‘Yes.’
‘Oh my God! Now I understand. It was all so confusing when I was questioned; half the time I couldn’t pick up on what they wanted from me.’
Anna looked at him enquiringly. ‘What?’
‘I understand now why they questioned me about my childhood.’
She leaned close. ‘Please, Alan, if they were to bring you in for questioning again, you won’t tell them we discussed any of this? Please. I could get in terrible trouble. They might even fire me.’
He took hold of her hand. ‘Of course I wouldn’t repeat this, not to anyone, but why do you say they may want to question me again? What on earth can they want from me?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you must know! I mean, if this was to get in the press it would ruin my life, my career.’
Anna nodded. ‘That’s why the enquiry is being so diplomatic. As I said, if we don’t get a result, it could all be disbanded and put on open files. They may not even question you again.’
Daniels signalled for the waiter. He ordered two coffees, then said quietly: ‘You are right, we shouldn’t discuss this. I don’t want to get you in any trouble, but you can understand why I am so interested; it’s pretty obvious and to be honest it really freaks me out.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to’
‘But you have. I am just amazed. How can they even suspect me? And I can’t think of anything I could do or say that would help you. I mean, I will really think about it.’
He sat in silence. Anna looked around the restaurant crowd, which was starting to thin out. It was by this time after half past eleven.
She drank her coffee; Daniels swirled the spoon round and round in his cup. He tapped the side. ‘You know, it’s made me really depressed. I hate to go back to that time in my life it’s like a chasm opens up inside me and it’s dark, a terrible place to return to. But there must be some connection if, as you say, these women knew each other and they were all murdered.’
‘Yes.’
‘But are the women in the States all connected to them as well?’
‘No, not that we have discovered.’ Anna sipped the dregs of her coffee. ‘But whatever made the killer begin his rampage’
‘It’s not exactly a rampage,’ he said curtly.
‘Well no, there are years in between the UK murders, but if you add the American victims, it is a pattern of killing that shows the killer to be moving from perhaps some kind of revenge to being unable to curb his hatred of a certain type of woman.’
‘Prostitutes,’ said Daniels, staring into his cup.
‘Yes, but he may have made a mistake with Melissa.’
He leaned back, his eyes expressionless.
‘Mistake?’
Anna nodded and told him they had two witnesses, the Cuban waiter and the husky-voiced call girl.
‘They saw him?’ he said incredulously.
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s — that’s good news, surely?’
It wasn’t enough of a response to be useful. If he was their killer, he was playing his cards very close to his chest. Anna was tired and she felt they had reached a dead end. She stood up, saying she needed to go to the ladies. Alan stood, allowing her to pass him.
‘I should be going home soon, Alan. I have to work in the morning.’
‘I promise, we won’t discuss this topic for another second. Now you go and powder your nose and I’ll sort out the bill. Unless would you like a brandy?’
‘No, nothing else. Thank you.’
Anna felt totally drained. She had done her best, letting information out that, in actual fact, he could have discovered from press releases. But Daniels had not slipped up or, in Michael Parks’s words, given her the ‘leakage’ she was hoping for. By the time she returned to the table, he stood waiting for her, holding her wrap. He gently placed it around her shoulders.
‘You don’t think the reason I asked you out was to pump you for information? Please, don’t think that. Because it isn’t true.’
She said softly, ‘No, I don’t. I’ve enjoyed being with you very much.’
He drew her closer. ‘You’re very special, Anna.’
As they drove away from the Ivy, Anna began to wonder about the next stage of the evening, but Daniels was ahead of her. He instructed the driver to take Miss Travis back to her flat, adding, ‘As I’m on the way, he can drop me off first, if you don’t mind?’
‘No, not at all.’
They drove in silence for a few minutes, though he sat some distance from her, his face in the shadows.
His free hand sought hers out in the darkness. ‘When I first came to the station you work at, I can’t tell you how scared I was. It brought back the time they found her body.’
‘Your mother’s?’
He sighed. ‘I was just a teenager, so they held me in the cells overnight and interrogated me for hours and hours. I had no one to turn to. And now I feel like it’s happening again, but this time, with even more to lose. You saw the press calling out for me. Can you imagine what they would do if it was to be made public that I was even being questioned? You have to help me. Make them understand: I am innocent. How can I still be a suspect? Why are they doing this to me?’
‘It’s just the connection, Alan.’
‘That I was brought up in a stinking brothel, with a bunch of whores? What does that mean?’ he said, angrily. ‘I wouldn’t remember a single one of them. I’ve tried my hardest to obliterate them from my mind.’ She was perplexed to see tears begin to stream down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, sniffing. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, need that handkerchief of yours.’
She went to open her bag, when he shook his head. ‘No, no — I’m alright now.’
‘Alan, the reality is you are not under arrest and they have no evidence against you but circumstantial. If they had anything, you’d have been arrested by now. You have to believe me that I wouldn’t have agreed to see you this evening if I thought for one moment that you were involved.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course I do.’
He rested back. ‘Thank God. Because I need you, Anna. I’m going to rely on you to get me through this. Come here; rest your head on my shoulder.’ He closed his eyes.
Uneasily, she slid towards him. He wrapped his arm round her. She could smell his delicate aftershave, feel the softness of the velvet jacket against her cheek. Her heart was thudding as he tilted her face towards his and kissed her lips: a delicate, sweet kiss. He gently touched her hair. ‘You are already very special to me and I am sure, in time, we can mean a lot more to each other.’ He was tracing her cheek with his finger.