Page 36 of The Girl He Crowned

Paige could feelthe excitement building in her as she waited for an answer, but she stillneeded to hear it to be sure of everything she suspected. She didn’t want to jinxit by saying it aloud.

“There’s aninscription here saying it’s by ‘Hales and Co.’”

That was all theconfirmation Paige needed. They had their connection between the victims now. Itwas a strange connection, one Paige didn’t understand yet, but she would.

They had to get tothe clockmaker. The truth, and possibly the murderer, was there somewhere.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

To Paige, Hales& Co. looked like a very old-fashioned kind of building, with the companyobviously in the same spot for many years. The front part of it looked likesome kind of showroom, with a large glass store window filled with extravagantclocks, while a larger warehouse or workshop stood at the back. It was in themiddle of an area that had become as upmarket as the rest of Eddis, so that itsold-fashioned brickwork seemed quite quaint and out of touch.

It seemed to playup to that sense of history in the rest of the town, with a deliberately old-fashionedsign, declaring that it had been established there in 1946, and severalpictures set up on the outer walls of the neighborhood as it had been in thosedays.

“Do you thinkwe’ll get answers here?” Christopher asked.

“All threependulums from the scenes are linked to this place,” Paige said. “There has tobe some connection.”

Christophernodded. “I’m not doubting that. I’m just wondering how we get from thatconnection to our killer.”

They would find away. They had to. Paige could feel a familiar excitement building in her at thethought of making progress on the case. The evidence they needed to catch thekiller was there somewhere; Paige could almost feel it. There was a trail herethat would lead them in the direction of the man they were trying to catch.

As she andChristopher stepped inside, Paige had to admit that she was impressed by whatshe saw. The showroom had the feel of a high-end antiques store, or maybe amuseum. The walls were wood paneled, the carpets were a plush green velvet thatwas like walking on grass, and the clocks were set out on small plinths, as ifmerely standing on the ground wasn’t impressive enough for them.

If anything, theclocks were even more impressive than the rest of the building that stoodaround them. Longcase clocks of various types dominated the space, standinglike pillars set at intervals, each with a space around it so that potentialcustomers could examine it from every angle. Smaller clocks hung on the walls,or stood on stands, each treated as much like a piece of art as simply atimepiece.

Maybe theydeserved to be, though. Each of the longcase clocks in the middle of the roomseemed to be unique, and finished to a quality that Paige hadn’t imagined waspossible until she saw it. Some were classic pieces in mahogany or oak, polisheduntil they shone and standing there proudly. Others were one off works of art,from a completely glass cased affair designed to show off the mechanism withinto a clock that had been designed to look more like a watching figure.

There were stillmore clocks set on a level above, accessed by winding oak stairs and with adoor at the far side that must have led through to the rest of the building.

To Paige’ssurprise, there were plenty of people in the clockmaker’s shop, crowded arounda desk near the front. She’d been expecting an almost silent, boutiqueatmosphere, where occasional customers came in by appointment only. Instead, asmall crowd was gathered there. Paige frowned over at Christopher, who shrugged.He obviously didn’t know what was going on either.

Paige made her wayforward, trying to find out. A young man behind the desk beckoned her forward.He was in his twenties and kind of average looking, with dull brown hair, browneyes, and features that lacked much in the way of definition. He was wearing athree piece suit with a name tag clipped to the breast pocket, letting theworld know that this was Steve. The suit seemed like the kind of thing that amaître ‘d might have worn, or a butler, rather than someone who just worked ata clockmaker’s shop.

“You must be herefor the tour,” he said, in a slightly too bright voice that suggested he’d saidit to far too many people. “We were just about to start.”

Paige sawChristopher reaching for his badge, ready to explain that they were FBI agents.Paige was almost ready to go along with that, but realized that this was one oftheir best chances to learn everything they might need about the company. If themurders were linked to the clocks here somehow, then the more Paige knew aboutthem, the better. This might be the best way to find out.

“Sure, we’d loveto take the tour,” she said, before Christopher could flash his badge.

They fit in withthe rest of the group, following behind Steve as he started to give them thetour of the facility and trying to look like just a couple more tourists takinga tour of a historic building. Paige knew that this would take time, and thatwas time that they needed in order to track down the killer, but anyinformation they could get on this place might help them to understand exactly howit all fit together.

“Hales and Co. wasstarted by the late Aldous Hales in 1946, when he came to Eddis in the wake ofthe Second World War. He’d trained as a furniture maker as a boy, but he becamefascinated by the way things fit together. The precision of clockwork becamehis passion. Some might even say his obsession.” He laughed then, presumably athaving said something he thought was scandalous about the founder of his currentemployer. “It turned out that he had a real talent for his craft.”

He gestured to theclocks around him as if to show how self-evident that was. Paige had to admitthat they did a lot to show the quality of work the company produced.

“He started withjust the workshop at the back, but soon every high-end client in Eddis camelooking for his work. And therewerehigh-end clients. Aldous Hales hadtimed his move to Eddis perfectly. It coincided almost exactly with the momentwhen the town started to attract wealthy residents. Residents who suddenlyformed a market for the clocks he made.”

Steve led the wayout of the showroom, down a corridor that was more like a gallery, both wallslined with photographs that had been blown up to the size of large paintingsand set on canvasses. They showed a man who had to be Aldous Hales with avariety of important looking figures from the past. In several of them, he washanding over beautiful, elegantly made clocks. Paige frowned as she thought sherecognized a couple of them.

“Aren’t theseclocks from your showroom?” Paige asked.

“This one and thisone?” Steve said, pointing to two of them. “Those two are the originals thatformed the basis of our standard line.”

“So youhaveastandard line?” Christopher said. He obviously saw the importance of it too. Iftheir clocks were just mass produced, then it wasn’t quite as much of acoincidence that the three women had pendulums that matched their clocks attheir murder scenes. Anyone might be able to buy ones to match.

“Oh, of course,”Steve replied. “We want a wider range of customers to be able to experience ourfine clocks, and so we’ve chosen a select number of our historic pieces torecreate on a larger scale.”

“But notallof your clocks?” Paige asked. It was a crucial distinction when it came to thecase.

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