Inside the house, they waited for the two forensic officers to join them, then headed directly to the bathroom. The linen closet was large, with mirrored sides. They took out a stack of soft towels and several neatly packed rows of sheets and linen. Daniels was standing next to Langton. He announced, to no one in particular: “All from Harrods.”
Radcliff had hardly said a word; he watched the search while making copious notes. Anna could tell he was finding the whole situation disgusting.
The linen closet was very much larger than it appeared. Once they had cleared it, Daniels drew their attention toward a fitted board on the right-hand side. “Press that. It should slide open.” The white-suited forensic scientist pressed the board with a rubber-gloved finger. The entire rear wall of the cupboard slid back to reveal a cubbyhole with a mattress and a pillow.
“Old habits die hard,” Daniels whispered. He looked over at Anna, who was standing just outside the room.
The forensic scientist took out a large cardboard box and put it on the bathroom floor to open it up. It was full of women’s handbags, each one wrapped in a plastic zip-up bag. He took out Daniels’s hidden treasures, revealing the sick trophies one by one.
Anna had a shower and made herself a hot chocolate. She was relieved to be back home. When Langton asked if she would be all right on her own, she had insisted that she would, preferring to spend the time preparing for the following morning’s interrogation. She felt sick. She curled up under her duvet, hot chocolate untouched and files stacked by her bed. She had a low, dull headache and the pain persisted even after she’d taken some aspirin. She fell asleep with the bedside light turned on.
Three hours later she woke up, terrified of monsters looming in the shadows and the dead women’s faces alternately leering and screaming out in agony. Though her head was throbbing hard, the images remained. She got up to fetch two aspirin and a glass of water. She checked all the locks. The broom cupboard where she kept her Hoover and household cleaning things was partly open. She clenched her fists, walked briskly toward the cupboard and yanked open the door. A broom and a mop fell out, hitting her in the face; she swore, pushing them back inside. As she shut the door, she had an image of a terrified little boy locked up and left for days and nights on end.
Returning to bed, Anna hugged the duvet tightly round herself. As an adult, Daniels was still trapped in the terror of the dark cupboard. She knew how fortunate she had been to have had such loving parents, to have never known rejection or been abused. Her father had never brought the darkness home. Just once, she could remember when she had sat on his knee and the pain still clung to him. She understood that pain now, because it was clinging to her: Daniels had invaded her life with his all-pervading sickness. The tears that had been close to the surface during the day were now released; she cried aloud, like a child.
Eventually, she fell into a deep sleep, which was broken by her alarm. She made herself a cooked breakfast and sat at the kitchen bar, studying the files. By eight o’clock she was dressed and ready to leave. The doubts of the previous night had been dispelled.
The night had altered Daniels’s demeanor, too. He was not as pompous or gloating when the day’s session began at half past nine. Anna started by questioning Daniels about the sixth victim: Mary Murphy. Then the fourth: Barbara Whittle.
By the time they were ready to break for lunch, they had reached Beryl Villiers. Daniels characterized Beryl as “different” from the others. He blamed McDowell for Beryl’s decline from a beautiful, vibrant young girl into an addict. He said his mother would use Beryl when she was so drugged she didn’t know what day it was.
“Beryl was going downhill. I felt sorry for her so I put her out of her misery. I couldn’t bear to watch her changing into an old dripper: cheap and nasty.”
Anna noted that three times he had said how much he liked Beryl. Finally she corrected him. “Beryl was not an addict when she was murdered.”
“What?”
“Beryl Villiers was not addicted to drugs when her body was found. In actual fact, she’d been clean of drugs for some considerable time. She was also a lot younger than your previous victims.”
“What are you after, Anna?” he asked, frowning.
“Were you able to maintain relationships with other women?”
“What?”
“Did you have sexual relationships with other women?”
“I have known a lot of very beautiful, sexy women.”
“That is not what I asked. I asked if you had full sexual relationships.”
“Well surely, Anna, you were in a position to hazard a guess.” He cocked his head to one side, smiling provocatively at her. She looked down intently at her notes.
Having succeeded in embarrassing her, he shrugged his shoulders.
“What the hell? The answer is pretty obvious if you have a modicum of intelligence. No.”
“You did not have normal sexual relationships?”
“No. I only have sex with prostitutes.”
“In many cases, were they women who resembled your mother and her lifestyle?”
“I never hurt any woman who wasn’t the dross of humanity. That’s why their cases remained unsolved for so long.”
He leaned sideways to look at Langton in his position behind Anna’s chair. “They were the dregs of society. Nobody missed them. Nobody even noticed they were missing. Nobody cared. I was helping society, in fact: clearing them off the streets with their drugs and their booze.”
“Yet you found them sexually attractive?”
“I found you attractive, Anna, but I didn’t fuck you.” He yawned aggressively. “This is going nowhere. I am tired now, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Melissa Stephens was a seventeen-year-old virgin. How does her murder fit in with your rationale of cleaning up the streets?”
He looked daggers at her. “She was in Soho, walking the streets. She was a whore. She came on to me. That’s the reason I picked her up.”
“No. She was not a whore.”
Daniels’s lip curled angrily. “Yes, she was. She recognized me. She said, ‘I know who you are! You’re Alan Daniels.’”
“So you asked her to get into your car? The Mercedes?”
“She ran round to the passenger seat. She couldn’t wait. I’m telling you, she was on the game.”
“No. You took an innocent girl and you killed her for your own satisfaction.”
His face became tense with fury. He pushed his chair back forcefully as the words burst out of him: “OK. She started to scream. I said to her, ‘Stop screaming!’ but she wouldn’t. She was trying to get out of the car. My God, anyone could have seen us. I take hold of her by the hair and drag her head down. Next minute, she flops back onto the seat moaning. Out cold. Well, I couldn’t chuck her out, could I? She’d recognized me. Don’t you understand? She knew who I was. I had to get rid of her. She gave me no choice.” He was rubbing his head with frustration.
“She wasn’t a whore. She was sweet and innocent, like the child in the photo you showed me.”
“Christ, how many more times do you have to be told? She knew me. She fucking knew who I was. She was unconscious. I bloody drove around with her half the night. I had to do it. I had to kill her. She knew me and…” He closed his eyes. “Her body was perfect, firm and soft. She was so beautiful. And I took off her white sports bra, turned her over and tied her clean, pretty hands together. Then I rolled her back. She was perfect; she was so clean and pretty…”
He stopped for a moment, his eyes squeezed tight and his hands clasped over his knees. He described slipping off her tights, then leaning down to wrap them around her neck. Melissa Stephens was the first young girl he had ever had sex with and when she woke up, he was still inside her. “She was moaning. I wanted to keep her quiet. But she wouldn’t stop. Then she started screaming, begging me not to hurt her and I—that’s when…”
He took a deep breath, then he described how he had kissed he
r and how he had never kissed any of the other women. Anna listened with disgust as he spun his fantasy where an act of murder became romance and his victim’s suffering only produced self-pity. She was not going to let him get away with it.
“You didn’t just kiss her, though, did you? Did you?” she said harshly.
When he opened his eyes, she saw the fear for the first time. It was because she knew him now. He was frightened of her because of it. She had seen into the dark recesses of his soul.
Maintaining tight control of her emotions, she continued: “You bit her tongue off, then you ate it.”
“I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t want her crying out.”
“She never had a chance. She trusted you; she admired you.”
Now the madness erupted. Daniels sprang to his feet, screaming: “Don’t give me a fucking lecture, bitch! You were next!”
Langton strong-armed him back into his seat, grunting and struggling. Anna now charged Alan Daniels with eleven counts of murder, including the victims from the United States; to each name Daniels mumbled, “Yes,” to confirm that he was responsible for their murder. By the eighth “yes,” with his bowed head and his half-closed eyes, he resembled a sleeping reptile. When Anna reached the last count of murder, he looked up on hearing the name Melissa Stephens. The fear seemed to have gone. He leaned back in his chair. “You’ll see. I will never spend a day in prison.”
Anna raised an eyebrow, then gathered up the files. Langton was holding the door open for her and she left the room without a backward glance. It was over.
Later that afternoon, Daniels was taken to Wandsworth Prison to await trial. No hope of bail; his lawyer, Radcliff, never even applied.
McDowell was released from prison once the murder charges were dropped. He was given his train fare and expenses back to Manchester, where he would stand trial for drug-related offenses. He would, at a later date, be called to act as a witness for the prosecution. His abstinence from alcohol had made him feel fit and confident, but even as he boarded the train at Euston station, he was making his way to the buffet car.
The tabloids ran headline stories and the newsreels showed old footage of Daniels at every opportunity. They interviewed actors and actresses who had worked alongside him. His celebrity status rose daily. He was a household name. The fame he had hungered for was his, but from his cell in solitary confinement, he was hardly aware of it. Many of the other inmates were eager to get their hands on him and the catcalls and screams of abuse went on day and night.
Langton and the team resigned themselves to remaining in the incident room for as long as it took to pack up their boxes of evidence. After days of preparation, a hundred and twenty boxes of files and statements would be made available to the defense team and the prosecution.
Melissa Stephens had been buried in a small private ceremony. Two weeks later, there was a memorial service and the entire team was present. Her family had arranged a beautiful service and thanked the officers from the pulpit for allowing their daughter to rest in peace at last. The team stood shoulder to shoulder as they sang Melissa’s favorite hymn: “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” The family did not allow the brutality of her death to intrude into her memorial service. She had been all those things in the words of the hymn: bright, and very beautiful, and she was remembered with great love and pride. The memorial would stay in everyone’s mind as a moving celebration of her short life.
Langton and Anna worked together all day packing up the boxes. When he asked her if she wanted to go out for dinner that evening, she agreed and they decided on Italian. She had arranged to collect him at eight o’clock. She took a long time deciding what to wear. As she searched through her wardrobe, Anna caught sight of the dress she had worn to the ballet with Daniels; she bundled it into a plastic bag and chucked it into the bin.
The Mini had been put into a garage to knock out the dents and receive a thorough valet service. When she learned that her car would not be ready for another couple of days, she booked a minicab to collect her and pick Langton up on the way.
Traffic was light and the cab arrived at Langton’s house a few minutes early: just in time for her to see Nina leaving and Langton kissing her good-bye. Anna instructed the cab to take her straight to the restaurant. On the way, she called Langton and said she would meet him there instead.
Langton was over half an hour late, but he had obviously taken considerable time with his appearance. They sat at a small candlelit table chatting like old friends, although they had not been alone since they had spent the night together. Langton was charming and Anna was not at all uncomfortable; unlike Langton, she knew what the outcome of the evening would be.
“You seem different,” he said once the waiter had gone. They had been making small talk, avoiding the obvious.
“Do I?”
“Yes. More confident, perhaps? I don’t want to talk shop all night, but you were very impressive. Your old man would have been proud of you.”
“Thank you. I had more than my share of self-doubt.”
“About what?”
“If I could do it. Or more importantly, ever do it all over again. You know: another case, another victim?”
“And?”
“Melissa Stephens turned me round. To see the satisfaction for her parents of him being brought to justice made it worthwhile. That’s how I knew I wanted to stay on the Murder Squad.”
“I understand.”
“I did go through one night of feeling sorry for myself, for the web of squalor and abuse and violence we were being drawn into. I even thought that I’d begun to understand how Daniels became what he is. But then I realized that he didn’t kill Melissa because of his wretched mother—that’s what he was killing in the others: her image, over and over—but not with Melissa. She was innocent and he knew it soon after he had picked her up by mistake. He killed her to protect himself. Protecting his image and denying his sickness was more important than sparing her life.”
Langton nodded. “In fact, if he hadn’t been stopped, she would have been the start of a whole new cycle where he killed for the sexual excitement. Finally with Melissa he could enjoy sex. It wasn’t just revenge anymore.”
The topic they had been determined not to discuss engaged them passionately for the rest of their meal. Langton became quite tetchy when she suggested splitting the bill, but as they left the restaurant he put his arm round her shoulders and offered to take her home.
“Erm, no thanks. I’ll get a taxi.”
“What?” Surprise and disappointment flitted across his face.
“I meant to tell you in the restaurant. About what happened between us: I want to leave it at that. I’m sorry. It was just that we got to talking about the case—”
“Why?”
“Because maybe we’ll work together again and I think we should keep our relationship on a professional level.”
He couldn’t hide the fact that he was totally stunned. “If that’s what you want,” he said, stepping away from her.
“It is.”
“At least let me take you home,” he said, recovering fast. “I’ve got my car.”
“No, really. I want to get a taxi. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
“What was it? I mean, was it something I said tonight? Or did I do something? Come on, Anna, tell me what the matter is.”
Anna took a deep breath. “Well, I think you have some personal issues and—”
“Personal issues like what?”
“For one thing, your ex-wife still seems to be very much part of your life.”
“Well, it’s complicated, I told you, because of Kitty and—sometimes, yes: she just shows up, stays at my place when she’s nothing better to do. I don’t see that this has anything to do with us.”
Suddenly Anna felt so much older than him. She shook her head. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me, but it has a lot to do with you. Your life is like a tangled ball of string.”
“A what?�
�
Anna sighed. “A ball of string. Sometimes it’s worth untangling.”
“What?”
“You get a ball of string and if you want to use it again, you make the effort to untangle it—”
“Fucking ball of string? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. Your private life is all tangled up.”
“And you’d know about my life, would you?”
“Don’t get angry at me because I’m being honest. I’m just saying, I don’t think you’ve really come to terms with losing your first wife and on top of that you’ve got your daughter and Nina—”
“She just comes by sometimes, when Kitty—”
“I’m very serious about my career. I’d like to work with you again and I think any personal relationship we might have would get in the way. I just don’t want to become part of the tangle.”
She had to stand on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She had forgotten how she loved the feel of his skin and his smell. She felt a sweep of emotion through her body, strong enough to test her resolve, but he broke away first, his face flushed. “Well, I’ll no doubt see you in the morning. At the station.”
“Yes. Thank you for dinner.”
“My pleasure,” he said, walking away, throwing a “good night” over his shoulder. She watched him for a moment. She could tell he was angry by the familiar way his hands clenched at his sides. Then she turned away. She decided not to hail a taxi immediately, but to walk for a while. She was deep in thought when his car caught her up, so she didn’t see the look on his face as he passed her striding down the street. He was driving the old brown Volvo that had been parked beside her Mini that first day in the station car park; the same car that, no doubt, had scrunched the side of her own.
Observing his “little carrottop,” arms swinging, striding along the street, Langton yearned to leap out of the car and take her in his arms. But he didn’t, knowing she was probably right that they might be working together again. It had never worked in the past when he’d had a fling with one of his team. But she was right at a deeper level, too. He had never got over the death of his first wife and Kitty kept him trapped in the relationship with Nina. He looked in the rearview mirror. Anna was staring in a dress shop window at a smart Amanda Wakeley suit. Without so much as a sun shadow across the shoulder.
Above Suspicion (Anna Travis Mysteries Book 1) Page 40