Dangerous Promises (34 page)

‘Oh, you’ve just missed her.’

‘I know,’ she’d said. ‘It’s you I want to talk to. Could we do this inside? It won’t take long.’

And just like that, he’d stood back and let her in, even taken her through to the kitchen and offered her a coffee. She wondered what he’d been thinking about in the last few minutes of his life. Nothing much, she imagined, and certainly nothing of importance. Men like Eddie Wise only ever thought about themselves.

Mona had no regrets about what she’d done. His worthless, pitiful existence had been snuffed out in a matter of seconds. What had she felt as she’d slid the knife between his ribs? Very little. It had been an act of mercy, like putting down a rabid dog. When she looked back, which wasn’t often, the whole event had a slightly surreal quality to it, sharp in places, misty in others. Anyway, she had simply done what she had to do and now Sadie was free of him for ever.

As the effects of the pill kicked in, Mona’s mood started to lift. She glanced at her watch. Soon it would be time to go. She felt the same stirring excitement as a child would feel as she anticipated not just the lights and the rides, but the joy of sharing those things with a friend. It would be good to see Sadie again. This evening she would make her see sense and persuade her to go through with her side of the bargain.

‘It’s only right,’ she whispered. ‘It’s only fair.’

Yes, it was time for Sadie to face up to her responsibilities. Paul Farrell, like Eddie, had to be swept from the face of the earth. Mona jumped up, eager to be off. Tonight was going to be a good night, a
great
night, a night to remember.

46

Peter Royston had got the message at eleven o’clock the previous evening. He had come back from the pub, somewhat the worse for wear, to find the red light blinking on his answering machine. Swaying slightly, he’d jabbed at the button and waited to see if anyone would start speaking. More often than not, all he got was a long pause and then the click of a phone going down. People didn’t like talking to machines. But on this occasion, the caller went ahead.

‘Er… Mr Royston? This is Derek, Derek Pugh. I just thought you might want to know that the Farrell girl booked in again today. She’s here for two nights. So… er… yeah, that’s it really.’ There was a short silence. ‘You’ll call by some time, huh? Like we discussed. Yeah, okay.’

Royston grinned as he sat across the road from the Bold and replayed the message in his head. This could be just the break he needed. In the two weeks that had passed since he’d dropped in at the hotel he’d been doing extensive digging on Mona Farrell and what he’d discovered made for interesting reading.

The girl was the daughter of a leading industrialist, an arms manufacturer called Paul Farrell. She was twenty-three, an only child, and still lived with her parents in Hampstead. That wasn’t the fascinating bit, though. No, what had really triggered his interest was Mona’s history: she’d been expelled from numerous schools, been arrested during a couple of political demonstrations and was generally the subject of untold rumour and gossip.

The latter had come from Royston’s contacts in London, other reporters who had heard stories and were willing to share them. The best of these was that a blaze at the family home was thought to have been deliberately started by her. The affair had been hushed up by her influential father, and Mona was still receiving psychiatric treatment.

For all his research, Royston hadn’t been able to establish a firm connection between Sadie Wise and Mona Farrell. They obviously knew each other – that much had been established at Emily Hunter’s party – but where they had met and why Sadie was so jumpy in her company remained a mystery. He recalled the look on her face as she’d dragged the other girl away from him. On the surface the two of them seemed to have little in common, but that was what made it all the more intriguing.

When he’d first heard about Mona’s return, Royston’s intention had been to come here and confront her, to talk to her, to maybe try and back her into a corner about why she was using a false name – from his digging there was no indication that she’d ever been referred to as Anne – but then he’d decided on a different tack. Instead, he’d opted to wait for her to emerge from the hotel, knowing that at some point she was bound to get in touch with Sadie. He wanted to see them together one more time before he made up his mind about what to do next.

Royston shifted on the hard wooden bench and pulled a face. He’d been sitting in the same place for hours now and his backside was killing him. Darkness had fallen, it was after seven, and he was growing colder by the minute. Earlier, in the morning, he’d thought he’d hit pay dirt when Mona came out of the Bold and made her way to Buckingham Road. He’d trailed behind at a safe distance, making sure he wasn’t spotted, but in the event it had all come to nothing. She had stood ringing the front doorbell at number 67 for over five minutes but no one had come down. Finally, he had seen her take an envelope from her bag and slip it through the letterbox.

Although he’d been disappointed in the outcome, the walk hadn’t been a complete waste of time. He had discovered two things: the first that Sadie wasn’t in (or wasn’t answering the door) and the second that she wasn’t expecting Mona Farrell. Which begged the question: why wouldn’t Mona have phoned ahead if she was coming to Haverlea? It was a long journey from London. There was only one answer that sprang instantly to mind and that was that she’d intended to take Sadie by surprise.

‘But a good surprise or a bad one?’ Royston murmured to himself.

He was still pondering on this when the door to the Bold opened and Mona Farrell stepped out. He could see her clearly in the light from the foyer but she wouldn’t be able to see him. Quickly he got to his feet and moved round to the side of the shelter, keeping to the shadows. Was she going to meet Sadie Wise? There was only one way to find out.

Royston followed her along the promenade. There were plenty of people around – no matter what the weather, the front was always busy on a Saturday night – and so, taking care to keep her in his sights, he mingled with the crowd. She was wearing the same outfit as this morning: jeans, a black suede jacket and gloves, but her short hair was spikier.

It didn’t take him long to realise that she was heading for the fairground. The average age of the crowd dropped by a decade as he walked up the path and through the turnstile. Instantly he was hit by the sweet smell of popcorn and candyfloss. The place was noisy, hectic, ringing with the mechanical sounds of the rides, screams and laughter and music.

He kept his gaze firmly fixed on Mona Farrell as she wandered between the stalls. She stopped occasionally to stare at this or that, but didn’t talk to anyone. She bought a hotdog from a vendor and ate it as she walked. He was tempted to buy one too – it was hours since he’d had anything to eat – but was too worried about losing her in the crowd. If she disappeared from view he might never find her again.

Royston reviewed everything he knew about Mona as he wound through the fairground, following in her footsteps. The girl had a troubled background, maybe even a psychological disorder. She was wild, anti-authoritarian and a possible arsonist. And then something else came back to him. Hadn’t she been talking about fairs at Emily Hunter’s party? Yes, she’d been going on about scenes in old films before Sadie Wise had shut her up. He bounced this around in his head but wasn’t sure if it had any relevance. He stored it away for future reference.

There was no connection, so far as he’d been able to discover, between Mona Farrell and Eddie Wise. And yet… well, it all seemed too much of a coincidence, this odd girl turning up, using an alias, shortly after the murder. And there had been something strained, even forced, about the way Sadie behaved towards her. Was it blackmail? Could Mona be… But no, that didn’t add up. She came from a wealthy family and her weekly allowance was probably more than Sadie Wise earned in a month.

So what the hell was going on?

Royston, with his journalist’s nose, knew instinctively that there was a story here, something tangled, something dark and sinister. Unfortunately, at the moment, he couldn’t see the wood for the trees. He couldn’t be certain, either, that Mona was actually meeting anyone tonight; she could have simply decided to come out for a stroll.

After half an hour, Royston’s patience was starting to wear thin. He’d been hanging around all day with nothing much to show for it and didn’t fancy another hour or two of the same. With no sign of Sadie Wise putting in an appearance, he decided to go ahead and make the move.

Mona was standing by the Big Wheel when he sidled up beside her. The ride was circling round slowly, the seats swaying, the bright lights blinking against the blackness of the sky.

‘Ah, back in Haverlea, I see.’

Mona turned her head, frowning, but almost instantly her forehead cleared. ‘Mr Royston! Hello. Fancy seeing you here.’

‘Peter, please. And you’re Anne…’ He made a pretence of groping through his mind for her surname. ‘I know it. Just give me a moment and it’ll come back to me.’

‘Faulkner,’ she said. ‘Anne Faulkner.’

He noted how easily the lie slid from her lips. ‘Well, it’s very nice to see you again. I didn’t realise you’d be back so soon.’

She gave a shrug. ‘You can get tired of the city. I didn’t know you liked fairgrounds.’

‘No, well, not especially. I just came out for a walk.’ He nodded towards the wheel. ‘Thinking of taking a spin?’

‘I prefer to watch.’

‘Can’t say I blame you. I don’t have much of a head for heights.’ He paused and then said, ‘You’ve come back to give Sadie some support, I suppose.’

Mona narrowed her eyes. ‘Support?’

‘You need your friends at times like these. It must be hard for her. First of all her husband getting murdered and then all this business at the funeral… The police haven’t got the most vivid imaginations in the world. When it comes to suspects she’ll be up there at the top of the list.’

Mona gave a snort. ‘Nobody can think Sadie did it. That would be ridiculous.’

‘Nobody with a brain,’ he said. ‘So how did you two meet? Have you known each other for long?’

Mona’s cat-like eyes focused on him. She took a cigarette from a pack in her pocket, raised it to her lips, struck a match and lit it. There was nothing hurried in her movements, nothing to suggest that she was in any way anxious about this unexpected encounter. She exhaled the smoke in a long narrow stream. ‘If I didn’t know you better, Mr Royston, I might think you were squeezing me for information.’

He grinned amiably. ‘Not squeezing, just asking. I like to get my facts right.’

‘And what “facts” would those be?’

‘A small town like this runs on rumour and gossip. And poor Sadie is the main topic at the moment. You’d be surprised at how much speculation there is.’

Mona took one last glance at the Big Wheel and then started to walk away. ‘People shouldn’t listen to gossip.’

Royston stuck by her side, determined to get something out of her before they parted company. ‘Maybe not, but they do. It’s human nature. We like to think the worst of each other.’

‘So you’re trying to dig the dirt on Sadie.’

Royston feigned a look of horror. ‘Not at all. Why would I do that? No, you’ve got me all wrong. If anything, I think she’s the victim in all this. And it’s a shame, a crying shame.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘The
truth
, that’s what I’m after. That way we can stop all the wagging tongues.’

Mona gave him a quick sidelong glance. ‘Or get them wagging even faster.’

‘Ah, now, don’t be cynical.’

‘What do you expect? You’re a journalist, aren’t you? The only side you’re on is your own.’

‘Don’t you want to help Sadie?’

‘Sadie hasn’t done anything wrong. Why should she need help?’

‘It’s not always that simple.’

‘Not for you, maybe.’

Mona continued to manoeuvre her way through the crowd. The lights of the rides flashed brightly, and garish neon signs threw out invitations to shoot the ducks, throw some hoops or have their fortune told by the famous Madame Romany. The rumble of the roller coaster sounded like distant thunder.

Royston continued to stay close, trying to read her body language. She was confident at the moment, sure of herself. She might not like him but nor did she see him as any kind of threat. He would need to change that if he was going to shake any useful information out of her.

‘Has Sadie told you not to speak to me?’ he asked. ‘Is that what’s going on here?’

Mona stopped and raised her eyes briefly to the sky before lowering her gaze to stare at him. ‘It’s been nice to see you again, Mr Royston, but I think we’re finished here.’ She dropped her cigarette butt on the ground and killed it with the heel of her boot. ‘Goodnight.’

Royston let her have the satisfaction of thinking he’d been dismissed. He gave a nod. ‘Goodnight then, Anne. Enjoy the fair.’

She gave a small triumphant smile before walking away. ‘I will.’

Royston kept his eyes fixed on the back of her head as he tagged along behind, taking care to keep out of sight. She glanced over her shoulder several times as if to reassure herself that he was really gone and then went over to a stall and bought a coffee. He waited a few minutes, giving her time to feel secure, before approaching her again. She was sipping from a paper cup when he called out from behind. ‘Mona?’

The girl spun round, her face instantly twisting as she saw who it was and realised her mistake. She glowered at him from over the rim of the cup, her eyes cold and angry.

‘Just one more thing,’ he said, strolling up to her. ‘I really couldn’t leave without asking. Why exactly are you calling yourself Anne Faulkner?’

‘Oh, my,’ she said sarcastically. ‘We have been doing our homework, haven’t we?’

‘It’s a reasonable question.’

‘It’s none of your business.’

Royston smiled thinly at her. ‘You think? Only it makes me curious, and when I’m curious my mind starts going off in all kinds of fascinating directions.’