‘Christ!’ Anna pushed back her chair in a temper and stomped off to the filing cabinet where Barolli was sifting through the photographs from Daniels’s flat.
Jean called out to him: ‘Hear he’s got a great place.’
Barolli nodded. ‘It was a palace. Course, I didn’t get to see the master bedroom. Travis checked that herself. Right, Travis?’
Anna slammed the filing cabinet drawer closed. ‘What is it with you lot?’
Moira told Anna to ignore them, they were just trying to lighten things up. Barolli grinned in response.
Langton walked in, his raincoat drenched and his umbrella dripping. ‘It’s pissing down,’ he said, unbuttoning his raincoat. Taking some pages from inside his breast pocket, he passed them to the nearest officer. ‘Report says the X-rays are no good; bite won’t match the impressions. It wasn’t Daniels’s teeth that bit Melissa.’
‘We get anything from his laptop?’ Barolli asked.
Langton shook his head. He looked crumpled and badly in need of a shave. Anna noticed he was still wearing the same shirt from the night before.
‘Where’s Lewis?’ he asked.
‘His baby is on the way,’ Jean said, smiling.
‘That’s good.’
Langton walked into his office, the dripping umbrella leaving a trail of water after him and closed the door.
‘Eh, Travis. Come and have a look at this, will you?’
Barolli was holding a magnifying glass. She crossed to Barolli’s desk and bent down to look at the photograph.
‘Is that Julia Roberts he’s got with him?’
Anna turned away. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
Jean replaced the phone and announced the commander and the chief superintendent were on their way in. She hurried to Barolli’s desk and took the magnifying glass.
‘No! That’s nobody. It doesn’t even look like Julia Roberts. He’s got a great body, though, hasn’t he? Is he coming in again, Anna?’
Anna switched on her computer and said tersely, ‘I wouldn’t know, Jean.’
‘But do you know, is he or isn’t he a suspect now?’
Anna started typing furiously as Langton put his head around the door. ‘Jean, can you check out the cost of a flight to San Francisco? And internal flights to Chicago and Los Angeles.’
‘Yes, gov. Hotels, as well?’
Langton gave a brief nod before retreating.
Jean started to log on to the internet. As she checked for the airlines, she glanced across to Moira.
‘Be a nice little trip for someone. He won’t go alone.’
‘Not me, I hate flying,’ Barolli said, replacing the photographs into their envelope.
‘Could I see those?’ Anna put her hand out. Barolli, at his desk, tossed the packet across to her.
Suddenly everyone froze. The big brass had just entered the incident room. The commander, two members of the Gold Group and their chief gave frosty nods and muttered a few good mornings on their way towards Langton’s office. Jean grabbed her phone, then replaced it.
‘Shit. I forgot to tell him they were coming in. I’ll get a bollocking.’
The team went quiet as the blinds that covered the window looking into the incident room were drawn down.
‘I think that’s his American trip out the window,’ Moira said quietly.
Barolli took a deep breath. ‘Tenner on it; they’re scaling us down.’
‘But they can’t do that,’ Anna said, shocked.
‘Yes, they can. We were brought in for Mary Murphy. That was over eight, nine months ago. It’s been two months since Melissa Stephens was found and we’ve no bloody result on that, either. It’s too costly to keep us all on the case.’
They all gave an involuntary glance at the shuttered window and began working at their desks.
At one o’clock, Jean took coffee and sandwiches into Langton’s office. Back in the incident room, she reported a very tense atmosphere. ‘The gov looked as if he was being hauled over the coals.’
Inside his cramped office, Langton sat in mute fury. He had not, as yet, even broached the subject of a trip to the States.
The commander put her sandwich aside. ‘I mean it, James. We are seriously going to have to consider scaling down the team. As far as I can gather, your suspect, Alan Daniels, has co-operated on every level. The search warrant and subsequent search of his flat resulted in nothing whatsoever that implicated him. With no new evidence forthcoming, it’s a very costly operation to keep so many officers on.’
‘I am aware of that,’ Langton said coldly.
‘I do understand the reasons for focusing on Alan Daniels, but the evidence is totally circumstantial. There is nothing corroborating it and even though intuition is something we can’t dismiss, we nevertheless have to seriously contemplate how you intend to take this further. Now is the time to give me — everyone here — details.’
‘Results, so far, are these: we have a serial killer on the loose and, as you’ve read the reports, you know as well as we do that he could also have been committing the same crimes in the United States.’
Langton opened the file on the American victims.
‘I read it, James,’ Commander Leigh said curtly. ‘But that brings up the possibility that the perpetrator could be American.’
Exasperated, Langton threw up his hands. ‘That isn’t feasible. Daniels was in the States: filming in Chicago, in Los Angeles and San Francisco. That is too bloody coincidental. We also know there were two periods when he was in New York. I am getting them checked and’
She interrupted him. ‘I am aware of the latest report. But being in the same place does not automatically mean he was involved. That said, it could let us off the hook if the killer turns out to be an American. We could feed that information to the press.’
He knew what she meant.
‘If you can take it, Ma’am. I wouldn’t want the responsibility of closing us down and then another victim being discovered,’ he said. ‘Because I am damned sure he’s not stopped.’
‘It’s not a question of me taking it,’ she snapped. ‘The costs to date outweigh the results. I have to present my report to the assistant commissioner. That means making a decision about bringing in a new team, which I am loath to do, as it will spiral the cost even further.’
‘Give me more time, then. Let me take a trip to the States; check out their records of the victims. They’ve sent over only case reports and the fact they have the same MO, but if I could get more details, I would, at least for my own satisfaction, eliminate Alan Daniels.’