Lynda La Plante - Above Suspicion

Though he described being taken screaming from ‘the only real family I had ever known’, Daniels showed only cold anger towards the foster carers. He finally found sanctuary on reaching an age when his testimony could incriminate his mother. Then came the proposed school trip, which required a passport. How his mother had rubbed his nose in the fact that his father could have been any one of a hundred men. He recalled desperately searching for his mother and how he was enraged to find her up against a punter in an alley.

‘She didn’t even recognize me. The whore was pissed out of her mind.’ He started to laugh. ‘Anyway, he left and I grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall. I raped her; I tore into her; I wanted to rip her apart.’

In the file in front of her, Anna had all the statements referring to the incident. Statements taken from ex-detective Southwood, McDowell and the officer they had interviewed in Manchester. All had different versions, different perspectives of the same attack on Lilian Duffy. Lost in the fire at the police station would have been the original statement from Lilian Duffy herself, but only now did they get the actual wretched, blow-by-blow account from her son.

Daniels looked at his hands, rubbed at a fingernail. ‘The dripping bitch reported me. So, I went round to that shithole they all lived in and I shoved her in the airing cupboard. See how she liked it! Kept her there all night, too, until she promised to withdraw the charges. Soon as I let her out, the old bitch went in and identified me. So I had to beat her up again.’

Daniels described how she withdrew charges the next day. He gave a wide, expansive gesture. ‘She was frightened of me by then. The tables had turned. Payback time. I started to plan exactly how I would kill her.’

His expression became gleeful as he continued quietly: ‘You see, I borrowed a mate’s car — an old Rover, it was. I waited. I watched her patrolling her patch. Stopping the punters. Ducking and diving.’ He mimed rolling down a car window. ‘Out of her head, she was. Couldn’t even walk straight.’ He put on a foreign accent: ‘Hello, darling. You a working girl? You wanna ride with me?’

He rocked back in his chair. ‘She only got in, didn’t she? Anyways, she says “Anthony, what you playing at?” And I said, “I liked fucking you. I want to do it again. I’ve got moves.” “Oh, you naughty boy,” she says. She starts to undo her shirt. I says no, I want her to lay down, I want to do it properly; not up against some wall or in a back-street alley, but like I was a real man, wanting to make love. I showed her a wad of cash. Anyway, she was creaming herself.

‘I drove to this waste ground. We climb out of the car and she starts undressing fast, like she’s really wanting it. And then I say, “Take off your bra, Mama.” And she undoes her bra. “I’m going to do it like I’ve seen you like it.” Then I tie her hands tight, she was into that. We keep on walking, me pushing her in front. Then she lies down, legs apart. And she is all eager, saying she will do anything I want, she loves me and I tell her she’s beautiful and I take her stinking tights off.’

Daniels put his head to one side and looked at Anna with a winsome smile. ‘So, here’s my mum: lying there as I ease off these tights, smiling as I wind them round her neck — once, twice — and I’m saying, “I know you like it this way,” and she giggles.’ Daniels held his hands apart and then he drew them together. ‘Well, it got tighter and tighter, didn’t it, and more and more uncomfortable. So she starts struggling. I leaned in close, closer, wanting to watch her die, and I tied them in a knot. And then I leaned up and sat astride her, watching her gasping and choking. She couldn’t stop me: her hands were tied behind her back.’

‘Did you have sexual intercourse with her?’ Anna knew they had no DNA, as the victim’s body was so decomposed.

‘Oh, yeah, I fucked her. I made sure she was watching as I strangled her. But my timing was off. I hadn’t perfected it by then, you see. She died before I came.’ Daniels burst out laughing. ‘My dick went flat as a pancake. But when I was lying on top of her, watching the light go out of her eyes, I thought how it was the perfect justice. She was my first.’

Anna asked him to pinpoint on a map exactly where the killing had taken place. He frowned as he peered at the map, then turned it round. ‘Oh, right. Here we are.

There’s the bus shelter just there and then a housing estate about a mile up that road.’

He picked up one of Anna’s pencils and carefully marked the area with a cross. He passed the map and the pencil back to her. ‘In the nick, this slob interviewed me for hours.’

‘Was his name Southwood?’ Anna interjected.

‘Yeah, that’s him. I recognized him. Well, it was family night. He’d shafted my mother, like most of Manchester. But they had nothing on me, so’s they had to let me go.’

Anna was intrigued by the way his voice changed from his well-modulated upper-class tone to a northern accent and back again. In the accent of his early childhood, the timbre of his voice was rough with a strong nasal twang. She remembered an important question she had planned to ask him. ‘Did you retain any keepsake from the murder of your mother?’

‘What?’

‘On the night she was murdered, did you take anything from her?’

Daniels nodded. ‘I see where you’re going. Yeah, she’d left her handbag in the car: twenty-two quid, a few skins and her make-up. I used to make myself up with her stuff. It was a turn on, you know?’

‘Why’s that?’

‘It reminded me of watching her die.’

‘Do you still have this handbag?’

He wagged his finger at her. ‘Yes, yes. I still got it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Maybe tell you later.’

‘It is important that you tell me now.’

‘Why?’

‘It provides evidence that what you have been telling me is the truth.’

‘Don’t you believe me, Anna?’ he asked, innocently batting his eyelashes.

‘You could have been acting throughout this entire interview. After all, you are a very famous actor, Mr Daniels,’ she said smoothly, though her insides were churning.

‘Oh, right, I see. In my bathroom there’s a big cupboard: fitted, glass panels, made especially to my specifications. Take everything out. There’s a panel at the back which comes off. That’s where the rest of them are. You lot would never have found them without me. You already searched my place, didn’t you, and came up empty-handed? Oh, and write this down, Anna. I took out three of them and hid them at McDowell’s place.’

Langton got up and left the room. Anna mentioned for the benefit of the tape that Detective Chief Inspector Langton had left the interview room. Daniels watched the door close.

Anna had selected the Kathleen Keegan file and took out her photograph. ‘Could you please identify this woman, Mr Daniels?’

He gave it a cursory glance. ‘Kathleen Keegan. A disgusting old bitch and that is a flattering photograph. She weighed eighteen stone, the bloated old cow. An even worse piece of shit than my mother.’

‘Did you murder Kathleen Keegan?’

He grinned back, placing arms outstretched on the table. ‘You bet your sweet pussy I did, Anna.’

Outside, Langton was having a quiet confab with Lewis. He instructed Lewis to arrange for a car to stand by. He checked his watch and said they would take a break at four o’clock. Then they would take Daniels to his flat and search it with his solicitor present.

‘How is she doing?’ Lewis asked.

‘She’s doing OK,’ Langton said quietly. ‘But she’ll need a break soon.’

When Langton returned to his seat in the interview room, Daniels winked at him and then he nodded at Anna.