The Red Dahlia (32 page)

Langton half rose out of his chair as the phone rang. He plonked himself back down again as Anna answered. She listened, then said thank you before replacing the receiver.

‘Package has just been delivered. Were you expecting one?’

Langton shook his head.

‘Well, it’s on its way up.’

Anna opened the door and waited. A porter came out of the elevator carrying a brown manila envelope, addressed to them both but with their names misspelled. Anna tipped the porter, took the envelope and handed it to Langton. The envelope had been used before and the flap had been taped down. He opened it and tipped the contents out onto the glass table. There were seven photographs.

‘What have we got here?’ he murmured.

As he arranged the photographs so that they faced upwards on the table, Anna checked the envelope. A square white label had been stuck over the original address. Anna carefully eased as much away as possible without tearing it, to see that it had been mailed to Dominique Wickenham. There was a smudged date: it was March 2002. She called reception to ask if they could give a description of the person who had delivered the package.

Langton was staring at one photograph after another. ‘You think Dominique sent these over?’

‘I think from what they said downstairs it was her maid. Apparently it was an elderly woman in a black coat.’

Langton handed her one of the photographs. ‘See what you make of that.’

Anna looked: it was a group of men and women lazing in a hot tub with glasses of champagne. ‘That’s Charles Wickenham centre, his son Edward, and I think that’s Dominique half-turned towards camera. Is that Justine, the girl across from her?’

Langton nodded and looked at another photograph. ‘Same crowd; hot tubs seem to excite them. Let’s see if we can get an ID on the hairy-chested chaps. There’s three women in this one, but none look like family.’

Anna glanced at the group of sweating, laughing people, toasting the camera with raised glasses and smiles. The men had their arms wrapped around the naked girls. Anna found the seediness of the photograph repellent, the two middle-aged men leering at what looked like teenagers.

‘It’s getting pornographic now: same men but different girls, blowjob time, and getting into costumes and bits of leather. Christ!’

Anna looked up.

‘Jesus Christ, look at this! Just on the edge of the picture, on the right-hand side. Is that who I think it is?’

Anna got up and stood, looking over his shoulder. ‘Where are you looking?’

Langton pointed. ‘Girl in the leather boots and G-string.’

Anna leaned further over. ‘It’s Justine Wickenham.’

Langton picked up another photo, and shook his head. ‘Christ Almighty, they’re all screwing her.’

‘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…’

‘Shut up!’

‘What?’

‘I said shut up! If you wait a few minutes, I’ll be able to call you back, not on your land phone.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’ll call you on your mobile, your cell phone, Dominique; I can’t talk to you at the house.’

‘They were asking me all these questions, first about Emily…’

‘Not now: later.’

The phone went dead.

Langton spread out his fingers flat on the tabletop. ‘It’s obvious he knows we’re taping him.’ He looked at Anna. ‘This was as far as we’d got before your late arrival, so now we can concentrate on the other calls: one in particular.’

He nodded to Lewis again. It was Edward Wickenham talking to his girlfriend Gail.

‘I’ll be there to collect you. You might have to wait, as father wants me to do some errands, but it shouldn’t be too long.’

‘Like how long? You knew I was leaving here today.’

Bridget put up her hand. Lewis stopped the tape.

‘That’s her: that’s the woman that called the station. I’m sure of it.’

Langton looked at Anna who shook her head. ‘Could I hear a bit more? It does sound like her.’

The tape continued.

‘Can’t you ask your father to do whatever needs doing later? He just makes you run around after him all the time.’

‘He pays the bills, Gail.’

‘I know; I know that.’

‘So just wait: I’ll be there!’

The call ended and Anna nodded. ‘Yes, I’d say it’s her. Have we done a voice match on the calls that came in to be one hundred per cent sure?’

Barolli looked at his watch. ‘We only got this in last night, so they might not have got it together yet. Want me to check?’

Langton wafted his hand. ‘Later. Let’s hear the rest and then get up to speed all round on what we came up with in Milan.’

They all listened to calls between Emily and Justine Wickenham. There was nothing suspicious and nothing that linked to their enquiry; they just talked about a party for some friend and the dinner menu, with Justine giving Emily a cooking class over the telephone. The sisters were quite at ease with one another; Emily appeared to be very much calmer than when they had interviewed her.

The team listened to call after call for over fifty minutes, then Lewis stopped the tape. ‘This one is interesting, though a bit indistinct, so we are having it cleaned up. It’s a call from Emily’s mobile to Justine’s land line.’

‘Do you know what time it is?’ Justine was asking.

‘Yes.’ This was very blurred and slurred.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m at a party.’ Again, this was hardly audible.

‘Are you drunk? Ems, are you drunk or something? Hello, are you there? Emily, where are you?’

‘I want to kill him!’ came the high-pitched scream.

‘For Chrissakes, Emily, where are you? I can come and get you.’

‘No! I don’t want you to see me, I just need some …’ It was then a totally incoherent ramble of slurred words with long pauses in between.

‘Em, are you with someone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are they a nice person? Are they looking after you?’

Emily laughed, a strange and hollow sound, devoid of any humour. ‘Are they nice?’

‘You know what I mean, Em. You’re not being taken advantage of, are you?’

‘Would it matter? I’ve been taken advantage of since I was fucking ten years old, so what the fuck does it matter where I am? I am going to pay him back, Justine: one day, I’ll pay him back.’

‘By getting drunk and acting dumb?’

‘Shut up!’

‘You bloody called me, Em, so don’t tell me to shut up. I am trying to help you. If you tell me where you are, I’ll come and get you.’

‘You’ll see. I’ll get him. I’ll make him pay. Danielle will help me.’

Anna looked across at Langton on hearing this.

Justine’s voice became lower, almost threatening. ‘You be very careful what you tell her. I mean it, Em: you have no idea what Daddy can do.’

‘Yes I have. I bloody know!’

‘Then listen to me: keep your mouth shut. I’ve already had Mother on the phone: the police were asking questions about you. That woman detective was in Milan. I warned you about saying anything to the police.’

‘I didn’t tell them anything!’ Emily was crying.

‘Then from now on, refuse to speak to them unless I am with you. Just do what you are told to do, otherwise terrible things will happen!’

Emily was sobbing, her voice hardly audible. ‘They already have happened. There’s nothing anyone could do to me that would be worse.’

And then she hung up. The team sat in silence.

‘Bit like father like daughter,’ said Langton. ‘She’s a piece of work, Justine Wickenham; from what we were able to discover in Milan, she is not an innocent: far from it.’ He showed the team the photographs.

Although it was Anna who had talked to Danielle, Langton talked them through the details of their conversation. ‘We are certain that Danielle has no idea about the murder enquiry. She thought we were there regarding Wickenham’s sexual antics with Emily. Though we’ve got photographs of him and Justine rather than Emily, the maid was very concerned about her and with good bloody reason. She wants him punished! I think that goes for all of us; the question is how we go about drawing the net over his sickening head. We have it raised, but we still need more concrete evidence: a lot of what we have is hearsay and won’t hold up in court. We need confirmation that Louise Pennel was at that house and that he has lied about not knowing her; someone there must have seen her and I think that someone could be the son’s girlfriend. We now need to question Edward Wickenham and Gail Harrington, but we have to be very careful as the son could also be implicated; he may be a partner in his father’s perversions.’