Night Fall Read Online Free PDF

me to take Billy’s picture. She couldn’t get enough of them; always pestering me to take more, so I probably thought we had enough, and just stopped taking them.’
    â€˜What about later? We couldn’t find a single picture of him after the age of seventeen or eighteen.’
    Travis shook his head in a bewildered sort of way. ‘I think it might have been earlier than that,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what got into him, but all of a sudden he went camera shy. I thought he was joking at first, but I soon found out he wasn’t when I tried to take a picture of him. Dead serious, he was, so I let him be.’ His face clouded. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t have a picture of the boy since then.’
    He raised troubled eyes to meet those of Paget as the realization hit him. ‘Not one!’ he repeated. ‘Me, a photographer, and I don’t have a single picture of my son as a man!’ His lips quivered, and he turned his head away to hide the tears in his eyes.
    â€˜Perhaps Trudy Mason might have one,’ Molly suggested, but Travis shook his head. ‘I know she tried,’ he said, ‘but she told me he grabbed the camera off her and got so upset that she never tried again. He took lots of her, though.’
    With Ormside away until Monday, Paget was anxious to get back to Charter Lane to oversee the setting up of the incident room, so it was left to Molly to trace Billy Travis’s movements on the night before he died. George Travis had said that Billy left the shop around seven thirty on Friday evening, so the first thing that needed to be established was whether Billy had actually gone to the meeting in Thurston Street.
    Now, as she followed Ted Grayson down the hall to a small sitting room, Molly could see why George Travis had described the man as ‘a bit odd’ when Paget had asked about the man. Grayson had come to the door wearing ragged jeans, a multi-coloured tie-dyed shirt open to the waist, and flip-flops on his bare feet. With his gaunt face, scarecrow frame, and hair pulled tight and tied at the back in a pony-tail, he looked more like one of the street people who huddled in doorways on Bridge Street each night than the owner of a small but tastefully furnished house in Thurston Street.
    â€˜So, Detective Sergeant Forsythe,’ he said brusquely as he waved Molly to a seat, ‘what’s all this about Billy Travis?’ Grayson pulled up a footstool and squatted cross-legged to face her. ‘What’s Billy supposed to have done? He was here just last night, and I can’t see him getting into much trouble between then and now.
Is
he in trouble?’
    Molly ignored the question. ‘Do you happen to remember what time it was when he arrived last night?’ she asked.
    â€˜Quarter to eight, give or take a few minutes. We try to start at eight, and Billy usually gets here in good time. And you aren’t answering my question. What’s he supposed to have done?’
    â€˜In a moment,’ Molly said. ‘Can you tell me when he left?’
    Grayson remained silent, eyeing her narrowly as if trying to decide whether to answer or not. ‘Eleven o’clock,’ he said at last. ‘Everyone left at the same time, and the town hall clock was striking eleven as they went out the door.’
    â€˜How was he when he left? Did you notice anything different about him during the evening? Or did he say anything that struck you as odd?’
    Grayson got to his feet. ‘I don’t like playing games,’ he said coldly, ‘especially when it involves a friend, so no more answers until you tell me what this is about. So, either you tell me or we’ve finished here.’
    â€˜Unfortunately, it’s not a game,’ Molly told him. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Billy Travis died last night.’
    â€˜Died?’ Grayson stared at her for a long moment, then sat down