The Red Dahlia

'I know.' Langton walked out.

Barolli looked at Lewis quizzically. 'He said anything to you about her?'

'What? Travis?'

'Yeah, he did a double-take when he saw her name listed on the team, but then pretended not to have noticed. They got on, didn't they?'

'I was told a bit more than got on! In fact, you remember Jean — that stony-faced DC? — she said they were having a scene.'

'No way! She's not the Gov's type for one, and for two, he wouldn't be so crass as to screw someone on his team. He gets his leg over enough women without shitting on his own doorstep.'

'Well, it's what I was told,' Lewis said, slightly embarrassed.

Barolli flicked open the postmortem file and stared at it. 'You read through all this? What had been done to her?'

Lewis shook his head. They had been under pressure from Langton to get through the files as fast as possible, so had taken half each.

'Bottom of the page.' Barolli used a pen to indicate where Lewis should read. It took longer than just a glance. He turned over to the next page of the report and continued reading, then slowly closed the file.

'Jesus Christ. I thought the beatings she'd taken were bad enough, along with the slashes to her mouth, but this is sick, fucking sick.'

Barolli nodded; the report had turned his stomach. 'Beggars belief, doesn't it? And they haven't finished the autopsy yet! What kind of animal would do that?'

Lewis took a deep breath. 'One we'd better bloody catch.'

Anna was sitting in Louise's cramped bedroom. The single bed, with its pink candlewick bedspread, had not been made up. She had asked if Louise ever brought any guests back to the flat. Sharon had shaken her head: that was one of the house rules and, to her knowledge, Louise had never broken it.

'The landlady lives on the ground floor and she'd have a fit.'

'But Louise often stayed away for nights?'

'Yes, so did I; neither of us had got a steady bloke though, so it didn't really matter not being able to bring anyone back.'

Anna had to move her knees aside so that Sharon could open the wardrobe doors.

'I don't know what's missing. Like I said, she hadn't lived here too long. Oh, hang on!'

Sharon walked out of the room. Anna got up to look at the clothes herself. They were hung in two sections: what looked like work clothes — white shirts and straight dark skirts, a couple of jackets — and clothes for going out, some very expensive, others just high-street glitter.

Sharon appeared in the doorway. 'Her coat: she had a nice maroon coat with a black velvet collar and matching buttons; that's not in here, or in the cupboard in the hall.'

Anna nodded and looked to the bed. 'Did she usually make her bed?'

'No. She was a bit untidy. I was told not to touch it in case they wanted to take away the sheets and things.'

Anna looked at a dress on a hanger: low cut, tight-waisted, with a layered skirt.

'She wanted to be a model. She was always asking me about agents and what she should do to try and break into it. She had a very good figure, but sometimes she wore too much make-up, which made her look older than she was; then she started wearing the dark red lipstick.'

The doorbell made Sharon jump; for all her chattiness, she was actually quite strung out. She went to answer the door, leaving Anna to carry on looking over the clothes. She checked the labels of two cashmere sweaters in the chest of drawers. They were both very expensive and one had never even been worn: it was still folded in tissue paper.

Anna heard Sharon calling to someone to keep on coming up the stairs. She checked over an underwear drawer. Some of the knickers were expensive lace, others well-worn cotton. Anna flushed and shut the drawer when she heard Langton's voice asking Sharon for directions to the bedroom.

Sharon stood behind him as he appeared in the doorway. 'Not a lot of room,' she said.

Langton gave Anna a brief nod.

'You do your own laundry?' he asked Sharon.

'We've got a washing machine but it doesn't work that well, so we use the local launderette.'

'You still have Louise's dirty washing then?'

'Yes, it's in the corner in that basket.' She pointed. 'I don't know what's in there; I haven't looked.'

Langton's eyes roamed slowly around the room and then back to Anna as she gestured to the wardrobe.

'Sharon thinks Louise's coat is missing.'

Langton nodded. His gaze swept the room once more before he turned to Sharon. 'Is there somewhere we can talk?'

'The kitchen?'

He said quietly to Anna that he would leave her to it, and followed Sharon out of the room.

Anna did a thorough search, noting the hairbrush with dark red strands of hair still caught in it. They would take that. She did not find any personal notes or letters; there were very few knickknacks and no photographs. Louise's cosmetics and toiletries were a mishmash of cheap products. There were a few bottles of perfume, some expensive, two of which were unopened. Anna took the stopper off the cheap-looking Tudor Rose, which was half empty, and sniffed: it was sharp and synthetic. In a rather grubby old floral silk makeup bag, she discovered several used lipsticks in various shades of pink and orange.

Anna found nothing under the bed apart from dust-balls. She looked into the laundry basket: it was full of white shirts, knickers and bras. She shut the lid and then went back to the chest of drawers. She found two empty handbags: one quite good leather but old-fashioned, the other a small, cheap-looking clutch bag. No handbag had been found. Anna made a note to ask Sharon what kind Louise was likely to have been last seen with. Anna found no chequebooks, no diary and no address book. Leaving the room, she frowned as she heard a sound from the kitchen. She could not hear what was being said, but it sounded as if Sharon was crying. Langton's low soft voice talked on.

Anna went into the narrow bathroom; there was just room for a bath and toilet. A glass cabinet held aspirins and some prescription drugs, but the tablets were in Sharon's name and were only for migraines. Anna moved into the hallway and opened the cupboard by the front door to find raincoats and old shoes. Looking up, she saw two stacked suitcases on a shelf. Standing on tiptoe, she read a label: Louise Pennel, and the address of the flat. Anna quietly eased the case down and carried it to the bedroom.

The old suitcase was cheap and plastic, with a mock silk lining. Inside, there were two photo albums and a worn address book with various names and addresses listed in no particular order. Sifting through the photo albums, Anna was able to get a better idea of who Louise was. There were some black-and-white snaps of a couple; the woman looked very like Louise and, in a number of pictures, even had a flower in her hair. The man was very good-looking but with a laconic, almost bored air about him: he rarely smiled. There were a lot of baby pictures, then Louise in school uniform and as a camera-shy teenager. The more recent photographs were in the second album. There were some of Louise at parties and others of her standing by the Regent's Park zoo's chimp enclosure, shading her eyes and laughing into the camera. A few innocent-looking snapshots pictured her with various young men, always smiling and hanging onto their arm. Anna jumped as Langton appeared in the doorway.

'I need to get back. You want a lift?'

'Yes please. I'd like to take these with me.'

He glanced at the albums and then walked out.

They sat in silence in the patrol car, Langton up front, Anna in the back. As they drew away, the white forensic van was just parking up outside Sharon's flat.

'Louise was not a whore, but close,' he said, as if to himself.

'I wondered about that. She had some very expensive clothes; lot of cheap ones as well, but a few designer labels and some very exclusive perfume.'

'Sharon, I'd say, is on the game; not that she would admit it. Total denial, but she started to blubber when I