The Echo

The Echo by Minette Walters Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: The Echo by Minette Walters Read Free Book Online
Authors: Minette Walters
you have them back." He tucked the photographs between the pages of his notebook when she nodded agreement. "Did the police ever come up with any other explanation for why he chose your garage, apart from the door being open on the day he went into it?"
    She sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. Deacon was surprised to see how whitely her knuckles shone. "They thought he might have followed me home from work, although they never produced a valid reason for why he might have wanted to do that. If he'd singled me out as someone worth following, then he'd have asked me for help. Would you agree with that?" She was appealing to him on an intellectual level, but Deacon was more inclined to respond to the tic of anxiety that fluttered at the corner of her mouth. He hadn't noticed it before. He was beginning to understand that her composure was a surface thing and that something far more turbulent was at work underneath.
    "Yes," he said. "There's no sense in following you without a reason. So? Could there have been another reason?"
    "Like what?"
    "Perhaps he thought he recognized you."
    "As whom?"
    "I don't know."
    "Wouldn't he have been even more likely to speak to me if he thought he knew me?" She darted the question at him so quickly that he guessed it was one she had asked herself many times.
    Deacon scratched his jaw. "Maybe he was too far gone by then to do anything other than collapse and die. Where exactly is your office?"
    "Two hundred yards from the derelict warehouse where Billy used to bed down. The whole area's up for redevelopment. W. F. Meredith rents office space in a warehouse which was refurbished three years ago during the first phase. The police felt the proximity of the buildings was too much of a coincidence, but I'm not sure I agree with them. Two hundred yards is a long way in a city like London." She looked unhappy and he guessed she found this argument less convincing than she claimed.
    He lifted the pages of his notebook to study the skull's-head photograph again. "Was this house a Meredith construction?" he asked without looking up. "Did you get a discount on it because you're part of the firm?"
    She didn't answer immediately. "I don't think that's any of your business," she said then.
    He gave a low laugh. "Probably not, but a place like this costs a fortune, and you haven't exactly stinted on the furnishings. You're not short of a bob or two if you can afford all this and shell out four hundred pounds on an unknown man's cremation. I'm curious, Amanda. You're either a very successful architect or you have another source of income."
    "As I said, Mr. Deacon, it's none of your business."
    Briefly the drink slurred her words again. "Shall we go back to Billy?"
    He shrugged. "Presumably you'd have noticed anyone like this watching you?" he asked her, tapping the celluloid face.
    She straightened slowly, a troubled expression on her face. "No, I don't think I would."
    "How could you have missed him?"
    "By avoiding eye contact," she admitted reluctantly. "It's the only way to escape being pestered. Even if I do give money to someone, I very rarely look at them. I certainly couldn't give a detailed description of them afterwards."
    Deacon reflected on the homeless youngsters he'd interviewed already for his article, and realized he'd have trouble describing any particular individual. It depressed him to admit it, but she was right. Through sheer embarrassment, one never looked too long on the destitute. "All right," he said, "let's say it was pure coincidence that Billy chose your garage to die in, then someone must have seen him. If he was walking along the road looking for a place to hide, particularly on an estate like this, he couldn't have gone unnoticed. Did any of your neighbors come forward as witnesses?"
    "No one's mentioned it."
    "Did the police ask?"
    "I don't know. It was all over in three or four hours. As soon as the doctor arrived and pronounced him dead, that was effectively it. The

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