Langton and Barolli quickly joined him. The room was sumptuous: there was a grand piano, two velvet sofas and a glass-topped coffee table with art books piled upon it. But the highlight was the vaulted, stained-glass ceiling, from which different coloured lights shimmered over the white-panelled, vastly proportioned room.
‘There was nothing in the kitchen. It didn’t look as if it was used; well, the cooker didn’t,’ Anna said, joining them. The three men were silent, standing in awe as she continued: ‘The fridge is stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables and — my God, this is so beautiful!’
Langton murmured, ‘Go upstairs — start up there.’
‘Right.’
Anna moved cautiously up the narrow, winding staircase leading to the upper floor, where there were two bedrooms: a master suite and bathroom and a guest suite. The master bedroom was almost as large as the entertaining area below. The four-poster bed was made of heavy oak, with draped panels of the palest green. The walls were also washed green and there were banks and banks of floor-to-ceiling wardrobes. Built inside one was a mirrored dressing table, perfumes and oils neatly lined up. The room was immaculate and smelt of a light perfume.
Anna searched the clothes, their pockets, the turn-ups in the trousers, the racks of hand-made shoes. All the shoes had fitted heavy wood inserts to retain their perfect shape. Only the velvet, monogrammed slippers looked worn. There were three pairs: pale green, royal blue and black. She held a slipper in her hand. It was hard to believe its owner was once Anthony Duffy, the child of a beat-up prostitute called Lilian.
She patted and checked the rows of cashmere sweaters and silk shirts. The bedside tables held books, mostly historical, no paperbacks. She lifted the green silk bedspread, to find it was lined with dark green cashmere. Alan Daniels certainly knew how to live. She noted the absence of knick-knacks and memorabilia.
When she stripped the bed, the sheets looked fresh and laundered. She found nothing in the bedroom. POLSA searched the carpet; there were no bloodstains, or stains of any kind.
‘Found anything?’ Langton at the doorway had made her jump.
‘No, nothing. I was just thinking how strange it was to have no personal items around. You know, photographs …’
‘Same downstairs.’
Langton walked to the four-poster bed. ‘Be nice to have a session in this,’ he said softly. ‘Did you look under the bed, the mattress?’
‘Yes,’ she said, flushing.
‘How about on top of the thing?’
‘Not yet; I was just about to do that,’ she lied.
Langton stepped up on to the bed. ‘Nothing.’ He jumped down and opened a wardrobe. ‘So start up on the next floor.’ He felt one of the silk shirts and murmured: ‘These are nice. Certainly has enough of them.’
Anna went into the narrow corridor outside the bedroom and climbed another small, winding staircase to the top floor. This area was very different, although still sizeable. It seemed to be his library and office. The desk was stacked with scripts, documents and banks of photographs, mostly of women, with loving messages scrawled underneath. There were also numerous photographs on the walls: the suspect with other actors, on location. There was a laptop computer on the desk and drawers underneath containing files with neat headings: Tax, VAT, etc. There was an entire drawer for fan mail. She began to pore through the documents and letters. She heard footsteps on the stairs and Lewis appeared.
‘Knows everyone, doesn’t he?’ He had turned a full circle in the room and now walked from one picture to the next.
‘You should read some of these fan letters; he’d never be short of female companions.’
‘This is gonna take hours, wading through all this lot.’
Langton appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Travis, we’ll take over in here. Start on the front room, where he is.’
‘Right.’
After she left, Langton surveyed the photographs. He paused at a picture of Daniels lying on a yacht with two blondes in skimpy bikinis.
‘Some great-looking women,’ he said.
‘That’s why it doesn’t make sense to me,’ Lewis protested. ‘Why would a man who can get his hands on women like these want to shag stinking old prostitutes?’
Langton turned on the laptop.
‘That’s why I think we’ve got the wrong bloke.’ Lewis, who was searching through files looked up. ‘Hang on — he said he’d lost his dental records, didn’t he?’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, look what’s in here: X-ray, plus payments, etc’
‘We’ll take that. Let me see.’
Langton examined the X-ray, holding it up to the light. ‘Keep going; things are getting warmer.’
Anna tapped on the closed door to the drawing room and Daniels opened it.
‘Could I come in here, please?’ she said.
‘Yes, help yourself.’
He returned ahead of her to sit on the sofa, curling his legs beneath him, picking up a script.
‘You have a beautiful house,’ she said awkwardly.
‘Thank you.’
Embarrassed, she began to sort through the magazines.
‘Was it necessary to visit my agent?’
‘Sorry?’ She could feel him looking at her.
‘I said, was it necessary to visit my agent? I came to the station. Why didn’t you simply ask me what you needed to know while I was there?’
‘I don’t think we had the’ She stopped herself, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘You should ask DCI Langton.’
She continued flicking through to the next magazine, checking for any loose note, or scrap of paper.
He cocked his head to one side, amused by her. ‘What on earth are you looking for? Incriminating evidence in Architect’s Monthly?’
‘You never know,’ she said, looking up with a half smile before turning back to flip through the pages of Vogue. ‘Have you ever been married?’
‘Been close. I am not the easiest person to live with,’ he said, stretching out his legs to lie on the sofa. ‘I am obsessively neat. But I suppose you’ve noticed.’
‘Yes.’ She walked round to start searching the books. ‘I’m a bit that way myself’
‘It probably comes from never having anything as a child that belonged to me. My clothes were always second hand, or hand-me-downs. When you are fostered out, they often have numerous other kids that they care for and so you get their stained clothes with the holes. I grew to hate the smell of other people’s bodies: their vomit, or their piss.’
‘I don’t have that excuse. It must be in the genes or something.’