They needed verification that Alan Daniels was filming in Chicago at the same time. O’Reilly took them to his office, where they could go through the lists of film companies. They contacted two location companies. The consensus seemed to be that any major film being shot in Chicago would more than likely employ their own location manager.
O’Reilly asked if they had a suspect and Langton explained they had a possible one. An actor.
O’Reilly suggested that they check with the local television station and offered them his desk. After at least twenty minutes of being redirected to various departments from accounts to costumes to maintenance, their break came. A television director advised them to look in ‘Promotional Programs’. This resulted in a further flurry of phone calls until they located a popular show which interviewed book authors on tour as well as film actors promoting movies. Sadie was murdered recently enough to mean they might not only have a record of personalities interviewed that month but also have retained the tape.
O’Reilly was ready to go off duty. He told Langton that if they wanted to stay over an extra night, he would work alongside them the next morning.
‘Thank you, but we have to go back to London,’ Langton replied.
‘So, you gonna tell me who your suspect is?’
Langton hesitated, before telling him. O’Reilly shook his head. ‘Alan Daniels? I’ve never heard of him! I don’t go to the movies. I don’t have time to watch much TV. Anyway I get sick to death of real-life crime, so I don’t need to watch a bunch of ten-year-old-looking women running around with guns. Anna, no offence. I just watch the Sport Channel.’
He shook their hands and wished them luck. ‘You know, about finding Sadie’s killer, we did give it our best shot. We had a whole team out for two weeks. But these Johns, they could be transient, you know what I mean? This city is full of salesmen and business guys flying in, flying out. She was in the wrong place, wrong time. If you track down your guy, I’d like my ten minutes with him.’ He gave a rueful smile and left.
As it turned out, the producer of Good Afternoon, Chicago was on maternity leave. Eventually they were put in touch with her researcher, who was recording a show for the following morning and said she couldn’t check anything until after seven. However, if they gave her the name of the interviewee and the dates they wanted, her runner would start going through the files. Uneasily, Langton gave her Alan Daniels’s name.
They returned to the hotel. It was after seven o’clock. They were to catch the first flight out of Chicago to Heathrow the following morning at nine. By now Langton was in a really bad mood: tired, hungry and frustrated. He retired to his room, saying he’d order from the room service menu and wait for the television station to make contact.
Two hours later, Anna’s door was rapped so loudly that she panicked. She had been watching Channel 58, COPS on Court TV.
Langton was like a kid at Christmas. He was garbling his words, so she had to ask him to repeat them: ‘They are sending over a fucking tape. He was here, in fucking Chicago, for the exact dates we want, when the interview took place.’
‘My God.’ As she stepped back, he dived in, closing the door behind him. He lowered his voice: ‘I didn’t say why we wanted it. All I said was we were conducting an enquiry.’
‘When will it be here?’
‘They’re biking it over now, by courier. I’ll call your room as soon as it arrives.’
She was just closing the door when he dived back in, asking if she had had anything to eat. He was so obviously excited, she found it infectious.
‘I had a hamburger,’ she smiled.
‘How was it?’
‘Fine.’
‘Right, I’m going to have one.’
She closed the door behind him, her heart beating nineteen to the dozen. Whatever anyone said, this was too much of a coincidence. Alan Daniels had now been in all three US cities at the time of the murders. When the phone rang, she made a grab for it. It was Barolli. She judged it had to be after twelve in London.
‘Is he with you?’ he said.
‘No. What is it?’
‘We’ve got another murder.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t talk. I’ve got to call him.’
‘He’s in Room 436.’
“kay. Goodnight.’
Anna put the phone down and sat on the edge of her bed.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
Anna tapped on Langton’s door. ‘It’s open,’ came his voice.
‘Ma’am?’
She turned and saw the hotel receptionist walking towards her.
‘This just came for Mr Langton.’ The receptionist extended a white envelope. ‘I need a signature: the courier is waiting downstairs. I’ve been trying to call Mr Langton’s room, but his phone was busy.’
Anna took the bulky envelope. She signed for it and was thanking the receptionist when Langton appeared at the door.
‘Is that it?’
She took a video cassette out of the package. ‘Yes. Does your TV have a video player? Mine doesn’t.’
‘Shit, I don’t know.’
Inside his room, Langton sat back on his heels and examined the TV set. Frustrated, he called reception and requested a video player urgently.
While Langton paced up and down, waiting for them to call back, Anna cast a look around his room: it was an untidy mess of discarded clothes, half-eaten hamburger and numerous empty cans of beer. There were wet towels trailing from the bathroom and piled up on the dressing-table were the contents of his pockets: coins, banknotes, receipts and his passport.
When the phone rang, Langton grabbed it. ‘That’s fine. I don’t care how much. Just get me one up here.’
He slammed the phone down, swearing.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s happened in London?’ she murmured. She took the wet towels into the bathroom. He must have left the shower running; there were puddles of water everywhere.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ he snapped, when she returned.
‘I know. I’m just doing it until you calm down.’
He slumped down on his bed with a sigh. ‘Well, they have another victim. They found her early this afternoon. So far, she is unidentified, but it’s the same scenario.’
‘Where?’
‘Just off the A3, not far from Leatherhead. Could be a copycat killing. I’ve told Barolli to see if we can bring back Mike Lewis. Shouldn’t be hard. Barolli says his baby is driving him nuts. We don’t have the case yet and he didn’t have many details. But it’s a fucking nightmare. The discovery is causing a lot of heat around our investigation; the media are rehashing our old press releases.’
He lit a cigarette.