He sat down on a stool by the dressing-table and started to flick through the stack of papers.
‘O’Reilly gave me the press back issues on Sadie. Apparently, where she was found is pretty notorious.’
‘Incongruous name, isn’t it: Roseland?’
‘Yeah. It’s just twelve miles from all the glittering, brand spanking new skyscrapers. All those nice new little houses we saw being built are just a stone’s throw away from crack dens and the hookers walk the street in broad daylight. There have been numerous murders in the same area, because of all the derelict houses. For a time, they also had a suspected serial killer on the loose.’
‘But only Sadie has the same MO as ours.’
‘Correct. But now with this latest murder, my being here is going to look like a waste of public money. Never mind letting that bastard kill again!’
‘But you were told you didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him.’
‘I still don’t, but I should be there instead of farting around in Chicago, San Francisco, LA.’
‘Hold on — didn’t you get anything from Angie?’
He frowned, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘I got fuck all from her. Said the victim came in the club alone. Said she was very drunk, so they threw her out. Said the victim then walked towards a car that was kerb crawling. But she couldn’t recall what the driver looked like.’
He checked his watch. ‘Where’s this fucking video?
This fucking hotel!’ There was a tap on the door. While the man from room service nervously connected the dusty video machine, Anna read the note attached to the tape, dated 12 July 1998. She turned it over.
‘It says this was a live interview for Good Afternoon, Chicago, “an afternoon women’s hour, which promotes the latest movies and authors on book tours”. Good Afternoon, Chicago is a low-budget, local TV show.’
Langton took the note. ‘This could be a waste of bloody time.’
As the man from room service backed out of the room, Anna slipped him five dollars. Before the door had closed behind him, Langton picked up the remote control and pressed ‘play’. He patted the bed for Anna to sit beside him and watch.
He fast forwarded through the cooking section, a floral arrangement and a female writer, until at last the presenter was welcoming, ‘all the way from England, to promote his latest film in Chicago: Alan Daniels!’
The small, invited audience applauded his arrival as he joined the interviewer on the sofa. Anna and Langton watched intently. He was casual but elegant in a cream jacket, a dark T-shirt and jeans. His hair was much longer than when they had last seen him. The overall impression he gave was of a reserved, rather shy man. He behaved in a modest, self-effacing way and gave a genuine-looking smile as he told the interviewer how pleased he was to be on the show. He created a ripple of laughter in the audience when he added that they were probably wondering who he was. The interviewer laughed and commented that everyone in the city would soon be aware of who he was and that they would now see a clip of his new film, The Blue Diamond.
The clip was short: a scene where Daniels was opening a safe vault. The diamond on a velvet cushion sparkled and sent shafts of blue light over his face, making his eyes seem bluer than blue.
At the end of the short interview he was sitting back in his chair, more relaxed, his legs crossed. He gave a slight wave of his hand and a small nod of his head to acknowledge the applause. He had charmed the audience and the interviewer. She reached over to shake his hand and he kissed it, in exactly the same way as he had kissed Anna’s.
Langton sat, remote in his hand, rewinding. ‘Want to see it again?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said, slightly stunned.
As they watched a second time, she wondered: could it be that a handsome movie star could be attracted to plain Anna Travis? Or was Langton right? Was he just pretending? In which case, she was in real danger. They watched it a third time, neither speaking, before Langton turned the TV off.
‘What do you make of him, honestly?’ he asked.
‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘He seems charming, he listens attentively
‘Puts on a good act.’
‘It’s funny. He’s easy to look at and those eyes are amazing, but he didn’t come over as particularly sexy.’ Anna turned towards him. ‘Do you think it’s him? Is it him?’
He ejected the tape. ‘Sometimes I don’t fucking know any more.’
Anna straightened the bed cover. ‘You’ve gone cold on him?’
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘Let’s just say my intuition about him is shakier than it was. Something about him on video did it. It’s just that… Jesus God, if I have been wrong, we’ve wasted so much bloody time!’
‘What? What on the video?’
He looked up, lost for an answer. ‘He was just so likeable, wasn’t he?’
‘I felt the same way at his flat, when he showed me the photograph. There was also something quite naive about him, but when I spoke to him on the phone, I got scared. Nothing he said, it was just… something.’
‘Do you want a drink?’ He opened the mini-bar with a flourish.
‘No thanks. I’d better pack up. We’ve an early start.’
‘OK, see you in the morning.’
‘G’night.’
“Night.’ He examined a miniature bottle of vodka. She noticed he didn’t even look around as she let herself out.
In actual fact, she had already packed. She was just tired of discussing Alan Daniels.
Langton wasn’t. He was even more obsessed by him. Alone, he inserted the tape again, fast forwarding to Daniels; he turned down the sound and continued watching, replaying it over and over.
Langton had set his alarm for five o’clock the next morning, so he could contact London for an update. Mike Lewis said that the victim was not a prostitute but a girl of sixteen. He had seen the body and, although her hands were tied behind her back, she had not been strangled with her tights but by someone’s bare hands. He was doubtful it was their man. They already had a suspect in custody: the girl’s stepfather.
The return flight was uneventful. They talked during their lunch and Langton told her what Lewis had said. He mentioned that he would bring the profiler in to look at the TV interview and see what he made of it. The rest of the time Anna read her book.
As they were told they were about to land, Langton leaned across to her and thanked her. ‘You’ve been easy to travel with, Travis; I’m just sorry we’re not going back with more.’
‘I think you’ll find, when we reassess everything, we’ve done some good work.’
He laughed softly. ‘Thank you for that, Travis. A real boost to my confidence. I can’t wait to “reassess”, as you say.’
As the plane landed, they both wound on their watches six hours. It was now eleven o’clock in the evening and Langton planned to drop in at Queen’s Park. The patrol car took Anna home and Langton said he would see her in the station first thing in the morning.
Mike Lewis was waiting for him at the station. He confided that, in all honesty, he was glad to be hauled back in. His small bundle of screaming joy had kept him awake since the day he’d come home from hospital.
Lewis briefed Langton on the latest murder. It was not one of theirs. That was the good news. The bad news was that they still hadn’t got a break in their own case.
‘So we’re hoping you’ve got something for us,’ he said.
Langton was silent.