out.
She caught an early train out of King’s Cross the next morning, bound for Leeds, riding in a nonsmoking carriage that reeked of stale cigarettes. The ride took some two and a half hours, and once in Leeds she changed to a local connection, taking it as far as Skipton, where she hired a car and bought a copy of
Lancashire A to Z
. She took a room at the Hanover International Hotel, stowed her things, and, famished, ate a late lunch while going over the maps. She went to bed early.
In the still-dark hours the next morning, Chace made the fifteen-minute drive from Skipton to Barnoldswick. She parked the car near the town square, and after a seventy-minute reconnoiter, had found four positions ideal for static surveillance of number 17 Moor View Road, the home of Valerie Wallace.
It was light surveillance, the best Chace could manage without giving herself away, the best she could manage working alone. As a result, she was careful, trailing Valerie Wallace at a distance as the older woman went about her business in the town, working at the local charity shop, meeting friends for lunch or tea at this or that house, visiting the local surgery to see her GP. Autumn brought an already cold wind that promised a fiercer chill come winter, and most of the widow Wallace’s activities were thus confined to the indoors, which made getting close difficult.
Shortly after midnight on her third day of surveillance, Chace broke into the surgery, curious as to the reason for Wallace’s visit. She spent an hour with a penlight in a darkened file office, reading Valerie Wallace’s medical history. When she was finished, she replaced everything as she had found it, and managed to relock the door on her way out.
In the afternoon of the sixth day, while Wallace was having her regular luncheon with friends at the tea shop off the square, Chace picked the lock on the back door of 17 Moor View Road, and worked her way in careful silence through the older woman’s home. If her schedule held true to form, Wallace would go from lunch to the local hospice for volunteer work that would stretch until almost the evening, and so Chace took her time. She searched in cabinets and closets, beneath the beds and in drawers, even going so far as to examine the contents of the kitchen, just to gain some insight into the older woman’s diet.
In Valerie Wallace’s small bedroom, smelling of lavender and laundry soap, Chace discovered a collection of framed photographs carefully arranged atop the dresser. There were pictures of a younger Valerie and, presumably, her late husband. Gordon Samuel Wallace had been a career soldier, and in two of the pictures stood in uniform, looking proud to be wearing it, if vaguely uncomfortable to be photographed while doing so. A third showed Valerie holding a newborn, and the remaining two were of Tom exclusively. One of them mimicked the portrait of his father, perhaps intentionally, wearing the dress uniform of a Royal Marine; the last, more recent, was taken in the sitting room of this very house, the branch of a Christmas tree reaching into the frame as Tom looked out the front window at the moor.
Wedged beneath the last was a folded letter, and Chace freed it, opened it, already knowing what it was.
Dear Mrs. Wallace: It is with great sadness that I must inform you of the passing of your son, Tom, in service to his country. . . .
Chace replaced the letter as she had found it, and departed as silently as she had come.
On the tenth day, a freezing November Tuesday, at nine o’clock exactly, Tara Chace knocked on the front door of Valerie Wallace’s home.
“My name is Tara Chace,” she said. “I worked with Tom.”
Valerie Wallace, standing in the half-opened doorway, frowned slightly, squinting up at her. She was a small woman, easily a foot shorter than Chace, with hair more gray than black, and not so much heavy as thickened by age and gravity. She let her frown
She caught an early train out of King’s Cross the next morning, bound for Leeds, riding in a nonsmoking carriage that reeked of stale cigarettes. The ride took some two and a half hours, and once in Leeds she changed to a local connection, taking it as far as Skipton, where she hired a car and bought a copy of
Lancashire A to Z
. She took a room at the Hanover International Hotel, stowed her things, and, famished, ate a late lunch while going over the maps. She went to bed early.
In the still-dark hours the next morning, Chace made the fifteen-minute drive from Skipton to Barnoldswick. She parked the car near the town square, and after a seventy-minute reconnoiter, had found four positions ideal for static surveillance of number 17 Moor View Road, the home of Valerie Wallace.
It was light surveillance, the best Chace could manage without giving herself away, the best she could manage working alone. As a result, she was careful, trailing Valerie Wallace at a distance as the older woman went about her business in the town, working at the local charity shop, meeting friends for lunch or tea at this or that house, visiting the local surgery to see her GP. Autumn brought an already cold wind that promised a fiercer chill come winter, and most of the widow Wallace’s activities were thus confined to the indoors, which made getting close difficult.
Shortly after midnight on her third day of surveillance, Chace broke into the surgery, curious as to the reason for Wallace’s visit. She spent an hour with a penlight in a darkened file office, reading Valerie Wallace’s medical history. When she was finished, she replaced everything as she had found it, and managed to relock the door on her way out.
In the afternoon of the sixth day, while Wallace was having her regular luncheon with friends at the tea shop off the square, Chace picked the lock on the back door of 17 Moor View Road, and worked her way in careful silence through the older woman’s home. If her schedule held true to form, Wallace would go from lunch to the local hospice for volunteer work that would stretch until almost the evening, and so Chace took her time. She searched in cabinets and closets, beneath the beds and in drawers, even going so far as to examine the contents of the kitchen, just to gain some insight into the older woman’s diet.
In Valerie Wallace’s small bedroom, smelling of lavender and laundry soap, Chace discovered a collection of framed photographs carefully arranged atop the dresser. There were pictures of a younger Valerie and, presumably, her late husband. Gordon Samuel Wallace had been a career soldier, and in two of the pictures stood in uniform, looking proud to be wearing it, if vaguely uncomfortable to be photographed while doing so. A third showed Valerie holding a newborn, and the remaining two were of Tom exclusively. One of them mimicked the portrait of his father, perhaps intentionally, wearing the dress uniform of a Royal Marine; the last, more recent, was taken in the sitting room of this very house, the branch of a Christmas tree reaching into the frame as Tom looked out the front window at the moor.
Wedged beneath the last was a folded letter, and Chace freed it, opened it, already knowing what it was.
Dear Mrs. Wallace: It is with great sadness that I must inform you of the passing of your son, Tom, in service to his country. . . .
Chace replaced the letter as she had found it, and departed as silently as she had come.
On the tenth day, a freezing November Tuesday, at nine o’clock exactly, Tara Chace knocked on the front door of Valerie Wallace’s home.
“My name is Tara Chace,” she said. “I worked with Tom.”
Valerie Wallace, standing in the half-opened doorway, frowned slightly, squinting up at her. She was a small woman, easily a foot shorter than Chace, with hair more gray than black, and not so much heavy as thickened by age and gravity. She let her frown
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