with his shoulder to move it to show the second section of cut carpet. The bed was bare, with just the base remaining, no mattress or pillows. He lay down on it and had to lean quite far over to see the bloodstained area. He reckoned whoever was killed had to have had his head, neck and the top part of his shoulders over the side of the bed. Could whoever it was have been held down by someone maybe kneeling on his back?
Getting off the bed, Langton opened the wardrobe: there were a lot of dresses and evening clothes, shoes in their boxes, and on a shelf above, some flowery hats.
‘Where is she sleeping?’ Langton asked.
‘There’s a box room next door.’
Langton followed Brian. The small box room had a single bed, which was made up and a duvet cover thrown to one side. There was also the roll of new carpet. Langton lifted it a fraction and found it was, as Jonas had said, heavy. The roll was probably intended to re-carpet the lounge. A fitted wardrobe contained a few clothes, but most of the space was taken up by a box of thick bandages in rolls, each roll fastened with a safety pin. Next to this was another box with containers of seaweed solution in large green cans. He took one out and read the label before replacing it.
‘So she’s sleeping in here.’
‘Don’t blame her,’ grunted Brian, waiting in the doorway as the room was so small. He watched Langton lift the bedcovers to look beneath them and then as he checked through the drawers of a dresser.
‘Nice underwear,’ he murmured, sniffing a lace bra. ‘Shalimar perfume, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Brian glanced at his watch.
‘You in a hurry to go somewhere?’
‘No, Gov, just wondered what time it was.’
Langton looked at the top of the dresser, which was filled with make-up and bottles of perfume. He opened one then replaced the top.
‘Shalimar. I was right. Very distinctive smell, sort of old-fashioned, but very pungent.’
‘If you say so. I’ve got a terrible sense of smell.’
‘Right – let’s see the kitchen.’
Brian had to stand and watch as Langton went through every drawer and cupboard, checking all the cans of food.
‘I wouldn’t say she was a good cook.’ He was going through the freezer now. ‘All frozen diet dinners. He was a fitness freak, wasn’t he, Alan Rawlins? This doesn’t look like the kind of stuff he would want to eat: lean cuisine, low-carb spaghetti and meatballs?’
‘I expect she just cooks for herself now.’
‘Yeah maybe.’ He shut the freezer door and then looked into the fridge which contained yoghurts and fruit juices and half a tomato.
‘Any carving knives missing?’ he asked.
‘Nope. There’s a block on the side there, and all the knives are in their slots.’
‘What about tools – any tools in the flat?’
‘Didn’t find any.’
Langton opened a closet that contained bleach and cleaning fluids. He dragged out a cardboard box of screws, nails, light bulbs and screwdrivers.
‘Odd? No hammer.’
‘Forensics took it but didn’t find anything on it.’
‘Shame.’ Langton replaced the box and went to close the door, but swung it open again as he noticed an apron and a plastic overall with
‘One more look into the lounge, then that’s it.’
Brian nodded, following behind. Langton squatted down in front of a small bookcase. He carefully checked one title after another. On the top row were mostly chick-lit novels, Martina Cole paperbacks and eight Danielle Steel novels. There were a few books on racing cars, vintage cars and motor-racing manuals. There were also numerous true crime books and one about the latest developments in forensic science. He thumbed through every page of this one. The book did not appear to have been well-read; no corners were turned down, nothing was underlined, and the chapters detailing DNA evidence appeared to be unmarked.
Langton replaced it.
‘Hard to get my head around the fact that Alan Rawlins even lived here. We got his clothes, right – but no shoes. No shaving equipment, no toothbrush, and they found no brush or comb used by him.’
‘That is correct.’
‘You get anything from his work locker?’
‘Nope.’
‘Anything from the garage out back?’
‘Nope. Are you thinking he packed up some of his clothes and stuff and pissed off?’
Langton sighed, shaking his head.
‘Or somebody else packed it for him to look like he pissed off,’ he said grimly, crossing to the small side table close to the large flatscreen TV.
Brian rolled his eyes. He knew the SOCO and lab teams had gone over the flat in detail and he felt this was all a waste of time.
‘Maybe whoever killed him had time to give his possessions a good clear-out,’ he suggested. ‘If Alan was murdered shortly after Tina says she left for work, the killer or killers would have had five or six hours to clean up.’
‘Thank you for that insight, Brian. You have any idea how long it would take to carve up a body, wipe the place down, make up the bed again?’
‘And maybe have sex as well?’
‘Yeah – and remove anything that would give us a DNA link to Alan Rawlins.’
Langton began reading all the letters and bank statements in the side table drawer.
‘She’s very neat and methodical. The tax is up to date, VAT is up to date, but there’s nothing of his in here. His address book was taken in, wasn’t it? But there’s nothing relating to him in the diary, just her appointments and gym sessions listed. Often she’s not filled in days; sometimes we’ve got a whole week with nothing written. There’s car licence and insurance, house insurance . . .’
Brian stifled a yawn. ‘His life was insured for fifty grand and we’ve not found any evidence that this was upped or changed by Tina,’ he said, but Langton paid him no attention.
‘She’s the main beneficiary,’ Brian went on. ‘They had a joint bank account, which his wages and hers went straight into, and it looks like she then withdrew cash for them both. They’ve got just over seventy thousand saved.’
Langton nodded, replacing papers as he sifted through the drawers. He took in the room: the awful bland pictures on the walls, the beige on beige furniture. It was boring and featureless – yet two young people lived in the flat. Even though it was a rented one, it nevertheless had little of the personality of either Alan or Tina.
‘They were planning on getting married. She told Travis that he had suggested she look for a wedding dress,’ Brian remarked.
‘What?’
Brian repeated his comment, adding sarcastically that Tina maintained she was unaware of her boyfriend’s sexual activities elsewhere. Langton remembered when he had been with Anna, holding her in his arms as he told her about the death of her fiance. The bridal magazines, the way she had cut out pictures of the wedding dress she was contemplating wearing. There was nothing similar inside this flat to indicate that Tina was thinking of getting married, and nothing connected to surfing or Alan’s so-called other life. Could he have been that secretive?
‘Photographs?’ he said to himself. ‘Where are they?’ He gave a wide open-handed gesture.
Brian shrugged. ‘I think they did take in some kind of an album, but that was why we had a problem with Alan. To get him ID’d we’ve been using a surfing photo DCI Travis took from his parents’ home.’
Langton stood up, looking around the room.
‘Doesn’t make bloody sense. I mean, we can tell she lives here because of her make-up and hair shampoos, but what about him?’
