Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (31 page)

Nigel’s blue eyes stared at her out of a roughly worked face—bold lines, dark colors. His features were angular, as they were in life, but this image, even more than the preparatory sketches and the other attempts, showed him as she knew him to be, with a vulnerability despite the coldness. Whatever it was that he did to earn his money, he did it not out of greed but out of a desire to succeed—in this as in everything else he tackled. She admired him for that, despite everything.

Maybe this was all because she had let him down. She was supposed to be a farmer’s daughter, wasn’t she? And since Felicity hadn’t managed to produce a son and heir, she should have been learning the business, ready to take it over one day. But her heart had never been in it. When she told her parents that she had a place at art school, they had reacted much as she had expected them to: Nigel could barely speak to her for months afterward. Felicity found things to worry about while trying to be supportive and encouraging in her own limited way. If it had only been the farm, Flora might have given up her flat and done what had been expected of her. But it wasn’t just the farm; it was the rest of it. The deals with those thugs he associated with. The drug imports that Felicity knew nothing about; the transportation of illegal workers from all over the world: people who’d traveled thousands of miles and ended up working in the shitholes of the U.K., with no rights and very little money.

Months after she had told them about her college place, Nigel had taken her into his office one afternoon and told her all about it. He brought everything out into the open: who he was working for, how he started off organizing the transport but then ended up taking over other parts of it, laundering some of the profits through the farm, handling cash and drugs and recruiting operatives because, at the end of the day, the rest of them were shit at it.

Flora told him she didn’t want to know.

And in response he had offered her a deal: he would fund her college course, he would support her every step of the way, on the understanding that she would back him up when he needed it, and that one day she would be there to take things over. Manage the farm, do whatever else needed to be done. If she didn’t want to get her hands dirty, that was fair enough—he would allow her that—but she had to know, in order not to fuck things up for him. If she knew what was going on, she would know when to look away. And that way, Nigel could keep the money coming in.

And so they had continued in this uneasy dance, Flora the artist, Nigel the farmer. As unlikely a father-daughter relationship as you could ever encounter, more alike than they would ever admit. If her art had not been so successful, who knew? She might well have got more involved with the farm, might have even helped him practically with some of the financial day-to-day stuff. But she was a success, and she could afford the studio, and while she could take commissions when things got a bit tight, most of the time she was comfortable and working on whatever she wanted to.

Then Polly arrived, and upset everything.

Now Flora looked into the blue, blue eyes and saw in them something she had never seen before. She took the canvas over to the one she had been working on, Polly’s canvas, and put them side by side; and while Polly’s was more abstract, there was the same blue in the shirt that was supposed to represent Polly, and the way her eyes looked first thing in the morning when she had been sleeping in Flora’s arms and had looked up at her—
that
moment. And it was the same color. The
same.

It meant nothing, of course. But Flora knew. And other things, things she had turned her mind away from: Nigel had told her he had been out late that night, had come home after midnight—but Felicity had said he had gone down to Yonder Cottage and Polly had made him cheese on toast. Flora had signed a statement at the police station declaring that she did not know the identity of any of Polly’s other lovers. She had lied to them because he was her father and, even though she hated his guts right now, she still had that unswerving family loyalty that he didn’t deserve.

But what if he had killed her? What if Nigel had been the one who had killed Polly?

Day Five
Monday 5 November 2012

06:45

From her desk, Lou saw Jason arrive. He was laughing and joking with Barry Holloway and Mandy before he’d even got his coat off. And then he looked over toward her office, and met her eyes, and smiled.

Already in his email inbox was a load more phone data, and the download of Brian’s phone had finally come through from the CCU, and been sent to the analyst directly. Lou had received a copy of the email but the attachment wouldn’t open. She was dying to know what it contained.

It definitely felt as though a turning point had been reached in the investigation. Beyond the interviews, the weeding out of the useful witnesses from those who claimed to have seen nothing, heard nothing, from those who claimed to have seen everything but clearly hadn’t, there was a point in every investigation when a piece of information came in that felt different.

And this morning, there were several.

Right, she needed coffee before the briefing. Time to get going with it.

07:18

Jason had been sitting at his desk when the call came in. Barry Holloway took it, and even across three desks and half the room, Jason could see him sit up a little straighter.

“Right you are. Yes, all right, then. Ready now, is it?”

When he’d finished the call, he addressed the room. “We’ve got some CCTV of Polly from the town center. Who wants to go get it?”

There was only Les Finnegan, Jason, and Mandy in the room. Les stood and looked across to Jason. “Fancy coming along? Get some fresh air?”

The TV Unit was across the car park in a temporary building, pending their move to the refurbished Custody Suite along with Computer Crime. The cabin they were in was ridiculously unsuitable, freezing cold in winter and dangerously hot in summer. It was temporary, and yet they’d been in there nearly three years and all the other police stations had to rely on this unit for any downloads, leading to a huge backlog. Of course, being on site and being able to turn up and wait was a distinct advantage.

Inside, the unit hummed with servers, printers, and various recording devices. The council CCTV had sent over four disks with all the recordings from the town center CCTV cameras for 31 October and some poor sod in the TV unit had spent the last two days viewing everything between the hours of half past twelve and four, the times that Felicity Maitland had given for Polly’s trip into town.

Josh Trent, the technical analyst, took them over to a desk in the far corner. “Grab a chair,” he said.

The computer screen was frozen on a scene from the high street, shoppers stopped in their tracks in the pedestrian precinct. The time display showed 13:04:08, the date 31/10/2012.

“Ready?” said Josh, fingers poised over the keyboard. Jason and Les were both glued to the screen. With CCTV it was often a case of “blink and you miss it.”

For a moment there was nothing, just people walking slowly up and down the high street, shopping bags bulging. From the right, a young female crossed and sat on a bench. Blond hair in a ponytail. Black coat. A few shopping bags, and a small tan-colored bag worn with the strap across her body.

“That’s her?” Jason said, quietly.

Les nodded. “Hair’s pretty recognizable. Is that it?”

Josh gave a self-satisfied look. “Keep watching.”

The girl on the screen checked her watch. The time reference on the screen had clicked round to 13:06:12. After a moment she fished inside one of the carrier bags and brought out a bottle, dark-colored, a flash of a red label—Coke? She unscrewed it and swigged from the bottle, replaced the lid, and put it back inside the bag. She sat back, one leg crossed over the other.

13:07:43. “She’s waiting for someone,” Les said.

Polly stood up, stretched, leaving the bags behind her on the seat. She turned to face up the high street, her back to the camera. She had her hands on her hips. Checked her watch again. Turned, hair swinging over one shoulder.

“Watch this bit.” Josh indicated the top left of the screen.

From there a young man appeared with a young woman, who was walking slightly in front. He was carrying half a dozen shopping bags. As they passed Polly, the man kept watching, turning his head to stare at her until with a smack he walked into a lamppost.

They all laughed, despite themselves.

13:09:10. Polly checked her watch again. Then she snatched up her bags and walked swiftly up the hill in the direction of the bus station and the arcade. They watched until she disappeared out of sight.

Les and Jason both looked at Josh. “That it?” Les said, obviously wondering why he’d bothered to leave his nice warm office for five minutes of watching a blond bird being stood up.

Josh looked smug again. “No, of course that’s not it. Patience, lads, please.”

Les started to look pissed off and Jason stifled a smile—Les was so easy to wind up.

A few keyboard strokes and a few mouse clicks, and a new file had loaded. This one was from inside the shopping center. Much busier here. Mums with buggies, elderly people dragging shopping trolleys behind them. At the top of the screen was the entrance to Marks and Spencer. The exit to the high street was just visible off to the right. The time stamp at the top read, disconcertingly, 14:22:27.

“The time’s wrong on this one. The council CCTV unit confirmed they’d not got around to putting the clock back. Other than the hour it’s right, though. So about one twenty. And here she comes.” He stuck a finger, nail bitten to the quick, in the top left corner of the screen, and clicked the mouse.

From the top left, Polly appeared, half running. Her right hand was held up to her face. Same jacket, jeans, shopping bags in her left hand. She was heading to the high street entrance.

“She’s on the phone,” Les said.

“Right,” Josh agreed. “Now she’s going back out to the high street.” After only a few seconds Polly had disappeared out of the right of the screen, her blond ponytail swinging behind her.

The screen froze again and they all breathed out, leaned back, and relaxed.

“She’s going back to the bench?”

Josh nodded, his eyes shining. “This is so cool. How often do we get any usable CCTV? We’re so bloody lucky all the cameras were pointing in the right direction. Although I’m afraid the next shot’s a bit iffy. Can’t have everything.”

He loaded the third file, and once again the high street appeared. The sun had come out, the icy street was shining, and there was a disconcerting glare at the top of the screen from the sunlight. The starburst effect covered the top half of the screen, the bench where Polly had been waiting only just visible in the bottom corner.

“Ready?”

The camera clock imprint showed 13:26:52. A mouse click, and the dark shapes walking up and down the street started into life. Polly came down the street, running, facing the camera this time. It was not possible to make out her face, but somehow it seemed as though she would have been smiling. The phone was gone, the shopping bags still in her left hand, swinging against her leg. She dropped them on the bench, turned around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, then sat down on the bench.

“Here we go,” Josh said quietly.

Polly jumped back up and ran to the left, throwing her arms around a figure that had appeared. They all leaned closer.

“I think it’s a woman,” said Jason. “She’s not that much taller than Polly, look.”

“Nah, that’s a proper waxed jacket. Look at the shoulders. Got to be a male,” said Les.

For a moment all that was visible was a bulk where Polly had folded her whole body around the figure. The blond head moved slightly.

“They’re kissing,” Josh said.

Les leaned closer. “What—like a snog?”

“It’s a bloody long kiss, anyway,” said Josh.

13:27:03. As they moved toward the bench the figure emerged from the flare of the sunshine. A dark jacket, red gloves, black shoes, black trousers underneath. That was about all you could see. The other figure pulled away abruptly, gripping Polly by the upper arms. Red gloves against the black of Polly’s coat. Polly seemed to shake herself free.

Polly went to sit down on the bench, but the figure took her hand and pulled her up. Back to the camera.

“Whoever that is knows the camera’s there,” Jason said quietly.

Les looked up at him scornfully.

“I thought that too,” said Josh.

The figure took Polly’s left hand and pulled her away from the bench. Polly looked like she was struggling to keep up. The shopping was left on the bench. Right before they went out of the view of the screen, they saw a last swing of Polly’s blond ponytail as she looked back toward her shopping bags—one arm extended out toward the bench. Then she was gone.

The footage kept running.

13:28:33. “She’s left her bloody shopping behind,” Les said.

People walked in and out of shot, some of them pausing to look at the shopping bags. The sun seemed to go behind a cloud, and the footage went momentarily dark while the camera adjusted, and then came back to normal. A better view this time, with the flare missing.

“I take it there’s more?” Les grumbled, fidgeting in his seat.

“A bit. Hold on. Nearly there,” Josh said.

13:29:11. Polly reappeared, standing near the bench, looking back over her shoulder in the direction from which she’d come. She raised a hand, once, and waved. Presumably to the person she’d been with, the person who seemed to be avoiding the CCTV.

Polly’s hand went to her lips, and then back to a wave, blowing a kiss goodbye. She stood for a moment, watching. Then picked up her shopping bags and turned her back to the camera, heading up the high street once again.

They continued watching as the camera clock flashed to 13:30:48, then the screen went blank. For a moment they just sat there.

“That’s it?” asked Les.

Josh nodded.

“That’s fantastic,” Jason said. There must have been a huge amount of work to get those three sections of footage. “The DCI is going to be thrilled, Josh. Good stuff.”