Free Clean Cut by Lynda La Plante Page A

turning up, but he had been to see Langton himself.
    Anna passed Lewis a glass of wine; he sat, glum-faced, on her sofa.
    ‘He’s not in good shape, Anna.’
    She said she’d called the night nurse and knew about the knee infection.
    ‘Well, that’s part of his problem.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, it’s all the other stuff, you know.’
    ‘No, I don’t. What do you mean?’
    ‘His head; his mind is all confused, and he’s so bloody angry.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you be?’ she said defensively.
    ‘Yeah yeah–of course, but I can’t help him Anna. I can’t do what he wants.’
    ‘Which is what, exactly?’
    ‘Track down this bloody illegal immigrant that knifed him.’
    ‘Has he asked you to do that?’
    ‘Christ, he’s on the phone every day asking me how far I’ve got, what I’ve come up with, but you know there’s been a dedicated team trying to locate the bastards. I’m already on another case and I don’t have the time to do what he wants.’
    ‘How far have you got?’
    ‘Well, that’s the point–I haven’t. There’s no trace of them. I reckon they’ve already skipped the country, but telling him that is like a red rag to a bull. He refuses to believe the bastard could just walk away, or fly, or whatever he’s done, but we can’t get a trace on either of them. The team handling the search have done no better.’
    ‘Have you got any details with you?’
    Lewis sighed and opened his briefcase. ‘I’ve the original case file, which I should not have made copies of, but I did. The rest is all I’ve been able to get so far.’
    ‘Can you leave this with me?’
    Lewis nodded. ‘Sure, but you won’t get any help from anyone. I’ve just come across a brick wall. I don’t know what else to do.’
    Anna made Lewis a sandwich and changed the subject, asking him about his son and how Barolli was doing.
    ‘Well, we’re all missing having the boss as our SIO; no one comes up to him, have you found that? I know you’ve been working with that prick Sheldon.’
    Anna smiled.
    ‘Anna, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for him, same with Barolli, but it’s fruitless.’ Lewis hesitated. ‘Youknow, what is important is that he concentrates on getting fit. As it stands, he’s never going to be able to work again; he’ll have to go before a physical assessment board and no way will he come through it. I think he’ll get signed off.’
    Anna showed Lewis out. By this time, it was after eleven and she didn’t feel like going through the files he had left. She had too much to think about, predominantly Langton’s physical condition. She set her alarm for five o’clock, to give her time to read up on the file. She had no notion of what it contained, but if she could do anything to help, then she would make it her priority.
     
    The file contained copies of all the murder enquiry paperwork: witness statements, documents from the arrest of the suspect, and numerous photographs. Added to these were Lewis’s notes and, in a small black notebook, Langton’s own private notes on the case. Langton had an expression: ‘it’s in the book’. He would tap the breast pocket where he kept it. Jokes about train spotting or ‘one for the book, Gov’ were often heard around the incident room. He would say it whenever anyone screwed up–that could even mean forgetting his morning coffee! When Anna had asked him about it, he had grinned and said it was common knowledge he had a terrible memory; he had started, when he was a rookie, just making notes of things he shouldn’t forget–sometimes, it could be just to remind himself to collect his laundry. Over the years, it had become a habit and then a talking-point; then he noticed that he could make detectives very edgy if they saw him jotting something down whilst he was with them.
    ‘Like to keep my team on their toes,’ he laughed.
    She said to him that she had never seen him use it.
    ‘Ah. That’s because what I jotted down about you had