
‘You have only circumstantial possibilities.’
She flopped back down into her chair.
‘Oh, wait a minute,’ she fumed. ‘You have been the one wanting more details. Basically it was a Mispers case, but because you insisted I look into it, that is what I have done. And now that it looks like a murder enquiry, you start telling me to back off.’
‘I did not suggest that.’
‘What do you want – to get someone else to do it?’ Anna demanded.
‘I am just concerned about putting too much pressure on you. Right now I need all the people I have, but I can allocate another DCI to make further enquiries.’
‘I see. So what has this all been about – give her something to occupy her mind, nothing too strenuous – because you think I’m not capable?’
‘You are more than capable, Anna.’
‘So what is your problem?’
‘You, Anna. You have been through a terrible ordeal, your fiance has been murdered, and as far as I can ascertain you have refused to take any time out.’
‘What about the previous case I worked on and got a result?’
‘Come on, it was a cut-and-dried case – of course you got a guilty verdict!’
She was so angry she could hardly look at him.
‘I thought it was best as you had insisted on returning to work,’ Langton went on, ‘but now I am not so sure. I am worried about you.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be. I am fine! And what’s more, I don’t want anyone else taking over the Alan Rawlins investigation. If he is dead, I am damn sure Tina Brooks had something to do with it.’
‘You have to be aware how difficult it is to bring charges without a body.’
‘Give me time and maybe I’ll find one for you!’
He glanced at his watch. ‘I can’t argue about this now. Get the search warrants and see what the outcome is.’
‘Thank you.’
Langton found it difficult to deal with her. She was so rigid and so defensive, and he really didn’t want to force her into taking a holiday. Yet she was suffering extreme emotional anguish of the kind he himself had experienced when his first wife had died, and he wanted to help.
She wished he would go. Now she’d got the permission for moving on with the case, she didn’t want to discuss anything else. She looked at him, and then turned away because she didn’t like the expression in his eyes.
‘Listen to me, sweetheart. You lose someone you love, and no amount of work can help you deal with the loss. It takes a long time,’ Langton advised.
‘You’ve already told me this. Maybe you are projecting your own inability to come to terms with grief. I lived with you, James, and let me tell you, I have no intention of ever allowing myself to form another relationship until I am well and truly recovered from losing Ken. However, what happened with him is over, finished – and I just want to get on with my life, my career.’
He wanted to slap her, the way she stuck out her chin and clenched her fists at her side. He was only too aware of the fact that he had been unable to sustain a relationship with Anna. He had known he couldn’t give her more than what he had to offer, and it had not been enough. Even now, married to his second wife, taking on her daughter, Kitty, and with a son, Tommy, he was still having extramarital affairs. He also still held a passion for Anna. It was not reciprocated and he knew that, but he also knew that, given the opportunity, he would start up seeing her again – and what made it worse, he actually felt no shame even contemplating it.
She stared at him, waiting for him to say something, but he remained silent. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up your personal life. Sometimes I forget you are who you are,’ she said quietly, avoiding eye-contact with him.
‘That’s okay, Anna, and I can see you’ve calmed down.’
‘I have, and I want this case.’
He walked to the door and gave her a smile.
‘You have it. Get a team organised. I’ll forward the list of available officers and you can stay on here as it’s the same location.’
‘Don’t I know it. I have to schlepp all the way from my flat at Tower Bridge. I sometimes wish I’d never bought the place – not that I’ve seen that much of it, but it’s home sweet home. As you haven’t arranged the promised dinner, maybe one night I’ll have enough time to cook for you!’
She smiled, making a joke, but he walked out closing the door quietly behind him. The fact that she had the case made her buoyant for a moment, but then she felt the shuddering panic rise and couldn’t get her breath. She broke out in a sweat, gasping before the tears welled up inside her. She rested her head in her hands. She wasn’t over losing Ken, far from it. She’d had the lengthy trial of the killer of John Smiley, and then with only a couple of weeks’ break, had taken on her last case. Almost a year had passed, but the thought of taking time out to dwell on the terrible way she had lost the future she and Ken had planned together made her fearful that she would never be able to recover.
Langton sat in his car. It had been a while since he had felt the twist in his gut like a scorching pain. He had sometimes wondered if he had embroidered on the love he had lost, that perhaps it had not been as perfect as he made it out to be. Inside his wallet he retained the small photographs of his adopted daughter, Kitty, and his son, but he still had the worn photograph of his first wife tucked behind their innocent little faces. Even now, years later, when these moments of grief descended, he felt almost incapable of moving. He looked at his first wife’s photograph. If he closed his eyes he could hear her voice calling out to him that she would see him for dinner. He had been told she had collapsed and died four hours later, the undetected brain tumour that killed her leaving her with not a mark on her beautiful face. When he had seen her in the mortuary she looked as if she was peacefully sleeping.
He had never known with another woman the same deep understanding they had had with each other, and that sleeping face reared up as if to eclipse anyone he felt emotionally drawn to. This combined with a sense of guilt that he could never feel the same attachment to another woman. Even though he had remarried and now had a son, sometimes when he watched his boy sleeping, he felt an overwhelming sense of loss, thinking of what it would have been like to have a child with his first wife. Thinking what it would have been like if she had lived.
Anna had wanted from him commitment, children, and although it had been she who had instigated the end of their relationship, he had in many ways known it was never going to work. She wanted too much of him and he was incapable of giving it. His present wife was intelligent, very attractive, and had wanted stability for her daughter Kitty who adored Langton and now called him Daddy. It was almost a marriage of convenience. She had accepted what Langton could give her, and had not really contemplated having a child with him. Tommy was almost
