The Red Dahlia

always, the photograph of Jack Travis, her beloved father, was on her bedside table. She stared at his strong face and his deep-set eyes. She hugged the frame.

'Well Pop, I screwed up and I got screwed. This is what it comes down to: the bastard used me.'

She sat up and put the photo back in its usual place. All the years of training, all her ambitions could be swiped aside if Langton so chose. She made her bed for something to do and then wandered into the kitchen. She brewed some coffee and sat feeling wretched, though at least the tears had dried up. She wondered what her father would have advised her to do. She was certain he would never have found himself in the same boat. Langton was right: she had been stupid.

As if on automatic pilot, she finished her coffee, washed up, cleaned the kitchen then tidied the lounge, until everything in the flat was in order; she even vacuumed the hall. She emptied the kitchen bin, the clank of empty bottles a reminder her of her night with Reynolds. They had drunk two bottles of red wine between them; usually, Anna's quota was no more than a couple of glasses, so it was no wonder she'd felt unwell the next morning. She flung the bag into the bin outside the flats. By the time she returned to slam her front door closed, she was angry. Hands on her hips, she stood in the hall and muttered to herself.

'The bastard, he must have done it on purpose!' She reread Reynolds's article and pursed her lips. She had been drinking, but she knew there was stuff in there that she had not discussed with Reynolds. She felt physically sick when she remembered opening her briefcase, but not getting round to looking through her notebook, the night that Reynolds had stayed. Now every crime desk was buzzing with its contents.

Anna went into her bathroom and washed her face with cold water. Her eyes were still red-rimmed; she patted her face dry and put on some make-up. She donned her best coat and shoes and headed for the front door. She drove to the newspaper's main gates. When she was asked if she had a security pass, she showed her ID and said that Mr Reynolds was expecting her. She was waved through and told to park in the visitor bay by the side of the building. She was surprised by how calm she felt as she headed towards the reception area. As it was Sunday, there was only one receptionist on duty; fortunately it was the one she had met previously.

'DI Anna Travis.' She showed her ID. 'Dick Reynolds is expecting me: can I go straight through?'

She watched as the girl wrote down her name, time of arrival and who she was visiting on an identification label which Anna then pinned to her lapel. The receptionist was just about to pick up the phone and call through to the crime desk when two more visitors appeared, requiring her attention.

'It's okay, I know where I'm going,' Anna said. As she pressed for the lift, she was pleased to hear the receptionist attending to the visitors rather than speaking to Reynolds.

The lift stopped at the newsroom floor and Anna made her way along the corridor, pausing a moment to make sure she was going in the right direction, then turning into another corridor that led into the main newsroom. No one paid her any attention as she walked briskly between the rows of desks.

Wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt, Reynolds was sitting with his back to her. He was perched on the edge of his desk with a coffee, regaling his colleagues with some joke. He threw back his head, chortling with laughter. 'I couldn't bloody believe it! He had his trousers round his ankles—' Reynolds broke off as the others clocked Anna walking purposefully towards them. He did a half-turn and almost slid off the desk. 'Anna!' he said smiling, his arms wide.

She walked right up to him, so that their bodies were almost touching, and he blushed.

'This is a surprise,' he said. He edged away from her a fraction.

She took the newspaper from under her arm and slapped it against his chest. 'Not as much as I had when I read this.'

He gave a shrug. 'Look, I'm a journalist.'

'Don't give me your bullshit; this was highly confidential!'

'Now, wait a minute; a lot of it's public domain.'

'Some of this isn't and you know it. How could you do this to me?'

'Anna, like I said, I'm a journalist. This is a big story.'

'You knew what I told you was confidential! And what I didn't tell you, you got out of my notebook. What did you do? Wait until you'd got me drunk? Until I had fallen asleep, so you could creep out of my bed to filch it?'

'Anna.' He took hold of her arm; their confrontation was exciting a lot of interest among the other journalists at their desks.

She swiped his hand away. 'I have been kicked off the case. I probably have no career left, but that wouldn't interest you, would it? You got your story and to hell with any consequences or trouble you might have got me into — and I am in big trouble. I think you are despicable!'

Reynolds pursed his lips, then reached over his desk and picked up the Black Dahlia book. 'There was an LA journalist who broke the news about the Black Dahlia suspect. All I was doing was following what happened in the original murder enquiry.'

'None of what I told you was ever connected to that.'

'Yes it was. What you had not told me was what your victim had been subjected to, and it is the same as the Black Dahlia, so even though you are trying to disconnect the two…'

'I'd like you to eat shit!' she snapped. Reynolds knew she was referring to what Louise Pennel had been forced into doing and it angered him.

'Don't be so crass. What you might not realise is that I work for the Sun, and although we are part of the same group that publish the News of the World, it's a different bloody newspaper.'

'So what did you do? Sell the information? It had to come from you, so don't try and say you had nothing to do with it!'

'Don't you understand? The News of the World filched their article from mine!'

Anna continued, her voice rising. 'We had not allowed that information to be leaked, because if we did bring in a suspect—'

'You have one. You told me.'

'I also told you that it was highly unlikely he was the killer. Now you've blasted it out.'

Reynolds looked around at the people listening and again tried to draw her away, but she wouldn't budge.

'Let's go and have a coffee, talk in private about it,' he said.

'I don't want to be in your company longer than it takes to say what I have come to tell you. I want nothing more to do with you. If this has hampered the enquiry, then you will have DCI Langton to deal with. This is just for my personal satisfaction. You are a creep and a two-faced bastard.' She picked up the coffee he had left on his desk and threw it in his face. It was a good hit: his hair was soaked and his face dripping.

'That's very childish.'

'Maybe, but it's made me feel better.' She turned and walked away as he tried to mop up the coffee from his face and his sopping shirt.

By the time she got back to her car, she was shaking with nerves. She drove home, hardly able to think straight, and her anger was unabated as she parked and let herself into the flat. She almost broke down in tears again, but refused to allow herself to. She tipped out her briefcase and searched through The Black Dahlia for the section that Reynolds had mentioned. She carried it into the kitchen and sat reading it over and over.

The original article had been written by a screenwriter and sent to the LA Herald Express. As Reynolds had said, it covered much the same ground as his article, describing the gruesome injuries of the victim and revealing that a suspect was being held in custody. Its publication had prompted the real killer to admit the murder, wanting recognition for his hideous crime and to claim the publicity he had earned.

Anna's mouth was dry as she drove to the station. She walked slowly up the stone steps and approached the Incident Room. She stood for a few moments outside the double doors, listening to jangling phones and muted voices, before mustering the guts to push them open.

The room fell silent as everyone turned to stare at her. She walked to her desk and took off her coat, folding it over the back of her chair. She could see the glances passing back and forth, and knew her cheeks would be pink