Above Suspicion (34 page)

‘No, it can wait until I get home.’

She hesitated. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to just go in together this morning?’

He grinned. ‘Travis, are you inviting me to shower with you?’

‘Very funny!’

‘I meant that I’ll shower when I get home tonight.’

‘Fine, fine.’

Once he heard the sound of the shower going, he picked up her notebook and started to read page after page of her neat, meticulous writing. His heart started sinking. This was going to give him a lot of flak.

He had finished reading by the time Anna emerged from the bedroom, dressed. He noticed the doleful expression on her face. ‘You still upset about your dad’s cufflinks?’

‘I remember Daniels taking things out of my bag. Maybe they dropped on to the floor then.’ Langton perched on the side of an armchair with his mug. ‘I kept them in my bag. Silly! Well, you probably think it is, but I took my mother’s favourite evening bag and my father’s favourite cufflinks.’

‘Oh.’

She hesitated. ‘My father …’

‘He was a great guy.’

‘Did you know my mother at all?’

‘I met her a few times. Long time ago. I wouldn’t say that I knew her.’

‘I want to show you something. It’s a letter. It was in the photo frame, tucked behind my father’s picture.’

When Anna was out of the room, he lit a cigarette. She returned with the letter outstretched. ‘Will you read it?’

‘Of course,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘Do you know what Dad’s referring to? I don’t understand it.’

Langton scanned it quickly, then passed it back.

‘He never told you?’ he asked.

‘Told me what?’

Langton hesitated. ‘I’m not sure of the details, but before your dad was on the Murder Squad, he was with Vice.’ He inhaled deeply, letting the smoke drift out. ‘This was before I even joined up.’

She saw his unease. ‘Please, tell me. I need to know.’

‘OK. You have to understand that I don’t know all the details.’

‘Just tell me.’ She was almost pleading with him.

‘It’s not that pleasant. Your mother was a student at art college. She was found brutally raped in her room. It was pretty shocking; she was so traumatized, she lost the use of her voice. Your dad was brought in to oversee the case. He couldn’t get your mother out of his mind. She was very beautiful, even when I met her.’

Anna had to sit down; her legs felt like jelly.

‘Anyway, he became obsessed. He was determined to catch the rapist. He eventually picked up a student from a nearby college. He questioned him for sixteen hours without legal representation and then released him, which didn’t make much sense to anyone, since the kid had broken down and admitted he had raped Isabelle. The kid hanged himself.’

‘Did he do it?’ Anna persisted.

‘Yep. But instead of case closed, get on with your life, your dad kept on seeing your mother. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her family put her in some kind of therapy and she recovered, gradually. He kept in touch. They were married two years later. Word was she —’ he paused.

‘Word was she what?’ Anna asked, sharply.

‘Well, that she remained of a very nervous disposition and she had basically married her protector. Old Jack would have killed for her. I heard that he had duffed the kid up pretty badly.’

‘Did he?’

Langton gave her a look. ‘You tell me. Anyway, Isabelle never returned to art college. They were married and then you came along. By the time I met him he was heading up the Murder Squad. Then I don’t know how long afterwards, some thug he was after broke into your house. Though he didn’t touch your mother, I think it triggered something, because …’ He sighed, not really comfortable with all this personal stuff.

‘Because what?’

Langton shrugged. ‘She started remembering things. She got more fearful about leaving the house. Sometimes, when he was pissed, he admitted - well, he did to me -that being married to Isabelle felt like having an exotic bird of paradise in the house that only he ever saw.’

‘And me. I saw her too. I never knew.’

‘It wasn’t easy. Like I said, she was very fragile and I think he knew that if his exotic bird had never been wounded, he would never have stood a chance of marrying her. But from what you’ve told me, they were happy and you know, Anna, when you get that hurt or frightened, a protector is important, if it means you carrying on living.’

Anna stood up, her father’s letter clutched in her hands. ‘Thank you for telling me this.’

He held out his hand for hers. ‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine. Just sad that I never knew what anguish she had suffered. She was a wonderful, loving mother.’ She ignored his hand.

Anna walked into her bedroom. She put the folded letter in her little jewel box on her dressing-table and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her mind was full of thoughts about Isabelle, trapped inside their home, reduced to painting pictures of the flowers in then-garden. She was so sad that she had never been able to talk to her or comfort her, that she had never known the pain that had been in her own home.

Langton and Anna left her flat in the Mini at half past eight. The atmosphere was strained, the two hardly talking. Anna no longer believed that Alan Daniels was their killer. She had felt his pain last night and responded protectively. She was sure he was not the monster they sought.

Langton, believing Anna’s silence was due to distress about her mother’s tragedy, addressed the subject eventually.

‘These things happen, Anna,’ he said quietly. ‘You just have to get on with your life. When my first wife died, I kept on working. I kept on pushing myself, so I wouldn’t feel the emptiness.’

She threw a startled look at him as he continued speaking with an intimacy unfamiliar to her.

‘A month after her funeral, I packed all her things away. They seemed to amount to so little; yet it was her life with me. That was the first time it hit me. I took six weeks off then sold the place; moved on, started again, met my second wife and, well, that was a mistake, apart from Kitty.

‘I’d have liked to have children one day, but I doubt that I’ll ever settle down with anyone again. You have something perfect; it’s wrong to make comparisons, but I probably always will. Now I rent a place. Nothing in it means anything. If it burned down tomorrow, I wouldn’t care.’

After a lengthy pause, he sighed. ‘Well, that’s me, Travis. Hope I managed to cheer you up.’ They exchanged a mutual grin, then he glanced at his watch. ‘Better get to work.’

‘I’ll make out my report as soon as we get there.’

‘Good girl.

‘Langton,’ he snapped into his mobile as they drove into the station car park. He got out as she paused, looking around for a parking space, continuing his phone call as he headed towards the building, then turning to gesture at an empty space. Anna smiled, at least he still remembered she was with him. The space was next to the old dirty Volvo. She parked as far from it as possible, still unsure who owned it, and wary about any more damage to her Mini.

Langton called for a briefing at eleven o’clock, which was the time Michael Parks was expected. At her desk, Anna began to type up her report. No one asked how the evening had progressed; it was as if they were expecting failure.

Moira burst into the incident room an hour and a half late. She looked over at Lewis. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. ‘Don’t start. I’ve had a very bad morning. I need to speak to the gov asap.’

‘He’s busy. What do you want to talk to him about?’

‘It’s personal,’ she said curtly.

Langton and the head of the surveillance team were holed up discussing the previous evening. The chauffeur had submitted his report. Anna had, as yet, no idea they had replaced the driver of the Mercedes with an undercover policeman; she had not even known about the usherette.

Langton thumbed through the reports. He knew he would get a strong-arm response from the commander. He had made a mistake in placing so much responsibility on a twenty-six-year-old’s shoulders.

Of course, there were still Daniels’s fingerprints to be examined. While the fifty-pound note would probably not be of any use, the glasses he had used at the Opera House and the Ivy would help. If they were a match with the fingerprints on the picture frame, it would be the only result from a very expensive operation.

Langton dismissed the surveillance chief. Moments later, Lewis called to say Moira wanted to see him. He added in an undertone that she was in a bit of a state. She seemed to have calmed down by the time she walked into his office. ‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It may be nothing, but there again — you never know.’

‘Fire away.’

‘My daughter Vicky’s been dating this bloody so-called DJ. She’s only sixteen and he’s twenty-seven. He’s right full of himself, he is. I have warned her, done everything possible to stop her seeing him, but she’s been sneaking out. She’s a right little bitch and very hard to handle.’

Langton winced, wondering what the hell this had to do with him.

‘She’s been going with him since she was fifteen.’

‘Moira, can you get to the point, please?’

‘Right. I was damned sure she was on something, so I grounded her. Well — one night she staggered in, obviously stoned but denying it, then said she’d had too many coco pops, or whatever they serve in the clubs nowadays. Anyway, to get to the point, last night she got out through the window and went off to this club he works at. She didn’t get home until after three, right, but I was waiting for her.’

Langton closed his eyes. ‘If you need compassionate leave—’

‘No, listen! She comes creeping back in a terrible state, crying, her top all torn. So right away I went from being ready to crack her one to being really concerned. She was crying her heart out, saying they’d had this row and then I saw this terrible mark on her neck. Round. Bruise the size of a ten pence piece, maybe a bit bigger.’

Langton leaned back. His patience was just about up.

‘I said to her, “What’s that? Did he hit you?”‘

‘I’ve had a late night, too. Can you get to the fucking point, Moira!’ Langton snapped.

She went straight back at him. ‘I am fucking getting there, sir! Hang on and listen, all right? She said he pushed her head down on his lap. She’s sixteen years old, for God’s sake. This mark was crimson! Really nasty. I said, had he like, forced her to go down on him? And then she started howling, “No! It had nothing to do with him!”‘

Now Moira leaned forwards, indicating her own neck and pushing a finger in it.

‘Just here, it was. She said she got it from the gearstick of his car. It was the same size, same mark that Melissa Stephens had on her neck. This DJ, he drives a Mercedes Benz drop head, 280 SL. It’s in filthy condition, but… it’s automatic.’

Langton was staring, on to it now.

‘The identical mark,’ Moira said with conviction. ‘Maybe the killer was trying to get her to do what my bloody daughter’s boyfriend was after, to give him a blow job, but Melissa struggles and hits her neck on the gearstick.’

Langton and Moira studied the board set up in the incident room. She pointed to the blown-up picture of the bruise on Melissa Stephens’s neck.

‘It’s the same, I swear to you. That is what that mark is on my daughter’s neck.’

Langton turned to Mike Lewis. ‘Was the -suspect’s Mercedes automatic?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Get on to his insurance company. Check it out.’

‘Will do.’

Seeing Michael Parks walk into the incident room, Langton called to his team to be in the briefing room in fifteen minutes. He stopped by Anna’s desk. ‘You typed up your report yet?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She passed him four copies.

‘Thank you.’

Langton ushered Parks into his office and passed him Anna’s report. ‘You’ll see she didn’t get us much, but when you discuss the report this morning, can you go a bit easy on her? She’s emotionally on edge. She was just too inexperienced. I blame myself for not seeing she wasn’t up to the job.’

‘All right.’ Parks nodded and put on his glasses in preparation for reading Anna’s report.

Lewis confirmed that the Mercedes driven by Daniels had been an automatic. The bruise to Melissa Stephens’s neck could have occurred during a struggle in the car which resulted in her neck hitting the automatic gear lever. If the suspect was holding her down in the struggle, this would explain why a clump of hair had been dragged out by the roots from the back of her head. In front of the team, Langton acknowledged a debt to Moira for coming up with this theory. Moira gave a nod; she was very pleased with herself.

Langton went on to report that they were still awaiting the development of prints on a glass used by Daniels, which they would match against those from a picture frame removed from DS Travis’s flat. If they matched, Daniels could be brought in on suspicion of burglary. It was by no means enough to hold him for any length of time, but it might unnerve him; a threat to go public on the burglary charge would really make his life hell.

At that moment Michael Parks walked in. Langton described Anna as having done a good job the previous evening and thanked the driver of the Mercedes. Anna flushed with embarrassment to learn that he was a plant. She was mortified, not least because she had not mentioned in her report that their suspect had kissed her and her omission would be obvious in the driver’s report. She sat, her head bowed, making notes, almost afraid to meet Langton’s eyes. She felt like an idiot: inexperienced, incompetent and now that she had learned of the cost of the operation, completely frivolous and wasteful.

Michael Parks drew up a sheet of big paper and pinned it on the notice board. She recognized her report in his hands and saw with horror that it was covered with red ink markings.

‘I will take DS Travis’s report section by section and break down each of them. It shows classic signs of the profile I had drawn for you of the sociopath. First example: Daniels sends his driver to bring DS Travis to the waiting car, then he steps out and helps her into the back seat. He is reassuring her she will not be confronted with the possibility of being alone with him, but there will be a third person present, the driver.’