Night Fall

by Frank Smith

‘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.’

  FIVE

  When 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 J
ill, 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.’

  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!’

  Friday, 7 October

  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 a
nd 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.’

  SIX

  Thursday, 13 October

  Eyes 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.