Night Fall

Table of Contents

Also by Frank Smith

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

The Chief Inspector Paget Mysteries

ACTS OF VENGEANCE

THREAD OF EVIDENCE

CANDLES FOR THE DEAD

STONE DEAD

FATAL FLAW

BREAKING POINT

THE COLD HAND OF MALICE

A KILLING RESURRECTED

IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL

NIGHT FALL

Other Novels

DRAGON'S BREATH

THE TRAITOR MASK

DEFECTORS ARE DEAD MEN

CORPSE IN HANDCUFFS

SOUND THE SILENT TRUMPETS

 

 

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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9 – 15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

Copyright © 2013 by Frank Smith.

The right of Frank Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Smith, Frank, 1927-

Night fall.

1. Paget, Neil (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

2. Murder--Investigation--Fiction. 3. Police--Great

Britain--Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title

813.5'4-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8271-4 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-407-2 (epub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

R
ain spattered the tinted windows. It was late, but there was still a lot of traffic on the road. They'd been ready to leave Chester by eight o'clock, but the driver of the bus hadn't returned to pick them up until after ten, so now it would be midnight or later before they got home. Ben, his name was, the driver. Funny little chap, but he had a way with the girls. He said he'd met an old mate and the time had just slipped by, but it was probably a girl.

They'd spent the time in the pub while they waited. Celebrating. And why not? After all, they'd come third, hadn't they? Third out of twenty-six entries was pretty damned good – far better than they'd expected when they set out this morning – so most of the adults were feeling no pain by the time they got on the bus, and some had continued to drink as they left Chester behind.

There'd been some boisterous celebratory singing on the bus as well, but drink and the strains of the day had finally taken their toll, and it had been quiet for the last half hour or so. Except for the pair in the front seat. Voices had been rising and falling, but now there was a sharp crack like the snapping of a dry twig, and suddenly Meg Bainbridge was on her feet, hands busily brushing down her rumpled skirt.

Her companion half rose in his seat beside her, one hand holding the side of his face. ‘For Christ's sake, sit down, Meg!' he ordered hoarsely. ‘It's just a bit of fun.' He made a grab for her arm and tried to pull her down.

‘Well, it's not my kind of fun!' Meg snapped as she snatched her arm away, ‘so you can keep your hands to yourself, Mike Fulbright.' She set off unsteadily down the aisle towards the back of the bus to look for an empty seat.

‘Then you shouldn't have put it on offer,' he called after her.

Furious, Meg turned to reply, but a small man in the third seat from the front grabbed her hand. ‘Good for you, Meg,' he said loudly for Fulbright's benefit. ‘He's a very dangerous man, is our Mike. It's a good thing you're on a bus and not—'

‘Shut it, you!' Fulbright snapped, glaring at the man.

‘Or what, Mike?' the little man demanded cockily, emboldened by the drink. ‘Do you know what day this is, Mike? Well, do you?'

Meg, clearly puzzled, frowned down at the man, then pulled her hand free and moved on.

‘I know you've got a big mouth,' Mike sneered, ‘and I'm telling you to shut it.'

‘Or what, Mike?'

Conscious that others were listening, Fulbright lowered his voice. ‘I'm just telling you to think about it,' he grated. ‘In fact, I'd think long and hard about it if I were you.' He slid down into his seat.

The little man stared at the open can of beer in his hand, then tilted his head back and drained it. ‘Think about it?' he muttered. ‘I've never stopped bloody thinking about it!' Tears glistened in his eyes and spilled over.

The man beside him stirred. ‘Perhaps not the wisest thing to do,' he suggested mildly. ‘Antagonizing Mike Fulbright, especially when he's had too much to drink.'

The little man brushed ineffectually at the tears but remained silent.

‘If you'd like to talk about it . . .?' his seatmate prodded gently. He put a hand to his mouth to smother a yawn. ‘Bottling things up is rarely a good idea.'

The little man's fingers curled tightly around the empty can, eyes fixed intently on it as it crumpled and collapsed beneath the pressure. ‘Why not?' he muttered in a voice barely above a whisper. Then, more boldly, ‘Why bloody well not!'

He turned his head to squint at the man, then tapped the side of his nose. ‘But you have to promise not to tell anyone,' he warned. ‘I mean it. Not ever. All right . . .?'

Farther back, Meg Bainbridge found an empty seat next to a slim, fair-haired young man by the name of Colin Findlay. Good looking lad . . . well, not a lad, exactly. Married, two kids. Meg rather fancied him, but he was as straight as they come. Straighter. Didn't drink; didn't smoke; probably only had sex once a week if that, and he was the only man on the bus who was wearing a suit and tie. Bernice, that was his wife's name. Pretty little thing but a bit of a prude in Meg's estimation. Thin lips and disapproving eyes, and
very
possessive. Meg had wondered how Colin had come to marry her. Probably got her pregnant, then ‘did the right thing'.

‘Don't mind if I join you, do you, Colin?' she asked, continuing without giving him a chance to answer. ‘Mike can be a lot of fun when he's sober, but he can be a proper bastard when he's had too much to drink.' She leaned closer and giggled beneath her breath when she felt Findlay flinch and try to pull away from the pressure of her breast pressed hard against his arm. ‘And he's not too pleased with you either, Colin, love,' she confided. ‘Not after today's performance, he isn't, so you'd better watch your back in future.' She squeezed his arm. ‘And me sitting here with you isn't going to improve his temper,' she added brightly, ‘so like I said, you'd better watch it, love.'

He tried to ease away, but the seat was narrow and there was nowhere to go. The heady fragrance of Meg's perfume was overpowering. He turned his head away and tried to breathe more shallowly, but there was no escaping it.

‘I didn't expect to win,' he said plaintively. ‘I mean I didn't set out to upset Mike. It's just that—'

He stopped abruptly as Meg reached out and pressed her fingers against his lips. ‘I know, Colin, love,' she said, ‘but I'm tired and I don't want to talk any more.' She yawned, then snuggled down and laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. ‘You don't mind, do you, love?' she murmured sleepily. Her long black hair felt soft and warm against his cheek.

Findlay breathed in deeply. ‘Not at all, Meg,' he croaked huskily. ‘Really, I don't mind at all.'

T
he town hall clock was striking eleven when the front door of a house on Thurston Street opened and a small group of men stepped out into the night. They paused in the act of pulling hoods over their heads, surprised to find it had stopped raining. Then, with mutterings of ‘G'night,' they made their way to their cars and drove off.

Billy Travis, alone on the pavement, thrust his hands in his pockets and turned towards home. It was dark; street lights were few and far between in this older part of town, but home was only a few streets away.

It had been a good session. The highlight of the night had been a demonstration by Ted Grayson of special effects that could be achieved
without
using a computer. Not everyone had found it as fascinating as he had, though. They were all computer mad these days, quick to use every new-fangled piece of software that would – what was the word? Enhance! That was the word they were so fond of using. Enhance their pictures. Well, that might be all right for some, but to him it was no different than cheating, and he had found Grayson's presentation refreshing. This obsession with manipulating pictures using Photoshop and other devices . . . Billy shook his head. Not that he was dead set against them; he'd made use of them himself at one time or another, but he'd been brought up the old way, helping his dad in the darkroom, watching images appear on a piece of blank paper, lifting them out of the tray with tweezers when his dad said, ‘Now, Billy. Now!'

He liked Ted Grayson, liked going to meetings in his house with all the black and white pictures on the walls and the collection of old cameras in the back room. Grayson himself was something of a character. Gaunt-faced and pale, he was tall and thin, and with his straggling pony-tail and his addiction to weed, he looked – and sometimes acted – like a hippie from the sixties. But what Grayson didn't know about cameras wasn't worth knowing, in Billy's opinion.

The smell of weed was still with him. It was the same every time; it clung to his clothing, and he'd never been able to convince his father that he hadn't been smoking the stuff himself.

He'd be in bed now, his father. The fitful weather of the past few days was playing havoc with his arthritic knees, and he'd been going to bed early and taking a sleeping tablet to get some relief from the pain. Fifty-seven years old and he was hobbling around like a man of ninety. He was—

‘
Aahhgg!
' Billy gasped as he collided with the figure of a man stepping out of a dark doorway. He stumbled and would have fallen if the man hadn't reached out and grabbed his arm.

‘Sorry,' the man said. ‘My fault. I should have looked where— Billy? Billy Travis? Is that you? Good God, man, fancy bumping into you like this. Are you all right?'