Night Fall (7 page)

Paget's eyes were bleak as he looked at Grace. ‘Matthew went to pieces,' he said. ‘He told us he'd suspected Amanda was having an affair with someone at work for months, but neither I nor Jill could find anyone who'd worked with her who believed that. They said they were sure they would have known. As one co-worker put it, “you can't keep something like that secret for very long around here.” But, true or not, Matthew had convinced himself, and there was no arguing with him.

‘Matthew had always liked his drink,' Paget continued, ‘but from that point on he
really
started to drink heavily. He resisted every attempt we made to help him, and three months later he was dead. Walked straight out into the street in front of a bus in Kensington High Street. Killed instantly. The driver never had a chance to stop. Everyone who saw it said it was quite deliberate on Matthew's part. Jill was devastated. Not only had she lost her brother, but she felt betrayed by her best friend, and she never forgave Amanda for what she'd done.'

They had spoken very little during dinner, avoiding any more talk about Amanda Pierce, but once the washing up was out of the way, and Grace had made a fresh pot of coffee, the talk turned to the death of Billy Travis.

‘We may learn more once we dig deeper into the man's background,' Paget said, ‘but he just doesn't seem to fit the profile of a man who would be killed in such a specific way. This is more like the sort of thing we used to see now and again in the Met – a killing designed to send a message to a rival gang. But Billy Travis certainly doesn't fit that picture. Mind you, it was a very dark night, raining on and off, so he could have been killed by mistake, but the gangs we have here don't operate at that level. At least they haven't up to now. Tregalles suggested it might have something to do with a photograph Travis took of someone or something, either deliberately or by accident, and someone took exception to it. But if that were the case, I would have expected to see the shop or his room ransacked, and Billy Travis shot or stabbed or strangled. This business of taking him out into the country and dropping him off a bridge, and carving the letter A on his forehead, just doesn't make sense.'

‘I'm afraid Tregalles may have picked that up from me,' said Grace. ‘Charlie thought his death might have had something to do with his work, so he had me and Lyle Kruger, our forensic photographer, spend the day going through Travis's files. We ignored anything taken more than five years ago, assuming that, if such a picture had been taken, it would have to be a fairly recent one to provoke that kind of reaction.

‘But we soon realized it was a pretty hopeless task. Even if such a picture existed, chances were we wouldn't recognize it. I take it you've ruled out Trudy Mason's husband, Gordon, as a suspect?'

Paget hesitated. ‘I had more or less dismissed him,' he said, ‘but another possibility just occurred to me. Mason is a long distance lorry driver. Trudy said he'd just come back from Antwerp. What if he's involved in smuggling, as some of them are, and Billy Travis found out about it? Through pillow talk, perhaps?' He shook his head. ‘Do I sound as if I'm clutching at straws?'

Grace didn't answer directly. ‘Where's Mason now?' she asked.

‘We had no reason to hold him or take away his passport, so he's back at work.'

‘So, what will you be doing tomorrow? Is there anything more we can do? I'm sure I can square it with Charlie if there is.'

‘Thanks, but I don't think there is at the moment,' he said. ‘As for what I'll be doing, I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck in the office with Amanda for the next week or two until we get things sorted. With Alcott leaving so abruptly, and then with me trying to do his job as well as my own, a lot of things were shoved to the bottom of the pile, so she's going to need me there until things settle down a bit.'

‘So you are prepared to work with her, then?'

Paget spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘Regardless of what I think of her, I can't ignore the fact that both she and I have a job to do, and we can't afford to let personal feelings get in the way. So, yes, I'll work with her, but don't ask me to like her or forgive her for what she did.'

Later that night as they lay side by side in bed, both pretending to be asleep, Paget's mind drifted back to those dark days of twelve years ago. Jill had taken Matthew's death extremely hard. ‘I thought she was my friend!' he recalled her whispering fiercely at the graveside. ‘Matthew was so in love with her. She as good as killed him, Neil, and I can never forgive her for that!'

The morning briefing was not going well. A small army of men and women had spent the best part of a week knocking on doors and talking to people in the streets. Cars passing through the area were stopped and drivers questioned: had they been in the area last Friday night or Saturday morning? If so, what had they seen? What had they heard? Did anything unusual occur?

Although Travis had been a member of the All Saints church choir for many years, there was no one who claimed to be a particular friend of his. As one member put it, ‘Billy always seemed to be anxious to get home. He came to services and choir practice and sang with the rest of us, then he left. He did his bit when it was his turn to brew the tea for the Saturday morning men's club, but even then he spent most of his time in the kitchen.'

Superintendent Amanda Pierce had authorized an appeal for information over the local radio stations, beginning on Tuesday evening, but apart from the calls from the usual glory-seekers, that, too, had failed to bring any fresh leads.

According to the toxicology report, Billy Travis's blood-alcohol level was consistent with the two beers Ted Grayson said he'd had. There was no evidence of Billy having taken drugs, and he didn't smoke. In fact, apart from being almost a stone overweight for his age and size, Billy Travis had been a perfectly healthy thirty-two year old.

His personal mobile calls for the past three months were checked. Calls made to and from the phones in the house and shop were checked. Billy's laptop was still in the lab, but if the preliminary findings were any indication, it, too, would not be much help. Tregalles and Molly Forsythe had talked again to Billy's father; they'd spoken to friends and neighbours; and they, as well as others on the team, had followed up on the jobs he'd done recently, but they had all come up empty.

‘I think they got it wrong,' Tregalles declared as he stood before the whiteboards and stared at the picture of Billy Travis. ‘As far as I can see, there was no reason to kill this man. None whatsoever. He's clean, so I think whoever did this got the wrong man. It was a dark night and the light's poor on those back streets. We keep coming back to the idea that this looks more like a gang killing than anything else, and Billy simply doesn't fit the picture. So, maybe the person who got the job had never seen the person he was sent to kill and he got it wrong.'

‘Except we've never seen that level of violence in Broadminster before,' Paget pointed out, ‘and there's nothing here that's big enough to attract the sort of gang you're suggesting.'

‘They wouldn't have to be here, though, would they?' Tregalles countered. ‘They could be in any one of the big cities, but perhaps the man they were after was hiding out here, and they sent someone to kill him. But the killer got it wrong, and if he realizes his mistake, he could try again.'

‘You may be right,' Paget conceded, ‘but in the meantime, let's not lose sight of the fact that it was Billy Travis who was killed, and just because we haven't found a motive, it doesn't mean there isn't one.' He paused, mentally checking off the list of things they'd discussed. ‘Do
you
have anything to add?' he asked Ormside hopefully.

‘Sorry, boss,' he said, ‘but as far as the Travis case is concerned, I'm afraid we've run out of leads.'

E
yes still shut, Dennis Moreland reached out with a practised hand to smother the alarm clock beside the bed. The bell was set on low, but it still sounded loud in the small bedroom. His wife, Joan, stirred beside him but she remained asleep. After so many years of her husband getting up at quarter past five each workday morning, she had learned to ignore the bell.

He lay there for a moment, eyes still closed, listening for the sound of rain in the pipe outside the bedroom window, and hoping he'd made a mistake and it was Sunday and he didn't have to get up. No sound, so that was good. But it was Thursday, and that meant he'd better get moving if he was to get to work on time.

He slid out of bed, picked up his clothes from the chair by the door and took them into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, washed and dressed and shaved, he emerged. Michael, their ten year old, must be lying on his back again, because Moreland could hear the boy snoring as he passed his door. He paused to peep into Laura's room, then went in. All the bedclothes were on the floor, and she was curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed. Laura was eight, and a restless sleeper. He picked up the clothes and laid them gently over her, but he knew they'd probably end up on the floor again.

It was ten minutes to six when he left the house. He never stopped for breakfast – that would mean getting up fifteen minutes earlier – so he usually waited for the fresh buns to come out of the bakery at eight, then had one with a slice of Gouda and a coffee from the deli. He stood for a moment, breathing in the morning air. His hand and sleeve came away wet as he brushed past the car in the driveway. So there had been some rain in the night, and there was a nip in the air, a reminder that summer was definitely behind them. And he was sure it was darker than it had been at the beginning of the week, and only yesterday, Joan had been talking about having a look round the market on the weekend for a bit of jewellery for her sister in Australia for Christmas.

Dennis Moreland hunched into his coat, thrust his hands in his pockets and set off.

There was a van in the street halfway down the hill. The rear doors were open and there were several tins of paint and a plastic bucket sitting on the pavement beside the van. A man, wearing paint-smeared overalls and a cap, was leaning inside the van. He straightened up and flexed his hands as Moreland approached. ‘Bloody ladder,' he grumbled loudly. ‘Here, would you mind giving me a hand, mate? Just to get it out of the van. It's an awkward thing. Heavy. Only take a minute.'

‘Starting work early, aren't you?' Moreland said as he stepped into the road.

‘Got another lot to fetch as well,' the man explained, ‘so I thought I'd get an early start. If you'd just lean in there and pull, I'll get in and push from the other end. All right? Mind your head.'

‘Right.' Dennis Moreland bent forward to lean into the van and grasp the ladder . . .

Joan Moreland came awake to the sound of the telephone ringing. She raised herself on one elbow and squinted at the clock next to the phone on the far side of the bed. Twenty to seven. Who on earth . . .?

Not fully awake, her mind ran through the possibilities as she clambered across the bed and reached for the phone. Probably a wrong number, she told herself, but a call at this time of the morning was a bit worrying all the same.

‘Hello . . .?'

‘Joanie . . .? It's Norm. Is Dennis there?'

Norman Beasley, Dennis's boss. She frowned into the phone. ‘What do you mean, is he here? Isn't he there?'

‘If he was I wouldn't be ringing you, now would I, Joanie? Is he ill or just skiving off? Only we've got a lot on today and we need him here.'

She wished he wouldn't call her Joanie. She'd told him often enough but he still did it. It made her feel as if she were six years old. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to bring herself fully awake. ‘He's gone,' she said. ‘He . . . I mean I think he has. Hang on a minute, Norman. I'll go and look.' She put the phone down and struggled into her dressing gown as she left the room.

Not in the bathroom. She took a quick look in each of the kids' rooms before going downstairs. ‘Dennis?' she called at the foot of the stairs. Silence. Worried now, she went through the rooms. She opened the back door and peered out. Silly, of course he wouldn't be there. Then the front door. The car was still there. She padded out to the street and looked both ways. A man on a bicycle sped past, and a boy was delivering papers across the street, but there was no sign of Dennis. She went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone on the counter.

‘You wouldn't be having me on, would you, Norman?' she asked tartly. ‘I mean he went off to work same time as usual; he has to be there.'

‘Well he's not, love, so when you find out what he's playing at, tell him to get himself down here. OK?'

Frowning, Joan Moreland hung up the phone, then made her way upstairs to replace the extension as well. What could Dennis be up to? Where could he have gone? It wasn't like him to go wandering off. She got dressed, then sat down on the bed to try to think what to do. He couldn't have had an accident or she'd have heard, and it was no distance at all from the house to where he worked at the SuperFair market. A two-minute walk, that was all. Dennis
must
be at work. Probably doing something in the back, and Norm hadn't bothered to check. Either that or it was some sort of wind-up by Norman Beasley. It was the sort of thing he might do and think it funny, and if that were the case, there was no point in worrying about it. She looked at the clock. Soon be time to get the kids up anyway, so she might as well start getting breakfast ready. She'd wait a while, then ring the market and ask for Dennis. Just to be sure.

Paget sat back in his chair and said, ‘I'm sorry, Amanda, but it's just not possible. We're short-staffed as it is. There have been no replacements for almost a year now. On the one hand we're being criticized for our clear-up rate and the time it takes to complete an investigation, and for the amount of overtime, and now you're suggesting we cut staff by five per cent. It's a simple equation, so if this is your idea of a way to impress Mr Brock, then I suggest you find another way.'