Blood Line (7 page)

‘Or was it just he never showed it to you?’

‘You find anyone with a bad word against him and it’d surprise me. I think he was the product of a very loving home. Any time you wanted, his mother would welcome you in, cook up a storm, and their house was always full of kids whose parents were not at home or working. His dad was terrific, arranging outings, packing us into his old Volvo, sometimes taking us off to Brighton funfair. He seemed to have an inside knowledge of the best fairs – Clapham Common, Wimbledon, Putney . . .’

Anna stood up and thanked Julian, but he wasn’t prepared to let them leave his deli without making up a packed lunch of thick-wedged sandwiches and potato salad with sauerkraut, refusing to allow them to pay.

Anna and Paul parked at the back of Julian’s deli in a small side street so they could tuck in and enjoy their lunch without being seen by the public. Paul ate hungrily, but Anna just picked at hers, her appetite gone. They had been given two bottles of a chilled ginger and elderflower drink as well, which was delicious. For a while they ate in silence.

‘What are you thinking?’ Paul eventually asked.

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep asking me that.’

‘Okay – do you want to know what
I
am thinking?’

‘If I said no, would it stop you?’

Paul took a big bite of the sandwich. He had mayonnaise dripping down his chin and he used one of the paper napkins to wipe it off.

‘Well, go on.’ She folded her own half-eaten sandwich back into its wrapping.

‘I’ll finish that off if you’re through with it?’

She passed it to him.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Paul said, staring straight ahead as Anna drank from her bottle before screwing the cap back on.

‘We don’t know that. What we need to do is find someone who saw the other side of Alan Rawlins, because so far I think it’s all too good to be true. No one is that perfect. He
will
have secrets – maybe dark ones. So in answer to your question, we need to find out what made this Samaritan disappear because, as I said last time, I don’t believe he is dead.’

T
he last interview of the day was at Tina’s salon in Hounslow High Street. She had agreed to see them again on the condition they came late in the afternoon just before closing as she had appointments booked.

‘Her fiancé goes missing and she’s too busy to see us. The more I hear about her, the less I like her.’

‘Maybe she’s seen the dark side?’ Paul said smiling, but Anna was not amused. Instead she told him they should head straight there. She felt tired and decided she would take off home later, after making up the reports with Paul in their incident room.

‘Make up a report? But we don’t have a case,’ Paul said as he drove.

‘Nevertheless we’ll need to show what the hell we’ve been doing all day. Besides, Langton will want to know.’

‘Whatever you say, ma’am. He’s knee-deep in a big case – double murder in North London.’

She made no reply, instead brushed away the crumbs from their picnic lunch and wrapped their napkins into the small deli bag Julian had provided. She tossed it into a rubbish bin as they pulled up in a small car park attached to Tina’s Beauty Salon. She remarked that it wasn’t a very artistic title and the large neon eye coated in eye-shadow and false lashes was tacky.

The salon was surprisingly well-equipped. A section was given over to hairdressing, then there was a row of booths for manicures and pedicures. Another section, separated by white screens, was the massage and therapy area and there was a small staircase to the floor above with a sauna, sunbeds and spray-tanning room. A notice informed them that the sunbeds were out of order. The place was jumping. Four women sat under dryers, a girl was blowdrying a customer’s hair and another was having her hair washed at the row of sinks.

‘Well, she said she was busy,’ Paul murmured as they stood by a small reception desk. The receptionist was a girl with a fake tan, a mound of hair extensions and thick false eye-lashes. It also looked as if she’d had breast implants. Her pink Tina’s Salon overall hardly met across her bust, colliding with her name embroidered over the pocket – Felicity.

‘Could you ask Tina if we could see her, please?’ Anna showed her warrant card, not that it made much of a difference.

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘We do.’

Felicity dragged a fake nail down the customer lists.

‘Just go and tell her we would like to talk to her,’ Anna ordered.

‘I can’t leave the desk and she’s doing a wrap so I can’t interrupt her for another ten minutes.’

Anna was not sure what a wrap meant, but Felicity continued, explaining it was a seaweed wrap and would be finished shortly. She then indicated a row of pink plastic-covered gilt chairs.

‘You can wait there.’

They were only two feet away from the reception; it looked as if every inch of the place was taken up with all the various beauty treatments. As Anna and Paul sat down the girl offered the salon’s brochure and said there were several offers at half-price.

‘Do you know her boyfriend, Alan?’ Anna asked as she pretended to scrutinise the treatments on offer.

‘Yes, we all do and it’s just terrible. Poor Tina has been in such a state about it.’ Her pink desk phone rang and Felicity picked up, speaking in an over-modulated posh accent.

‘Tina’s Beauty Salon, can I help you?’

Anna and Paul listened as she made an appointment for hair extensions and learned that it would take at least four hours if it was to remove the present extensions; it would take longer if the caller required new ones.

Anna glanced at Paul, but he seemed enthralled by Felicity’s ongoing conversation.

‘If we didn’t actually put your extensions in for you, you should come in and have the hair matched. We only use real hair. No, there would be no charge for that, but is what you’ve got in real hair?’

The row of customers waiting for their cuts and blow-dries began to thin out; the two girls were working as if they were on a factory floor. The thudding music, now on an Abba compilation, continued.

‘I’ll book you in for an afternoon then. What’s your name?’ Then Felicity looked at the pink phone in fury. ‘I don’t believe she hung up! Honestly!’

‘Could you please ask Tina to join us?’ Anna said testily.

‘I can’t. It’s a seaweed wrap and you can’t leave it half-done.’

Anna stood up and pointed to the partition. ‘Is she behind there?’

‘No, upstairs, but you can’t go through, it’s a private consultation.’ Felicity moved from her stool and put her hand up. ‘I’ll go and ask her to come out, all right?’ She left.

Paul glanced over to the hairdressing section, remarking, ‘She must be coining it in.’

Anna nodded to a card on Felicity’s desk. ‘It’s half-price day and a few of the customers look like pensioners; they get a discount as well.’

Tina came down the stairs at the rear of the salon, wearing latex gloves that looked as if they were covered in mud, and a rubber apron. She didn’t look very pleased to see them.

‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes – I’m with a client.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but returned upstairs. Felicity asked if they would like a tea or coffee.

‘We’ve got a little rest room right at the back by the stairs,’ she said, ‘and there’s a coffee machine. Just help yourselves.’

Little was the operative word. It was more or less a corner with more screens, a couple of chairs and a table with coffee cups and mugs and packets of biscuits. A girl in one of Tina’s pink overalls was standing eating a sandwich and brewing up coffee. She turned as Anna and Paul sat down on the chairs.

‘Excuse me, I’ve not had a break today. I was starving and my lady’s under the dryer.’ She had a mouth full of her sandwich and wiped it with the back of her hand. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘No, thank you. We’re waiting for Tina.’

‘Okay. Busy today since nine this morning. I had two perms—’

‘What’s your name?’ Anna interrupted.

‘Donna.’ The girl bit into her sandwich again.

Anna showed her warrant card and introduced herself and Paul. It had little effect as Donna was now making herself a mug of coffee, stuffing the remains of her lunch into her mouth.

‘Is this about Alan?’

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

Donna turned and nodded. ‘We all do – well, we know who he is, but . . .’ She lowered her voice and moved closer. ‘What’s going on? Tina told us he left her. She was in a terrible state.’

‘Did he come to the salon?’

‘No, but he used to pick her up sometimes and wait outside in the car park. I think we all scared the pants off him. We used to have a couple of guys working here, but they didn’t fit in.’

Tina walked in now minus the gloves and rubber apron, but with her pink salon smock.

‘Donna, your customer is taking her own rollers out!’

‘Sorry, sorry, but I never got lunch.’ She scurried out and Tina crossed to the coffee percolator.

‘I did say I was very busy and for you to come later. I couldn’t leave my client; these wraps have to be done correctly. I’m training one of the girls, but I’m the only one really qualified. You have to layer the thick seaweed emulsion, then do a complete body wrap, but not too tight because the heat makes the seaweed dry. You lose a few pounds all over; it’s a very good treatment.’

Tina poured herself a mug of coffee and then leaned on the table. ‘Have you any news?’

‘No, I am afraid not. Have you had any contact from Alan?’

‘No. To be honest, I’ve been working really hard and it’s the best thing for me – helps me not think about it – but I’ve had to get sleeping tablets. Every time the phone rings my heart jumps. I had to tell his father to stop calling me – he was driving me crazy.’

‘We’ve talked to a few of Alan’s friends, but nobody has seen him for quite a while. I really wanted to ask you about something you said – that there could have been another woman.’

‘Well, it’s all I can think about, the possibility. He could be very secretive sometimes.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

‘Well, yes. That Mercedes, he never told me he’d bought it. We were supposed to be saving up to get married. I only found out when I saw some receipts for spare parts – they cost a fortune.’

‘Did you argue about it?’

She sighed. ‘Alan didn’t argue. I mean, I could shout and carry on at him, but it never seemed to bother him. He’d ignore it, or what really used to get me furious was he would just walk out of the room.’

‘That must have been very frustrating,’ Anna said.

Tina shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yeah, sometimes it was.’

Paul was flicking through one of the glossy magazines; he appeared to be paying no attention to what they were discussing.

‘Did he ever get physical with you?’ Anna asked.

Paul closed the magazine, looking directly at Tina.

‘Alan? Never. And besides, if he had have done, I’d have given him as good. I told you, he was never confrontational and he hated getting into any kind of row.’

‘Did he get annoyed about your flirty behaviour at the gym?’

She sighed with even more impatience.

‘No, of course he didn’t. I’m flirty here with the customers, as we do have both male and female. It’s part of the job!’

Anna pressed on. ‘If he was seeing someone, do you have any idea who it would be?’

‘Not really. I never found the lipstick on the collar thing or blonde hairs on his jacket. It was working on that bloody car that he said was the reason he was out so late.’

She closed her eyes.

‘I find this all upsetting, you know, because I have told you all this before, and if I did find out there was another woman he’d run off with, you’d be the first people I’d contact. I told that to the Missing Persons people. They’ve asked me the same questions over and over.’

‘He used to collect you from here sometimes?’ Anna noted.

Tina looked at Paul, who still hadn’t spoken.

‘Yes. When he took my car to work he’d drop me off here and pick me up. Not frequently because I never liked to get here as early as he needed to be at the garage.’

‘Did any of the girls working here seem friendly with him?’

‘No, no way. They’re not his type; the Donnas of this world wouldn’t be interested in him either.’

‘Really.’ Anna said it so quietly that Tina flushed.

‘They’re too young and Alan’s so straitlaced and he didn’t have much time for chit-chat.’

Felicity walked in. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Tina, but your client wants to see you.’

‘Tell her I’ll be two minutes.’ Tina sipped her coffee and put the mug down. ‘I’m gonna have to go and unwrap her. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?’

‘No. Thank you for your time.’

Tina hesitated, as if about to say something, then seemed to change her mind and started to walk out. However, she then stopped and turned back. Anna felt as if the woman was in some way rearranging her features or her emotions, since she was suddenly nervous.

‘I am beginning to think he took off – you know, left me – because he was too afraid to tell me he didn’t want to go through with the wedding. He would have been in turmoil about it; it’s the only reason I can think of for him walking out the way he has done. It doesn’t make it any easier, obviously not, and . . .’ She broke off and took out a tissue from her pocket. ‘I’ve been wondering how long it will be – you know, your investigation. I mean, when do you call it quits?’

‘That would depend,’ Anna told her.

‘Depend on what?’

‘Well, whether or not we trace him.’

‘But what if you don’t?’

Anna glanced at Paul, not wanting to get into the discussion herself. He took over. At last he showed some interest.

‘It will depend on whether we uncover any evidence that gives us confirmation that Alan has met with foul play. Then it will become an ongoing murder enquiry.’

‘
Murder?
’

Paul nodded and flicked his eyes to Anna, who was giving him a frosty gaze.

‘Is that what you think, that Alan’s been murdered?’ Tina said shakily.

‘We will look into every possibility.’