Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,30

it?’

‘You can blame Annie for that. She bought me a spy novel for Christmas. The hero had to contact his agent in a hostile country, so they worked out a dead-letter drop. Basically you write a note then find a place to leave it but it has to be somewhere no one else is likely to stumble on by accident. There were loads of loose stones in the walls around the fields. I just had to mark one so Rebecca could find it. I got one of those tester pots and put a small splash of white paint on the stone then left my first note behind it when I put it back. It was easy.’

‘How did Rebecca know when to collect it?’

‘Up until that point we were trying to see each other every two or three days at the same time in the same place, but half the time it didn’t happen. If her husband was home or if Annie’s old man called a client meeting I couldn’t get out of, one of us would be left sitting there, so I promised I’d find a better way. Every morning on my way to work I’d pull over for a couple of minutes, scribble a note to Rebecca and leave it behind the stone in the wall. Sometimes it would say I could see her that day and what time, or at least I was able to tell her I couldn’t make it.

‘Rebecca would go out later that morning, pick up my message and leave one for me. I’d nip out in my lunch hour or on my way somewhere and pick up her reply. Sometimes it confirmed our appointment, sometimes she said she couldn’t do it, which was always disappointing but at least I would know and I wouldn’t waste my time hanging around waiting for her.’

‘Was that all you wrote? Just times to meet up?’

‘At first, but sometimes we would leave letters for each other. Rebecca started that.’

‘What was in the letters?’

‘Just, you know, how we felt about one another, how we wished we could be together and not trapped with other people. It was our way of keeping the flame burning when we couldn’t see each other.’

‘But you both destroyed these letters?’

‘Of course.’

‘Except the one Rebecca left in the glove compartment,’ he reminded Bell. ‘Must have been stressful though, all that sneaking around.’

‘It was but you know what; it was exciting too. We were creeping round like a couple of teenagers whose parents didn’t approve of us being together. Like it was us against the world, you know. It was part of the game.’

‘I get it,’ Tom told him, ‘so what happened on the day she was murdered?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bell told him, ‘we weren’t meeting up that day. She wasn’t supposed to be there.’

‘That’s the bit I’m struggling to understand,’ Tom told him. ‘If you were saying she was killed by some passing maniac, that she was somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time and that you got there five minutes later then frankly even that would be pretty hard to swallow but it would be more believable than your story.’

‘It’s not a story, Tom,’ said Bell, ‘it’s the truth.’

‘Then what was she doing there if you didn’t arrange it? Did anybody else know about the dead-letter drop?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

Bell nodded. ‘I was very careful. There was never anyone around when I put the letter in the wall. No one else knew about it unless …’

‘Unless what?’

‘Rebecca told them about it.’

‘And why would she?’

‘She wouldn’t,’ Bell said. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot. Even if for some inexplicable reason Rebecca wanted to tell a friend about it, if she felt the need to boast or confess or ask for advice, there would be no reason to reveal the exact location of our messages, would there?’

‘No,’ agreed Tom, ‘there wouldn’t, which leaves you with a problem and a big gap in your story. If this was the only way you communicated with one another, apart from the times you were physically together, then why did she go to your usual spot that day if you didn’t summon her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bell admitted.

‘Could she have got the day or the time wrong?’

‘Maybe. I wish I knew, believe me. It has been eating me up for more than two years.’

‘Could someone have followed her and seen her leave a message there?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose, but I told her to be really careful, not to stop if