Night Fall (28 page)

But what did that prove? she thought glumly. Even if they had all been in the same choir many years ago, there was no evidence to suggest that they'd kept up that friendship. And if it turned out that being a member of the choir had nothing to do with the recent killings, then she'd wasted a hell of a lot of her time as well as that of other people.

She looked at the clock. Connie Rice's mother, now Mrs Donovan, had been contacted late last evening by the Bristol police, and she'd said that she and her husband would come up to Broadminster first thing this morning. They would probably be here by ten o'clock, and, once again, Molly had been assigned to ‘do the honours', as Ormside put it, and she wasn't looking forward to it at all. She sighed. At least she'd remembered to call Dr Starkie's office to let them know that Mrs Donovan would be there this morning to identify the body.

Sheila Donovan arrived shortly before ten o'clock. A short, plump, middle-aged woman, she was accompanied by her husband, Alex, also short, but lean and wiry and deeply tanned. ‘Sorry you couldn't reach us before,' he said apologetically, ‘but we were in Eastbourne over the weekend. Golf tournament. We didn't know, you see. I mean, how could we?' He eased Molly away from his wife. ‘You are
quite
sure it really is Connie, are you?' he asked anxiously. ‘I wouldn't want Sheila . . .' He lowered his voice further. ‘She's barely spoken two words since we heard last night. They didn't see a lot of each other, Sheila and Connie, but they used to talk on the phone. Is it all right if I stay with her while she . . . you know?'

‘Views the body? Yes, of course, Mr Donovan. We're quite sure it is Connie, but we still need official verification.'

Sheila Donovan appeared to be calm and in control of her emotions as she stood before the window, and her voice was steady when she said, ‘Yes, that's Connie,' in answer to Molly's question. But suddenly her eyes rolled up and her knees gave way and she would have fallen if it hadn't been for the quick reaction of her husband. Between them, they got her to a bench, and the attendant, who had seen it all before, was there in seconds to offer help. Sheila opened her eyes and started to cry, then buried her face into her husband's shoulder and clung to him. Cradling her in his arms, Alex Donovan spoke quietly to Molly. ‘I knew it would be a shock for her,' he said, ‘but I wasn't quite ready for this.' He glanced around the small room and wrinkled his nose. ‘Just give us a minute or two, then we'll get her outside in the fresh air.'

‘If you'd like to give me about five minutes,' Molly said, ‘I'll go and get the car and bring it to the door, so your wife won't have so far to go. Can you manage on your own?'

‘We'll be fine,' he assured her. ‘And thank you, Sergeant.'

‘Meet you outside in five minutes, then.' Molly left the room and was part way down the hall when a door opened and Dr Starkie came bustling out. He stopped in front of her, frowning as he peered at her over the top of his glasses. ‘Connie Rice?' he asked cryptically. ‘Who's doing the ID?'

‘Her mother,' Molly told him. ‘She's taken it very hard, I'm afraid.'

‘It is hard on families, especially when there are injuries to the face,' said Starkie, ‘but there's only so much that can be done with injuries like that.' He looked at his watch and started to move away, then stopped. ‘Speaking of families, I must say I feel sorry for poor old David and the problems he's having with Lijuan. I really thought things were working out, but I suppose it's understandable if you look at it from her point of view. Still,' he continued cheerfully, ‘I'm sure it will sort itself out in the end. Things like that usually do, don't they? Anyway, mustn't hold you up, and I have to get on myself. Busy day ahead.'

What would sort itself out?
Starkie was fast disappearing down the hall and she could hardly call after him. Had the doctor been referring to the e-mail David had sent last week, or had the Starkies heard from him more recently? She had checked her e-mail before leaving home this morning – it was always the last thing she did before leaving for work – but there had been nothing. Perhaps David had phoned them. Ellen Starkie was his aunt, after all, so he probably called her every now and then. It was just that Molly had come to think of herself as part of . . . well, not the family, exactly – that would
really
be presumptuous – but she had become used to being included in the e-mail loop.

Molly suddenly realized that the Donovans would be coming out any minute, and she had some distance to go to where the car was parked. She ran up the steps, but her mind was still busy replaying everything Starkie had said. He
could
have been talking about the things David had mentioned in his e-mail last Tuesday, but somehow Molly didn't think so.

So what else had cropped up, she wondered. Starkie seemed to have assumed that she would know what he was talking about.

The Donovans were waiting for her when she drove up. Sheila Donovan had stopped crying, but she was leaning heavily on her husband's arm, and by the time they got her into the back seat, she was breathing heavily and wheezing.

‘It's asthma,' her husband said. ‘I have her inhaler here. She'll be all right in a minute. It's the stress.'

Listening to the woman's breathing, Molly wasn't so sure, so, instead of getting into the car herself, she waited and watched while Alex Donovan coaxed his wife to use the inhaler. Remarkably, Sheila's breathing settled down within a couple of minutes, and her voice was almost back to normal when she spoke to Molly. ‘It's all right, love,' she said. ‘Like Alex said, it's just the stress of seeing Connie . . .' She closed her eyes and waved a listless hand as if to brush away the memory.

‘You're sure?' asked Molly doubtfully. ‘We're right here at the hospital.'

‘Quite sure,' Sheila said. She took several deep breaths and let them out again. ‘Can we go now?'

‘Of course,' said Molly, ‘but do you mind if I ask you a question first, Mrs Donovan?' Molly wasn't sure she should be asking the woman questions considering the state she was in, but she didn't want to let the opportunity slip away. ‘It might seem a little odd to be asking this, but was Connie ever in the All Saints choir here in Broadminster when she was young?'

Sheila Donovan looked puzzled. ‘What an odd question,' she said, ‘but, yes, she was. But she didn't stay long; just a few months, I think it was. She was fifteen or sixteen at the time. Mad to get in, but she didn't stay long. But how did you know that?'

‘It was just something that came up during the investigation,' Molly said evasively. And it could be a step forward, she thought as she got in the car. Connie was thirty-two when she died, and if she had been fifteen or sixteen when she was in the choir, that narrowed the search down to one of two possible years: 1994 and 1995. Now, if she could connect Dennis Moreland to—

The thought was cut off by Sheila Donovan speaking again. ‘You said something earlier on about there being more questions at the station?'

‘That's right. I know it's a difficult time, so I'll try to be as brief as possible.'

‘What kind of questions?'

‘Almost anything you can tell me about Connie,' said Molly. ‘Friends she may have mentioned, problems she may have had, things she might have told you or discussed with you during your telephone conversations?'

Sheila looked away, then shook her head. ‘The truth is, I haven't spoken to Connie for months, and I haven't been what you might call close to her for many a year. Once she got to be about twelve or thirteen, she changed. We couldn't agree on anything, and it got worse as time went on. She was never in any
real
trouble, like with the law or anything like that, but she ran with a funny crowd, and nothing I said or did made a scrap of difference. In fact, if I said one thing, she'd go out and do the opposite. It was as if we were living separate lives from then on, and when I married Alex and moved down south, she
might
call me on my birthday, if she remembered – I always called on hers – but we had nothing to talk about. So, you see, I'm the wrong person to ask. That girl she lives with can probably tell you much more than I can. Sandra . . . I forget her last name. I've spoken to her once or twice and she seems like a nice person, so perhaps you should talk to her. And to tell you the truth, I'd rather not talk about it any more. I'd just like to lie down.'

Later, as they were getting into their own car in the Charter Lane car park, Alex Donovan thanked Molly for her help. ‘If you should need to talk to Sheila about anything, we'll be staying at the George until we can sort things out,' he said. ‘I don't know how long we'll be here or what needs to be done, exactly. I suppose we'll have to see about things in Connie's flat, and make funeral arrangements and that sort of thing. I've not had to deal with anything like this before.'

Molly took out a card and scribbled a number on the back of it. ‘This is the number to call to find out when the body will be released by the coroner's office,' she explained, ‘and if you have any questions, or if you or Mrs Donovan think of anything that might help us, please call me.' She watched as they drove away, then heaved a sigh of relief as she made her way up the front steps and entered the building. It wasn't that she was unsympathetic, but if Sergeant Ormside asked her to accompany one more grieving relative – or even a non-grieving relative like Bronwyn Davies – to view a body, she would tell him to get stuffed. A tight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she visualized Ormside's reaction to that! Perhaps it would be better to put it another way, she decided, but the sentiment would be the same. She'd had enough. Let someone else do it next time.

As she walked down the corridor to the incident room, a young uniformed constable came hurrying around the corner. He grinned when he saw her and said, ‘Good news, eh?', putting two thumbs up as he hurried past.

‘Good news about what?' Molly called after him.

‘Didn't you hear? The bloke you've been looking for. The one on TV. Walked in calm as you like half an hour ago. Your boss is in with him now.'

‘M
y name is Edwin Redgrave,' the man said, speaking clearly and distinctly for the benefit of the recorder. ‘I live in Oxford, and the reason I am here today is because my mother telephoned me last night, in a very agitated state, to say the police were looking for me. She said she remembered my mentioning being in the Red Lion last Wednesday evening, and talking to the woman behind the bar, and between that and the picture on TV, she was sure it was me you were looking for. I assured her she had nothing to worry about, and told her I would come down first thing this morning to straighten things out. So, gentlemen, here I am. What would you like to know?'

He took a card case from his jacket pocket and slid a card across the table. ‘My home address and telephone number in case you should need it,' he said, then sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Dressed casually, wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, light brown pullover, corduroy jacket and tan trousers, he appeared to be perfectly at ease; in fact there was a certain presence about him. Crowley had said the man was good looking, and he was right: broad shoulders, compact frame, well-defined facial features, a loose mane of dark brown hair that made him look younger than he probably was, and calm if somewhat watchful eyes.

There was a hint of the academic about him, so Paget wasn't surprised when he read:
Edwin Redgrave, PhD
. He clipped the card to the folder in front of him. ‘You say your mother rang you. She lives here in Broadminster, I take it?'

‘That's right.'

‘And you are admitting to being the man who was talking to Connie Rice in the Red Lion last Wednesday evening?'

‘I'm not sure I like the way you use the term “admitting”,' Redgrave said, ‘but, yes, I was talking to Connie Rice that evening. But I had nothing to do with her subsequent disappearance.'

‘What did you talk about?'

Redgrave shrugged. ‘Nothing special,' he said. ‘It was very quiet in there, and I got the impression that all she wanted was for the shift to end so that she could go home. We exchanged the usual observations about the weather; she did some not exactly subtle probing as to who I was; what I was doing there, and . . .' he smiled, ‘whether I was married or not.'

‘Are you?' Paget asked. ‘Married?'

‘I have a partner,' Redgrave said, ‘but I'm not sure that's relevant, so why do you ask?'

‘What about your side of the conversation?' Paget asked, ignoring the question. ‘We've been told by the manager there that you were, in his words, “chatting Connie Rice up”. So why were you in the Red Lion? Were you looking for some companionship, perhaps?'

Redgrave shook his head. ‘On the contrary,' he said. ‘I was looking for a bit of peace and quiet, so our conversation didn't last long, and I left after a couple of drinks.'

‘By car?'

Again, Redgrave shook his head. ‘I was walking,' he said. He leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. ‘Perhaps it would simplify things if I told you why I was in Broadminster in the first place, and how I happened to be in the Red Lion that night, and then you can ask all the questions you like. All right?'

‘Fair enough,' said Paget. ‘Please go ahead, and remember that whatever you say is being recorded.'

Tregalles shot him a puzzled glance. The interview wasn't turning out the way he'd expected. The man could be the killer they'd been searching for, but it seemed to him that Paget was allowing him to run the interview. On the other hand, if Redgrave thought he was in control and became over-confident, he might very well trip himself up.