Blood Line

the following day. Langton had given the go-ahead for herself and one other officer to travel to Cornwall, although he had said air flights were out of the question due to budget shortages. He suggested she get the train to Newquay and arrange for the local station to provide a squad car for them to use. If it was necessary, they could stay a couple of nights in a B&B that the locals knew or used.

Anna decided that a five-hour train journey with Brian Stanley would do too much head damage, so she would be accompanied by Paul. Langton had even suggested that Paul would be the best choice as he was homosexual. When she had given him an admonishing glare he had simply laughed.

Anna drew the duvet up to her chin, snuggling down in her bed, but wondering what she might uncover in Cornwall kept her wide awake. She closed her eyes, recalling Langton’s comments as he left. She realised that he had not admitted in as many words that her diligent enquiries had moved the case into a different league. It proved that she had been on the ball and not, as he had implied, over-investigating. Typically, Langton agreeing to the Cornwall visit was to her mind a step forward, and she was even more determined to prove herself right and Langton wrong about her digging up too many suspects.

She too remembered Anthony Fitzpatrick and what it had felt like to see the man they had hunted for so many months escape arrest. Forever lodged in her mind were the faces of the drug dealer’s two small children looking out from the windows of the plane. Wherever they were, wherever Fitzpatrick was hiding out, there had been no sighting of him. It was, she knew, a testament to failure on Langton’s part. She vowed to herself once again that if Alan Rawlins was alive, she would not let him escape arrest.

Chapter Fourteen

‘I thought they’d have a restaurant,’ paul complained, as he had not had time for lunch. He and Anna were on the two o’clock train at Paddington, bound for Cornwall.

‘I thought so too, but apparently they have a buffet cart they wheel through the compartments.’

The train had few passengers and they were virtually alone in their carriage.

‘You know this stops off at a shedload of stations?’ he whinged.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s going to take about five hours.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Didn’t the budget run to a plane – only that would have taken a fraction of the time?’

‘I know that, Paul, but by the time we got to Gatwick airport and allowed two hours before the flight took off it’d still be around the same time.’

He was about to argue but thought better of it, knowing it had to be down to the budget.

Anna opened The Times and suggested they not discuss the case until later.

‘Sure, why not. We’ve got five whole hours.’ He sat back in his very comfortable seat and closed his eyes. Anna read the paper, noticing as she turned a page that Paul was fast asleep. She put it aside and stared from the window. They had two days with a stopover in the B&B. She opened her briefcase and took out her notebook, intending to underline what she felt was a priority. But the rhythm of the train made her sleepy and she eventually dozed, resting her head on her arms on the table.

Back at the station, Langton was carefully going over everything on the incident board.

‘This caretaker stroke janitor at Tina Brooks’s block of flats – we have a contact number for him?’ he asked Brian.

Brian nodded.

‘I want to talk to him, today,’ Langton went on. ‘See if he’s available. I also want access to Miss Brooks’s flat, so arrange that at the same time. Unless, I suppose, he might have a master key. Check if he has.’

As Brian drove Langton to Newton Court, Langton grilled him about the breakin at Metcalf Auto garage.

‘The guy who runs it mentioned that he had taken delivery of a soft top for the Merc. Do you know if DCI Travis had it taken in or checked out?’

‘Not sure, Gov. I left her there so she might have looked at it.’

‘We go there next, and I want a visit to the salon.’

‘Right you are.’ Brian drove them into the horseshoe drive of Newton Court. Standing at the front doors was Jonas Jones. He watched them park up and then went inside.

‘Does he have a record?’ Langton asked as they headed towards the reception.

‘Petty theft, couple of prison terms, but nothing for ten years.’

Langton pushed open the doors and headed towards Jonas, who was using a duster-covered broom to sweep around the small entrance area.

‘Good morning, Jonas, I am Detective Chief Superintendent Langton. You got a place we can have a little chat?’

‘No. I only got a broom closet in the hall which is where I keep all the cleaning stuff. I just check the reception area and stairs.’

Langton nodded. ‘You keep it nice and clean.’

‘Thank you. That’s what I’m paid for. When I run out of stuff I phone the landlord and he replaces the Brasso and floor polish. I used to have an electric floor-polisher, but that broke recently and so I do it by hand now.’

‘You know Miss Tina Brooks?’

‘Yes, sir. Well, not know her – just to say good morning to.’

‘What about the other occupants?’

‘It’s about the same apart from Miss Jewell. She often makes me a cup of coffee so I’ve been inside her flat a few times.’

‘Must have had a good chat about the missing bloke, Alan Rawlins?’

‘Yeah, but like me she didn’t know him and she’s up on the top floor.’

Jonas sucked in his breath; he was minus a number of front teeth. He had iron-grey tight curls and his cheeks were sunken. His scrawny body looked as worn as his overalls.

‘What was the gossip?’ Langton asked, offering a cigarette.

‘What?’

‘What did you talk about?’ Langton lit the cigarette for Jonas and himself.

‘Oh, I see. Well, she was interviewed – like me, like all of us – and we talked about that and how we never knew the missing bloke. Just goes to show really, doesn’t it? Living on top of each other like that and never talking.’

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Not much.’

‘What else do you do round here?’

‘I also sweep up around the garages. I keep all the grounds tidy, cut the bit of grass. We got an empty garage ’cos Miss Jewell doesn’t drive so that’s where I keep the lawnmower and hedge-cutters.’

‘What about the garbage, the bins?’

‘Well, they put their rubbish in them during the week and on a Monday I wheel them out to the front for the binmen. They used to collect twice a week, but now it’s just the once. After they’ve been emptied I put them round the back again. We’ve not got rubbish chutes or anything like that. The tenants take down their own rubbish and they’ve each got an allocated wheelie bin.’

‘Take me round there, would you please, Jonas?’ Langton asked.

Brian was fascinated, listening to Langton’s easy banter with the caretaker, realising he had got a lot more out of him than Travis when she had interviewed him. The pair of them puffing on their cigarettes.

The neat row of big green wheelie bins each had a number on them. Langton tapped the one marked for flat number two.

‘This is Tina Brooks’s, right?’ He lifted the lid and looked inside. There was one black bin liner in there. ‘You ever get any foul smells from one of the bins?’

‘Not really. I mean, I don’t look inside. They always have a bit of a stink as it’s only collected . . .’