Langton looked across to Anna.
‘You want to ask anything?’
She hesitated.
‘Do you recall any of the names of the other girls that lived at the house?’ She opened her notebook.
‘You’re asking the impossible,’ said Green, scratching his head.
‘If I was to read out a few names, can you tell me if any are familiar?’
‘Sure. But this was a long time ago. Most of them are probably in the cemetery.’
Langton gave her a brief nod.
‘Teresa Booth?’
He shook his head. She continued at random through the list of victims and got the same response to Mary Murphy; he shook his head for Beryl Villiers, again for Sandra Donaldson, but when she said the name ‘Kathleen Keegan’, he hesitated.
‘I think she was at the house. Name sounds familiar.’
‘And Barbara Whittle?’
‘Yeah. That sounds familiar too.’ Green could not elaborate on whether or not the two women were residents, claiming he just recognized their names. ‘There were all sorts, different ages, living at that place. Lot of kids too, just running wild. Social services wore out the path to the front door.’
The house had been demolished. This would mean another extensive search of past records. And the Keegan and Whittle families would have to be questioned again to see if they recalled either victim living at 12 Shallcotte Street.
Langton weaved his way down the aisle of the carriage, carrying two cups. He set the coffees down on the table between them. He lit a cigarette.
‘How much do I owe you?’ she said.
‘On me. Really.’
Langton took out his mobile phone and began to scroll through his calls. He went to stand by the door and Anna watched him through the glass partition, talking. He made call after call, his face concentrated and unsmiling. He did have, she thought, quite a handsome face. His nose was too thin and hooked slightly, but his eyes were nice, expressive, as were his hands. The dark shadow round his chin gave it a bluish hue, both attractive and not. For a police officer, he also didn’t dress that badly, she decided. His suit was quite stylish; so were his shoes. She turned quickly to stare out of the window as he returned.
Langton drained his cold coffee and slid back in his seat.
‘Good work, Travis, listing the victims. Good thinking.’
‘Thank you.’
He leaned back, loosening his tie. ‘It’s been one step forward, two steps back. But today, I think, we paced a bit ahead. What do you think?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I think if he is our killer, something happened to him at that house in Shallcotte Street. The picture of him screaming at being forced to leave Mrs Morgan’s care is tragic. The cat incident shows how scared he must have been. From four to eight years. That’s a long time for a child to be in a hellish place. That would have shaped his character, if he is our killer.’
Langton said something so quietly that she missed it.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’d put money on it. It’s him.’
They remained silent for a while. When she stared at her reflection in the window, she saw her hair was standing up on end, like a kid’s.
‘How’s your stomach?’ he said, yawning.
‘It’s fine. Thank you for asking.’ She was trying to think what she could talk about. ‘How old is your daughter?’
‘Kitty? She’s eleven; lives with my ex-wife.’ He patted his pocket and took out his wallet. He sifted through receipts and crumpled banknotes before withdrawing a small photograph.
‘This was taken a few years ago. She’d just lost her front teeth.’
Anna looked at the photograph. Kitty had dark curly hair, big bright eyes and was giving a wide grin to the camera.
‘She’s cute.’
‘She’s a right little tomboy.’
She watched as he replaced the photograph in his wallet. Then he stared at his reflection in the window.
‘You’re divorced?’ she asked tentatively. He slowly turned to face her. ‘Yes, I’m divorced.’ He smiled and regarded her almost with amusement. ‘Got a boyfriend?’
‘Oh … few people around, nothing serious. Well, I wouldn’t have the time right now, you know, to have a relationship. I suppose it must be even more difficult for someone like you.’ ‘Why?’
‘Well, you know, it’s a full-time occupation, isn’t it?’ ‘Is that why my marriage broke up?’ he asked. Anna was unsure how to respond. ‘Sorry?’ He gave a soft laugh. ‘Travis, you are obviously pumping me for information. Truth is, I am a workaholic, but work had nothing to do with my divorce. I would put my marriage failure down to extra- marital liaisons.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he looked up and laughed. ‘Especially blondes. I’m a sucker for blondes.’
There was a glint in his eye. She couldn’t tell if he was telling her the truth or sending her up.
He leaned back. ‘What are you a sucker for, Travis?’ ‘Toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches.’ He grinned, then closed his eyes. ‘Your old man would be proud of you.’ She felt a compulsion to cry. When she looked at him again, he seemed fast asleep. She watched his head slowly slide to one side. After a while, she too leaned back and closed her eyes.
Anna jolted awake; Langton was lightly touching her cheek.
‘Just coming into the station.’ He sat up and started straightening his tie.
‘Oh, I must have dropped off.’
‘You certainly did. I’ve been trying to wake you for five minutes.’ They were in the last carriage. When he slid the door open, a large gap was revealed between the platform and the train. Langton jumped. Then to Anna’s astonishment, he turned back, grabbed her by the waist and swung her down to the platform. She was so close to him, she could smell the nicotine and coffee on his breath.
‘My God, you’re heavier than you look,’ he joked. After making sure she was on terra firma, he strode off at his usual pace. Anna scurried behind him. She might look like a mere slip of a thing, she reflected ruefully, but she was muscular. One of her father’s favourite jokes was to take her on his knee, feel her little legs and say they were all muscle. Then he’d moan, ‘HEAVY muscle. She weighs a ton.’
Her mother, Isabelle, had long, slender limbs. Her dad would tease Anna that she should have been a boy, because the next baby would take after her mother. She never did have a sibling, though. It was not a source of pain or conflict in the family. It had simply never happened.
Outside the station, they parted ways. Langton had decided to take the tube home and Anna told him she would be catching a bus. In fact, she didn’t. Once he was out of sight, she hailed a taxi. She always did this when it was late. Jack Travis had made his daughter extremely aware of the risks for young women of walking home on their own from a bus stop or tube station late at night.
His love and care for her had been like a protective cloud. As she flopped down on her pillow that night, Anna could hear her father’s voice. Sometimes, though rarely, she heard her mother’s voice. Once, at the dinner table, she had teased her husband about his ‘scaremongering’. ‘You shouldn’t scare Anna,’ she said. In answer, he came over to where his wife was sitting and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
‘Izzy, if you saw what I do, day in and day out, you’d understand. I have the most precious two women in the world. God forbid anything should harm them.’
Anna was missing her parents now. At such times she felt herself very much an orphan.
Unable to sleep, she started to mull over the day’s work. Finally she sat up and picked up her notebook. Mrs Morgan had described a school scarf; perhaps they should focus on tracking the suspect from that quarter.
Yet again, Langton was one step ahead of Anna. He already had a member of the team tracking the college their suspect may have attended. Langton hoped to find a later photo of Anthony Duffy to put out to the public, to
