Night Fall (6 page)

His eyes had remained fixed on her for what seemed like ages before he nodded slowly and said, ‘You're right. I've been so focused on what
I
want that I was in danger of forgetting that.' David had reached out to take her hand in his. ‘Thank you for reminding me, Molly. I'm so glad I have you to talk to.'

He was gone the next day, back to Hong Kong, and Molly had been wondering ever since if the advice she had offered was self-serving. Leaving his daughter with her grandmother, at least for the time being, would allow him to come back to take up the new job in the hospital, and they could resume their relationship without the distraction of the resettlement of Lijuan. A daughter, she thought guiltily, who might see her as competing for her father's affections, and might well resent her.

The traffic lights ahead turned red. Molly slowed and stopped. Perhaps she was being silly. Perhaps there was no ‘relationship'. Perhaps she'd misread the signs because she so wanted them to be true.

The lights changed. Molly gave herself a mental shake, annoyed for letting her mind wander, especially when she should be concentrating on her job. As a new detective sergeant, she couldn't afford to make any mistakes; this was not a time to be daydreaming on the job. But one thought in particular kept niggling away at the back of her mind. She didn't know why it hadn't registered before, but now that Paget would
not
be moving up, she wondered what her chances were of staying here. Tregalles was firmly entrenched as Paget's number one sergeant, which meant there really wasn't a place for her, and she could be transferred to almost anywhere in the Westvale Region. She might also be encouraged – or forced – to take a position outside the region altogether.

So, even if David did feel the same way about her as she did about him, and he did take the job at the hospital in Broadminster, where would that leave them?

One thing she knew: she did not want to leave her job. She had worked too hard and too long to give up now. She enjoyed her work and she was good at it, and if Superintendent Pierce could make it that far up the ladder, then why couldn't she do the same? As for the immediate future . . . it would appear that her fate lay in the laps of seemingly whimsical gods.

Tregalles dropped into a chair next to Ormside's desk, raised his hands above his head and stretched. ‘You have anything new for me, Len?' he asked wearily. ‘I'm no further ahead than I was this morning.'

‘Same here,' said Ormside. ‘Nothing from the door-to-door enquiries along Travis's normal route, so I'm going to broaden the area tomorrow in case he took another way home. I can't see why he would, but we'll do it anyway just to be sure. I've had men out talking to the farmers and people who travel the road out to Lessington, but no one seems to have seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.'

‘I just don't get it,' Tregalles said. ‘This Billy Travis lives and works with his father. He's not much of a drinker; he doesn't smoke; he doesn't gamble; and about the only socializing he does has to do with the church where he sings in the choir and attends the odd Saturday morning men's breakfast, where he sometimes makes the tea. He doesn't seem to have any close friends. None of the members of this camera club he goes to say they see him at any other time, so all that leaves is his dad and Trudy Mason. As for Gordon Mason, I think he might have gone along with this arrangement in the beginning out of a feeling of guilt, but once he got out there on the road and had time to think about what was going on back home, I don't think he'd like it, and he would want it to stop. Maybe he tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn't, so he decided to do something about it himself.'

‘I thought you and Paget had decided the timing was wrong, and Mason couldn't have done it?' Ormside said.

‘We did, at least
he
did,' Tregalles agreed, ‘but I still think there's something weird about a man who would agree to something like that. So he's still a suspect as far as I'm concerned.'

‘And he's still on my list as well,' Ormside conceded, ‘but it seems to me that this is more like a ritual killing. I put out a request for information of any similar style killings anywhere in the country, but I've had no response.'

‘Maybe it has something to do with a picture he took?'

Ormside frowned. ‘Picture? What picture?'

‘Dunno, but he was a photographer, so maybe he took a picture of someone or something he wasn't supposed to and he was killed for it.'

Ormside looked sceptical. ‘You think he was
blackmailing
someone and they turned on him?' He shook his head. ‘Doesn't fit the profile I have of him,' he said. ‘His bank account, such as it is, doesn't show any unusual deposits or withdrawals.'

‘So maybe he wasn't into blackmail, but perhaps he'd taken someone's picture when they didn't want it taken, and they wanted it back?'

‘Someone . . .?' Ormside challenged. ‘Such as . . .?'

‘I don't know
who
, exactly,' Tregalles said irritably. ‘I'm just throwing out ideas. All I'm saying is it
could
be something like that.'

Ormside shook his head. ‘There's more to it than that,' he said flatly. ‘The killer wanted Travis to be found, and he made sure we would notice the A on Travis's scalp by preserving it under a strip of tape.'

‘Which, if you're right, brings us back to a gang killing,' Tregalles countered as he got to his feet, ‘and I can't see Travis as a gang member, no matter how hard I try. Trouble is, I can't think of any other motive that makes sense.' He smothered a yawn. ‘Anyway, that's enough for one day. Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow.'

W
hen Paget opened the front door and stepped inside, Grace was waiting for him with a full glass of wine in her hand. ‘I thought you might need this,' she said as he took off his coat and hung it up. ‘First day with the new boss and all that. Although it couldn't have been all that bad, because you're home early for a change. How
did
it go?' Her tone was light, but there was an undercurrent of tension in her voice.

Paget looked thoughtful as he considered the question. ‘Surprisingly well, considering,' he said slowly as if reluctant to admit it. ‘At least as far as work's concerned. Amanda's changed. It's almost as if she's a different woman from the one I remember, and if today is any indication, she has what it takes to do the job.' His face clouded and the muscles around his jaw tightened. ‘But I find it hard to look at her without remembering what she did and what it did to Jill's brother Matthew. And to Jill herself.'

‘You said she's changed,' Grace probed cautiously as they made their way into the living room. ‘In what way?'

Paget settled into his chair and sipped his wine before replying. ‘Just . . . different,' he said. ‘I don't mean physically, although she's looking a lot better than she was the last time I saw her twelve years ago. She's more assertive, more in control of herself than I remember, and hard as it is for me to say, I think she may turn out to be very good at her job. She's a quick learner and extremely sharp. Mind you she always was, and if it had been anyone else, I would have said it was a pleasure to work with her today.' He twirled the glass in his fingers as he looked off into the distance. ‘But I don't think I shall ever be able to say that about Amanda Pierce, no matter how much she may have changed or how well she may do her job.'

Grace kicked off her slippers, tucked her feet under her, and settled herself into a corner of the sofa. ‘I know this is a sensitive subject for you, Neil,' she said, ‘and if you don't want to talk about it, that's your choice. But it would make it a lot easier for me if you would tell me what this woman did that was so terrible. Then, perhaps I could understand why you feel the way you do towards her.'

Paget stared into his glass for a long moment, before draining it and setting it aside. ‘Amanda Pierce was Jill's best friend,' he said. ‘They were at school together; they joined the Service together; trained together. They were like sisters. I liked her. In fact, when a group of us first started to go around together, it was a toss-up between Jill and Amanda as to which one I liked best. In the end, of course, I married Jill, but we all remained good friends, and when Amanda and Jill's younger brother, Matthew, started seeing each other, Jill and I were both very happy about it. Amanda was a detective constable in Muswell Hill at the time, and Matthew was still at university, but he didn't seem particularly satisfied with what he was doing there, and he'd talked of quitting. So when he and Amanda announced their engagement, and Matthew said he'd decided to stay on at uni, Jill was thrilled. She thought Amanda was just the sort of woman Matthew needed to settle him down. They were married and everything seemed to be working out beautifully . . . at least at first.'

Paget paused, frowning. ‘I don't know what happened, or when we first became aware that things had changed,' he said slowly. ‘I know it took Jill and I a while to realize that they seemed to be avoiding us. In the past, before we were married as well as after, the four of us had always mucked in together. Our jobs and odd working hours kept us apart a lot of the time, so when there was an opportunity to get together, it would be a spur-of-the-moment thing. Jill might call Amanda and say something like, “Neil picked up a nice bit of fish on his way home but it's more than we can manage, would you like to come and help us eat it?” and they'd be there in half an hour. Or Matthew might ring up and say he was fed up with homework, so how about joining them in the pub? Or one of us would be doing a bit of painting or wallpapering, and the others would drop in to give a hand and have a beer afterwards. You know the sort of thing.'

Paget looked at Grace. ‘What I'm saying is that it had been like that from the time we first met. We enjoyed each other's company, so we'd get together whenever we could. But then, as I said, it changed. If we rang them, they would make excuses: Amanda was working an extra shift, or Matthew was studying hard for another exam, or “things are a bit hectic at work right now. Perhaps next week.” But we would learn later that there was no extra shift, and there was no exam, and they never called us back. We saw less and less of them, and when we did it was as if we were strangers. Jill tried to talk to Amanda, tried to find out what was wrong, but Amanda acted as if she didn't know what Jill was talking about. So Jill tried talking to Matthew. She and Matthew had always been very close, but, like Amanda, he insisted that nothing was wrong, and became quite angry and defensive when she tried to push him. Jill and I talked about it endlessly, trying to come up with a reason. Had we done something wrong? Something to offend them? We wondered if they had money problems. With Matthew at university, they were living solely on Amanda's salary. They'd both agreed there would be no children, at least for the first few years, but we wondered if Amanda was pregnant, and they were worried about how they were going to manage.'

He paused, eyes focused on some distant image from the past as he said, ‘It was late at night, a Thursday, the twentieth of May, when Matthew rang to ask if Amanda was with us. When we told him we hadn't seen her, and asked if anything was wrong, he said no, Amanda was probably working late, and apologized for calling so late at night. Jill asked him why he thought she might be with us, and he said Amanda had said she might call in, and no, he didn't know the reason, and he'd better go because Amanda might be trying to call him, and he rang off. But something didn't sound right. Neither one of them had set foot in our place for six months or more, so Jill tried to call Matthew back, but she kept getting the engaged tone.'

Paget made a face. ‘To be honest, Jill was more concerned than I was,' he confessed. ‘Matthew was only a couple of years younger than Jill, but she'd taken on the role of mother after their parents died, and even though he was now a big, six-foot-two bear of a man, Jill still treated him as if he were her baby brother. I thought she was worrying needlessly, but just in case there was something amiss, I stopped by their flat on my way to work next morning. Matthew, all bleary-eyed and looking like he'd been up half the night, came to the door in his pyjamas. He smelled of drink. But when I asked him if everything was all right, and if Amanda had come home, he said, “Oh, yes, she got home just after midnight, so she's sleeping in this morning.” When I told him Jill had been worried, and asked why he hadn't let us know, he said he thought it was too late to call, and apologized for having troubled us at all.'

Paget's lips twisted into a wry smile. ‘But Jill still wasn't satisfied. She sensed
something
was wrong, so she kept going after Matthew until he finally broke down and told her that Amanda had left him for another man. Neither Jill nor I could bring ourselves to believe it . . . that is until we found that Amanda had put in a letter of resignation weeks before she disappeared. I spoke to her boss myself, a DI Joan Baxter in Kentish Town, where Amanda was working at the time, and she said Amanda's letter of resignation came out of the blue. No warning; no indication that she was thinking of leaving. She said she'd asked her if it had anything to do with the job, but Amanda said no, it was a personal matter. She regretted having to leave, but a situation had come up concerning a close member of the family who needed her, and since she would be away for an extended period of time, it was best that she resign. So everything was arranged for Amanda to leave at the end of the month, but suddenly she was gone ten days before that. No warning; not a word to anyone. She just failed to come in one day, and Baxter said she hadn't seen or heard from her since. I asked her when, exactly, Amanda had failed to come into work, and she said it was Thursday, May the twentieth.'