‘Bad news? About Adam? You’ve found him?’
She sank down on to the sofa.
‘Not Adam Weaver. We’re here about your solicitor, Brian Marks. He died in the early hours of this morning in the General Hospital.’
‘Died? He seemed so fit… . ’
‘It was suicide,’ Peter broke in abruptly. ‘He took an overdose of Paracetamol.’
‘Mr Marks killed himself?’ she murmured in a shocked whisper.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Trevor confirmed.
‘But why? Was he ill… ?’
‘Guilt!’
Trevor gave Peter a cautionary look. ‘Brian Marks knew who arranged your brother-in-law’s escape from prison.’
‘Surely if he’d known that he would have gone to the authorities?’
‘He didn’t.’ Trevor countered. ‘Brian Marks also knew that Adam Weaver received another man’s face in a transplant operation carried out shortly after his escape.’
‘A transplant? Are you saying Adam has another man’s face? That photograph – it didn’t look like Adam, but,’ Blanche appealed to Trevor.
‘You and Sergeant Bradley said something about plastic surgery…’
‘We said something like plastic surgery.’
Trevor noticed the muscles knotting on the back of Peter’s hands at the mention of Anna’s name.
‘The newspaper reports I’ve been reading?’
Blanche asked. ‘Was it Adam who murdered that poor man down at the docks?’
‘We would like to question him about that –
and the arson attack at the old factory,’ Trevor replied.
‘It’s just that Adam – I found it hard to believe he killed Laura, but this…’
‘Have you or your niece seen this man,’ Peter produced the dog-eared photograph of Tony from his inside pocket, ‘since he was seen loitering outside Hannah’s school?’
Blanche shook her head.
‘Did Brian Marks ever talk to you about your brother-in-law?’ Peter asked.
‘Of course he did, during the trial.’
‘Not during the trial, afterwards?’ Peter persevered. ‘Did he ever mention Adam Weaver’s name after he escaped?’
‘Not that I can recall, other than to ask what I’d do if Adam tried to contact Hannah.’
‘And what would you do?’
She looked Peter in the eye. ‘I’d contact the police. For Hannah and Adam’s sake.’
‘Adam’s sake?’ Trevor repeated.
‘I don’t know whether he’s guilty or innocent.
But I abhor violence. I couldn’t live with the thought that I had contributed in any way to someone’s death. And I wouldn’t take that risk by trying to shield Adam.’
‘Then you do think he’s capable of carrying out these crimes?’ Peter homed in on every scrap of information.
‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘I don’t know anything for certain about Adam, not any more.’
‘Brian Marks never mentioned your brother-in-law after the trial, other than to ask what you’d do if he contacted you?’ Trevor persisted.
‘No.’
‘And you had no further contact with your brother-in-law. You didn’t visit him in gaol?’
‘No. But I wrote to him, and after Adam was convicted Mr Marks passed on some letters that Adam had written – one to me and one to Hannah.’
‘What did the letters say?’
‘Personal things. In mine there were things he wanted me to tell Hannah about him and Laura while she was growing up. And that he was sorry that I’d been left to pick up the pieces.’
‘Did he claim he was innocent?’ Trevor asked.
‘Not in that letter, but he’d protested his innocence all along.’
‘Did he mention any names? Any friends you might go to if you were in trouble?’
Blanche shook her head as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket.
‘Is there anyone you can think of who might shelter him?’
‘Don’t you think I would have told you by now if there was?’
‘What was in Hannah’s letter?’ Peter asked.
‘It hasn’t been opened yet. Adam didn’t want her to read it until she was eighteen, but I’m sure there’s nothing in it that will help you find him – oh God!’ The tears that had been hovering close to the surface since they had told her about Brian Marks’s death finally began to fall. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m going to miss Mr Marks,’ she apologised.
‘I’m sure there’ll be someone else in his solicitors’ firm who’ll be able to pick up where he left off.’ Trevor felt unequal to dealing with Blanche Davies’ grief as well as his own.
‘You don’t understand, it’s not just his firm. He was much more to us than our solicitor.’
‘Auntie Blanche?’ Hannah stood in the doorway, looking very small and alone. ‘I heard you crying,’ she explained, giving Trevor a reproachful glare.
‘Hannah, come here.’ Blanche held out her arms.
‘It’s Daddy, isn’t it?’ The child backed away and rammed a first into her mouth.
‘No, Hannah, it’s not Daddy. It’s Uncle Marks.
He died last night.’
‘He was old, wasn’t he?’ the child said practically.
‘Yes.’ Blanche valiantly attempted a smile. ‘He was old.’
‘Well, if he was good, he’ll go to heaven.’
Hannah turned to Trevor. ‘Have you come to talk to me about that man outside the school?’
‘No, Hannah, not unless you’ve seen him again?’
‘I haven’t.’
Trevor looked down at the floor. The last time he’d been in this room, he had been with Anna.
Peter wasn’t the only one who was going to miss her. Life was so fragile, so bloody unfair. One minute you were a living, breathing entity going about your business, trying to enjoy yourself as best you could. Then, wham – nothing! Unable to stand still a moment longer he went to the door. ‘Sorry to have to bring you bad news, Miss Davies.’
Tight-lipped, Blanche nodded.
The child went to Blanche and caught her hand.
‘Shall I telephone Uncle Nigel?’
‘Uncle Nigel?’ Peter looked to Blanche, but it was Hannah who continued.
‘He’s our best friend.’
Peter looked at Blanche above the child’s head.
‘Who is Uncle Nigel?’
‘You heard Hannah, a friend,’ Blanche said testily. ‘A very old friend.’
‘Of the family?’ Trevor asked.
‘He was in school with Laura, and college after that.’
Trevor could have kicked himself. Blanche Davies was a stunning woman – one who looked remarkably like her sister. Why hadn’t he thought of checking out her men friends to see if there was any connection between them and Laura Weaver’s mysterious boyfriend?
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a freelance film director.’
‘Nigel Valance?’
‘You know him?’ Blanche asked Peter in surprise.
‘We have to go.’ Peter opened the front door, leaving Trevor to apologise for their intrusion and say their goodbyes.
‘Valance was filming down in Jubilee Street for days before that down-and-out was torched,’ Peter began as soon as Blanche had closed the door on them. ‘He met a number of vagrants when he was making that documentary.’
‘He was filming the fire in the old factory before any of the emergency services got there. I saw him there with his camera.’
‘Then he could be connected?’
‘All we have are a series of coincidences.’
‘I gave up believing in those a long time ago,’
Peter said as they reached the car. ‘Weaver escapes from prison, then goes missing. He disappears into the one world where newcomers don’t have to explain themselves. Two years later he re-surfaces here. He can’t resist going to see his child, but she talks – she tells this Uncle Nigel…’
‘But Hannah said the man’s face wasn’t her father’s.’
‘Valance would know Weaver was an actor.
That he could change his appearance.’
‘So much his own child doesn’t recognise him?’ Trevor asked sceptically. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Radio in – put out a warrant on him.’
‘We haven’t enough evidence.’
‘Ask for a car to watch this place. We’ll use the excuse that Weaver’s likely to turn up any minute.
We’ll brief the driver on Valance.’
‘Are you accepting the possibility that Weaver might be innocent?’ Trevor asked.
‘Possibly of killing his wife. But not Anna.’
‘Peter, it doesn’t add up.’
‘Nothing bloody well adds up. It hasn’t since this case started. If we drive past the television centre on our way to the station we’ll pick up Valance’s home address. A couple of hours of hard work and some luck. That’s all we need to bury Weaver, and if need be, Valance alongside him. I always knew there was something perverted about the little shit.’
Trevor eyed Peter warily as he pulled his keys from his pocket. He wondered if Peter had handed back the gun he’d been issued before going into the factory, or if he meant to bury Weaver and Valance – literally.
Tom Morris sat next to a youngster hunched over a bowl of cornflakes in the hostel. ‘Have the squatters who were burned out of the old factory found somewhere to move on to?’
‘Nowhere I’ve heard about.’ The boy carried on crunching.
‘You sure?’
‘I don’t know, do I? If we didn’t have to pay for this place more of us would come here. It’s hard to find what you lot charge for a night’s kip.’
‘Not if you lay off the drink and the drugs.’
‘I’d like to see you try it, Mr Morris. See how far you’d get out there without something extra to keep you warm at night.’
‘Mr Morris?’ A young boy shuffled in front of their table.
‘Yes,’ Tom answered impatiently.
‘Can I have a word with you, sir, in private? It’s important.’
‘Wait outside my office, and I’ll see you there.’
Tom was surprised to find the boy still waiting when he finally climbed the stairs a quarter of an hour later.
‘Come in.’ He checked his watch. He was going to be late for lunch with his wife and her parents if he stopped off to shower and change. Something he did routinely every time he left the hostel.
‘I saw him, Mr Morris, and I didn’t know who to tell. I can’t go to the coppers, because I shouldn’t have been there. But it’s cold at nights…’
‘Who did you see?’ Tom interrupted the boy’s rambling.
‘That man the police are after. The one whose pictures are everywhere. He looked a bit different, but I remember him when he was dossing down here. I’d recognise him anywhere – even with blond hair. He was climbing into the old cinema. Looked like he’d hurt his arm. He fell down twice.’
‘The old cinema’s boarded up.’
‘Jason hooked a board open like he did in the factory.’
‘When did you see him, Bobby?’
‘Just now. I was going to save my doss money by sleeping in the cinema tonight. But I won’t now.
I was in the factory when it went up, and I don’t want to get caught twice. But there are others in that cinema, Mr Morris, sir. They should be warned. I didn’t know what to do, then I thought of you.
Everyone says he’s the one who burned that man and set fire to the factory. If he torches the cinema, he’ll kill everyone inside. But I can’t go to the police. They’ll put me back in care…’
‘Don’t worry, Bobby. You won’t have to tell them anything.’ Tom picked up the telephone. ‘Run along. No one’s going to know that you’ve spoken to me. I won’t mention your name.’
‘You’ll say you saw him, sir?’
‘Yes, Bobby. I’ll say I saw him.’
‘It fits,’ Peter argued.
‘You’ve a hell of a lot of suppositions there,’
Dan pointed out.
‘Nigel Valance is a friend of Blanche Davies.
He was in school and college with Laura Weaver.
What does that tell you? Laura Weaver was having an affair with him, right?’
‘I’ll go that far as a possibility, but to jump from there to Valance killing Laura…’
‘You were the one who believed Weaver was innocent, Trevor,’ Peter reminded him.
‘All I said was that the evidence didn’t add up.’
‘Nigel Valance is Blanche’s friend,’ Peter continued. ‘From the way she talked about him, a good friend. He visits her and Hannah. Supposing Hannah mentioned the man outside her school and said the man looked like her father…’
‘From the back,’ Trevor interposed.
‘Don’t you see? If Weaver changed clothes with Matthews, the same description would have fitted both. Tall, dark, thin, wearing red baseball boots. Matthews could have been killed by Valance in mistake for Weaver.’
‘Two questions, Peter.’ Dan stared at the photographs on the board. ‘First, how did Valance know about Weaver’s face transplant, when we’ve only just found out about it?’
‘Weaver evaded capture for two years after his prison escape. Valance would have guessed that Weaver had changed his appearance. Weaver was an actor…’
‘Tony looks nothing like Weaver.’
Peter thought for a moment. ‘It@s possible Marks told him. Marks knew about the transplant, he was also concerned for Blanche Davies and the child. Who better to confide his secret to than Blanche’s boyfriend, a man in a position to protect them?’
‘Now you’re into maybes as well as suppositions,’ Trevor protested.
‘Valance and Blanche are obviously an item.’
Peter was too calm and rational for Dan’s liking, for a man who’d just seen his girlfriend’s knifed and battered body. Dan was waiting for the full flood of emotion to burst, after the eruptions at Anna’s house.
‘If you want to find someone prepared to put their all into protecting a woman and child, who better to approach than the man who’s knocking off the woman?’ Peter went on.
‘He was certainly hanging around during the fire at the factory, and from what we know, was practically the first on the scene.’
‘It’s beginning to fit for you too, Trevor?’
‘The second question,’ Dan said, ‘is, if Valance is our villain, why are Weaver’s fingerprints all over Anna’s house?’
‘Weaver’s a man at the end of his tether. He broke in…’ Peter struggled to keep his voice steady.
‘… Anna recognised him. He went berserk.’
‘So we have two killers on the loose?’ Dan suggested.
‘It’s happened before.’
‘I wish we had Weaver in custody,’ Dan said vehemently. ‘Guilty or innocent, he’s the only one who can help us clear up this mess.’
‘Poor bastard if he is innocent,’ Trevor murmured.
‘Peter, chivvy Sarah, see if she can come up with a list of people who were in drama college with Laura and Adam Weaver, and also the actors they worked with afterwards,’ Dan wanted to keep Peter busy. ‘Trevor, put out a “pick up on sight” on Valance. Assistance with enquiries will do until we have sufficient evidence for a warrant. When he’s brought in, the super and I will question him. And you two,’ he looked sternly at Peter and Trevor, ‘will stay on the other side of the door. And that’s an order.’