The Red Dahlia (12 page)

Langton snapped at him, holding his hand out. ‘We’ll let you know, Mr Reynolds, but I am afraid you will have to wait to hear what the contents are.’

‘No way. I am keeping my end of the bargain; if you don’t want this released, then you take me with you.’

Langton stared at him, then jerked his head towards the patrol car where Anna sat in the back passenger seat. ‘Get in! And, Mr Reynolds, there is no deal, no bargain; I’m doing this to keep you from making an ass of yourself, because this is a murder enquiry, not some fucking reality TV show. You have agreed to a press embargo along with all the other journalists; you break it and I’ll have you served with a warrant.’

Reynolds held the plastic bag gingerly on his knee. He gave a sly glance to Anna who didn’t respond, knowing full well that they couldn’t actually serve a warrant on him; Langton was just putting the frighteners on. No one spoke as they sped across London to the forensic lab.

Langton asked how long would they need to wait; one of the white-coated scientists told them that it would be done as fast as possible.

Anna sat beside Reynolds, Langton in a chair opposite.

‘Like a doctor’s waiting room.’ Dick smiled.

Langton glanced at him, not amused. His mobile rang and he moved away to take the call in private.

‘Pleasant bugger, isn’t he?’ Reynolds said quietly.

‘He’s okay, just under a lot of strain,’ Anna said.

‘Aren’t we all? My editor went apeshit when I told her what was going down; if she’d had her way, she’d have ripped open the package to see what was inside.’

‘Really?’ Anna glanced towards Langton who was some distance away with his shoulders hunched, leaning against a wall.

‘Well, for Chrissakes, it’s a blinding story, for starters; mind you, it could just be something not connected to your case at all.’

‘It would be too coincidental. Your caller said he would be sending a package, next minute you get one.’

Anna checked her watch, Dick leaned towards her. ‘How long do we have to wait?’

‘They’ll be checking everything; it might have fingerprints.’

‘Interesting; plus the postmark might be useful.’

‘I doubt he’ll leave anything we can trace, but that’s just my opinion.’

He stared at her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just, you seem a bit distant with me?’

She smiled. Truth was, she felt slightly awkward. ‘Working,’ she said.

‘You free for dinner this week?’

‘I’ll have to check my schedule; I may be on nights.’

‘Ah, I thought you meant your social calendar.’

She laughed. ‘No, I’m not doing anything; maybe you’d like me to cook us dinner one night?’

‘That would be good; why don’t we say this weekend?’

‘I might have to work.’

‘Well, call me.’

Langton came back and sat down. He, too, checked his watch.

‘While we’re here, we should check on the work they have been doing on her clothes,’ he said, his foot tapping up and down.

‘What clothes?’ Reynolds asked.

Langton ignored him. Anna hesitated. ‘We took items belonging to the victim for analysis.’

‘Oh right: DNA, stuff like that,’ Reynolds said. He couldn’t think of anything to make conversation with so he took out his mobile and began checking his messages.

Langton glared at him, and then at Anna.

They all turned to the double doors as they swung open and Professor Marshe hurried towards them. Anna was taken aback; the woman certainly loved making an entrance.

‘James, I’m sorry; I got here as soon as I could. I can’t stay too long: I am on my way to give a lecture.’

Langton rose to his feet and greeted her with a kiss on her cheek; he then introduced her to Reynolds, who stood up to shake her hand. Anna remained seated as Professor Marshe smiled at her. ‘Nice to see you again, Hannah.’

Anna smiled, not bothering to correct her. Professor Marshe was wearing another tailored suit and high-heeled shoes. Anna would have loved to be able to wear similarly chic and expensive clothes, but she was nowhere near as tall and slender as Professor Marshe. Anna wished she’d worn something less dowdy and folded her legs to disguise her low-heeled scuffed court shoes.

The door to the lab opened, and Liz Hudson, the forensic scientist, gestured to them from the doorway.

‘We’re by no means through, but you can come in and see what we’ve got for you.’

Hudson led them to a table at the end of the lab, covered with white paper tacked down at the sides. Spread out, already dusted for prints and neatly numbered, were the contents of the package. There was a black leather clutch bag, with a suede flower motif and a tasselled zip. Laid out beside the bag were a cheap powder compact, two lipsticks, a small mirror, a used tissue with lipstick marks, and a black leather address book.

Anna noticed that Langton lightly touched Professor Marshes arm as she leaned closer and guessed that she had been the one calling his mobile earlier.

‘Can I just say,’ said Hudson, ‘before we examine the purse etcetera, that everything here would have been carefully chosen by your suspect. If there was anything that could be of use to us, he would have discarded it. This is him playing out how clever he is.’

Anna nodded, although she had already guessed that. She was impatient to get hold of the address book, but none of them touched anything.

Hudson continued. ‘The bag is good quality, but old; perhaps bought from a charity shop. It’s got a residue of loose powder in one of the pockets. It also smells of an old-fashioned perfume called Chepre. My grandmother used to wear it; it’s no longer in production. Another thing that makes the bag old is that the label inside is Chanel and I doubt if your girl would have bought this new. The lining is very worn, as is the suede inlay.’

They all moved a few inches down the table, staring intently at the items.

‘Next the powder compact, Boots Number Seven; there is no powder puff, perhaps because we might have been able to get a skin test. The lipstick is a pink gloss and has been wiped; you can see by the head of the lipstick it has scrape marks. We have no prints off either. The second lipstick is Helena Rubenstein; it is a very deep red, not a common choice for a young girl. Oddly enough, it has not been used. It’s also not sold any more, like the perfume.’

Anna made copious notes as she listened, then looked up as Hudson pointed to the address book.

‘You will be able to take this as it’s been dusted. There are pages torn out, there’re numerous different inks and biro and the entries are in no specific order. Also, the pages are torn out in pairs. We had hoped that we might have been able to see an imprint of what had been written if the writer had pressed hard, but this means we will not be able to decipher anything.’

‘We’ll need that,’ Langton said, and Hudson nodded.

‘Not a lot, but you do at least have your victim’s name printed in the front of the address book, so we are to presume that these items did belong to her.’

They moved further along the table to the brown paper that had been used to wrap the parcel.

‘There is a smudged postmark; we are trying to get you something from it, but it is very faint, and we have so far found two sets of prints.’

‘They could be mine,’ Reynolds said.

‘We’ll need to take yours so we can eliminate them.’

‘Plus there might be prints from the receptionist that brought it up to my desk.’

Hudson nodded. ‘I would say whoever wrapped it used gloves, as there are no smudges. The adhesive tape is of a very common variety; we are going to see if, when we lift it off, there may be something beneath, but I doubt it. We have the time it was posted — six-thirty — and we think it was from the main post office at Charing Cross. It’s a very busy central office, so I doubt if anyone saw the sender, or could remember him; there is also the possibility he used someone else to post it. Now we get to the note inside the package.’

Like schoolkids at the Natural History Museum, they moved along to the end of the table.

HeRe ArE tHe Red DaHLia’s belOnGingS. LettEr to follow.

‘The note is made up from letters cut from newspapers: no prints, so I am afraid it gives us nothing. The notepaper is very common and sells in bulk.’

While Reynolds was taken to have his fingerprints done, the others moved to another table in a section of the lab where a young scientist with sprouting black hair and thick glasses was waiting. Before him lay Louise’s clothes and underwear taken from her wardrobe and laundry basket, divided into two sections: the very expensive lace thongs and matching bras in pale pinks and greens, and the well-worn, cheap underwear, greyish in colour.

‘We split them up because it seems to us that the lady wore the more tasteful items on special occasions, so perhaps took better care of them. We have some body fluids on the thongs but no semen. However, the stains on the other selection are menstrual and identified as belonging to your victim, as are the pubic hairs. We have two different semen stains, but we are unable to ascertain when they were deposited. They can still be visible even after washing, but I doubt this section has been washed recently.’

They moved along the table to see a few more items: a white blouse that was stained beneath the armpits and a petticoat and a nightdress. It was as depressing as seeing the tired contents of Louise’s handbag. Anna was relieved when Langton suggested they return to the station.

Langton was impatient to get back to the Incident Room to begin checking over Louise’s address book. From the patrol car window, Anna watched him thank Professor Marshe, who had remained silent throughout, kissing her on the cheek and helping her into the chauffeur-driven Mercedes that was waiting for her in the lab’s car park. He slammed into the front passenger seat. ‘She’ll give us an update on what we looked at in the lab, either this evening or in the morning.’

Anna would have liked to say something sarcastic: to date, the glamorous Professor Marshe had given little or no insight into their killer that they hadn’t all pieced together themselves; however, she kept quiet. Langton flicked through the small address book in moody silence. Anna stared out of the window, thinking about a girl she had once shared a room with at training college who had always looked very respectable but was, in fact, far from it. Not only was she promiscuous, she had very distasteful habits. Whenever she was out of clean underwear, she just tipped her laundry upside down and wore whatever had been discarded first. Anna knew that for the past six months, when Louise had lived with Sharon, she had appeared to have only the one secret admirer: their one and only suspect so far. According to Sharon, Louise stayed in unless meeting the tall dark stranger. Had Louise led a very different life before? Anna leaned forwards in her seat.

‘Gov, was Lewis checking out any previous boyfriends?’

‘We’ve traced one: a student from the bed-and-breakfast hotel. He’s in the clear, as he now lives in Scotland; another boy from the hostel was interviewed, but he works at a pub in Putney and had not seen Louise for eighteen months, but we’ve a shedload of other names we are still checking out, so we’ll need another visit to the hostel and the B&B. The hotel is run by a Lebanese woman; she says Louise was hardly ever there. She wasn’t very helpful.’

‘Do you think the dentist or anyone from where she worked was seeing her?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘If we go on what we saw in the lab, maybe she had been putting it about more than we think.’

Langton shrugged. ‘Two semen stains and grubby underwear does not give us much to go on.’

Anna rested back in her seat and got out her notebook. She spent the rest of the journey flicking back and forth. She remembered that, at her visit to Florence Pennel, the housekeeper had described Louise as looking scruffy with lank hair; she made a note to call Mrs Hughes when she got to the station.

Langton marched ahead of her as usual. She was expecting to have the door slammed in her face as usual, but he surprised her by waiting. ‘What is ticking in that little head, Travis?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You always chew your lip, and you were buried in your notebook for fifteen minutes. What? Well, spit it out; what’s got to you?’

Anna sat opposite Langton in his office, stirring her coffee.

‘This suspect, the tall dark man; I think he puts an advert into the paper for a PA, making it a very inviting job to any applicant.’

‘Yes yes, we’ve been through that. You or anyone else had any joy tracing this advert?’

‘Not as yet, but we do have Louise, broke, working for a pittance at the dentist’s, hating her job; she was always late and, according to one of the nurses there, often hungover.’

‘Can you get to the point, Travis?’ Langton snapped as he spooned sugar into his coffee. He then opened a drawer and took out a bottle of brandy, pouring a heavy measure into the cup.

‘If we have a man wanting to do a copycat kill of the Black Dahlia, he could have used the advert to find the right girl. Louise Pennel, desperate, bored, broke and sexually permissive, wants to make a big impression; she even goes to visit her grandmother, who she’s never met, to borrow money for some clothes to go to the appointment.’

‘This is just you surmising.’

‘I know, but hear me out; the point is—’

‘I am, Travis; can you get to it?’

‘The French underwear, the good clothes, she kept clean; so maybe this tall dark stranger had become a sort of Svengali. He’s found the right victim: my God, she even chewed her nails like Elizabeth Short. He also had months to work on her; during that time she moves out of the hostel into a B&B and then Sharon’s rented flat. The cashmere sweaters, the suit, the shoes: all expensive. It’s like we have two women: one, the old Louise in her cheap and dirty used knickers, and the new model.’

Langton sighed, impatiently.

‘We need to check where that underwear came from; in fact, check every expensive item Louise Pennel had in her wardrobe. Most important, we need to put more energy into tracking down that advert.’ He was drumming his fingers on the desktop; however, she continued, defiantly. ‘We do have a bit more to go on.’