Blood Line (13 page)

Anna was driving as Paul was on the mobile to Tina Brooks. He was very polite, asking if it was possible for her to be at the flat to allow them to enter; if not, they could under the warrant force entry to instigate the search. She was very rude and said that she would have to return from her salon as she was at work.

‘We really appreciate it, Miss Brooks.’

Anna glanced at him and he shrugged.

‘She’s got a mouth on her, but she didn’t seem all that worried about the search warrant.’

‘Didn’t she even ask why?’

‘Nope, just said that it was bloody inconvenient.’

Tina remained belligerent as she let them into the flat.

‘Why do you have to search the place? You’ve already been over it once!’

‘I’m afraid we are considering that Alan Rawlins may be dead so we would like to do a thorough search.’

‘Well, get on with it, but I can’t stay long.’

‘Thank you for your cooperation. When we were last here, the caretaker said you were expecting some new carpet to be delivered.’

‘Yes, it’s in the living room.’

Anna glanced at Paul. This was good. She asked why the carpet was being replaced and Tina rolled her eyes.

‘I am sick to death of this beige colour. It also marks easily so I decided weeks ago to get some new carpet with a bit more colour, but it had to be beige again because it’s in the bloody lease. Anyway, I am not going to stay on here longer than I have to, as it has sad memories.’

‘We will try not to inconvenience you more than is necessary,’ Paul said as Anna headed into the lounge. The new carpet was rolled up and left against the wall. There were a few stains around the coffee table, but they were not very noticeable. Together she and Paul moved around the room, opening drawers and cupboards. Tina was in the kitchen and occasionally walked in to stand in the doorway watching them.

‘Did Alan have any medication for migraines?’

‘No. He would just use paracetamol or codeine tablets.’

‘Did he often have these headaches?’

‘They went if he had a good sleep. I’d draw the curtains, make the room dark and that was about it really.’ She returned to the kitchen.

There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary in the lounge, not until Paul moved the sofa aside to look beneath it.

‘Anna, come here.’

She joined him and he shoved the sofa even further away. There was a large piece of carpet missing which had clearly been neatly cut out, measuring about two feet by two. The dark black underlay was still in situ.

‘Miss Brooks – Tina – could you come in here for a moment, please?’ Anna called.

Tina came to the doorway.

‘Can you explain why there is a large piece of carpet cut out from here?’

‘Yes, I can. The sofa used to be against that wall.’ She gestured across the room. ‘Alan spilled a bottle of red wine and he couldn’t get the stain out. He must have cut it out, I think.’

She pointed to the roll of new carpet. ‘That’s another reason why we have to leave a month’s deposit with the landlord. If there’s any damage when we leave, he uses it.’

‘So you intended leaving before Alan disappeared?’

‘Yes, I told you. We were looking for a place to buy – we were getting married.’

‘I see. Thank you.’

Tina went back to the kitchen as they finished up the search of the lounge.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ she offered, from where she was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar.

‘No, thank you, but do you mind if we look in there? Shouldn’t take long,’ Anna said.

Tina picked up her coffee and walked past them to sit in the lounge. They opened the cupboards beneath the sink first, and Anna held up a container of bleach. It was half-empty and no other container was visible. There were scrubbing brushes and a bucket which all smelled strongly of bleach. Anna went into the lounge.

‘You have a container of bleach in the kitchen?’

‘Yes – what about it?’

‘We have a witness who saw you buying a considerable amount of bleach and some carpet cleaner from Asda.’

‘Yes. I use bleach to clean the floor in the salon. I use that one here to clean around the sinks and tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom.’

‘And the carpet cleaner?’

‘I used it to try and clean up coffee and food stains on the carpet so we wouldn’t lose the deposit but gave up and ordered a new carpet.’

Paul finished checking out the kitchen and walked past Anna into the master bedroom. It really was a very nondescript tasteless flat, and the bedroom had the same beige carpet. He searched through the wardrobes and dressing-table drawers; they were as they had been from their first search of the place. There were also two black plastic bin liners filled with Alan’s clothes, all folded neatly, with a tag attached to the bag which said
Salvation Army
. Paul had to remove each item and check it out.

Anna had by now completed a search of the small second bedroom which was used as an office. She found nothing, apart from the accounts for both Tina and Alan’s mobile phones. As she went into the master bedroom, Tina approached her.

‘Listen, I am going to have to leave. I’ve got appointments for this afternoon.’

‘We won’t be too long. I am taking these statements for the mobile phones. Is that all right?’

‘Take whatever you want.’ Tina went back into the kitchen to wash up her own coffee mug.

Paul indicated the black bin liners, saying, ‘His clothes ready for the Salvation Army.’

‘What?’

‘His side of their wardrobe’s empty.’

‘Miss Brooks?’ Anna said loudly. She pointed at the plastic bin liners. ‘You are sending these to the Salvation Army?’

‘Yes. They’re Alan’s clothes, no use to me, and if he comes back, serves him right.’

Tina walked off again, and Anna shook her head. Talk about lack of emotion! She sighed. They had found nothing. She looked around the room and then back to the bed. There was a bedside table on either side of the bed, each with a matching lamp. Anna noticed old indentations in the carpet on the right side of the bed.

‘The bed and tables have been moved to the left. Push the bed back out to the right.’

Paul heaved at it. It was very heavy and he hadn’t been able to see beneath as it had two storage units under the frame and mattress. It took him all his strength to move the bed, and Anna had to shift the other bedside table so it wouldn’t get in the way.

‘What have we got here?’ Paul wondered, bending down.

‘What is it?’

He pointed to an inserted square of carpet almost the same size as the section they had found missing beneath the sofa.

‘Is it tacked down or glued?’ Anna asked, close to him.

‘Double-sided carpet tape holding it down.’

‘Ease it up.’

Paul carefully drew the carpet up by one corner, pulling it away from the underlay. He sniffed. ‘I can smell bleach.’

As he slowly peeled it back to reveal the dark waffle of the underlay they could see a large bleach-stained area. It was almost circular and had been scrubbed so hard there were bits of damaged rubber and weave exposed.

Anna stood up. She instructed Paul to get the local Scene of Crime officers to the flat to test the stain.

‘There’s no red wine on that bit of carpet you just lifted.’

Next, Anna drew the sheet from the bed, but there was no sign of staining on the mattress, duvet or pillows. Tina came and stood in the doorway.

‘I am going to have to go. Have you finished in here?’

Anna turned to face her. ‘No, Miss Brooks, we have not. We have found something very disturbing and we will need to get people here to ascertain exactly what—’

‘What’s that?’ Tina demanded, coming further into the room.

‘It is obvious that the carpet cut from your lounge has been used to cover damage in here.’

‘Oh my God, I’ve never even seen that before!’

‘I will need to interview you, Miss Brooks, at the station.’

‘Why?’

‘I think the staining on the underlay by the bed is due to someone cleaning it with bleach, maybe because it had Alan Rawlins’s blood on it, so if you would agree to accompany me . . .’

‘I’ve got nothing to do with that! I didn’t even know it was there.’

‘I nevertheless need to ask you to accompany me.’

‘But I’ve got appointments!’

‘You had better cancel them.’

The forensic team moved into the flat an hour later, and quickly ascertained that the underlay stain was bleach mixed with traces of human blood. They proceeded to roll back a wider area of carpet and then underlay, revealing heavily bloodstained floorboards. Due to the extent and density of the stain, even though attempts had been made to clean it with bleach, the Forensic Crime Scene Examiner believed that whoever had sustained the injury could have had a very severe wound. They also began examining the carpet in the lounge looking for any further signs of blood and the so-called wine spillage.

A very distraught Tina Brooks was taken in a patrol car to the station. Anna followed in her Mini whilst Paul remained at the flat to liaise with the forensic team as the premises were now being treated as a possible murder scene. Various items of clothing, the mattress and bedding, along with the neatly tied black bin liners of Alan Rawlins’s clothes were removed to be tested at the lab.

Tina had been asked if she would like representation and she insisted that she wanted a solicitor present. This took a further hour as they waited for a Jonathan Hyde to arrive. Meanwhile Anna was checking if there were any blood samples known to have been taken from Alan Rawlins, in case the stain in the flat belonged to him, then they could match it. She spoke to his father, who seemed in a terrible way to be relieved that at long last there was some kind of result. Even the fact that it was possible his son had met with foul play meant he could stop hoping, he said. He wanted to know for certain, and he agreed that both he and his wife would give blood samples, to be able to prove whether or not the blood discovered beneath the bed was their son’s.

Paul returned to the station to report that the forensic team were still at the flat, and that SOC officers were now doing an inch-by-inch search. This would include the garage and Tina’s car, which they impounded. If Alan Rawlins had been murdered in her flat, then his body would have to have been removed. As Anna banked up the incriminating evidence, her adrenalin kept her going without having lunch or even a cup of coffee. She had not pressed charges against Tina, as at present there was no direct evidence that she had murdered Alan Rawlins.

Anna and Paul went into an interview room first to talk to Jonathan Hyde. They explained that his client was not under arrest as they were awaiting verification that the blood was that of Alan Rawlins and she would, at the present time, be simply assisting their enquiry. They gave details of the length of time Alan had been missing and the discovery of the blood staining. They also provided him with the information of his client’s purchase of bleach, carpet cleaner and the ordering of new carpet.

Hyde then sat privately with Tina, explaining everything to her.

It was not until six-thirty the same evening that Anna got to conduct the first interview.

Paul sat beside Anna as she informed Hyde that she had not as yet received verification that the blood from Tina’s flat was Alan’s, and it would take more time to compare the blood with his parents’ for a positive result. Anna was calm and relaxed, but Tina sat like a coiled spring ready to unwind. Although she was there to assist their enquiries, Tina was cautioned to ensure that anything she did say could be used as evidence at a later date.

‘We really want you to explain the discovery of the blood on the carpet underlay in your bedroom. Do you have anything to tell us?’ Anna asked.

Tina shook her head.

‘But you must have known it was there. The bed had been moved, a section of carpet had been cut out from under it and then replaced by a piece cut from beneath your living-room sofa.’

‘I told you – Alan spilled a bottle of wine so he must have cut out the section of the carpet. He was always concerned what money the landlord would try and get out of us if we damaged anything. We were saving to buy a place of our own.’

‘So did Alan subsequently insert the section cut from the lounge under your bed to cover the bloodstain?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.’

‘How do you explain it then?’

‘He must have done it when I was at work.’

‘Miss Brooks, if we discover that the stain is in actual fact Alan’s blood, how do you explain that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he had a nose bleed, something like that.’

‘But surely the section of the carpet being cut out from beneath the sofa would have occurred sometime before you say he might have had a nose bleed. You claim that he spilled a bottle of wine – when did that occur?’ Anna asked.

‘A while ago, maybe a few months.’

‘So when did he cut out the section of the carpet?’

‘I don’t know. As I just said, it could have happened after he had a nose bleed.’

‘Did you cut the section of carpet beneath the sofa?’

‘No.’

‘When did you notice it had been done?’

‘More or less when you showed it to me.’

‘Why did you order new carpet?’

‘Because I want to move and the landlord would make us pay for any damage. I tried a bottle of carpet cleaner but it wasn’t much good.’

‘When did you order the new carpet?’

‘A week ago. It was on special offer.’

At this point Jonathan Hyde intervened. ‘We appear to be going around in circles, Detective Travis. Surely until this stain discovered beneath the bed is actually verified as being Mr Rawlins’s blood, I can see no reason to continue this line of questioning. My client has told you she was unaware of its existence and she did not cut any of the carpet herself.’

‘Could you explain why you purchased a considerable amount of bleach shortly after Mr Rawlins went missing?’

Tina sighed. ‘I told you why. I use a lot of bleach in the salon because it cleans up the spilled hair-dye and we’ve got black and white lino tiles.’