turning her back unintentionally on the next table where DCI Hedges and two of his team were sitting.
‘All I am saying is, who the fuck does he think he is?’ DCI Hedges continued loudly. ‘That was my case. You tell me how he gets away with saying his six victims, his six ancient hookers, have the same MO? It’s bullshit and he’s the biggest fucking bullshitter I’ve ever come across!’
Anna half turned, in time to see DCI Hedges jabbing his fish and chips with his fork. ‘No fucking way. So her hands were tied? So fucking what? He didn’t have any forensic evidence, no postmortem report, and he gets the full fucking Monty and we are left out of it, like pricks. No way are his old tarts connected to the murder of that little girl. It’s bullshit. Unless he is getting it across with the commander. She was on his side before we even started!’
There was the clatter of their cutlery during a pause while they ate their lunch, but soon Hedges was at it again. ‘He’s going to get all the press, all the media coverage. It’s fucking disgusting!’
‘What if it’s true?’ asked a sullen, pockmarked officer.
‘What’s true?’
‘That he has some serial killer.’
‘Bullshit. No way is that little girl part of his enquiry. Six months he’s been on it, collecting old slags from all over England. I’m telling you, DCI Fuckface Langton is desperate. He won out because he’s brown-nosed the commander, or fucked her, because there’s no other way he could have got this case, no fucking way.’
While Anna finished her lunch, the three men continued to slag off Langton, paying her no attention. She was making her way back to the incident room just after one o’clock when it occurred to her to check whether her new Mini was still intact. It was. She was at the rear entrance of the station when she saw Langton with Commander Jane Leigh, one hand at her right elbow, as if steering her to her waiting car.
Anna watched Langton laughing with the commander as they approached her car. He opened the rear door. There was an obvious familiarity between them. When she got in the back seat, he leaned in to finish the conversation.
Anna got back to her desk just ahead of Langton, who banged into the incident room.
‘Have a good lunch?’
‘Erm, yes, thank you. And you?’
‘Not had time. I’ll get a sandwich.’ He nodded to Jean, who gave him a wry look.
He checked his wristwatch and looked over at Anna. ‘Interview room two. I’m going for a slash.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, getting ready with her notebook and pencils as the doors swung closed after him.
It was almost a quarter to two when Langton walked into the interview room where Anna was waiting. He held a beaker of coffee in his hand, wrapped with a paper napkin.
‘He’s just arrived,’ he said, sitting beside her. ‘His name is Mark Rawlins, student. London University. Business affairs.’
He sipped from his takeaway coffee. ‘You were at Oxford, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jack must have loved that.’
‘Yes. My father was very proud, you know, that I made it to Oxford.’
‘What do you think he’d feel now?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, here you are in a rundown station with the Murder Squad, on a case full of tarts and?’
Before she could think of an answer the door opened and Jean, holding a chicken sandwich, peeked in.
‘Your order, sir, minus tomatoes — and there is a Mark Rawlins in reception.’
‘Is he on his own, or with someone?’
‘He’s with his father.’
‘Well, tell his father that I just want to see Mark. No, forget it. Let him bring in who he wants.’
Jean closed the door.
‘Is he a suspect?’ Anna asked.
‘Not yet,’ Langton said, biting into his sandwich. He chewed rapidly; as if he had a train to catch, thought Anna. ‘You look at me as if you know something I don’t. Or you disapprove of me. Which one is it?’
She flushed. ‘Sorry. Just over-eager, I guess.’
‘Really? Is that what it is?’
There was a pause: he took another bite of his sandwich.
‘I overheard DCI Hedges talking in the canteen.’
‘Yeah, and …?’ he said, with his mouth bulging.
‘He doesn’t like you.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘He said he didn’t know how you’d got this case, unless you were having a scene with the commander. He said there was no connection between the murders,’ Anna continued. ‘That what you said about there being a connection was all bullshit.’
Langton finished his sandwich and wiped the table in front of him with his hands, picking up a few crumbs.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, hesitating. ‘Melissa was young and beautiful. From what I have read so far, your killer goes after a specific type: bruised, old, beaten — so unloved they wouldn’t even make it on to the missing persons list because nobody cared enough about them to report them missing.’
‘I agree, but the way her tights were wrapped round her neck three times was what swung it for me.’
‘But at the postmortem … I can’t recall Henson saying that?’
‘You were throwing up in the toilets,’ snapped Langton.
‘No, I was there when he cut the tights away from her throat.’
Langton rubbed his eyes. ‘Last night I went to the forensic lab, checked the fucking tights: three times, three times wrapped around her little white throat. It’s the same killer.’
‘And the bra? Was that tied in the same way?’ Anna felt that Langton had just lied to her, but before he had a chance to answer, there was a tap on the door and Jean ushered in Mark Rawlins and his father. Langton transformed himself before Anna’s eyes. Genial and relaxed, he stood to shake the visitors’ hands, then gestured for them to sit.
‘Thank you for agreeing to come in. I hope we can get through this as fast as possible and with as little pain.’ He gave an avuncular glance at Mark, a fresh-faced youth who looked closer to sixteen than nineteen. ‘This must be torment for you; it’s a terrible thing.’
Mark’s father, white-haired, well-dressed, was far more nervous.
‘Is my son a suspect?’ He addressed Langton brusquely.
‘Not at all. But he was the last person we know who saw Melissa alive. Anything he might recall could be vital.’
The interview was an eye-opener for Anna. Langton spent time putting the emotional boy at his ease, before he scrutinized his original statement, section by section. When Langton pressed him as to what the young couple had been fighting about, the boy became nervous. The room was tense as Langton started to put the pressure on.
‘You were Melissa’s boyfriend for eighteen months,’ he said impatiently, ‘and you have said over and over again how much you loved her, so you might understand why I am confused as to how you could just let her walk away. It was half past eleven at night, Mark.’
Mark had been constantly glancing at the upright figure of his father, but Mr Rawlins had said hardly a word throughout the interview.
‘I was only going to wait a few minutes, then go after her and that’s what I did. I paid the bill and walked off in the same direction.’
‘Which was?’ Langton waited.
‘She went across Covent Garden, I presumed she was heading for the tube station, but when I got there it was closed. I wasn’t sure if she would go towards Leicester Square or Oxford Circus, so I then walked back to the Square down Floral Street.’
Langton passed across a street map for Mark to highlight the route he had taken. His hand was shaking and
