Surely that was not enough to commit murder? Tina’s salon was on the surface successful, but Anna knew it was also in debt; nevertheless she had to be making a good living.
Anna rubbed her head and tried to think of the alternative scenario. Tina, with an accomplice, planned to kill Alan. The motive could be that she wanted out of the relationship and wanted the joint bank account for herself. That would mean it could possibly be a passionate relationship, but with whom? So far they had found no evidence to prove she was having any kind of affair. Okay, there had been some flirty behaviour at the gym, but nothing had surfaced from their interviews, to the contrary. Tina had claimed she was suspicious that Alan was leaving her for another woman, but so far there was no evidence of any other woman in Alan’s life.
She was going around in circles again and she physically jumped when Paul tapped her shoulder.
‘Sorry I’m late. The bloody tubes were up the spout.’
They headed into the forensic lab, where Liz Hawley was just arriving, also complaining of a tube strike. She was a middle-aged, rather rotund woman with straggly grey hair caught in a knot on the top of her head. She was also a very experienced scientist. As she put on her white coat she led them to her section of the lab.
‘Right. First I’ll deal with the cut-out area beneath the sofa in the lounge. We’ve examined the underlay that was left in place there, and there does not appear to be any wine staining. The section of carpet inserted by the bedside is not wine-stained and most probably came from beneath the living-room sofa. It looks like both areas were originally cut out with a Stanley knife, but the uneven ragged edges on the bedroom insert suggests scissors were used to re-shape it so it would fit.
‘Now, onto the blood distribution under the inserted piece of carpet by the bed. I would propose that the victim may have suffered a severe head injury or possibly stab wounds causing heavy blood loss, as some areas of staining were so dense. Although attempts had been made to clean it up, the blood had soaked through the underlay onto and between the floorboards where it pooled and congealed underneath. The victim could have been on the left side of the bed when initially attacked, as ultra-violet light testing revealed some minute traces of blood spatter on the bedside wall. It would appear that a bleaching agent was used to wipe the wall and we also found some minute bloodstaining on the edge of the mattress. The sheet we removed from the bed has no blood on it so it’s likely the original bloodstained one was destroyed or laundered. The pillows also have minute traces, but not the pillowcases.’
‘What kind of weapon do you think would have caused the injury?’ Anna asked her.
‘Well, my dear, that is really for you to find out. It could have been a blunt instrument, knife or even a gun, but without a body for a pathologist to examine it’s impossible to tell you. We have removed a few items from the flat for testing – a golf club, a baseball bat and hammer, but we haven’t recovered any trace evidence from them.’
‘So you wouldn’t say all that blood could have come from a severe nose bleed?’
‘No, definitely not with the heavily stained and pooled areas, but the staining on the pillows and mattress could have done. It would appear that whoever sustained the injuries lost a large volume of blood, which without immediate medical attention would probably result in death. Also, for this amount of blood to be found in one area, your victim must have been in a dormant position for quite some time, possibly lying over the edge of the bed or on the floor beside it.’
Liz moved along the workbench. ‘We have recovered two hairs from one pillowcase and a semen stain on the bedsheet.’
This pleased Anna. ‘That’s good. We’ll need to test if the hairs are Tina’s.’
Liz picked up her notebook. ‘We have received the blood samples from the parents, Mr and Mrs Edward Rawlins, for genetic DNA comparison to the scene stains.’
Anna waited, eager to know if their suspicions were correct and that Alan Rawlins was probably dead.
‘There are a couple of problems though. Firstly, the doctor who took Mrs Rawlins’s blood failed to secure the container properly, causing it to leak – which raises not only health and safety issues for my staff but also possible contamination. I will need another sample from her. In respect of Edward Rawlins’s profile, I’m not entirely happy with the result. Sometimes things can go wrong and the results can be misleading, but I can’t say at this stage that the blood from the flat did belong to their son.’
‘What do you mean by misleading?’
‘Well, in the past this type of DNA testing has sometimes revealed that the offspring is not the biological child . . .’
‘What, you mean like adoption?’
‘Possibly, but in this case the result of the genetic profile from the scene stains, when compared to Mr Rawlins’s DNA, is questionable. He may not be the father.’
‘I don’t believe it! It’s going to be difficult to find out.’
‘Why is that? I have enough of Mr Rawlins’s blood to run further tests, and once you get another sample from Mrs Rawlins . . .’
‘I meant find out who is the biological father. The mother has Alzheimer’s and didn’t recognise her son most of the time, or her husband.’
‘Well, to be certain either way, I will need to run some further tests for genetic markers on Mr Rawlins’s blood sample. As I said, sometimes mistakes can be made and you need to be one hundred per cent sure on victim identification for your investigation.’
Anna was about to leave, disappointed, when Liz tapped her arm. ‘I’m not finished yet. There’s something else.’
She led them to another section. Laid out were Alan Rawlins’s clothes from the black bin liners.
‘We didn’t find any blood on any of the clothes, but we have retrieved a single head hair and the colour does not match the two hairs recovered from the bedlinen.’
Anna knew this was a very positive step.
‘Can you get DNA from these hairs?’
‘None of the hairs recovered have a root attached, but our best bet is to attempt to raise a mitochondrial profile for comparison. You inherit this type of DNA from your mother. However, the process is very time-consuming and can take a few weeks. Basically we have a very small cut strand of blonde hair from Mr Rawlins’s clothes, but the two hairs from the bedlinen are reddish and possibly dyed.’
Liz checked her clipboard. ‘We have also compared the DNA from the semen stain against the blood pooling and they do not match.’ She gave a bark of a laugh. ‘Looks like somebody else has been sleeping in his bed.’
Anna patted Liz’s arm. ‘This is fantastic, Liz. Thank you.’
‘Sadly, there’s no trace on the national DNA database for the blood or semen stains. There’s some further scene examination I’d like to do and I don’t want to proceed without your permission as there’s a risk of losing evidence by this chemical testing.’
Liz produced photographs of Tina’s bathroom: white bath, white tiles on the wall, white washbasin, and the floor covered in more white tiles.
‘It was just a tiny speck in the grouting between the tiles on the far side of the bath – and when I say tiny, I mean less than the size of a pinhead.’
‘What?’
‘Blood. Although the use of bleaching agents is common in a bathroom and the speck of blood could have got there for a number of reasons, the smell of the bleach was very strong, considering Alan Rawlins has been missing for two months now.’ Liz showed them the photograph of the pristine bathroom, indicating with a pen where she had found the minuscule bloodstain.
‘There is the possibility that bleach has been used to clean up blood in the bathroom, and I want to use Luminol to detect any remaining specks that are not visible to the human eye. It’s a chemical spray that has to be used in darkness and which reacts with the haemoglobin in diluted bloodstains, causing them to glow a bright blue. It’s more commonly used in the US. However, the problem is it can damage genetic markers and also give false reactions to a number of things, but further tests to determine blood on anything recovered can be done in the lab. I personally only like to use it as a last resort, but have had positive results in the past – and as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.’
‘Do it,’ Anna said confidently.
‘Jolly good, I will get onto that.’ Liz closed her notebook. ‘Now then, last but not least. This is just my intuition from experience on a previous case. I think the victim was killed in the bedroom, possibly subsequently
