searching through the kitchen drawer. As he pulled it further out, cutlery clattered out all over the floor. He swore and bent down to pick up the knives and forks, tossing them back into the drawer.
'I really need this on a Saturday afternoon,' he muttered.
Anna closed her eyes: forced to sit it out in the small kitchen, she felt as if the walls were closing in on her. She rubbed her temples to try to ease the pain, but nothing helped.
'I don't feel so good,' she said quietly.
'What?'
'I said I don't feel good. I think I've got a migraine.'
'You want to go home?' he said, banging the drawer shut. It stuck firmly, so he shook it out again. The clattering noise felt like needles going through her brain. Barolli was on his hands and knees, feeling around inside the unit.
'I'm going to be sick,' she said, and walked unsteadily to the kitchen sink.
'Christ, go into the bathroom; don't chuck up in here!' Barolli squinted into the drawer cavity. 'Something's caught between the drawers.' He reached further inside and then pulled out a brown manila envelope containing a bundle of fifty-pound notes.
'Don't handle the envelope too much,' Anna said and then hurried into the bathroom.
Anna filled a tumbler of water from the kitchen tap and sipped. She had not brought anything up, but her head was throbbing and she felt dizzy. Barolli had counted two and a half thousand pounds in cash into a plastic bag and he was keen to get back to the station to see if they could put a trace on the bank notes. When he suggested Anna go home, she didn't argue; she hadn't had such a bad migraine since she was a teenager.
Back in her bedroom, Anna drew the curtains and went straight to bed, an ice pack on her forehead. She lay with her eyes closed, wondering where Sharon had got all that money, but just thinking about it made her feel worse. She started taking slow deep breaths, trying to empty her mind, but she couldn't ignore the fact that they might have got something that would help their enquiry, perhaps even trace the killer. Eventually she got up and took a shower. She still felt very dizzy, so went to He down again. This time she slept, a deep dreamless sleep, until early morning.
Anna made some mint tea and had a dry piece of toast. She was feeling a lot better, but the shrill ring of her phone at seven-thirty made her wince.
'Travis,' he snapped.
'Yes?'
'You feeling better?'
'Yes, thank you.'
'Well, soon you won't be.'
'I'm sorry?' She tensed: Langton sounded furious. 'I'm sorry about yesterday; it was a migraine. If you need me to come in today, I can make it.'
'I'm coming to see you.'
'What?'
'Now!' And he slammed the receiver down.
She was left holding the phone in confusion, and feeling almost as angry as he had sounded. She wasn't expecting sympathy, but he could have been a bit more understanding: she hadn't had a day off sick since she had got her promotion.
Fifteen minutes later, Anna buzzed the intercom and opened her front door, waiting for Langton to appear on the stairs. If he had sounded angry on the phone, it was nothing compared to the obvious fury with which he approached her, carrying an armful of newspapers.
'You are in deep shit,' he said coldly.
'For Chrissakes, I had a fucking migraine,' she said angrily, slamming the front door shut after him.
'You'll probably have another. Have you read it?'
'Read what?'
Langton slapped down a rolled-up edition of the
'Your boyfriend's article, yesterday's late edition.' He pointed to the paper. 'And if that isn't bad enough, everyone else has run with it!' He threw down the other papers he was holding. 'Look at the bloody
Anna could feel her body shaking as she picked up the
Richard Reynolds's exclusive detailed virtually their entire conversation. The article stated that the suspect was a soldier with medical training and that he had admitted to the murder of Louise Pennel. It also gave details of the mutilations she had suffered and the autopsy results.
'He hasn't missed out a fucking thing, even down to the fact she was forced to eat her own shit!' Langton was like a caged animal; fists clenched, he paced up and down the small kitchen. 'What in Christ's name were you thinking?'
Anna wanted to burst into tears.
'I warned you! Talk about sleeping with the bloody enemy! Have you any idea what repercussions this is going to create for me — for the entire team?'
Anna sat on one of her kitchen stools. She was shaking.
'It's beyond belief that you could be so unprofessional, even after I warned you. Jesus Christ, Anna, how could you have been so stupid? Why did you do it?'
She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut tight.
'Well? What have you got to say for yourself?'
She took a deep breath. 'I told him that whatever we discussed was…'
'Was what?' he snapped. 'Headline news?'
'I asked him — no, I told him — that whatever was said between us was private.'
Langton shook his head in despair. 'Private. Private? You are investigating a brutal murder; what do you mean, whatever you said to him had to be private? You are a detective, you know the law — you've broken the law, for Chrissakes, don't you understand? You have given highly confidential information to a journalist. What happened? You have a few too many drinks and couldn't hold your tongue? Is that why you had to leave the enquiry yesterday? Because you were so hung over?'
'That's ripe, corning from you.'
She regretted saying it instantly, but it was too late. His eyes bore into her with such hostility that she had to look away.
'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.'
He rolled up the newspaper and tapped it on the edge of the counter. 'I don't know what I am going to do about this, Anna.'
She licked her lips; her mouth was bone dry. 'Do you want me off the team?'
'That's a possibility. I think, under the circumstances, at the very least you'll have to come off the case. I need a few days to think about it. This could have severe repercussions for me. As it is, I am hanging onto this investigation by my fingernails. This load of shit that's gone down today won't stop with just the one article: every paper has picked up on it and I am going to have to deal with it.'
'I'm so sorry.'
He nodded, then said very quietly. 'You should be.'
Anna heard the front door close behind him. She sat staring at the kitchen wall and began to sob. Every time she dried her eyes and told herself to get it together, she broke down again. She sat on the toilet and cried. She lay on her bed and wept. It was almost an hour later when she managed to close the floodgates, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed. Now she really thought about the consequences, and she knew her error could end her career. As
