‘To the States?’
‘No, Travis, the moon!’
She handed him the notebook, which he replaced in his pocket. When his mobile phone rang, he checked the caller ID before he answered it. ‘Hi. Should be with you in about three-quarters of an hour.’ He listened, then said quietly, ‘That sounds good. Or we can go and get something to eat at the Italian.’
Anna had wondered if she should offer to cook him something. Now, she pressed back into her seat, looking out of the window, as he continued what was obviously an intimate conversation. He laughed softly before switching off the phone.
. ‘You want the newspaper?’ he asked without looking back at her.
‘Thank you.’
He extended the paper backwards over his shoulder.
They didn’t speak again for the rest of the journey. Langton went to sleep. When the car stopped to drop her off at her home, he briefly woke to grunt goodnight. It was almost a quarter to ten. She wondered who was waiting to have dinner with him. Whoever it was, she did a good job ironing his shirts.
Anna’s flat had only one bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, a large living room and a small kitchen. The carpets throughout were a soft oatmeal colour. There was plenty of cupboard space, which made her happy. It was a very orderly apartment, reflecting little of who Anna was, perhaps because she was still unsure of that herself.
This was the first time she had bought her own place instead of renting. After her father died, she could not bear to live in the old garden flat in Warrington Crescent, Maida Vale. But Anna had not moved too far from her old home and that had a comfort value. She knew the local newsagent, the post office and the small community knew her. She liked that.
In the shower, Anna chided herself for trying to find out more about Langton’s private life, especially since he had demonstrated no interest in hers. Why should he? She was just his DS, with a crap haircut and an irregular suit. She had just stepped out of the shower and was towelling herself dry when her phone rang. She jumped and quickly checked the time. She wondered who would be calling her at this hour.
‘Travis?’ his familiar voice drawled.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We got a hit: body found in San Francisco with the same MO. They’ll be sending in details tomorrow. Thought you’d like to know.’
‘Thank you, that’s’
But he had already hung up. She looked down at the receiver still in her hand. Well, she thought, at least he wasn’t having a candlelit dinner with his girlfriend in some groovy Italian restaurant. She flopped on to her bed happily. She gave her goodnight glance to her father’s photograph. ‘Sorry, Dad. I just fancy him rotten!’
When she closed her eyes to sleep, her father’s words came back to her. ‘If you ever become a copper, sweetheart, best not to get married. You’ll never find a man as understanding as your mother.’ He was standing with his arms wrapped around her mother. He had been working on a case and they had not seen him for days. Her mother never seemed upset by his lengthy disappearing acts, or jealous of his work. She would simply use the time to write her journal, or to paint.
Isabelle had just laughed at him, saying she hoped he wasn’t advising their daughter to turn gay, since that was the only way she’d get a partner with a skirt.
Her parents’ banter had fascinated her as a child. Theirs was a strong relationship, built on a foundation of trust that now, as an adult, she wondered whether she would ever find. They were obviously in love, yet neither seemed dependent on the other. Her mother was very self-sufficient and took Jack’s absences in her stride, certainly more than young Anna did.
Anna wondered if she would ever acquire that same independence in a relationship. So far she had hardly been able to maintain a relationship at all. She was her father’s daughter, married to the job. Until DCI Langton had slammed the door open and walked into her life.
The next morning the incident room was abuzz with the news from San Francisco that a body killed using the same MO had been found in a very decomposed state, strangled with her own tights and with her hands knotted behind her back by her underwear. Her name was Thelma Delray and she was a prostitute, aged twenty-four.
The approximate time period of the American murder fitted within the lengthy gap between two of the English victims. There had been no witness, or DNA and without a suspect the case had been left open on file.
The fact that they knew their suspect was in San Francisco at the same time was not enough to warrant his arrest. However, Langton ordered one of the enquiry team to obtain a magistrate’s warrant to search Alan Daniels’s premises. The following evening they received an email from Chicago.
There was another victim, this one slotted in the time gap between the murders of Barbara Whittle and Beryl Villiers, when Alan Daniels was in the same area. The buzz was getting stronger; this was too much to be coincidence. The woman was found on waste ground. Same MO. She was a well-known prostitute, Sadie Zadine. Her body had not been discovered for six months. The pattern of the murder, the type of victim, was virtually identical.
Still there was the commander to keep in the loop. She had taken a very keen interest in the enquiry and wished to be kept up to date on any new developments. The evidence they had, however, was still only circumstantial, that Alan Daniels happened to be in both areas at the time of the murders. With no DNA and no witnesses, it would never make it to trial.
On the third day, they received news from Los Angeles; their third hit. Their victim was younger: Maria Courtney, a heroin addict, aged twenty-nine. Same MO: strangled and trussed with her own underwear. The LAPD emailed photographs of the victim in situ, including close-ups of the method of strangulation. All three US victims had been raped and showed signs of anal penetration. None of them displayed bite marks, or appeared to have been gagged. Still, there was not one witness, not one shred of evidence that could lead them straight to the perpetrator. None of the American victims had been linked, until now. Maria Courtney’s time of death fitted in between victims six and seven, Mary Murphy and Melissa Stephens.
The Gold Group had decided that, given the high profile of their suspect, the enquiry team must seek approval at every stage of the investigation. Langton was almost apoplectic with rage and frustration when he was refused permission to arrest Alan Daniels. His superiors agreed it was highly ‘coincidental’, but there was not one shred of evidence that physically linked Daniels to the murders, nor did the fact that Daniels had been in the vicinity prove his guilt. Neither did the possibility he may have known all the UK victims. The commander was very apprehensive about criticism from the media, should it transpire that they were wrong about Daniels. The word ‘circumstantial’ was bounced around harder than a cricket ball.
The profiler, Michael Parks, was brought back in. He looked over the chart, nodding occasionally. ‘It’s as I expected: the killer never stopped and the victims are getting younger. Since Melissa, whose tongue was bitten, it is quite likely the murders will become more violent. He’s worked this down to a fine art. He is not going to stop, that is for sure.’
Parks’s inability to provide further insight made Langton even more obsessive. His office door was banging continuously through the next days as the team gathered details from the US, requesting as much information as possible to be sent over. Langton’s new concern was that if Alan Daniels returned to the States for his next job, he might disappear. Even with his high profile, they might never find him again.
‘It isn’t fucking England. He could just keep moving from state to state over there.’
Being constantly told they did not have any proof was frustrating the entire team now. ‘Let me fucking search his flat. I’ll get the proof,’ Barolli muttered.
It wasn’t until four thirty, Thursday, that they were given the go ahead: a search warrant had been issued.
This was the chance Langton had been waiting for. He called in the POLSA ‘specialist’ search teams to assist, though it seemed unlikely they would uncover any forensic evidence since none of the murders had been committed at Daniels’s flat.
At the briefing, Langton told them they were looking for anything whatsoever that could tie into the murders. They had to be diligent.
Langton ordered them to arrive in visible patrol cars. Barolli and Langton went ahead. Travis and Lewis followed. Lewis was constantly on his mobile to his pregnant wife who was over nine months gone. Lewis had been in a state about it for days.
They convened outside the Queen’s Gate house. They knew from the two officers on round-the-clock surveillance that Daniels was at home and that he had seen them arrive: one of them had seen him look out from the bay window. The foursome, plus two more from POLSA, moved up the steps to the front door and rang the bell. Without any exchange on the intercom, the front door buzzed open.
As Langton and his detectives entered the hall, Daniels appeared at his front door, his face drawn and angry. ‘Well, you couldn’t make yourselves more obvious if you tried. I was expecting you to use a sledge hammer to open the door!’
Langton presented him with a copy of the search warrant which he read carefully before allowing them into his apartment.
‘Well, come in, I suppose,’ he said flatly. ‘Be advised, if any damage occurs, I will sue. There are some very valuable items, so I’d advise you to be as careful as possible.’
Daniels gestured for the police to file past him. Once they were inside the flat, he closed the front door and asked abruptly, ‘Where do you want to start?’
‘Wherever is convenient to you,’ Langton said coolly.
‘Nowhere is convenient,’ Daniels drawled sarcastically. ‘But I suppose you can start in the bedrooms,’ he nodded towards the bank of stained-glassed windows, ‘and I’ll continue my work in the drawing room.’
He turned on his heel and disappeared through the door to the drawing room.
‘Some place.’ Barolli looked around in awe.
Lewis was peering at an oil painting. Over his shoulder he said, ‘You could fit my flat into this room.’
Langton exited the dining room. He turned left into a small corridor. The others were virtually at his heels as they entered a small, well-equipped kitchen. Expensive cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils were stored in shiny white cupboards, with the lighting hidden in strips behind cornicing.
‘Check this out,’ he ordered Anna, crisply. She went to work.
Lewis had opened another door and was looking in. ‘Bloody check this bathroom out: marble, sunken bath, like a palace.’
Barolli and Langton caught up with him and looked into the exquisite, tasteful bathroom. It was wood-panelled with elegant bowls of soap and perfumes lined up alongside rows of candles in squat silver bowls.