‘You’ve already halved the team. I won’t let this go,’ he said firmly.
‘It is not a question of what you want,’ she said angrily. ‘Look, let’s not get into a shouting match over this. I will consider giving you two more weeks.’
‘Give me three days. That’s all I need to go over there and check out these cases.’
The commander looked at Chief Superintendent Thompson, who, till then, had not said more than a few words. ‘I trust James.’ He carefully placed his coffee cup on the desk. ‘If he feels there is a possibility of gaining a result, I’d send him to Alaska, if necessary.’
Langton gave him a grateful look. The commander collected her briefcase and walked to the door.
‘Three days and keep me informed. Because we are going to have to prepare a press release.’
The team watched curiously as the procession of brass walked out, but could find nothing in their manner to indicate what had happened inside. A call from Lewis lifted the gloominess in the atmosphere. Barolli yelled out the news: Lewis had a son, weighing in at seven pounds, six ounces. After a moment of quiet conversation, he replaced the receiver.
‘He’s going to put in for maternity leave,’ he said, surprised.
‘I think you mean “paternity” leave,’ Jean commented wryly.
‘What did you tell him?’ Moira asked.
‘I just said that from what has been going down here, I didn’t see why not.’
Langton appeared. He called out to Jean, who was printing material from the internet. ‘You get the information I wanted?’
Jean gathered up all the pages. ‘Mike Lewis has just had a baby boy,’ she informed him.
He looked puzzled for a moment; then gave a half smile.
‘Moira, send him a bottle of champagne and some flowers for his wife. From all of us.’
He returned to his office, Jean following on his heels.
‘Christ, Jean, is this the cheapest deal you can get?’
‘Yes. I checked with all the airlines and the Virgin Atlantic flight is the cheapest, direct to San Francisco.’
She passed him another sheet. ‘I would suggest you hire a car from San Francisco and drive to Los Angeles, then get an internal flight from there to Chicago.’
‘Thanks,’ he said curtly. Then he reached for the phone.
When Jean returned to the incident room, she grinned at Anna conspiratorially. ‘He’s having kittens about the price, but it’s not that bad: round trip for under six hundred quid.’
Moira had taken a call from the NYPD in New York. ‘No joy in New York; they’ve not got anything on the dates Daniels was over there.’ She buzzed the message through to Langton’s office.
She took a couple of notes and looked over to Jean. ‘Jean, can you get on to CAP in San Francisco. That’s the division that handles the murders of prostitutes: Crime Against Prostitutes, it’s part of the Vice Division in the San Francisco Police Department. You need to ask for Captain Tom Delaware.’
Moira leaned on Jean’s desk, watching her write it all down. ‘He wants a hotel. Somewhere in a place called Tenderloin.’
‘Tenderloin?’ Jean asked. ‘You sure you got that right? Tenderloin?’
‘That’s what he said. Tenderloin.’
Having just walked in, Langton overheard the conversation: ‘It’s called that because during the Depression era, only police officers earned a good steady wage and could get a decent steak.’ The two women turned to him, astonished and he shrugged. ‘Now you know!’
Jean and Moira seemed to return to their work in hand, though when they noticed Langton lean on Anna’s desk, neither of them was averse to watching from a corner of her eye.
‘We’re on the eleven o’clock flight tomorrow. Heathrow direct to San Francisco. Can you drive an automatic?’
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘San Francisco!’
Langton straightened up. ‘Jean, check out the visa situation ASAP, for Travis and myself.’ He returned to his office.
Moira and Jean threw a glance at each other. Barolli pushed back his chair, irritated. It wasn’t that he wanted to go to San Francisco; it was just that it would have been ethical to ask him, since he’d been there longer. He also wanted to know what the hell was going to happen in London when his gov jetted off to the States.
Langton looked round the corner of his door at the sight of an uptight Barolli and added, ‘With Mike out being a daddy, I need you to run the incident room.’
‘So, we still have one,’ Barolli said moodily.
‘We are hanging on to it by our fingernails. We only have two weeks. I’ll be giving a briefing in fifteen minutes.’
‘Right,’ Barolli said, still not mollified.
‘And I know you bloody hate flying. I’ve got a long drive from San Francisco to LA, then an internal flight to Chicago. And only three days to do it, there and back.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Barolli whistled.
‘It’s make-or-break time.’ Langton rubbed his chin, which was really in need of a shave. ‘So whilst I am gone, you need to dig harder; find anything that’ll get that woman off my back.’
‘Right. Will do.’
Anna was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She had never even been to America, let alone to three of its major cities. Secretly, she also liked the fact that she would be travelling with Langton alone: just the two of them.
In the flat, Anna spent most of the evening selecting what to pack. She had arranged to meet Langton at the airport at half past nine the next morning. She took out her passport and made sure she had some money to change into dollars at the airport. All done, she put her wheelie suitcase by the front door, ready for the morning’s departure. It was just after ten when her phone rang. She ran to pick it up, thinking it might be Langton.
‘Anna,’ a man said softly.
‘Yes. Who is this?’
‘Come on. Don’t you recognize my voice?’
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t,’ she lied. ‘Who is this?’
‘OK, play hard to get. I don’t mind,’ he laughed. ‘It’s Alan Daniels.’
She tried to collect her thoughts. ‘How did you get my number?’
‘You’re in the book, of course.’