‘Are you sure about that? Particularly Bill Saunders. Was he there that night?’
‘Yeah, Bill was there.’
‘Absolutely sure?’
‘Yeah. A hundred per cent.’
This time Ayliss banged one fist against the steering wheel, rather than the air-punch when he’d first heard those words an hour ago in the observation room.
Ormdern had looked up at the clock at that point, only four minutes remaining, then had brought Larry back out, explaining to Ayliss afterwards that he didn’t want to get deep into what else Larry might have seen in the Bayou Brew that night only to have to break his train of thought halfway through.
Ayliss slowed as he came to the first houses of the Garden District on Washington Avenue, taking the turn into Coliseum Street two blocks down.
At least they’d ended on a positive note. High chances that the pool game was that crucial Thursday night, because Bill Saunders had been there rather than running his daughter to dance lessons. Ayliss would know just how high once he’d spoken to Saunders.
Ayliss was counting numbers as he went along. He swung in and pulled to a stop as he came to the old Roche residence. A resplendent antebellum mansion with two-storey high Corinthian columns supporting a thirty-foot wide front portico.
Problem was, that coinciding pool game was at odds with the details Durrant had provided from the Roche house, if they’d been as he described: grey or green safe with a twist-tumbler lock, grandfather clock, books along the right-hand side. Because he couldn’t have been both places that night: playing pool and killing Jessica Roche.
Everything hinged on what Ayliss found out now. And what the new owners, the Mortons, might remember: ten years now they’d been in the house. Roche had put it on the market straight after the trial, but it had taken eleven months to finally find a buyer.
Ayliss closed his eyes for a second to compose himself. If this fact-finding now went the wrong way, in an hour he could be phoning Ormdern to cancel the second session. Something along the lines: ‘Those details Durrant gave match what I’ve been able to find out from the house itself. There’s no other possible explanation: he was there that night. There’s little point in us continuing, nor in fact do I even feel inclined — from a purely ethical point of view — to put in more time trying to save an obviously guilty man.’
A light wind outside ruffled the trees. A timeless district like this, early December, probably wasn’t that different to how it had been mid-February twelve years ago. Ayliss wondered just how much of the house inside might have also remained in a time warp.
He noticed a curtain moving on a downstairs window, the Mortons checking out if it was their expected visitor. With a resigned sigh, Ayliss got out the car and approached the house.
‘Follow him. See where he goes and who he might meet with.’
Roche’s predictable advice when he called back the next evening about Ayliss. Nel-M felt like ribbing, ‘And how exactly should I go about that? You know, after a month of doing fuck all else with McElroy, I might need some guidance.’ Not exactly that imaginative: simply swap one mark for another. But with the way those few words had been delivered, slowly and purposefully between pained breaths, as if they had real significance, Nel-M could tell that Roche was still in no mood for humour. So all he said was, ‘Okay. I’ll get right on it.’
Then, as if an afterthought, or Roche felt his instructions should be meted out separately in case Nel-M couldn’t cope with more than one at a time: ‘Oh, and get onto his ex-wife in Oregon, too. Tell her that her past dearly-beloved is back in town, and so she might want to take the opportunity to slap the rest of that old maintenance order back on his ass.’ Roche did actually manage a brief forced chuckle then, but it lapsed into a small cough as it caught an incoming breath the wrong way. ‘Should keep him on his toes and hopefully his eye off the ball with Durrant, with his wife hot on his tail again. Might even hi-tail it straight back to Mexico, if we’re lucky.’
‘If we’re lucky.’ A bit more of a plan, but Nel-M played it low-key, didn’t want to be too enthusiastic. She might just say that that was all history, she had no interest in chasing his sorry ass any more. ‘I’ll see if I can make contact with her.’
The next morning, Nel-M put a call through to Bateson and asked him to make a note of Darrell Ayliss’s car-type and registration when he arrived at Libreville that evening for the session with Ormdern. Then he started making calls to track down Melanie Ayliss’s phone number in Oregon.
Bateson’s return call came at 7.16 p.m., and thirty-five minutes later Nel-M left his apartment and drove out to just before the start of the Pontchartraine Causeway, made a hasty U-turn in a gap in the traffic and stopped at the first pull-in where he could watch cars coming off the Causeway.
He’d got there early, just in case, and had to wait over half an hour before Ayliss’s steel-blue Dodge Stratus went past him. Nel-M let one more car pass, then pulled out and followed.
Earhart… then Louisiana… LaSalle. As soon as Ayliss took the turn onto Washington Avenue, Nel-M suspected where he was heading; confirmed as Ayliss slowed the other side of St Charles, looking out for Coliseum Street.
Nel-M had spent little time in the area since that night in 1992. Driven past it several times and through it on a few occasions out of necessity — but never stayed for any time there.
He kept straight on as Ayliss turned into Coliseum Street, then took the next turn on Chestnut and again on 2nd Street, effectively circling round the block; and, sure enough, as he nosed his car out enough to get a partial view, Ayliss was closing his car door and heading up the path towards the Roche’s old house.
For the first twenty minutes of waiting, Nel-M stayed calm, tried not to think too much about what Ayliss might be doing in there. But as the minutes ticked by, his thoughts started to multiply: maybe some vital clue from the session with Durrant that Ayliss was checking out, or something Ayliss had picked up on that nobody had before; or perhaps he was just familiarizing himself with the crime scene. Standard practice.
The atmosphere of the street also began to close in on Nel-M then: its quietness and isolation from the city close by, the shadows heavier, deeper from the large mansions and more abundant tree cover. The reminders of that night drifting back: Jessica Roche’s eyes staring back pleadingly just before that final shot… the woman walking her dog holding his gaze for a second as he’d looked back.
Nel-M’s pulse was still raised a notch, his hands gently trembling on the steering wheel, when almost an hour later Ayliss left the house. He pulled out again to follow him.
St Charles, Jackson, Simon Bolivar… finally stopping at a hotel two blocks from the main train and Greyhound bus terminals. Again, Nel-M drifted past and then turned around and parked a block away where he had a clear sight of Ayliss’s Dodge in their side car park.
Maybe Ayliss would head out later for dinner or another meeting, Nel-M considered, but after an hour of waiting — 10.43 p.m. by then — Nel-M began to think that Ayliss might be there for the night, had grabbed something to eat in the hotel. He left it another twenty minutes, then went into the hotel. He approached the reception desk.
‘I’ve got a business colleague staying here, Darrell Ayliss, and I promised to drop off some papers for him tomorrow morning. But I don’t want to miss him before he heads off, and he told me he was having an early night — so I didn’t want to disturb him now. But I wondered what time he might have an alarm call or breakfast ordered — might give me a clue as to when he’ll be heading out.’
The desk clerk’s brow furrowed. ‘Mr Ayliss has already left, sir.’