herself to peruse and then she asked Brian to come into her office.
He already had his overcoat on when he came to see her. He held up three DVDs.
‘The wife’s gonna be worried about me watching these.’
‘For goodness sake, Brian, grow up and stop giving the snide sexual remarks to Paul. It’s not funny and quite clearly upsets him. You cut it out. I won’t have it, understand me?’
‘I didn’t know he was a shirt-lifter.’
‘For chrissakes, it’s childish homophobic remarks like that which—’
‘It’s the truth. I didn’t know he was homosexual and if he can’t take a joke about it . . .’
‘It’s nothing to joke about. It’s his private life, so consider this an official warning, and from now on just watch what you say.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I mean it, Brian.’
‘I will curb my tongue. And besides, with the way this case is going I think he’s going to be an asset.’
He gave a straight-faced small nod and she waved her hand for him to get out. He held up the porno DVDs.
‘I can’t wait to get home.’ He turned to leave the room.
‘One other thing, Brian. Any luck with the CCTV from Asda?’
‘The manager phoned and said he thinks the system was down the day we’re interested in, so . . .’
‘Less talk more action, Brian. Go and see him personally and check it for yourself.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
After he had left she leaned her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the desk, before eventually sitting back and picking up the phone to talk to Langton. She gave him a brief rundown of all the new information and said they would open the budget because she felt they would need a trip to Cornwall and doubted that it could be accomplished in just one day.
‘Well, let me think about it. That poofter kept it well under wraps, didn’t he?’
She couldn’t believe it. He was almost as homophobic as Brian Stanley.
‘Yes, he kept this other life very secret.’
‘You think that it was maybe some kind of queer-bashing scenario that went on in his flat?’
‘I think it was something a lot more subversive than just—’
Langton interrupted her. ‘They do get nasty, you know – handbags at dawn and all that.’
‘For God’s sake, I have had enough snide crude remarks from Brian Stanley without
‘Ah well, watch you don’t step on too many toes. If it’s drug-related, bring in the Drug Units. Keep them abreast of your investigation and don’t forget to take your bucket and spade.’
‘You are very witty this evening.’
‘Am I?’
‘Do I get that you are okaying the trip to Cornwall?’
‘Mulling it over. You need to get to grips with tracing the dismembered body. Someone had to cut it up and remove it, and whoever that someone was had to know what they were doing. They had to have gone to that flat well-prepared. There was no sign of a breakin, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘Right now you have no sign of a suspect – is that also correct?’
‘Not exactly. I am still keeping Tina Brooks in the frame. It was a bloodbath in that flat of hers, but I am just not certain of the timeframe. She didn’t admit that Alan was missing for two weeks, and even then nobody got onto it at once, so it’s possible if she was involved she had a lot of time to clean up. Without a body we don’t have a time of death.’
‘Can’t they give you one from the congealed blood?’
‘No. It’s a central-heated flat. The blood could have been there for a week or a month. All we have is the date of the last sighting of Alan Rawlins in London; we don’t know if that was the last time he was alive. As we now have him leading a double life, he could have gone anywhere.’
‘Jigsaw, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I am getting the pieces. It’s always more difficult finding the ones in the middle, don’t you think?’
‘No. Personally, when I last did a jigsaw – when I was around ten – I enjoyed getting the frame like blue sky and the corners sorted, but then I would get impatient. In fact, my mother once caught me using scissors to make a piece fit.’
‘Well, I can’t cut any on this. It’s painstaking, but we are moving.’
She found it strange that she was having this bantering conversation with him. In fact, he seemed loath to get off the phone.
‘We should have dinner one night,’ he said.
She shook her head. Here it was again, the proposed dinner.
‘Yes, we should. Maybe when I get back from Cornwall. Hopefully we’ll have more pieces by then.’
‘Okay. Keep me updated.’
He hung up. She looked at the receiver in her hand and then dropped it back into place before gathering her things and turning off the office lights. On the way home in her Mini, she couldn’t stop yawning. Rather than watch the DVDs or skim through them, she decided to go straight to bed. She set her alarm for 5 a.m. and after a shower she got under the duvet and drew it up to her chin. Then the unexpected happened. She wasn’t even thinking about Ken or his death when a black cloud engulfed her. She sobbed, not really understanding where the darkness had come from, and cried his name over and over again.
‘Grief has ways of creeping up on you when you least expect it,’ Langton had told her. She remembered him saying it – she couldn’t recall when, but it meant that he had felt the same way. Anna had been so preoccupied recently with her case that she hardly gave a thought to what she had been through – the murder of her beloved Ken. It was as if he was demanding that she didn’t forget, and had reached out and touched a spring that opened her emotions and let them run out of control. She cried herself to sleep.
Chapter Nine
Anna was at Tina Brooks’s salon at nine o’clock. She was surprised to see quite a number of customers there already. Tina was expecting her and was acting as the receptionist, rolling her eyes as she said Felicity was late as usual.
‘You look busy,’ Anna commented.
‘Early-bird offers – it’s half-price between eight-thirty and ten-thirty, but that doesn’t include any beauty treatments, just wash and blowdry. I get the women going into work, as you can see.’ She gestured towards the hairdressing section and then turned back to Anna.
‘What’s this about? I had a sleepless night wondering if it was bad news.’
‘I’m sorry, I just called to arrange for us to have a talk. There have been some developments. I also need to take a buccal swab for DNA testing, basically for elimination purposes.’
‘Really? Well, do what you have to do.’
Tina was wearing her salon robe, but had obviously had her hair done, and her make-up was flawless. She looked even prettier than before.
‘I like your hair,’ Anna said, smiling.
‘I’ve had it straightened and had some highlights put through it.’
‘Do you have to stay on the desk? Only I’d like to talk to you in private.’
Tina turned and yelled for one of the juniors to look after the desk and then gestured for Anna to follow her through to the staff cubicle.
