Free Above Suspicion by Lynda La Plante Page B

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.’
    ‘Goodnight, 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.
    Early next morning, Anna pored over the details of victim six, aged thirty-four. A bleached blonde, with a sexy curvaceous figure and a known cocaine habit, Mary Murphy was a prostitute with no police record. Her body, discovered in July 2003, had made her the most recent victim until Melissa Stephens. Mary was found only three days after her murder on Hampstead Heath. She was originally from Preston in Lancashire. No handbag. Her corpse remained unidentified for two weeks.
    Mary Murphy was the first case that Langton had headed up. She had a profile different from the others, being middle-class and well-educated. After her divorce five years before, Mary’s twin daughters had gone to live with their father.
    Mary probably started to sell herself when her cocaine habit took hold. She worked for an escort agency, though her last known client had been questioned and was no longer a suspect. She had left his suite at the Dorchester Hotel at one o’clock in the morning and had died between one and three hours later. The last sighting of Mary was by the doorman at the Dorchester, who recognized her as she was leaving the hotel. It was presumed Mary went looking for another client. After that last sighting, she had been picked up by the killer.
    The file contained the same wretched photographs. The shirt was drawn up to the victim’s neck, her tights wrapped around in the same way. Her hands were tied behind her back with her red lace bra. Though she had been raped and buggered, no DNA was found; as with the other victims, the killer had used protection.
    After she had finished reading the file, Anna opened her front door to pick up her newspaper. The case had made the front page: ‘Suspected Serial Killer on the Loose’.
    Though DCI Langton had not wanted mass panic, that’s what he’d got. The case was headlined in every newspaper. There were constant references to both Jack the Ripper and ‘his Yorkshire namesake’. One tabloid had two-inch letters screaming ‘Jack is Back’.
    On arrival, Anna made her way down the station corridor towards the incident room. As she approached, all she could hear was the non-stop ringing of telephones and the babble of voices growing louder and louder. The incident room now had an extra four phones installed in one long section. The phones on all