Anna felt the tension rising in the room. Stacked high on Langton’s desk were fifteen or more videos, all films or television series featuring Alan Daniels. Anna noted a number of film and TV magazines nearby.
Langton indicated the pile of videos. ‘I’ve been through most of these and I expect all of you to do the same. Use the video set up in the briefing room. No need to wade through the entire thing, just fast forward to Duffy. Be aware of who we are dealing with. Keep foremost in your mind that he’s an actor. Over there are some back issues of film magazines and Hello! and OK that I want you to check. Guess what? He’s in all of them.
‘He lives alone in a substantial property on Queen’s Gate, Kensington. The only access is the front door; there is no rear exit. The basement is occupied by four students from the Royal College of Art. Two women from the Victoria and Albert Museum rent the top floor from Duffy. Right now, though, he’s the only occupant in the building.’
Langton continued to bring them up to date. Their suspect did not drive a Mercedes, but a Lexus saloon. He was wealthy, with over two million pounds in the bank. He paid his taxes on time, seemed law-abiding; so far had not even had an outstanding parking ticket.
His theatrical agent had been helpful, according to Langton. Seemingly unaware of the serious implications of the situation, the agent gave Langton details of his client’s availability and schedule. He was currently filming at Pinewood Studios but had a four-day break coining up when he would be available for interviews. Langton promised to get back to him.
He wrapped up the briefing with one final piece of information: two officers had been outside the Queen’s Gate address for twenty-four hours. They had orders to report back to base, if Duffy, as he continued to call him, left home. Langton was due to arrive at Duffy’s residence at two o’clock, to escort him in.
There was a strange air of unease back in the incident room. Langton was under heavy pressure to make a fast decision regarding Duffy’s involvement in this case, so they would know later in the day if they had captured a suspect at last.
When Travis, Lewis and Barolli went to the briefing room to watch the tapes, Lewis was surprised to discover how many of the films he had seen. Not great blockbusters, he explained, but some of them were good genre films.
Anna found it eerie to watch Daniels age onscreen. In the films he made as a young man, his voice had not matured, but by the early 1990s the older Daniels had acquired a deep, resonant voice with an upper-class, aristocratic tone. He seemed best suited to costume dramas.
Lewis had control of the remote in his hand and was constantly fast-forwarding or rewinding without consulting the others. He stopped the tape suddenly and said earnestly, ‘I saw this film. Funny I’d never heard of his name till now. Parts are getting bigger; see, he’s in this one in almost every scene.’ Lewis fast-forwarded again.
‘Could we just actually watch a couple of sections?’ Anna said impatiently.
‘Turning you on, is he?’ Lewis sniggered.
‘I would just like to get a good look at him.’
‘It’s odd how he can be making a fortune, when people like me have never heard of him,’ Barolli contributed.
An hour later they sat watching Falcon Bay, an American mini-series. The men’s constant banter was starting to irritate Anna. She was relieved when Lewis and Barolli decided they had seen enough for one day and left her to watch alone. She took the remote. Now she could pay closer attention to Alan Daniels, whose talent was obvious. His onscreen presence grew more commanding with every scene. It was his stillness, she thought, that was most compelling.
She fast-forwarded to a scene set in a vast bedroom swathed in silks and billowing curtains. Daniels was sitting on the bed, a shotgun held loosely in his hands. His costume — riding boots, tight britches, shirt open to the waist and a silk scarf loosely draped around the neck — showed his lithe, muscular body to perfection. When he turned slowly, Anna noticed the woman who lay behind him, her dark hair spread across the pillow. She wore a lace nightgown, with the frill loose around her shoulders.
‘How long have you known?’ he asked softly.
‘Since Christmas,’ she said, eyes closed.
‘And you haven’t told me until now?’
‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to lose you. Please, come to bed. Lie beside me, just once more.’
Anna drew closer, fascinated by Daniels’s performance. His sexuality exuded mystery. Slowly, he drew the scarf away from his neck and discarded it. He knelt at the end of the bed, as if to pray.
‘Come to me, darling,’ she pleaded.
As she held out her arms he raised the shotgun. Her eyes opened wide with fright as he fired, her blood spattering his face and white shirt. Slowly, he reloaded the gun; then suddenly, unexpectedly, he turned it towards himself.
As the camera moved in closer, Anna’s attention was glued to the screen. His eyes at that moment were like a wounded animal’s, full of pain. He was about to pull the trigger when he paused and threw the gun aside. He crawled over the bed, to get closer to the woman’s body. Then he lay down beside her and gently drew her nightgown down to reveal her breasts. He rested his head against her heart.
‘One last time, my darling,’ he murmured, then he turned to kiss her breasts.
Anna almost shot out of her seat. The door had banged open and now Lewis leered at her from the doorway.
‘Aha! You’re still watching! Can’t get enough, eh?’
She picked up the remote, red-faced and turned off the set.
‘Gov wants you!’
‘Me?’
‘Needs a woman’s touch. In his office.’
She ejected the video and placed it in its box where, on the cover, Alan Daniels, shotgun in his hand, stood like a character out of Gone With The Wind.
Lewis was still hovering at the door. ‘Looks like you and Langton are getting to be quite an item.’
‘For God’s sake, Mike, leave off.’
‘I wouldn’t let it go much further, Travis.’ He smirked. ‘He’s got a bad reputation.’
‘Why are you doing this? Is it because you’re pissed off he didn’t ask you to go to Queen’s Gate?’
‘God, no. Just being a friend,’ Lewis muttered as he left.
Langton was on the phone when she entered his office. He gestured for her to wait for him to finish his conversation, then continued in the mouthpiece: ‘Right. Yes, yes, we’ll do that. Yes, yes. Travis and I are going to pick him up now.’
He threw Anna a pained expression.
‘Fine. Thank you. Talk later.’ He replaced the phone. ‘They’re certainly getting hot under the collar. They don’t want Daniels questioned without legal representation. So when we pick him up, he gets to make his call.’
‘Did you tell Lewis you wanted me to go with you?’
‘Yeah. Way I want to work it is “slowly, slowly catchee monkey”. If he isn’t the one, we’ll know fast. Since so many of these fucking solicitors run the show now, I just want one crack at him before he starts the “no comment” game.’
He looked at her steadily for a moment.
‘Does your hair grow like that, or is it some kind of style?’ He cocked his head to one side.
She ran her fingers awkwardly through her hair.
‘It just has a bad habit of doing this.’
‘Well, go and tidy yourself up. We leave at a quarter past one. Get some lunch too, if you haven’t had any.’
She was headed for the door.
‘Travis?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes?’
‘What did you think of the film retrospective?’
