Blood Line (25 page)

‘Good, good – keep at it. Also, check with Smedley how many surfboards Alan kept at his place of work, and call Liz at the forensic lab to see if she has a result on the buccal swab I took in earlier.’

Anna headed for the interview rooms down on the floor below. Reaching the first one she paused as she heard Paul laughing. Looking through the window in the door she could see Paul leaning on the table chatting to a dark-haired, handsome Italian-looking man. She walked in and Paul immediately straightened up and introduced her to Ardigo. The latter shook her hand as she thanked him for coming in to see them.

‘You look Italian,’ she remarked.

‘On my father’s side, my mother is English. I’ve been brought up here.’

She sat down. ‘Has Detective Simms told you the reason we wished to talk to you?’

‘Yes. It’s about the contact ad in a magazine, but I’ve told him it was a good while ago, at least ten months.’

‘You were contacted from the advert by—’

Ardigo interrupted her. He seemed very eager to talk. ‘He called himself Dan Matthews, but when he was described to me, I am sure it was this person called Alan Rawlins.’

‘You describe him to me,’ she asked, taking out her notebook.

‘He was tall, six feet or over, blonde, very blue penetrating eyes, and was physically in great shape. He was also suntanned, and I was asked by Detective Simms if he ever mentioned surfing to me, which he did.’

‘If I recall, the advert asked—’

Again she was interrupted. ‘I like athletic types because I’m a fanatical skier. I work for a dry-ski company as an instructor.’

‘Tell me about this person you think was Alan Rawlins.’

‘Well, he contacted me; I gave him my mobile number, not my home phone. We arranged to meet in a wine bar in Soho, and we had a few drinks.’

‘Was he a drinker?’

‘No, he just had a Coke, I think, but we chatted about this and that and he asked me what I did for a living, sort of sizing me up. After a while, because we really got along, I suggested he come back to my place. He agreed and we got a taxi.’

Anna glanced at Paul, asking if they had the address and contact numbers and he nodded.

‘Please go on, Mr Ardigo.’

‘I found him very attractive. He was quiet – shy, almost – and I think I had another couple of drinks, but he just asked for water. The next minute, he started to strip off. I said something like we should maybe get to know each other a bit more, but he said that we both knew what we met up for, or words to that effect, and . . .’

‘And?’

‘I said to him that I was really interested in forming a relationship with someone, and that I wasn’t into casual sex. I know I put the advert in, but it was the first time I’d done it and I wasn’t sure how it worked. But he said that wasn’t what he was interested in – he didn’t want a relationship. Then he asked if I wanted money.’

Ardigo reached for a bottle of water and unscrewed the cap.

‘I certainly wasn’t in it for money! It felt as though he thought I was some kind of rent boy. It really rattled me, and I told him again that I felt it was more important for me to get to know him. He then gripped my face in his hand and kissed me. It was a hard kiss and I tried to push him off, but he wouldn’t let go of me.’

He drank some water and sat staring down at the table-top.

‘I let him do what he wanted. I just went along with it because he scared me. He was like a different person from the one in the bar. To be honest, I think he would have really hurt me if I’d tried to stop him.’

Anna glanced at Paul and then looked back to Ardigo.

‘Did he rape you?’

‘No, it wasn’t exactly rape. When he’d finished, he walked back into the room where he’d taken his clothes off.’

‘Wait a moment . . . you had sex with him in your bedroom?’

‘Yes. Then like I said, he just walked out. I think he went into my bathroom, but I stayed in the bed, and then he left. I waited God knows how long before I got up and went into my sitting room. He’d left a fifty-pound note on my coffee table.’

‘We really appreciate you agreeing to see us, Mr Ardigo, and I am sure it must be very difficult for you,’ Anna reassured him.

‘As soon as I got the phone call, it made me angry all over again. You know, the way he had treated me – I just wanted it on record. It taught me a hard lesson, and as it turned out, it was actually a positive thing because I was pretty shaken up the next day. One of the guys I work with could see I was anxious and I blurted it all out to him, and he admitted that he was gay so we’re now together.’

‘That’s good. When you say you were anxious . . .’

‘Bit more than that. I had a lot of bruises and had to wear a scarf round my neck.’

‘Bruises around your
neck
?’ Paul asked.

‘Yeah, from when he almost strangled me. That’s another reason why I wanted to come in; the next guy could get killed.’

After thanking Mr Ardigo for giving his statement, Anna asked Paul to show him down to the reception then come to see her in her office.

As Anna passed through the incident room she asked Brian to see if Sal, the owner of the car wash, would agree to an interview.

‘I’ve called a couple of times already – he’s not around,’ Brian said.

‘I want him to give us more details of the surfing beaches and locations.’

‘I’ll keep on trying.’

‘Thank you.’

Anna sat behind her desk mulling over the interview with Anthony Ardigo. Yet again they had another insight into Alan Rawlins and it wasn’t a pleasant one. Paul tapped on her door and walked in.

‘That was interesting,’ he said.

‘Yes. What were you two laughing about before I came into the room?’

‘He was telling me how hard it had been for him to come out . . . Italian father, very macho guy . . . and I said that I could understand.’

‘I see. So you told him that you were homosexual?’

‘Yeah. It was good because it opened him up – in the literal sense.’ Paul laughed.

‘Mind if I give you some advice?’ Anna said icily. ‘Your sexual preferences are your business. If you find it necessary to make sure it is out in the open, that again is your business, but you should retain a separation from your private life as a detective. I am not asking you to do anything other than maintain a professional distance. I don’t think it’s advisable to elaborate on your private predilections when interviewing a possible suspect.’

‘But he wasn’t a suspect, for chrissakes, and he was very nervous.’

‘Put him at his ease – that’s your job, to get a result. And let me tell you, Paul, everyone we interview could be a suspect until we clear them of suspicion.’

‘Okay, I’m sorry.’

‘What I don’t want is the “gay” detective slur against you because you are very competent and a good officer – that’s what should be relevant. That’s all. You can go.’

Paul sheepishly walked out. She didn’t actually know anything about Paul’s private life, whether he lived with a partner or not, and she didn’t particularly want to know. All that mattered to her was that he was a valuable member of her team.

Meanwhile the team had worked hard on piecing together the date byline. The information was listed on the board. The holiday periods Rawlins had whilst working with Joe Smedley at the garage were matched with the dates that Tina had given for her hairdressing competitions. Helen had contacted the salon to ask for the details as Tina had not given them to Anna. Donna told her that Tina was out making a call, but she could give the dates, since she had been with Tina on some of them and knew exactly how long they would have been away. It varied from two days to five.

Anna was certain that Alan Rawlins was able to lead a double life because there were so many days when Tina had been away from their flat. His holidays from the garage were always in the summertime. Joe Smedley had said Alan would take no time off for Bank Holidays or over the Christmas period, but liked to have as much time as possible clumped together for his summer sojourns. It had taken considerable effort going through the records and calculating that June, July, and often August were the times Alan Rawlins was absent.

Late that afternoon Silas Douglas had returned Brian’s calls and agreed to come into the station the following morning. It had been a frustrating day as more and more information was collected. The team were still very keen to get the results from the Tech Support unit about the hard drive taken from Rawlins’s computer. Tech Support were dragging their heels and so Anna got onto them and tore a strip off their Head of Department, pointing out it was imperative they get the information as soon as possible; their excuse that they had a backlog of work didn’t wash with her. She angrily insisted that as this was a murder enquiry they should put her at the top of their list.

Langton called just as she was about to leave for the day. She gave him a brief rundown of the developments and he thankfully listened without interruption. He seemed distant, almost abrupt as he finished the call, saying he had someone waiting on his other line. She left the station shortly after, while both Paul and Brian were still working as the jigsaw grew.

Langton drove into the station just after 7 p.m. and went straight up to the incident room. He’d missed Anna, but Brian Stanley was still there. He was about to leave, but Langton asked him to stay behind as he wanted him to talk him through the investigation to date. It was not that unusual. He was, after all, the Chief Superintendent overseeing the entire Murder Squad. He made Brian feel slightly nervous as he fired off question after question and constantly made notes while muttering to himself.

‘How has the search gone trying to find the body?’

‘We’ve had a team looking into it, but we’ve no trace.’

‘And no positive identification of the victim?’

‘Correct.’

‘This woman, Tina – has she moved back into her flat?’

‘I believe it’s on the cards. The scientists are out of there and the SOCOs have completed their work as well. I know she asked the Gov if she could go and collect more clothes.’

Langton paused by the forensic reports from Liz Hawley. ‘Do we know if they could get a toxicology result from the blood pooling beside the bed?’

‘No. The lab said it would be unreliable as bleach was used to try and clean it up, and they couldn’t even tell us how long it had been there,’ Brian informed him.

‘Mmm . . . It’s been about eight to nine weeks, right – from the time Alan was last seen.’

‘Yes, but we don’t know whose blood it is.’

Langton looked at the photographs taken from the Luminol tests. He tapped the pictures.

‘Fucking bloodbath in there and you’ve no body parts turning up?’

‘No, sir.’

‘If Tina Brooks is to be believed, then whoever did the murder had less than a day to clean up. If she’s lying, and she was part of it, then she and any accomplice, had at least two weeks to get rid of the evidence.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No witness saw anything suspicious?’

‘No. We’ve questioned all the residents and the near neighbours.’

‘This Tina woman’s car was clean, right?’

‘Yes, sir. She’s requested it to be returned.’

‘What tests have been done with the semen stains and the hair found in the bed?’

‘Still ongoing with the hair, but the semen isn’t a match.’

‘What – the semen DNA doesn’t match the blood DNA?’

‘Correct.’

‘So someone else, another male, slept in the same bed as the victim.’

‘Right. Our problem is that we don’t have a positive DNA profile for Alan Rawlins so we have been unable to ascertain if the blood was his or if the items from the clean bedlinen were his.’

‘Which would mean either Rawlins was the victim or he killed someone and then did a runner?’

‘That’s what we are considering.’

Langton sighed and moved along the board, looking at the details written up about the gay DVDs and pornographic magazines. He shook his head and moved on to the latest entries.

‘So we suspect that Alan Rawlins led a double life. He used his friends’ names when answering sex adverts, and this guy Ardigo came in and admitted that he’d almost been strangled?’

‘Yes. We got that result today.’

Langton snapped his notebook closed, saying, ‘Fucking Tech Support need a firecracker up their arse.’

‘I think the boss gave them one.’

Langton laughed. ‘I hope she did, because this is looking like a cold case if it goes on any longer. No movement in the joint bank accounts, but if he had access to all this cash he could be anywhere by now.’

‘We’re hoping to get a result from Cornwall and to trace his whereabouts from there.’

‘You’re hoping. Jesus Christ, I’ll get on to the people there, and this Sammy Marsh – he’s got a record, right? Anyone asked if they have
his
DNA on the database?’

‘I think so. We’re waiting for Liz Hawley to get back to us.’

Langton stared at Brian with a cold glint in his eye and snapped that it was not their job to think, but to get facts. He then walked out leaving Brian, already tired from a long day of making call after call, to go to his desk and leave himself a memo to double-check Sammy Marsh’s record in the morning.

The following day when Anna drove into the station, Brian was just parking his car, and so they walked in together. She stopped abruptly when he said he’d not left until late the previous evening due to Langton’s unscheduled visit.

‘He came here?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. Bad-tempered cuss, isn’t he? He went over every inch of the board. Said we had to concentrate on Sammy Marsh. I told him that Marsh is missing or on the run. Anyway, he wants us to run a check to see if there was a DNA sample taken after Marsh’s arrest.’

Anna spent the morning, a working lunch and most of the afternoon checking over the case-files, all the statements taken and information they had so far received during the investigation. She wrote down copious notes as she went through the mounting paperwork, raising actions where necessary for the team to complete. The initial Misper investigation into the disappearance of Alan Rawlins had, somewhat understandably, been poor as he was not considered a serious or high-priority case. Indeed, she herself had at first thought he had gone walkabout of his own accord, but now had to make sure that every piece of information and possible lead was thoroughly scrutinised and followed up.