‘What?’
She sat down on the sofa, her legs buckling under her. ‘He wants to take me to Paris and buy me couture!’
He sat down next to her. ‘Come here.’
‘What?’ She was stunned.
‘I said, come here. Come on.’
He held out his arms and, unthinkingly, she rested her head against his chest while he wrapped his arms around her.
‘Tell me everything,’ he said.
She closed her eyes. ‘I just don’t think I can go through it all right now. I’m exhausted. I’m sorry.’ She wanted to ease away from him. ‘I’m just tired out.’
His arms tightened. She was reminded of Alan Daniels’s arms tightening like iron bands and how she had felt like helpless prey. She pushed away from him and stood up. ‘I want to know how in God’s name he was able to turn up here!’
‘Listen, he was monitored. Nothing would have happened to you.’
‘He was here in my flat! He could have killed me!’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I am not stupid!’ she said, flushed with anger.
She had a horrible feeling she was going to cry and the last thing she wanted was for him to see her in tears. She took a deep breath to calm herself down and gave Langton a brief summary of the conversation with Daniels.
‘I managed to leave the phone on speaker, so anything we did say will hopefully have been recorded.’ She headed for the door. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Do you want me with you?’
‘What?’ She froze.
He stood up. ‘I said, would you like me to come with you?’
‘Why don’t you just go home to that blonde?’
Langton threw his arms out wide. ‘“That blonde” is my ex-wife. Are you jealous? Is that why you’re on the attack?’
‘No! What’s really making me angry is that all your so-called surveillance screwed up and I was left alone with a serial killer, all right? But I played my part and only let him know what I was meant to tell him. So I did my job, didn’t I?’
When she slammed her bedroom door, her mind was in a jumble of thoughts. Had she heard right? Did he mean what she thought he had meant? Did he offer to come to bed with her? She felt dizzy. Maybe she had taken it all the wrong way; maybe he didn’t mean it in a sexual way; maybe he just meant that he’d look out for her. So, Nina was his ex-wife. She changed into a pair of pyjamas and buttoned them to the neck. She then cleansed her face, splashed cold water over it, cleaned her teeth. She thought for a moment, then took a pillow from the bed and fetched a blanket from the cupboard. She went back to the living room.
He was on her sofa: his tall, lanky frame curled up, his eyes closed. She dropped the pillow on to the floor and shook out the blanket, then gently laid it over him. She stood looking down at him. She turned off the lights and closed the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Anna thought that with Langton in the next room, she would at least get a good night’s sleep. But after dozing fitfully, she kept waking up, the conversation with Daniels looping round in her mind. Finally, she threw the duvet aside and turned on her bedside light.
She thought about what Langton had said, confused about his intention. Or had she misinterpreted? Surely, he hadn’t meant he would sleep with her? It must have been more along the lines of protecting her. But what if he had meant it sexually? She had turned him down flat and he might never make another approach. Did she want him to? She did: a realization which sent her into turmoil. She was being ridiculous; he had an ex-wife who was probably not as much of an ‘ex’ as he made out.
Anna opened her briefcase. She took out her notebook and sat at her dressing-table. She thumbed through most of the book to find a clean page. While she hoped the entire interaction with Daniels had been recorded rather than just the early part, she decided she would make comprehensive notes just in case. As she worked, she realized that the encounter with Daniels had actually been productive. He had made two major slips. In her eagerness to write more, she pushed aside her jewellery box, some make-up and perfume. The jewellery box fell on to the floor. She winced at the sound; the last thing she wanted to do was to wake Langton.
There was silence from the living room. She bent down to pick up the brooches, earrings and strand of pearls and replaced them in the jewellery box, which had once belonged to her mother. She held up a diamante clip, remembering the sight of it in her mother’s hair one Christmas. It was inexpensive costume jewellery. A few of the coloured stones were missing and the empty claws, where the stones had been, were sharp. She ran her finger over them.
Langton was sitting up, unsure what had woken him. He listened for a moment, then crossed to check the front door. Underneath Anna’s bedroom door, he could see light. Suddenly there was a strange yelp and a loud bang. He burst into the bedroom.
‘Anna!’
She whipped round. She had been standing in front of the dressing-table, the stool fallen to one side. Seeing it was Langton, she almost ran towards him.
‘The pink sliver of glass, in the Mercedes’ seats!’
‘What?’
‘I know what it might be!’
‘Slow down. You almost gave me heart failure.’
She often reminded him of a kid and never more so than now, in her baggy pyjamas with the bottoms almost falling down. She dived back to the dressing-table, jerking the cord to tighten her pyjamas on the way.
‘Melissa Stephens’s T-shirt. The pink diamante logo,’ she was back, waving her notebook in front of him, ‘had one stone missing.’
‘What?’
‘Forensic found a shard of pink glass. It was caught in the stitches, right down in the driver’s seat. What if, when Melissa struggled, it fell out, got crushed? Forensic didn’t know what it was. What if it was off her T- shirt?’
Langton sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘Christ, what time is it? But weren’t those things sequins?’
‘No. Don’t you remember? I told you. It was expensive. They use these clipper things to stick the stones on to the fabric.’
He blinked, trying to take it in. He had been in a deep sleep, one he really needed. He fell back on the bed, sighing. ‘Shit. Why couldn’t you let me sleep, Travis?’
Anna knelt on the bed beside him. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep. I was making notes and I knocked my jewellery box on to the floor and?’
‘Come here,’ he said softly.
She hesitated.
‘Your pyjama bottoms are falling down.’
She hitched them up again, moving away a fraction. He looked up at her and opened his arms. ‘Come here.’
Slowly she put one knee on the bed.
‘I could be right, don’t you think?’
