'Yes I am. Who is this?'
Silence. Anna waited a moment. 'Can you give me your name? All calls are treated as highly confidential.'
There was another pause. She could hear the woman breathing.
'Hello? Are you still there?'
'Yes, but I have to be anonymous.'
'But you are calling about Louise Pennel?'
'The Red Dahlia. She is the Red Dahlia, isn't she?'
'That is what the press call her.'
Anna sighed, impatient; she had had so many calls like this. 'Could you please give me your name and address?'
'No, no I can't, but I think I know who he is. She stayed at his house.'
'I'm sorry, but could you repeat that?'
Anna signalled that she wanted a trace put on her call. The tracer team were set up in the Incident Room, ready and waiting, in case the killer himself made contact.
'Oh God, this is terrible.'
'I am sure it must be, but if you do have something that you think could be connected, it would really be appreciated. Could you give me your name?'
'No, no I can't.'
'That's all right, just tell me what information you have. Hello?'
Anna looked over to see if the call was being traced. They signalled for her to keep the caller on the line. Anna kept her voice low, trying to encourage the caller to give more details.
'It is often very distressing, especially if you have suspicions regarding someone you know. Do you know this person?'
'Yes.' Her voice was hardly audible.
'And you say that the girl, Louise Pennel, was…'
'The Red Dahlia,' the woman interjected. There was another pause, then an intake of breath, like a gasp. 'I think she was at his house.'
'Could you tell me his name?' Anna looked over again; the officer gestured for her to keep talking: they had not had enough time to trace it. 'You know, anything you tell me will be in the strictest confidence.'
'Oh God, this is awful, and I might be wrong, I don't know what to do.'
Anna again glanced over but the officer still shook his head.
'I think it might really help you if you did tell me what you know.'
Anna listened as the woman gave a dry sob.
'You sound as if this is really distressing you. You said you may be wrong; if so, we could check it out for you and put your mind at rest.'
The line went dead. Anna closed her eyes in frustration. They were only able to determine that the call was from a mobile phone; as yet they could not pinpoint the location.
Bridget joined Anna. 'What do you think?'
'Well, she sounded distressed enough that it could be real; on the other hand, how many of these have we had?'
'A lot. But no one else keeps calling back.'
Anna shrugged; they would just have to wait to see if she called again.
The mail to the Incident Room was being checked over for further anonymous notes. They had been sent several. By mid-afternoon, three had been singled out by their expert as written by the same hand as the ones previously sent to DCI Langton. Again, an attempt had been made to alter the writing, and some words were crudely misspelled.
IF HE CONFESSES, YOU WON'T NEED ME
THE PERSON SENDING THOSE OTER NOTES OUGHT TO BE ARESTED FOR FORGERY HA HA!
ASK THE NEWSPAPER JOURNALIST FOR A CLUE, WHY NOT LET THAT NUT GO, YOU HAVE THE WRONG MAN.
Anna stood in front of the board with the rest of the team.
'They are almost identical to the notes received in the Black Dahlia murder,' Anna said to Bridget. As she spoke, copies were being pinned up alongside the other contacts by the killer. 'Maybe the article has pushed him into sending them, but he's still left no fingerprints and we can't trace the paper. Anything on the postmarks?'
'No, from all over London: Kilburn, Hampstead and Richmond. They were all sent on the same day as well. We've got people out there, hoping someone saw whoever posted them, but it's a long shot.' Bridget gave an open-handed gesture. 'It's crazy, isn't it?'
Justin Collins was not expecting the two officers who turned up to speak to him at the Chelsea antique market. He was very nervous when Lewis and Barolli showed him their ID. He was a tall, thin-faced man with a flamboyant necktie and tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Mr Collins specialised in Art Deco figures, paintings and crockery. He thought at first that they had come about the handling of hot items, but when told it was about money, he looked confused. He admitted he had withdrawn a thousand pounds in fifty-pound notes from Coutts in the Strand. He opened his ledger to check when he had paid out the money. He had bought numerous items, but none for a round sum of a thousand. Lewis asked if he could check out any items costing more. He was sweating as he looked from page to page, saying that he often bought on an
Lewis showed him the drawing of their suspect. He glanced at it and shrugged.
'To be honest, that could be any one of a few customers I have dealt with over the years. Is he in the business?'
'He is a suspect.'
'Ah well, I wish I could be of more assistance.'
'We hope so too, Mr Collins. You see, that money we have traced to you was found in a victim's flat; this is a murder enquiry.'
'Oh Christ. Let me get my other glasses and check my sales books.'
They waited silently as he sat thumbing through one book after another. Lewis sighed; he was pretty sure what he was witnessing was one set of accounts for the taxman and another that never saw the light of day.
'This could be it.' Collins tapped a page. 'It was at the Kensington Town Hall antique fair; over three months ago, I had a stall there. Yes, this could be it, but I paid more than a thousand: it was actually two and a half thousand.'
'Do you have the address of the person who sold you the item?'
'No no, I'm afraid I don't. I'm also afraid I don't have the brooch. I sold it.'
He flicked through another book and then pointed. 'Yes, I sold it to an American dealer; it was an Art Deco diamond-and-emerald brooch, a very nice piece, in good condition. I have the address of the buyer here.'
Lewis chewed his lip and waited as Collins jotted down the name and address of a woman in Chicago. Terrific!
Barolli was becoming impatient and leaned forwards. 'Okay Mr Collins, what's important to us is who sold you the brooch.'
'A young woman; she said she had inherited it from her grandmother.'
'Do you have her name?'
Collins became more flustered. 'No, as I said, it was brought to the fair. I looked at it, then went over to a friend of mine who deals in jewellery and he said it was a very good price; in fact, an exceptionally good price.'
'Can you describe the woman who sold it?'
'Yes, yes: young, blonde, quite attractive.'
Lewis took out the photograph of Sharon Bilkin. 'This woman?'
'Yes, yes that's her. I'm certain of it.'