When Night Closes in (28 page)

He heard the drone of a heavy vehicle behind him and indicated that he intended to move into the middle lane to allow the lorry to pass. It was a mistake. The driver was not prepared to wait. The lorry pulled out and caught the car with a solid crunch, jerking Timmy forward.

He grasped the wheel in an effort to regain control, but it was useless. He felt the car spin crazily. He saw the central reservation loom up in front of him. He made another attempt to correct the car but the momentum carried him relentlessly towards the steel barrier.

He felt the crunch, saw sparks leap from the impact of metal against metal. The car veered back across the three lanes and he could do nothing but sit staring helplessly at the back of another vehicle as he powered towards it. There was a blinding flash, flames rose like the fires of hell around him and then there was nothing but a merciful darkness.

Lainey stood in the cold sunshine of the afternoon and looked at the ruins of number 4 Plunch Lane. The chimney stood out like a blackened tooth against the sky. Watson stood beside him, shaking his head.

‘Arson, you say?'

‘Afraid so.' Lainey looked at the older man. ‘The boys take their time working these things out, but they get there in the end.'

‘Dreadful,' Mr Watson said. ‘Thank God the fire didn't spread to the rest of the row, someone might have been killed.'

Lainey nodded. ‘What could be the motive for burning a small holiday cottage? There seems no sense to it.'

Mr Watson shook his head. ‘I really don't know. It could be someone had a grudge against me of course, but in that case why not burn down the whole damned lot?'

‘We might never find out,' Lainey said. ‘That's the trouble with fires, they make a good job of concealing the motive for the crime. If there was one.'

‘You mean this might be random, the work of a pyromaniac?' Mr Watson asked. ‘I suppose you're right – there are some idiots about.'

He moved slowly back towards his car. ‘If that's all, Detective Inspector Lainey, I'll get off.'

‘Thank you for coming down, Mr Watson,' Lainey said. ‘I would have come over to the office under normal circumstances, but there just wasn't time.'

He watched as the solicitor drove away and then stood in the cold sunlight, pondering his real reason for bringing Mr Watson to Plunch Lane. He had to admit that he did not relish the thought of running into Lowri at her office, not when the case was getting so complicated.

He climbed into the waiting police car. ‘Good thing the man's a solicitor, I bet he had the best insurance money can buy.' Lainey fastened his seat-belt.

‘Right, Ken, we've got work to do, let's get back to the station.'

Terence Watson was deep in thought as he drove to the office. He pulled in around the back and found that the car park was almost empty. Nearly everyone had finished work for the day. Except, that was, for Mrs Jenkins.

‘Still here?' he said.

She nodded but did not look up from her computer. She might have an excellent flair for business but she was the most dour of women, with no social graces. But then he had not employed her because of her charm. He had employed her because she seemed the type to get on with her work and keep her nose out of anyone else's business.

‘Right then, you'd better get off home.' He forced a smile. ‘You don't get medals in this life for working yourself to a standstill, you know.' He opened the door of his room and went inside. The smell of old books and lavender furniture polish enfolded him.

He sank down into his chair and looked at his watch. Seven minutes past five, hardly worth the effort of coming to the office. He waited patiently until he heard Mrs Jenkins leave the building and then he went into the reception area and locked the front door.

Systematically, he began to go through the files, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He searched Mrs Jenkins's desk. It smelt of her deodorant, and half hidden beneath a pile of papers was a packet of cigarettes. So she was not as flawless as he had thought.

He could find nothing. He stared at the blank screen of the computer; no doubt anything Mrs Jenkins wanted to conceal would be on there. He shrugged. He had no chance of finding it, he knew very little about computers.

On an impulse, he played back the tape on the answerphone. The first message was from a customer with a complaint. The man was anxious about the time it was taking to complete on a house purchase. There was a silence after that, and Terence reached out to switch the machine off. Then a masculine voice came over the line, the words softly spoken.

‘Report to me ASAP. I'll be waiting in the usual place.'

The machine clicked off and Terence replayed the message several times. It told him very little. Mrs Jenkins might have a husband somewhere or even a lover, unlikely though that seemed, but then the word ‘report' sounded more like an instruction than an invitation.

He admitted defeat and sat down on the upright chair. Perhaps there was nothing to find. Perhaps Mrs Jenkins was playing a straight bat. He looked at the pile of letters waiting to be signed, and when he picked them up a small scrap of paper fluttered to the floor.

He retrieved it and saw some scribbled digits, presumably a phone number, in what looked like Mrs Jenkins's handwriting. Terence picked up the telephone and pressed out the numbers and, to his satisfaction, a phone began to ring.

Lowri climbed into the taxi and glanced at her watch. She would have been at the office by now but for the fact that Lainey was having her watched. She had not failed to notice the figures outside her house and the intermittent glow of a cigarette. It had been simple enough to leave her car parked at the front of the house and let herself out of the back door. She had walked around to the main road and picked up a taxi almost straight away.

She gave the address of the office to the driver and sank back in the cold leather seat with a sigh of relief. Soon she would be safely there, and then Mr Watson would explain everything to her. She slipped her hand inside her bag and felt the edge of the CD. Whatever was on it must be very important for Mr Watson to ask her to bring it round so late at night.

She looked out of the window and frowned. ‘Driver, aren't we going the wrong way?'

‘I've been paid to carry out instructions and that's what I'm doing,' he said, without turning round.

The road narrowed down to a small lane and Lowri leaned forward in her seat, rapping on the window.

‘Where are you taking me?' But she knew where: the taxi was heading coastward in the direction of the Swan Hotel.

‘I want to get out, stop the cab!' she shouted, but the driver took no notice. He manoeuvred through the lanes at breakneck speed and Lowri held her breath. She felt a sense of relief when the cab drew up a short distance from the Swan's main entrance.

Lowri climbed out of the taxi and before she could open her bag to pay him, he had pressed the accelerator and roared away into the night.

She looked towards the lights of the hotel and her heart rate slowed a little. Mr Watson must have changed his mind about the meeting-place. No doubt he had his reasons.

She swung her bag over her shoulder and began to walk towards the foyer. She shivered a little, the breeze from the sea cutting through her coat. What on earth did Mr Watson want with Sally's CD?

So suddenly that she had no time to react, someone cannoned into her from behind. Lowri fell, hitting the gravel of the drive with a thud that knocked the breath from her body. As she lay gasping, her bag was dragged from her shoulder. She tried to struggle but a fist caught her at the side of her head. Slowly, Lowri sank against the ground, her senses reeling.

She blacked out for a moment and when consciousness returned, she tried to sit up. She could feel blood trickling down her cheek and it took her a few minutes to rise to her feet. Her head was still spinning as she limped into the foyer of the Swan. With a sense of relief she saw Trish was on reception.

The girl noticed her at once and came rushing from behind the counter. ‘Oh my lord what's happened, have you been mugged?'

Lowri nodded. ‘Get the police, Trish, will you?' She staggered, the darkness pressed down on her and she slumped to the floor.

Lowri sat still as the police doctor cleaned up the scratches on her cheek. She was trembling and Lainey could see through her efforts to appear unruffled.

‘There, no harm done,' the doctor said. ‘You won't have any scars, Miss Richards, so don't worry about that.'

‘Thank you, doctor, you've been very kind.'

‘No problem.' The doctor snapped shut his bag. ‘If that's all, Mr Lainey, I'll get back to my dinner party.'

Lainey nodded. Ken Major opened the door and the doctor departed. ‘Are you up to answering questions, Lowri?' Lainey's voice was gentle and Lowri felt tears come to her eyes. She shook them away impatiently.

‘Yes, of course I am,' she said. ‘Though there's not a lot I can tell you, I'm afraid.'

He leaned forward. ‘If you hadn't given my man the slip none of this would have happened. Lowri, you do realize you could have been seriously injured, even killed?'

‘I know, it wasn't very clever of me to pick a taxi up in the street and get into it. I should have realized that seeing a taxi around my place at that time of night was one hell of a coincidence.'

‘What did the driver look like?'

Lowri sighed. ‘I don't know, I just saw the back of his head and it was dark. I heard his voice though, he sounded more like a Londoner than a local man.'

Lainey got to his feet. ‘I don't suppose you noticed what taxi company the cab was from? Was there a leaflet stuck up inside, a card with a number on, anything?'

‘No, I'm sorry,' Lowri said. ‘Once I realized we were going the wrong way I think I panicked.'

‘And why the Swan?' Lainey said. ‘Why would the driver take you to the Swan – it's rather far out, isn't it?'

‘I know,' Lowri said. ‘I intended to go to the office, I needed to see Mr Watson but the driver had other ideas.'

Lainey sat down again and leaned back in his chair. ‘Right, Lowri, what was in your bag?'

‘The usual stuff, make-up, purse, that sort of thing.'

‘Come on, Lowri, don't treat me like a fool! What else did you have in your bag?'

‘A disc, that's all.'

‘What sort of a disc?'

‘The sort you put in a CD-ROM drive in a computer.'

‘You know what I mean.' He sounded impatient. ‘Was there anything different about it, anything that was out of the ordinary?'

‘Well yes, there was funny writing on it, foreign but not like any language I've ever seen.'

‘And where were you taking it?'

‘I told you, to my boss, Mr Watson.'

‘What you said was that you needed to see Mr Watson. Now, why would Mr Watson want this disc?' His eyes narrowed and he looked as if he could see inside her skull.

Lowri shrugged. ‘I really don't know. Mr Watson just asked did I have it and if so would I take it over to the office.'

Lainey nodded. ‘Right, we'd better talk to Mr Watson then. Now, Lowri, where did you get the disc? It's most important that I know.'

‘Timmy Perkins, you know, Sally's boyfriend. He asked me to take care of Sal's belongings, make-up and stuff, and the disc was in the bag with the rest.'

‘Ah!' Lainey sighed heavily. ‘That's the one part of your story we can't corroborate.'

‘Why, what do you mean?'

Lainey sat forward. ‘I mean that Mr Perkins has met with an unfortunate traffic accident. He's in Morriston Hospital with burns and serious head injuries.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know.' Lowri suddenly felt ill. It was as if the world was closing in on her. ‘Poor Timmy, how did it happen?'

Lainey shrugged. ‘Just one of those things, I suppose. Wrong place at the wrong time.'

‘Are you saying it
wasn't
an accident?'

‘I'm not saying anything until the matter has been investigated further.' He looked up at Ken Major. ‘Sergeant, you had better get on the phone to Mr Watson and ask him to come over.'

Ken glanced at his watch. ‘It's getting a bit late isn't it, guv?'

Lainey shook his head. ‘Too bad. In any case, I'm sure Mr Watson is wondering where Miss Richards has got to by now.'

Ken left the room and Lainey gently touched the grazes on Lowri's face. ‘You should be more careful of the company you keep.'

Lowri drew away from him, a hard knot of anger inside her. Lainey clearly thought she knew more than she had told him. He probably imagined her being involved in some complicated plot to rob the Bank of England. She wanted a hot bath and a comfortable bed. She was tired and her bones ached from the fall.

‘I want to go home,' she said. ‘I haven't done anything wrong, I've just been attacked by some lunatic who probably wanted my credit cards. I don't know why you're making an issue of all this.'

Lainey looked up as the door opened and Ken Major came back into the room. He stood beside the desk and looked down at Lowri.

‘Sorry, Miss Richards, your Mr Watson had no idea what you were talking about.' He shook his head at Lainey. ‘I got him out of bed, guv, he wasn't even in his office, he was at home.'

‘Well?' Lainey looked at Lowri and she stared back, with a feeling of hostility.

‘Well, he probably gave up waiting for me and decided to call it a day. He can't think the damned disc very important if he didn't wait for me, can he?' She shook back her hair. ‘What on earth is on the CD anyway? I can't see it can be of much importance if it's been hanging around in Sally's bag all this time.'

‘I'm not at liberty to discuss police matters,' Lainey said, rubbing his hands wearily through his hair.