Read Online Above Suspicion by Lynda La Plante - Free Book Online

information he had gained, Langton walked silently with Anna through the car park. As she stopped by her car, she said, ‘Sorry I was late, sir.’
    ‘That yours?’ he asked, still glowering.
    ‘No, I stole it to get here. Joke.’
    She was fumbling for her keys and when she looked up to smile, seemingly oblivious to her, Langton was walking away towards a patrol car and uniformed driver.
    She got into the Mini only to find a notice plastered across her windscreen: ‘Private car park. For medical employees only. Your car will be towed away’.
    Her attempts to rip the notice off left strips of partly glued paper across the windscreen. She swore softly and repeatedly, for a very long time.
    Mike Lewis glanced up from his desk as Anna put the Barbara Whittle file back and signed out her fifth victim for more late-night reading.
    ‘Get anything helpful from that old fart Henson?’
    ‘No. Murdered where she was found,’ replied Anna. ‘Possibly carried over the killer’s shoulder. You?’
    ‘Yards of fucking CCTV footage, plus two hours with that Cuban fruit and nut. His BO is the worst I’ve ever come across and I’ve had my fair share of smellies.’
    They were interrupted by a sudden burst of laughter from a group of detectives round DC Barolli’s desk. He was holding up an article from the internal Met newspaper.
    ‘Says here, they’re lowering the physical entrance requirements for women; they just can’t keep up. You read this, Jean?’
    Jean gave them a sour-faced glance, but Moira, a big blonde with heavy breasts, grinned with derision. ‘Wankers. It’s brains, not brawn, that cracks a case.’ Though Moira waited for a response, they avoided her scrutiny and returned, mumbling, to their desks.
    ‘Any of you beefcakes traced the girl’s handbag yet? You should try getting off your arses—’ Moira broke off as Langton appeared in the doorway. She returned to marking up the board.
    ‘What was that?’ he asked as he joined her.
    Anna listened curiously. She had also been struck by the fact Melissa had no handbag and that none of the other victims’ handbags had been recovered.
    Moira answered Langton earnestly. ‘I know they never mentioned it in the reconstruction, but surely she’d have had one? Why would she walk off from her boyfriend without a purse when she was supposedly heading for the tube?’
    ‘Boyfriend couldn’t recall if she had one or not.’
    ‘Yeah, but they don’t notice. He said the same thing about her coat.’ Moira flipped through her notebook. ‘All she had on was a T-shirt and mini skirt? When it was cold out? But the no-bag thing really worries me. Doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘Yeah, I know.’ Langton turned to Barolli at his desk. ‘Have you been back to The Bistro?’
    ‘Yep. We questioned waiters, the owner and managed to trace a couple of customers. No one remembers much. The place was jammed, so even though it was cold, some of them were eating outside. Melissa and Rawlins sat at the table ringed on the right of this photo.’
    Langton frowned over the photographs of the restaurant.
    ‘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