Above Suspicion (28 page)

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.

‘Didn’t it go well, then?’ Lewis asked.

‘No. I’ve come back empty-handed, Mike.’

‘Shit. But Daniels was in all three places, right?’

‘Yep. But since not one witness puts him in the frame, it’s circumstantial. I’m starting to cool off on him.’

‘Jesus Christ, that’s one hell of an expensive cool.’

‘Yep.’

Langton told Lewis to take himself home to the baby. There were only four people working the late shift in the incident room. Since he was too tired to start up a conversation with anyone, Langton went straight to his office, stacking his receipts and ticket stubs in a pile. He put the video down on a desk already piled high with outstanding memos and paperwork, then opened his bottle of Scotch and poured a heavy measure. If they took out Daniels, they were back to square one. No witness. No suspect.

Back home, Anna bundled her dirty clothes into the washing machine. She pottered around for a while; she didn’t feel sleepy yet. She checked her answerphone. There were four messages, but when she pressed play, there was nothing there. Whoever had called had hung up.

Though she made sure her father’s photograph was in the same position, she was not comforted: in fact, the opposite. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that someone had moved it, before. She couldn’t sleep, from all the tossing and turning. If Daniels had been in her bedroom, how in God’s name had he got in? She knew there had been no forced entry. Since no one but she herself had used the flat, she decided that she would take the frame in for fingerprint tests. The plan comforted her and she fell asleep.

Though he had changed his shirt and shaved, Langton looked like he had slept in his chair. By the time Anna arrived the next morning, he was already in his office with Barolli and Lewis. Moira gave her a welcoming smile and asked if she’d had a good trip.

‘Yes. But with three cities in three days, I didn’t get to see much.’

Jean held up the video. ‘This doesn’t play on our machine. We’re sending it over to the lab to get it converted.’

Anna began work on her American report. She picked up a pile of files from her desk. Beneath them were the photographs taken from Alan Daniels’s flat.

‘Shit. Did anyone want these?’

‘What?’

‘The photos from Daniels’s flat. They were on my desk.’

Jean wagged her finger at Anna. ‘Naughty, naughty. Barolli was looking for those.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll give them to him.’

Moira sat on the edge of Anna’s desk.

‘So, what was it like?’

‘You know, mostly hard work.’

She arched her eyebrows. ‘I mean being alone with him for three days and nights?’

‘Oh, Moira! I was just the chauffeur.’

‘No candlelit dinners?’

‘Give me a break. No! I’ve got to get my report done.’

‘Your details about driving him around will make very interesting reading.’ Moira was teasing her. Anna took a pretend swipe at her.

‘I need expenses for both of you and receipts,’ Jean called out.

‘He has everything,’ Anna replied, starting work. Moira wandered back to her desk.

It was after ten o’clock and Langton still had not come out of his office. Lewis was updating the board with the US murder dates, while Barolli stood beside him reading Langton’s notes aloud. Arrows joined Daniels to each location.

Anna picked up the envelope containing the photographs. She hesitated and took them out, skimming through one after the other. They were all in social settings: Daniels lounging under a sunshade with a group of people in swimsuits; Daniels toasting someone with champagne at a candlelit table; Daniels leaning against a car. Only part of the car was visible.

Anna turned to the filing cabinets, overflowing with paperwork again. She read the statements from the Cuban waiter, then checked Red Leather’s (Yvonne Barber) before returning the statements to the cabinet.

She tapped on Langton’s door.

‘Yes!’ he snapped.

She went in to find him sitting at his desk in front of a mound of receipts, bits of paper and ticket stubs. ‘Can you sort this crap out for me? And they have to be in order. Did you keep a record of everything you spent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, attach it to this lot. Jean’s got to get it agreed, otherwise it’ll be out of my pocket.’

‘OK.’

He swept everything into a folder.

‘Can I just show you something?’ She handed him a magnifying glass and placed the photograph of Daniels leaning against the car in front of him. ‘The Cuban couldn’t say what make, but he thought it was a pale-coloured car. The other witness said it was a light colour. When we brought the Cuban in, he was shown a number of vehicles. He couldn’t pick one of them out, but that tiny bit of the rear bumper we had on the CCTV footage wasn’t one of the new Mercedes, but a Mercedes about thirty years old, according to Mike.’

‘So?’

‘Well, look at this photograph. You can’t see much of it, but it’s a Mercedes, isn’t it? And it’s a light, creamy colour.’

Langton looked at the photograph with the magnifying glass.

‘Fuck!’

He leaned back, frowning. ‘We’ve got him down as owning a Lexus when Melissa was murdered, haven’t we?’

‘Yes. Maybe that’s not his Mercedes, but we know he hired one in the States. So he must like them.’

Anna continued: while they had confirmed that Daniels had been driving a Lexus for the last nine months, they had not thought to check on other vehicles Daniels owned before that period.

Langton walked to Anna, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

‘I love you, Travis.’

He bellowed for Lewis and Barolli.

Anna returned to her desk, where she continued typing up her report. Simultaneously, both Lewis and Barolli were checking with the DVLA, the MOT register and Daniels’s motor insurance company.

Langton shouted for Travis.

‘Yes?’

He seemed in great spirits, flourishing a list in his hand.

‘Daniels exchanges his cars like most people change underwear.’

He listed the number of vehicles Daniels had owned. As his wealth increased, he went from one expensive car to another, often changing them within a few months of each other. But the car they were most interested in was a convertible pale blue Mercedes 280SL, circa 1971, the car Daniels still owned up until the time of Melissa’s murder. The reason they had slipped up was that Daniels used a company name so it had not been listed under personal ownership.

The news spread like a bushfire and Anna was roundly congratulated. Then came the bad news: there was no record of the Mercedes being sold or under new ownership. Daniels would have to come in again for questioning.

‘We’ve still got insufficient evidence to arrest him,’ Langton told Anna. ‘We must do this all by the book. It’ll be irregular to go and pick him up at his flat, just in case we’ve got something that incriminates him. We could be accused of failing to give him his rights. We bring him in and caution him, but make it clear he’s not being charged with anything and that he has the right to be legally represented. That means another session with Radcliff at his side.’

He gestured for her to come closer, then said quietly, ‘When he comes in, I don’t want you around.’ Then he turned his head to bellow, ‘Lewis! Let’s get him in!’

Contrary to expectations, Daniels agreed to come to the station straight away. Nor did he insist Radcliff be present.

In fact, their suspect did not appear to be fazed at all. He was even more charming than the time before and seemed to be making an effort to be as helpful as possible. He sat quietly in the interview room with Langton and Lewis while he was read his rights. Then he brought out a small pocket book. He explained that he did buy and sell his cars in quite rapid succession, for, although he had a resident’s parking bay, if he went away filming he did not like to leave the cars unattended for lengthy periods. He had been enquiring about renting a garage space in the area for some time, but had not been lucky so far. They were asking astronomical rents.

Langton then asked about the Mercedes-Benz. Daniels smiled, relaxedly. The Mercedes was one of his favourites, he said, but even in the Queen’s Gate area a soft-top car was too attractive to thieves.

‘The roof was constantly being slashed. It seems any yob passing with a knife—’

‘You sold it?’ Langton asked, incredulously.

‘Worse. I was going to. I had already stopped the insurance. Then I had a prang in it, and so that was that.’

‘You sold it?’ Langton repeated.

‘Well, you could call it that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It went to the crusher. It would have cost a fortune to repair and it had rust, as well. So I paid for it to be destroyed.’

Langton felt the ground moving beneath his feet. Every time they took a step forwards, back they went. He took down the name of the crushing yard and released Daniels. With an equally despondent Lewis, Langton stared from the window, watching Daniels being led out via the rear entrance towards his chauffeur-driven black Mercedes.

Anna was glad she had not had to face him. The breaker’s yard was contacted and they confirmed over the phone that Alan Daniels’s Mercedes had been crushed into a two-foot square box.

The date was the day after Melissa Stephens was murdered.

Jet lag kicked in for Anna around four o’clock in the afternoon. As for the rest of them, from everyone being so ‘up’, they had all come crashing down.

Until Barolli pointed out that if Alan Daniels had taken the car to be crushed, it meant that he had lied about not being in London.

When Anna went to see Langton to ask if she could go home, he sighed: ‘Yeah. Why not? Fuck all is happening here.’

She rubbed her forehead, which was throbbing. ‘But, surely the fact he owned the same type of car Melissa was seen getting in, means—’