Blood Line

understand me?’

‘I think you’ve made it abundantly clear.’

‘Don’t get sarcastic with me, Anna. I’ve got a job to do and this isn’t in any way personal, so don’t make it out to be anything but my professional take on the way you are handling this enquiry.’

She wouldn’t back down. ‘I think I have handled it to the best of my ability. If you want to replace me . . .?’

He turned on her angrily. ‘Don’t think it’s not on the cards – and you can take that personally because I want you to succeed. I believe in you and I am trusting you to do as I have asked.’

‘Thank you.’

He gazed at her with her chin up and that stubborn glare, and he had never seen her looking so attractive. The window behind her desk gave a light to her red hair and made her eyes bluer than blue.

‘Thank you, too,’ he said softly, walking out and closing the door quietly behind him.

Anna slowly sank into her desk chair, opened her cigarette pack and lit up. Her hand was shaking. In case she set the smoke alarm off in her office, she opened the window. Puffing on her cigarette, she observed Langton crossing the station yard below towards his erratically parked old Rover, which was never locked. He yanked the driver’s door open, and then for some reason he paused and turned to look up at her window, smiled and gave her a small salute. She watched as he drove out.

She hated the taste left in her mouth after smoking, she thought as she stubbed out the cigarette on the sill before closing the window. She would do exactly as he had requested. She would go in to tell the team that they would arrest Tina Brooks before they travelled to Cornwall.

First, however, she had to sort out all the files that littered her desk. She’d just begun on the task when Helen rang to ask if she could see her for a moment. Anna opened the door, saying, ‘I was just coming to speak to you all.’

‘I wanted to apologise about something I had overlooked – my call to Donna at the hair salon. I didn’t think, but now in retrospect I should have paid more attention. You were right.’

‘Right about what?’

‘I spoke to Donna again. I didn’t want to make it too obvious, but I just said that when I had last talked to her about the competition dates, she’d mentioned that Tina was not in the salon as she’d gone out to make a call.’

‘Yes, and . . .?’

‘I asked her if Tina was actually out of the salon.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That Tina used a pay-phone. The girls never really knew why she didn’t simply use the desk phone or even her own mobile.’

‘Did she tell them she was using a pay-phone?’

‘Not in so many words, but she would often take some of the change left for tips, which irritated the juniors.’ Helen crossed to Anna’s desk and laid out a computer printout of a map. ‘This is the area around the salon. There are no public telephone booths close by, but there is a pay-phone in a pub on a corner within yards of the salon, and there’s also one in a cafe across the street. There’s two more further along, and . . .’

Anna studied the map. ‘Get Paul to come in, would you?’ she asked, stacking more files from her desk.

‘Knock, knock, who’s there?’ Paul said from the doorway.

‘Very witty. Shut the door. I want you to do something.’

Closing the door, Paul glanced at the map, saying, ‘Maybe the reason we could never discover if Tina was contacting anyone outside her work is because of—’

‘I’m ahead of you,’ Anna said, standing beside him.

‘It’s going to take a bloody long time if we want any calls accessed from these pay-phones,’ Paul complained, ‘because she could be using any one of them.’

‘Plus we don’t know what number she will be phoning. So I want you to do some surveillance. You get over to the salon and wait.’

‘But it could take all day before she makes a call!’

‘I don’t think so. If she is contacting someone who is connected to the murder, she’s bound to ring them. And as soon as we know which pay-phone she’s using we’ll get the number accessed.’

Paul gave her a sidelong glance as she folded the map.

‘Right – get moving,’ Anna told him, ‘and ask Brian to come in and see me. When you are in position, let me know.’

A few moments later, Brian came into her office.

‘I want Daniel Matthews brought in for questioning,’ Anna told him.

Brian hesitated. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a slew of names on the board. Who is he?’

‘The graphic-artist friend of Alan Rawlins, whose name he used to purchase the house in Cornwall.’

‘Christ, yes, of course. Sorry.’ Then: ‘Everything all right? Only I noticed the Boss was in with you for a lengthy session.’

‘Everything is fine, thank you, Brian.’

‘Is a trip to Cornwall on the cards then?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said tetchily as Brian left.

Sitting at her desk she was able to watch through the blinds as Brian started talking with Helen. She was certain that he had also spoken to Langton. It made her feel uneasy that the team didn’t think of her as being in charge of the case. She knew she would have to give a briefing and bring back their confidence in her.

Paul left his car at the local supermarket and walked the short distance to Tina’s hair salon. He rang through to Anna to say he was in position near the salon and that he’d remain on foot as the pay-phones were all within walking distance. Anna then put in a call to talk to Tina.

‘I’m really busy at the moment, Detective Travis. I’m giving a treatment to a client.’

‘This shouldn’t take long, Tina. I just wanted to run a few things by you that we have uncovered. We now know that Alan Rawlins purchased a substantial property in Cornwall – a cash buy for over four hundred thousand pounds. We have also been able to access some files from his computer. It appears that he has further substantial amounts of money. He was making payouts on quite a regular basis, amounts between five to ten thousand pounds.’

As she spoke, Tina constantly gasped, repeating that she couldn’t believe it.

‘I will need to discuss these new developments with you, but I wanted to know as soon as possible if you were aware—’

‘I never knew anything about it,’ Tina interrupted her. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense to me and I can’t help you at all. It’s all news to me.’ Her voice was shrill and then she started to cry.

‘I’m sorry if this is distressing for you.’

‘I can’t talk to you – there’s customers here. I’ve got to go.’

Anna replaced the receiver and her phone rang immediately. It was Brian to say that he had contacted Daniel Matthews, who was at home, so they were going to pick him up and bring him in. Then line two bleeped and Anna had to cut off Brian to answer. It was Paul. Tina had left the salon two minutes ago and he was tailing her.

‘Good. As soon as you know the location I’ll get onto Tech Support and you can return to the station.’

She smiled, pleased with herself, but the good feeling didn’t last long. Had she been so off-kilter as Langton had suggested that she had sent the murder enquiry into areas that were not even relevant? She got up and straightened her jacket. If she had, she was going to have to apologise, but the old adage that Langton always used to use: ‘What’s your gut feeling?’ made her think again, because her gut feeling was that the case was on course.

As everyone waited for Paul to get in touch, the tension grew. By now Anna had filled the team in on the importance of discovering who Tina was in contact with, and that it had to be someone she didn’t want anyone at the salon to know about. Fifteen minutes ticked by and still nothing. Then Paul rang in to say that Tina had done a walkabout before she went into the local pub. She did, however, make two calls – one after the other. She spent no more than a few seconds on one and five minutes on the other.

By the time Paul had returned to the station they had accessed the numbers and the buzz was on. The first call had been to Michael Phillips’s office and the second was to his company mobile. This had not been checked by