The Red Dahlia

'His daughter?'

'No, Dominique Wickenham. When do you think this was taken?'

He turned over the photographs but nothing was written on the back of any of them.

'Well, the envelope has 2002 on it, but these could have been taken years ago, so it's not much use to us. If it is her, what does that give us?'

Langton looked up; they were almost touching. 'Well, she's bonking her stepson as well as everyone else, so it's not that old is it? How old would you say he looks?'

'Hard to tell from what I can see of him. But Justine looks about thirteen or fourteen to me.'

Langton sifted through the photographs and then frowned. 'This looks like some kind of cellar. There's two girls tied up. Look at all the equipment: the sicko's got a private dungeon! There's chains and some weird machines.'

'Looks like old farm equipment to me,' Anna said, sitting back down.

'No way; this is state-of-the-art masochistic gear.' Langton got up and started to pace to and fro, then took another beer from the mini bar.

Anna carried on looking at the photographs. 'Why did she bring these to us? There's got to be something we're not seeing. I mean, we have a pretty good idea of what Wickenham gets up to, but in the privacy of his home, there's not a lot we can do about it.'

'Well, there's the one photo of his daughter.'

'I know, but it still doesn't give us any connection to Louise Pennel or Sharon Bilkin. So Wickenham has sex parties: it's not against the law.'

'What if the girls are all underage?'

'Well, one, we have to trace them; two, we could find that they're not unwilling participants. We also have no dates, so we don't know when these were taken, and they're not all from the same time.' Anna pointed out that in one photo, Wickenham had a moustache, in another longish hair, and in another short hair: there could be years between when they were taken.

'Well, there is one person that can give us a clue, and that's Dominique.'

'You suggesting we go back?'

'Thinking about it.'

'You'll get the maid into big trouble.'

Langton nodded as he opened a packet of peanuts. 'How about talking to just the maid?'

Anna shrugged. 'We could do, but we are scheduled to fly back this afternoon. It's up to you.'

Langton tossed a peanut up into the air and caught it in his mouth. 'I think we should return as scheduled. We need to talk to Justine and the son.'

Chapter Fourteen

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

Anna slept through her alarm and was annoyed at herself for being late for work. She grabbed yesterday's suit, but put on a clean shirt. She arrived at the Incident Room to be told that Langton was in the boardroom, being given a briefing by the key team. Lewis, Barolli, Bridget and two other officers were sitting around the huge table listening to the taped calls from the phone taps. Langton was looking very smart in a pale blue shirt and dark navy tie, his suit immaculate. He glanced up with irritation as Anna entered.

'Sorry, my alarm didn't go off,' she said rather lamely as she took the nearest chair. She put down her briefcase, taking out her notebook and pencils. No one spoke; they all seemed to be waiting for her to settle. 'Sorry,' she repeated, embarrassed, and busied herself turning over the pages of her notebook until she found a blank one.

'We've been discussing the phone taps on the Wickenham family. Lewis thinks that Charles knows we're monitoring his calls: he's very cagey and abrupt, unless it's something innocuous.'

He turned to Lewis and gestured to the tape recorder.

Each call had been numbered. Langton asked him to play a specific one for Anna's benefit: it was a recording of Edward and Charles Wickenham talking. Wickenham senior's voice was harsh and angry.

'I fucking said there was something wrong with him when I last had him out. Why you can't do a simple thing like get the fucking vet to see to him? He's lame now, a lot worse than he was, and that's down to your stupidity; why can't you just do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it?'

'I'm sorry. I had to go and collect Gail.'

'Why couldn't she get a car and get herself home? She's a bloody liability. What she needs is therapy, not a few weeks in a health spa.'

'She's fine now.'

'I hope to Christ she is. You keep her in line: you give her too much rope — mind you, if you gave her more, she'd probably hang herself the stupid bitch.'

'It's her nerves.'

'Well, that doesn't interest me; what does is that the horse won't be able to hunt for at least a month, so get him sorted out, never mind your bloody girlfriend.'

'She wants to get married.'

'What?'

'I said, she wants me to marry her.'

'I would say after your last disastrous marriage, it's the last thing you want to do.'

'Maybe I should.'

'Maybe you should? Why, exactly? She lives with you; she gets whatever she wants'

'She's very nervous.'

'Well, for Chrissakes, shut the stupid bitch up.'

'That's why I should marry her.'

There was a long pause; then Wickenham sighed. 'You do whatever you need to do, Edward. She has to be controlled, and if the way to do it is by marrying her, then go ahead.'

'I don't know what to do, Pa.'

'Have you ever? Let me think about it.'

Charles slammed the phone down, leaving Edward still on the line; he sighed before hanging up too.

Langton twisted his pen round and round. 'We need to talk to Edward's proposed bride. Pop sounds like a real tetchy son of a bitch, doesn't he, Travis?'

Anna looked up from her note-taking. 'Yes; maybe the horse he was referring to was the one we saw him on the day we were at the Hall?'

Langton glared at her.

'If it is, we have a timeframe,' she continued.

Langton ignored her, resting his elbows on the table. 'Reading between the lines about the proposed daughter-in-law's problems, keeping her under control, etcetera, I wonder if she is the anonymous caller that tipped us off.' He nodded to Lewis, asking for call sixteen to be played.

This was the most recent call they had on tape: it was from Dominique. It was very brief and she sounded tense and angry, especially when Wickenham said he couldn't talk to her.

'Well, I need to talk to you, Charles, so don't ring off, because if you do I will simply keep calling you back until you do talk to me. The police were at my apartment today and they were asking me a lot of questions about…'