Breaking Point (11 page)

‘Sounds great,' Grace told him, but mentally made a note to phone the pub and check their bill of fare before agreeing to go out there for dinner. Tregalles might well be right about the food, but on the other hand, his idea of a good meal was a hot meat pie or a Gloucester sausage and chips.

A young waitress appeared at Paget's elbow, and they ordered drinks. ‘The usual sherry?' Paget asked Grace. She thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘I think I'll have a lager for a change,' she said.

He nodded to the waitress. ‘And I'll have a whisky,' he said.

‘Water on the side?' she enquired.

‘Please.'

‘Whisky? It
must
have been a hard day,' Grace observed when the girl had gone.

‘It was,' he admitted. ‘And we have more of the same tomorrow, I'm afraid.'

Grace smiled sympathetically as she picked up the menu. ‘Try to forget about Mr Brock,' she said soothingly. ‘Don't let him spoil your dinner.'

He picked up his own menu and pretended to study it, but his thoughts had nothing to do with Brock. Difficult as the man was, at least Paget knew what the issues were when dealing with the chief superintendent. But Grace was another matter. He had booked a table here tonight because he'd thought that once they'd had dinner and were relaxing over drinks, he might broach the subject of the flat; perhaps even mention Perelli's call this afternoon.

But looking at her now, head bent, hair gleaming softly beneath the lights, his courage failed him. What if his fears were true, and Grace
was
keeping her options open? What if he forced her into telling him that she wasn't sure that she could stay? He didn't want to lose her. What if . . .?

‘Oh, look, Neil,' she said, breaking into his thoughts. ‘The special for tonight is lasagne. You like Italian, so why don't you have that? I wouldn't mind some of that myself, but I don't want anything too heavy, so perhaps I'd better have the chicken.'

Italian. Perelli! He took a deep breath.

‘Neil . . .?' Grace raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Chicken,' he said, then added hastily, ‘I think you're right; lasagne would be a bit heavy, so I'll have the chicken as well.'

Grace reached over and patted his hand. ‘Good choice,' she said approvingly.

And appropriate, given his state of mind, he thought as he set the menu aside.

P
aget went in early the following morning to try to get some work done before going over to New Street, but Tregalles was there ahead of him. ‘Not that I've got a hell of a lot to report,' he admitted, ‘but I can give you what we have so far.'

He sat down to face Paget across the desk as the chief inspector settled into his own chair.

‘Mary Turnbull seems to be about the only one Doyle talked to in the caravan park,' the sergeant said, ‘but even she couldn't tell me much about the man himself. I spoke to her again yesterday, and she said Doyle often talked about his work and the people he was working for, but she couldn't tell me anything about what he'd been working on recently. She did think it a bit strange, because he was going off to work early each morning and coming home late at night, and he seemed to be quite excited about it, but he wouldn't tell her anything about it. The only thing he did say was that the money was good –
very
good, she said – so she thought the reason he was keeping shtum about the job was because it was something he was doing for someone on the sly, and he didn't want anyone to get wind of it.'

‘Did she say how long he'd been on this job?' Paget asked.

‘About a couple of weeks. But she gained the impression that he thought it might turn into something bigger, so she was surprised when he suddenly stopped going to work last week. In fact she said he hardly left his caravan the last few days he was there.

‘Which might be because of the incident in the pub when he was seen to be talking to Newman,' Tregalles concluded. ‘It was a warning he took seriously – seriously enough to lie low for a while.'

‘But not low enough, apparently,' said Paget. ‘But why didn't this woman tell you all this before?'

‘Just never occurred to her that it had any bearing, I suppose.'

‘Anything else?' asked Paget as he began sorting through the papers on his desk.

‘All but two of the caravan owners have been covered, as well as most of the people in the village, but no one could tell us anything. It seems that Doyle worked strictly for cash. He would never take a cheque; he had no use for cash cards or credit cards, or anything that might leave a paper trail. In fact, even Revenue & Customs have no record of him, which means he's never paid income tax, at least not under the name of Doyle. Forsythe is out again this morning to talk to some of the people he's worked for in the past, and I'm going back out later as well, but I doubt if we'll do any better than we did yesterday.'

‘And nothing new on Newman, I take it?'

‘We tracked down his parents and Ormside talked to Newman's father. Not that he was a fat lot of help, because Len said he didn't seem to care one way or the other whether his son was missing or not.'

There had been nothing in Mark Newman's room to give them a clue to where his parents lived, but, knowing the boy's birth date, and assuming Emma Baker was right about his parents living in either Plymouth or Portsmouth, Ormside had tracked them down in Plymouth, and spoken to Newman's father on the phone.

‘He said he hadn't seen his son for more than a year,' Tregalles continued, ‘nor had he heard from him. Seems Newman senior wanted his son to follow him in the family restaurant business, but Mark wasn't having any. He was determined to be a journalist, so they parted company. Len said the man sounded pretty bitter, but he did finally agree to call us if he heard from Mark.

‘Emma Baker has been watching the post in case anything comes addressed to Newman, but there's been nothing so far. She's also talked to everyone she can think of herself, but she's had no better luck than we've had.'

‘Anything from the university?' Emma Baker had told Paget that Newman had been planning to go back
to university in September. ‘Derby, I think,' she'd said. ‘At least that's where he took his first year, so I assume he would be going back there again.'

Again, Tregalles shook his head. ‘One of Len's people is working on it,' he said. ‘And just in case there is any truth to what one of the men told Mary about Doyle going off to Ireland, Len has people checking on the trains and the ferries, but they've had no luck so far. Can't say I'm surprised; I think the answer lies closer to home.

‘So,' he said with a sigh of resignation as he got to his feet, ‘I'll go back out there, and let you know if there is anything to report.' He paused at the door. ‘Anyway, apart from all that, how's the inquisition going in New Street? Getting anywhere with our beloved leader, are you? More men? Shorter work week? Longer holidays, maybe?'

‘Get out of here before I send you over in my place,' Paget growled. ‘And show a little respect. It's
Chief Superintendent
Brock to you, Sergeant.'

Tregalles shrugged an apology. ‘Sorry, boss,' he said humbly, ‘but I thought I
was
showing a little respect – as little as . . . OK, OK, I'm gone,' he said as he made for the door.

Friday afternoon, school was over and they had the whole weekend before them. They weren't supposed to be there, of course, but nine and eleven-year-old boys have always been inclined to go where they were not supposed to be. To be fair to Jimmy Greenwood and his best mate, Sean Calloway, they were well aware of the dangers – if not of the terrain itself, at least of the amount of trouble they'd be in if they were found out – and both exercised considerable caution in their descent down the crumbling sides of the old quarry to the water's edge.

‘See,' said Jimmy, pointing to a half-submerged oil drum and several broken boards. ‘Told you. Somebody's been down and smashed our raft. Dunno what happened to the other barrel. Must have sunk, and that one doesn't look as if it's going to be much good either.'

Sean, the elder of the two, squatted down beside the water and scooped up a handful of stones. ‘Dunno how,' he said thoughtfully as he threw a stone at the remaining oil drum. ‘It would take a lot to bust 'em up like that. Could've been that mob from the Flats, I s'pose,' he said, referring to a gang of young thugs who made occasional raids into Sean and Jimmy's territory to steal bikes or kick out the spokes of those that were locked and chained. He threw two more stones and was rewarded with a satisfying clang as he scored a direct hit with the last one. ‘Can't think who else would do it, can you?'

But Jimmy didn't respond. He'd been looking at something on the side of the quarry at some distance from where they stood. ‘It was a landslide,' he declared. ‘Look, the side's caved in over there. Look at the size of those stones! Boulders, more like. That's what did it. Wish we'd been here to see it.' The thought prompted him to look up nervously at the route they would have to travel to get back up to the top of the quarry.

‘Not much we can do down here, anyway,' he said, trying to conceal his fear from Sean. After all, if it could happen once it could happen again. ‘Might as well go back up.'

Sean stayed behind to throw a few more stones before following his friend to the top. ‘Come on, then, let's take a closer look,' he said, wiping his hands on his trousers.

The two boys trotted along the edge to the place where they could see the grass had been torn away, leaving a long jagged scar in the side of the quarry.

‘Better not get too close,' Jimmy warned. ‘It might still be loose.'

But Sean was bent over studying something on the ground. ‘I reckon a car's gone over here,' he said soberly as he straightened up. ‘There's tyre marks and they go right over the edge.'

He moved closer to the edge and peered down. ‘Look!' he said excitedly, ‘you can see it!'

Jimmy moved forward cautiously. ‘I don't see anything,' he said, moving back.

‘You're not going to see anything from there, you twit,' Sean said disdainfully. He grabbed his friend's arm and dragged him forward. ‘There! See it under the water? And it's not a car, it's a van. Bet it made a hell of a splash! Wish we'd seen it go in.'

‘Yeah!' Jimmy breathed as he began to pull back to safer ground.

‘Bet somebody's in it,' Sean said. ‘They'd be drowned by now, though, I expect. Wonder how they got in?' The gate at the end of the road leading to the quarry had been padlocked for years. ‘Let's have a look.'

The older boy set off across the field toward the gate, while his friend followed at a slower pace. Jimmy Greenwood didn't like the way things were going. Unlike his friend, who seemed to be taking it all in his stride, he kept thinking about the consequences of their find.

‘Been busted,' Sean said, rattling the padlock. ‘Busted and put back again, so you know what that means, don't you?'

Jimmy shook his head.

‘It means,' said Sean with exaggerated patience, ‘that they closed the gate so no one would know they'd been through. Suicide. That's what it is. Suicide, and I bet there's more than one down there as well. I'm going back for another look.'

‘We'll have to tell the police.'

‘Oh, yeah? And then what?' Sean scoffed. ‘How're you going to explain that to your dad, eh? Don't be daft. We can't
tell
anyone, because we're not supposed to be here in the first place, are we?'

Paget was kneeling beside the filing cabinet when Charlie Dobbs appeared in the doorway of his office.

‘Say a prayer for me while you're down there,' Charlie said jocularly. ‘We could both use some extra help from what I hear.'

Paget stood up and locked the filing cabinet and dropped the keys in his pocket. ‘Couldn't close the drawer,' he said by way of explanation. ‘One of the wheels was off the rail. Hardly surprising, considering the amount of stuff packed in there. Anyway, what are you doing over here, Charlie?'

‘Alcott wanted to talk about the February stats. To tell you the truth, I was expecting another lecture on how much we've been charging him for our services, but as it turned out, he was quite happy for a change, because the amount of overtime we've charged him in the last couple of months is down by twenty-two percent.'

Paget frowned. ‘That's a surprise,' he said. ‘I thought you must be swamped, considering the amount of overtime Grace has been working lately.'

‘Grace?' Paget's head was down as he cleared his desk and locked the drawers, so he missed the look of surprise on Charlie's face.

‘That's right,' he said, straightening up. ‘As a matter of fact, I'm a bit worried about her, Charlie. I think she could do with some time off. I know you depend on her a lot, and she never complains, but couldn't you ease up on her just a bit?'

Charlie's mind was racing. Things had been fairly quiet lately, and Grace hadn't worked more than three or four hours overtime in the past couple of months. So what was Paget talking about? More to the point, what was Grace up to? Whatever it was, he didn't want to say anything until he'd had a chance to talk to her.

‘You're probably right,' he said. ‘I must admit I do depend on her a great deal, but I'll see what I can do.'

‘Appreciate it, Charlie,' Paget told him, ‘but please don't tell her I said anything to you. She'd never forgive me.'

Charlie gave a grunt that could mean anything as he looked at his watch. ‘Got to go,' he said. ‘Talk to you later, Neil.'

Paget's step was lighter as he left the building. He felt better now that he had spoken to the inspector. It was so easy to keep loading the work onto someone you could depend on – he'd been guilty of that himself more than once – and it just needed someone to remind you that there were other resources you could call on. And now that he had drawn it to Charlie's attention, he felt sure that the inspector would do the right thing, and Grace would never know that he had intervened on her behalf.