Page 105 of The Dead Come to Stay

“Do you miss it here in Newcastle?” he asked.

Green lifted her head and smiled faintly. “Sometimes,” she said. “But I left for Rachel.”

On the screen, Sophie had announced the silent auction—and Ava began to play. The long, willowy arms seemed to float above dancing fingers. They had the sound off, but it was captivating anyway.

Green leaned on her hand. “Rachel was seeing someone else when we met. Arianna Templeton. Don’t look at me like that—youknewI’d tell you eventually.”

“I made no assumptions,” MacAdams protested.

“Well, the split was messy. And when we got together, Arianna was furious. At me, not Rachel.”

“Because you replaced her?”

“Because I’m acop. The queer community isn’t exactly police friendly, and I don’t blame us for it. But that wasn’t it. She said I’d doomed Rachel to a life of worry and pain and looking out windows wondering if I’d come home again.” Green’s smile faded. “ThenI lost my partner to a bad call-out. So I left Newcastle because I didn’t want to make Rachel a widow.”

MacAdams noted the gut punch of irony—to leave dangerous city cases only to end up where you started with trafficking and a murder on the side.

“Rachel’s lucky to have you,” he said. Then, after a pause: “So am I.”

Green didn’t reply; he didn’t expect her to. But he was glad he’d said it. On the screen, Ava played on, hands weaving a spell rather than playing music. The light glanced off her pale skin, pearlescent, translucent. Her eyes, he noticed, appeared half-closed; a face of concentration, a face of rapture.

“She’s beautiful to watch, isn’t she?” Green asked. “Wait till you hear her.” She increased the volume and notes spilled out of the speakers.

“Complicated piece.”

“No shite. That’s Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninoff,” Green told him. “It’s her showpiece—one of the most difficult to play. She stopped touring five years ago; this would have been a big draw to this crowd.”

MacAdams wasn’t familiar with classical music, but agreed her performance was incredible.

It was alsodistracting. All eyes were upon Ava—including their own. MacAdams forced himself to search the crowd.

“Where’s Burnhope?” he asked.

“He steps out of frame at nine-twelve, remember?”

“Right before a signature performance his wife hasn’t given in years?” MacAdams paused and scrolled back, then forward. Stanley Burnhope left; he didn’t come back. “This is the only camera angle?”

“Yes. Unless you count CCTV; we collected it from the parking lot, and from the rear hall. It’s loading and storage for the booze. Expensive shipments with bottles that tend to walk away if you aren’t watching.”

MacAdams was still scrolling forward, partygoers speeding along in jerky treble time. Sophie glinted in and out, Ava too—dancing at one point with her father. No Stanley.

“Queue up CCTV on the second monitor,” he said.

Green scrolled to a secondary jump drive. The first view offered a parking lot with nothing but sheets of diagonal rain.

“Switch to the rear door.”

“Whew. Lots going on here,” Green said.

The camera had given them a gray-and-white view of the hall behind the annex kitchen. Crates stood on the floor, stacked double. Three uniformed staff members were busily unloading—a fourth slipped by precariously with a tray of glasses. She disappeared to the right, and in her place appeared a man in a mackintosh.

“Hold! Stop it there,” MacAdams said. Frozen, the image was less distinct, but here was a man with his collar up and an umbrella in his left hand. “It’s Burnhope. It must be.”

“But we know he’s back on stage to give the farewell address.”

“That’s half past midnight.” MacAdams checked the coordinates on his phone. “You can make it from here to Abington in an hour and ten. Faster if you’re really pushing it.”

“Okay, but saying he left at nine-twelve, he’d not get to town till almost ten thirty. Foley was at Jo’s by then, and she’s with him till just after eleven.”