Page 30 of Return Ticket

It waspast the end of the work day, and it was a Friday.

James knew it was the best time to catch people at home, and he was planning to try and reach every one of the eight people on his list.

They’d already visited a few places where no one was home, and they would be looping back there for another try.

They’d spoken to the hospital where Beth Jenkins worked, and as he’d suspected, all her colleagues were convinced something terrible had happened to her.

Two of the stops they’d made had allowed them to tentatively cross names off their list, as it seemed more likely that one of the women had returned to her home in Scotland without telling anyone, and another had been seriously ill.

He and Hartridge would check those out in the morning, but James’s gut feel was that the one was safe and sound with her mother in Glasgow, and the other was perhaps in hospital, perhaps dead, of the asthma that had plagued her her whole life.

The fog had been very bad the day she’d died, which had initially made James fear she was one of their victims, but her landlady, who’d reported her missing, had admitted she had been struggling with the weather conditions, and when they’d gone to her place of work, one of her colleagues had told him and Hartridge as they were leaving that the last time they’d seen her, her lips had been blue.

“This next one has a high likelihood of being one of our victims.” James pulled up beside the well-kept home on a typical suburban street. “The report was made by a Mrs. Davies. According to her, her daughter Tamara never came home after a night out.”

As he stepped out of the car he looked down the street, unsure if this neighborhood was on the rise or spiraling downward. For every neat garden and well-maintained front porch there was a house with rubbish lying around it, and overgrown grass. This part of the city was near the docks, and conveniently close to the center of town, so he guessed eventually it would be on the rise, no matter what was happening with it now.

Most of the houses were semi-detached, but the Davies home stood in its own little garden, enclosed by a neatly painted white fence.

“Handy for work,” Hartridge said, echoing his own thinking as he studied the neighborhood. “Might actually be affordable.”

“Not for long,” James predicted. “It’s got location going for it.”

Hartridge gave a nod, and James guessed they’d both be looking into this area when they got a chance.

He was renting, and Hartridge was currently housed in the Met’s single quarters barracks.

Getting his own place would be good. If he decided he wanted to stay in London, that was.

His thoughts turned almost automatically to Gabriella, and he realized he missed seeing her, even though this would only be the third evening in a row he hadn’t stopped by to visit her.

Hartridge had opened the gate, and he followed him up the stone paving to the front door.

A small dog yapped and barked from within, and Hartridge had just lifted the knocker when the door swung open.

“Yes?” The man who stood in the doorway was beefy, with thick muscle-roped arms, visible because he had turned up his shirt sleeves despite the cold weather.

James took an instant dislike to him.

He had seen the look in the man’s eyes before, when he’d worked as a constable, breaking up pub fights. This was someone who’d break a bottle over the back of your head and then kick you in the ribs when you were down.

A stone cold scrapper.

The way he stepped back at the sight of them told James he didn’t like that James was as big as he was, and a little taller. He really didn’t like it at all.

James sometimes wished he was a less threatening presence, especially when dealing with victims, but he was glad of his height and his build now.

He took his time looking down at his notebook. “Mr. Davies?” He let his Welsh burr out as he asked the question. “You a Welshman?”

Davies blinked, shook his head. “Not that I know.” He narrowed his eyes. “Who’re you, then?”

“Detective Sergeant Archer.” James extended his warrant card. “This is DC Hartridge. We’re following up on the missing person’s report your wife lodged two weeks ago.”

From the sudden frown, James guessed Davies hadn’t liked that his wife had filed the report. “Right.” Davies took another step back. “Following up how?”

“We’re just wondering if your wife had heard from the person she reported missing in the meanwhile?” James asked. “Her daughter?” He looked down at his notebook again.

When he looked back up, a woman was standing just off to the side. She was in a house dress, her hair was tied up in a scarf, and there was a fading, yellow bruise near her hairline, on her left cheek.

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