The Red Dahlia at-2

by Lynda La Plante

  Wickenham watched from the front door as Langton returned to the car. Lewis was not there.

  'Where's Mike?'

  'He went to get some air, round to the stables I think, sir,' said the driver.

  Langton checked his watch again and then lit a cigarette, leaning against the side of the car. He turned when he heard the crunch of the gravel on the drive. Anna was walking towards him.

  'I came out via the kitchen door,' she said.

  'I gathered that. Have you seen Lewis?'

  'No.'

  Anna opened the passenger door and tossed in her briefcase. 'How did it go with Wickenham senior?'

  'He knows we've not got enough on him.'

  Anna gave a small smile. 'His housekeeper was not that forthcoming to start off with, but once I touched the right button, she didn't stop talking.'

  'What was the button?'

  'Emily Wickenham.'

  There was another crunch of footsteps and they both turned. Lewis, his cheeks flushed, gestured for them to follow him. 'Can you bring the photographs?'

  Anna looked to Langton; he bent into the car and took out his briefcase. They followed Lewis round the winding drive towards the stables.

  Lewis was standing by an open stable door; inside was the big chestnut gelding. Langton was irritated. 'What, Lewis? You've brought us back to see the bloody horse?'

  'No, you need to talk to the stable lad; he's just checking over something with the vet. He reckons he saw Louise Pennel. He reckons she was here on the eighth of January.'

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Incident Room was waiting eagerly for an update. Langton had ordered a briefing for ten minutes after their return. He began with a brief summary of his session with Charles Wickenham. He had the team laughing when he struck up the same pose and mimicked his upper-class drawl. Then he went quiet, shaking his head.

  'He maintained that attitude throughout, denying knowing Louise Pennel or Sharon Bilkin. He was dismissive about any kind of incestuous relationship with his younger daughter Emily. He said he could provide a doctor's certificate to clarify his daughter was mentally unstable. There were no charges and we have not as yet reinterviewed his daughter.'

  Langton lit a cigarette and paused; he then looked to Anna and gestured for her to step forward. 'Whilst Lewis and I tried to get a handle on Edward Wickenham, DI Travis was interviewing Gail Harrington. So, over to you, Anna.'

  Anna gave a detailed report, referring to her notes. She described Gail's nervous state and aired her suspicion that Gail was taking some kind of drugs.

  'She is very, very nervous, very scared of her future father-in-law and, I would say, close to a breakdown. I think she does know more than I could get out of her. She also sported an oversized diamond engagement ring — maybe to keep her quiet.'

  Langton coughed and gave a twist of his hand for her to get on with it; she flipped through her notes.

  'When shown the photographs of Sharon Bilkin and Louise Pennel, she denied ever seeing or meeting either of them. You will recall that Sharon Bilkin was a model, doing mostly catalogue work. Gail Harrington was also a model and, in an attempt to get her to be more at ease with me, I asked about her work. The press cuttings and her CV model pictures took some ploughing through, but in one photograph, the other model with Gail Harrington was Sharon Bilkin.'

  There was a low murmur. Anna asked for a glass of water, and Langton handed her one.

  'My next interview was with Mrs Hedges, the housekeeper.'

  Again Anna referred to her notes, explaining that it had taken some considerable time for Mrs Hedges to open up. Langton was looking at his watch, his foot tapping.

  'I did not really get to the nitty-gritty until she told me about looking after Charles Wickenham's father. She said he was a really bad-tempered man with a vicious temper. He was, however, very generous to her, which was one of the main reasons she remained with the family. She described how the old man would not just ridicule his only son, but was also very violent towards him. The boy was subjected to terrible punishments; at times, he was unable to go to school due to his beatings. Mrs Hedges said she always tried to protect Charles from his father, but eventually he was sent away to boarding school. During his vacations, the punishments would begin again; as he got older, they would result in even worse physical violence. He would tie him up and leave him in the old barn; this was before it was renovated into the playground it is now. When Charles Wickenham grew old enough to retaliate, the old man introduced him to sexual perversion. Every weekend, there would be a carload of prostitutes shared between father and son. Mrs Hedges never even attempted to do anything about what she knew was going on, and there was no mother around to intervene. She did, however, tell me that there was a punishment room, beneath the barn; it had been an old wine cellar.'

  Anna sketched out the main house, barn and stables in big square blocks and indicated on her rather crude drawings where this cellar would have been, pointing out that it might have been demolished as part of the renovations to the barn. Langton was now leaning forward; he stared intently at Anna and then at her drawings.

  'Charles Wickenham went to Cambridge and qualified as a doctor. He spent two years working as a houseman in Bridge East Hospital before he joined the army. He rarely, if ever, returned home as he was travelling the world; for a lengthy period he was stationed in the Far East. He married Una Martin. Her father was a major in the same regiment, but Mrs Hedges could not recall which one it was. She was Edward Wickenham's mother.'

  Anna now began to draw out the family tree, and although she had everyone's attention, they were beginning to get restless.

  'Una Wickenham died of cancer shortly after they returned from abroad; Charles Wickenham had quit the army to take over the running of the estate. His father was dying and had lost a considerable amount of money; he had also sold off vast areas of land. By the time his father died, Charles Wickenham was running the estate full time. Like his father, he angered the locals by selling off vast tracts of land and some of the farms that bordered onto their property. He subsequently married Dominique Dupres: as we know from our time in Milan, the new Mrs Wickenham had quite a past. The parties that had been part of the old man's lifestyle now began again. Like father like son. So much so that by now, Edward Wickenham was being subjected to a similar punishment regime to that his father had suffered. He married a local girl and they lived in the thatched cottage he still occupies.

  'The new Mrs Wickenham gave birth to two daughters, Justine and Emily. As soon as Mrs Hedges began to talk about the girls, her manner changed and she became very distressed. She referred to the suicide of Edward's wife as being a tragic cry for help: she had been detested by her father-in-law and scared of what she knew was going on. Mrs Hedges said she was constantly bedridden and became very frail; she could easily have been describing Gail Harrington!'

  Anna took a sip of her water. Everyone was focused on her again.

  'Mrs Hedges knew that Charles Wickenham was molesting both girls, and from a very early age. She said that Dominique had to be aware of what was going on, but did nothing; to quote Mrs Hedges, "the detestable woman was too busy doing dirty things with all these house guests, even her stepson": the sex sessions were taking place virtually every weekend. I asked about the abuse, and if she had ever witnessed the girls being sexually used by their own father. She was very tearful and shook her head, saying that she did not need to see, it was obvious, especially with the youngest child. I asked if she knew if Emily Wickenham had been pregnant. She refused to answer, and then began to cry. When I persisted, asking her again, she still refused to answer and kept on telling me how much she loved the girls. Just as I was thinking about calling it quits, she said, "Justine was tougher: she could handle him; she was like her mother, but little Emily was too young. He did a terrible thing and when she tried to make him stop, they sectioned her.'" Anna closed her notebook. 'That's it.'

  She frowned. 'Sorry, not quite. Just as I
was leaving, I asked Mrs Hedges if Charles Wickenham had ever had a secretary. This goes back to the advert we think Louise Pennel answered and therefore how she came to meet him. She said there had been a number of girls that came and went; none stayed long. He was a hard taskmaster and they were always too young and inexperienced. But if Wickenham is a serial killer, as Professor Marshe suggested, he would probably have killed before the Red Dahlia, so perhaps this is something we should follow up.'

  The room was quiet as Anna returned to sit down. Lewis got up next and gave them the details from the stable boy. When he told them that he had seen Louise Pennel lying naked in the barn on 8 January, the room erupted — they all knew that was the day before she was murdered.

  Langton then stepped back up. First, he moved to Louise Pennel's photograph. 'He lied about Louise.' He moved to Sharon Bilkin. 'We can assume he also lied about Sharon. It is quite possible she came to see him; if we question Gail Harrington further, we can find out if she had been at the house as one of those weekend guests. We have one guest identified but I'd like to press on to get more ID on the other men.'

  Langton paused, frowning; then sighed. 'Do we have enough to bring him in? Without doubt, yes we have, but we still do not have any DNA evidence that links him directly to the murders. The fact that they had visited at his property does not mean he killed them: we know he had a truckload of tarts down most weekends, so these two girls could have just been there and left. Our killer could also be one or other of his house guests — it could even be his own son, Edward — but Wickenham is our prime suspect. The fact that this piece of scum had sexual intercourse with his own daughters has already been brought to the attention of the police and the case dismissed. He can prove that Emily is mentally unstable; what we have to prove without doubt is that Charles Wickenham is the Red Dahlia killer. Although it might look as if we have a shedload of damning evidence against him, it's still circumstantial. We have no weapon, no bloodstains, nothing that pinpoints Charles Wickenham as our killer. We do not know if he and his son are in this together. We do not know if the house guests also played a part in the torture and murder of our two victims.'

  Langton took a deep breath. 'What we do have are warrants. We now have enough to gain access and search their properties: that's the barn, the main house, the stables, the thatched cottage and the cars. I intend going in with a fucking army. If there is a torture chamber in the old cellar, we'll find it. There may have been other victims, but we can't at this point in time open up more enquiries: we concentrate on our Red Dahlia. We also keep in mind that the original killer of the Black Dahlia was never brought to justice. Wickenham will have covered his tracks, but we'll derail him!'

  Barolli wafted his hand and Langton smiled over at him.

  'The taped call made to the journalist: can we still use it?'

  'We can try, but even if he is the voice on tape, sick thing is, he could claim to be a pervert getting kicks out of wasting police time; we get enough calls every day from the sickos.'

  Langton glanced at Lewis, who held up a small tape recorder. 'I taped him today, so we'll get a match or not anyway.'

  Langton chuckled and wiped his shirt front. 'No flies on me!'

  Lewis and Langton were closeted in his office, working on 'the hit', when they would search Wickenham's estate. It had to be carefully orchestrated, and they needed a lot of extra hands to ensure nothing was overlooked.

  Anna spent the rest of the afternoon writing up her official report and when it came to just after six, she decided to call it quits for the day. She had just packed up when Barolli called over to ask if she was going to interview Emily Wickenham as per the duty list for that day. Anna sighed.

  'I can do it on my way home, I suppose.'

  Anna called Emily Wickenham twice and hung up when her answerphone clicked on. She decided to do some grocery shopping and try again afterwards, so she packed up her briefcase and left.

  She was driving out of the station car park when the call came in to the Incident Room from the forensic team. They had discovered blood spatterings in the bathroom of Justine Wickenham's flat. They were taking the samples to the lab, but wanted one of the team over at the flat. As soon as Langton was told the update, he was eager to get over there himself; this was possibly the big break they had been waiting for.

  Langton and Barolli arrived at Justine Wickenham's flat which was owned by the woman who ran the riding school. Justine paid her a monthly rent for the small, rather scruffy flat on the middle floor of a house that backed onto the stable yard. By the time Langton and Barolli walked in, the forensic team had packed up, apart from Ken Gardner who was sitting on the stairs having a quick cigarette.

  'What you got for me?' Langton said.

  'Not a lot, but it took a long time to find; the place may look like a tip, but somebody did a big cleaning job. We went through every room with a fine-tooth comb, as they say, and didn't think we'd get a result.'

  He stubbed out his cigarette under his shoe and pocketed the stub. They followed him up the creaking narrow staircase, which was carpeted in hemp. Ken nodded to it. 'This is a bugger: it's rough and we had to go inch by inch; leaves a lot of fibres, but all we got was a face full of dust.'

  He led them into a small, untidy sitting room and pointed. 'Lot of stale food left around which is unpleasant; the young lady is not very hygienic. The bedroom sheets look as if they've not been changed for months; we've taken them in.'

  Langton said nothing as they looked into a dirty kitchen with a stack of pans piled in the sink.

  'We had a real stinky time in here; something's wrong with the plumbing so, just in case, we took out the U-pipe — it was clogged with tea leaves and crap, but no body parts.'

  Langton checked his watch irritably. Ken liked the sound of his own voice. Langton asked him to get a move on.

  'Yeah, yeah; but I wanted you to know how many hours we've been holed up here; after the Dennis Neilson epic — you know they found a thumb in his drainpipe? — so we have to be diligent.'

  'How did Justine Wickenham react to you being here?'

  'Well, Miss Hoity-Toity made an appearance, said a few foul words, and then left. She kept on saying that it was all a fucking waste of time, as she was in Milan when the girl was murdered; she said that a couple of times. Anyway, she eventually left, slamming the door so hard it almost came off its hinges! Okay, the bathroom: now, we had to do a considerable amount in here, removing floorboards, etcetera. We tried to ease the bath out, but it broke a few tiles.'

  Langton sighed; this was all to cover themselves for the damage claim that would no doubt be coming in.

  Ken stood in the doorway. The bathroom was actually larger than Langton had expected. The toilet was on one side, the washbasin beside it. The cracked white tiles were dirty and the room had a mouldy smell. 'Water has leaked at some time beneath the bathtub and from the toilet, so it's pretty dank in here.'

  Langton looked to the small red arrow stickers on the far side of the bath.

  'Between six tiles, we found very, and I mean very, tiny droplets of blood, no seeping; it's like a fine spray hit the back rest. It had, as you can see, been washed down; these tiles were a lot cleaner than any of the others. Tiny spots were on each tile and some of the cement in between also had a faint smear. We have them being tested.'

  Langton frowned. Louise Pennel's body had been drained of blood; it seemed to him very unlikely that this was where it could have happened.

  'You know the victim's blood had been drained,' he said to Ken.

  'Yes, I know; to be honest, I doubt if she could have been cut up here: I mean, that's pints of blood. We'd have found traces in the drains. This was more like a spray, the tiny drops were only the size of a pinhead, and they were at an upward slant.'

  Langton was disappointed, but thanked Ken for his diligence, and he and Barolli decided to go over to the nearest pub for a pint and a sandwich.

  Anna was parked on Portobello Road opposite E
mily Wickenham's flat, trying to call her. The answerphone came on again. Anna looked up at the window. The curtains were drawn and the lights were on.

  Anna locked her car and crossed the road. She was about to ring Emily's doorbell when the front door opened and a young girl with her hair in dreadlocks came out.

  'Hi, is Emily in?' Anna asked, smiling.

  'Dunno; she's the flat above mine, straight up the stairs.'

  'Thank you.' Anna smiled again as the girl walked off down the road in thick heavy boots, her red skirt swirling.

  Anna headed up the stairs to Emily's flat. She was about to knock when she noticed the door was off the latch; she heard raised voices.

  'I am telling you what is happening; they are at my flat, Em, the police. Now, you have said something? Because why else would they be there?'

  'I didn't! I swear, I didn't tell them anything!'

  'Yeah, well, you can't remember one thing from the next! You must have said something. I can't go to my own flat, for Chrissakes!'

  'I didn't say anything!'

  'I hope to Christ you didn't, because you know what he'll do: he'll stop my fucking allowance. He won't listen to me. He won't believe that I never said a fucking word and he'll take it out on me! So tell me the truth, what did you tell them?'

  Emily's voice screeched. 'I keep on telling you, I didn't say anything; they kept asking me but I never told them! I didn't, I swear I didn't!'

  'Well, why are they at my flat then? I mean, why are they searching my flat? They all had white paper suits on: they were forensic cops, they were taking up my fucking carpet, Em!'

  'But they won't find anything; you cleaned it all up!'

  'I know, but the fact they are there freaks me out. If he cuts off my allowance, he'll do worse to you: he'll make you go back home.'

  'I won't go, I won't go!'

  Anna was literally the other side of the door; she could hear every word clearly. She was now in a quandary as to how to approach the girls. Should she walk straight in? She decided to go back down the stairs and call up: that way, they could never accuse her of breaking in.