Blood Line (32 page)

‘I’m telling you the truth!’ Tina burst out. ‘I don’t know anything about this, I really don’t. I am telling you the truth!’

‘But if you changed the bedlinen, you must have been able to see
this
.’ Anna snatched the photograph of the blood pooling by the bed and slapped it down in front of Tina. ‘You
must
have known about it! How else did that section of carpet get to be in place over the stain?’

‘I told you – Alan spilled wine, and he must have done it.’

‘When did he do it?’

‘I don’t know, maybe the same day he had a migraine.’

‘Really? And yet Forensics have been unable to discover any wine stain left on the underlay in the living room or the piece of carpet in the bedroom.’

‘Well, I
saw
him spill wine and he was upset because it was a big stain and he cleaned it up.’

‘You recall the spillage as a reason for the carpet being cut by Alan, correct?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Whether or not there was a stain, the sofa was moved across it. We know that the section cut out was wide and long enough to cover the exact area of the bloodstain beside your bed.’

‘Alan must have done it,’ Tina repeated.

‘When did he do this?’

‘I don’t know exactly.’

‘I think you do know, Tina, because I think you cut that section of carpet and you thought it would not be noticed. You cut the exact size of carpet needed to hide the bloodstain; you then moved the sofa over the missing section in your lounge and returned to—’

‘I DID NOT.’

‘Why did you subsequently order a new roll of carpet, Tina?’

Jonathan Hyde leaned forward, frowning. ‘I was not told about this. What carpet are you now referring to?’

Anna explained that whilst she was at his client’s flat the caretaker had taken possession of a new roll of carpet that Tina had ordered. Tina looked at Hyde rather than Anna as she explained.

‘I’d ordered it weeks ago ’cos I couldn’t clean off the fucking wine and other food and drink stains in the lounge. When the landlord comes round to check before we leave, we gotta have everything as it was when we moved in. He says he’s been done before and wants the flat to be left as we first saw it. I told you this; I said all this to you! We had to leave a big deposit.’

Paul passed Anna a receipt in a plastic cover.

‘This is a receipt from Wall-to-Wall, a carpet warehouse. As you can see, the order was placed
after
Alan Rawlins disappeared.’ Anna pushed it across the table to Hyde.

Tina didn’t even glance at it, but continued, ‘I wanted it done because I’m not plannin’ on staying. That place has got too many bad memories for me.’

‘Are these the bad memories, Tina, the bloodsoaked carpet?’

‘No, I didn’t mean them! I meant because of Alan leaving.’

Anna gathered the photographs up as Hyde carefully checked the receipt and the agreed delivery date. He passed it back to Paul, making a note in his notebook.

Paul looked to Anna, who leaned over and whispered to him. He opened another file and took out a report.

‘We discovered further forensic evidence from the sheet and pillowcase on your bed, Tina. We have semen stains that don’t match the blood DNA, and hair that is not Alan’s as it’s seven inches long. From recent photographs of Mr Rawlins we can see that his hair is cut short. Can you explain how this evidence came to be there?’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘You have claimed today that you and only you stayed at the flat – no one else – but this is a lie. You are lying, aren’t you, Tina?’

‘I am telling you the truth.’ She turned to Hyde and tapped his arm. ‘For fuck’s sake, why don’t you say something and stop all this because I am telling the truth. I never had nobody sleeping with me. I was there on me own.’ Her accent was slipping more towards cockney as she grew increasingly upset.

‘Miss Brooks, the officers are required to put the evidence in their case to you, and you do not have to answer unless you want to. I assure you I am more than aware of Detective Travis’s accusations, but this is your opportunity to tell them your version of events . . .’

‘It’s the truth! I mean, I never hurt Alan and she’s been telling me that he had this other life – right? Or was that you trying to make me implicate myself?’

Anna pursed her lips, saying, ‘We have uncovered records of substantial amounts of money that Alan had acquired, also a property in Cornwal—’

Tina interrupted her again. ‘I don’t know nothing about any money or what you said about him being a queer. I’ve been telling you the honest-to-God truth.’

‘Then please explain to me, if you still insist that you and you alone slept in your flat after Alan’s disappearance, why we have evidence that indicates another man was in your bed.’

‘One moment.’ Hyde tapped the table with his fountain pen. ‘You have as yet been unable to identify whose blood was discovered beside the bed or who left the evidence found on the bedlinen, correct?’

‘Yes, that is correct. We have been unable to acquire DNA from Alan Rawlins for a direct comparison.’

‘Then surely it is possible that the evidence uncovered from the bedside plus whatever DNA has been found on the bedlinen, could well belong to someone other than Alan Rawlins?’

‘That is possible,’ Anna said curtly.

‘Then isn’t it also possible that Alan Rawlins not only murdered someone else, but changed all the bedlinen and cleaned the flat? He would have had the entire day whilst my client was at work.’

‘YES!’ Tina half-rose from her chair.

‘Please remain seated, Miss Brooks.’

Tina sat back in her chair with a smug look on her face. She jabbed the air with her finger.

‘He could have removed the carpet, he could have shoved the bed over the bloodstain. I wasn’t thinking when I got back from the salon that we’d got different bedding on – right? That fucking semen stain you say you got could be his, right? Well, am I right?’

‘Just stay quiet, please, Miss Brooks,’ Hyde said coolly.

‘But that makes sense, don’t it? And it’s just coincidence that I ordered the new roll of carpet. I’ve been telling the fucking truth since I’ve come here.’

Jonathan Hyde closed his notebook, pocketed his pen and gave half a smile.

‘I think, Detective Travis, that until you are able to identify who the victim is, you really have no option but to release my client.’

Anna knew she was cornered and said that Tina should remain available as they might well need to question her again.

‘Is that it, then?’ Tina said, smiling.

‘Just one more thing. You have denied knowing Michael Phillips?’

Hyde looked up enquiringly.

‘Miss Brooks’s neighbour,’ Anna explained. ‘Do you still maintain that you do not know him?’

‘I didn’t, but I do now. I met him coming in one night recently and I was so upset. I wanted some change of clothes, remember I asked you for permission. He was going into his flat and I was trying to get my key out to go into my place. He asked if I was all right and I just broke down crying. He was ever so nice. He asked me in for a brandy and since then we’ve become friendlier. We exchanged numbers and he said if I needed anything, to call him.’

‘When did you last call him?’

‘From the pub before you arrested me.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘All the stress this is causing me. He was like I just said, very kind, and if you want the honest truth, I fancied him. I need someone, for God’s sake!’

It was a depressed Anna who released Tina and then returned to the incident room to give the team the update. Thanks to Langton’s belief that the evidence from the flat strongly implicated Tina, she had gone along with his request to put pressure on the woman, but all along she had known they were skating on thin ice.

*

Brian Stanley still had no confirmation that Tina and Michael Phillips had been in close contact for longer than she or he had admitted. At the briefing, Anna stressed the importance of identifying the victim and the semen from the bedlinen. She only now gave them the information that the hair was not going to be significant. Liz Hawley had informed them that Sammy Marsh’s DNA had been taken on a mouth swab when he was arrested for drugs offences a number of years ago but, for reasons she was still trying to discover, it did not appear to have been uploaded onto the national database. Sammy was still only a tentative link to Alan Rawlins, and without any evidence it was also possible it was nothing more than a coincidence.

‘So a trip to Cornwall is still on the cards is it?’ Brian asked.

Anna nodded, although she would first have to get it passed by Langton, and she was not looking forward to giving him the details of her interview with Tina Brooks.

As the team broke up for the night, Anna sat in her office mulling over the uneventful day’s work. She jotted down notes to look into the following morning, loath to pick up the phone to Langton. Just as she was about to call him, Paul rang through to say that Joe Smedley, the head mechanic at Metcalf Auto, was on line two.

‘What does he want?’

‘He’s had a break-in, happened last night. He reported it to the local cop shop, but then reckoned we might be interested.’

‘Put him through.’

‘Detective Travis?’

‘Speaking.’

‘I had a break-in last night. It must have happened very late as we was working here up until after nine. It wasn’t in the main part of the garage, but in the workshops attached, and they’re not alarmed, just got a padlock on the roll-up.’

‘Was anything stolen?’

‘That’s what is odd. Nothin’s gone that I could tell you ’cos it was where Alan kept the Merc he was doin’ up, so there weren’t much room for anythin’ else. Some bastard has ripped the Merc’s seats – good quality leather, they were – and the door panels have been torn out. The boot was open and scratched to hell and it had just been resprayed. So it’s a lot of damage. I mean, it don’t hurt me because it wasn’t my vehicle, and to be honest I was gonna call his girlfriend as I dunno what anyone wants to do with the car and I will need the space.’

‘Thank you for calling, Mr Smedley. If you are there now, could you wait as I’d like to have a look at what was done.’

‘Okay. I’ll be here until eight tonight.’

Anna replaced the receiver. She could legitimately put off calling Langton. With Brian in tow, rather disgruntled as he was ready to leave for the evening, she drove to Metcalf Auto repair garage.

The padlock had been broken. As Smedley had said, the workshop was not alarmed, but both padlock and chain were heavy-duty.

‘Hadda come with bolt-cutters, and like I told you, nothing else was broken into – just this lock-up.’

Smedley was still wearing greasy oil-streaked overalls and his hands were black with engine oil. He eased up the gate, which swung out and then slid up under the roof of the workshop.

‘I never charged Al for storing his vehicles in here, only for whatever equipment he needed. The paint-spraying was done round the back and he’d use the hydraulic lift to check the under-carriages, but always when it was convenient. We’ve also had delivery of a new soft top, which is over in the main garage.’

They stood in a row looking into the garage. The 280SL’s seats had, as Smedley described, been hacked, slashed and the stuffing dragged out. Both doors had the panels hammered out, and even the dashboard looked as if someone had attacked it with an axe. The glove compartment door was broken and hanging on its hinges. The boot had deep indentations as it had been locked when it was prised open.

‘It’s a crying shame,’ Joe mourned. ‘Al loves this car and it was just about ready to sell.’

Anna and Brian walked around the damaged vehicle. At the rear of the garage was a tools locker that had been forced open and the contents were strewn around the floor.

‘What do you think they were looking for?’ Anna said quietly to Brian.

‘Christ only knows. Only time I’ve seen a car broken up like this was when I was with the Drug Squad. It had cocaine stacked between the panels in the door. Mind you, that wasn’t a vintage car like this one. This is a real damage job and it must have created a lot of noise.’

‘Did anyone complain about hearing a noise or see anything?’ Anna asked.

Smedley shook his head. ‘There’s no housing close to the yard, and besides, there’s often a lot of noise from us. I dunno even if it’s insured.’

‘Did the locals dust for prints?’ asked Brian, still inspecting the damaged vehicle.

‘I don’t think so. A couple of uniforms came and looked over it, and they thought it might be drunk kids, vandals or whatever.’

Anna suggested to Brian they get SOCO to dust and see if they came up with any prints, although she doubted it. Probably whoever did the damage wore gloves.

‘How many cars did you see Alan Rawlins work on in here?’

‘Quite a few. He’s worked here for years and always had one or another on the go. They made a nice little earner for him and they were always top-of-the-range vintage. He was also obsessive, you know? Hadda be perfect. I’ve seen him do a complete respray, and to me it was perfect, but not to him. He’s also had a couple of motor bikes he customised with a little thin guy, pal of his – a graphic designer – and they did a lovely job between them.’

Anna suggested they close up the garage and asked for Smedley to allow their SOCO officers to dust for prints.

‘How long do I have to keep it here?’ he asked.

‘We’ll be as fast as possible and then I’m not sure what will be done or who now owns it.’

‘So you still got no trace of him then?’

‘No.’

‘Bloody weird – doesn’t make sense.’

As Smedley locked up with a new padlock, Anna asked if she could have a quick chat to him, but Brian was eager to take off home. ‘It’s all right, Brian,’ she told him. ‘This won’t need the two of us. You go.’

Smedley took Anna into his small office and offered to make her a cup of tea, but judging from his filthy hands she didn’t think she’d care for one.

‘Can I just ask you again, Joe – the morning Alan Rawlins left, the last time you saw him . . . just take me through it.’

‘Well, I’ve not got anythin’ more to add. He come in early as always – he was always the first here, last to go. He’d often work on his own vehicles before we got here and before he started on scheduled work. He was a bloody good mechanic, very thorough . . .’ He scratched at his beard and then his chest, trying to come up with something else.