Above Suspicion

by Lynda La Plante

  “CCTV footage ready yet, Mike?”

  “Any minute, gov. There’s a hell of a lot of tapes to be checked over. If our sighting of her from the Cuban is correct, we’ve got her at Old Compton Street, corner of Greek Street, so we’ve had to cover a lot of possible routes.”

  “Put some pressure on them. We need to see what they’ve got. Or haven’t got. Did The Bistro have a security camera?”

  “No. And during video reconstruction, they never mentioned a handbag.”

  “She had no pockets in her clothes,” Moira reminded them.

  “Maybe she expected the boyfriend to catch up with her,” Langton said flatly.

  Two hours later, when the tapes from all the security video cameras had been gathered, DS Mike Lewis stood by the TV screen, the remote control in one hand, and addressed the team.

  “We got some good news and some bad,” he said as the blurred black-and-white film began.

  Lewis did a running commentary. They had identified Melissa in frame, as she passed by Paul Smith’s boutique in Floral Street. He froze the film at that point.

  “Look: no handbag. No coat. She’s really hurrying. Now you see her, now you don’t.”

  Lewis replayed the moment Melissa passed the security camera. She was in quite a hurry, almost running. The next sighting was Melissa going down Exeter Street near Joe Allen’s restaurant, walking at a slower pace, but looking confused. She turned back, giving the camera two hits.

  “Now we presume she’s heading past the Opera House toward Bow Street mags court.”

  “Or she could have been going back to the boyfriend,” Moira said.

  “No, wait now, we’ve got something good coming up. There’s a time code on this section: it’s eleven-fifteen and here she comes.”

  All heads craned forward to watch, as Melissa came in shot, passing the Donmar Theatre. The footage had been taken from across the road. “Two black kids, with gray anorak hoods pulled over their faces, try to get Melissa to stop and talk to them. As one puts out his arm toward her, she backs away. She will have nothing to do with them. They follow for a few feet, then she starts to run. The two boys look after her, as she disappears out of frame. They walk away.”

  Lewis pressed fast-forward, then stopped the frame again.

  “The theater was already closed; so was the Pineapple Dance Centre. Now, just on the edge of frame, is that her boyfriend? I can’t be one hundred percent, but it looks like Rawlins to me.”

  They rewound and replayed, all the time peering at the fuzzy frame. All they could agree on was that it could have been Mark Rawlins, but it was impossible to be sure as he was hardly in shot.

  “Get that blown up,” Langton said.

  “Already in the pipeline.” Lewis picked up the remote. “On to the next section.”

  “Why didn’t she get the tube at Covent Garden?” Moira asked.

  “They shut the gates at half ten; congestion on the platform. OK, this is the best we’ve got and it tallies with our Cuban friend. It’s footage from the Club Minx and buttressed onto it is the footage from the massage parlor opposite. So we’re getting two hits of the same sequence, from different perspectives.

  “There’s our Cuban pacing around, lighting a cigarette. He is directly opposite the massage parlor. Passing him are a number of cars, one is a Range Rover and the other is a Jaguar. You can see the flash of the neon sign outside the massage parlor; it’s giving us that strange light. Now, there’s a vehicle on the inside of the Range Rover, but hidden; it’s some kind of low car and it’s turning right. You can see his indicator flashing, along with the neon light. But there’s no way we can tell the make of the vehicle. We’ve got the reg of three of the passing vehicles but no luck with the other two.”

  There was a brief pause as the footage jumped to the next segment.

  “OK, now we’re seeing footage from the massage parlor security camera and again the Cuban’s statement bears out. Here she comes, just entering right of frame, maybe intending to walk down Greek Street, to Soho Square. If we believe the boyfriend, she was heading toward Oxford Street, either to get on the tube at Tottenham Court Road or to continue onto Oxford Circus tube. That would make more sense since she lived in Maida Vale, which is on the Bakerloo line. There’s a clear shot of Melissa for only a second, passing the massage parlor, and again she looks as if she were unsure of her direction. She stands a moment. She turns back to walk past the massage parlor again. She walks virtually out of shot, then she can be seen looking toward something or someone, before disappearing out of frame.”

  Lewis held up his hand. “Now, on the freeze frame, you can just see a small section of a pale-colored vehicle. It could be white or gray, but all we’ve got is that fraction of the side and a minuscule section of the back bumper. See it?”

  Lewis had to rewind the tape twice before it was clear to them what he was pointing at on the edge of frame: there was a fraction of the side of a car and a small section of the vehicle’s bumper.

  “It could be the same car that was on the inside of the Range Rover; either that, or he’s driving down Old Compton Street from Tottenham Court Road and parking up on the corner. We’ll get that section blown up and see if we can tell the make of the car, but I think it could be a Mercedes, an old one, maybe thirty years old.”

  The video ended and Lewis rewound the tape.

  Viewing the video had left the team with a strange, almost surreal feeling. Melissa had come to life in front of them and yet they seemed as far away as ever from trapping her killer. Langton closed his office door with unusual quietness. Everyone went to work on their various assignments.

  Anna studied the file of the fifth victim. Beryl Villiers was thirty-four. Younger and fitter, she had put up more resistance than the others. Nevertheless, both her eyes were blackened and swollen and her nose had been broken; two front teeth had been knocked out and were found near the body.

  She, too, was a known prostitute and had a history of addiction, but her autopsy showed no signs of her still using, nor any alcohol. Her home address was in Bradford. When all else had failed to produce anything, Beryl had finally been identified by the number on her breast implants. Once she was identified, the police leading her inquiry had questioned all the working girls around King’s Cross station. None could recall who Beryl had picked up earlier that night, after a couple of punters she’d taken to the old station arches. She was last seen patrolling her beat, around ten-fifteen, but no one could recall seeing her after that. Four weeks after she disappeared, in March 1999, Beryl’s body was found on Wimbledon Common.

  Beryl was younger than the previous victims. She had no children. She was a “weekender,” traveling from Bradford every Friday night and returning home on the following Monday. She originally hailed from Leicester, where they located her mother; she seemed more distraught to learn her daughter was a prostitute than to learn that she was dead.

  Anna made copious notes and returned to the filing cabinet for the last case history.

  “What are you doing?” Moira asked.

  In reality she was making herself busy. “Just familiarizing myself with the case files,” she said.

  “You’re Jack Travis’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  Anna’s eyes lit up. “Did you know him?”

  “Everybody knew Jack. He was something else. I was sorry he died.”

  “It was cancer.”

  “Yes, I know. We sent flowers. How’s your mother handling it?” Moira asked.

  “She died two years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. She was very beautiful. I remember meeting her once. None of us could believe that old codger had kept her secret for so long.”

  “He worshipped her.” Anna smiled.

  “We all pretty much worshipped your dad. If he’d been handling this case, he’d have got a result by now. I think Langton’s out of his depth. And I tell you something: that girl had to have a handbag. Why aren’t we concentrating on that?”
/>   Anna felt an urge to defend Langton. “We are, though.”

  “Bloody haphazard way of going about it. And that reconstruction? They didn’t have her with a handbag in the video. They’re bloody amateurs. Why didn’t they ask her mother if one of Melissa’s handbags was missing from home?”

  “Have we checked Melissa’s flat?” Anna asked.

  “Of course we have. She had a wardrobe full of handbags.” Moira stared at the photographs on the wall. “Better life than any of these poor bitches. Seeing them up there, it’s as if their eyes follow you around, like wounded dogs. All got the same expression, haven’t they?”

  “Have you noticed how many come from up north?”

  Moira nodded. “Leeds, Liverpool, Blackpool, Manchester, Bradford…”

  “I was just wondering if there was a possible connection; whether they knew each other.”

  Moira shrugged. “You ask around the big stations: Euston, King’s Cross, Paddington—a big percentage come down on the train from the north and scrabble for punters. They’re like hornets. Usually junkies, who get hooked up with a pimp, or drugs, or booze. I know, I was on Vice for six years.”

  Moira was walking away as if the conversation was over. Anna took the last file to her desk. Langton opened his office door and called abruptly: “Travis! Come in here a minute.”

  Anna picked up her notebook and headed for his office. Moira smirked at Jean.

  “Keen, isn’t she?”

  Jean pursed her lips and returned to her computer. “Maybe she’s after a spot on Crime Night!”

  Anna stood in front of Langton’s desk. He rolled a pencil, flicking it back and forth. “You were late this morning. You threw up at the murder site yesterday and then again at the postmortem. I was beginning to think you were a waste of space, Travis.”

  She bristled.

  “But Henson’s just called. It seems you’re right. The marks to Melissa’s stomach are part of a fist. The punch wasn’t directly to the skin but through her T-shirt; there are fine fibers embedded in the skin that match the material. It makes it hopeless for us to get a clear print but Henson believes that they’ll have every indication of the size of fist, so there’s a possibility that if we find the killer, they might be able to make a match with his fist!”

  “That’s good,” she said quietly.

  He gave her a beady look. “What is it?”

  She hesitated. “Erm, I was just thinking we should issue a press release to warn the girls.”

  “Won’t mean anything. Nothing stops them.”

  “I’ve been reading up on the fifth victim and—”

  “Beryl Villiers,” he said to himself.

  “Well, she wasn’t as washed up as the others, no alcohol or drug problems and—”

  “You are not telling me anything I don’t know, Travis,” he interrupted impatiently. “And we are giving a press conference. Soon.”

  But Anna held her ground. “Did you ever find if there was a connection between the victims? I noticed they’re all from the north of England.”

  “You noticed that?” He leaned back in his chair. “Well, continue to read the case reports; after that, read up on the inquiry details and the thousands of statements taken and you’ll find we didn’t come up with any connection. They didn’t know each other!”

  Mike Lewis popped his head round the door. “Did you want Rawlins brought in? We’ve had another look and still think it might be him, edge of frame.”

  “Yeah, wheel him back in. Soon as you have something, call me.”

  “Right.”

  Lewis shut the door behind him and there was a pause.

  Langton’s eyes were closed; he was resting on his folded elbows. Anna was just wondering if she should leave when he spoke. “Something’s wrong. The way she’s running in the footage. Something isn’t right.”

  “Well, she’d had a fight with her boyfriend,” Anna said tentatively.

  “It’s the way she’s running. Doesn’t look like a kid pissed off with her boyfriend. Looks more like she’s scared.”

  Anna was trying to recall the order of the footage. “The two boys that approached her?”

  “Yeah—I think she might have been mugged and we’re missing that section. All we do know is we have a witness and a time coder that makes her still alive at half past eleven.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her.

  “You worked with that profiler, Michael Parks, didn’t you?”

  “Erm, yes.”

  “I never give those profilers much kudos. It’s all about stating the obvious.”

  “I think he’s very good,” she said nervously.

  “Do you indeed? Well, if DS Travis rates him, I should do as the Gold Group request and get him in then, shouldn’t I?”

  “He did some very good work when we were on a kidnap situation.”

  “Really? Well, let’s hope he can do some good work for us.”

  Anna waited to be dismissed. Langton picked up a file and started reading. Glancing up a moment later, he seemed surprised that she was still standing there and said she could leave.

  Anna returned to her desk, irritated with him. At the far side of the room Moira was engaged in conversation with Mike Lewis.

  “If she got mugged and they took her handbag, makes more sense that she maybe could have accepted a ride.”

  Eavesdropping on their conversation, Anna pretended to give all her attention to the file. Soon, however, she was absorbed in what was written. Langton did seem to cover everything in his own way. She knew that after reading the next victim’s report, she had better give herself enough time to check out the actual police inquiries. She didn’t want to give Langton any opportunity to get in another snide dig.

  Jean appeared with a tray of coffee. “Not a doughnut left and the vultures have already started cleaning out the canteen. Press conference starts in the briefing room, fifteen minutes.”

  As the coffee was passed round, Jean looked over to Anna. “Sorry. You weren’t here when I took the orders.”

  “That’s OK,” Anna said, tired and still busy.

  “Who does he want to go in with him?” Moira called out. “Barolli and Lewis?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee,” Jean said. She turned to Anna. “He wants you, too, Travis.”

  In the briefing room, the press had arrived in force. Seated on the rows of chairs, they read the press release that had just been handed out. The office manager had consulted Langton about what else should be included in the press package: selected photographs and some details of the crimes. A long desk with a microphone had been placed in front of the chairs. Two video cameras were recording.

  Anna waited outside the double doors. The noise from inside was a low buzz as the journalists talked quietly amongst themselves. She saw Langton coming toward her down the corridor, flanked by Lewis and Barolli. She noticed all three had shaved and put clean shirts on. Langton was wearing a gray suit and a navy blue tie. He seemed ill at ease as he turned to his sidekicks. “Right, let’s go. Travis, sit next to me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, following them through the double doors.

  The room fell silent as they took their seats at the long table. On the wall behind them there were large blown-up photographs of Melissa Stephens. Anna, next to Langton, was surprised at how nervous he was. He removed his notes from the file and placed them down in front of him. He coughed a couple of times, then tested that the microphone was on.

  “Firstly, thank you for coming,” he began. “I am eager for your assistance. We have always maintained a good relationship with members of the press and with this specific case I must ask you, once more, to stick to the guidelines issued. You are all aware, I believe, that Melissa Stephens’s body has been recovered, after she was declared missing six weeks ago. What we did not know until today, erm…In examining the evidence, we have decided that Melissa’s murder is, we believe, connected to others already under investigation.�
�� Langton then opened the meeting to questions from the floor.

  By the time the press briefing was concluded, it was after half past seven. Langton had given reporters enough, but not all, of the information his team possessed and sidestepped the more probing questions. He was patient and informative, but also guarded. Anna had been impressed by his handling of the situation. Langton disliked using the term “serial killer” and mentioned it only once, but during the questioning the journalists were quick to bring up the Ripper murder case.

  After the press had gone, Langton addressed the team, loosening his tie. “Right. Tomorrow will come the blast. We’re probably all going to have to work the phones. This will create a lot of extra work, separating the nutters from anyone that has legitimate information. It will take days, maybe weeks. So be prepared. I want everyone in the briefing room at two o’clock. We have a profiler, Professor Michael Parks, coming in. The Gold Group has briefed him and he has had access to all our files for three days now, so let’s hope he can give us something to go on. OK, that’s it for tonight. Get some sleep. It’ll be mayhem tomorrow.”

  After packing her briefcase, Anna left the room with Jean. On the stairs, she asked the older woman about Langton’s private life.

  “What do you mean?” scoffed Jean. “He doesn’t have one. He’s a workaholic. First in, last to leave. He hasn’t gone home tonight, you know. He’s gone over to the edit suite to look at the CCTV footage. Poor Mike is pissed off: it’s his wife’s birthday. She’s cooking up a storm and she’s pregnant. He won’t get home now until past eleven.”

  “Does Langton have a wife?” Anna asked.

  Jean stared at her. “Oh, that kind of private. Well, he’s had a couple of them; lived with a few women. But who or what he’s doing now, none of us know. That he does keep private.”

  “I see,” Anna said. She stopped, before heading down the stairs to the back exit and car park.

  “Can I give you a lift, Jean?”

  “No, thanks. My old man is waiting for me.”

  “Good night, then.”

  Anna couldn’t believe it. Her back bumper was dented. The Mini now had a scratch down one side, sticky paper on the windscreen and a crumpled back bumper. Her shiny new car, her pride and joy, saved and scrimped for.